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As unions decline, inequality rises

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Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#451

Post by parthianshotgun »

nec4b wrote: post #444
parthianshotgun wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes I agree with that, but having understood those laws (hypothetically), of which I guess you might be referring to human behaviour, evolutionary principles etc. How can we be sure that those naturalistic foundations could possibly inform the problem of 'what to do now'? Wouldn't be a bit like a mirror trying to reflect itself, or possibly, a fish trying to understand that it's in water?

Understanding the laws doesn't guarantee we'll be able to solve the problem. But not knowing them almost guarantees we will not do a good job.

True enough. At this point I suppose I don't disagree with you, though I've also lost the plot a bit. Hope you enjoy a restful holiday season wherever you are

Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#452

Post by krainboltgreene »

credit_guy wrote: post #430
krainboltgreene wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're describing a bargaining power that unions have, except instead of "pay me or I leave" it's "pay me or we leave". Why would you want a less powerful version of the same thing? Even if you don't involve your union, you can still do what you're describing . You've gained nothing unique by avoiding the union.

> you can still do what you're describing. I doubt you can. Your boss will tell you he can't pay you more than what's on the grid negotiated with the union. My wife works in a place with a union (and is a member of it), and there is such a grid. Nobody even thinks individual bargaining is a possibility.

So you leave, like you said.

Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#453

Post by berniedurfee »

surement wrote: post #446
berniedurfee wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would the world be a better place if supply and demand weren’t the only factors in the compensation equation?

what's the alternative?

I don’t have a reasonable answer. Though I think some element of universal compassion would be nice to embed in our economy.

Though, I don’t imagine that can ever be governed into place, given that socialism and communism ultimately end in totalitarianism.

It’ll likely take many generations and many revolutions, but I do hope someday we figure out how to stop excusing our selfishness and naturally give until everyone else has what they need.

We could create utopia today if we could successfully fight the urges of our monkey brains.

But in the near-term, I think the best we can do is survive and chip away at the notion that just because we can take more, we don’t have to.

Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#454

Post by bombolo »

yucky wrote: post #401
bombolo wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Italian players are paid a lot and italy didn't even qualify… are you still insisting on the correctness of your easily disproved theory?

Italy can't control what others pay, but using your example does Italy pay all of their players the same, or do they generally pay more money to their better players?

But it can control wages, and seems they are above market rate? Which of course means that wages aren't adjusted by merit.

Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#455

Post by 33955985 »

bobthepanda wrote: post #450
33955985 wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there is one “tech disruption” I hope actually sticks is the death of credentialism and the rise of proof of ability by doing. I have only a bachelor’s in a liberal art(!) and working in tech has opened up so many doors for me, in teams where nobody cared where I went to school and my lack of a master’s was met with curious shrugs.

well, this has upsides and downsides. proof of doing is in large part responsible for how grueling and grinding tech interviews are. you don't hire nurses by asking them to demonstrate operating on a cat. and to some degree the grueling and grinding is there because the degree doesn't indicate anything at all, and desirable companies ending up having to process a lot of underqualified applicants.

All upsides for real people and all downsides for multi-billion-dollar companies, it would seem. There is never going to be a university degree program that precisely matches what a company needs. So why bother?

Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#456

Post by surement »

berniedurfee wrote: post #453
surement wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what's the alternative?

I don’t have a reasonable answer. Though I think some element of universal compassion would be nice to embed in our economy. Though, I don’t imagine that can ever be governed into place, given that socialism and communism ultimately end in totalitarianism. It’ll likely take many generations and many revolutions, but I do hope someday we figure out how to stop excusing our selfishness and naturally give until everyone…

The notion that capitalists aren't compassionate is pure propaganda. People like capitalism because it's the best economic system in terms of results [0] [1] [2] [3]. It may increase the variance in wealth but it also raises the median and that's what actually matters.

[0] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/child-mortality-gdp-per-c... [1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/change-energy-gdp-per-cap... [2] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-per-capita-caloric-... [3] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy?tab=chart...

Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#457

Post by credit_guy »

krainboltgreene wrote: post #452
credit_guy wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you can still do what you're describing. I doubt you can. Your boss will tell you he can't pay you more than what's on the grid negotiated with the union. My wife works in a place with a union (and is a member of it), and there is such a grid. Nobody even thinks individual bargaining is a possibility.

