20 Goals for Labortarians: Crafting a Libertarian Policy on Unions

1. Craft a free labor policy.

2. Less government, more unions.

3. End Right to Work laws.

4. Liberalize professional licensing.

5. Fix the free rider problem.

6. Free movement and integrated markets.

7. End unions' monopolies on negotiation.

8. Protect concerted activity.

9. Continue to require bargaining.

10. Ensure the right to strike.

11. Legalize illegal union activities.

12. Make full boycott possible.

13. Keep divestment legal.

14. Unionize all walks of life.

15. Establish free union elections.

16. Free-market anti-capitalism.

17. End slavery, domination, and dominion.

18. Counter the rhetoric of self-ownership.

19. Free association and non-discrimination.

20. Promote acceptance and tolerance.

          1. CRAFT A FREE LABOR POLICY: Advance a labor policy which celebrates the contributions that the organized labor movement has made to advancing human liberty - and which is in keeping with the Libertarian Party platform, strict-constructionist and originalist interpretations of the Constitution, and frameworks to ensure free and fair markets - by consistently supporting voluntary collective bargaining activities over compulsion, hierarchy, and state interference in the affairs of organized labor.

          2. LESS GOVERNMENT, MORE UNIONS: Retain the portion of the 1935 National Labor Relations Act (N.L.R.A. / Wagner Act) which promotes the practice and procedure of collective bargaining, but also promote the radical privatization of government services wherever possible and prudent, and demand that most or all necessary government activities be performed by non-state actors. Increase overall union membership in the United States.

          3. END RIGHT TO WORK LAWS: Support the freedom of unions to exercise their right to become party to contracts with enterprises, by opposing efforts to pass Right to Work laws and amendments, in all jurisdictions and at all levels of government. Call on state governors to nullify and repeal such laws, and state and federal courts to rule them unconstitutional, due to their prohibition of union-shop and closed-shop arrangements, union security agreements which are perfectly free and voluntary (although they may have some undesirable effects). Repeal the portion of the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act which prohibits closed-shop union security agreements.

          4. LIBERALIZE PROFESSIONAL LICENSING: Make Right to Work laws unnecessary, by demanding an alternative method to preventing the domination of professions within given states by the set of unionized professionals already employed within them. Demand the liberalization of professional licensing laws, in order to accommodate independent contractors and those seeking to form unions.

          5. FIX THE FREE RIDER PROBLEM: Ensure that workers everywhere are free to “not consent and refuse the benefits” of union negotiation. Leave all employees free to refuse to pay dues to unions, but only on the condition that the employee refuse all benefits of union negotiation which he can feasibly refuse (i.e., not physical workplace safety and health conditions). Consider liability waivers as a possible solution to the safety and health free-rider problems.

          6. FREE MOVEMENT & INTEGRATED MARKETS: Fight globalism and ultranationalism, while supporting globalization, integration and interconnectedness of markets, and the free movement of labor and capital (including the freedom of locomotion for travelers and workers alike). Fight to liberalize immigration laws; end immigration quotas; lower barriers to trade; decrease tariffs, duties, and imposts; and oppose efforts of established unions to lobby for legal measures that unfairly protect or favor domestic labor. Use education to combat the stigmatization of legal and undocumented immigration.

          7. END UNIONS' MONOPOLIES ON NEGOTIATION: End compulsory unionism in the private sector, and end the rights of unions to monopolize the representation of workers in negotiation with management. Repeal the section of the Wagner Act which mandates that there is to be one exclusive bargaining representative for a unit of employees. Spread awareness of, and normalize, the practices of members-only collective bargaining, and dual and minority unionism (the presence of two or more active unions in a single workplace). Increase the diversity of the types of union security agreements which are practiced in the United States.

          8. PROTECT CONCERTED ACTIVITY: Retain the Wagner Act's provisions that require the federal government to protect the right of union and non-union employees to engage in concerted activity, and retain the protection for discussing wages. Protect these rights, as well as the right to form a union, in all jurisdictions, and at all levels of government.

          9. CONTINUE TO REQUIRE BARGAINING: Retain the Wagner Act's requirement that employers must negotiate with employees, on the grounds that a fair market is not possible unless the buyer and seller of labor have equal say in determining the price at which the labor is to be sold.

