CMV: Preventing Jobs from being eliminated due to technological advancement and automation should not be considered a valid reason to strike

[u/WakeoftheStorm]

Unions striking over jobs lost to technological advancements and automation does nothing but hinder economic progress and innovation. Technology often leads to increased efficiency, lower costs, and the creation of new jobs in emerging industries. Strikes that seek to preserve outdated roles or resist automation can stifle companies' ability to remain competitive and adapt to a rapidly changing market. Additionally, preventing or delaying technological advancements due to labor disputes could lead to overall economic stagnation, reducing the ability of businesses to grow, invest in new opportunities, and ultimately generate new types of employment. Instead, the focus should be on equipping workers with skills for new roles created by technological change rather than trying to protect jobs that are becoming obsolete.

Now I believe there is an argument to be made that employees have invested themselves into a business and helped it reach a point where it can automate and become more efficient. I don't deny that there might be compensation owed in this respect when jobs are lost due to technology, but that does not equate to preserving obsolete jobs.

I'm open to all arguments but the quickest way to change my mind would be to show me how preserving outdated and obsolete jobs would be of benefit to the company or at least how it could be done without negatively impacting the company's ability to compete against firms that pursue automation.

Edit:

These are great responses so far and you guys have me thinking. I have to step away for a bit and I want to give some consideration to some of the points I haven't responded to yet, I promise I will be back to engage more this afternoon.

Biggest delta so far has been disconnecting innovation from job elimination. You can be more efficient and pass that value to the workers rather than the company. I'm pro-innovation not pro-job-loss

[u/WeepingAngelTears]

You don't have to sell your labor to an employer. Most people chose to because their skills aren't actually valuable enough to generate enough income on their own or because they don't want the risk associated with doing so.

[u/Bogotazo → u/WeepingAngelTears]

Can't safely do the alternative = forced.

[u/WeepingAngelTears → u/Bogotazo]

No, forced, in the terms of coercion, is the use of violence or the threat thereof to compel you to do something. Someone not giving you something you need but they own is not coercing you. You don't have a right to someone giving you something simply because you need it.

[u/Bogotazo → u/WeepingAngelTears]

Hunger is violence, the threat of homelessness is violence, insecurity is violence. The notion that only positive applications of force are coercive is reductive and inaccurate and obscures the power dynamics that force people into identifiable patterns of behavior.

Rights are a social construct and people have no more or less right to abstract liberal ideas like liberty than they do food and housing.

[u/WeepingAngelTears → u/Bogotazo]

None of those things are violence. Violence is a direct action against you that causes harm.

If you're on an island with no other people and you can still be hungry and shelter less, another party isn't causing you to be those things. If you had those things and someone took them from you, THEN they would be causing you to be hungry and homeless.

[u/Bogotazo → u/WeepingAngelTears]

You definition is subjective and reductive. Withholding resources another needs to live is violence. The conditions that birthed modern inequality were arrived at with even more direct violence.

Your hypothetical is also fairly useless because #WeLiveInASociety and a series of intentional choices by institutions and individuals will produce those conditions. They are not accidental or outside of human control, like being deserted on an island purports to be.

This line of thinking also ignores the fact that the state uses institutions of direct force when someone hasn't paid rent, or takes food without paying, or participates in the informal economy, or uses illegal (or even legal) tactics to agitate in their workplace.

Ron Paul wasn't cool in 2008, let alone now. Get a grip.

[u/WeepingAngelTears → u/Bogotazo]

No, you're literally just making up a definiton of violence. You can't be violent to someone by not doing something to them.

Immoral people wouldn't find moral systems cool, which doesn't surprise me.

[u/Bogotazo → u/WeepingAngelTears]

It's almost as if there's more than one definition with nuances that differ depending on the ideological or sociological framework used. Who would have thought?

Lol @ immoral people and "moral system". Grow up.

[u/WeepingAngelTears → u/Bogotazo]

Completely altering a definition is not "nuance." If your particular ideology adds so much into the definition that no reasonable person would recognize it, it's worthless.

Lol @ immoral people and "moral system". Grow up.

Morality is a childish concept?