The problem with censorship is that it inevitably expands to far. For example, your list of “abuses of free speech” includes both promotion of ideas that really are heinous and promotion of ideas that are perfectly reasonable. For example:
There is the promotion of the idea that strikes are an illegitimate form of protest, heck, that any form of protest at all in the workplace is illegitimate, save for job-quitting, if that.
Depending on what you mean by strike. But I think it’s a perfectly reasonable idea that you shouldn’t be able to refuse to do your job whenever you feel like expressing a “grievance” with no consequences except possibly loss of pay for the period of time when you don’t work.
But I think it’s a perfectly reasonable idea that you shouldn’t be able to refuse to do your job whenever you feel like expressing a “grievance” with no consequences except possibly loss of pay for the period of time when you don’t work.
Wrong emphasis. Society depends on people*, doing their jobs.
Let’s taboo some words:
Society: a sufficiently large group of individuals. Are we assuming a shared final goals? A power structure? A distribution of labour?
depends on: requires for its continued… What? Existence? Prosperity? What aspect of society depends on “people doing their jobs”? What does society depend on “people doing their jobs” for? For now, I’ll assume you’re using “depends on X” in the sense of “expects X to happen”… but that’s kind of weak.
people: individual sentient beings, not machines or tools, with needs other than being kept in optimal condition for the performance in the functions they perform, and existences that do not necessarily revolve around performing said functions.
doing their jobs: performing the functions that they have promised to perform reliably and within certain sufficient quality and quantity parameters
Again, given that it’s people we are talking about, they will only want to do their jobs in exchange for a reliable retribution in advantages in the shape of wealth and status in sufficient quality and quantity that have a utility to the people that is equivalent or superior to costs that “doing their job” entails for them. They will only be able to do their jobs if the compensation is sufficient to keep them alive so they can come back the next day.
Now, let’s use some basic economic theory: let’s assume work is a commodity, that is, let us do away with the “people” part and suppose the job-performers are emotionless, non-sentient machines, tools that will simply go irreversibly out of order if they are given insufficient resources for a long enough period of time, beings that exist only and purely to do their jobs, whose downtime is either spent in maintenance (and can be shortened or lengthened depending on where the optimal total productivity point between maximum duration and maximum instant output lies). Let’s also assume that their work capacity is distributed in an ideal free market, and that the machines are programmed to ask for as many resources as you are willing to give them. There’s a very close real-life equivalent to said machines: cattle.
Finally, let us assume that there is a steady influx of new machines, but that the work that the society needs to get done fluctuates.
This situation automatically results, thanks the to wonderful “Invisible Hand” that guides the self-regulating ideal market, into the jobholders being given *exactly as many resources as they need to work and keep functioning the next day, maintaining exactly the population that can provide the necessary amount of labour needed for getting the amount of job that society demands done.
Now, in the XIXth century, that is often what actually happened, except with people, specifically unqualified labour (heck, look at the very term: “unqualified labour”, as if labour was everything they are). And that was just unplanned market fuckery. The Nazis would actually planify killings by giving workers rations that were exactly calculated so that they would die soon upon completion of the project they were assigned to.
Why did this happen? Because those workers were powerless to make the people who had the right to set the conditions of the job agreement give them anything more than what ensured what was strictly needed for them to perform their task, which was basically them being alive for as long as they were needed and useful, and not an instant more. Which was what they ended up actually getting, because a free market ensures that’s where the Nash Equlibrium lies: they are locked in a prisoner’s dilemma in which if any single one of them refused to agree to work under those conditions, they would simply be replaced by another, willing person, and then die.
This is why as long as we assume that job-performers are people, more than tools to be used and thrown away, that their existence has value beyond the utility derived from them performing their jobs, and that it should not be entirely miserable, it is absolutely vital that job-performers have a form of power over those who set the conditions of the work agreement, that will allow them to protect themselves from being reduced, by the sheer strategic necessity, to the status of tools.
Now, strikes are a horrible way of achieving this: they are self-regulating too, in that, performing them is at the immediate cost of the job-performers (of course, since they are paid less than what their job-performing is actually worth, this costs whoever profits from their job even more) and risks the cessation of the demand for the job itself being performed. So, game-theory wise, it works, ideally resulting in the job-performers being assigned just under the amount of resources that would make the net utility of the job being performed inferior to that of it not being performed.