          10. ENSURE THE RIGHT TO STRIKE: Abolish the National Labor Relations Board, and repeal the provision of the Taft-Hartley Act which prohibits wildcat strikes. No union should have to request permission from a government bureau in order to go on strike, nor should any segment of a workplace or work force be denied the right to strike without the approval of a union leader.

          11. LEGALIZE ILLEGAL UNION ACTIVITIES: Demand the legalization of prohibited union activities wherever they could be engaged in voluntarily. Repeal the portions of the Taft-Hartley Act which prohibit secondary strikes, secondary boycotts, secondary and mass picketing, jurisdictional strikes, and monetary donations from unions to federal political campaigns.

          12. MAKE FULL BOYCOTT POSSIBLE: Fight for the full right of workers and taxpayers to engage in full boycott of enterprises and unions with which they do not wish to associate. Allow taxpayers to withhold their taxes from governments that would spend it to enrich their favored business cronies and favored unions. Call for tax strikes, which demand either the abolition of the entire corporate welfare state, or that individual citizens be free to decide which programs they will pay for and which ones they will not.

          13. KEEP DIVESTMENT LEGAL: In addition to supporting the full rights to engage in strikes and boycotts, fight for the right to engage in divestment campaigns. Encourage enterprises to end their membership in lobbying agencies that disguise themselves as chambers of commerce, and to instead join independent business alliances that promote fair treatment for workers. Keep divestment legal, whether against enterprises, unions, or even governments.

          14. UNIONIZE ALL WALKS OF LIFE: Fight for the rights of freelancers, independent contractors, free agents, unemployed people, welfare recipients, homeless people, ex-convicts, non-violent black market laborers, tenants, open-source workers and peer-to-peer process contributors, and people of all professions. to form unions. Additionally, to demand negotiation with their employers, and to resist state control, exploitation, hierarchy, and bossism.

          15. ESTABLISH FREE UNION ELECTIONS: Ensure that union members may vote in union elections, and that non-dues-paying members and dues-paying members alike are free to abstain from voting. Advocate for the freedom of union members to hold elections featuring voter privity, with results visible and subject to review by all members of the union(s) and workplace(s) involved.

          16. FREE-MARKET ANTI-CAPITALISM: Reject the Libertarian Party's endorsement of private property as a core principle, and oppose any attempts to have the party list “capitalism” or “fiscal conservatism” among its guiding economic principles, Promote the idea that markets must be completely immune from price distortions and undue limitations and inhibitions on markets (which are caused by the state and its cronies, their hoarding, and their participation in the capitalist mode of production), in order to be both fair and truly free. Combat untrue anti-socialist and anti-communist propaganda, and ignorance about left-wing economics, through education and peaceful civil discourse. Oppose misinterpretation of the Non-Aggression Principle that excuses or ignores intimidation, exploitation, and economic pressures that coerce people and make their decisions limited and effectively involuntary. Oppose cutthroat competition, monopolistic competition, and competition to lower prices that neglects the right of workers to receive sufficient compensation for their effort.

          17. END SLAVERY, DOMINATION, & DOMINION: Oppose the extension of markets to the realms of “living capital”; i.e., human labor and work, and other living things. Empower consumers to resist the commodification of labor, man, and nature; calling for such market activities to cease. Abolish the markets for exclusively held landed property, the product of human labor, sex work under economic pressure and exploitation, toxic chemicals and poisons that kill when used properly, and perhaps the markets for human organs and endangered animal species. Support the rights of human beings, living or dead, to resist being owned, kept, domesticated, overworked, denied the right to negotiate what amounts to the full product of their labor, and required, pressured, or threatened into performing labors and actions against their will.

          18. COUNTER THE RHETORIC OF SELF-OWNERSHIP: Oppose the characterization of liberty as “self-ownership”, in order to resist the perception of the human body and its efforts as things – tangible pieces of property - which can or should be owned, which gives the impression of tangibility, suggesting that the body can or should be owned.

