Forming a new nation should be as easy and bloodless as forming a union.
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Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Thursday, 17-Jul-2025 13:36:40 JST
Evan Prodromou
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Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Thursday, 17-Jul-2025 13:43:18 JST
Evan Prodromou
@plinubius The modern system of unionizing a workplace in the US is not exactly easy, but is mostly bloodless, and very procedural. It's much, much, much easier than forming a new nation state.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Labor_Relations_Act_of_1935
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Plinubius 🇪🇺 (plinubius@chaos.social)'s status on Thursday, 17-Jul-2025 13:43:20 JST
Plinubius 🇪🇺
@evan Which forming of a labour union has ever been easy, say bloodless?
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Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Thursday, 17-Jul-2025 22:31:50 JST
Evan Prodromou
@plinubius that's probably a fair distinction. Are there pretty straightforward rules for organizing a workplace in Germany?
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Plinubius 🇪🇺 (plinubius@chaos.social)'s status on Thursday, 17-Jul-2025 22:31:52 JST
Plinubius 🇪🇺
@evan Ah, I guess, I was not aware that "union" is on workplace level. In German, there is a distinction between "Betriebsrat" (a unit co-governing a workplace, that is not necessarily connected with a trade union) and Gewerkschaft (a nationwide union organization)
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Bryan Davis (bd808@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 17-Jul-2025 22:59:37 JST
Bryan Davis
@evan So just get 80% pre-agreement, hold an official vote to prove >50% agreement, and then hope the capitalist overlords will recognize the result and continue on to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement in good faith in say 5 years or so… I guess I can’t say there are less arduous rules for becoming a sovereign entity recognized by a significant portion of the other sovereign entities, but “easy” does rankle me a bit.
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Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Thursday, 17-Jul-2025 22:59:37 JST
Evan Prodromou
@bd808 sure, but you know that "as big as an amoeba" doesn't imply that an amoeba is big in any absolute sense, right?
Our current system for forming nation states is ethnic civil war, with high civilian casualties, until the federal government is exhausted and broke and maybe collapses, followed by internationally guided peace talks, maybe a referendum, and a shaky new state emerges from the rubble.
I think everyone involved would appreciate a democratic system instead.
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