: They cant unless they become union members, even then the higher wages may have employers looking for alternatives to mass labor.a)And thats so bad because?
b)Then thats all the more reason for such people to join a revolutionary movement, rather than put up with super exploitation.
: Which they can do well, without monopolising the supply of labor. This is also a simplr them v us model of work. it does not account for skilled (expensive & rarer) labor, not profit sharing or stock payments etc etc.
Well, most unions organse as trades (in fact, skilled labour unionises easier than unskilled, but unskilled need it more), profit sharing either turns out to be a con (whereby real wages are supplimented by the Profit sharing scheme), or a simple return to peice work.
: If one person suffers and ten gain, should the ten be made to suffer a little for the sake of the one? (nearly slipping into utilitarianism there, but you did say that was the moral base for 'good' economics)
No, I never, I agree with the Durham miners positive view of universal suffering - if one must suffer for the sake of the economy, everyone must share that suffering. Thats the whole point of solidarity. And those ten tend not to really gain...
: I'd rather ask why 20,000 unemployed people in a town are waiting for factory work to come along. I think there were feeble govt attempts to stimulate self employment in Britain werent there? It should require a govt.
A lot of people did turn to self employement, and promptly went bankrupt at the next recession, through no fualt of their own. Also, there aren't that many jobs the self employed can have, only so much room, especially in a community empoverished by sudden bouts of unemployement (The shipyards went at about the same time as the steel jobs).
