"Anarchy Reigns in Social Production" re: unions

[Bradford DeLong]

>Brian O. Sheppard x349393 :
>>  The question "Will there be airplanes?" can't be answered
>>  definitively with "yes" or "no." Airplanes as they exist now are
>>  predicated upon different constellations of social relations that
>>  may or may not be coercive, authoritarian, unjust, etc. If
>>  airplanes are completely dependent upon social coercion to
>>  exist - that is, if fate is so merciless that airplanes may only
>>  exist if people are oppressed in some manner - then I think
>>  people, especially those bearing the brunt of whatever coercion
>>  is involved, should be able to decide if they want to have any
>>  part in making them. If they don't, then the airplanes won't
>>  get made. Theorists shouldn't decide it in advance of the actual
>>  society; the decision should be a particpatory one made by those
>  > most affected by the production and its effects.

Put me, for one, down on the side of the belief that the *lack* of 
airplanes and ocean liners is coercive. I don't want to have to 
paddle across the Pacific in a canoe...

Brad DeLong