Given that 80% or so of all the games ore/minerals are now mined by only 5% of the game’s player base multiboxing 5-20+ rorquals in nullsec, it’s a futile effort of the highest order.
(Source: CCP’s own research and charts from fanfest and vegas 2017.)
I refer you to the The Logic of Collective Action by the late Mancur Olson.
Its central argument is that concentrated minor interests will be overrepresented and diffuse majority interests trumped, due to a free-rider problem that is stronger when a group becomes larger.
Basically a “Miners Strike” won’t ever happen. It won’t ever happen because the benefits are too diffuse, miners are too numerous and that will lead to free riding. The only way to actually get miners to strike would be to organize them and to have a mechanism to punish those who do not abide by the strike.
You got it right the first time.
Never.
Damn, you’re well read. (is that how it’s said, aka you read a lot of good books?)
Makes me feel like i need to catch up. 
Still, we should encourage any- and everything. One day some things might work out! So what i call “leechers” actually has a term! Free riders! Thanks!
The eternal problem with Teckos is that he clings to the insane belief that actually knowing what the ■■■■ he is talking about actually makes a difference on the internet (and off it, it seems)…
Have you been talking to my wife? 
You need to get out more…just sayin’
Isn’t this exactly what CODE is for? 
Works well, for the most part.
It’s a convenient hypothesis, because cause, result and the ratio that seems to connect them, fit so well together. While being convenient, the whole thing falls apart as soon as you start to pull on any of its elements to test their validity. But of course, the entire goal of this kind of statement isn’t to survive a logical approach. As soon as people start to question the statement, they’ll might make the mistake to forget questioning its underlying assumption, which always is: there is no problem, someone just wants to get attention by inventing it.
It’s a cheap rhetorical trick to divert pupils from critically reflecting society, economics and their surroundings in general.
OP: if you want this thing to be even remotely realistic, you need support by CODE. It is hard enough to rally people in real life to fight for their own best interest and not just because of propaganda by their enemy and belief in their lies, but also because of real pressure on each of the “miners” (or whatever). Try rallying a group of IT guys in real life - you won’t succeed, because some of them are still having relatively good working conditions aka well paid jobs, many more think them being not rich yet is mostly their own fault and only a small percentage already understands, that they are nothing but 21st Century miners in the higher developed countries and their skill set, will be worth less than the ability to peel an apple in a few years from now. Try rally workers who actually work in RL mines and find out what pressure means. It is not a coincidence that global supply chains outsource base ressource allocation to countries which are so dominated by outside money, that these states guarantee union-free environment… in other words, people who deny to continue being the exploited and go on strike, will be shot dead by ex-military hired mercs. It’s a horrible thing, and nice words won’t stop it. RL economic system is a murderous one and since the vast amount of EVEs playerbase consists of the delusional class of workers who think they are something special, you don’t even need to try motivating them into any poltical activity inside the game.
While RL at least might offer the objective reality in which the non-clouded mind could see good reason why to join a cause such as yours, in EVE there is no “final punishment”. No one starves to death in EVE, no one gets completely annihilated from the face of earth for not being on the winning side of things. Plus, there is little to gain for any highsec miner.
Also, besides the necessity of making sure no one mines (aka having CODE back this up - and however you’d want to stop Goons Rorquals), there is also the question of why this would create any chaos. No one really relies on high-sec mining. No one needs your pity amount of High Sec Ores. Please look at Goons and look close enough. They are mining so much in one month using their army of Rorquals, that they could build an entire new army of Rorquals again every month.
In short, I don’t think any defensive strategy of this kind will work in EVE. Back to the scetching table and come up with something that actually creates chaos 
(which would be fun)
Hehe. I should re-read him in the context of EVE, because in a game he could at least make some sense. As for real world economics he is largely just another jester, like most of his kind, appeasing to his owners and their economic interests, by writing nicely digestible stories in the garment of science, using cloudy yet fine english (or whatever language) to make his students believe, by reading him they’ve actually learnt something, understood something, while in fact all they’ve learned is another set of phrases which have little connection to real life.
In real-life “Miners Strike” do happen from time to time and people generally don’t care about what you call “free riding”. The reason why these strikes could be unsuccessful is mostly due to state intervention in the form of shooting people dead or throwing them into prison for trying to improve their living conditions. This, of course, is not a nice story to tell, so in RL there are always jobs for people like the one you cited; jobs as being the sophisticated liars they are.
I mean, you should probably read some Marx or Luxemburg, if you even care about a scientifiic approach to the topic, though with an outcome that might anger your taste buds.
