The Lessons of Detroit At lot has been made of Detroit, since it filed for Bankruptcy. Some of the posts I have seen blame the Democrats. The fact is, a Democrat has been Mayor in every year since 1962. One of them Coleman Young was Mayor for 20 years (1974-1994). Another, Kwame Kilpatrick, will most likely go down as one of the most corrupt Mayors in history, having been convicted on 24 of 34 felony counts in pattern of extortion, bribery and fraud the six years he was in office. Of course, when one surveys the political landscape Democrats have not cornered the market on corruption. Corruption is a personal thing. Either a politician, Democrat, Republican or Independent has integrity or he/she does not. A number of factors contributed to the demise of a once great industrial City, and I think one has to be blind to not see that 50 plus years of consistently liberal policies espoused by Democrats played a role. Another significant factor that has not gotten a lot of airplay is the United Auto Workers Union (UAW). Let me qualify my position before continuing. I am not anti-union. If workers choose to organize and form a union for collective bargaining and negotiating work rules, that is their right. Notice I said choose, not forced like in many of the northern and western states with no right to work laws. It’s called Freedom and at one time was a core value of our country. The issue is not that the UAW formed to represent workers; it is what it has become. In a recent article business writer Holman Jenkins described the UAW as not “just a union; it was a government sanctioned labor monopoly that behaved a monopolies do, extracting maximum compensation for minimum productivity.” The contrast to this is that every Toyota, Nissan, Mercedes, Hyundai, BMW and Kia factory is the U.S. is non-union and for the most part located in states with right to work laws. I have not heard of workers for those companies clamoring for better work conditions, higher pay, or better benefits. In the final analysis it seems the lessons of Detroit come down to how important values such as freedom, responsibility, integrity and work ethic are. Sometimes circumstances beyond a jurisdictions control certainly come into play (good or bad). However, when those values are seriously lacking in the governance and business realm; they are in collusion, and this is consistently occurring over a generation or two, the result is probably going to be something that resembles Detroit.
Posted on: Thu, 01 Aug 2013 14:25:58 +0000