US Fed may nationalize AIG by taking an 80% stake in it in return for an 80 billion loan.

This is a bad question to ask as it put into an OR rather than an ADD predicative.

Supposing that Mr Walker and not the SEIU is the vanguard of history--supposing that America is headed toward the stable non-union equilibrium--what is the next-best scenario from a progressive perspective? What is the answer if resurgent unionism is not? Is there one?

I don't think that unionism is the issue. Personally I am ambivalent about unionism but I believe that people should have the right to organize and collectively bargain their labor. Just as they should have the right not to. I don't believe that either of these choices should be legislated or coerced away from an individual.

The issue is the excesses of the neo-liberal state which have gone union busting to the point of removing collective bargaining by legislation and hence coercion. It was the same thing with Workchoices under John Howard where collective bargaining was structured in such a way to make it difficult in the present and to deter or discourage it in the future.

The neo-liberal state has over-reached and its failures are obvious. The choice of taxpayers bailing out financial institutions rather than the Schumpeter like financiers and investors taking a hair cut is a very obvious one. This has been going on for nearly forty years now.

Another restraint that needs to be placed on the neo-liberal state is deregulation and financialization driven growth. Firstly, it has become obvious that the market is not pure in the financial area and government over-sigt and regulation is necessary in the finance and banking industries.

Secondly, the increase in inequality has been due to the rise of the financiers as a high income and earning group. The state is better at long term financing of infrastructure and other public and national investments. These will probably go hand in hand. Another aspect of this is the tax cutting on the rich such that the state cannot pay its obligations from year to year.

I don't see why the left's answer has to be unionism. There is nothing wrong with increasing economic liberalism or rationalism. Many industries still require a great deal of deregulation in order to promote increased activity. It is just the worst aspects of the neo-liberalist state that need to be restrained.

I can see why a teacher would seek to collective bargain as their employer is a large monolithic entity, or distinct and unchanging locality, where the goals are often political, and hence arbitrary in nature. I can also fully understand why a software engineer - who works in the most fluid of global labor markets - would not want to collective bargain.

I think the liberty to do either, without coercion, or restriction, from legislation is an important freedom. However, I don't think unionism is the answer to the neo-liberal state's excess. Good governance is the best answer there.