         19. FREE ASSOCIATION & NON-DISCRIMINATION: Oppose discrimination and segregation in the public sector, and oppose discriminatory behavior in all ostensibly private firms which receive any forms of taxpayer funded subsidies and/or services, and/or are directly involved in interstate commerce. In the social sphere, and on residential properties, support the full freedom of, to, and from association.

          20. PROMOTE ACCEPTANCE & TOLERANCE: Fight reactionaryism, religiously motivated bigotry, anti-Semitism, Judeophobia, Islamophobia, chauvinism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, classism, ageism, ableism, lookism, Social Darwinism, cultural monism and assimilationism, and predjuice against people of every race, color, and creed. Use education to combat ignorance of sociology, human needs, intersectionality theory, institutional privileges, commonly agreed upon parental responsibilities, the stigmatization of mental disorders (especially those that keep people from working), and the stigmatization of homelessness, poverty, and welfare receipt, especially in Libertarian circles.

Written on October 30th, 2017

Shut Yer Yap: How to Starve Yourself Rich (A Numismatic Exorcism)

             Nought is clear, lest we view it through the Lens of the penetrated stone.

            Nought is clear, but that the study of rai (also known as raay, fei, the Yap Island stone coin, and on the international currency market, YIC) is essential to all future study and understanding of numismetaphysics.

This is why some more study of rai shall be necessary before we continue to our main subject, cryptocurrency.

In his 1991 paper “The Island of Stone Money”, Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman (Uncle Milty himself) discussed the similarity between the practices of marking gold stored in Federal Reserve vaults to signify a change in ownership, and the practice of marking rai for the same purpose.

In the paper’s conclusion, Friedman writes how important myth – “unquestioned belief” –

is “in monetary matters”. He continues, “the money we have grown up with… appear[s] ‘real’ and ‘rational’ to us”, while “The money of other countries often seems to us like paper or worthless metal”, even if its purchasing power is strong.

This ought to demonstrate to any savvy investor that talk of “the gold price”, “the iron price”, etc.^TM, is bull hockey in your pocket. Moreover, that the value is in the Eye of the (Arthurian) Stone. This is the maieutic source of currency’s value. So, then, if we are, indeed, destined to play a Game of Stones, we must ask ourselves whether it should, in particular, be a game of birthstones.

Do not let your Eyes be deceived; after all, The Book is made of paper (though it may have gilded edge). And the Almighty Emperor’s Commodity Fetish Records 999- Economic Unit Note be of paper.

So what, then, distinguishes The Book from gold? The Book from the Note, or the Note from gold? Gold from the Heart? Only the Beholder of the Light. Only the Truth and Truth of the One who makes the Promise to pay to the Bearer on demand. The Bearer of Light teaches that the Word is only as good as the heart it is printed on. Thus, the Word backs gold and paper alike. The Promise backs their value. This is what I saw through the flames.

But just as importantly, and to answer the Question directly, gold is alone among these in one key aspect: it cannot be burned for heat in an emergency. Aside from Friedman’s probably subconscious allusion to this phenomenon, that this fact makes gold inferior to the Book, the Note, and the Heart for use as a currency, has not yet been noted by mainstream economists. Thus, the Jungian Shadow cast by the spectre of gold has cast a scintillating Skynet to blind nearly all of the scientists of modern currency. This is to be remedied, for We know where the real gold is buried.

So, then, cryptocurrency. Currency reclaimed from the crypt. Is it a current currency, or not?

 Does the immortality inculcate (charge) a presence – a life – into the currency, or does its deadness (however imagined or falsely perceived) subvert its value as a “living document”? Only the numismancers know for sure. The answer might explain why we still have pyramids on our damn “money”. The only way to get through the Eye of the Rai, in a manner of speaking (and, also, quite literally), is by Numismancing the Stone.

We love our money like we love our own flesh and blood. After all, it’s backed by our own flesh and blood, isn’t it? Just as sure as the paper you’re printed on, just as sure as your dossier will survive you, if it backs your currency, then symbolically, it is your currency. We may say “I like money” or “I<3$” (now a publicly traded company), but how many of us would be willing to kill, or even die, for our money, and for its value?