So you leave, like you said.

"Pay me or I leave" is bargaining. "I leave" is not bargaining.

Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#458

Post by susanasj »

8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote: post #168
susanasj wrote: post #142

I think this is a good article for tech workers to read to provide perspective on our place in the tech economy (particularly Americans): https://organizing.work/2020/12/there-is-something-missing-f... particularly this part: > Early on in my own career in the industry, I felt guilty about making a “good” salary. Why did I deserve to make more money than a teacher or a nurse? Of course, I don’t — they deserve a lot m…

One of the memes that you frequently see in the upper middle class left-leaning tech worker circles is that anything less than a worker co-op is ultimately an organizational structure that is inequitable and exploitative to its labor force, leading to negative externalities for society at large. I'm 100% ignorant of the history of labor and of all philosophical dialectic around it, but I would love to form an opinion…

I forgot I posted this comment so just seeing this but as an upper middle class lefty tech worker I'll offer an answer.

I think your question is a bit too focused on the individual and not the system. I think it's actually difficult for founders to share the upside "equitably", whatever that means. Like, are there any examples of it actually happening? I suspect that the acquiring company frequently dictates terms that won't allow you to make every employee a millionaire because then what incentive do they have to work anymore. I think once you get to the multi billion dollar level of wealth it's difficult to get objective advice - many of the people surrounding you are just trying to please you to continue getting their slice of the vast wealth that you control. So just as a human it's hard to navigate that I think (this is me being sympathetic to billionaires, which I'm generally not).

The much easier answer to me is just much higher taxes on wealth. Capitalism is not a system built to share resources equitably, but inequality can be tamed through taxes. If you as a founder see most of the upside, fine, but a lot of it will get redistributed to society through taxes, and theoretically your workers benefit from that. It also means it's not up to the whims of the individual people or companies involved in something like an acquisition to try to make it equitable.

(another way inequality in capitalism can be tamed is through unions, but I don't know if there are any examples of unions being involved in something like an acquisition or IPO in tech)

Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#459

Post by berniedurfee »

surement wrote: post #456
berniedurfee wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t have a reasonable answer. Though I think some element of universal compassion would be nice to embed in our economy. Though, I don’t imagine that can ever be governed into place, given that socialism and communism ultimately end in totalitarianism. It’ll likely take many generations and many revolutions, but I do hope someday we figure out how to stop excusing our selfishness and naturally give until everyone…

The notion that capitalists aren't compassionate is pure propaganda. People like capitalism because it's the best economic system in terms of results [0] [1] [2] [3]. It may increase the variance in wealth but it also raises the median and that's what actually matters. [0] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/child-mortality-gdp-per-c... [1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/change-energy-gdp-per-cap... [2] https://ou…

I agree that all people show compassion at some level regardless of the economic system in which they participate.

But I believe that compassion is not inherent in capitalism and people’s individual compassion is often in conflict with the goals of the system.

Re: As unions decline, inequality rises

#460

Post by surement »

berniedurfee wrote: post #459
surement wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The notion that capitalists aren't compassionate is pure propaganda. People like capitalism because it's the best economic system in terms of results [0] [1] [2] [3]. It may increase the variance in wealth but it also raises the median and that's what actually matters. [0] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/child-mortality-gdp-per-c... [1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/change-energy-gdp-per-cap... [2] https://ou…

I agree that all people show compassion at some level regardless of the economic system in which they participate. But I believe that compassion is not inherent in capitalism and people’s individual compassion is often in conflict with the goals of the system.

Economic decisions should be viewed in terms of the incentives they create and not their stated intentions. Any economic system is one of rationing resources and this involves making tradeoffs. The apparent intent of one approach for doing this over another doesn't necessarily correlate with its results. E.g. "minimum wage" laws intending to protect workers from exploitation actually create unemployment instead (which is a zero wage, and that's less than the "minimum" wage). The "solution" is presented as being about low wages vs. high wages, so it sounds good and compassionate. But the reality is that it's about low wages vs. zero wages, and low is better than zero.

There's a film by the late economist Walter Williams called Good Intentions that is all about that kind of stuff.

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