[arolihas]

There's nothing wrong with the principle itself. I'm obviously not a fan of slavery etc. Just when people narrow in on it and act like it's the only priority/thing worth talking about. I was trying to criticize the myopic focus on that.

[matheusmoreira]

Then I agree with you. Rational employees should not want to associate with unreliable employers. This ought to drive up the prices corporations are forced to pay. It should cost them actual money to disregard people like this. If employees feel pressured to associate with them despite their behavior, then it is not free association at all, it is forced association and its causes must be identified and remedied. Usually it's a lack of leverage leading to worse negotiating positions.

[piva00]

Yeah, what bugs me is this reduction into a model to then derive all their worldview of reality, it's backwards. Like the spherical cow, free association is a pretty fucking good model and principle but when applied to reality you really ought to add the details to the model to make it realistic and actually work when applied into reality.

Free association in labour is not possible when there's so much leverage from one of the sides of the negotiation. In a perfect idealised model, labour will increase in price due to people not accepting jobs they would, ideally, not think it's worth it, companies will then raise salaries, market equilibrium! In reality people are mothers, fathers, or just basically anyone who needs something to eat, and for food they'll accept any trade to keep some part of their dignity.

A fucking spherical cow-ish principle doesn't take into account human dignity into their pricing models... And so these people work backwards by adapting that if it's not accounted for it's irrelevant, rather than the opposite reality that we experience.