So, Kalhoun, you would rather make a deal with Jimmy Hoffa than Confucious?
Good to know where your loyalties lie.
@ the OP
For anyone to distinguish between just acts and aggression, they need to have a worked out a theory of justice. And since it is only possible to come into conflict over scarce economic goods, every theory of justice is a theory of property rights (exclusive jurisdiction).
Now we, Austro-libertarians, have more or less worked out such a system.
First of all, everyone is the owner of their own physical bodies, and second, of every previously unowned nature given resource which they develop with their own labour. So we are the owners of our labour and any land that we develop.
Next, any goods we produce with land that we own and our own labour, are legitimately ours. So, any consumer goods we produce, or captial goods, legitimately belong to us.
Since, we legitimately own some goods, we have the right to transfer them to others, and they have the right to transfer goods to us. We also have the right to transfer goods conditionally. I will give you two apples, but only if you give me three oranges. So everyone has the right to enter into a voluntary contract transfering goods that they own, and vice versa. Also, everyone has the right not to enter into a contract they don’t want to, since they are the exclusive owners of their own property and have no obligation to transfer it to anyone if they have not previously agreed to do so.
Now, all of this follows so long as the first two principles, self-ownership (we own our bodies) and original appropriation (we own goods previously unowned goods we mix our labour with), hold. And these two principles are practically self-evident. Nobody has a better claim to another’s body than that person themself. And nobody has a better claim to a resouce than the first person to put it to use.
Unions operate on the priciple of collective bargaining. They claim to represent a collective of workers, defined by occupation, region, organization, ect. They claim the right to negotiate (contract) for the entire collective. They set the conditions of employment for all workers, choose whether to work, and whether or not to quit on behalf of all workers.
However, it should be obvious that just because one claims to represent all workers, in a field, working for a particular company, or working in a region, that it doesn’t necessarily follow that they actually represent them. Some workers may want to strike, others may want to work. So may be unwilling to work for a wage below, let’s say, $20/hr. Others may consider $15/hr to be fair and good. By collectively bargaining, it violates some worker’s right to freedom of contract.
It does this in several ways. It may set up a picket line and smash any scabs who try to cross it and work. Or, it may simply have the government enforce legal penalties against indivduals (both capitalists and workers) who fail to acknowledge its demands.
In short, unions are aggressive and unjustified because they violate prior property rights of indivduals.
That’s your argument? Henry Ford was paying his workers 5.50$ a day, was that a pitiful wage.
Again with the “underpaying” argument, and yes I myself have experienced the underpayment.
I, personally, like to think that I am worth 1mil/hour, but no one wants to hire me, how cruel…
What are you saying? please explain this point when you have the time.
You appealing to a picture has certainly convinced me of the error of my ways.
So far, this thread is silly. I don’t know whether your intention is to educate someone through rational arguments or through meaningless slideshows that appeal to one’s envy.
Atleast Epicurus is challenging, even though it’s always the same rhetoric non sense.
The OP said that companies outsource to nations like China because their living standards are held arbitrarily low by their governments, not becuase of any kind of free market determination of such things. People said it’s the unions fault. I responded that it’s good to see you guys feel a company is more justified making a deal with a dictator, rather than a union.
Why don’t we deal with that argument rather than straw men like:
LOL, “Epicurus,” way to twist things around. Setting up a factory and voluntarily employing workers there is not “making a deal with a dictator.”
My argument is no more about the justification for the existence of unions than it is the justification for governments. Or,
So, Kalhoun, you would rather make a deal with Jimmy Hoffa than Confucious?
Good to know where your loyalties lie.
Particularly because this scarecrow has no brains.
Furthermore, if anything, unions encourage companies to flee overseas by demanding artificially high levels of compensation.
This here: if the choice is between an oppressive governemnt artifically lowering wages, or a union “artificially” raising wages, you would advise the company to deal with the oppressive government, yes?
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Not all unions work for the corporate class.
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Why are there government employee unions?
