I’ve been thinking about trying to pull together a union at my workplace for a while, but too many coworkers trying to get into fights or rat each other out to management, so screw Unioning that. If nothing else I don’t have the emotional stability to try to unionize my workplace.
While I was brooding at home after work (ruining the rest of my day) I realize that this whole thing is a really optimal scenario for the boss. In fact if I was a boss, I’d specifically try to hire aggressive-ish employees.
What do socialist countries do about this? It’s not like they lock up all their aggressive coworkers the way America tries to. In America we lock up a lot of people but then they’re still lots of aggressive people.
I think this partly has to do with the fact that, historically, material conditions and the availability of consumer goods in the west have been generally better than those of countries where socialist revolutions have taken place (for obvious reasons and through no fault of socialism, “thanks” to imperialist and colonialist exploitation). People lacking class consciousness thus do not immediately see why socialist ideals or even revolution are worth immediate struggle. The rise of China and decline of the West might soon change this dynamic.