re: #89 allegro

We’re seeing it now after 30 years since Reagan took an ax to unions. They are nothing now compared to the power they once had and it shows dramatically with the demolition of the middle class. I was raised in a union-hating Republican household - seeing the results of increasingly impotent and non-existent unions, I’m now a serious union supporter and advocate.

I think a lot of it is a basic misunderstanding of business. Glibertarians and other folks with rose-colored glasses claim that in the competitive free market, companies will treat workers well because it gives them a market advantage, turnover costs companies money, etc. This ignores the obvious reality that many places— like Wal-Mart— have systematized things so that turnover impacts them a lot less, and have taken the market position of being exploitative of labor. It’s a viable economic position, just like selling shoddy merchandise that doesn’t work that well is; some people will work the shit jobs because they can’t get anything else or don’t realize they can get something else, some people will buy the cheapest stuff on the market because they can’t afford anything else or they’re poor judges of quality or whatever.