alt Hacker NewsYou forgot that collective ruin is also an option and we have seen this many times when societies attempted to do away with economic & market concepts.
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Unions are part of a healthy market economy. The succesful suppression of unions is a market failure.
How isn't it a market solution for a collective of individuals to band together to determine what they think are fair conditions of wage and labour? If they are wrong then the whole thing fails just like a business mispricing and/or mistreating its customers would, if they are right they all get a better deal.
It's a freer market than allowing disproportionate power of employers in the labour market distort the price of labour.
Unions are the reason we have a 40 hour week, minimum wage, equal (ish) pay, reasonably safe working conditions, overtime pay, holiday, etc. Anti-union think is a Reagan/Thatcherite psyop, don't drink the kool-aid. Notice that since the dismantling of the Unions both here (UK) and across the pond the average person's life has steady a steady economic decline? Not a coincidence.
Helped along by a little clandestine sabotage, of course.
this is actually pretty rare.
most case of ruin come from hostile warfare and/or interventions/state terrorism.
Wait, which are those again?
We've also seen collective ruin many many times when societies have embraced economic and market concepts. Seen the rust belt anytime lately?
Paying employees is part of the market. Why is the counter argument, that we should not pay employees even a thing these days?
Ask yourself: Why is a paycheck now consider socialist re-distribution of wealth.
Could it be because literally lives are cheap.
Reminder that up until recently, economic & market concepts included a requirement for strong government oversight. The originators/thought creators of capitalism talked about the need for such. Adam Smith argued relentlessly for regulation against monopolies, corruption, and rent-seeking. Libertarian ideologues retrofitted in the fantasy of self-regulating markets without oversight fairly recently and it is turning out to be a pretty disastrous retrofit. I agree, we must go back to true, pre idealog economic & market concepts, like Adam Smith argued for.
Why is union-related collective ruin anathema, but elite-driven ruin is seen as an acceptable price to pay? Enron, the Great Recession, etc.