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You are implying that unions arose because the corporatist threatened to move jobs to overseas. Do you have any historical evidence? I could have sworn that unions arose because of unfair wages and poor working conditions.
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Not all employers who have unions have threatened to move jobs over seas. So, can we do away with the government-granted priviledges of those unions?
Unions operate on the priciple of collective bargaining. They claim to represent a collective of workers, defined by occupation, region, organization, ect. They claim the right to negotiate (contract) for the entire collective. They set the conditions of employment for all workers, choose whether to work, and whether or not to quit on behalf of all workers.
Correct. Surely you would not oppose people voluntarily joining “clubs” that represent their interests?
However, it should be obvious that just because one claims to represent all workers, in a field, working for a particular company, or working in a region, that it doesn’t necessarily follow that they actually represent them. Some workers may want to strike, others may want to work. So may be unwilling to work for a wage below, let’s say, $20/hr. Others may consider $15/hr to be fair and good. By collectively bargaining, it violates some worker’s right to freedom of contract
So some poeple are not happy with the terms of the orginization they joined voluntarily… so? If they don’t like it, work somewhere else.
You may respond that the government forces the company to deal with only the union, but that does not have to be, nor is it always the case. You’re criticising specific actions of specific unions and exporting that to the actions of all unions at all times. You might want to try that one again.
In short, unions are aggressive and unjustified because they violate prior property rights of indivduals.
Maybe you should try a long answer cuz this just doesn’t cut it. Unions do’t do any such thing. Some unions may. A strike may. Pro-union legislation may. But “unions” don’t.
Of course, we’re going to define freedom, property, and rights far differently, so all those “may’s” turn into “probably dont’s” for me. But whatever.
Guys, fear not. The unions will win because Martin Luther King is on their side.
“April 4 [is] the day on which Martin Luther King Jr. gave his life for the cause of public collective bargaining”
“A lot of people forget that what [King] was doing in Memphis was fighting for sanitation workers there,” says Josh Goldstein, an AFL-CIO spokesman. “It’s important for people to make the connection. Martin Luther King was so important to the labor movement. Workers’ rights and civil rights go hand in hand. It’s a time to remind people what he was fighting for.”
“That song should be called Abraham and Martin and Jimmy Hoffa. Abraham Lincoln gave his life for the union, Martin Luther King gave his life for the union, and Jimmy Hoffa gave his life for the union. They are the Holy Trinity. Who is this John fellow?”
The OP said that companies outsource to nations like China because their living standards are held arbitrarily low by their governments,
Total nonsense. Your evidence for such a ridiculous notion?
not becuase of any kind of free market determination of such things. People said it’s the unions fault.
We said it’s the union’s fault that labor is cheap in China? Nope.
It’s the unions’ fault that businesses into which they slither in go bankrupt? Yes.
Businesses outsource because it is cheaper. Why is it cheaper? Partly because of unions, but there are other reasons. Chinese dictators with Fu Manchu moustaches have nothing to do with it. No evidence has been presented that it is.
I responded that it’s good to see you guys feel a company is more justified making a deal with a dictator, rather than a union.
You know what a straw man is, and yet make a statement like that?
You can’t tell me the statement accurately reflects your position and then say it is at the same time a straw man. Either it accurately reflects your position, or it doesn’t.
You’re just going to have to go with the definition me and the OP agree upon for “dictatorship.” China most certainly is in that category.
But since you demand evidence for gravity, I will provide you with the most known example of modern chinese government’s repressive nature (I could get you many others, but since they stamp out all dissent it makes it hard to get real knowledge of occurences in China, rather than “official” knowledge of them).
An interesting case of purblindness. You recognize the straw man when it is stated mocking the one you erected, yet fail to see him in your own backyard.
!. Where did I say, or can you infer, that I would make a deal with either of them?
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It’s going to be an interesting jump to call a failed public servant a dictator. He certainly worked for a dictator, but he also worked for extensive reform of said dictatorship towards a more open and just society.
