A union would have done nothing other than accelerate the process. We need laws that if a job is off-shored the company is penalized heavily, where it makes it painful and unbearable.
A free market is one that is protected. Unfortunately nothing in the USA is protected. Our borders, our jobs, our votes. Those in control only care about themselves.
Socialism is an incredibly broad term in practice, a typical sound bite dictionary definition hints at this:
a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.
So .. community as a whole, not just workers, and not even ownership is required, regulated for the general benefit (minimising polution, requiring power operators to deliver in 99.9% of weather conditions with a fixed cost ceiling) of the commons counts.
> Socialism means worker ownership of the means of production
Isn't that trending towards a definition of communism? Socialism could mean a lot of different things; economic protectionism is a market inefficiency designed to champion things like jobs over corporate profits, and was a policy choice made by some socialist governments in the latter 20th century.
A union would have also changed the distribution of who was laid off. Basically, fresh grads who have very little seniority would be the ones kicked to the curb. Whereas MS had the option to lay off exactly who they wanted...maybe it was certain teams, maybe they laid off a lot of people whose compensation no longer matched with their contributions.
Not MS, but I was at a big tech co that recently did layoffs, and a lot of the Super Senior Staff Distinguished Wizard SWEs, who I always wondered "What exactly do you do?" got laid off.
How about US developers can’t compete with offshore developers?
Average Indian earns $571/mo. Even if devs earn 2x average you’d be able to hire at least 3 for just the average SF/NYC rent a developer in the US has to pay let alone taxes, benefits, etc.
Not particularly good for the country or economy long term; is the end game to destroy the US and start over paying people here $571/mo?
