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Comment by tomtheelder | Hacker News Reader

We live at the absolute _extreme_ of capital power over labor power. Unions can certainly do harm, and you are right that they shouldn't be seen as a pure and irreproachable force for good, but small anecdotes about individual bad decisions made by unions are not useful in discussions about this.

In fact, they play to the already ridiculously anti-union sentiment that the vast majority of Americans (this article is about America, apologies if you are foreign) hold.

Unions can go way too far, and they can do harm, but the overwhelming majority of Americans live so far away from that point that it's not even a fruitful discussion to be having.

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This is a weird claim to make in the games industry. The vast amounts of cash Fortnite made for Epic is being poured back into buying up indie games and supplying a better store for game sales and creating a better game engine that anyone can pick up and use for 5% of sales. It is empowering the little guy way more than could be imagined in the past. Is that 100% of their revenue? No, but it is well above what anyone could hope for 10 years ago. You used to require hundreds of thousands of dollars in licenses to even see the tools used. People are getting good jobs training off these tools as we speak and releasing new innovative products.

I understand working conditions in the US sucks and I hold no bones about fixing them. The union is an infinite tool that will not stop at fixing engineering conditions. It has the ability to own the industry. That is not an outcome I want to see, I'd prefer to give 50% of my salary to whoever wants it than have a union tell me how to run what I do.

>The vast amounts of cash Fortnite made for Epic is being poured back into buying up indie games and supplying a better store for game sales and creating a better game engine that anyone can pick up and use for 5% of sales.

For the sole reason of trying to replace Steam as the dominant store platform on PC. Epic isn't just doing this out of the goodness of their hearts. This will not continue once Epic achieves their goal of buying their way into being the middleman between developers and gamers.

They don't need to replace Steam, they have 80 million active users from Fortnite alone. Steam has 90 million active users.

Were they to compete with Steam properly they would crush Steam's store feature set. The Epic store is still under-developed compared to Steam by a lot. Regardless of their perceived intent the entire point is that the little guy is being rewarded and the system works even if it appears 'evil'.

So this is an argument for trickle-down economics within an industry, except used to rationalize fighting unionization, instead of increased taxation.

This is an argument that workers are supported. I make no grand economic philosophy claim.

> We live at the absolute _extreme_ of capital power over labor power.

No we don't, that is called slavery.

Okay yes that's true. Within the bounds of modern capitalism we are at an extreme place.

The definition of slavery changed over time. Be sure that salaried worker in a few centuries will be considered a mild form of slavery similar to indentured servitude, debt bondage or coloni's restriction of freedom under the Roman Empire.

"Were they forced to work? Yes and no. What happened if they decided not to work? Weeeeell... if they were rich, nothing. If they were poor, they would have died."

> Were they forced to work? Yes and no. What happened if they decided not to work? Weeeeell... if they were rich, nothing. If they were poor, they would have died

Hasn't that always been true of society, across all government models (or lack thereof)? At best, you don't have the rich that don't need to work... but what are the situations where the vast majority don't need to work (as far back as hunting/gathering).

> We live at the absolute _extreme_ of capital power over labor power.

The #1 problem in most cities is too many people are making too much money and it’s driving housing prices through the roof.

The demand for skilled labor is astronomical. I would not call that absolute extreme power of capital over labor.

Urban housing scarcity is mainly caused by speculation and corrupt zoning laws.

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