The ongoing troubles of the American auto industry present a classic confrontation between the head and the heart, wherein blunt economic reality clashes with history and sentiment.
The Big Three automakers are part of American history, remnants of a time when we actually made things in America and did it better than anyone else. That is how we put the "Mo" in "Motown," which was a city nickname and a symbol of national pride long before it was a record label.
If the car makers go down, more than sheet metal and wheels will go. The Big Three also represent the high tide of the union movement in America, giving us that iconic 1950s and '60s image of Joe Lunchbucket supporting a wife and 2.5 kids on a high school education and one nice salary. My late father-in-law, a staunch union member who made a good living at one of the refineries in Houston, always said none of it would have been possible without his union. Hearing him talk, I sometimes found myself wistfully thinking, "Hey, where's my union?"
All of this history wraps the union story in a fine gauze of nostalgia, and I understand the pull of nostalgia. I even miss things I was never part of, like saying the mass in Latin. And by the way, how could the Dodgers desert Brooklyn?
But what about cold, hard economic reality? The evaporating power of unions, which not even the friendliest Democratic administration can reverse, recalls the core meaning of "flat" in Thomas Friedman's important book, The World is Flat.
In the global economy, the barriers of time, space, language and education that once protected closed markets have fallen. And that doesn't just mean that the tech guy who tells you to unplug your modem now lives in Bangalore, not Baltimore. The "flattening" of the world also means the eventual removal of any forces that stand between buyers and sellers, or between management and labor.
In the old economy, unions grew up to protect workers and make demands on their behalf, causing wages and benefits to rise. Unfortunately, in the new "flat" economy, in which employers reach across the globe for workers and so-called foreign companies can locate in the U. S., the union model is no longer tenable.
Now I'm aware that workers at a Smithfield slaughterhouse recently voted to unionize, and I thought Barack Obama's defense of the betrayed union workers in Chicago was both heartwarming and right. Unfortunately, these are temporary victories, rear-guard actions fought in retreat. The only way for Detroit to stay is to adopt the same policies that the foreign automakers live by, paying workers less and giving them less generous benefits.
Right now, according to some experts, there's about a $2,000 difference between the price of a union-built car and the price of a comparable non-union model. A lot of American history is wrapped up in that $2,000 price differential. It's one of the last remnants of the postwar world that America bestrode like a colossus, a time when we ran the show.
Now the world is flat, and unsentimental consumers can easily bypass the union price bump and buy cheaper cars, just as we do when we buy a $39 Korean DVD player at Target. It's sad and it's hard to like, but this seems to be the new world we live in.
Chris Tucker is a Dallas writer and literary consultant.
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