4 ms·

Is it rent-seeking, or simply aggregating negotiating power? Why don't the private sector workers unionize themselves instead of attacking other workers? Why no

by Bakary 4y ago

Is it rent-seeking, or simply aggregating negotiating power? Why don't the private sector workers unionize themselves instead of attacking other workers? Why not focus on the capital owners who rake far, far, far, more and use some of those proceeds to fund think tanks such as the Hoover Institution as a hobby project?

ETH_start 4y ago
It is rent seeking. In unrestricted negotiations, the company would be free to reject collective bargaining, and find workers who will work at market wages. When unions obtain wages above market wages, they are extracting economic rent. >>Why don't the private sector workers unionize themselves instead of attacking other workers? They did, and they destroyed the industries that are amenable to unionization. 50 years after the unions sucked the previous American industrial giants dry, Amazon, Starbucks and Tesla have emerged as new targets for private sector unions, and the unions will steadily take them over. But capital once stung, will be twice shy, and with every cycle, there will be fewer lucrative private sector jobs for unions to colonize.
- woodruffw 4y ago
  And what, pray tell, happens when workers refuse to work at "market wages"[1]? There is no such thing as an "unrestricted negotiation"; only shuffling the restriction to disfavor workers rather than their bosses. We're a nation of free people, and that freedom includes our right to band together and compel better treatment (in the form of hours, conditions, and wages) from our employers. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_strike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_strike
  - ETH_start 4y ago
    >>And what, pray tell, happens when workers refuse to work at "market wages" By the very definition of "market wages", those who are willing to work at market wages get the jobs and those who are not do not. >>only shuffling the restriction to disfavor workers rather than their bosses Workers are not restricted at all when they negotiate, except when a union has monopolized the workforce of a company, and they cannot apply for a job at the company because they are not a member of the union. >>freedom includes our right to band together and compel better treatment Compelling someone who doesn't want to associate with you, to associate with you, is not an exercise of freedom. It's explotiation.
    - cauefcr 4y ago
      >Compelling someone who doesn't want to associate with you, to associate with you, is not an exercise of freedom. It's explotiation. Yes, that's exactly why unions are needed, there is no way to live in capitalism without selling your work-force, or living out of rent on other people's work-force, by owning the means of production. If an owner wants to decrease wages of their workers, they may only receive resistance if the workers are unionized, as that is the only (non-revolution) way to sort of even out the playing field. Just a reminder: Unless you're financially independent, you're not a capitalist, you're a worker, lets not fall for the "anyone can become a capitalist" bullshit, as that ignores the material conditions of most of earth. edit: grammar.
      - ETH_start 4y ago
        >>Yes, that's exactly why unions are needed, there is no way to live in capitalism without selling your work-force, or living out of rent on other people's work-force, by owning the means of production No one compels any one to do anything under the capitalist ruleset, which is simply a ruleset that restricts interactions to those that are mutually voluntary. And hiring someone and making a profit by employing them to operate your capital (what you Marxists call "means of production) is not "economic rent". The enterprise/capital that enables the labor to produce more value than is expended to hire it is provided by the business owner, and contributes value to the economy. I strongly recommend you don't base your understanding of Economics on Marxism. Marxism gives no credit to investors for their role in providing capital. Marxism just takes it for granted that capital will emerge, when in reality you need to compensate those who create capital, through