If you have suggestions for alternate ways in which job-performers can protect themselves from becoming cattle or machinery, I would love to hear them. I say this in all sinceirty: strikes are ugly. If you can additionally justify why people should not have the right to strikes, given those alternatives existing, I would love to hear that too
The Nazis would actually planify killings by giving workers rations that were exactly calculated so that they would die soon upon completion of the project they were assigned to.
Why did this happen?
Because the Nazis put industry under state control so that people had no choice but to work for companies guided by the state’s economic policy.
If you have suggestions for alternate ways in which job-performers can protect themselves from becoming cattle or machinery, I would love to hear them.
Sure, don’t centralize the hiring process under the guise of “economic planning” or maintaining an “economic policy” so much that hiring effectively becomes a monopsony.
The first point would be more of an issue in terms of that particular state’s particular economic policies: in a democratic state, economic policies that would not result in such an outcome would win out.
The second point… do you mean to say that, were there to be many job-assigning institutions competing to get the same job performed at the least possible cost, the equilibrium would fall into job-performers being given more resources than what they would receive were they to be considered disposable cattle? That only works if the work-performers are scarce, in which case it doesn’t matter whether there is one or many institutions competing. And if the work-performers are abundant, the equilibrium will fall into them being given exactly as many resources as they physically need to perform their job.
In a perfect market, centralizing or decentralizing doesn’t achieve anything: what matters is simply offer and demand.
Also, why do you put scare quotes around “economic planning” and “economic policy”?
The first point would be more of an issue in terms of that particular state’s particular economic policies: in a democratic state, economic policies that would not result in such an outcome would win out.
No, my point is that by and large states don’t need and shouldn’t have “economic policies”.
The second point… do you mean to say that, were there to be many job-assigning institutions competing to get the same job performed at the least possible cost, the equilibrium would fall into job-performers being given more resources than what they would receive were they to be considered disposable cattle? That only works if the work-performers are scarce, in which case it doesn’t matter whether there is one or many institutions competing. And if the work-performers are abundant, the equilibrium will fall into them being given exactly as many resources as they physically need to perform their job.
Are you trying to argue that monopsony power doesn’t exist? Without monopsony power an employer who pays low wages will have a hard time attracting employees. Whereas a monopsony employer can set wages arbitrarily low, his only limit is his own conscience and that at some point potential employees will prefer not to work. It’s possible to state the above more mathematically, for example here (Note: that article talks about monopoly rather than monopsony but the principal is the same).
In a perfect market, centralizing or decentralizing doesn’t achieve anything: what matters is simply offer and demand.
Except that centralizing destroys the perfect market.
No, my point is that by and large states don’t need and shouldn’t have “economic policies”.
You haven’t established that point to my satisfaction. Don’t try to: it’s not that I don’t expect you to succeed, it’s that, at this point in time, I am compelled away by urgent priorities.
Except that centralizing destroys the perfect market.
I now know that we are falling for red herrings, both of us. I also acknowledge that I am out of my depth, and that I will have to leave this sort of conversation for when my understanding of economics and game theory are sufficient to tackle it with ease. I advise you to do the same: I have the feeling that there is much cached wisdom and pre-rehearsed arguments in what you say, as I will acknowledge there is in mine.
Then you will abstain from going swimming: if you don’t, it will be at your own risk and peril. Though bad working conditions in this case is more likely to cause people to quit, and a scarcity of appliants (which means you’ll have to take unqualified people or close the swimming area for longer periods of time): it certainly won’t be a manner of being overexploited by abusive leadership. Overexploiting a lifeguard by assigning to them a larger area than they can effectively cover simply means they will fail at their jobs and people will die, so that’s not an option either.
The exception puts the rule to the test, and, as I have shown, lifeguards are an exception in more ways than one.
But, as a general rule, and given the way power dynamics function in the modern workplace, I would argue that the right to strike is an absolutely vital part of the checks and balances of a healthy economy.
Not to say unions can’t act petty or spoiled at some points, but that attitude is self-defeating, and the existing counterpowers will stop them soon enough. That’s what checks and balances are for: selfishness keeping itself in check.
Not to say unions can’t act petty or spoiled at some points, but that attitude is self-defeating, and the existing counterpowers will stop them soon enough.
Assuming the rest of society is functional, i.e., capitalist. Unions in industries that are enforced monopolies, e.g., government workers, are a problem. For example, here in the United States, teachers’ unions are probably the biggest obstacle to fixing the education system.
