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Do you have the right to your own labor? Who owns your labor? Do you own it or does somebody else? Maybe all of society for the collective good? That's a fundamental question at the center of our national divide.
Anytime anybody says X is a human right and X is anything that requires labor to produce or deliver, that's what they're saying. I or we have a right to force you to work for us at gunpoint if necessary. In other words, we own your labor. Oh, no, no, no. You misunderstand. There's no force about it. Those who believe it say those delivering these human rights still get paid. Wow, really? Well, how do you get the money to pay them? Oh, with taxes. Well, what happens if people don't pay the taxes you demand? Oh, you point guns at them and you take it, right? So, it's either the labor at gunpoint or taking the money necessary to pay for the labor at gunpoint. Those are the necessary means when you say that the labor of another person is the human right of somebody else.
If your labor is inherently owed to somebody else, then your labor is inherently owned by somebody else. And if somebody else owns your labor, well, there is a word for that. That's the definition of slavery. So, it's a very important moral question. Who owns your labor and by extension the fruits of it. Because answering that question correctly is the difference between freedom and slavery and as a consequence prosperity and destitution.
Cuz simply declaring something a right doesn't just speak it into being if it requires the labor of another. If I declare housing a right? Do the hammer and the saw just spontaneously animate and build the house? If I declare healthc care a right? Does the scalpel do your surgery itself? And the same certainly applies to food. Now, I can say that you have a right to a cheeseburger or an apple, but if nobody wants to give you one or do the work necessary to make you one and bring you one, well, that right is really in word only. It doesn't materialize because when you claim the right to someone else's labor, you're claiming something that isn't actually yours. It doesn't work because it's not true. So the only way you can try to make it true is by force. Thus the government gun gets deployed to force it. And we are seeing that philosophy eagerly endorsed in many places across the country. And presumably we'll soon see that philosophy tested in supposedly new and innovative and progressive ways. In reality just the same ways that have produced disastrous results historically because it's the same violation of the same timeless truth.
Enter Seattle's new mayor elect socialist Katie Wilson. I don't say socialist as a smear. That's the way she described herself in her victory speech on Thursday. >> As a progressive and as a socialist, I believe in good governance. >> Why'd it take over a week after election day for her victory speech? Well, as is tradition, she won narrowly only after all the mail-in ballots were counted over incumbent Democrat Mayor Bruce Harrell. Likewise, as is now tradition, she has absolutely no experience building anything, but somehow the expertise to direct those who do build things. She just needs a little help from mom and dad to do it. According to a recent interview, Katie Wilson collects regular checks from her New York professor parents to make ends meet. And yeah, at some point in our lives, many adults do. Good families support each other, after all. But Katie Wilson is 43 years old, and it's not a one-time payment for something big like a house or a wedding. It's recurring payment, the frequency and value of which she shies away from specifying. But she still sells her lack of experience building anything meaningful beyond buzzword nonsense, as an asset. It would be bad if she actually had managed anything of value. After all, >> there's going to be a learning curve. There's going to be a learning curve for anyone becoming the mayor of a major city. But in a lot of ways, when I think about the kind of experience that I have and that I built up over my 14 years of coalition building, community organizing, working with city hall, that kind of experience is in certain respects a lot more valuable and relevant to the job of mayor than if, for example, I was off uh leading a Fortune 500 company or something, right?
