9 ms·

The Media is dominated by labor unions. I suspect that is the key difference and the source of the conflict. Every unionized journalist has a financial conflict

The Media is dominated by labor unions. I suspect that is the key difference and the source of the conflict. Every unionized journalist has a financial conflict of interest in how they cover the news.

croes 6y ago
How would that change if they weren't unionized?
- CryptoPunk 6y ago
  They would have no financial interest in empowering the political left. Without the anti-capitalist ideology journalists popularize, with stories about 'Amazon the exploiter' for example, the laws that violate their employers' contract liberty, and consequently provide unionized journalists with above market wages and protection from competition from other workers, would not exist.
  - rayiner 6y ago
    That’s the product not of financial interest, but geographic consolidation. As local media disappears, and the industry becomes consolidated in NYC and LA, it becomes increasingly comprised of people who are either from there, or the kind of people who are happy to leave their home towns in the rest of the country to move there. Regardless, that leads to the ideological uniformly you see. Economics is secondary here.
  - ameister14 6y ago
    That kind of story predates journalist unions. The owner of the newspaper has a financial interest in selling papers, and more people are workers than owners.
  - croes 6y ago
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/01/30/good-guys-gamestop-story-its-hedge-funds-short-sellers/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/01/30/good-guys... Sure, totally anti-capitalist ideology. Journalists are already too dependent on ad revenue, that's why they hardly criticise the top 1%.
    - CryptoPunk 6y ago
      Reddit is a threat to unionized journalists. They need top down control to maintain their privileges, like the guilds of old. Case example, for years Vox writers published articles arguing for laws limiting the gig economy, like this one: https://www.vox.com/2016/10/26/13349498/gig-economy-profits-workers-desperate-services-labor https://www.vox.com/2016/10/26/13349498/gig-economy-profits-... Fast forward three years, a new anti-gig-economy law forces Vox to let go of hundreds of gig economy freelancers, thus reducing competition to the unionized journalists who agitated for the law: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/16/vox-media-to-cut-hundreds-of-freelance-jobs-ahead-of-californias-ab5.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/16/vox-media-to-cut-hundreds-of...
  - dgb23 6y ago
    Unions are simply a tool for collective leverage and act as a counterbalance to financial leverage, where ownership and labor are disjoint and have competing interests.
    - CryptoPunk 6y ago
      Unions under current laws can force employers to negotiate exclusively with them, and can strike without fear of being fired and replaced. Collective bargaining in a free market, where the union and employer both freely choose to engage in it, is not exploitive. Under current laws, employers can be forced to engage in collective bargaining, thus limiting their options, and making it a tool for exploitation. "They can freely choose to engage in it. Nobody forces them to rely on wage labor." But that's not contract liberty. If you have contract liberty, you can choose to "rely on wage labor", as you put it, without entering into collective bargaining. The laws the unions rely on restrict contract liberty, i.e. freedom of association, and they're based on socialist constructs like "wage slavery". "Competition goes both ways, not just top down. If you choose to compete with your workers on company resources (AKA wage labor) then you deal with the consequence that these workers use their leverage just as much as you use yours if they have to." I honestly don't understand what you're trying to say or what argument you think I'm making that this is relevant to. For example, I have no idea what this is referring to: "If you choose to compete with your workers on company resources (AKA wage labor)". Could you 1. reiterate to me what you think my argument is, and 2. elaborate on and clarify your point so that I may better understand it?
      - dgb23 6y ago
        They can freely choose to engage in it. Nobody forces them to rely on wage labor.
      - dgb23 6y ago
        > But that's not contract liberty. You're misunderstanding what I'm saying. "A company is not forced to use wage labor" does not mean "they can choose to employ workers under any kind of contract without push-back". Competition goes both ways, not just top down. If you choose to compete with your workers on company resources (AKA wage labor) then you deal with the consequence that these workers use their leverage just as much as you use yours if they have to.
mc32 6y ago
So the union members are the luddites in this scenario. Which means in the long run, they are fated to evolve like the blacksmith of yore. No longer the center of activity, they went on to become machinists and mechanics, important cogs but not as important as before.
- CryptoPunk 6y ago
  The guilds only fell due to the incidental conditions in Europe. Perhaps under different conditions, like Europe coming under a single empire without the competitive and evolutionary pressures that in our timeline led to sovereign powers embracing trade and markets, guilds would have solidified their power. The fall of unions may not be inevitable.
dgb23 6y ago
You might want to have a look here[0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent

croes 6y ago

How would that change if they weren't unionized?

