4 ms·

There are unwritten rules everywhere. The nice thing is that when the unions in Sweden do strike unlike in the US where maybe they will get some support, there

There are unwritten rules everywhere. The nice thing is that when the unions in Sweden do strike unlike in the US where maybe they will get some support, there is massive groundswell of support behind them to actually get the company to make a change. The fact that the whole country collectively agrees gives the workers far more power.

cbeach 3y ago
How does a country give workers more power? By creating a business-friendly environment. The more companies operate in your country, the more choice of employers. Treated badly? Go work for a competitor. That’s how you put pressure on companies to treat staff better.
- notaustinpowers 3y ago
  Well, we see how that's going in America and it's a race to the bottom. 10 years experience, bachelor's degree required, starting pay of $35k/yr. A society cannot rely on a business whose sole motivation is profitability to provide power to what they view as a liability, not an asset.
  - cbeach 3y ago
    America is in top three nations of the world for wages (OECD 2022). Sweden is 18th. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_wage https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average...
    - supertimor 3y ago
      I mean, in your list Iceland is the number one nation for wages which very much follows a similar Scandinavian model.
      - dzhiurgis 3y ago
        An island that formerly was a tax haven isn’t a great example
    - aaomidi 3y ago
      Wages on their own mean nothing.
    - hnbad 3y ago
      That's not "wages", that's "average wages". I don't expect much but I at least expect a passing knowledge of statistics and intellectual honesty. If most people have nothing and one billionaire joins the group that doesn't make everyone rather wealthy even if it drastically raises the average. Keep in mind that there was a massive rise in C-level and especially CEO compensation compared to most other wages. Arguably this can be traced back to a specific book being rather popular among wealthy investors and entrepreneurs that argued CEOs are underpaid, which many CEOs agreed with and convinced the investors to also agree with. But this does nothing for the wages of anyone outside this group because C-level compensation is orders of magnitude removed from that of anyone lower in the ladder.
      - ilovetux 3y ago
        Which book?
        fifilura 3y ago
        Not Grapes of Wrath
      - cbeach 3y ago
        Okay then, so you'd prefer to analyse median wages, rather than mean wages? The US has the 3rd highest median wages, and Sweden has the 14th highest median wage. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/median-income-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/median-in...
    - Zigurd 3y ago
      The US is #21 on the Human Development Index, a holistic measure of quality of life. Sweden is #7.
  - dghughes 3y ago
    Plus the US is very work cultured your entire identify is what your job is. In many countries of the world a job is a job and your life and family are the important things not your job. Of course we need money but what is the point if your life is crap!
  - cbeach 3y ago
    It's not up to a company to "provide power" to its employees. It's up to the company to fulfil its mutually-agreed terms of contract to those employees. Which in most cases means giving them the dignity and security of a monthly paycheque. In a free market economy (that isn't overly constrained by government and unions), employees can gain all the "power" they like by starting a company of their own, and setting whatever rules they like. If you're seeking "power" without taking responsbility (i.e. running your own compnany), sounds like you want to indulge in politics, as opposed to a good-faith employee-employer relationship.
- mxchris2121 3y ago
  That solution relies on a lot of things having a greater effect than they actually do. It fits the pie in the sky solutions libertarians seem to like so much. Such as high healthcare costs can be fixed by creating greater choice via lowering the barrier of entry to becoming a doctor. The free market, in fact, is not actually the solution of all of society’s ills. Unions raise wages. Anti union laws and or lack of unions results in lower wages. People also just don’t have the kind of job mobility libertarians assume.
  - taylodl 3y ago
    - Libertarians assume more job mobility than actually exists. - Libertarians overlook all the problems with markets that Adam Smith identified. It's as though they never read the second half of the book. - Libertarians overlook how existing players raise barriers to entry for existing markets. - Libertarians overlook the collusion between market players and government to share power and wealth between both. - Libertarians make many, many, many assumptions that are demonstrably false. At this point all we can assume is libertarians know all this, yet keep advocating for libertarianism because it is they who seek the power and the wealth. That is to say, the libertarians are the bad guys, or, they're the stupid guys.
    - InitialLastName 3y ago
      Libertarians are just people who thought they could learn everything they needed from studying economics without learning any history or sociology. Everything has a simple solution until humans get complicated.
      - taylodl 3y ago
        That's an excellent summary!
- hnbad 3y ago
  Unless you propose that there should be more corporations than people, I don't see how the number of companies significantly alters the power dynamics. We literally have industries where the number of job openings vastly outnumber the available talent and instead of better working conditions or compensation or participation this only seems to result in those companies pushing for the softening of immigration laws and reducing protections. The only times we see workers gain leverage is when they are able to form unions and use collective bargaining to avoid being fired. Even for superstar individuals there are limits to what they can demand for themselves and even then it doesn't trickle down to the other employees. There's no market incentive for companies to "treat staff better" (which is really an oversimplification when it comes to basic things like following workplace safety laws, providing paid medical leave and health insurance, not cheap window dressing like foosball machines and free energy drinks) beyond the minimum you can get away with. Payroll is one of the biggest cost factors in most businesses if not the biggest. That means companies are always incentivized to cut labor costs where possible. This is why you say mass layoffs followed by share price increases. If you really want "the market" to fix this problem, ban individual ownership of corporations and require all businesses to act as worker cooperatives. This gives every worker equal power in whichever business they decide to join and gives the owners an incentive to treat workers better because the workers are the owners. You could also do this incrementally by offering public grants to creating cooperatives or turning existing corporations into cooperatives (e.g. by creating a subsidized program to allow workers to "buy out" a bankrupt employer). We don't want a top-down autocratic state so why should we accept a top-down autocratic corporation ruled by a single owner or a non-working board that is only interested in the resale value of the company, not its long-term profitability or sustainability?

