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[MetalSlimeHunt]

There are a bunch of urban legends about people leaving used needles around for others to unwittingly be infected through (which would fail even if you tried it, HIV does not last long on the outside), but Wikipedia's article on the subject suggests that the bugchasers at least exist.

[Owlbread]

A voice from a forgotten nation. Putin would rather they stay forgotten.

[scrdest]

Hm, let me give you a counter-example from that period: The German weavers got very, very angry at the cheap machine-made English cloth that was taking away their jobs. But Germany didn't go all "We have to protect our workers from foreign competition" because a) it didn't exist yet and b) the rulers didn't care. And what happened? A few years later Germany was an industrial powerhouse, because it rose to the challenge.

Had the English acted like corporations today they would have gathered German orphans from the streets and locked them in some cheap half rotten barn outside of town working nonstop all daylight hours for food and place to sleep, while trying to prevent other Germans from getting their machines in use either trough bribery legislation or by hiring local thugs lobbyists to "convince" it's better to work for them. German weavers wouldn't have stood a chance. Lucky us that English government didn't try to pressure German states to accept conditions so one-sidedly in favor of English industries.

Don't get me wrong here, organizing unions and empowering people are all good and much needed, but when large portion of the economy of the whole country is dependant on industry in foreign control (as opposed to partially domestically owned as in China, Japan and others that were mentioned) that has had decades of headstart in lobbying for power there's not much room for them to make changes. And if those changes aim to change status quo the industry will threaten to close the shop and move away, reducing jobs and taxes that are already in short supply to begin with. That's heavily in heavily against any changes, and curent "free market" system is dependant on curent state of things to survive. If people have the choice between job in locally owned joint that's possibly all the owner owns so he can't easily run away and another job offered by international corporations who can afford to cut their losses if it looks like costs rise and there won't be profit to be made, people actually stand a chance to demand decent pay for their work and effort because they are not forced to accept whatever shit job they can get just to make a living. You can't underestimate the affect that has on peoples psyche.

Paying as little as possible to produce as much as possible, that's how profits are made today, and that guarantees that whoever ends up doing all the dirty work has very little to show at the end of the day. The ones who reap the profits on the other hand are acting as consultants to government agencies deciding where and how much developement founding and aid will flow to those countries they profit from...

That's why we need unions (and unified legislation, for example environmental laws) everywhere. They can only pull that sort of shit that they do because they can play out the various populations against one another.

Also, the German weavers pretty much starved. Nobody gave a crap. Working conditions were as bad as you described (or even worse, for that matter), And retrospectively, it worked out much better than a protectionist policy. A moderate protectionist approach with a gradual tapering-off would've been ideal, but - as I have already pointed out - that's not politically feasible.

So, the argument here is that to combat companies acting like thugs and bending the laws in their favor, we need workers' organizations acting like thugs and bending the laws in their favor?

[notquitethere]

So, the argument here is that to combat companies acting like thugs and bending the laws in their favor, we need workers' organizations acting like thugs and bending the laws in their favor?

The way in which unions and companies can 'act like thugs' is highly dissimilar. Unions can only force companies to give them more favourable working conditions; companies can literally get away with murder.

[Sheb]

And retrospectively, it worked out much better than a protectionist policy. A moderate protectionist approach with a gradual tapering-off would've been ideal, but - as I have already pointed out - that's not politically feasible.

I'm opposing that. Gradual tapering off of protectionism is not a political impossibility, it's a political inevitability. Countries from Great-Britain to the US to European countries all turned from protectionism to free trade as they developed, for several reasons.

First, their companies, once up-to-date technologically, don't fear international competitions that much anymore.

Second, as a country's companies become more competitive, other countries will be less and less tolerant of its protectionist policies, and push for free trade. Just look at Japan in the 1980's, or the pressure on China now.

Finally, and more perversely once a country got rich through protectionists policies, it has an interest in promoting free trade to "kick away the ladder" to development and gain access to other countries markets before they develop. A good example of that is Great Britain's policy of trying to convince German states and France to focus on free trade, selling agricultural products to Engand in exchange for manufactured goods.

Of course, this assume protectionism works. Indeed, Southeast Asia is full of countries that failed to replicate Taiwan's or Korea's success despite heavy protectionism. Studwell key insight is that protectionism alone ain't enough: you have to force firms to compete so they have an incentive to invest and climb up the technological ladder rather than simply profit from their captive markets. The way Japan, Korea and Taiwan all did this was by forcing firms to export. The revenues from their captive home markets gave them the mean, and their government's willingness to close or merge underperforming exporters gave them the incentive.

To take a favorite metaphors of mine, an economy is a lot like a child. Exposing it to competition outright, for example by sending it to polish shoes in the street at 6 will certainly increase it's earning power in the short term, but it'll prevent it from getting an education that would guarantee higher earning in the future. Likewise, free trade can give any economy a short-term boost (As per Ricardo's thery of competitive advantage), but prevent long-term growth by killing any home-grown companies.

Of course, just paying for all your kids expense while never requiring him or her to do anything is a recipe for spoiling him. Likewise, economies can grow fat an lazy on rent-seeking from corporations if they're not incentivized correctly.