Well, maybe if she had actually run a business of any kind, she would understand fundamental business reality. Producing value for the betterment of everybody requires certain conditions, primarily a respect for property rights in the way just described. The right to your labor and the right to the fruits of it. Cuz if people are constantly stealing your property, whether it's the government's gun or the street thugs, eventually you'll just stop providing your labor cuz it's not worth it. And we're seeing exactly this effect in the entire Puet Sound area, but specifically in Lake City, a neighborhood in northeastern Seattle. A combination of government and street thug guns is driving business out of town. Walgreens left, then a drugstore, and now as of October, a Fred Meyer grocery store and pharmacy has left town, too. The businesses site rampant theft the city refuses to police, and regulatory burdens from state and local government. You're letting everyone steal all our property and then stealing what little we have left through taxation and high wage requirements that aren't even market feasible. In an effort to survive in this hostile market, Fred Meyer's parent company, Kroger, tried to merge with Albertson's, another ger to build the strength necessary to maintain these underperforming stores to keep them open. But the state of Washington and the federal government said no, that would make big grocery far too powerful. So Kroger said, "Okay, well then we can't operate some of these stores that are just bleeding money." One such store was the Lake City Fred Meyer in Seattle. Before its closure last month, at the end of August, workers at the store and members of the local grocery workers union hosted Katie Wilson to shake fists at their bosses and endorse Katie Wilson's campaign. And the entire event was like some kind of reverse open mic at a comedy club. These people aren't trying to be funny, but they sure are hilarious. The union organizer acts like he's cracked some secret code from the evil corporate layer. I have discovered something truly sinister. This business wants to make money, not lose money. >> They've said in their own meetings, they've said in their own briefings with their investors, they want to close underperforming stores and open up new ones in neighborhoods where they can make higher profits. For Kroger, these aren't community anchors. These are lines on a spreadsheet. And I know one thing about Seattle. We will not >> we will fight back against beating being a line on a spreadsheet. >> Well, when the spreadsheet is in the red, then yeah, congrats. You're not in the spreadsheet anymore cuz your line is deleted. You want to be in that spreadsheet cuz that spreadsheet pays the workers who pay the dues that create your job. You depend on the spreadsheet. Actually, that's why they call it Excel because without it, you will not.
Next up is Melissa, the curiously tall lady, to complain that no notice of this pending closure was given to the workers. >> Hi, my name is Melissa Rose. I've worked at Fred Meyer for over 5 years. I'm currently the health and beauty lead at the store. We were given no notice, >> which is weird cuz I see the date on this video is 2 months before the store closure. So, how is that possible? No notice at all except for the 60 days notice. >> Literally, people got pulled in to a meeting with no idea what was going on and told stores closing in 90 days. That's it. I'm sorry, 60 days. We were told 60 days ahead of time. >> Right. So, you just wanted notice of the coming notice. And because that was neglected, now you're screwed. Other than Kroger's offer to give these workers jobs at other stores. But other than the two months notice and an offer for another job elsewhere, there was no courtesy at all. It was practically a slap in the face, and it would have been. It's just the bosses couldn't reach high enough to get to this lady's cheeks.
Next up is a longtime customer of the store who says she too has been betrayed. >> Kroger and Fred Meyer have asked for our loyalty as customers, and we've given it to them. This store is busy day and night. People of all economic levels shop there. Now Kroger is going to walk away from Lake City. And it feels like a betrayal. >> Yeah, but it's not the people shopping there who are the problem. It's the people stealing there. And when the theft eats the sales, well, then there's nothing left for you to eat. This store does not deal in feelings of loyalty. It deals in dollars. And if you don't protect their right to earn them, they'll just leave. The people who have betrayed your community are the criminals and the politicians who excuse them, not the grocery store trying to run an honest business. And if you don't think that's right, well, why have so many of your neighborhood businesses suddenly started betraying you? She lists several. >> A few years back, we were hopeful when we saw new businesses popping up along Lake City Way, but we lost a lot of those during the pandemic. And then Bartell's left because of right aids mismanagement and Walgreens left us too. >> If you lose one friend, yeah, could be his fault. If you lose all of your friends at the same time, could be a you problem.
