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I defend this because the union system, where the government mandates companies engage in exclusive bargaining with unions, is illiberal, unfair and economicall

I defend this because the union system, where the government mandates companies engage in exclusive bargaining with unions, is illiberal, unfair and economically destructive. What's fair is the right to quit. Nothing beyond that. No one is entitled to a job that some other party furnishes, and to effectively force that company, via labor regulations, mandated negotiation advantages for unions, etc, to provide them a job with the terms they want. With government mandates against them, Amazon is fighting with both hands tied behind its back, and it's only a matter of time before social activists will succeed in putting the company's US based sites under the control of unions, as we saw happen to the Big Three automakers. In comparison to what Amazon is up against, which is blatant violations of its contract liberty by the state and its apparatus of violence (the courts, police and prisons that compel compliance with state injunctions), these tactics by Amazon are extremely benign.

cycomanic 5y ago
That can be argued for pretty much any government activity. So by your logic lets abolish police, firefighters, the army. Why can't I choose my own police to protect me? That's a blatant violation of my contract liberty!! P.S.: The US big three automakers went down because of complete management failure. They continued to build cars that nobody outside the US wants (seriously go to any other western nation and look how many US cars you see), and then were surprised that US customers started to want superior Japanese and European cars. VW in Germany is highly unionised and they are the second largest car manufacturer in the world.
- CryptoPunk 5y ago
  >>That can be argued for pretty much any government activity. So by your logic lets abolish police, firefighters, the army. Why can't I choose my own police to protect me? That's a blatant violation of my contract liberty!! I am not against government. The US had a government, with police, firefighters, an army and roads, in 1890, and no labor regulations that violated the freedom to contract, because during the Lochner era, the Supreme Court consistently struck down such laws as violating the Constitution's guarantee of substantive due process. That you equate the provision of government services that are pure public goods, with restrictions that prevent people from exercising their contract freedom, shows you fundamentally don't understand the objection to these types of laws, or what "contract liberty" even means. I imagine you see "contract liberty" as synonymous with "anarchy".
  - Timwi 5y ago
    Try to see it from the other side. The side where “contract liberty” is just a buzzword, and the real situation of real people in real life is horrendous and sickening. No amount of philosophical maneuvering is going to stop us criticizing (real and substantive) abuse and mistreatment of fellow human beings.
eesmith 5y ago
The existing government mandates - aka "laws" - exist as a compromise. They prohibit a company like Amazon from engaging in certain practices, and in exchange, some union practices are prohibited. I'm fine with dismantling all laws limiting corporate interactions SO LONG AS all laws limiting unions are similarly lifted. Get rid of Taft-Hartley, and bring back "jurisdictional strikes, wildcat strikes, solidarity or political strikes, secondary boycotts, secondary and mass picketing, closed shops, and monetary donations by unions to federal political campaigns." (quoting Wikipedia). Commonwealth v. Hunt shows unions don't require enabling laws. The economic power of the Boston Journeymen Bootmaker's Society came from the ability to quit - collectively. > these tactics by Amazon are extremely benign. I'll counter when a decidedly not benign - the Ludlow massacre, where companies worked with the government to attack striking coal workers, including firing MACHINE GUNS at them and their families. That's literally the origin of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935. The law that you seem so much against. > blatant violations of its contract liberty The Wikipedia entry for the NLRA specifically points out how it's meant to support contract liberty. ] Under section 1 (29 U.S.C. § 151) of the Act, the key principles and policy findings on which the Act was based are explained. The Act aims to correct the "inequality of bargaining power between employees who, according to the Act's proponents, do not possess full freedom of association or actual liberty of contract and employers who are organized in the corporate or other forms of ownership association".
- CryptoPunk 5y ago
  >>The existing government mandates - aka "laws" - exist as a compromise. They prohibit a company like Amazon from engaging in certain practices, and in exchange, some union practices are prohibited. There is nothing of note that unions could do, that isn't enabled by contract-liberty-violating labor regulations and wouldn't break the law. Picketing Amazon's premises, and beating up replacement workers, as the illegal strikes of the past did, was justifiably punished by the state before the labor regulation era, and for that reason, unions had very little power. All the power they acquired came from laws that abridged the freedom to contract. >>The economic power of the Boston Journeymen Bootmaker's Society came from the ability to quit - collectively. Industry would gladly give unions the power to collectively quit, if it meant they too would have their contract liberty restored, so they could choose to not employ unionized workers, or to replace them without government punishing them. >>I'll counter when a decidedly not benign - the Ludlow massacre, where companies worked with the government to attack striking coal workers, including firing MACHINE GUNS at them and their families. This leaves out a seminally important precursor to the attack on the striker's camp: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_Massacre#Strike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_Massacre#Strike >>When leasing the sites, the union had selected locations near the mouths of canyons that led to the coal camps in order to block any strikebreakers' traffic.[17] The company hired the Baldwin–Felts Detective Agency to protect the new workers and harass the strikers. "block any strikebreakers' traffic" means viciously attack and sometimes murder strikebreakers, who were there to replace them. The strikers were a violent force, engaging in aggression. The only basis for their actions is a victimhood narrative that argues the employer and replacement workers do not have a right to their contract liberty when workers strike. If you accept this illiberal premise, then of course any violence that strikers engage in is justified, and any response is a "massacre".
Groxx 5y ago
If you're interested in maximum freedom of choice, didn't people clearly choose that unions are supported, in large enough numbers to get it written into lawbooks? Or are businesses somehow more free than people, so laws don't apply to them?
- CryptoPunk 5y ago
  >>The Wikipedia entry for the NLRA specifically points out how it's meant to support contract liberty. I think you're confusing the freedom of the majority to repress the rights of the minority, with "contract freedom", i.e. the right to free assocation.
  - Groxx 5y ago
    The right to free association and the right of the majority (power holders) to repress the minority (employees), yes. And yes, I am in favor of limiting that. It has been used for many, many abuses through history. "Free association" really only exists when both sides have equal power, and oh boy is that not the case in most cases.

