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Sadly, HN isn't a place to ask questions about second-order effects in politics anymore. Unions are basically legal cartels / mafias, and people will honestly t
by MrBuddyCasino 3y ago
Sadly, HN isn't a place to ask questions about second-order effects in politics anymore. Unions are basically legal cartels / mafias, and people will honestly think there are no effects on labour markets, prices or employment and everything is pure upside, wealth generated out of thin air.
- bashinator 3y agoI mean, if unions are cartels, then so are corporate boards.
- orangepurple 3y agoUnions span across corporations within business sectors whereas corporate boards do not.
- AlexandrB 3y agoWhat about Blackrock? Their representatives sit on many boards in a single industry. Same with large VCs. It's not as structured as unions, but each board is not a completely independent entity either.
- MrBuddyCasino 3y ago> What about Blackrock? This is actually a good point, and is detrimental for similar reasons: concentration of power, reduction of competition and increased fragility of the whole system ("too big to fail").
- sroussey 3y agoActually, BlackRock is incentivized to have the whole system be healthy.
- aurelwu 3y agoBusiness associations do however.
- toyg 3y agoYes, board members are strictly segmented by business sector, by law. I mean, god forbid we could have someone on the board on an aerospace company, a car manufacturer, and an internet behemoth! /s
- orwin 3y agoWell, i have something you might want to hear about. It's called investment funds and weirdly competition between companies started to fall as investment fund rose up. They also are present at a lot of different director board or committees.
- throwawa14223 3y agoI've never felt pressured to join a corporate board against my will.
- bashinator 3y agoHave you ever felt pressured to do work for a corporation when you'd prefer not to? (E.g. take a job for the health care/other life needs).
- AlexandrB 3y ago> everything is pure upside, wealth generated out of thin air. Isn't this also how companies perceive job cuts and wage reduction? Forget about Henry Ford's idea of having a population that can actually afford to buy your products, just keep cutting labor costs. Edit: Or stock buybacks. Just as long as "the line goes up" for now doesn't matter if you run the whole ship into the ground in the future.
- RandomLensman 3y agoUnions are legal and social constructs the same way as, for example, limited liability corporations are. The impact of organized labor has been analysed a lot - have a look at the literature, it isn't trivial.