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I don't really get this line of thinking, it just seems like a denial of globalization, automation, and economics. Instead of helping the workers it more seeks

I don't really get this line of thinking, it just seems like a denial of globalization, automation, and economics. Instead of helping the workers it more seeks to punish American capitalists--including all the people like me who hope to retire in the future with investments that grow. When the rest of the world is developed enough that a union could span the entire globe, then this would at least be logical again. As an electrical engineer working for the company, two of my assigned jobs were 1) evaluating the cost effectiveness of replacing all the forklift drivers with robots and 2) installing new equipment to eliminate repetitive lifting roles on the packaging lines. I was actually surprised how much cheaper the human forklift drivers were than the robots (mostly this was because we had really efficient, hardworking drivers and the robots needed special accommodations and could not handle all special cases). I left the company because it was very demoralizing working alongside people who you were being paid to replace. But make no mistake, the autonomous forklifts would have been cheaper if the company had to employ the drivers directly, taking the hit to their safety record and bottom line. There are other ideas for increasing the bargaining position of American labor and reducing capital inequality. For example, plugging up the mechanisms by which trade deficit capital returns to the United States (through economics--not by law, so by increasing property taxes in cities with big foreign investment, reducing the federal debt, switching to regional taxation system, etc.). Another example, if economics, as a collective school of thought, could reconsider its obsession with monetary inflation and consider if technology driven deflation is actually a bad thing. A worker getting a deflationary pay raise would be in a much stronger bargaining position and would actually be claiming some of the rewards of all the technological advances of capitalism by default.

