American Nightmare

What is the American Dream? How do you define the American Dream? I'd like to think of it as being able to take advantage of opportunity. To be your own boss or work for somebody else, make a reasonable living, own your own home and live a reasonably comfortable life. Couple that with the reasonable security of knowing you will eventually have the opportunity to retire and do at least a few of the things you have always wanted to such as travel, pursue your favorite hobby and live relatively free of crime. Safety, security and freedom. All in all, these are pretty humble goals considering the vast wealth of this great Nation. The opportunity to achieve wealth and greatness should not be reserved only for those born into privilege.

So, how does this dream fit into the overall scheme in Duluth? Back in the 1950s and 1960s, it fit quite well. We had jobs available for anyone who wanted to work and opportunities for individuals to go into their own business abounded. However, national and local policies were shifting and would forever change the field of opportunity, especially locally. Government entitlement programs became all the rage as those businesses and business people who were at the top of the biggest corporations were raking in what some saw as obscene profits and personal benefit. Envy got the best of the Nation and Local Government as policies to confiscate some of that wealth and redistribute it to those who aspired to less became the mission of the 1960s and 1970s.

While it is certainly noble and worthy to take care of those unable to care for themselves, these policies began to shift the rights from the entrepreneur, to the employee. The idea people who created the bulk of employment and opportunity were seen as profiteers and a political movement sought to "even" things out. That age old killer of economies, the need to establish social and economic "equality", started driving the shift in the United States from manufacturing to technology. The need to equalize everybody's economic status, in-fact began to eat away at the least capable or qualified to find opportunity. As the shift to penalize employers for success became more evident and prevalent, those employers understood that the greatest expense to them was soon going to become labor costs and the trend to replace employees with machines and technology began in earnest.

This has been the impetus for the new technological age resulting in incredible acceleration of technological advances. This is ultimately a good thing, however, an economy that eliminates entry level, assembly line labor, will ultimately fail to provide jobs for those who simply have never had the opportunity to learn the latest technologies. In the world economy, the labor will be done where it is least expensive. This inevitably creates a growing gap between the haves and have nots and will again drive the equalists with envy driving them to create more economically destructive, anti-wealth and anti-employer legislation.

In Duluth, that movement to punish employers and villify anyone who owns a business, turns a profit or appears to be the least bit successful, is still alive and well and has never taken sabbatical. The local economy has shifted almost completely from manufacturing to health care and technology. Even service level positions such as dishwashing and waiting tables is being affected as these policies are taken to the extreme.

This trend has been shifted in other areas of the United States with dramatic results. The right to unionize in Duluth has become mandatory membership in the Union to simply be eligible to work. In certain trades, it can be nearly impossible to gain membership and therefore employment with the Union. Instead of having the right to work, we instead have an atmosphere of mandatory, lifelong, indentured service to the respective Union for your chosen vocation or the requirement to re-locate to secure employment.

The strongest job growth, wage increases and economic growth are occurring in areas where the right to work has once again been embraced and restored. Employers are not hamstrung by exhorbitant wage and benefit contracts with Unions and instead are able to grow their businesses and in-turn, through market forces instead of mandates, wages and employee opportunities. This is resulting in explosive job growth in those areas. This growth in jobs, creates a demand for employees, placing the employees as individuals, in greater demand and therefore better able to negotiate suitable wage and benefit packages for themselves. This truly empowers the individual employee, freeing them from the need and requirement to Unionize and is precisely why the Unions fear Right to Work and fight it tooth and nail everywhere it has been proposed. Growth in business results in rapid economic growth, increased flow of revenue to Government and overall economic vitality.

In Duluth, on the other hand, we have turned the other way, holding to draconian, socialist redistribution of income, expensive, bloated Government programs and mandatory Union membership. This mandatory union membership has lead to various economic maladies including, negative economic growth, negative projected job growth (i.e. net job loss), Government insolvency and declining population. This trend will ultimately bankrupt the community as employment continues to shrink with employers looking to more vibrant communities and consolidating away from Duluth.

Along the way, those attempting to secure their own American Dream, will instead be treated to sleepless nights worrying about the unpaid bills, making the next payroll, the next house payment, declining health due to stress and eventual bankruptcy themselves. Some will truly live the American Nightmare.

The only long term solution to this problem will be to restore the right to work. The likelihood, however that this will occur anytime soon, is very low. The Unions and their chosen party have a stranglehold on power in Duluth and across Minnesota and appear to be entrenched for the forseeable future. The Unions have a long history in Minnesota and practically anyone with a decent job aside from management is a member. The scare tactics used to dissuade voter support for right to work legislation have been extremely effective in Union strongholds such as Minnesota.