The idea that education is an enforced government monopoly in the United States Of America of all places makes me question whether you are aware of the importance of private education in that country relative to public education. The idea that a society being functional equals it being capitalist simply makes me question what you mean by capitalism and functionality: try to taboo those words? Finally, the idea that teachers’ unions would get in the way of the improvement of public education strikes me as odd and unexpected, and I would like you to develop that point: what do you mean by “fixing” and why are they “obstacles” to it?
The idea that education is an enforced government monopoly in the United States Of America of all places makes me question whether you are aware of the importance of private education in that country relative to public education.
It’s not quite an enforced government monopoly, although people choosing private school have to pay twice (pay for the public schools through their taxes and tuition for the private school). There are various attempts, e.g., school vouchers, charter schools, to fix this but the teachers’ unions have been fighting them tooth and nail.
The idea that a society being functional equals it being capitalist simply makes me question what you mean by capitalism and functionality: try to taboo those words?
By capitalist I mean free market. By functional I mean provides effective services. Note: my claim is not that societies can’t have both functional and non-capitalist elements, rather that for the most part the functional elements will be capitalist and the non-functional ones will be non-capitalist.
Finally, the idea that teachers’ unions would get in the way of the improvement of public education strikes me as odd and unexpected,
This doesn’t surprise me given the filters you likely get your news through.
and I would like you to develop that point: what do you mean by “fixing” and why are they “obstacles” to it?
By “fixing” I mean making it so that students come out of the schools having actually learned basic math and English skills. A specific reform is making it possible to get rid of incompetent teachers.
When is effectiveness, and when can a service be qualified as effective?
for the most part the functional elements will be capitalist and the non-functional ones will be non-capitalist
Depending on your definitions of effective and free-market, the existence of Sweden, at the very least, might make you want to question that reasoning.
the filters you likely get your news through
I don’t select the media from which I get my news. While the press in general does operate a selection on what information they release to the public, I do not think favouring teachers’ unions is one of their priorities.
A specific reform is making it possible to get rid of incompetent teachers.
Well, in the end the institutions are made of people, and applying game theory oversimplifies many factors. Such as public backlash: I cannot imagine teachers being stupid enough to risk the public backlash that opposing such a reform would cause (supposing that reform is exactly what it says on the tin, rather than making it possible to fire teachers for other, less avowable reasons. Unless teachers in the USA already had such a low social image that they would not care about degrading it further.
EDIT: You know, someone keeps down-voting both of us, and I don’t know why.
Or rather they have such a high social image that the people who aren’t paying attention react the same way you just did.
By all accounts, teachers in the USA are the dregs of society: very badly paid, subjected to unreasonable demands of moral upstanding, and powerless in front of the students, the administration, and the parents.
I just read whatever information falls in my lap while browsing my favourite sites: Less Wrong and Tv Tropes. I don’t get out much, Internet-wise. I don’t go out of my way for sources that agree with me, nor do I actively refuse sources that don’t. A selection bias still happens, because I only read news provided to me by tropers and rationalists.
The problem with censorship is that it inevitably expands to far. For example, your list of “abuses of free speech” includes both promotion of ideas that really are heinous and promotion of ideas that are perfectly reasonable. For example:
Depending on what you mean by strike. But I think it’s a perfectly reasonable idea that you shouldn’t be able to refuse to do your job whenever you feel like expressing a “grievance” with no consequences except possibly loss of pay for the period of time when you don’t work.
Why in the world would that be a reasonable idea?
Because society depends on people doing their jobs in order to function.
Wrong emphasis. Society depends on people*, doing their jobs.
Let’s taboo some words:
Society: a sufficiently large group of individuals. Are we assuming a shared final goals? A power structure? A distribution of labour?
depends on: requires for its continued… What? Existence? Prosperity? What aspect of society depends on “people doing their jobs”? What does society depend on “people doing their jobs” for? For now, I’ll assume you’re using “depends on X” in the sense of “expects X to happen”… but that’s kind of weak.
people: individual sentient beings, not machines or tools, with needs other than being kept in optimal condition for the performance in the functions they perform, and existences that do not necessarily revolve around performing said functions.
doing their jobs: performing the functions that they have promised to perform reliably and within certain sufficient quality and quantity parameters
Again, given that it’s people we are talking about, they will only want to do their jobs in exchange for a reliable retribution in advantages in the shape of wealth and status in sufficient quality and quantity that have a utility to the people that is equivalent or superior to costs that “doing their job” entails for them. They will only be able to do their jobs if the compensation is sufficient to keep them alive so they can come back the next day.
