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Your given examples are absolutely irrelevant to the discussion. If I want to work for Uber there are 2 parties involved (me and Uber). And both of them want to

Your given examples are absolutely irrelevant to the discussion. If I want to work for Uber there are 2 parties involved (me and Uber). And both of them want to work with each other. Your examples include just one party wanting something and using coercion on another party (except the example of taxes, which is a completely different subject all together).

odshoifsdhfs 5y ago
No it doesn't and I am sorry you think that. I know some women that climbed the corporate ladder (in big national baks) by sleeping around, and bosses that were proud of it. two people only, and it is still something we don't want to happen and make rules about it as it can backfire for all. You can say all that you want about working 4 hours on friday night with uber, but here is the thing, Uber has 100% full control over if you will or not work with them. You have 0 control. Bad ratings? Too many drivers? You come from some nationality that is known for 'bad driving' (pick whatever the fuck you want as an excuse). They have 100% the power. You have zero. If they say: 'if even one person gives you less than 5 stars, you are out of here' and you have no recourse whatsoever. This is what we as a society want to prevent. This unilateral power dynamic. I'm european. I have seen good unions, amazing unions, and very shitty ones. I'm not 100% pro-union, but I believe that there should be mechanisms to protect the ones with no leverage, because if we don't, the less fortunate will just be modern day slaves to big corporations, only the name will be different.
short_sells_poo 5y ago
I'd like to see how you fare when trying to negotiate anything with Uber as a driver. They set their conditions to a level that is most beneficial to them, and you have zero ability to negotiate with them. As long as there are enough desperate people to accept their conditions, they have no motivation to change anything. Why would they? So you go and organize with other drivers and then you can go to Uber and say: if you don't accept our conditions, you'll get no drivers full stop. Suddenly the negotiations are among equals. You seem strongly anchored to your freedom, but the reality is that vs a huge corporation, you have none to begin with. Unless you are independently wealthy, you don't even have the freedom to stop participating in the labor pool.
- CryptoPunk 5y ago
  You are able to negotiate with Uber, because they do not have an unlimited pool of labor to draw from. In labor markets with little to no regulations, wages can rapidly grow, because employers complete for workers, and that means they have to offer more pay when general productivity rises. Now what if productivity doesn't rise. Do we want to force companies to reduce shareholder profits in order to pay workers more than what the unrestricted actions of people in the market would result in them being paid? No we don't, and if you doubt me, I can link to you the economic explanations for why that is, which includes an explanation of the role that the profit earned by investors plays in increasing productivity and wages.
CPLX 5y ago
The very existence of Uber is entirely created by the state. Uber is a complete legal fiction. Unless the state decrees that there is such a thing as a corporation, and lays down the rules and parameters of that corporation, there aren't two parties at all. Just many tens of thousands of people who all want to engage in some kind of common enterprise without a formal way to do it. The rules are completely arbitrary, and all of them were created out of thin air, by precedent and mutual agreement and various forms of governmental action. Which is precisely the same way the rules around unions were created too. To see a corporation participating in the market as some sort of observed natural phenomenon and a union participating in the market as some kind of artificial creation is to fundamentally misunderstand what's actually happening here.

odshoifsdhfs 5y ago

No it doesn't and I am sorry you think that. I know some women that climbed the corporate ladder (in big national baks) by sleeping around, and bosses that were proud of it. two people only, and it is still something we don't want to happen and make rules about it as it can backfire for all. You can say all that you want about working 4 hours on friday night with uber, but here is the thing, Uber has 100% full control over if you will or not work with them. You have 0 control. Bad ratings? Too many drivers? You come from some nationality that is known for 'bad driving' (pick whatever the fuck you want as an excuse). They have 100% the power. You have zero. If they say: 'if even one person gives you less than 5 stars, you are out of here' and you have no recourse whatsoever. This is what we as a society want to prevent. This unilateral power dynamic. I'm european. I have seen good unions, amazing unions, and very shitty ones. I'm not 100% pro-union, but I believe that there should be mechanisms to protect the ones with no leverage, because if we don't, the less fortunate will just be modern day slaves to big corporations, only the name will be different.

short_sells_poo 5y ago

I'd like to see how you fare when trying to negotiate anything with Uber as a driver. They set their conditions to a level that is most beneficial to them, and you have zero ability to negotiate with them. As long as there are enough desperate people to accept their conditions, they have no motivation to change anything. Why would they? So you go and organize with other drivers and then you can go to Uber and say: if you don't accept our conditions, you'll get no drivers full stop. Suddenly the negotiations are among equals. You seem strongly anchored to your freedom, but the reality is that vs a huge corporation, you have none to begin with. Unless you are independently wealthy, you don't even have the freedom to stop participating in the labor pool.

CryptoPunk 5y ago
You are able to negotiate with Uber, because they do not have an unlimited pool of labor to draw from. In labor markets with little to no regulations, wages can rapidly grow, because employers complete for workers, and that means they have to offer more pay when general productivity rises. Now what if productivity doesn't rise. Do we want to force companies to reduce shareholder profits in order to pay workers more than what the unrestricted actions of people in the market would result in them being paid? No we don't, and if you doubt me, I can link to you the economic explanations for why that is, which includes an explanation of the role that the profit earned by investors plays in increasing productivity and wages.

CPLX 5y ago

The very existence of Uber is entirely created by the state. Uber is a complete legal fiction. Unless the state decrees that there is such a thing as a corporation, and lays down the rules and parameters of that corporation, there aren't two parties at all. Just many tens of thousands of people who all want to engage in some kind of common enterprise without a formal way to do it. The rules are completely arbitrary, and all of them were created out of thin air, by precedent and mutual agreement and various forms of governmental action. Which is precisely the same way the rules around unions were created too. To see a corporation participating in the market as some sort of observed natural phenomenon and a union participating in the market as some kind of artificial creation is to fundamentally misunderstand what's actually happening here.