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No, it's solidly within the calculus of economics. Why are you concluding that rejection of unions are due to a cultural or personal disdain for unions, and rej
by Manuel_D 2y ago
No, it's solidly within the calculus of economics. Why are you concluding that rejection of unions are due to a cultural or personal disdain for unions, and rejecting the possibility that software developers disapprove of unions for economic reasons?
The economic calculus is pointing against unions: effectively every trade union creates tenure-based pay structures, which don't reward high performers and punish people who change jobs. This makes it hard to retain high performers as they can get better offers from non-unionized companies, and selects for the low performers that stand to benefit under a tenure-based pay structure.
Furthermore, unions routinely block advancements that improve efficiency, because it would reduce the amount of workers required. This is beneficial for the union, which has its membership artificially inflated. But it's bad for society as a whole. Unionized workplaces are routinely the least efficient companies on account of this. For instance, longshoremen's unions in the US have widely blocked automation at ports. The result? American ports are some of the least efficient in the world, despite costing on par with other developed countries. We all bear the cost of this inefficiency in terms of more expensive supply chains, which in turn makes products throughout the country more expensive than they should be.
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- kelseyfrog 2y agoI appears to me that software developers reject unions beyond what can be explained by economics alone. I'm not sure how that turned into "economics aren't a factor." Maybe you can explain how that happened?
- Manuel_D 2y agoYou've edited or deleted your comment at least 3 times since I typed my reply. Regardless, I'm just going to highlight the relevant parts of the comment I responded to: > It's a thought, but ceteris paribus, software engineers seem to have a particular scorn for unions beyond the calculus of economics. In other words, there is a personality/sub-cultural disdain for unions.
- kelseyfrog 2y agoOk. Beyond for me means that there is a part that can be explained by economic and a part that exceeds economics. I hope that clarifies.
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- Manuel_D 2y agoRight, and my point is that is it completely explained by economic reasoning. One way or another, you are rejecting the notion that software developers are capable of arriving at anti-union positions on the basis of economic reasons alone. You insist, without evidence or justification, that there must be some other motivation beyond economics.
- kelseyfrog 2y agoLet me get this right. You're making the point that the economics explains the entirety of tech's disdain for unions? You know that all it takes is one counter-example, right?
- Manuel_D 2y agoMy point is that the sizeable majority of the disdain for unions stems from economic reasoning, not some personality or sub-cultural factor. Let's revisit the original comment I responded to: > It's a thought, but ceteris paribus, software engineers seem to have a particular scorn for unions beyond the calculus of economics. In other words, there is a personality/sub-cultural disdain for unions. When one writes "software engineers _______", without any sort of qualifier, the typical interpretation is that the statement applies to the majority of the group. It's a very different thing to write "software engineers seem to have a particular scorn for unions beyond the calculus of economics" and "a handful of software developers seem to have a particular scorn for unions beyond the calculus of economics".