the process of saving and investment, in order to incentivize its emergence. Marxism's non-recognition of this fact is not only a massive oversight that makes the theoretical framework utterly pseudoscientific, it is a consequence of the fact that Marxist theories are totally motivated by an anti-rich ideology, as opposed to the pursuit of scientific truth. >>If an owner wants to decrease wages of their workers, they may only receive resistance if the workers are unionized This is totally baseless. Wages for unskilled labor doubled between 1870 and 1900, a period during which unions were extremely weak, and there was a massive influx of poor immigrants to the US pushing up labor supply which would counter-act the economic forces that push up wage rates. There are other forces that push wages up besides the violations of contract freedom that can locally push up wages for unions. Unlike laws that give unions local monopolies on workforces, economic forces like investment don't depress wages economy-wide. They are positive sum, leading to generalized wage growth.
- Bakary 4y ago
  The idea of a hypothetical unrestricted market that would exist if not for unions or other such groups is a false premise, because the economic environment also has very specific material and societal conditions attached to it, most of which favor the employer. A capital owner can lobby, make use of the legal system, concentrate power and strategy, create oligopolies, hire enforcers, all at a scale unimaginable to the individual worker. The latter is pressured by survival in the present, and has their bargaining power diffused across their group. It's not plausible to claim that these industries died because of unions. Do you sincerely believe that jobs would not have been delocalized to far cheaper countries in either case? Even if we take the argument at face value, and claim that the rent-seeking is real and not just one of the only methods available to tip back the scales for the workers, it's really nothing compared to the rent extraction by the owners. Why do you think they fund think tanks and parts of the media, respond so forcefully to unionization efforts, and constantly try to focus the attention of workers against other workers?
  - ETH_start 4y ago
    >>the economic environment also has very specific material and societal conditions attached to it, most of which favor the employer. None of those restrict any one's negotiating rights. You're employing a common argument for restricting negotiation rights: argue that due to systemic conditions, a free market cannot exist, and thus there is no harm in imposing restrictions on contract liberty. It's a superficially plausible argument but completely baseless when you consider any real world example. >>A capital owner can lobby, make use of the legal system, concentrate power and strategy, create oligopolies, hire enforcers, all at a scale unimaginable to the individual worker. A capital owner lobbying, and successfully instituting a law restricting negotiating rights, would indeed violate rights, and if it were to happen, we would be right to oppose such a law and work to have it repealed. Oligopolies meanwhile are extremely rare, and if they do emerge, there are tools available to the state to fight them. None of the possibilities you cite justify instituting a blanket restriction on the negotiating rights of employers. >>Do you sincerely believe that jobs would not have been delocalized to far cheaper countries in either case? Yes in many cases I think the industries would have expanded domestically, because the US had a growing advantage in supply chain proximity, natural resource availability, infrastructure and the skill level of its labor force. >>Why do you think they fund think tanks and parts of the media, respond so forcefully to unionization efforts, and constantly try to focus the attention of workers against other workers? In New York City alone, public sector unions receive $38 billion a year in compensation. As a political bloc, unions are arguably the most powerful. https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2020/05/26/why-new-york-is-in-trouble--290304-public-employees-with-100000-paychecks-cost-taxpayers-38-billion/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2020/05/26/why...

