R.I.P. Marvin Miller
Marvin Miller, probably one of the five most important figures in baseball over the past century, passed away this week. Miller was the head of the players union and won free agency for the players. Charles Pierce eulogizes him:
That there are still people who think what he did was destructive to the game is probably the best measure of all the good he did. He had a positive genius for making all the right enemies. And, at the very least, in an era in which we are fighting at every level against the suffocating embrace of plutocracy, Marvin Miller created out of a group of millionaires a union that actually worked. He should be celebrated for nothing more than that.
Ironically Miller and his union stood for the profoundly capitalist principle of free markets while the owners preferred a hybrid feudal/socialist system. Baseball has changed profoundly for the better because of him. (Also see Joe Posnanski’s here).
Click here for reuse options!Copyright 2012 Liberaland
By: Stuart Shapiro
Stuart is a professor and the Director of the Public Policy
program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University. He teaches economics and cost-benefit analysis and studies
regulation in the United States at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Stuart worked for five years at the Office
of Management and Budget in Washington under Presidents Clinton and
George W. Bush.
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