When individual worker's rights are defended against harassment for example, they do society at large a service. But to keep society from functioning through blocking transport - is in no way constructive.

I would say that this depends on the political justification for blocking transportation. If it is done for frivolous reasons (if, for instance, the train drivers strike because they don't like the colour of the new trains) it would clearly be objectionable. But if it is done for grave reasons (for instance, if the government plans to start colonial war)... not so much.

I think it goes beyond the scope of the present exchange to lay down hard and fast rules for the circumstances under which striking for political reasons is appropriate. All I want to point out is that there is a legitimate political discussion as to the merits of blocking crucial infrastructure, and that this discussion must be had in each individual instance before issuing condemnations.

As an aside, ways exist to insulate the strategic infrastructure against strikes. I described one of them here. It does not completely prevent strikes - I think that'd be impossible - but it largely does prevent frivolous strikes.

It smacks of revolution. You either abide by the rules - no matter what the rulers themselves do. They don't set the example. The law does; it is the law that's binding. And it is through enforcing law that workers should fight for their rights. Now, if democratic structures don't work anymore and you suffer because you want justice and don't get it, because you want truth and there's no one to fight for it within the governing bodies that are in charge of just this..., then what you really want IS revolution.

I object to the term "revolution" because it has overtones of violence and because it seems to me to imply the imposition of a radically different constitution.

I don't condone violent revolutions in any but the most extreme cases - for a combination of ideological and pragmatic reasons. And I think that most Western European constitutions are reasonably serviceable as they are - oh, there are certainly things I'd like to see changed here and there, but nothing quite dramatic enough to justify calling it revolutionary.

What I call for is a cultural and political change, more than an institutional one. An evolutionary change, if you will, as opposed to a revolutionary one.

That's not to say that strikes - general strikes in particular - do not have some of the characteristics of revolutions. They do - a fact which has inspired some syndicalists who do desire a revolutionary change to the way society is structured to propose general strikes as a means to achieve such change without bloodshed, terror, purges and all the assorted nastiness that usually accompanies violent revolutions.

ValentinD's idealism on the contrary is based on the concept of rational Reason, his good faith in politicians who would have rational Reason as their baseline.

I think that's a very astute observation, and one that I didn't quite realise myself before you pointed it out.

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W.r.t. immigration, I would "control" it by removing the push factors from the countries of origin. If we are concerned that too many Turks immigrate to Western Europe (bearing in mind that "too many" is not a terribly precise number...), the obvious preventive is to promote the wealth and welfare of the Turkish people in Turkey.

If there were only minor differences in the standard of living in rural Turkey and metropolitan France, the Turks who emigrate to France would do so for predominantly personal reasons - a preference for French culture, a desire to live under the French form of government, or because they like the climate better (whether the temperature climate or the political climate). And presumably, there would be a similar migration in the opposite direction, of people who wanted to live in Turkey.

I am not convinced that migration founded upon such reasons is a problem that needs to be controlled - we do not, for instance, speak of the problem of immigrants from the US, nor did we speak of the problem of defectors from the USSR and its client states settling in The West(TM). The potentially problematic immigrants are those who want to come to Europe solely to gain a higher standard of living, but have no desire to actually take constructive part in European culture (for suitable values of "constructive part" and "European culture" - these are not well defined entities, so they should be used with care and taken with a largish grain of salt).

This mechanism of "control" would also tie in nicely with a geopolitical strategy based on soft power and partnerships between equals, an approach that I and others have advocated elsewhere on ET.

Of course there would be a transitional period between adopting this policy and the time when standards of living were equalised. For that period, I'd suggest looking at the rules from the 70s - they were perfectly serviceable then, and while I expect that some anachronisms will have to be retouched, I don't see why they can't be pressed into service for a couple of decades until poverty-driven migration tapers off.

[Refugees are a somewhat different discussion for a variety of reasons, but the rule about improving the standard of living in the country of origin holds even truer here, since in many, if not most, cases The West(TM) has either neglected to support a peaceful resolution to the conflict or actively precipitated conflict or repressive forms of government. Or, to put it more bluntly, if you don't like Somali refugees coming to Europe, stop sending guns and ammunition to Somalia.]

- Jake

If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.