There's a paradox I was recently made aware of. First half, a common argument; it goes something like this: "The government, via Obama and inevitably through executive order, is methodically dismantling our constitution. Our rights are not only being infringed upon but are being revoked. Our 'nanny state' dictates our eating habits (http://reason.com/archives/2010/12/.....as-obesity-war), portion sizes (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-.....groups-1-.html) and will soon institute a ban on assault-style semi-automatic rifles, or at least magazines of 'useful' quantity. These actions, as well as others (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201.....e-for-layoffs/), are indicative of totalitarianism, and we shall not abide. These actions are tantamount to Mussolini's fascism or Hitler's national socialism; we are a people ensured certain freedoms by our Bill of Rights (let's disregard the Later Amendments, such as the abolition of slavery, or women's suffrage, or civil rights), and I am a Man, free to do and say whatever He pleases. I will not abide this tyranny."

A diatribe similar to this recently cropped up in an all-encompassing conversation between myself, a group of friends and a particular good friend of mine, who is remarkably intelligent, though we seldom agree. What we discussed transcended the typical hot topics of today's political dischord, and some of his points I agree with. However, the crux of the dialogue, for me, concerned worker's rights, a subject near and dear to my heart (I'm unabashedly biased in favor of). With regard to wages and bargaining, which we had previously discussed, I segued from totalitarian governance into a conversation on labor rights, in the context of totalitariansim a la corporate management. This is the part that I had a difficult time swallowing, and won't bother with paraphrasing for the sake of thoroughness. I'll begin with my position, continued despite hindsight:

With regard to the typical idea that our government has become obliquely tyrannical, I have a hard time accepting ad hoc subjugation at the hands of an ill-defined, poorly regulated and unapproachable corporation. The ideal employee spends nearly half of their life working; even worse for most, they have no method of ensuring their payscale, pension, health benefits, or the ilk. Hours for wage employees are usually flex; full-time jobs are getting harder to come by. Some of these trends cannot reasonably be changed. Retail work will always demand bizarre hours, provide inadequate pay below store management level, and leave little room for advancement; I presume the fast-food industry operates in the same abusive way, albeit unavoidably. These are also usually stepping stone jobs, and have a high turnaround rate. So I won't concern myself further with these lines of work. I'm more concerned about careers in this instance.

I'm in the somewhat unique position of having a constitution of my very own, in the form of my union contract. The Company and the Union negotiate the details of this contract every year, and our right to collective bargaining provides us with the power to protect our established rights, as well as the ability to bargain for new provisions (scale increase, job-specific premiums). This power directly counteracts the typical corporation's ability to impose policy without consent, and abolishes their ability to change policy without approval. Obviously, there are occasions when a company may end up floundering in a compromised economy, and negotiations may accomodate that (usually pay scale freeze, sometimes layoffs); these dialogues are privy to the whims of our market, and that force transcends perceived tyranny. My fellow brothers and sisters, as well as myself, have the ability to vote our union out, and that in and of itself is somewhat telling. How often is it that an employee can vote on anything in a totalitarian enterprise?

There's also corruption in this system, unfortunately, and that sad fact has undermined the concept of organized labor; it reeks of bossism and distantly resembles oligarchical tyranny. However, we have constitutionally protected rights, which we fight for yearly. And our primary demand is a livable wage. The owner of the company I work for sincerely believes that we're paid too much; labor statistics state that we're paid below industry average. If it weren't for our solidarity, we'd be earning far less.

Now for the paradox:

Company direction and policy are privy to the whims of primary shareholders/owner(s), the president, executives, and descendant management. The invisible hand of the free market dictates commodity prices as well as employee wages/salaries. It's self-regulating, stupid. What makes you think that you should have any say in the choices a company makes? It's not YOUR company. And don't mention executive-applicable pay cuts. If I were an executive, and I saw that profits were diminishing or that the company was in dire straits, I'd institute employee-level pay cuts as well. I'd look at my family and our way of living and pass on the loss. I'd even allocate myself a little bonus. After all, I worked so hard to get to where I am, and these peons are expendable. Talent like mine deserves appropriately disproportionate compensation. This philosophy conveniently omits the greatest plague upon humanity: Greed.

To summarize this scatterbrained clusterfuck: I don't understand how a person can come to terms with the undeniable paradox that a fantasized, fetishized and fictitious form of tyranny is completely unacceptable and deserving of violent, bloody revolution, yet the other absolutely real form of totalitarian governance is not only acceptable but glorified. That that form of tyranny can even be said to be the American dream.

I will never accept that.