bildung 9y ago
> I don't really get this line of thinking, it just seems like a denial of globalization, automation, and economics. So what is the qualitative change in these three factors that changed so much in your opinion? Globalization was important for the US from its very inception (example: European price and production developments where a big factor in the Panic of 1819[1]). And productivity growth has been more or less constant over the last 100+ years [2][3]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1819 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1819 [2] https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*i79QfQsgSagYNZl17oEm8g.png https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*i79QfQsgSagYNZl17o... [3] https://www.bls.gov/lpc/prodybar.htm https://www.bls.gov/lpc/prodybar.htm
- benlorenzetti 9y ago
  I think it has been the gradual march of technological progress and globalization. For example remember the civil war was largely fought over protectionist trade policies for northern manufacturers. And that was in the age of sail when many goods would not even make if from North America to Europe. Similar protectionist policies would be unthinkable now. Also the rise of America from being an upstart industrial power like China and India are today to being a wealthy nation with (relatively) high standards of living for its low and middle class. Unions are fascinating, honestly I am surprised that the era in which they were strong ever existed so early in history. They rely on having a monopoly on labor or at least a large percentage of it but with modern transportation the size of the labor pool is just too large and too poor for a relatively small, wealthy nation like the US to organize it. If I had to point to seminal events causing the change, they would be construction of the Suez and Panama Canal, MacArthur's reconstruction of Japan, and Nixon opening trade with China. This last one could be the reason we are all still alive today, but clearly the American middle and lower class have born the brunt of the costs relative to where we all were after WWII. Btw thanks for the discussion. Has been a while since I read about panic of 1819! I also blame the aspects of Keynesian economics that do not constrain the growth of government debt for increasing the power of existing wealth relative to the working class, but I admit that is a more questionable opinion.
  - benlorenzetti 9y ago
    Edit: MacArthur's reconstruction of Japan is just a easily identifiable event. What I am really saying though is how industrious the Japanese people have been since the age of exploration. Perhaps the seminal event should have been Commodore Perry or the Meiji restoration.
  - mrguyorama 9y ago
    >For example remember the civil war was largely fought over protectionist trade policies for northern manufacturers. That's a falsehood pushed by the south to deny their support of slavery. This short video about it from prager University is helpful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcy7qV-BGF4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcy7qV-BGF4 Here you can read South Carolina's actual declaration of Succession, where they make a point of spending most of the 13 pages talking about how their "right" of slavery was being infringed upon: http://www.teachingushistory.org/pdfs/DecImmCauses.pdf http://www.teachingushistory.org/pdfs/DecImmCauses.pdf
frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
That just seems so paternalistic to me. You agree that those low on the totem-pole should have it better but handing them a method of direct-action, to collectively and directly make their work environments better doesn't make sense? >Instead of helping the workers it more seeks to punish American capitalists--including all the people like me who hope to retire in the future with investments that grow. This is actual nonsense. If you don't believe that making the middle and lower class better off is good for an economy, I don't know what to tell you.
- benlorenzetti 9y ago
  I know I shouldn't be taking the bait but here goes anyway. Smart union leaders today would be working on organizing and building relationship with peers in other countries. Fighting for US state backed monopolies is fighting on the old battleground with outdated weapons that may be immoral (state enforced monopolies often are). > That just seems so paternalistic to me. You agree that those low on the totem-pole should have it better but handing them a method of direct-action, to collectively and directly make their work environments better doesn't make sense? If were going to use the loaded word paternalistic, requiring people to be a union member is more paternalistic than giving them the option. Also I propose policies that (I think) would make work more valuable. Do you think it is fair that the Federal Reserve transfers and additional 2% of workers' pay to capitalists and politicians every year? > This is actual nonsense. If you don't believe that making the middle and lower class better off is good for an economy, I don't know what to tell you. Not my belief at all.
  - frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
    >Smart union leaders today would be working on organizing and building relationship with peers in other countries. Smart union leaders today are trying to figure out how to end right-to-work so they can actually exist. >Fighting for US state backed monopolies is fighting on the old battleground with outdated weapons that may be immoral (state enforced monopolies often are). Minor quibble here - that a monopoly exists and that it exists in the US does not make it backed by the state. Monopolies don't need state backing to exist. But I also agree that we should dust off Teddy Roosevelt's big stick and use it to smash the monopolies/oligopolies if that helps. >If were going to use the loaded word paternalistic, requiring people to be a union member is more paternalistic than giving them the option. Right-to-work is about ending free association, it's odd to paint unions as anti-free association. In an ordinary market environment a widget company could set up an exclusive supply deal with a plastic company where plastic is supplied at a set rate under certain agreements and we'd all be fine with that. But if we switch out "plastic" for "labor" and "plastic company" for "labor union" then suddenly we outlaw it. The idea that you think government should interfere in the contractual dealings of labor-supply in our market but not commodity-supply describes the hypocrisy. >Also I propose policies that (I think) would make their work more valuable. That's why I called it paternalism. What you think makes their work more valuable is good but even just giving them the tool to decide what is good for themselves is bad. >Do you think it is fair that the Federal Reserve transfers and additional 2% of workers' pay to capitalists and politicians every year? Take your Friedman talking points somewhere else. >Not my belief at all. But it's exactly what you described. You think that labor organizing in an effort to gain higher pay will hurt your capital investments. >I know I shouldn't be taking the bait but here goes anyway. Me too lol.

bildung 9y ago

> I don't really get this line of thinking, it just seems like a denial of globalization, automation, and economics. So what is the qualitative change in these three factors that changed so much in your opinion? Globalization was important for the US from its very inception (example: European price and production developments where a big factor in the Panic of 1819[1]). And productivity growth has been more or less constant over the last 100+ years [2][3]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1819 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1819 [2] https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*i79QfQsgSagYNZl17oEm8g.png https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*i79QfQsgSagYNZl17o... [3] https://www.bls.gov/lpc/prodybar.htm https://www.bls.gov/lpc/prodybar.htm

