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Quitting to start your own business is lauded in the annals of Americana because it positively reinforces certain tenets capitalism that are valued by the rulin

Quitting to start your own business is lauded in the annals of Americana because it positively reinforces certain tenets capitalism that are valued by the ruling class. Organizing a labor union however is vilified in American society as it directly challenges the inherent class structure of capitalism. Workers in the past have been beaten, murdered, and imprisoned not because they sought better pay and more amicable working hours, but because they dared to challenge the success and profit of the classes above them.

pmarreck 9y ago
Which is why a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative is a more ethically-defensible way to organize humans. Or pretty much any business model where all the laborers share in any profits by the collective.
- dqpb 9y ago
  Are there any notable tech coops?
  - nathan_f77 9y ago
    Here's a good list: https://github.com/hng/tech-coops https://github.com/hng/tech-coops
  - jboynyc 9y ago
    See this Ask HN from four years ago for a few good examples from around the world: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7634152 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7634152
- pathseeker 9y ago
  How is democratic voting control fair to the people that have put significantly more work and history into the company?
  - substack 9y ago
    How is a command hierarchy where a board of investors appoints a CEO fair to the people who actually built the company?
humanrebar 9y ago
There are lots of people who vote against unions that don't care one bit about the "inherent class structure of capitalism".
- zorpner 9y ago
  Choosing the status quo is still a choice, in this case in favor of the inherent class structure of capitalism.
emerged 9y ago
Tyranny of the many has dangers just as does tyranny of the few. There can be significant downsides to unions, so it's a bit reductive to think they're a universal good and that to disagree with them in any case is necessarily about "the inherent class structure of capitalism"
- pdkl95 9y ago
  Unions (or similar labor organizations) are not only a universal good, capitalism only works when ^both* labor and capital keep each other restrained. The problems start when either side is allowed to "win". Power always needs to be restrained with checks and balances.
  - conanbatt 9y ago
    Sure, and this is a good case of things being kept in check. A union that only subsists because it gets special state powers is not a union, its government.
    - pdkl95 9y ago
      > special state powers Like the limited liability granted to corporations?
      - pathseeker 9y ago
        I'm not sure you understand what that means. The limited liability applies to the people. The corporation is still fully liable.
        dragonwriter 9y ago
        The corporation is a legal fiction created by government to shield the people from liability for harm those people cause through their agents while seeking profits; it's the original (well, at least an early) manifestation of socializing risk while privatizing gains, done through the power of the State.
chimeracoder 9y ago
> Organizing a labor union however is vilified in American society as it directly challenges the inherent class structure of capitalism. Workers in the past have been beaten, murdered, and imprisoned not because they sought better pay and more amicable working hours, but because they dared to challenge the success and profit of the classes above them. This is unabashedly revisionist. Look at what labor unions did throughout the first half of the 20th century. They went to great lengths to ensure that their members could access the privileges of the upper capitalist classes by explicitly oppressing other groups of people - black workers, east Asians, south Asians, Mexicans, and Puerto Ricans. They fought to deport legal immigrants and migrant works. They fought to inter (poor) Japanese-Americans in camps in order to free up jobs for their relatively well-off, white members. After the war, they fought to prevent Japanese-Americans from returning to their homes. The immigration quotas that people oftentimes complain about on Hacker News? Those quotas were originally written to appease labor unions in the first place. The disaster in Puerto Rico? Labor unions opposed allowing foreign relief ships to temporarily service Puerto Rico, which has been standard practice for every single hurricane since Katrina, because they wanted to protect US members' paychecks. If you want to cherry-pick some good things labor unions have fought for, fine, but don't portray them as the antagonist of capitalist class structure. Labor unions have always thrived on class inequality; their goal is simply to make sure that their members are on the "right" side of it.
- dtornabene 9y ago
  That depends entirely on which unions you're looking at, the wobblies were organizing across racial lines and across industries. The pullman porters were black. And, yeah, unions very much are a class antagonist, they were conceived as precisely that. I'd even go so far as to say that actually your comment is the revisionist one. Note how you start the history at "the first half of the 20th century" leaving out arguably the most violent and repressive period of union struggle. Google The Battle of Blair mountain.
  - chimeracoder 9y ago
    > That depends entirely on which unions you're looking at, the wobblies were organizing across racial lines and across industries. The pullman porters were black. I'm looking at the unions that were the strongest, the most powerful, and the most influential. The IWW was never particularly strong after WWI, and that was at the peak of their membership. AFL- and CIO-affiliated unions were the strongest - and, more importantly, remain so to this day. It's funny you mention the porters' union - they were the first to receive recognition by the AFL. Why is that unusual? Well, they were special not because they were a union that represented black members, but because they were the first union of black members that the AFL didn't deny membership to based on race, after decades of explicitly prohibiting black unions from joining their federation. (Even after that, they refused to recognize most unions that accepted black or Japanese workers as members). > I'd even go so far as to say that actually your comment is the revisionist one. No, it's not "revisionist" to point out counterexamples to OP's claim, especially when those counterexamples include the largest group of unions for the last 100 years. Yes, sometimes it's convenient for labor unions to leverage rhetoric that flirts with socialism or communism, but in reality, their source of power is dependent on both capitalism and class hierarchy, which is why the largest and most influential ones have fought so hard to preserve it.
refurb 9y ago
Organizing a labor union however is vilified in American society as it directly challenges the inherent class structure of capitalism. It's vilified because of the corruption and strong-armed tactics many unions have resorted to in the US. You talk about beatings and murders, but the unions pretty quickly took up those tactics as well.

