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> They could form their own company. doing whatever it is they are striking from doing. They have exactly the skills and roughly enough people. If the industry

> They could form their own company. doing whatever it is they are striking from doing. They have exactly the skills and roughly enough people. If the industry that they're in requires real up-front investment then they could jump industries. I've got a friend who is a railway engineer. His company is slashing their workers' pay and making redundancies that he says will compromise safety. Meanwhile, executive bonuses have increased massively and they have increased dividend payments. What would your suggestion be? Start their own railway company? How much capital would that take? You say "jump industries" but not everyone can jump industries. It's really not that easy. He's highly skilled. If you just "jump industries", how do you avoid starting again as a junior? What if you are providing for a family? > start pooling their resources looking for some economies of scale What are you thinking of? Could you give some examples? I might be interested in investing. I don't know of any investment opportunities that benefit from economies of scale. If there were some, wouldn't they be dominated by the bigger investors already? > find some excess cash and start investing that. You need cash first to invest it. What do you if your company is reducing your pay? > Or they could put their energy into political activism rather than fighting the only person on the planet who is currently willing to give them money. I'm all for political activism. But that's very long term, and doesn't necessarily benefit you directly. If you need to pay your mortgage now and put food on your table and buy Christmas presents it's not a helpful suggestion. Assuming you don't mean union activism, which can be immediately beneficial.

roenxi 4y ago
You are putting a lot of hypotheticals here. I suspect you want me to answer the question of what someone should do if they have literally no alternative apart from striking for whatever reason. And if there are no alternatives then sure, go ahead and strike. Maybe a miracle will happen and the workers will suddenly become well off. But realistically the strikee-s should acknowledge that they've already failed to secure their own prosperity, and the opportunity to correct that failure is something other than going on strike. Maybe they've locked themselves in to a bad outcome, but realistically they should be exploring all available options because any strategy that doesn't involve striking is better. If your best option is going on strike, the situation has already reached the point of no return and the opportunity for a prosperous existence is lost. There is an easy strategy for success. Invest in capital. Invest in education. That works. It isn't fast, but it should be Plan A. breaking stuff or doing nothing but eating reduces the available resources and makes the community poorer. It should be Plan ZZZZ. I suspect we will find it is unlikely to even secure tactical victories in hard times and companies will fold. I don't need a personalised plan for every unlucky person in the world to point out this relatively obvious fact. I don't believe most people who end up on strike have actually tested all the options that they could have tried with a coordinated group of people before they try striking. No shame on them really, but most groups just aren't that thorough. But letting them believe maybe they're doing something clever is a disservice; it is a plan to fail. Going back to the thread root, it makes a huge amount of sense to negotiate away the right to strike if someone is willing to give you money to do that. I too would enjoy being paid to not shoot myself in the foot. > I've got a friend who is a railway engineer. I've got nowhere near enough information about the gentleman to speculate. But I can say with confidence that if his best plan is to work less and dedicate his energies to fighting his employer then his future is bleak regardless of the outcome. It isn't a strategy that can make him better off long term. It is going to make him and his company poorer the longer that is his best option for bettering his income. I am neutral about being the bearer of bad news, but I note that it is not my fault that the news is bad. > I don't know of any investment opportunities that benefit from economies of scale. A group of striking workers couldn't get enough capital to benefit if there are. You talk of a fellow trying to support his family, and I note that families have quite different spending profiles depending on the number and age of the children involved. There is going to be some slack in the system if a group of families are willing to work together and try to pool their resources and that is what I'm thinking of.
- chimprich 4y ago
  > You are putting a lot of hypotheticals here. I suspect you want me to answer the question of what someone should do if they have literally no alternative apart from striking for whatever reason. I'm not giving you hypotheticals. I've given you a concrete example of someone who is striking, and I believe it is in his best interests to do so. He does not have "literally no alternatives", but they all seem worse in some way. > But I can say with confidence that if his best plan is to work less and dedicate his energies to fighting his employer then his future is bleak regardless of the outcome It's not his preferred plan. He'd prefer not to have his pay slashed and would prefer to dedicate his energies to doing his best work. I can say with some degree of confidence that the outcome of the strike will be that the employer will offer better terms and a compromise will be reached. That is how most strikes end. Despite your early protestations, I think you're ideologically opposed to the idea of striking. However, most democracies have come to the conclusion that strikes are a useful tool that protects workers' rights and helps offset the asymmetric power balance between employer and employee. No one wants to strike; ideally just the potential for striking deters employers from cutting workers' salaries to the bone in the pursuit of profit.
  - roenxi 4y ago
    It isn't a concrete example, there are too many relevant details to put in a HN thread. We can't really discuss his exact circumstances, he isn't on hand to ask what alternatives he & his striking workmates actually considered. And you're asking me to work with the premise that there is literally no alternatives when that is really the fact that is up for debate. If the only option is to destroy wealth then sure, do that. But he isn't going to get wealthy that way. > It's not his preferred plan. He'd prefer not to have his pay slashed and would prefer to dedicate his energies to doing his best work. Those are 2 bad plans. I suppose I'll ask anyway - how many alternatives has he seriously considered? Has he seriously considered any alternatives that might get him a good outcome? What were they? There have to at least be some that he considered before giving up and saying there is no alternative. This presents striking as Plan B. > Despite your early protestations, I think you're ideologically opposed to the idea of striking. Yeah. I'm saying that if the best decision is to strike then he's screwed up some decision in the past really badly, that is fundamentally an ideological take. Having a coherent ideology is an important tool for wealth creation. Most of the wealth creation from the industrial revolution onwards has been due to ideological innovations. Capitalism is an ideological position; it just happens to work a lot better than people who think striking is a practical way of securing a lifestyle. If he is using striking as a tool, he's going to stay poor.

