191–200 of 450 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Children worked at their parents' subsistence farms before the industrial revolution. That is still child labour.
Children all over the world still do. The families would die if they did not. This is why many farming families have large numbers of children, labor (that gets paid in food and family love).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Since the capital and ownership sectors of our economy are all trained to operate businesses rationally and to not leave value on the table, it seems pretty clear that anything that labor doesn't take will be traded away. To me, in that light, neither the "depredations" of owners and investors nor the "coercion" of labor unions is really a problem; it's just the natural give and take of the market at work. The real p…
> The real problem is the late 20th century stigma labor organization has acquired. I think the stigma is well-deserved. Indeed they are rife with corruption and often create very odd incentives. Unfortunately unions suffer the same fate as other "invisible" benefits: everyone takes them for granted and doesn't recognize their value. People focus on the drawbacks and it's much easier to convince them that we're all b…
Whenever you think about some corrupt rent-seeking union bureaucrat being a drain on an efficient system, just think about Mayer's compensation package relative to the value she created. Unionized workers just want basic needs like health care and a chance to not retire in poverty. As a taxpayer who gets the bill for the externalized costs of labor extraction by executives, you probably also want this.
Question for the HN crowd: do you think tech-workers will begin to unionize? It seems to me that (in general) they've got such a nice position in the economy there's probably a bit of an "if it ain't broke don't fix it" mentality. Is that correct?
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Organized labor has most of the same problems as organized ownership and capital. Ownership and capital has some unique problems. Labor has some other unique problems. This shouldn't surprise anyone. Unless you're arguing for the elimination of the market system, "this structure in a market economy is prone to corruption" isn't a dispositive argument, or really an argument at all.
No. The union leaders have zero interest in making any company succeed. They have a ton of interest in themselves succeeding. In fact unions work very hard against innovation and in keeping status quo.
Question for the HN crowd: do you think tech-workers will begin to unionize? It seems to me that (in general) they've got such a nice position in the economy there's probably a bit of an "if it ain't broke don't fix it" mentality. Is that correct?
I would hope they'd start. And there's no reason it has to be anything like a auto worker's union or anything like that. The Screen Actors Guild, the Director's Guild, and the Writer's Guild are all unions, and no one is complaining that SAG is hurting the ability of a "rockstar ninja actor/actress" from making huge amounts of money, which is the main complaint I hear about unions here.
They absolutely do prevent lots of people from being hired the theater and film industry in the first place, which is a widespread complaint against them. Obviously the lucky few who do gain membership (which is intentionally difficult) make more money as a result of the constricted supply.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Since the capital and ownership sectors of our economy are all trained to operate businesses rationally and to not leave value on the table, it seems pretty clear that anything that labor doesn't take will be traded away. To me, in that light, neither the "depredations" of owners and investors nor the "coercion" of labor unions is really a problem; it's just the natural give and take of the market at work. The real p…
> The real problem is the late 20th century stigma labor organization has acquired. I think the stigma is well-deserved. Indeed they are rife with corruption and often create very odd incentives. Unfortunately unions suffer the same fate as other "invisible" benefits: everyone takes them for granted and doesn't recognize their value. People focus on the drawbacks and it's much easier to convince them that we're all b…
This is a very broad statement, which could just as easily be applied to management/capital.
If there is one thing I've learned from two decades of reading about labor history, it's: Every gain labor has ever made has been taken. Every gain the working class (i.e. the overwhelming majority of people) has achieved has come from organizing their majority of low-power workers and then standing strongly against the empowered minority at the top. Good for these people. They are essentially moving our society forw…
Any wage gains that are derived by unionisation are zero sum. They are economic rent extracted by reducing the competitiveness of labour markets, and advantaging unionized workers working for big employers at the expense of those without such jobs. In the long run, the reduced profit margins caused by wages that are artificially high (above the rate that would be established by the free market) results in less invest…
If you meant competitiveness of businesses, sure, it probably does that. But the logical conclusion for that line of reasoning ends up with us working in a Gulag.
What do you guys think of software engineers forming a union where we have a guaranteed base pay but each of us can still negotiate higher if we wanted?
It's less about base pay, and more about limits to working time, overtime and protection from exploitation.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Any wage gains that are derived by unionisation are zero sum. They are economic rent extracted by reducing the competitiveness of labour markets, and advantaging unionized workers working for big employers at the expense of those without such jobs. In the long run, the reduced profit margins caused by wages that are artificially high (above the rate that would be established by the free market) results in less invest…
What you call rent seeking another person might regard as sensibly avoiding the externalities caused by low wages. An unfettered market merely pushes the costs elsewhere and we all pick up the pieces. Your argument surely requires a mythical perfect market without externalities?
Also low wages are not an externality:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality
The point of letting the market modulate supply and demand is that it encourages an economically optimal allocation of resources.
If you'd like to have a more in depth discussion on this, perhaps you could post a thread in a more appropriate forum like Reddit and we can discuss it there.
This is a bit misleading. Union power is putting pressure on service economy companies which in turn service tech companies. Tech workers are not unionizing -and I can't imagine they would, given their pay compared to other sectors. I could see an AMA type organization perhaps. On the other hand, unfortunately, companies no longer staff vertically. When they can outsource their non core competencies they do. They don…
Also a tech union could push for perks like developer offices, remote work, better work equipment, etc. If nothing else, they could communicate with the business on how to make developers happy and comfortable; something the business might be willing to do, but don't know how to do.
Now is the time to do it too, US businesses are pulling back on offshore labor and bringing work back to the US.