Actually, Droopy is arguing again for a socialist ideal rather than a market ideal, altruism, which was invented by the leftist Aguste Comte.
Pull the lever, Gad. Do you see cherries? Oranges? Lemons?
What Droopy wants is for the employees of Hostess to realize it's in the best interest of the company's survival to pay them less, bow their heads, and accept the lower pay for themselves, for the greater good of their peers and the company.
One might expect them to come to terms with economic reality, primarily for their own good and for the greater good of their wives and children. The greater good of the company and their fellow employees is then only the inevitable consequence or derivative effect of that perspective and choice.
The employees, however, acted just as market economics expects. They felt the gamble to retain their pay was worth the risk, they took it, and they happened to lose, in this case.
1. Free market economic choices, calculations, and decisions do not involve gambling. They do involve risk, but this is not "gambling."
2. Unionism, and especially that of the closed shop variety, is no longer fully free market in the sense that, as we see here, union legal privileges and its perception (and union member's perception) of its state enforced powers of intimidation and coercion distort decision-making and perception of relative risk to the point that, again as we see here, a union and a relatively small number of its members can destroy what they were trying to save.
The market could not bear the wages and benefits being paid and the future liabilities being created. Economic reality collided with yet another union gravy train, and economic reality won.
Not every venture works out. Collusion is a natural extension of self-interest. Nowhere that I am aware of in free-market literature are people taught to be selfless and make decisions for the benefit of the group. If such a thing were realizable, if folks would only take the counsel of Droopy here to heart, then socialism would work just fine.
1. Collusion is precisely what a truly rule of law-based free market order combined with strictly limited government tends to discourage (whether monopolies, union power, syndicalist cabals, and politically connected rent seeking).
2.
Nowhere that I am aware of in free-market literature are people taught to be selfless and make decisions for the benefit of the group.
They don't need to. The vast majority of decisions made in a truly free market environment
must be made within the context of serving one's fellow human beings as best they can be served in an open, dynamic, creative, competitive environment. It cannot be the case that "the benefit of the group" (whatever that is) will not be realized, and at lower prices, higher quality, and wider variety, under such circumstances.
Socialism cannot work, period, due to its violations of the basic laws of economics and of the core elements of human nature. Nothing whatsoever, no possible set of conditions, save perhaps the invasion of the country by a vast military force requiring deep regimentation of economic life for naked survival, can make socialism "work."
I tell people I work with all the time that if they think they're underpaid and want more money, they need to either quit and work somewhere else, or at least get an offer letter from another company and accept a counter-offer. People don't like to do this because there is risk involved. Success, of course, means the company will be that much worse off than they were before.
For a brief period. Then they will hire someone else, and be as well off than they were before, or perhaps better (if the employee is actually a better employee).
Believing unions don't work is one thing, but outrage against union members for exploiting poor government policy and acting in their own self-interest, rather than for the benefit of the whole, is another, and betrays a hidden love for leftism. In this case, Droopy is once again displaying his capacity to think like a liberal.
Gad, this particular tactic of yours - one of your odder argument strategies - has been a good laugh, but its about over now. I'm beginning now to suspect that you understand neither conservatism or the Left. Unionism is, and always has been, a collectivist form of human relations. Since the 1930s, it has been progressively driven, not by market considerations, but by relative perceptions of the quantity of gravy that can be funneled into each union member's portfolio of benefits and privileged exemptions and dispensations.
If the members had been market-driven in their assessments, they would have given way to economic realities beyond the ability of their own personal desires and their union's political clout to alter. They did not do so. They chose to defy the market and strike.