cbeach 3y ago

How does a country give workers more power? By creating a business-friendly environment. The more companies operate in your country, the more choice of employers. Treated badly? Go work for a competitor. That’s how you put pressure on companies to treat staff better.

notaustinpowers 3y ago
Well, we see how that's going in America and it's a race to the bottom. 10 years experience, bachelor's degree required, starting pay of $35k/yr. A society cannot rely on a business whose sole motivation is profitability to provide power to what they view as a liability, not an asset.
- cbeach 3y ago
  America is in top three nations of the world for wages (OECD 2022). Sweden is 18th. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_wage https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average...
  - supertimor 3y ago
    I mean, in your list Iceland is the number one nation for wages which very much follows a similar Scandinavian model.
    - dzhiurgis 3y ago
      An island that formerly was a tax haven isn’t a great example
  - aaomidi 3y ago
    Wages on their own mean nothing.
  - hnbad 3y ago
    That's not "wages", that's "average wages". I don't expect much but I at least expect a passing knowledge of statistics and intellectual honesty. If most people have nothing and one billionaire joins the group that doesn't make everyone rather wealthy even if it drastically raises the average. Keep in mind that there was a massive rise in C-level and especially CEO compensation compared to most other wages. Arguably this can be traced back to a specific book being rather popular among wealthy investors and entrepreneurs that argued CEOs are underpaid, which many CEOs agreed with and convinced the investors to also agree with. But this does nothing for the wages of anyone outside this group because C-level compensation is orders of magnitude removed from that of anyone lower in the ladder.
    - ilovetux 3y ago
      Which book?
      - fifilura 3y ago
        Not Grapes of Wrath
    - cbeach 3y ago
      Okay then, so you'd prefer to analyse median wages, rather than mean wages? The US has the 3rd highest median wages, and Sweden has the 14th highest median wage. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/median-income-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/median-in...
  - Zigurd 3y ago
    The US is #21 on the Human Development Index, a holistic measure of quality of life. Sweden is #7.
- dghughes 3y ago
  Plus the US is very work cultured your entire identify is what your job is. In many countries of the world a job is a job and your life and family are the important things not your job. Of course we need money but what is the point if your life is crap!
- cbeach 3y ago
  It's not up to a company to "provide power" to its employees. It's up to the company to fulfil its mutually-agreed terms of contract to those employees. Which in most cases means giving them the dignity and security of a monthly paycheque. In a free market economy (that isn't overly constrained by government and unions), employees can gain all the "power" they like by starting a company of their own, and setting whatever rules they like. If you're seeking "power" without taking responsbility (i.e. running your own compnany), sounds like you want to indulge in politics, as opposed to a good-faith employee-employer relationship.
mxchris2121 3y ago
That solution relies on a lot of things having a greater effect than they actually do. It fits the pie in the sky solutions libertarians seem to like so much. Such as high healthcare costs can be fixed by creating greater choice via lowering the barrier of entry to becoming a doctor. The free market, in fact, is not actually the solution of all of society’s ills. Unions raise wages. Anti union laws and or lack of unions results in lower wages. People also just don’t have the kind of job mobility libertarians assume.
- taylodl 3y ago
  - Libertarians assume more job mobility than actually exists. - Libertarians overlook all the problems with markets that Adam Smith identified. It's as though they never read the second half of the book. - Libertarians overlook how existing players raise barriers to entry for existing markets. - Libertarians overlook the collusion between market players and government to share power and wealth between both. - Libertarians make many, many, many assumptions that are demonstrably false. At this point all we can assume is libertarians know all this, yet keep advocating for libertarianism because it is they who seek the power and the wealth. That is to say, the libertarians are the bad guys, or, they're the stupid guys.
  - InitialLastName 3y ago
    Libertarians are just people who thought they could learn everything they needed from studying economics without learning any history or sociology. Everything has a simple solution until humans get complicated.
    - taylodl 3y ago
      That's an excellent summary!
hnbad 3y ago
Unless you propose that there should be more corporations than people, I don't see how the number of companies significantly alters the power dynamics. We literally have industries where the number of job openings vastly outnumber the available talent and instead of better working conditions or compensation or participation this only seems to result in those companies pushing for the softening of immigration laws and reducing protections. The only times we see workers gain leverage is when they are able to form unions and use collective bargaining to avoid being fired. Even for superstar individuals there are limits to what they can demand for themselves and even then it doesn't trickle down to the other employees. There's no market incentive for companies to "treat staff better" (which is really an oversimplification when it comes to basic things like following workplace safety laws, providing paid medical leave and health insurance, not cheap window dressing like foosball machines and free energy drinks) beyond the minimum you can get away with. Payroll is one of the biggest cost factors in most businesses if not the biggest. That means companies are always incentivized to cut labor costs where possible. This is why you say mass layoffs followed by share price increases. If you really want "the market" to fix this problem, ban individual ownership of corporations and require all businesses to act as worker cooperatives. This gives every worker equal power in whichever business they decide to join and gives the owners an incentive to treat workers better because the workers are the owners. You could also do this incrementally by offering public grants to creating cooperatives or turning existing corporations into cooperatives (e.g. by creating a subsidized program to allow workers to "buy out" a bankrupt employer). We don't want a top-down autocratic state so why should we accept a top-down autocratic corporation ruled by a single owner or a non-working board that is only interested in the resale value of the company, not its long-term profitability or sustainability?