Yes, because they organized in a way that relied on coercion. Membership in unions was not optional, but often compulsory. This aspect is missing from the game, by-and-large. How are you going to stop people who are not part of the strike from mining? You’ll need to war dec them, and if they move to NPC corps you’ll need to suicide gank them…again and again until they stop.
Which brings us to this part,
Actually the violence was on both sides. Both on the part of the firm and on the part of the hopeful union. Union members would initiate violence against the “scabs” who would cross the picket line to do the work they were not doing, often at lower wages than the hopeful union employees. The business owners often hire mercenaries and groups like the Pinkertons to bust up the strike. Strikers would also destroy property as well.
And even then, there is another problem. Why should NS miners even give a toss about your strike? And if you are even partly successful and raise prices you’ll simply be encouraging NS miners to…mine more.
Oh, and to maintain these higher prices and higher benefits you’ll have to keep people who would otherwise mine from mining. That is you can’t have all the miners in your “union” because then the output would simply be just the same and prices would be the same and there would be no benefit. And if you drive up prices by hoarding some of that ore/minerals you are incurring an opportunity cost and it is not clear that the per member benefit will be all that much higher than if there were no union.
And lastly, there is the Trust Issue™. Yes, I noticed the desire to take all the proceeds of mining and put them in one big pile…one big pile someone can conveniently walk off with. I’ll give you some credit for coming up with a scam via a labor union/slave camp.
Oh and about this…
Mancur Olson was on the Left side of the political spectrum, FYI. The idea that he was some sort of corporate stooge is laughable. He also worked with USAID to help with developing economies in places like Africa.
And be honest…you never read Olson or much economics have you? If you had you’d know what free riding means.
I didn’t know Groucho wrote anything! That is very exiting! Thanks!
The reason why people in real-life unions - nowadays - usually won’t care about “free-riding”, as the economical concept you’ve brought up, in their struggles is simple: first off, they are not capitalists and don’t believe everything should be commodified. Second, if a strike is successful, there is not much worry about other workers who profit from the result as well without paying union membership (in countries other than the US), because better working conditions/better payment is worth more than weird feelings about people who didn’t participate in the strike.
For EVE, yeah, absolutetely.
Membership in unions depends very much on the country. It’s impossible to speak about work nowadays without looking at the entire supply chain and that often means to look at global labour rights just as much as at the labour rights in the country of final consumption of goods.
I was talking about the state or companies KILLING workers or throwing them to prison. To say “the violence was on both sides” is pretty cynical. In most countries today, even the ones who deem themselves democracies, the right to strike is highly regulated by law, which means there is still the threat of a prison sentence for people who decide to fight for better working conditions outside the tight frame the legislators set. In other countries, which most of these “democracies” use to acquire cheap labor without any workers rights, through outsourced subcontractors which happen to be 100% owned by the same guys who run your companies “at home”, people are still killed by mercs, the state etc.
Sure, there is violence from unions too, but there is no general policy of being violent, and pushing around strike-breakers is not comparable systematic violence against people who try to be a little less harshly exploited through labor.
Well yeah, I never said this would make sense in EVE. Or did I? As it was said before, the only ones who could pull it off are actually Goons and even then I doubt it will be more than a bit of innocent fun.
Yeah, USAID is a capitalist think tank and actor through and through. Nothing Left about that, nor about the group Olson started. Look at what USAID did in Latin America, in Afrika. Look at what “good” they have done in former so-called socialist, east european countries. USAID is nothing but a means to the end of implementing US friendly economical policies in poor and beaten countries, in order to exploit their local labor market, in order to prepare bipartisan “agreements” with usually catastrophic outcome for the local population. It’s a cynical euphemism… USAID. 
They are part (besides NED, IMF, World Bank) of the reason why there is a slight lack of trust in the United States on most continents of the world nowadays
Free-riding for me is a nonsense concept, more a religious belief. In order for it to make sense you have to believe that it is a good idea to commodify as much as possible, that capitalism is normal (rather than just a specific epoche around 300-400 years old) and that humans are naturally like they are under capitalism (just like any presumption of how humans naturally are, when ignoring the specific surroundings/historical state etc.). Then you can start doing funny numbers games in what-if (the air you breathe wouldn’t be free of charge) in order to come to conclusions that people who don’t breathe for free have higher opportunity costs and such… meh.
