We haven't heard much about "card check" lately. That's the acronym for the Employee Free Choice Act, a bold revision of federal labor laws that will end the requirement for unions to conduct a secret-ballot election among workers at a plant in order to certify their organization there. They'll merely have to "convince" a simple majority of workers to sign a card.

Financial issues have kept EFCA in the background since last year, but it's still a looming nightmare for many employers, including foundries and diecasters. Like every business they're struggling to keep the lights on through this recession. The prospect of dealing with a restive union frightens them even more.

But, what should frighten everyone is the bold indifference to democratic principles exhibited by promoters of EFCA. The Democrats in Congress support it, but the Administration has not been explicit on the subject since the campaign.

Now, the threat is explicit:  "We will pass the Employee Free Choice Act," President Obama told more than 100 top labor officials in a closed-door meeting at the labor federation's winter gathering in Miami, according to people at the meeting."

With all their attention on the economy, critics of the Administration have been characterizing it as "Socialist", thinking that this will provoke us to outrage by reminding us of the inevitable violations of property rights that occur in a system in which government owns the "means of production." Socialism may or may not seem so bad to you as an economic strategy these days, but there's more to it than money.

EFCA won't transfer businesses to government ownership. It represents a much worse aspect of Socialsm: Intimidation. Individual workers and business owners will be intimidated into complying with unions' demands. On a grand scale, EFCA will mean the government can reward its allies and intimidate its adversaries.

Socialist regimes of the past (and present) have typically masked their inefficiencies and inequalities by rewarding a handful of "collaborators" who help to keep the ruling class in power. Recall Animal Farm: "“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”

EFCA will reward Big Labor for its support of the Administration: "Everybody's going to have to give," the President said in a television interview ealier this year. "Everybody's going to have to have some skin in the game." Everybody does, obviously. Everybody is poorer than they had reason to believe they should be. Everybody except for those getting paid off for cooperating in a larger scheme to diminish individual rights.