I’m very surprised I never thought of this for one second until I heard David Berman (RIP) say it: That very powerful people with a lot of money form unions.
When they form things like think tanks, stuff like the Chamber of Commerce, and so on, they are paying dues with the hope of advancing individual need by advancing need as a collective. Creating powerful community bonds by taking up and promoting each other’s causes is an act of solidarity, which also legitimizes the promoted with the endorsement, and people get emotionally invested.
This, of course is pretty close to the standard trade union. I’d just never thought of it as abstract, and broadly applicable, or to such a group of people. Even as someone from a union town and who’s been a union member, I so associate it with the working class that it never crossed my mind that the anti-union rhetoric so popular these days, is actually something more like propaganda. “Hey, kid, don’t do what I’m doin’, it’s bad for ya.”
When we apply this sniff test to PACs and non-profit organizations dedicated to advancing the interests of the business, or “freedom”, it’s hard not to see what’s in common. A group called Compassion Seattle has been canvassing my neighborhood the past few weeks, anywhere people go when it’s nice outside. They’ve hit me up no less than three times this week, including twice at Golden Gardens when I had headphones in, head down, writing. They’ve given a ton of money to fund a ballot initiative for property developers to build public housing. Oh yeah, and demand the city sweep the homeless from parks ASAP because it’s bad for business. Guess who founded them?
Property developers.
It’s a trade union. For rich people.
PS
If you haven’t heard the recording of his talk at Macaulay Honors College at CUNY that someone put up last year, or you’re just a Silver Jews fan, voilà.