the political justification for blocking transportation
Jake,
I have thought some more about the train drivers (not finished). I still believe that strikes that stifle public transportation would not be the right and a justified way to go.
I have thought of Germans who lie on rails to hinder the transport of nuclear waste. They do so because they feel that everyone is concerned. They act out of pure idealism, not because they want to maintain their social standing or to keep benefits.
When Greenpeace interferes with industrial deep-sea fishing, blocking boats, they do so out of idealism.
When individuals take risks, sabotage rail tracks - in order to prevent life-threatening deportations, they act out of idealism.
These are examples that would justify the blocking of normal life.
Train drivers don't face any life/death situation. Their idealism is limited to their own personal interests. To defend their interests, they can take legal action if they can make their case, providing proof that cutting benefits would be illegal, a breech of contract, etc.
So, the train driver's idealism is first of all concerned with their own self-interest, and second, they don't address those who are in charge for cutting their benefits, i.e. the government. What they do instead is, they blackmail the government by blocking innocent employees, workers, students.
The more I think of it, the more it strikes me as being outrageous.
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.
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.
This mechanism of "control" would also tie in nicely with a geopolitical strategy based on soft power and partnerships between equals... I don't see why they can't be pressed into service for a couple of decades until poverty-driven migration tapers off.
I don't see why they can't be pressed into service for a couple of decades until poverty-driven migration tapers off.
You are full of idealism. The only problem is - that you are not in power (are you not?). The implementation of your wide-ranging idealistic plans is about as far-fetched as Valentin's trust in the well-intended, humanistic, philanthropic and altruistic, rational-Reason-minded and empowered politician. ;)
By that line of reasoning, no purely pay-related strike in the strategic infrastructure would be justified. Do you think so? If so, I note that this is the opposite objection of Valentin's who complained that the train drivers went on strike for reasons that he thought were too idealistic.
I would give the same counter to both objections: It is possible to create a class of tenured civil servants (similar to the Danish tjenestemænd) for whom striking is illegal, and use them to staff the strategic infrastructure. Precisely because striking is illegal for them, they are paid better, they have complete job security and fairly generous pensions.
This was rejected.
So who's at fault here? The train drivers who exercise their natural right to withhold their labour - a right that all other non-tenured labour has in a democratic system - or the politicians who refuse to pay what it costs to staff the strategic infrastructure with tenured civil servants who don't go on strike?
A case can certainly be made that the politicians are holding the rest of society hostage: On the other hand, they refuse to grant their civil servants tenure and pay them an appropriate compensation for not using a generally accepted bargaining tool - a bargaining tool whose use is entirely uncontroversial in the rest of society. On the other hand, they expect the train drivers to refrain from using this generally accepted bargaining position, because it would harm third parties who are not actively involved in the conflict.
It's not obvious that the train drivers are the ones holding society hostage to their bargaining positions. The case can certainly be made that they're just calling the politicians' bluff.
Milton Friedman used to say something along the lines of "our task is to keep the ideas alive."
Granted, I don't have the high-powered support that Uncle Miltie did, but that does not mean keeping the ideas alive is for nought.
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
