There is a bit of a argument going on via Twitter between some baseball analysts, all of whom I respect a great deal, about labor and owners:
The theory that workers with an average annual salary greater than a million dollars a year are the passive losers of a labor war is (a) too absurd to need response, and (b) an insult to REAL workers who are the REAL losers of passive labor wars.
— Bill James Online (@billjamesonline) February 7, 2018
There’s a lot more comments if you follow the link to the full discussion, mostly about who is deserving of labor protection, and how other people should spend money.
One reason this argument arises is that owners and labor are constructs that we accept. If an person owns a company and sells a product, we don’t see that person as a laborer working for customers. We see that relationship as mutually beneficial transactions. The customer gets something that is tough to obtain (manufacture) on his own, and the business owner gets money that he can use to take care of himself and/or grow the business. Both sides benefit.
When someone agrees to take a job with a company, however, we don’t see that as a mutually beneficial transaction. From reading the Twitter argument above, some really smart people see that as an adversarial relationship, one in which labor needs to be protected by law. Wouldn’t we be better off if we saw the owner/employee relationship the same was we see the customer/business relationship? Two sides making a mutually beneficial transaction?
Everyone is an entrepreneur. Some people have a skill that allows them to start and grow a business. Some people have skills that make them very good baseball players. If we look at labor as people who sell a skill to a customer, suddenly everyone is on the same playing field.
Contract players are about as close to this as we get today, and this is why I believe these arguments arise. Ballplayers are a very entrepreneurial type of labor. Their capital investment comes from the hard work they perform to become great at the game of baseball. There is a risk, however, that when they reach free agency that no one wants their services. It’s the risk that companies face; the day when no one wants their product anymore.
Players have the skills that entertain. Owners and their staffs have the skills to stage the spectacle. Fans have the money to pay for the entertainment. As long as all three are free to make decisions based on price and quality, we won’t need to have the argument above. Any player, at any time free of a contract, should be able to negotiate pay without rules about who controls his rights, or caps on a salary. A team should be able to say no to any player if salary demands don’t meet his needs. Fans should say no to tickets or broadcasts if the team is not trying to win. There will be tension; some will fail, some will succeed beyond our wildest dreams, but it will be fair. It’s time for the MLBPA and MLB to start moving in that direction, a direction that stalled over the last 20 years.
from baseballmusings.com http://ift.tt/2GWpmtj
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