cycomanic 5y ago

That can be argued for pretty much any government activity. So by your logic lets abolish police, firefighters, the army. Why can't I choose my own police to protect me? That's a blatant violation of my contract liberty!! P.S.: The US big three automakers went down because of complete management failure. They continued to build cars that nobody outside the US wants (seriously go to any other western nation and look how many US cars you see), and then were surprised that US customers started to want superior Japanese and European cars. VW in Germany is highly unionised and they are the second largest car manufacturer in the world.

CryptoPunk 5y ago
>>That can be argued for pretty much any government activity. So by your logic lets abolish police, firefighters, the army. Why can't I choose my own police to protect me? That's a blatant violation of my contract liberty!! I am not against government. The US had a government, with police, firefighters, an army and roads, in 1890, and no labor regulations that violated the freedom to contract, because during the Lochner era, the Supreme Court consistently struck down such laws as violating the Constitution's guarantee of substantive due process. That you equate the provision of government services that are pure public goods, with restrictions that prevent people from exercising their contract freedom, shows you fundamentally don't understand the objection to these types of laws, or what "contract liberty" even means. I imagine you see "contract liberty" as synonymous with "anarchy".
- Timwi 5y ago
  Try to see it from the other side. The side where “contract liberty” is just a buzzword, and the real situation of real people in real life is horrendous and sickening. No amount of philosophical maneuvering is going to stop us criticizing (real and substantive) abuse and mistreatment of fellow human beings.

eesmith 5y ago

The existing government mandates - aka "laws" - exist as a compromise. They prohibit a company like Amazon from engaging in certain practices, and in exchange, some union practices are prohibited. I'm fine with dismantling all laws limiting corporate interactions SO LONG AS all laws limiting unions are similarly lifted. Get rid of Taft-Hartley, and bring back "jurisdictional strikes, wildcat strikes, solidarity or political strikes, secondary boycotts, secondary and mass picketing, closed shops, and monetary donations by unions to federal political campaigns." (quoting Wikipedia). Commonwealth v. Hunt shows unions don't require enabling laws. The economic power of the Boston Journeymen Bootmaker's Society came from the ability to quit - collectively. > these tactics by Amazon are extremely benign. I'll counter when a decidedly not benign - the Ludlow massacre, where companies worked with the government to attack striking coal workers, including firing MACHINE GUNS at them and their families. That's literally the origin of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935. The law that you seem so much against. > blatant violations of its contract liberty The Wikipedia entry for the NLRA specifically points out how it's meant to support contract liberty. ] Under section 1 (29 U.S.C. § 151) of the Act, the key principles and policy findings on which the Act was based are explained. The Act aims to correct the "inequality of bargaining power between employees who, according to the Act's proponents, do not possess full freedom of association or actual liberty of contract and employers who are organized in the corporate or other forms of ownership association".

CryptoPunk 5y ago
>>The existing government mandates - aka "laws" - exist as a compromise. They prohibit a company like Amazon from engaging in certain practices, and in exchange, some union practices are prohibited. There is nothing of note that unions could do, that isn't enabled by contract-liberty-violating labor regulations and wouldn't break the law. Picketing Amazon's premises, and beating up replacement workers, as the illegal strikes of the past did, was justifiably punished by the state before the labor regulation era, and for that reason, unions had very little power. All the power they acquired came from laws that abridged the freedom to contract. >>The economic power of the Boston Journeymen Bootmaker's Society came from the ability to quit - collectively. Industry would gladly give unions the power to collectively quit, if it meant they too would have their contract liberty restored, so they could choose to not employ unionized workers, or to replace them without government punishing them. >>I'll counter when a decidedly not benign - the Ludlow massacre, where companies worked with the government to attack striking coal workers, including firing MACHINE GUNS at them and their families. This leaves out a seminally important precursor to the attack on the striker's camp: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_Massacre#Strike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_Massacre#Strike >>When leasing the sites, the union had selected locations near the mouths of canyons that led to the coal camps in order to block any strikebreakers' traffic.[17] The company hired the Baldwin–Felts Detective Agency to protect the new workers and harass the strikers. "block any strikebreakers' traffic" means viciously attack and sometimes murder strikebreakers, who were there to replace them. The strikers were a violent force, engaging in aggression. The only basis for their actions is a victimhood narrative that argues the employer and replacement workers do not have a right to their contract liberty when workers strike. If you accept this illiberal premise, then of course any violence that strikers engage in is justified, and any response is a "massacre".

Groxx 5y ago

If you're interested in maximum freedom of choice, didn't people clearly choose that unions are supported, in large enough numbers to get it written into lawbooks? Or are businesses somehow more free than people, so laws don't apply to them?

CryptoPunk 5y ago
>>The Wikipedia entry for the NLRA specifically points out how it's meant to support contract liberty. I think you're confusing the freedom of the majority to repress the rights of the minority, with "contract freedom", i.e. the right to free assocation.
- Groxx 5y ago
  The right to free association and the right of the majority (power holders) to repress the minority (employees), yes. And yes, I am in favor of limiting that. It has been used for many, many abuses through history. "Free association" really only exists when both sides have equal power, and oh boy is that not the case in most cases.