One major determinant in the value of rai is the grandness of the story which can be told about one rai; what happened to it on its way to Yap from the distant island on which it was quarried. Aside from the size of the coin (ranging from 3 inches to 12 feet in diameter), whether those transporting it survived a storm, or whether a famous sailor brought the coin to the island, may boost its value.

Most importantly for the purposes of this discussion, rai may have high value because many people die bringing them to Yap, or (perplexingly) because nobody dies bringing them to the island.

This is why we must either kill many people, or else die (and take many others with us), in order to continue to bogusly inflate the value of our currency. Just as in the balancing act between relying on ubiquitous use and widespread acceptability vs. scarcity and uniqueness as the driver of currency’s value, it could not be clearer what we must do for our money, for our “own” flesh and blood.

That is why we must fight this currency war – and we shall fight them; on the Banks of every river, in every trench and every Bank vault – if we are to procure for our posterity a Currency of Blood. It is all for the sake of STABility. Remember, you’re worth more dead than you are alive, right? Just don’t go about trying to prove it, though. I mean (say it with me)… Just You Buy It!^(R)

This leads us to our next topic: how to strike it rich without working.

For example… take me… please! I don’t do shit, I make money. Read The Tao, be The Master, make shit happen. I mean… I get paid to make money.

I know we’re told that high earnings, and a lot of money, and rewards, are the inevitable result of hard work. And that if a man does not work, neither shall he eat. But I’ve eaten without being required to work for it, and I get paid to sit around and do basically nothing at my job.

That’s why I attribute all of my success and earnings to hard work. To do so may go against everything I’ve observed, but everyone else thinks it’s true, so I don’t object, because it’s all I can do to keep from shouting from the rooftops that it should be legal to steal from me. This is the Root of the Hole in the Coin. But back to my financial advice.

Are you starving, freezing, poor, broken? No, you’re not. You only feel that way. And for you to project your feelings onto my rights is unconstitutional. It’s a violation of my rights!

‘Ey, if you’re poor, spend less money. If you don’t want to pay taxes, then just refuse to pay taxes, or else stop working. If you can’t find work, get a job. If you’re disabled, work harder! If you can’t afford good food, eat garbage! If you’ve frozen stiff in your apartment, just walk away from the apartment and the landlord! I mean, if you’re in chains, break out! Amirite!?

As I suspect Jesse Ventura (Master of Mixed Metaphors) must have pontificated at some point, “Ask for work. If you can’t find work, ask for bread. If they don’t give you bread, steal bread. If you can’t steal bread, let them eat cake. And if you can’t have your cake and eat it too, then the proof of the pudding is in the eating of the cake bread pudding.” Man can live on bread alone! But only if we learn to Leave Breadney Alone.

These are the only paths to stable, rising financial gains. …Chris Gaines.

You’re welcome.

Oi, fucker, why do you think they needed to punch holes in Jesus’s hands for the Crucifixion? Well, how else are you going to insert his employment chip? I mean, Everybody Loves Revelaymond. Furthermore, is Jesus the type to charge rent for the privilege to occupy – and use – his holes, for whatever purpose we may imagine?

This is why I say, to fuck a hole in your money is to fuck a hole in yourself (as a reminder, the hole represents built-in debt). This is what it means to be unable to worship both God and Mammon (profit).

After all, the holes in Yap Island stone coins are not for the insertion of poles as axles, but only as transportation devices. To repeat, Fred Flintstone was not driving his moneymobile around Yap, that’s not in the historical records. Again, rai are as small as 3 inches; yet for some reason the holes are retained even at that size, though their light weight makes the use of poles unnecessary for transportation.

So, then, why not fill the hole with something else, such as your hopes and dreams? Your fears? A nice ottoman or a duvet? A sword? Your balls? The Resonating Light? Why not shove a jewel in there, make it nice and pretty? Remember, there’s more than one way to “charge” your purchase. Do some sacred services and an incantation, turn it into a portal so its demons can escape. Do a thing.

As Milton Friedman suggested, and as Emperor Ryan explains, “money is a magic[k] fetish”; an object believed (unquestioned) to possess a sacred, intrinsic, imminent value, including, often, a spiritual one. Emperor Ryan continues: “bank magicians use transference to charge paper into currency”. The money is charged much in the same way in which a sigil is charged.