But next up is the woman herself, then candidate, now mayor elect Katie Wilson. And she says the thing, access to food is a basic right. >> Access to affordable, healthy food is a basic right. >> Okay. Well, what happens when nobody wants to make or bring the food for you because you won't protect the conditions necessary to do that? How do you force the right when nobody voluntarily provides the right? Well, we'll just not allow the business to close. We will seize the means. >> We cannot allow giant grocery chains to stomp all over our communities, close stores at will, and leave behind food deserts. Together, we can build a Seattle where fresh food is for everyone, not just for those who can afford it. >> We have to point the government gun because we own their labor. They do not. Now, as a practical matter, how are you going to disallow them from leaving? She didn't explain. And it happened too quickly for her to try it anyway. They're already gone. But maybe as mayor, she'll disallow somebody else from leaving town. But they kind of do this in San Francisco already. Larger grocery stores are not allowed to close and leave without proper notice and working with city government. If they do, then area residents can sue them for damages. But even if you do that though, the store is still going to leave. And then the next guy won't move in because he knows if his business fails, and it probably will in a place that hates business, he'll have to pay for the privilege of losing money. Nobody's signing up for that.
But when you buy into this logic, we own your labor or you owe us your labor. To explain it, the thinking gets amazingly twisted. Business is simultaneously a vital piece of life. It's what keeps our communities healthy. >> Money that's spent at local grocery stores like this one, keeping families healthy and supporting good jobs at the same time. >> But also, that same business is stomping all over us. >> We cannot allow giant grocery chains to stomp all over our communities. will prevent grocery giants like Kroger from stomping all over our communities. >> Well, if they're stomping all over you, isn't it good that they're leaving? Don't you want the stomping to stop? And if they're causing food deserts or areas lacking quality food again, isn't it good that they're leaving? And the most confusing argument of ass backwardness, Katie Wilson says food deserts are not natural. Corporations create them. >> Food deserts are not natural. Corporations create them when they abandon our communities. >> Well, if food deserts aren't natural, then it logically follows that food abundance is food is everywhere until those evil corporations come stomp it out again. If so, corporations leaving should be great. Cuz now you're back to your natural cornucopia of plenty for everybody without their wicked meddling. But how does that even supposedly work anyway? Corporations create food deserts by leaving. How do you create something unnatural by going away and no longer working on it? In the absence of labor, don't things return to their natural state, but that's just it. Without someone applying labor to make and deliver food for you, well, there is no food at all. If you need a practical demonstration for how a food desert works, just take a walk in a real desert and you will soon discover that food absence is the natural state.
Actually, the only way any of this makes any sense to the people who believe it is to answer that fundamental question incorrectly. Who owns your labor? Do you own it so you can apply it on terms that you see fit or not? Or does somebody else own your labor? So, they're justified in pointing a gun at you to make you do it or to steal the things that you've built from it. But the problem is, even if you believe you own someone else's labor by virtue of some inherent right you think you have to it, you don't. And not just as a practical matter and that they're simply aren't enough guns to point to herd all your cattle to do the work effectively. Turns out they work much harder when they have their own incentives and motivations actually not yours. But as a consequence of the moral truth, you do not own the labor. So things don't work when you act like you do. You can say they owe you all you want. You can victimize yourself all you want. You can even threaten them all you want. But when you steal from people, they leave. The problem is no more complicated than that.
People only work and provide value efficiently when the conditions that enable the free exchange of that labor are protected. That means arresting and removing those who threaten and violate those terms. That means respecting and protecting people's property as the rightful earnings of their labor. That means assuming others have a better knowledge of how to apply their own labor than you do. After all, if you know how to provide value, you should be doing that instead of trying to take it from those who do. Because what's unnatural is that stealing. Actually the taking of others property, the taking of their labor, the rejection of the moral truth that their labor is theirs, not yours. That's a violation of natural law. Deny that and you'll find out very quickly what's natural. Everyone abandoning you and the scarcity of the natural world. Maybe then you'll finally work. When your survival depends on it, speaking of unnatural, not a lot of socialists in the wild out there, you tend to keep what you earn. And any gift you do receive from another person, you're much more grateful for because you learned the hard way, they don't owe you that.
Actually, thanks as always for listening and for supporting this channel. Always appreciate that thoughtful discussion down below and especially over on X that is MLC Christensen. You're always welcome to come out and chat my live streams as live on Wednesday and Sunday nights. Looking forward to it. Heat up here. [Music]