CryptoPunk 6y ago
They would have no financial interest in empowering the political left. Without the anti-capitalist ideology journalists popularize, with stories about 'Amazon the exploiter' for example, the laws that violate their employers' contract liberty, and consequently provide unionized journalists with above market wages and protection from competition from other workers, would not exist.
- rayiner 6y ago
  That’s the product not of financial interest, but geographic consolidation. As local media disappears, and the industry becomes consolidated in NYC and LA, it becomes increasingly comprised of people who are either from there, or the kind of people who are happy to leave their home towns in the rest of the country to move there. Regardless, that leads to the ideological uniformly you see. Economics is secondary here.
- ameister14 6y ago
  That kind of story predates journalist unions. The owner of the newspaper has a financial interest in selling papers, and more people are workers than owners.
- croes 6y ago
  https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/01/30/good-guys-gamestop-story-its-hedge-funds-short-sellers/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/01/30/good-guys... Sure, totally anti-capitalist ideology. Journalists are already too dependent on ad revenue, that's why they hardly criticise the top 1%.
  - CryptoPunk 6y ago
    Reddit is a threat to unionized journalists. They need top down control to maintain their privileges, like the guilds of old. Case example, for years Vox writers published articles arguing for laws limiting the gig economy, like this one: https://www.vox.com/2016/10/26/13349498/gig-economy-profits-workers-desperate-services-labor https://www.vox.com/2016/10/26/13349498/gig-economy-profits-... Fast forward three years, a new anti-gig-economy law forces Vox to let go of hundreds of gig economy freelancers, thus reducing competition to the unionized journalists who agitated for the law: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/16/vox-media-to-cut-hundreds-of-freelance-jobs-ahead-of-californias-ab5.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/16/vox-media-to-cut-hundreds-of...
- dgb23 6y ago
  Unions are simply a tool for collective leverage and act as a counterbalance to financial leverage, where ownership and labor are disjoint and have competing interests.
  - CryptoPunk 6y ago
    Unions under current laws can force employers to negotiate exclusively with them, and can strike without fear of being fired and replaced. Collective bargaining in a free market, where the union and employer both freely choose to engage in it, is not exploitive. Under current laws, employers can be forced to engage in collective bargaining, thus limiting their options, and making it a tool for exploitation. "They can freely choose to engage in it. Nobody forces them to rely on wage labor." But that's not contract liberty. If you have contract liberty, you can choose to "rely on wage labor", as you put it, without entering into collective bargaining. The laws the unions rely on restrict contract liberty, i.e. freedom of association, and they're based on socialist constructs like "wage slavery". "Competition goes both ways, not just top down. If you choose to compete with your workers on company resources (AKA wage labor) then you deal with the consequence that these workers use their leverage just as much as you use yours if they have to." I honestly don't understand what you're trying to say or what argument you think I'm making that this is relevant to. For example, I have no idea what this is referring to: "If you choose to compete with your workers on company resources (AKA wage labor)". Could you 1. reiterate to me what you think my argument is, and 2. elaborate on and clarify your point so that I may better understand it?
    - dgb23 6y ago
      They can freely choose to engage in it. Nobody forces them to rely on wage labor.
    - dgb23 6y ago
      > But that's not contract liberty. You're misunderstanding what I'm saying. "A company is not forced to use wage labor" does not mean "they can choose to employ workers under any kind of contract without push-back". Competition goes both ways, not just top down. If you choose to compete with your workers on company resources (AKA wage labor) then you deal with the consequence that these workers use their leverage just as much as you use yours if they have to.

mc32 6y ago

So the union members are the luddites in this scenario. Which means in the long run, they are fated to evolve like the blacksmith of yore. No longer the center of activity, they went on to become machinists and mechanics, important cogs but not as important as before.

CryptoPunk 6y ago
The guilds only fell due to the incidental conditions in Europe. Perhaps under different conditions, like Europe coming under a single empire without the competitive and evolutionary pressures that in our timeline led to sovereign powers embracing trade and markets, guilds would have solidified their power. The fall of unions may not be inevitable.

dgb23 6y ago

You might want to have a look here[0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent