[nostromo95]

Eh whether government should have the right to do this takes a backseat to the fact that the government is the only way we can do this.

The government is the only coordinating mechanism we have to enforce something like this, otherwise everyone is playing the prisoner’s dilemma.

[pc86]

Respectfully, this seems like a completely backward take.

If you don't care about whether or not government should be able to do things, and are only concerned with whether or not it does things you like, you end up with a government that can do whatever it wants. Eventually, that power will be wielded by someone you find detestable, or even worse, someone who finds you detestable.

[nostromo95]

Seems like we're mixing up couple things here--(a) the level to which a government represents the people and (b) the powers that a government should have.

It's easy to lose sight of the fact that the government is--in its ideal essence--just a way for a population to collectively enforce compliance with / contribution to a social good.

I don't think it's controversial to say that if 100% of people wanted a 32 hour work week, the government should probably pass a law mandating that. Separately we can argue about the tendency for the aims of government to diverge from the aims of the citizenry or there being a slippery slope, but the "legitimate role" of government is representing the people.

[forbiddenvoid]

It's probably more nuanced than that. If 100% of people wanted a 32-hour work week, a law wouldn't be necessary - we would just have a 32-hour work week. The fact that the number is less than 100% is the reason we need a law, because the incentives aren't aligned between those who want it and those who don't.

[propernoun]

Because 100% of people don't want something is hardly "reason" to create a law and just because a majority wants something doesn't make it right. There are plenty of examples of that in history.

Is the role of government to maximize social good or individual liberty? I'd rather the latter because the examples of the former are abundant and dreadful. Anyone who thinks this isn't a race to the bottom where lawmakers trade "happiness" for votes at the cost of liberty is lying to themselves. Let's not kid ourselves, a 40 hour work week is not the same as child labor in the coal mines; such laws exist only to win votes. When will it be 20 hours a week? 16? At what point do we descend into the madness that embraced Rome where the role of government became appeasement of the populace to keep them from revolting?

[ZeroGravitas]

The prisoner's dilemma is a toy example where everyone wants the same thing, but they can't achieve it without some external mechanism. Many regulations in the real world fall into this category, ensuring your competitors can't do things you don't want to do and thereby force you to do it to compete (and they in turn don't want to do it, but if their competitors do it...).

[forbiddenvoid]

This is not a good example, and is part of the problem with these types of discussions.

Not everyone wants the same thing in the prisoner's dilemma. The prisoners all want one thing and the prosecutors want something different. If everyone wanted the same thing here, there would be no dilemma.

That's the case with 32 hour work weeks. Employees want them - but employers don't. So there is a misalignment of incentives. And employers specifically have much more power in the situation because there is a significant imbalance in risk between the two. The external mechanism is needed here in order to accommodate and mitigate that power balance.

The mechanism could be legislation, it could be collective action in the form of a union, etc. But it's specifically because not everyone agrees, and the disagreement comes with a power imbalance that the law is necessary.

[ZeroGravitas]

The definition of the prisoners dilemma is that it is symmetrical, the only two parties involved are the prisoners and they want the exact same thing, and have the exact same motivations and payoffs and still can't agree on the best course of action.

Thats why it is a good toy example of this issue.

It is a confusing name for it, since in reality there are often mechanism to punish "snitches".

I prefer to think if it as two people wanting to make a trade without a framework to enforce any contract law. You both want to swap your items that are valued more by the other party, but since there's no mechanism to force you to be honest, you're both motivated to steal the other person's goods and not deliver yours. And so you both do that, and the trade doesn't happen, leaving you both poorer.

[Cyph0n]

The primary alternative to achieving this is through formation of unions. But, I’d wager there is an overlap between people who are against enforcement via legislation and people who are anti-union.

[josephcsible]

By "people who are anti-union", do you mean "people who believe unions shouldn't be allowed to exist", or "people who believe unions shouldn't be allowed to force workers to join as a condition of having the job"?

[ZeroGravitas]

Hey, if they don't like it, they can get a job somewhere else, no need for authoritarian governments preventing people freely entering contracts with groups with much more power than they do individually.... wait, this reminds me of something?

[josephcsible]

Unions having the power to force employees to join is what's authoritarian. If I want to work for a company, and the company wants to hire me, we should be free to enter into a contract. A third party shouldn't have the power to say "you can't unless you pay us dues".

And before you say "well not if the company and union entered into a contract that said the company would only hire union workers", that's not how it works today. The laws we have today give unions the power to unilaterally say that without the company agreeing, and this is what's bad and needs to go away.

[rileymat2]

> The laws we have today give unions the power to unilaterally say that without the company agreeing, and this is what's bad and needs to go away.

Can you give examples? My impression was closed shop and union shop was negotiated, not dictated by law.

[hedora]

The US is closed shop. If a subset of employees don't like their union, they are not allowed to form their own union.

Put another way, if employees disagree with something the union does, they have no recourse other than founding their own union and trying to get all their coworkers to vote to force every one to switch to the new union.

In particular, employees are not able to call strikes in the US. In some sense, unions solved the "problem" of employee walk outs by redirecting grievances away from employers and to large unions that are (in practice) unresponsive to employee requests.

When they do get things done, it's unclear what constituency they are serving, or who made the decision.

For example, the California statewide teachers union managed to block vaccine mandates for teachers. All the teachers I've talked to in Silicon Valley are vaccinated and support mandates.

Those teachers have no hope of joining a union that's not controlled by anti-vaxxers.

[josephcsible]

The issue isn't that there's no contract at all. The issue is that the contract isn't freely agreed to, since once 51% of workers decide they want a union, the company isn't allowed to walk away from the negotiating table.

[salawat]

Unions don't have that power last I checked, and there is nothing that requires an employer to sign away their ability to seek unaffiliated workers.

Just as there is nothing forcing a worker to join a Union. The only thing is, if you don't join, you don't get the benefit of collective bargaining.

[josephcsible]

> Just as there is nothing forcing a worker to join a Union. The only thing is, if you don't join, you don't get the benefit of collective bargaining.

This is only true in states with right-to-work laws.

[ZeroGravitas]

Didn't California stop companies from preventing their ex-employees from working for competitors?

Sounds like they're doing exactly what you want.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-compete_clause#California

[josephcsible]

What does that have to do with unions?

[thomascgalvin]

We've also seen significant anti-union legislation in recent decades; at the very least this would need to be undone in order to give workers a fair shot.

[artificialLimbs]

By prisoners dilemma, do you mean that people are free to negotiate amongst themselves as they see fit? Oh the horror…

[michaelmrose]

We already saw what happens when people are free to negotiate for themselves with people who possess most of the money and resources. People including children were working 60 hours a week in horrendously unsafe conditions for barely enough to live.

The government isn't an interloper inserting itself. The government is US. We are negotiating with employers in a fashion where we actually possess enough influence to make a difference.

[nostromo95]

Yes I do mean exactly that. It's entirely possible for both these things to be true:

- Everyone believes that if they and everyone else had a 32 hour work week, they'd be happier

- Everyone stays at 40 hours per week when given the choice of independently moving to a 32 hour work week due to social / economic pressures

In this case a government law helps everyone coordinate to get out of a local maximum.

[imtringued]

They are free to negotiate their freedoms away.

What I have never understood so far, is that all the advocates of markets simply declare them free, as if reducing government involvement is going to solve inherent imbalances in power. The end result is branded "free market" when it is anything but.