More job losses : 1700 Jobs To Go At Landrover in Birmingham

Society that uses its resources & workforce in the most efficient manner possible will pass on the savings in the long term to these families with mortgages.

The long term outlook for a malcompetitive society is economic stagnation. More unemployment, rising taxes to fund even more protectionism and stagnant/shrinking GDP.

OTOH, my ideal of a pro-competition society with no protectionism is employment & wages by merit, minimal taxes (e.g. completely privatised healthcare) and a growing GDP, taken out of the pockets of malcompetitive societies.

I am talking about long term paybacks here, not short term moral conscience salves.*

OK, explain why unions are a good thing economically. Forget ethics, it is relative and timeframe dependent (e.g. see * above).

Staff *are* commodities (resources), not persons. Witness the fact that it has become fashionable over the past decade or two for most employers to rename their personnel departments to HR.

We've heard of management buy-outs. Perhaps he's envisaging a workers' buy-out, or a workers' effort of setting up in competition with their erstwhile employers. They can probably get funding thrown at them from somewhere, but they'll need education to make it work.

Obviously competition at higher stratas would be mostly confined to people of that level. In general, workers would compete for each other to keep their jobs, while employers compete with other companies to expand theirs.

Or they could do it like the rest of everyone else in a non-socialist country: get a bank loan.

But there's a limit below which you cannot meet your financial commitments. The above is a Thatcherite 'ideal', not a practical reality.

In any case, for most people, the lower you earn, the less effort you're likely to put in - the 'why should I bother when I'm being paid such crap wages' factor.

Unless they get made redundant again...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to have the idea that if you work your guts off, you'll somehow be immune from redundancy?

I once believed that, but bitter experience changed my mind.

Grin.

My anti-socialism shot seems to be wearing off - I must go to the doctor for a booster. :)

You're also taking about some idealistic anarcho-capitalist world, rather then the real world the rest of us have to live in!

I would just point to the appalling conditions the working class had to endure before unions were formed. They could barely afford to feed themselves, let alone drive the economy along by purchasing consumer durables!

In those days, you had class distinctions, an undeveloped entrepreneurial system (bank loans, venture capitalists, public companies, a robust stock exchange - were all lacking) and no anti-monopoly laws. The latter is perhaps the only "protectionist" measure I think is acceptable, and even then it would be limited in duration for start-ups.

Workers were thus unsurprisingly paid as little as possible. Class distinctions are quite the opposite of what I'm suggesting, which is free for all competition based solely on merit. Removing tax-funded medical care for example will increase the sensitivity of the system towards taking care of the talented and penalising the incapable.

With the capitalist system I propose, no able & talented person shall go unrewarded, while all inept people will be paid to the limits of their ability (no more unions guaranteeing employment). Of course, ability is relative and changes with time. Employees would be more vigilant of making errors (like no Tube drivers driving through red lights) and try as much as possible to make themselves indispensable to the company -- knowing quite well that under this system, they can be sacked at a moment's notice for a careless mistake.