Now, let’s use some basic economic theory: let’s assume work is a commodity, that is, let us do away with the “people” part and suppose the job-performers are emotionless, non-sentient machines, tools that will simply go irreversibly out of order if they are given insufficient resources for a long enough period of time, beings that exist only and purely to do their jobs, whose downtime is either spent in maintenance (and can be shortened or lengthened depending on where the optimal total productivity point between maximum duration and maximum instant output lies). Let’s also assume that their work capacity is distributed in an ideal free market, and that the machines are programmed to ask for as many resources as you are willing to give them. There’s a very close real-life equivalent to said machines: cattle.
Finally, let us assume that there is a steady influx of new machines, but that the work that the society needs to get done fluctuates.
This situation automatically results, thanks the to wonderful “Invisible Hand” that guides the self-regulating ideal market, into the jobholders being given *exactly as many resources as they need to work and keep functioning the next day, maintaining exactly the population that can provide the necessary amount of labour needed for getting the amount of job that society demands done.
Now, in the XIXth century, that is often what actually happened, except with people, specifically unqualified labour (heck, look at the very term: “unqualified labour”, as if labour was everything they are). And that was just unplanned market fuckery. The Nazis would actually planify killings by giving workers rations that were exactly calculated so that they would die soon upon completion of the project they were assigned to.
Why did this happen? Because those workers were powerless to make the people who had the right to set the conditions of the job agreement give them anything more than what ensured what was strictly needed for them to perform their task, which was basically them being alive for as long as they were needed and useful, and not an instant more. Which was what they ended up actually getting, because a free market ensures that’s where the Nash Equlibrium lies: they are locked in a prisoner’s dilemma in which if any single one of them refused to agree to work under those conditions, they would simply be replaced by another, willing person, and then die.
This is why as long as we assume that job-performers are people, more than tools to be used and thrown away, that their existence has value beyond the utility derived from them performing their jobs, and that it should not be entirely miserable, it is absolutely vital that job-performers have a form of power over those who set the conditions of the work agreement, that will allow them to protect themselves from being reduced, by the sheer strategic necessity, to the status of tools.
Now, strikes are a horrible way of achieving this: they are self-regulating too, in that, performing them is at the immediate cost of the job-performers (of course, since they are paid less than what their job-performing is actually worth, this costs whoever profits from their job even more) and risks the cessation of the demand for the job itself being performed. So, game-theory wise, it works, ideally resulting in the job-performers being assigned just under the amount of resources that would make the net utility of the job being performed inferior to that of it not being performed.
If you have suggestions for alternate ways in which job-performers can protect themselves from becoming cattle or machinery, I would love to hear them. I say this in all sinceirty: strikes are ugly. If you can additionally justify why people should not have the right to strikes, given those alternatives existing, I would love to hear that too
Because the Nazis put industry under state control so that people had no choice but to work for companies guided by the state’s economic policy.
Sure, don’t centralize the hiring process under the guise of “economic planning” or maintaining an “economic policy” so much that hiring effectively becomes a monopsony.
The first point would be more of an issue in terms of that particular state’s particular economic policies: in a democratic state, economic policies that would not result in such an outcome would win out.
The second point… do you mean to say that, were there to be many job-assigning institutions competing to get the same job performed at the least possible cost, the equilibrium would fall into job-performers being given more resources than what they would receive were they to be considered disposable cattle? That only works if the work-performers are scarce, in which case it doesn’t matter whether there is one or many institutions competing. And if the work-performers are abundant, the equilibrium will fall into them being given exactly as many resources as they physically need to perform their job.
In a perfect market, centralizing or decentralizing doesn’t achieve anything: what matters is simply offer and demand.
Also, why do you put scare quotes around “economic planning” and “economic policy”?
No, my point is that by and large states don’t need and shouldn’t have “economic policies”.
Are you trying to argue that monopsony power doesn’t exist? Without monopsony power an employer who pays low wages will have a hard time attracting employees. Whereas a monopsony employer can set wages arbitrarily low, his only limit is his own conscience and that at some point potential employees will prefer not to work. It’s possible to state the above more mathematically, for example here (Note: that article talks about monopoly rather than monopsony but the principal is the same).
