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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   28032 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 11, 2023

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End of day unions steal from other workers. They only have market power if there is a bottleneck. Longer term you can just hirer other people. But in a constant cost business they just drive up prices for everyone else.

Or since this is the auto industry and exposed to free trade they end up bankrupting their firm and everyone just buys a cheaper Japanese car.

There is always a bottleneck. This isn't the early 1800s; even unskilled labour isn't that unskilled, and a mass of people quitting means a shock in training, logistics, production, and many other things. This isn't 'stealing' from anyone, and people both are and should be free to do so.

I disagree, some industries have short term bottlenecks but medium term they can hire and train.

And yes I will stick with its stealing. It violates market principles.

There are lots of things violating the market principles of spherical cow land that nobody would call stealing. It isn't helpful, and it makes stealing look better more than it makes unions look bad.

That’s just like your opinion. If it costs the average consumer money it feels like stealing to me.

Your feelings are an extremely poor substitute for argument and thought. Lots of things we don't consider theft cost consumers money; blessedly, consumers' purses aren't the be-all and end-all of the world, and tend to be weighed against other pressing matters.

Ok so you don’t like my frame. It doesn’t change what unions do which is theft. They don’t abide by market forces. If you want to propose something similar I will agree it’s theft.

  • -10

Lots of things that aren't 'abiding by market forces' aren't theft. Until the day we live in AnCapTopia and everything is left to the free market, that's the world we live in, and things seem to work out pretty well. The archetypical case of theft is robbery: taking something that isn't yours. A thousand employees banding together and demanding higher wages or they'll quit isn't that.*

*Yes, American law makes a mess of that principle. Too bad.

So it’s theft by my definition. Sorry you don’t like my frame but using government mandated force to make others poorer well is theft.

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