benlorenzetti 9y ago
I think it has been the gradual march of technological progress and globalization. For example remember the civil war was largely fought over protectionist trade policies for northern manufacturers. And that was in the age of sail when many goods would not even make if from North America to Europe. Similar protectionist policies would be unthinkable now. Also the rise of America from being an upstart industrial power like China and India are today to being a wealthy nation with (relatively) high standards of living for its low and middle class. Unions are fascinating, honestly I am surprised that the era in which they were strong ever existed so early in history. They rely on having a monopoly on labor or at least a large percentage of it but with modern transportation the size of the labor pool is just too large and too poor for a relatively small, wealthy nation like the US to organize it. If I had to point to seminal events causing the change, they would be construction of the Suez and Panama Canal, MacArthur's reconstruction of Japan, and Nixon opening trade with China. This last one could be the reason we are all still alive today, but clearly the American middle and lower class have born the brunt of the costs relative to where we all were after WWII. Btw thanks for the discussion. Has been a while since I read about panic of 1819! I also blame the aspects of Keynesian economics that do not constrain the growth of government debt for increasing the power of existing wealth relative to the working class, but I admit that is a more questionable opinion.
- benlorenzetti 9y ago
  Edit: MacArthur's reconstruction of Japan is just a easily identifiable event. What I am really saying though is how industrious the Japanese people have been since the age of exploration. Perhaps the seminal event should have been Commodore Perry or the Meiji restoration.
- mrguyorama 9y ago
  >For example remember the civil war was largely fought over protectionist trade policies for northern manufacturers. That's a falsehood pushed by the south to deny their support of slavery. This short video about it from prager University is helpful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcy7qV-BGF4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcy7qV-BGF4 Here you can read South Carolina's actual declaration of Succession, where they make a point of spending most of the 13 pages talking about how their "right" of slavery was being infringed upon: http://www.teachingushistory.org/pdfs/DecImmCauses.pdf http://www.teachingushistory.org/pdfs/DecImmCauses.pdf

frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago

That just seems so paternalistic to me. You agree that those low on the totem-pole should have it better but handing them a method of direct-action, to collectively and directly make their work environments better doesn't make sense? >Instead of helping the workers it more seeks to punish American capitalists--including all the people like me who hope to retire in the future with investments that grow. This is actual nonsense. If you don't believe that making the middle and lower class better off is good for an economy, I don't know what to tell you.

benlorenzetti 9y ago
I know I shouldn't be taking the bait but here goes anyway. Smart union leaders today would be working on organizing and building relationship with peers in other countries. Fighting for US state backed monopolies is fighting on the old battleground with outdated weapons that may be immoral (state enforced monopolies often are). > That just seems so paternalistic to me. You agree that those low on the totem-pole should have it better but handing them a method of direct-action, to collectively and directly make their work environments better doesn't make sense? If were going to use the loaded word paternalistic, requiring people to be a union member is more paternalistic than giving them the option. Also I propose policies that (I think) would make work more valuable. Do you think it is fair that the Federal Reserve transfers and additional 2% of workers' pay to capitalists and politicians every year? > This is actual nonsense. If you don't believe that making the middle and lower class better off is good for an economy, I don't know what to tell you. Not my belief at all.
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
  >Smart union leaders today would be working on organizing and building relationship with peers in other countries. Smart union leaders today are trying to figure out how to end right-to-work so they can actually exist. >Fighting for US state backed monopolies is fighting on the old battleground with outdated weapons that may be immoral (state enforced monopolies often are). Minor quibble here - that a monopoly exists and that it exists in the US does not make it backed by the state. Monopolies don't need state backing to exist. But I also agree that we should dust off Teddy Roosevelt's big stick and use it to smash the monopolies/oligopolies if that helps. >If were going to use the loaded word paternalistic, requiring people to be a union member is more paternalistic than giving them the option. Right-to-work is about ending free association, it's odd to paint unions as anti-free association. In an ordinary market environment a widget company could set up an exclusive supply deal with a plastic company where plastic is supplied at a set rate under certain agreements and we'd all be fine with that. But if we switch out "plastic" for "labor" and "plastic company" for "labor union" then suddenly we outlaw it. The idea that you think government should interfere in the contractual dealings of labor-supply in our market but not commodity-supply describes the hypocrisy. >Also I propose policies that (I think) would make their work more valuable. That's why I called it paternalism. What you think makes their work more valuable is good but even just giving them the tool to decide what is good for themselves is bad. >Do you think it is fair that the Federal Reserve transfers and additional 2% of workers' pay to capitalists and politicians every year? Take your Friedman talking points somewhere else. >Not my belief at all. But it's exactly what you described. You think that labor organizing in an effort to gain higher pay will hurt your capital investments. >I know I shouldn't be taking the bait but here goes anyway. Me too lol.