Was there ever an example of an ethical workers' strike throughout history?
From what I can see all strikes are short-sighted, they don't realise that thriving economies (even at the expense of specific workforces) are able to help (even ignoring direct welfare policies) more people in the long-run than any short-term act of charity or mob-threats can. Colombo's expeditions would have been stopped by strikes in the modern age, and we all know how many lives that saved (to use the welfare logic).
Strikes also seem to rest on unproven assertions about the value of all human lives.
I guess I can reduce my point to be more accessible your level.
In the simplest terms my idea is that any act of charity or equivalent action (e.g. caving in to the mob's blackmail) in the short-term is unethical by current standards, as it directs production away from the most advanced and fastest progressing parts of economy and instead towards the parts being left behind (prolonging their miserable existence). And the only reason to direct it that way is that those left behind are in need of help, yet making a country or planet richer means more people are able to be helped at that point (even simply by stealing from that economy, or leeching from their more wealthy associates, not to mention more funding for welfare policies). The only way charity and strikes seem at all rational to me is that they pacify parts of the economy that might otherwise slow it down more were they to become so angry and resentful that they take disruptive action (by that I mean more than strikes, revolution level).
tl;dr charities and striking are unethical because they divert resources towards specific groups of the present time, instead of all groups of future times.
Jonathan Thomas
Please note that I'm not offering any ethical framework myself, I'm pointing out that by their own moral standards, charities and strikers are unethical (because they focus only on totalling the present, not the future).
So if property ethics are bad, then that's another argument against those charity and strike proponents.
Aaron Long
Why let rich people keep profits? Why not just have a 100% tax on profits and have the government fund endless 5 year plans? Everyone should subsist on base sustenance needs while advancing the GDP.
Austin Clark
I don't want to shift the discussion away from the specific topic I opened with, as I didn't want to talk about economics in general. My specific point is that the ethics used to justify strike action in fact does the opposite, when you look more long-term.
Your example is also different in that there is no country where the majority of the population is protesting FOR either the implementation of 5 year plans or for the rich to keep their profits (at least not in the West which was my focus).
Your question is about economic efficiency, this thread is about ethical consistency (which is not necessarily the same).
Alexander Taylor
>Colombo's expeditions would have been stopped by strikes in the modern age, and we all know how many lives that saved 100 million? No wait, that's how many lives it costed.
Justin Watson
You aren't making any sense because you are trapped in some sort of retarded ideology where the shit you say makes sense.
>I don't want to shift the discussion away from the specific topic I opened with Your topic doesn't even make sense
>My specific point is that the ethics used to justify strike action in fact does the opposite, when you look more long-term. The ethics of a strike are self-ownership, and the fact that you have the freedom not to work, and you can use this freedom as leverage. Strikes are committing violence against one's own productive capabilities because one does not like the terms of which profits are distributed. You are implying that society has a right to a person's slave labor and they don't have the freedom to choose to not work (and not get paid).
>Your example is also different in that there is no country where the majority of the population is protesting FOR either the implementation of 5 year plans or for the rich to keep their profits (at least not in the West which was my focus). Maybe because the point was your argument was just as retarded as that.
>Your question is about economic efficiency, this thread is about ethical consistency (which is not necessarily the same). You haven't even pointed out any ethical inconsistency. The only thing you seem to be saying is the economy as a whole would be better off if money was diverted to people other than workers, because presumably workers would only spend it on consumption for now instead of capital investment for the future.
You haven't even pointed out any sort of ethical framework that is supposedly contradictory. Your moral judgements are based on calling it mob threats and something about muh equality is a meme.
Kevin Morales
That's quite small compared to how many have been saved (or even how many more lives have been produced).
>The ethics of a strike are self-ownership, and the fact that you have the freedom not to work, and you can use this freedom as leverage Isn't that already facilitated by the right to quite your job? From what I can see, it is more about banding together with other workers (who all have varying beliefs but join together in the hope of profiting) in order to blackmail the employer with disruption.
>Maybe because the point was your argument was just as retarded as that No, what you proposed is not something that any large majority is protesting for. Whereas I'm pointing out the inconsistency in something people are actually protesting for.
