The Nation's Pulse / Our President in the Pits
Rusthoven, Peter J.
"The Nation's Pulse / Our President in the Pits" by Peter J. Rusthoven After some three and a half months, the nation's coal miners—or rather, the 160,000 or so miners who claim membership in John L. Lewis' legacy to the...
...The UMW, which has never taken a back seat to anyone when it comes to striking, somehow managed to surpass even its own illustrious history with this most recent walkout...
...While the UMW's cadres of roving vigilantes were of course reprehensible, the general effort of the miners to maximize the impact of their walkout is both understandable and predictable...
...In the contract period which ended just prior to the most recent nationwide walkout, there were some 8,000 or so wildcat strikes at UMW mines...
...Hopefully, the coal strike has helped bring home the lesson that any government adjustments in this field should tilt the other way...
...How much longer this can or will continue is unclear...
...None of this is surprising, nor even, in one sense, worthy of especial condemnation...
...Moreover, in so doing they are largely unfettered by traditional legal limits on private behavior, much less by any notions of civic responsibility...
...For two centuries, the market system has done a fairly good job of checking such a development, and where necessary—as with the antitrust laws or emergency wartime controls—the government has helped restore the balance...
...Despite their legal advantages, unions are currently experiencing a period of slight difficulty in attracting and retaining membership, particularly as industry shifts southward...
...On October 10, 1973, Ludwig von Mises died at the age of 92...
...Brave talk about cutting off food stamps to the strikers was followed by not a single substantive act designed to end taxpayer subsidization of the very strike that was costing taxpayers their jobs, their lights, and their heat...
...The record-breaking UMW work stoppage also served to enhance the nation's growing doubts about the boyish former peanut farmer so recently elevated to the highest office in the land...
...He recalls his students at the time, many of whom have.gone on to become world-famous economists, philosophers and intellectuals Why Socialism Always Fails...
...Far from taking care to stay within the bounds of law, the miners employed threats, violence, intimidation, and sabotage in a fairly successful campaign to close nonunion mines and prevent movement of coal to locations where the need was critical...
...It is a power they are far from hesitant to exercise...
...Harry Truman would have ordered the miners back to work, seized the mines, sent in the troops, told anyone who didn't like it where to go—and the coal would have been moving...
...He invoked the Taft-Hartley Act's back-towork provision—long after he should already have done so, and in the face of clear indications that the miners would pay no Peter J. Rusthoven is an Indianapolis attorney...
...12.95 ^ Why Socialism Always Fails...
...Carter seems to have swallowed the line that in fact we are running out of all fuels, and that it is hopeless to work on discovery and exploitation of additional sources of power...
...It is a rare day when one contract ends and another is negotiated and approved without an intervening work stoppage of indefinite duration...
...function and effects of capitalism...
...For the individual who places human liberty among his highest values, they are truly "must listening...
...three tapes are available exclusively from AUDIO-FORUM They may be ordered individually, or as a complete set for lust $28.65, a 20% discount Yes, Ludwig von Mises is gone...
...In this n t or m a I , spontaneous discussion, Mises looks back at the early years of the Austrian School of Economics...
...In addition to staying out longer this time than on any prior occasion, the miners managed to throw thousands of workers (at least temporarily) out of a job, to wreak assorted havoc and mayhem on their non-unionized and nonstriking confreres, and to turn out the lights throughout much of the Midwest...
...In essence, Mr...
...But for Mr...
...Ultimately, it is precisely this depen- deny which stands out as the most noteworthy feature of the coal strike...
...and outlines how the free market helps men achieve their goals These...
...He demolishes many of the myths surrounding the Industrial Revolution, shows why political freedom is impossible without economic freedom, points out the differences between government and the market, and demonstrates how socialism destroys freedom The Spirit of the Austrian School...
...cassette tapes by Ludwig von Mises: 1106 MI L3 ALL THREE TAPES...
...Acknowledged leader of the Austrian School of Economics, Mises was, in the words of one scholar, "perhaps the most aeticulate, consistent and courageous defender of liberty and the free market that modern times have known " Among Mises' many path-breaking works are The Theory of-Money and Credit, Planning for Freedom, Omnipotent Government, The Anti-Capitalist Mentality, and the monumental Human Action Now, AUDIO-I ORUM has acquired rights to three of Mises' most important talks Recorded on the spot, each captures all the intellectual excitement of the o« asion Liberty and Property...
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...Far from being concerned by the effect of their walkout on the jobs and well-being of hundreds of thousands of other citizens, the miners clearlyrevelled in this demonstration of their collective might...
...ALEXANDRIA, VA 22314 IMMIMENUMINMEMENNANNI MilliM1.11 rn to The American Spectator May 1978 29...
...In these recordings, his penetrating thoughts and eloquent style are as vivid and alive as ever...
...Wholly aside from whether we can find 28 The American Spectator May 1978 and mine enough coal to meet future energy needs efficiently, the latest strike illustrated what an exceedingly fragile "answer" coal can be in this country...
...tape 155, $12.95 I understand that if I'm not completely satisfied, I may return the recording(s) within three weeks and receiv2 a full refund...
...Carter, something like a tout for the industry, seems to think "has the answer...
...Carter has adopted as his own virtually every foolish and ungrounded argument against nuclear power—by far the most promising, efficient, available, and technologically superior source of fuel to satisfy the nation's power needs for literally centuries—ever put forth by Ralph Nader and the fraction of a percentage of the population who follow his peculiar brand of know-nothingism...