Hence, voodoo economists are in good company; although a small but significant faction of them are currently waging a covert currency war against their fellow voodoo economists, as well as against the bank magicians, who favor the anthill (ANT) over the “petrodollar-weapondollar coalition” (USD). For more information, read the works of Jonathan Nitzan.

What all this means is that it is our dedication to refraining from questioning the value of our money, and the validity of our government’s public debt, which gives our currency much of its value. It is our suspension of belief which exalts our money to such heights. But, be assured, dead moneys cannot reign.

What do the smallest denomination of rai stone, a cross, and the Hand of God have in common? You can string all of them onto a necklace. But nobody cries when you do it to some rai. Remember: “Don’t cry; scry!”

Thus, the Punched Hand (or wrist) is, by all indicators, the best form of currency, but also, with its fingerprints, it can easily suffice as a form of INDENTification. Fingerprinting only makes human hands a more viable currency, due to its identifiability. A fingerprint is like a serial number, printed with a communion wafer printing press onto a slab of human dough; the Bread of Life, Sacred Manna from Heaven. It’s Time to Make the Donuts.

Even without fingerprinting, the early 2000s government of Afghanistan managed to run successful elections. They did this by taking the fingers of people who had already voted, and dyeing them with ink, and making sure nobody votes who already has ink on their hands. How nice it would be if we could use this idea to ban people with blood on their hands from participating in the democratic process!

So there you have it: The Hol(e)y Human Hand – the Hand of God – is like a bagel in its completeness, its roundness. It is a perfect currency; the Hand does not even have to be transported in order to serve as a useful currency, nor does it need to be separated from the body for the same purpose, nor must it be moved (and removed) in order to denote that its ownership has changed. Remember, idle hands are the Devil’s playground.

But to see the Light through the Lens of the Eternal Bagel – and to understand the artistic concept of negative space – will teach us that without the (w)hole, we are hollow and incomplete, yet complete in our incompletion. Can we be whole without the hole? Only by holding together our Hands, and our Money (which are one and the same), may we answer these questions. After all, without holes in our hands, how are we to be bound together? How are we to be strung up?

This currency – the Hand (or even the Finger) – is the Sigil which we must charge. It is the sigil which we must read in order to fully understand (that is, stand-under) the charges.

In 1948, Mahatma Gandhi wrote, “I will give you a talisman. Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man whom you may have seen, and ask yourself, if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. Will he gain anything by it? Will it restore him to a control over his own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to swaraj (freedom) for the hungry and spiritually starving millions? Then you will find your doubts and your self melt away.” This is the test we must apply when choosing a currency.

To be required to work in exchange for our needs, eludes the truth; that in order to work comfortably, our needs must first be satisfied. The hole in our hands is the key; just like the Afghan election, to get what we need, all we should have to do is show our hand. Why, nearly all of us recognize the meaning – the value – of a Hand, or a Fist, held high. So, too, the Finger. It says “I AM A MAN”. …Or “Fuck you”. Same thing.

This is the Shibbolethic Talisman which was foretold in the ancient scriptures (i.e., articles 1 through 4). As I’ve explained, currency is, necessarily, a talisman, or fetish (magickal object). For a currency to additionally serve as a shibboleth is to use that currency, and to set the societal rules of the marketplace around it, in such a way as to cause its usage to create and cast a distinction between those who know the Hand not, and still worship dead money, versus those who recognize the Hand, and its meaning; its monetary and spiritual value.

I’ll take Gandhi’s advice.

Years ago in Nashville, I met a man who was selling newspapers about homelessness. He asked me for a donation, in order to, in his words, “relieve the stigmata of homelessness”. He meant to say “stigma”, but his choice of words reveals all.

The big questions in all of this are: With what will you fill such an outstretched, truly empty, punched hand? Will you be as a Doubting Thomas, and insert a pole, in order to transport and trade the unit of currency?

Most importantly: What do we have to offer one another, if all any of us has is our own outstretched empty hand?

I have no gift to bring, pa-rum-pa-pum-pum…

Written and Published on October 15^th, 2017