The reason I recommend Marx and Luxemburg is, that both take a look at both the political-economic system known as capitalism and its subjects (most people), from a variety of analytical perspectives starting not from within the logic of that system, but from its constitution, outer dependencies and inner workings. Give it a try, it’s not too hard to read Capital if you are used to reading, and since there is no communism left, you don’t need to fear get infected with its virus of human dignity and justice. Or do you?
He’s right. You’re not up to date regarding changes in western societies of the last 20ish years, especially the USA, where this has its roots.
Nonsense. It has nothing to do with being a capitalist, socialist or communist, but human nature. Free riding is a problem in all economic systems.
Coercion is still used. Nowadays many unions have gotten politicians to support them by making laws that support them. And all laws/legislation are coercive by definition. Don’t follow them and agents of the state come and use coercion, force and violence. Resist and they’ll lock you up. Resist enough they’ll kill you.
Again, in the early days of unions violence was used by both sides. It is not cynical it is a fact.
See my comments about how law/legislation is actually coercion and even violence.
There is very little violence from corporations these days. Instead it has become advantageous to actually side in many ways with unions. By making union membership mandatory it makes it harder for competitors to enter that market. It can create a barrier to entry.
Then your entire post is off topic. Posts here should be about EVE.
Now you are just showing your ignorance. USAID is a government agency.
I can’t speak for my colleagues, but I will gladly accept ISK from miners to brutalise other miners. A perfect system for a perfect Highsec.
Go for it OP!
I’m glad I’m not the only one who is aware of the fact that it is the threat of violence which allows screaming princesses to exist in the first place.
I’d argue that it’s not a diversion or trick at all. The pupils are arguing very passionately about their perceived surroundings and sharing their displeasure with a captive worldwide audience known as global media and the internet.
Not everyone’s a good pupil either. Western society has almost made it a sin to tell someone they’re not cut out for college and higher thought as it cuts away at the university’s profit margin and their ability to install a new sports arena. Nothing wrong with being a good plumber or car mechanic if your skills lie there and not in philosophy or arts.
That said, I’m on the agreement CODE must be involved in this “chaos,” and have been trying to get something like this going for a while. It’s evolution of a player in three steps.
1: CODE and their relatives find someone who’s being derpy, is a new player who is clueless, a bot, or someone otherwise mucking around at the bottom of the pool. They’re the cat(alyst)fish stirring up the bottom of the pond and are a necessary part of the ecosystem.
2: (What’s missing) A group of ambulance chasers comes along and offers the ganked party a leg up in the form of an organization, support, and education in order to proceed further in the game than being a bottom dweller. Zkillboard and other resources make the effort to find these players ridiculously easy. We’ve had real life and possible some Eve wars fought on the premise that people like to belong to something greater than themselves and are inherently tribal. This group does not just mine. They experiment and try to find a profitable niche in the mechanics or have an ultimate direction and goal as a group. That ultimate goal could be literally just causing chaos.
3: Once the player has learned all they can in the feeder corp and accomplished that group’s goals, they move on to a larger corp in null or wormhole where they can maximize their play time in the manner they desire. They become part of the school of big fish.
Antiganking really should be part of step 2 either as a feeder group or as a referral service, but they’re too focused (at least on the boards) on stopping the actual ganks or getting in the way of the actors in part 1. Instead, they should be approaching the ganked and giving them the tools they need to move to steps 2 and 3 after accomplishing something big. I’d love to see the after-battle report of a massive antiganking freighter convoy organized all moving through the Uedama pipe at once coming across CODE resistance like a convoy of merchant ships and their escorts coming across a submarine wolfpack.
Step 2 is also expensive and requires a hefty isk and time expense often at the form of other enjoyments, while 1 and 3 are often net profitable. As profit and the almighty “plex your account for the month,” seems to be lord here, most people who have leadership chops don’t want to organize for step 2 but instead beeline for step 3 as quickly as possible.
Therefore, and its not ideal as this should be an organic process that solidifies the prestige of upcoming leaders, step 1 and step 3 leadership should form the step 2 bridge between them artificially as a nearly scripted extension of the NPE and make the pipeline of new player to null bittervet move more efficiently, even if that’s done under the table. The selected step 2 leaders are responsible for creating “events,” to stabilize their fraternity. This may already be happening.
Too many people at step 1 is toxic and too many people at step 3 is stagnant.
A true polymath. Expert on all things economic, social and theological regarding the nature of humanity and the condition of our collective soul.
Look no further ladies and gentlemen. This man has all the answers.
EDIT: For some reason I find myself wondering why faith in traditional institutions has recently collapsed among the general public. How strange…
Your snarky stupidity aside…
The why to this is open to considerable debate, but the implications are not good.