[hector13]

So, the argument here is that to combat companies acting like thugs and bending the laws in their favor, we need workers' organizations acting like thugs and bending the laws in their favor?

The way in which unions and companies can 'act like thugs' is highly dissimilar. Unions can only force companies to give them more favourable working conditions; companies can literally get away with murder.

That's a rather naive way of looking at it.

Unions generally have a lot of people working toward the same goal, but that doesn't mean they have to do it fairly. (see Grangemouth leverage tactics, basically we know where you live, give us what we want. Admittedly against a company saying take a massive pay cut or you won't have a job, but points still stands)

While I fall firmly on the side of workers in almost any argument against a company, workers unions can engage in the same level of bastardry as companies.

[Helgoland]

So, the argument here is that to combat companies acting like thugs and bending the laws in their favor, we need workers' organizations acting like thugs and bending the laws in their favor?

Where did you get that from? Seriously, I can't find anything at all that leads to this conclusion. My point: The best way to keep companies and governments from trampling on people's rights is to give the people more political power. Unions are a good way to do that.

FYI: In Europe (minus France, maybe) unions actually work. Of course, our public discourse isn't tainted by Reaganites...)

[Sheb]

Oh, even in France. You know, for all their reputation for grumpiness, French don't strike that much. About as much as the US and less than South Korea for exemple.

Of course, Germans strike even less, thanks in part to their really good model of labour relations.

[notquitethere]

While I fall firmly on the side of workers in almost any argument against a company, workers unions can engage in the same level of bastardry as companies.

I'm not saying they can't be bastards or don't ever use intimidatory tactics, but it's of an entirely different scale. Unions don't hire hit squads, conspire to dismantle public goods, run factories like prisons, etc. Companies are always in the greater position of power and can execute that power more brutally.

[Kicior]

(Come to think of it, the gold standard nutters shouldn't complain about international currencies like the Euro - they're practically advocating one themselves...)

I think they oppose fiat money in general so why shouldn't they complain?

FYI: In Europe (minus France, maybe) unions actually work.

Heh. Unions in Poland "work" best in state-controlled branches (mainly education, departments of many sorts) or profitable companies  partially owned by the state (KGHM, coal mines). Teachers are united by "Teacher's Card" (79 days off (paid) a year, ability to take a whole year off "to improve the state of health" (paid ofc) and so on and so on), miners have their own privileges (13-14 paydays a year in KGHM ).
I cannot really see how unions improve situation of the "normal" workers.

[scrdest]

(Come to think of it, the gold standard nutters shouldn't complain about international currencies like the Euro - they're practically advocating one themselves...)

I think they oppose fiat money in general so why shouldn't they complain?

FYI: In Europe (minus France, maybe) unions actually work.

Heh. Unions in Poland "work" best in state-controlled branches (mainly education, departments of many sorts) or profitable companies  partially owned by the state (KGHM, coal mines). Teachers are united by "Teacher's Card" (79 days off (paid) a year, ability to take a whole year off "to improve the state of health" (paid ofc) and so on and so on), miners have their own privileges (13-14 paydays a year in KGHM ).
I cannot really see how unions improve situation of the "normal" workers.

I, too, am from and live in Poland, so yeah, my perception might be skewered by how ineffectual for the general well-being of the employees they are here. The argument 'BUT THEY DO WORK IN EUROPE YOU IGNORANT MURRICAN' is not very effective for me, however.

My point: The best way to keep companies and governments from trampling on people's rights is to give the people more political power. Unions are a good way to do that.

And my counterpoint to that is that unions are not 'people in general'. And thus, having their own particular interests, if they will possess power, they will be a very unique brand of asshole, neither worse nor better than the brand of asshole of companies. Same goes for, well, pretty much any group of people - for any sufficiently large group of people, risk and scale of assholery is proportional to the power they wield.

I am not trying to support the companies here, nor denounce every union ever existing, but any organization that uses violence or intimidation to achieve anything except stopping ongoing use of it by someone else makes said organization lose a bit of legitimacy in my eyes, be they unions, companies or governments, or anyone else you can think of.

[Sheb]

If I get your complaints right, your main problem is that unions aren't working alright in the private sectors because they're not powerful enough there.

[scrdest]

If I get your complaints right, your main problem is that unions aren't working alright in the private sectors because they're not powerful enough there.

My problem is that they operate not for the workers' benefit, but for their own, and use what amounts to Mafia tactics to get what they want.

[Sheb]

I don't get you, after all, since the union represent workers, its interest align with the interest of its members, right? Is that a problem that they push for policies detrimental to non-members? Or that public-sector unions are crippling the public sector with unreasonable demand? Can you develop?

[scrdest]

I don't get you, after all, since the union represent workers, its interest align with the interest of its members, right? Is that a problem that they push for policies detrimental to non-members? Or that public-sector unions are crippling the public sector with unreasonable demand? Can you develop?

They have pushed for a lot of things that benefits the unions' leadership and representatives, and having no benefit to the employees themselves.