>You haven't even pointed out any ethical inconsistency Basically strikes want workers to have better conditions, and this justifies blackmail/disruption. But diverting resources to parts of the economy that are being left behind (i.e. they don't get good conditions through their demand/value alone) is taking money away from the frontier that improves working conditions (not to mention wider conditions using the same metric) for everyone, not just the leftbehinds.
>muh equality is a meme Well putting away society for a second, in the strictest physical terms things cannot be equal if they are distinct. Therefore things can always been ranked in hierarchies of value-judgements, and any inability to do so just means the judger/critic is not familiar enough with the items in question.
Aaron Ross
>Isn't that already facilitated by the right to quite your job? From what I can see, it is more about banding together with other workers (who all have varying beliefs but join together in the hope of profiting) in order to blackmail the employer with disruption. What's wrong with that? What is unethical about it except using buzzwords like blackmail and implying that the boss has a right to compliant workers. If the boss wants compliant workers, maybe he should set up conditions where they don't want to strike, either through anti-union policy or treating them nicely. How is it any worse than an employer giving you worse working conditions because it will cause a disruption in your life if you get laid off then laying you off anyways when they restructure?
>No, what you proposed is not something that any large majority is protesting for. Whereas I'm pointing out the inconsistency in something people are actually protesting for. I wasn't seriously advocating that you retard. I was using your retarded logic.
>Basically strikes want workers to have better conditions, and this justifies blackmail/disruption. It's just disruption, not blackmail. Yes. People have that freedom, they aren't slaves.
>But diverting resources to parts of the economy that are being left behind (i.e. they don't get good conditions through their demand/value alone) is taking money away from the frontier that improves working conditions (not to mention wider conditions using the same metric) for everyone, not just the leftbehinds. People striking can't float a nonviable company. Your argument doesn't even make sense. If there's no demand for their work, then their strike does nothing because they stop working and they don't get paid and those resources that were paying them are free to fund other ventures.
>equality meme stuff I already presented you with the completely subjective individualist framework to strikes that has nothing to do with equality.
Colton Nelson
>What is unethical about it It contradicts the very ethical justification of the strike (that workers should have better conditions). Diverting resources to parts of the economy that are being left behind (i.e. they don't get good conditions through their demand/value alone) is taking money away from the frontier that improves working conditions (not to mention wider conditions using the same metric) for everyone, not just the leftbehinds.
Maybe blackmail is the wrong word. All I mean is that people are banding together to threaten with disruption, whereas the most valuable workers don't need to join together with anyone the employer would already been afraid of losing them to a competitor.
>People striking can't float a nonviable company. I never said it would. But disruption is obviously an attack against what the employees are supposed to be doing (and are getting paid for), their production.
>Your argument doesn't even make sense. If there's no demand for their work, then their strike does nothing because they stop working and they don't get paid and those resources that were paying them are free to fund other ventures. By value and demand I meant in the sense of those employees as individual workers. Individual workers who have value in that sense do not need to band together, they already have better conditions. Basically a worker who is replaceable on their own but a threat when the whole fucking workforce strikes is obviously not worth much value themselves.
Oliver Roberts
Quite a lot of them actually its just another tactic of collective bargaining to secure better wages, conditions and rights. Indeed for some it even helped gain independence of their country peacefully.
Here are some examples of the kinds of things outside of wages and conditions strikes have won and assisted.
Racial equality (include the right to be paid in cash) and recognition of native land rights
>From what I can see all strikes are short-sighted, they don't realise.... This seems to ignore the fact that they are a key aspect in workers being able to bargain effectively against vastly wealthier, intelligent and powerful parties.
You take a lot for granted.
>Colombo's expeditions would have been stopped by strikes in the modern age, This is a really bizzare argument to use your logic here "modern medicine would have stopped Columbos expeditions therefore medicine is shortsighted and unethical"
>Strikes also seem to rest on unproven assertions about the value of all human lives. Hardly its just another negotiating method and one that challenges the unproven assertion that property ownership and employment contracts are a supreme moral authority.