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I have my problems with Hoffa, the consolidation of unions, and union involvement with the mafia.. but you make it seem like Jimmy Hoffa is Satan incarnate
Straw man again. Neither you nor the OP have shown that an oppresive govt “artificially” lowered wages. It is impossible to do so and yet be productive. But unions, aided by violence do artificially raise wages for their guys. It is impossible to be productive in such circs as well, and indeed unions drive the businesses they infect to bankruptcy**.**
You argue for evidence of gravity. You are arguing that the chinese government does not intervene extensively in its people’s political and economic freedom? Someone probably just got shot/thrown in jail for advocating reform as I type this.
China extensively represses its people’s political and economic freedom (do you deny this?), and it is a productive economy. I think it is YOU who will have to show how this doesn’t break your unfounded assertion that slavery didn’t exist for thousands of years and prove productive enough to maintain its position.
Like I said, this scarecrow has no brains. I don’t even know where to start.
Unions are often accused (almost to the extent of it being a cliche) of ‘holding the public to ransom’. I would maintain that actually it is the corporate class that is being held to ransom - and justifiably so.
The Unions power is facilitated purely by the government. Without government support, the workers would still have the option to strike if they felt they were being treated unfairly, but wouldn’t have job security while they did it.
When a company holds us workers to ransom by threatening to relocate to china and utilise what is effectively slave labour, what other option is left? The conditions of employment in countries that are offshored to, are certainly not due to the genuine free-market as libertarians would have it - they are due to nasty dictatorships holding down working conditions.
I assume you don’t believe in private property than. The company has the right to reallocate if choose to. They are not required to keep you or anyone else as an employee. If you aren’t happy with the conditions, you can quit. I can guarantee without unions the workers would be treated far better. The market would determine what people were willing to put up with and for how much money. A company can’t stay in business without employee’s. They still may relocate operations to foreign nations, but there is nothing wrong with that.
So if employers are not willing to abide by the rules of the free-market and employ only those who have a chance to reject their appalling terms of condition, why should workers abide by the rules of the free-market?
Even in China the workers have a choice in working for these companies. They willingly choose to work their because these western companies pay more than the non-western factories. Simply because the country they are located in may not be free, the workers are still free to choose to work there.
In short, is not union activity a legitimate response to the agression of bosses who will jump in bed with any nasty regime that will give them a profit at the expense of the people they employ?
No unions in their current form are not legitimate. The people in these nations are benefiting from these companies opening up factories.
This sounds very familiar to the arguments I heard from a Mutualist a month ago.
I did not say, nor did anyone else, that it accurately reflects my position. You confuse what YOU think we are saying with what we are actually saying. Which is the classical straw man fallacy.
Straw man.
You confuse political freedom and economic freedom. And you confuse both with the magical and impossible ability to make people productive when they are paid slave wages.
You confuse the Bizzaro world [where you think I did not provide a link to back up my claim] with the real one [where I did].
As LS is fond of saying, I will not do your research for you. You have been provided one link. There are many more on this site alone. Set forth, my son, and slay the dragon of ignorance.
No. But unions make binding decisions for all workers without unanimous consent.
I like to think of it as empirical extrapolation. Without a single counter example, the likelihood of a union not doing those things is pretty low.
Some central banks may print money, but “central banks” don’t. But hey, maybe its just all semantics. We’re gonna define money, printing, and banking far differently so “may’s” turn into “probably don’t’s” for me.
No, on the contrary, unions are protected by the governement.
Take the “scabs” , if the union decides that my wage is too low they can then go “on strike”. I will obviously find someone else to work for me at that price(scabs), unfortunately the governement has made that illegal, I wonder why…
It’s late in the day so I won’t be leaving a detailed response. Will do later though. In the meantime, I thought a small link might put things in perspective.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/video/2005/06/14/VI2005061401932.html
This is what Chinese people have as alternative to working in shitty sweatshop conditions. Now tell me how on earth they can be considered free to choose what job they like. Capitalism was baptised in the blood of independent labourers during the era of enclusre here in England. The same thing is happening today in China, and so-called Liberarians spring to the defense of the powerful. It’s pathetic.