by Bakary 4y ago

ETH_start 4y ago

It is rent seeking. In unrestricted negotiations, the company would be free to reject collective bargaining, and find workers who will work at market wages. When unions obtain wages above market wages, they are extracting economic rent. >>Why don't the private sector workers unionize themselves instead of attacking other workers? They did, and they destroyed the industries that are amenable to unionization. 50 years after the unions sucked the previous American industrial giants dry, Amazon, Starbucks and Tesla have emerged as new targets for private sector unions, and the unions will steadily take them over. But capital once stung, will be twice shy, and with every cycle, there will be fewer lucrative private sector jobs for unions to colonize.

woodruffw 4y ago
And what, pray tell, happens when workers refuse to work at "market wages"[1]? There is no such thing as an "unrestricted negotiation"; only shuffling the restriction to disfavor workers rather than their bosses. We're a nation of free people, and that freedom includes our right to band together and compel better treatment (in the form of hours, conditions, and wages) from our employers. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_strike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_strike
- ETH_start 4y ago
  >>And what, pray tell, happens when workers refuse to work at "market wages" By the very definition of "market wages", those who are willing to work at market wages get the jobs and those who are not do not. >>only shuffling the restriction to disfavor workers rather than their bosses Workers are not restricted at all when they negotiate, except when a union has monopolized the workforce of a company, and they cannot apply for a job at the company because they are not a member of the union. >>freedom includes our right to band together and compel better treatment Compelling someone who doesn't want to associate with you, to associate with you, is not an exercise of freedom. It's explotiation.
  - cauefcr 4y ago
    >Compelling someone who doesn't want to associate with you, to associate with you, is not an exercise of freedom. It's explotiation. Yes, that's exactly why unions are needed, there is no way to live in capitalism without selling your work-force, or living out of rent on other people's work-force, by owning the means of production. If an owner wants to decrease wages of their workers, they may only receive resistance if the workers are unionized, as that is the only (non-revolution) way to sort of even out the playing field. Just a reminder: Unless you're financially independent, you're not a capitalist, you're a worker, lets not fall for the "anyone can become a capitalist" bullshit, as that ignores the material conditions of most of earth. edit: grammar.
    - ETH_start 4y ago
      >>Yes, that's exactly why unions are needed, there is no way to live in capitalism without selling your work-force, or living out of rent on other people's work-force, by owning the means of production No one compels any one to do anything under the capitalist ruleset, which is simply a ruleset that restricts interactions to those that are mutually voluntary. And hiring someone and making a profit by employing them to operate your capital (what you Marxists call "means of production) is not "economic rent". The enterprise/capital that enables the labor to produce more value than is expended to hire it is provided by the business owner, and contributes value to the economy. I strongly recommend you don't base your understanding of Economics on Marxism. Marxism gives no credit to investors for their role in providing capital. Marxism just takes it for granted that capital will emerge, when in reality you need to compensate those who create capital, through the process of saving and investment, in order to incentivize its emergence. Marxism's non-recognition of this fact is not only a massive oversight that makes the theoretical framework utterly pseudoscientific, it is a consequence of the fact that Marxist theories are totally motivated by an anti-rich ideology, as opposed to the pursuit of scientific truth. >>If an owner wants to decrease wages of their workers, they may only receive resistance if the workers are unionized This is totally baseless. Wages for unskilled labor doubled between 1870 and 1900, a period during which unions were extremely weak, and there was a massive influx of poor immigrants to the US pushing up labor supply which would counter-act the economic forces that push up wage rates. There are other forces that push wages up besides the violations of contract freedom that can locally push up wages for unions. Unlike laws that give unions local monopolies on workforces, economic forces like investment don't depress wages economy-wide. They are positive sum, leading to generalized wage growth.
Bakary 4y ago
The idea of a hypothetical unrestricted market that would exist if not for unions or other such groups is a false premise, because the economic environment also has very specific material and societal conditions attached to it, most of which favor the employer. A capital owner can lobby, make use of the legal system, concentrate power and strategy, create oligopolies, hire enforcers, all at a scale unimaginable to the individual worker. The latter is pressured by survival in the present, and has their bargaining power diffused across their group. It's not plausible to claim that these industries died because of unions. Do you sincerely believe that jobs would not have been delocalized to far cheaper countries in either case? Even if we take the argument at face value, and claim that the rent-seeking is real and not just one of the only methods available to tip back the scales for the workers, it's really nothing compared to the rent extraction by the owners. Why do you think they fund think tanks and parts of the media, respond so forcefully to unionization efforts, and constantly try to focus the attention of workers against other workers?
- ETH_start 4y ago
  >>the economic environment also has very specific material and societal conditions attached to it, most of which favor the employer. None of those restrict any one's negotiating rights. You're employing a common argument for restricting negotiation rights: argue that due to systemic conditions, a free market cannot exist, and thus there is no harm in imposing restrictions on contract liberty. It's a superficially plausible argument but completely baseless when you consider any real world example. >>A capital owner can lobby, make use of the legal system, concentrate power and strategy, create oligopolies, hire enforcers, all at a scale unimaginable to the individual worker. A capital owner lobbying, and successfully instituting a law restricting negotiating rights, would indeed violate rights, and if it were to happen, we would be right to oppose such a law and work to have it repealed. Oligopolies meanwhile are extremely rare, and if they do emerge, there are tools available to the state to fight them. None of the possibilities you cite justify instituting a blanket restriction on the negotiating rights of employers. >>Do you sincerely believe that jobs would not have been delocalized to far cheaper countries in either case? Yes in many cases I think the industries would have expanded domestically, because the US had a growing advantage in supply chain proximity, natural resource availability, infrastructure and the skill level of its labor force. >>Why do you think they fund think tanks and parts of the media, respond so forcefully to unionization efforts, and constantly try to focus the attention of workers against other workers? In New York City alone, public sector unions receive $38 billion a year in compensation. As a political bloc, unions are arguably the most powerful. https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2020/05/26/why-new-york-is-in-trouble--290304-public-employees-with-100000-paychecks-cost-taxpayers-38-billion/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2020/05/26/why...