woj, thanks for the response. as you point out later, one might question how a union is a public good. which is not to say it isn't, but i hope it has been demonstrated elsewhere. (for the record: i am mostly pro-union and have never crossed a picket line).
> The proscription of not crossing the picket line is of the same
> nature as the compulsion to pay taxes - it is necessary to overcome
> the free rider problem.
then perhaps its better not to call it an axiom of solidarity, but a fix to a particular problem?
> The catch is what is considered "public good." Few people would
> advocate non-payment of taxes that pay for roads, schools, social
> security, fire and police protection, etc. on the ground that an
> individual must determine it for herself if the services in question
> are truly "public." Nobody would seriously endorse such a position
> (except perhaps some sociopaths and libertarians). But things change
> when we start talking about public goods (i.e. collective benefits
> for workers) provided by unions. Suddenly, individual choice trumps
> the compulsion to pay for collective goods that otherwise remains
> unquestioned.
a) an individual *should* indeed be able to determine if a service is truly public (whether its unions or police protection). why not? one could, after some thinking, feel that the police are not a public good at all, but a means of maintaining the current distribution of power.
b) at the risk of sounding libertarian, i raise a minor theoretical issue: even if something is truly public, an individual should still have the ability to opt out -- neither participate nor be a free rider. i admit that opting out is often not really possible.
> This, imho, is an example of how much public discourse in this
> country is inculcated with pro-business propaganda. <...> Unions,
> otoh, serve narrowly defined interest of their members and need to be
> constantly scrutinized if they do not impinge on "individual choice."
you are talking to LBO members. its unfair to equate our questions and thoughts with general public discourse and its misconceptions. nobody arguing the opposite position, as far as i can tell, is "pro-business", think that businesses provide public goods, or that unions need to be constantly scrutinized.
> Even posing the question of trade unionism as "individual choice" is
> the capitulation to the business propaganda. In civilized countries,
> union membership comes automatically with employment - but in this
> shit hole it is an "individual choice."
the choice we are talking about is not whether to be part of a union or not. the choice is whether to honour a picket line or not. the alternate view is: as a general rule, not crossing a picket line is a good idea, but there may be individual exceptions.
listen, i am a big advocate of animal rights. i could well hold that every one of you that eats animals is a traitor, etc. i could claim that animal rights are an axiomatic moral rule for the left if by the left we imply any form of humanitarianiism at all.
but it seems to me that it is up to me to convince you that in all cases, consumption of meat is a bad thing.
again, my confusion arises from considering something as high-level as union practices/rules as axiomatic. i get worried that doing so exempts the rule-followers from deeper moral analysis. after all what solidarity can i feel with another individual or group whose axiomatic system strictly requires a particular behaviour of me, but shows no concern for issues i consider as important, if not more? if we are both of the left, then there have to be more fundamental axioms from which we can derive our positions (workers rights, animal rights, minority rights, women's rights, etc).
i am guessing i am not going to like the answer: i am really not part of the left!
--ravi