I’m so tempted to answer that video of yours, but I would like an answer to my previous posts Consumariat.
You know…some answers that aren’t vague and appeal to emotion, and no pictures this time. I know a picture is a thousand words, but please spare me the nonsense. If you plan on proving something please cut the bs and be precise. It makes the thread lead nowhere.
Consumariat-
“state-run plant”
The conclusion of the author of the OP is not sound because his premises contain non-truths. That is because his definitions of slave labour and others are wrong.
That’s your argument? Henry Ford was paying his workers 5.50$ a day, was that a pitiful wage.
I’m sure he was, but that is besides the point. Noone is claiming that ALL Capitalist employers are out to rip off their workers. What I have said is that union responses are perfectly understandable when workers are agressed against by employers who would move their capital to places like China where the wages are kept artificially low by a government that behaves in a way seen in that video.
Again with the “underpaying” argument, and yes I myself have experienced the underpayment.
I, personally, like to think that I am worth 1mil/hour, but no one wants to hire me, how cruel…
Presumabley being an advocate of the free market, you would consider wages set by that market as fair. Yet wages in China are very often set by brutal suppression of economic alternatives to sweatshop labour. If a western employer threatens its workers with the prospect of moving to China, isn’t that employer just taking advantage of a lopsided power balance in order to set wages here below what they should be? I would say so.
What are you saying? please explain this point when you have the time.
You’ve heard of child labour haven’t you? Well that is what the Chinese economy is built on. When I talk of recently evicted peasants I refer to people who have been forcebly thrown off the land that their ancestors have lived on for centuries, and given a choice between wage labour and starvation. These people do NOT have any ‘choice’ in the matter, unless you consider death to be a choice. Have you heard of enclosure?
You are saying that the Chinese government engages in opposite-union activity. They repress wages in China and that represses wages in the US. So unions are merely counteracting that. (Assuming that unions actually can raise wages, which they can’t.) But China was a communist country until recently, and to a large degree still is. That’s why Chinese workers are undervalued compared to their western contemporaries, who had the privilege of being born in a relatively capitalist country. The Chinese government represses wages to make Chinese labor more affordable, to get more of it’s people employed. Despite that they have a few hundred million unemployed Chinese workers. Aggregate wages in China are zero-sum, so to say. Whether the Chinese government represses wages or not, Chinese labor is still hugely undervalued. Wages in China are low because it was a socialist country, not because of government repression. It is therefore wrong to say that western capitalists are indirectly benefiting from government coercion by threatening to move jobs to China. All they are doing is to make the best economic decision in a changing world, to the benefit of humanity as a whole.
My point exactly, Henry Ford wasn’t out to rip-off his workers, he knew it wasn’t in his best interest . Did his business achieve honorable success, compared to the “robber Barron’s” I’d say yes.
Union responses are understandable. I too would be pissed if someone did that too me, but you see the answer is not in a revolution but in competition. Having people create unions and using coercion as their weapon in order to set artifial wages is never the answer, and it always causes more problems, especially in the long run.
What they could do is try to replace the business and not run to the government. I like to point out that unions are one of the most corrupt organizations that exist today.
Non sequitur, you are comparing the free market with the Chinese totalitarian one.
Like I said earlier, the solution is competition, there is no way to stop someone from moving his factory in China. The employer thinks it’s better for the company then so it is. Also, please try to define for me "what they should be? ".
I see your point on why it is not fair and I happen to completely agree with you, but what solution are you offering other then creating corrupt unions and messing the economy?
Yes I did, and as a matter of fact I’d like to see you offer an alternative to child labor. Third world countries need child labor, unless you can offer them something else, be my guest. What are your plans on ending child labor?please be honest.
Then concerning the “do not have a choice” argument, I think you should read it again. We always have a choice between life and death. Yes, even those who live in North America, I have to work to feed myself, if not someone else has to do it for ME in order for ME to “have a choice”. But then again, do those who have to work for me “have a choice” ?