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Notes -
I don't understand how you can say that "having some excess" (paying 20 extra people) costs nothing but morality points. It costs economy points, however many it takes to compensate 20 people to work for you.
I suspect I'm missing something here.
Those economy points (err, dollars) could be used to pay the remaining workers more, to buy the owner a yacht, to invest in the business (new machine, new/expanded building, lowered sale price of produced good, whatever).
Allow me to break down my argument further for you, hopefully it will elucidate the meaning.
Assumption: A business existing is better than a business not existing. They provide some good to the market that satisfies some vague demand. Assumption: Per the OP's framing it is better to fire all 25 workers in order to get rid of the excess, because you evaluate the group as a whole, not individuals in the group.
Under these assumptions, and within the OP's thought experiment, would it be better to put the factory out of business to get rid of the 20 parasites, or would it be better to keep the business still running, when the only option is to fire the entire group in order to be rid of the union workers?
My response:
If profit is still being extracted, and the factory is able to continue to run, it is better to keep the factory running, even with the excess. Is it better for a factory to run with an optimal crew-number? Sure, that is not under dispute. In a less contrived thought experiment, you fight the union and reduce the number of workers until you hit a "true"/safe/optimal minimum for your goals, or if demand is high, expand the factory so you can utilize those 20 excess workers and ensure they're producing value.
The thought experiment has a lot of assumptions baked into it. The other issue perhaps, is that I don't use profit or money as an equivalent to calculating utility.
Right, I misunderstood. That makes sense. Thanks for clarifying.
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