To this point - Lately I've found myself arguing for Medicare for All from the "right", against e.g. classifying gig workers as employees so they get corporate benefits from the "left".
In a universe where public social programs are impossible; I find many of these corporatist-redistributionist arguments sort of interesting. But in this one; I really do think we should tax corporations more and fund State programs.
If everyone has medicare for all and eviction protections; do we still care whether amazon can fire a worker from a warehouse?
Likewise UBI has both a left-wing and a right-wing appeal.
I think MFA is not entirely antithetical to the right ideology and could be over time incorporated - it improves labor mobility which is in line with core right values (freedom of association and participation provides better free market outcomes and more self-sufficiency). It’s just at any point in time it’s too convenient to crap on it for cheap points. A local optimum of negative variety.
Surely the existence of each of these things precedes their political essence. Even a black person like me; a very political thing indeed, clearly exists before becoming a vessel (in ways sometimes terribly real, and sometimes comically abstract) for the lens of the day.
In many cases, yes. Totally agree with your example. Some cases maybe not?
Some things are perhaps coincident with the politics of the thing. Whether manufacturing uses sweatshops or child labor, for instance. I'm not sure that's separable.
It's healthy for all citizens to have the option of such discourse, and to exercise it regularly. I'm not sure it's healthy to feel unable to leave it for a moment, lest $_scary_opponent seize the day.
It is a representative democracy after all. Citizens should feel like they've done their duty after choose a representative. Not (poorly) running a thousand mini-parliaments online.
The entire story of MLK and the civil rights movement is the story of people without power (quite literally, without equal rights under the law) driving change. Same for Ghandi and indian independence, to take one contemporary example out of many.
Perhaps there is a moral obligation for people with privilege to engage; but it's clearly not a practical necessity for change to happen. Given the lack of progress in Black civil rights ever since the 60's; as this discourse around "we all must participate!" has strengthened, it is far from clear that it is helpful.
I propose that the other way is best. Live your life, respond with genuine outrage when injustice crosses your path, and don't feel like media consumption fixes anything.
I'd put it a bit differently: people with very little power banded together to create a movement that together has some power and was making incremental progress over the decades, but allies were needed to accelerate it and make big change. After Kennedy's assassination Lyndon Johnson lent his enormous political capital to revive a dying civil rights bill and get it passed, and that was a big push, so much so that it lost his party the south for 50+ years.
I fully agree media consumption doesn't fix a whole lot, and certainly not in today's media environment, I merely advocate for staying informed and engaged enough to discover a useful way to make impact. I want to live in a world where we mostly just live our lives as we please, but society's state right now is such that I don't think it will let us off that easy.
Because we chose to work for them instead of starting our own shops; and so to exchange complete ownership of our labor for a (often very nice) steady compensation.
Note that this also applies to managers; up to and including the CEO. They might get paid more in Stock and less in cash; but they're usually not the Owners in and meaningful sense.
I personally love the idea of workers cooperatives and do try to patronize such businesses as much as I can. But 1) it doesn't scale up and 2) when you're not in that model; you're not.
Interesting and thank you! Perhaps this is a model which can be expanded in the future indeed... It's sort of a logical extension of startups which pay ISOs. With the obvious difference that the employee equity would be immediately realized; and come with corresponding votes.
-Never seen a manager scream. Note that anyone who does so is bad at their job; and won't last long unless if anyone else wants it.
-Workers commonly take multi-month parental leave breaks; block off afternoons for a kid's event, etc.
-I don't know anyone who works 100 hours a week; and if I did I would think them a fool. And also help them; as this is unsafe and they need some more sleep!
I understand that other gigs, especially perhaps in Gaming, are different! And workers of course have the right to freely associate, and so collectively bargain, if they choose to.
You might get a Google indeed; some new vehicle that helps move society forward. But I suspect a very dangerous Theranos; except the union members will be left holdng the mess after it blows up .
As an outside observer, I'd expect a "union" to push an agenda of fair compensation for it's workers and an end to abusive practices from management. This "personal agenda", as you correctly term it, feels more like a political party than a workers' union.
I think these Google workers see their demands falling into this category..not saying I agree with every bullet, but it really doesn't seem that different to me.
What force prevents unions bosses from becoming corrupt and self serving; just like we can agree a corporate boss can become? It's silly to pretend they just "always work"
You state that "the union seeks out what the membership wants" and I note ( to no argument) that this surely only happens sometimes. Other times they seek other things; perhaps not to the benefit of their workers.
I'm not sure all teachers like the fact that seniority is king, and I'm also not sure that it is in fact a Net Benefit to teachers as a whole.
This doesn't make unions not worth pursuing; it just means that we should be appropriately skeptical and not make blanket statements about how they surely operate.
>Do I really need to add modifiers to everything I say to indicate that I'm not speaking in absolutes?
Fair and I do try not to do this wantonly. Here I feel that your gp argument breaks down in the absence of such an absolute. If indeed, we cannot prima facie trust that unions work in their members ( and their students') best interest; why shouldn't we use the troubles of unionized education ( or unionized policing...) as a caution against a possible bad outcome?
Perhaps I misunderstood; and this has just been another internet argument for the wind .
Companies tend to fight back when it's profitable to fight back; and do their best to ignore the government otherwise. See: this week's tech CEO house hearing. I can't recall this example of the backdoors; and if you say "Clipper Chips" I'm going home.
Of course I don't mean clipper. I mean the backdoors in US telco equipment - some uncovered by Snowden, some discovered by independent researchers. If your theory were true, Chinese network equipment would be full of government backdoors, and US manufactured equipment would be free of them. In the real world, however, the reverse is true.
In a universe where public social programs are impossible; I find many of these corporatist-redistributionist arguments sort of interesting. But in this one; I really do think we should tax corporations more and fund State programs.
If everyone has medicare for all and eviction protections; do we still care whether amazon can fire a worker from a warehouse?