Except that centralizing destroys the perfect market.
You haven’t established that point to my satisfaction. Don’t try to: it’s not that I don’t expect you to succeed, it’s that, at this point in time, I am compelled away by urgent priorities.
I now know that we are falling for red herrings, both of us. I also acknowledge that I am out of my depth, and that I will have to leave this sort of conversation for when my understanding of economics and game theory are sufficient to tackle it with ease. I advise you to do the same: I have the feeling that there is much cached wisdom and pre-rehearsed arguments in what you say, as I will acknowledge there is in mine.
Lifeguards.
Then you will abstain from going swimming: if you don’t, it will be at your own risk and peril. Though bad working conditions in this case is more likely to cause people to quit, and a scarcity of appliants (which means you’ll have to take unqualified people or close the swimming area for longer periods of time): it certainly won’t be a manner of being overexploited by abusive leadership. Overexploiting a lifeguard by assigning to them a larger area than they can effectively cover simply means they will fail at their jobs and people will die, so that’s not an option either.
The exception puts the rule to the test, and, as I have shown, lifeguards are an exception in more ways than one.
But, as a general rule, and given the way power dynamics function in the modern workplace, I would argue that the right to strike is an absolutely vital part of the checks and balances of a healthy economy.
Not to say unions can’t act petty or spoiled at some points, but that attitude is self-defeating, and the existing counterpowers will stop them soon enough. That’s what checks and balances are for: selfishness keeping itself in check.
Assuming the rest of society is functional, i.e., capitalist. Unions in industries that are enforced monopolies, e.g., government workers, are a problem. For example, here in the United States, teachers’ unions are probably the biggest obstacle to fixing the education system.
The idea that education is an enforced government monopoly in the United States Of America of all places makes me question whether you are aware of the importance of private education in that country relative to public education. The idea that a society being functional equals it being capitalist simply makes me question what you mean by capitalism and functionality: try to taboo those words? Finally, the idea that teachers’ unions would get in the way of the improvement of public education strikes me as odd and unexpected, and I would like you to develop that point: what do you mean by “fixing” and why are they “obstacles” to it?
It’s not quite an enforced government monopoly, although people choosing private school have to pay twice (pay for the public schools through their taxes and tuition for the private school). There are various attempts, e.g., school vouchers, charter schools, to fix this but the teachers’ unions have been fighting them tooth and nail.
By capitalist I mean free market. By functional I mean provides effective services. Note: my claim is not that societies can’t have both functional and non-capitalist elements, rather that for the most part the functional elements will be capitalist and the non-functional ones will be non-capitalist.
This doesn’t surprise me given the filters you likely get your news through.
By “fixing” I mean making it so that students come out of the schools having actually learned basic math and English skills. A specific reform is making it possible to get rid of incompetent teachers.
What do you mean by free market, exactly?
When is effectiveness, and when can a service be qualified as effective?
Depending on your definitions of effective and free-market, the existence of Sweden, at the very least, might make you want to question that reasoning.
I don’t select the media from which I get my news. While the press in general does operate a selection on what information they release to the public, I do not think favouring teachers’ unions is one of their priorities.
Well, in the end the institutions are made of people, and applying game theory oversimplifies many factors. Such as public backlash: I cannot imagine teachers being stupid enough to risk the public backlash that opposing such a reform would cause (supposing that reform is exactly what it says on the tin, rather than making it possible to fire teachers for other, less avowable reasons. Unless teachers in the USA already had such a low social image that they would not care about degrading it further.
EDIT: You know, someone keeps down-voting both of us, and I don’t know why.
Well, adjust you’re priors appropriately.
Or rather they have such a high social image that the people who aren’t paying much attention react the same way you just did.
By all accounts, teachers in the USA are the dregs of society: very badly paid, subjected to unreasonable demands of moral upstanding, and powerless in front of the students, the administration, and the parents.
How do you manage that? Does someone else select it for you?
Wait, you’re on the internet, that can’t be right.
I just read whatever information falls in my lap while browsing my favourite sites: Less Wrong and Tv Tropes. I don’t get out much, Internet-wise. I don’t go out of my way for sources that agree with me, nor do I actively refuse sources that don’t. A selection bias still happens, because I only read news provided to me by tropers and rationalists.