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A century of pro-corporation-monopoly advocacy will not change the fact that corporations as generally conceived are anti-market interventions and thus economic

A century of pro-corporation-monopoly advocacy will not change the fact that corporations as generally conceived are anti-market interventions and thus economically unsound.

CryptoPunk 7y ago
Corporations as generally conceived are not anti-market interventions. A union backed by the state imposing a rule that violates an employer's contracting rights by 1. preventing them from negotiating with workers outside of the union, 2. preventing them from firing workers who unionize or strike and replacing them with new workers, is. These are blatant anti-market interventions that give any group of workers that unionize an effective state-backed monopoly over their employer's labor force. The conspiratorial narratives about opposition to such state-backed monopolies being nothing more than Big Business trying to mislead and exploit the little guy, and such monopolies being in the public interest, is nothing more than economic quackery, on par with anti-vaxxer conspiracy theories about vaccination being a harmful practice that is only widely promoted because of the nefarious influence of Big Pharma. The economic reality is that these rules create rent-seeking and reduce economic efficiency. They will destroy Amazon's dynamism. Giving a select group of workers a temporary wage boost at the expense of the industry that sustains them is the same short-sighted policy implemented in the post-war era, which saw workers see large wage gains, and then saw the industries that employed them suffer massive bankruptcies and contractions.
- mirimir 7y ago
  It's true that the legality of unions in the US depends on an exception in antitrust law. But it's also true that corporations depend on state-backed exceptions to common law. As such, corporations were generally illegal in the US until the late 1800s. There was an exception for corporations serving the public interest. Initially for building canals and railroads. But in the late 1800s, a series of Supreme Court opinions removed those limitations. Eventually, they got some protection under the 1st, 5th and 14th Amendments. And recently, wider protection under the 1st Amendment. As long as we're going to allow collective action by business owners, it's only fair that we allow collective action by workers.
  - zaroth 7y ago
    Any form of business larger than a sole proprietorship is a collective action. The “corporate” form of a business (as supposed to a partnership or other structure) is mostly a matter of taxes, legal liability, and the manner of raising capital and distributing profits. Powerful unions are typically larger than the workforce of any one single company.
    - mirimir 7y ago
      Right. Sole proprietorships and individual workers have similar market power. But without unions, workers have virtually no market power vs corporations (and partnerships, for that matter). I do agree that both corporations and unions ought to be regulated by antitrust law.
      - CryptoPunk 7y ago
        Market power is irrevelant to workers being able to fetch the market rate for their labor. Corporations compete with each other for a limited pool of labor. There is no generalized class conflict between corporations and workers in a free market. Competition happens just as much within classes as between them. Ultimately that results in the wages offered being determined by the underlying market forces of supply and demand that are far larger and more powerful than the efforts of any single party. And it is in society's best interest for wages to be determined by supply and demand and not some social agenda. The only policy which provide zero sum benefits to corporations at the expense of workers is immigration. And that can be addressed by workers through political coordination. The primary purpose of unions is to give select groups of workers the ability to engage in rent-seeking at the expense of the wider economy. We can get political coordination between workers without resorting to unions and all the harm that comes along with them.
        mirimir 7y ago
        I'm certainly no expert, but it's my impression that workers for large corporations generally get screwed when unions are weak. Based on data from the past several decades.

A century of pro-corporation-monopoly advocacy will not change the fact that corporations as generally conceived are anti-market interventions and thus economically unsound.

CryptoPunk 7y ago

Corporations as generally conceived are not anti-market interventions. A union backed by the state imposing a rule that violates an employer's contracting rights by 1. preventing them from negotiating with workers outside of the union, 2. preventing them from firing workers who unionize or strike and replacing them with new workers, is. These are blatant anti-market interventions that give any group of workers that unionize an effective state-backed monopoly over their employer's labor force. The conspiratorial narratives about opposition to such state-backed monopolies being nothing more than Big Business trying to mislead and exploit the little guy, and such monopolies being in the public interest, is nothing more than economic quackery, on par with anti-vaxxer conspiracy theories about vaccination being a harmful practice that is only widely promoted because of the nefarious influence of Big Pharma. The economic reality is that these rules create rent-seeking and reduce economic efficiency. They will destroy Amazon's dynamism. Giving a select group of workers a temporary wage boost at the expense of the industry that sustains them is the same short-sighted policy implemented in the post-war era, which saw workers see large wage gains, and then saw the industries that employed them suffer massive bankruptcies and contractions.

mirimir 7y ago
It's true that the legality of unions in the US depends on an exception in antitrust law. But it's also true that corporations depend on state-backed exceptions to common law. As such, corporations were generally illegal in the US until the late 1800s. There was an exception for corporations serving the public interest. Initially for building canals and railroads. But in the late 1800s, a series of Supreme Court opinions removed those limitations. Eventually, they got some protection under the 1st, 5th and 14th Amendments. And recently, wider protection under the 1st Amendment. As long as we're going to allow collective action by business owners, it's only fair that we allow collective action by workers.
- zaroth 7y ago
  Any form of business larger than a sole proprietorship is a collective action. The “corporate” form of a business (as supposed to a partnership or other structure) is mostly a matter of taxes, legal liability, and the manner of raising capital and distributing profits. Powerful unions are typically larger than the workforce of any one single company.
  - mirimir 7y ago
    Right. Sole proprietorships and individual workers have similar market power. But without unions, workers have virtually no market power vs corporations (and partnerships, for that matter). I do agree that both corporations and unions ought to be regulated by antitrust law.
    - CryptoPunk 7y ago
      Market power is irrevelant to workers being able to fetch the market rate for their labor. Corporations compete with each other for a limited pool of labor. There is no generalized class conflict between corporations and workers in a free market. Competition happens just as much within classes as between them. Ultimately that results in the wages offered being determined by the underlying market forces of supply and demand that are far larger and more powerful than the efforts of any single party. And it is in society's best interest for wages to be determined by supply and demand and not some social agenda. The only policy which provide zero sum benefits to corporations at the expense of workers is immigration. And that can be addressed by workers through political coordination. The primary purpose of unions is to give select groups of workers the ability to engage in rent-seeking at the expense of the wider economy. We can get political coordination between workers without resorting to unions and all the harm that comes along with them.
      - mirimir 7y ago
        I'm certainly no expert, but it's my impression that workers for large corporations generally get screwed when unions are weak. Based on data from the past several decades.