roenxi 4y ago

You are putting a lot of hypotheticals here. I suspect you want me to answer the question of what someone should do if they have literally no alternative apart from striking for whatever reason. And if there are no alternatives then sure, go ahead and strike. Maybe a miracle will happen and the workers will suddenly become well off. But realistically the strikee-s should acknowledge that they've already failed to secure their own prosperity, and the opportunity to correct that failure is something other than going on strike. Maybe they've locked themselves in to a bad outcome, but realistically they should be exploring all available options because any strategy that doesn't involve striking is better. If your best option is going on strike, the situation has already reached the point of no return and the opportunity for a prosperous existence is lost. There is an easy strategy for success. Invest in capital. Invest in education. That works. It isn't fast, but it should be Plan A. breaking stuff or doing nothing but eating reduces the available resources and makes the community poorer. It should be Plan ZZZZ. I suspect we will find it is unlikely to even secure tactical victories in hard times and companies will fold. I don't need a personalised plan for every unlucky person in the world to point out this relatively obvious fact. I don't believe most people who end up on strike have actually tested all the options that they could have tried with a coordinated group of people before they try striking. No shame on them really, but most groups just aren't that thorough. But letting them believe maybe they're doing something clever is a disservice; it is a plan to fail. Going back to the thread root, it makes a huge amount of sense to negotiate away the right to strike if someone is willing to give you money to do that. I too would enjoy being paid to not shoot myself in the foot. > I've got a friend who is a railway engineer. I've got nowhere near enough information about the gentleman to speculate. But I can say with confidence that if his best plan is to work less and dedicate his energies to fighting his employer then his future is bleak regardless of the outcome. It isn't a strategy that can make him better off long term. It is going to make him and his company poorer the longer that is his best option for bettering his income. I am neutral about being the bearer of bad news, but I note that it is not my fault that the news is bad. > I don't know of any investment opportunities that benefit from economies of scale. A group of striking workers couldn't get enough capital to benefit if there are. You talk of a fellow trying to support his family, and I note that families have quite different spending profiles depending on the number and age of the children involved. There is going to be some slack in the system if a group of families are willing to work together and try to pool their resources and that is what I'm thinking of.

chimprich 4y ago
> You are putting a lot of hypotheticals here. I suspect you want me to answer the question of what someone should do if they have literally no alternative apart from striking for whatever reason. I'm not giving you hypotheticals. I've given you a concrete example of someone who is striking, and I believe it is in his best interests to do so. He does not have "literally no alternatives", but they all seem worse in some way. > But I can say with confidence that if his best plan is to work less and dedicate his energies to fighting his employer then his future is bleak regardless of the outcome It's not his preferred plan. He'd prefer not to have his pay slashed and would prefer to dedicate his energies to doing his best work. I can say with some degree of confidence that the outcome of the strike will be that the employer will offer better terms and a compromise will be reached. That is how most strikes end. Despite your early protestations, I think you're ideologically opposed to the idea of striking. However, most democracies have come to the conclusion that strikes are a useful tool that protects workers' rights and helps offset the asymmetric power balance between employer and employee. No one wants to strike; ideally just the potential for striking deters employers from cutting workers' salaries to the bone in the pursuit of profit.
- roenxi 4y ago
  It isn't a concrete example, there are too many relevant details to put in a HN thread. We can't really discuss his exact circumstances, he isn't on hand to ask what alternatives he & his striking workmates actually considered. And you're asking me to work with the premise that there is literally no alternatives when that is really the fact that is up for debate. If the only option is to destroy wealth then sure, do that. But he isn't going to get wealthy that way. > It's not his preferred plan. He'd prefer not to have his pay slashed and would prefer to dedicate his energies to doing his best work. Those are 2 bad plans. I suppose I'll ask anyway - how many alternatives has he seriously considered? Has he seriously considered any alternatives that might get him a good outcome? What were they? There have to at least be some that he considered before giving up and saying there is no alternative. This presents striking as Plan B. > Despite your early protestations, I think you're ideologically opposed to the idea of striking. Yeah. I'm saying that if the best decision is to strike then he's screwed up some decision in the past really badly, that is fundamentally an ideological take. Having a coherent ideology is an important tool for wealth creation. Most of the wealth creation from the industrial revolution onwards has been due to ideological innovations. Capitalism is an ideological position; it just happens to work a lot better than people who think striking is a practical way of securing a lifestyle. If he is using striking as a tool, he's going to stay poor.