• falcunculus@jlai.lu
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    18 hours ago

    Agree with all your points, but I think our world being bigger and more interconnected does blunt strikes: not only are corporations bigger and have better access to capital (helping wait out the strike), but also alternatives are more readily available if a worker stops producing.

    What I mean is back in the day if the coal mine stopped then all local industry, heating, cooking, etc. would stop, so there would be immense social pressure on ending the strike. But nowadays downstream consumers would just switch to an other source. In fact it is an argument often used: “if the local steel mill workers strike, they’ll just close it down and move production to China, and they’ll be worse off”.

    Also police and media handling of strikes is much smarter, the media is more effective at vilifying them and police riot control can effectively disperse them without so much violence that it would only increase anger and make public opinion sympathetic, like would happen a century ago when policemen would open fire instead of using rubber bullets, CS gas, water cannons and such.