[appreciatorBus]

> somewhere on the spectrum between "egalitarian, flat organization Utopia" and "Slavery"

I didn't say that collective ruin was a result of unionism, only that that you appeared to be trying illustrate a point by outlining a broad spectrum of outcomes, but IMO you forgot one common outcome of forced collectivization. Where it belongs on that spectrum can be debated but that it's a common outcome cannot be.

[overfeed]

I provided a range of leader:worker income/power ratios from 1:0 to 1:1 with no commentary whatsoever on outcomes, because my entire point is that the outcome doesn't matter: at some threshold value and below, the existence of the org itself is immoral. We don't have to agree on where that point is, but its existence shouldn't be up for debate, IMO.

I hope we can all agree that a slave plantation should not exist in 2025, regardless of whether it's making billions in quarterly profit, or hovering above insolvency. Paying workers at this plantation $0.01 per hour isn't okay, either, but if you keep adding $0.01/hr N times (and incrementally improve working conditions), you'll eventually arrive at the threshold I was describing.

[Izkata]

> I provided a range of leader:worker income/power ratios from 1:0 to 1:1 with no commentary whatsoever on outcomes

For a slight perspective change, the thing that leads to what they mentioned: They're saying you forgot about the range 1:1 to 0:1.

[overfeed]

> They're saying you forgot about the range 1:1 to 0:1.

Color me intrigued! Tell me more about these slave-CEOs serving at the beck and call of empowered workers. I didn't merely forget about the 1:1 to 0:1 range, it's an Outside-Context scenario. I confess I have never encountered - or thought about - organizations with inverted hierarchies. Do you have any specific example of such a thing?

[Izkata]

When unions gain too much power and the company can no longer respond effectively to market forces (particularly with hiring/firing), leading to the collective ruin they were talking about.

[_bent]

this doesn't happen because the union is very much interested in keeping the company afloat

[9rx]

The union is interested in keeping the union afloat. If the union sees no other opportunity it can become interested in keeping the company float, but you have not made the case for your statement to be a truism.

Consider an actors union — actor unions have famously walked away from companies without much regard for the longevity of the company they walked away from on numerous occasions. They know in that line of work there is always another company looking to hire them, so there isn't a whole lot of incentive to care about individual companies.

[Jensson]

It does happen just like bloated management also makes a company less flexible even though managers don't want the company to fail.

They wouldn't intentionally push it to fail, but they could easily push it very close to failing and then something else pushes it over the edge, happens time and time again.

[xg15]

Someone read their Ayn Rand...

[Jensson]

> I confess I have never encountered - or thought about - organizations with inverted hierarchies

Managers tend to make less than pop stars etc, the range exists. On some engineering teams the non-technical manager makes less than the engineers.

Being a manager doesn't mean you are well paid, he is just a bureaucrat managing the relations to those who want your services.

[FrustratedMonky]

The threshold does exist. Doesn't the poverty line take into account local conditions for median food/rent prices?

So minimum wage should be enough to be above poverty line.

This would solve cases like walmart employees being in poverty and needing government assistance to live.