Cooper Gomez
>It contradicts the very ethical justification of the strike (that workers should have better conditions). No, it's that I should have better conditions. Just like the boss says I want more profits. Strikes aren't an efficient way of reaching an equilibrium between conflicting interests. Threat of strikes are, just like threats of laying people off. Those threats only work if people have the balls to do it and it's not a bluff.
>Diverting resources to parts of the economy that are being left behind (i.e. they don't get good conditions through their demand/value alone) Again, if they have no value, then a strike doesn't work. Strikes only work because they have value. If their work has no value, nothing of value is lost if they do not work. You're contradicting yourself in order to find some sort of immoral thing here by using buzzwords like leftbehinds.
>All I mean is that people are banding together to threaten with disruption, whereas the most valuable workers don't need to join together with anyone the employer would already been afraid of losing them to a competitor. Because low tier workers aren't worth as much individually, obviously. That's why they get paid less. This is common sense.
>I never said it would. But disruption is obviously an attack against what the employees are supposed to be doing (and are getting paid for), their production. What is the boss supposed to be doing? giving them a living? You seem to think work relations are a one way hierarchy where a boss has rights to his slaves. The use of a boss to a worker is being provided with a livelihood. You do realize people stop getting paid when they strike? Workers are not supposed to be producing any more than bosses are supposed to be providing for their employees. It's a trade.
Thomas Allen
>By value and demand I meant in the sense of those employees as individual workers. Individual workers who have value in that sense do not need to band together, they already have better conditions. Basically a worker who is replaceable on their own but a threat when the whole fucking workforce strikes is obviously not worth much value themselves. So obviously they band together. They don't let the boss play divide and conquer. If you are weak, you find allies. Why is this difficult for you to understand? You seem to think the weak should merely fall in line under the might of the powerful and anything else is immoral. The reality is that people are unequal, which is the reason worker band together to strike. You've somehow convinced yourself equality is the basis of strikes because you're trapped in some sort of ideology where the boss has an absolute right to compliant workers. If the boss wants compliant workers, he needs to hire compliant workers. Workers that get hired knowing they're fired if they pull shit, or workers that get paid well enough that they don't want to strike. If your own success is due to the labor of your workforce, your workforce may sometimes band together to remind you of that.
Nathaniel Carter
>reddit spacing >absolute corporate bootlicking > muh 100 million Is it the worst Veeky Forums thread of 2018?
Noah Mitchell
The countries with the best standards of living for workers are capitalist so I think that countries like the USA, Germany or Japan perhaps fit the concept of 'workers' state' better than any communist country ever.
Cooper Murphy
>I've never studied econ or held a job but faux news told me only supply side economics work >unproven asserttions about the value of all human lives t. edgy teenager And no. Your buzz phrase was probably from some other topic. Worker's rights are about worker's rights
Parker Collins
>they divert resources towards specific groups of the present time, instead of all groups of future times How can you write something like that and not realise you're retarded. If the workers get paid less than what they're worth you only shift ressources from boss to producer
>Strikes also seem to rest on unproven assertions about the value of all human lives. All ethics are "unproven" you mongoloid. It's based on compassion, not some Sam Harris tier autistic bullshit. Learn the difference between prescriptions and descriptions.
Owen Bennett
>More worker deaths and injuries means higher productivity!
William Green
>When the OP gets BTFO'ed so hard he leaves the thread
Veeky Forums I love you sometimes
Nicholas Clark
Strikes do look to the future. Bolshevik strikers at the start of the 20th century aimed for a radically different government. If that is not looking at the future then I don't know what is. Sometimes a protest based on a present problem is seen as part of a bigger, more ambicious objective (I am not even a communist by the way, you're just wrong)
Caleb Smith
>be OP, an edgy teenage memelord >develop an absolutely idiotic conception of ethics and history, to the point that you conclude that a) any strike or act of charity will have a meaningful impact on long run growth, and b) only workers in dying industries strike, rather than workers in new industries >make rambling idiotic post on Veeky Forums >when people reply to this idiocy with disdain, condescend to them and make an even more stupid post You should be made to eat an entire chapter of an economics textbook dealing with long run growth.
Carter Clark
>'If we just shut up and do nothing, our social betters might one day lower our lashings from 40 a day to 39 out of the goodness of their hearts!'