...tape 900...
...Carter is concerned, nuclear power is on a par with original sin, and no government of which he is chief will have anything to do with it...
...When it comes to energy, then, Jimmy Carter's vision of a "solution" has the federal bureaucracy involved in every phase from initial production to the time John Q. Public flicks on his light switch, with the whole idea being not to find the new energy we need, but rather simply to "conserve" so that we'll all run out of power a little less quickly...
...For some reason, therefore, he seems bent on retaining price controls on producers—thereby removing any market incentive for further production—coupled with imposing taxes and other artificial disincentives on consumers—apparently designed as clumsy replacements for higher market prices, which would discourage consumption without the need for governmental interference...
...In the labor area, however, the government in the last 45 years has stepped in to load the dice in favor of the unions, to the point that countervailing forces are now seriously weakened and checks on labor power are few...
...28.65 C Liberty and Property, tape 400...
...Once again, the coal would have been moving...
...Mises describes the nature of society based on the principle of socialism, and contrasts it with society under the principle of free market exchange' He exposes the weaknesses of socialism, tells why many people unwisely advocate it...
...The United Auto Workers, among others, chipped in huge sums to keep the strike going, mouthing familiar phrases about "worker solidarity...
...Instead, we are to bank on coal, which Mr...
...Faced with the most serious labor dispute of his young administration, Jimmy Carter responded with a virtuoso performance of bumbling indecision that would have embarrassed Laurel and Hardy...
...The effects of such stoppages were demonstrated all too vividly by the strike that just ended...
...As talks between the miners and the coal operators kept breaking down, and as governors—not only Indiana's Otis Bowen—pleaded for action to get the coal moving and the factories running in their states, the President offered pious little homilies about "giving the fair process of free collective bargaining a chance to work...
...Where the coal strike fits into the picture is that to the extent the administration has thought about additional power at all, it has focused almost exclusively on coal...
...He'd have sat down Arnold Miller or his equivalent and said, "Now, we can do this to the operators, and we can give you all that—but you're going to have to get your boys back in those coal pits, understand...
...Despite equally clear indications that government seizure of the mines would get the miners back on the job, the President stoutly refused even to consider such a course...
...One even has the sense that Jack Kennedy and his brother Robert—lightweights though they were in so many respects—would have hatched some scheme to end the strike before 100 days had passed...
...And the miners did not act alone...
...Carter and his coterie of smug young naifs from the Peach State, the coal strike evoked, by and large, little more than some nervous thumb-twiddling between press conferences...
...Rusthoven A fter some three and a half months, the nation's coal miners—or rather, the 160,000 or so miners who claim membership in John L. Lewis' legacy to the Republic, the United Mine Workers—have at last decided to return to work...
...But his masterful achievements live on...
...When Carter finally did take action, it proved about as effective as his sermons on the virtues of the negotiating process...
...The crucial point is simply that no private group in the country should be in a position to bring the nation to a grinding halt if its particular selfish goals are not satisfied...
...Yet the Carter administration would have us place our hopes for future energy in an industry where minor disruptions are the norm and major crises can be expected at frequent intervals, thereby making our economy dependent on the vicissitudes of one of the least reliable industrial situations in the country...
...Lyndon Johnson would have worked a deal...
...Whether you order one cassette, two, or all three, you're protected by AUDIO-FORUM's unconditional money-back guarantee: If you're dissatisfied in any way, simply return the tape or tapes within three weeks and we'll send you a prompt and full refund Clip and mail the coupon today IMM................, r Rush- me, postpaid, the following...
...The pack is already on the prowl in Washington in a full-blown effort to rectify this situation, through a so-called "Labor Reform Act" designed further to grease the skid for unionization and to grant the essentially pro-labor NLRB greater power to impose "solutions" to particular industrial disputes by administrative fiat...
...Our President in the Pits attention—without taking any steps to see that the Act would be enforced...
...THE NATION'S PULSE by Peter...
...As far as Mr...
...12.95 C The Spirit of the Austrian School...
...All in all, Georgia's favorite son had folks longing for his Democratic predecessors...
...It is, if one will pardon the Calvinism, a part of human nature to be selfish in such ways...
...YOUR OPPORTUNITY TO HEAR THE GREAT FREE MARKET ECONOMIST LUDWIG VON MISES ANNOUNCING THREE IMPORTANT TALKS—NEW ON CASSETTE TAPE...
...It is difficult to imagine an industry more beset with industrial strife...
...However frustrating the Carter admin- istration's ineptitude in response to the coal strike was, the immediate problem was overshadowed—or should have been —by the more serious difficulties the strike highlighted with respect to the administration's overall energy policy...
...Then he'd have called in the operators, told them what he wanted them to accept, and waved a couple of pieces of legislation at them—"Now, do you fellas want this mine bill, or am I going to have to push for this one over here...
...For fully two months, the White House acted as if the strike did not exist...
...Quite simply, we have reached the point where certain segments of organized labor have the power to shut down the nation to further their parochial objectives...
...Name Address City State Pip ETi Enclosed is my check or money order for S ^ Or, charge my: ^ VISA (BankAmericard) ^-Master Charge ^ American Express Card number Expiration date Signature WIDK•FORLPM 901 N. WASHINGTON ST...
...The basic flaw in the President's energy outlook, of course, has little to do with the coal strike...
...Given the current Congress and administration, however, I wouldn't bet on it...
...With a forceful style and superb use of language, Mises outlines the nature...
Vol. 11 • May 1978 • No. 7
