Sports, labor and "progressivism"

This is a rather curious post by the ever-curious Yglesias. First, it purports to lay out a "progressive" case for supporting the Miami Heat in their encounter with the Dallas Mavericks. But this case rests mostly on LeBron James and his decision to move to the Heat. There's no discussion at all about the Mavericks - something we might expect if someone is trying to convince us to pick sides. So there really is no "case" at all.

This brings us to what the post is really about: Yglesias's idea that it is "progressive" to allow full, unrestrained market forces to determine labor policy (and, by extension, employment policy) in the NBA. Simply writing that out - that it should be "progressive" to allow "the market" untrammeled ability to set wages - highlights how bizarre this "argument" is. Would it be "progressive" to export that argument outside of the NBA? How about getting rid of the minimum wage and letting "the market" set lower wages too?

But, then again, we're dealing with one of the leading lights of the American "left", so it shouldn't be too surprising that we get some kind of head-scratching "progressive" proposal that is nothing of the sort. But if Yglesias would like to see how "market forces" play out in sports leagues, all he'd have to do is look at the English Premier League, the Scottish Premier League, La Liga, or many of the other European football/soccer leagues. There's no draft, no maximum wages, no controls on players moving their labor to whatever employer will pay them - Yglesias' workers' paradise in action.

Sadly for this little fantasy, there's no real competition in these leagues, either. Titles are won by one of the same 2 or 3 teams, year after year after year. Competition among these super-clubs has led to the appearance of ultra-wealthy billionaire owners who raise ticket prices above the level average, long-time fans can afford and who sometimes saddle the clubs with huge debts. Smaller clubs' have no chance to really compete, and their best players are regularly picked off by the bigger, richer clubs.

And this should be considered "progressive"? Jesus - just beat what remains of the Left with a baseball bat and let's call time on it.