Some Democrats are reacting to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s victory
Tuesday by playing down any connection to President Obama’s re-election
chances.
Conservatives couldn’t be happier. They say Walker’s win proves that the
majority of Wisconsin’s voters agree with conservatives’ message about smaller
government.
But something else happened in Wisconsin that Americans should be
discussing: the influence of big money on elections and the growing desire to
silence everyday workers. It was Walker’s decision to strip public workers of
their bargaining rights that sparked the recall.
Walker raised more than $30 million to fight off his recall, with much of it
coming from outside Wisconsin, according to most news reports. Walker was able
to outspend his opponent, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, a Democrat, by about
seven to one.
Walker was not only successful at muffling the voice of public workers; he
bought enough television advertising to muffle the voice of his opponent. And
by crippling the unions and their chief advocate, he has drawn a road map for
how to successfully silence the Democratic Party.
But there’s far more to this than depriving Democrats of a traditionally
strong ally. Conservatives have done an excellent job of promoting the idea
that organized labor is to blame for the country’s debt and unemployment
problems. From an historical view, however, little good has come from efforts
to silence workers.
Many historians argue that it was the combination of the GI bill and
collective bargaining that built the largest middle class in human history
following World War II.
In his most recent book, “The Price of Inequality: How Today’s Divided
Society Endangers our Future,” Columbia University professor and Nobel prize
winning economist Joseph Stiglitz discusses the fallacies surrounding
innovation and job creation by the richest Americans. And he points to a steady
assault on US workers wages since the 1960’s. That’s roughly the same time we
began to see a decline in union membership, though Stiglitz attributes the
growing inequality in the US, now the worst of industrialized nations, to
multiple reasons.
Corporate America and its conservative supporters have learned that they can
not only sell food and products — like cigarettes — that are harmful to the
public, Stiglitz says. They’ve learned they can sell harmful ideology, too.
This article appears in Summer Guide 2012.