pmarreck 9y ago

Which is why a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative is a more ethically-defensible way to organize humans. Or pretty much any business model where all the laborers share in any profits by the collective.

dqpb 9y ago
Are there any notable tech coops?
- nathan_f77 9y ago
  Here's a good list: https://github.com/hng/tech-coops https://github.com/hng/tech-coops
- jboynyc 9y ago
  See this Ask HN from four years ago for a few good examples from around the world: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7634152 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7634152
pathseeker 9y ago
How is democratic voting control fair to the people that have put significantly more work and history into the company?
- substack 9y ago
  How is a command hierarchy where a board of investors appoints a CEO fair to the people who actually built the company?

humanrebar 9y ago

There are lots of people who vote against unions that don't care one bit about the "inherent class structure of capitalism".

zorpner 9y ago
Choosing the status quo is still a choice, in this case in favor of the inherent class structure of capitalism.

emerged 9y ago

Tyranny of the many has dangers just as does tyranny of the few. There can be significant downsides to unions, so it's a bit reductive to think they're a universal good and that to disagree with them in any case is necessarily about "the inherent class structure of capitalism"

pdkl95 9y ago
Unions (or similar labor organizations) are not only a universal good, capitalism only works when ^both* labor and capital keep each other restrained. The problems start when either side is allowed to "win". Power always needs to be restrained with checks and balances.
- conanbatt 9y ago
  Sure, and this is a good case of things being kept in check. A union that only subsists because it gets special state powers is not a union, its government.
  - pdkl95 9y ago
    > special state powers Like the limited liability granted to corporations?
    - pathseeker 9y ago
      I'm not sure you understand what that means. The limited liability applies to the people. The corporation is still fully liable.
      - dragonwriter 9y ago
        The corporation is a legal fiction created by government to shield the people from liability for harm those people cause through their agents while seeking profits; it's the original (well, at least an early) manifestation of socializing risk while privatizing gains, done through the power of the State.

chimeracoder 9y ago

> Organizing a labor union however is vilified in American society as it directly challenges the inherent class structure of capitalism. Workers in the past have been beaten, murdered, and imprisoned not because they sought better pay and more amicable working hours, but because they dared to challenge the success and profit of the classes above them. This is unabashedly revisionist. Look at what labor unions did throughout the first half of the 20th century. They went to great lengths to ensure that their members could access the privileges of the upper capitalist classes by explicitly oppressing other groups of people - black workers, east Asians, south Asians, Mexicans, and Puerto Ricans. They fought to deport legal immigrants and migrant works. They fought to inter (poor) Japanese-Americans in camps in order to free up jobs for their relatively well-off, white members. After the war, they fought to prevent Japanese-Americans from returning to their homes. The immigration quotas that people oftentimes complain about on Hacker News? Those quotas were originally written to appease labor unions in the first place. The disaster in Puerto Rico? Labor unions opposed allowing foreign relief ships to temporarily service Puerto Rico, which has been standard practice for every single hurricane since Katrina, because they wanted to protect US members' paychecks. If you want to cherry-pick some good things labor unions have fought for, fine, but don't portray them as the antagonist of capitalist class structure. Labor unions have always thrived on class inequality; their goal is simply to make sure that their members are on the "right" side of it.

dtornabene 9y ago
That depends entirely on which unions you're looking at, the wobblies were organizing across racial lines and across industries. The pullman porters were black. And, yeah, unions very much are a class antagonist, they were conceived as precisely that. I'd even go so far as to say that actually your comment is the revisionist one. Note how you start the history at "the first half of the 20th century" leaving out arguably the most violent and repressive period of union struggle. Google The Battle of Blair mountain.
- chimeracoder 9y ago
  > That depends entirely on which unions you're looking at, the wobblies were organizing across racial lines and across industries. The pullman porters were black. I'm looking at the unions that were the strongest, the most powerful, and the most influential. The IWW was never particularly strong after WWI, and that was at the peak of their membership. AFL- and CIO-affiliated unions were the strongest - and, more importantly, remain so to this day. It's funny you mention the porters' union - they were the first to receive recognition by the AFL. Why is that unusual? Well, they were special not because they were a union that represented black members, but because they were the first union of black members that the AFL didn't deny membership to based on race, after decades of explicitly prohibiting black unions from joining their federation. (Even after that, they refused to recognize most unions that accepted black or Japanese workers as members). > I'd even go so far as to say that actually your comment is the revisionist one. No, it's not "revisionist" to point out counterexamples to OP's claim, especially when those counterexamples include the largest group of unions for the last 100 years. Yes, sometimes it's convenient for labor unions to leverage rhetoric that flirts with socialism or communism, but in reality, their source of power is dependent on both capitalism and class hierarchy, which is why the largest and most influential ones have fought so hard to preserve it.

refurb 9y ago

Organizing a labor union however is vilified in American society as it directly challenges the inherent class structure of capitalism. It's vilified because of the corruption and strong-armed tactics many unions have resorted to in the US. You talk about beatings and murders, but the unions pretty quickly took up those tactics as well.