
Who Were the Pinkertons? - smacktoward
https://slate.com/human-interest/2019/02/pinkerton-red-dead-redemption-2-lawsuit-history.html
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notananthem
Couple things. Pinkerton's president Jack Zahran says what next, a game where
Coke poisons people- well in fact, Coca-Cola has a pretty awful past and
present of hiring "the pinkertons" of south america to murder and "disappear"
labor organizers. That's something Coke lives with.

The pinkertons do have an awful history and its something they have to live
with- they also have a pretty awful present, if you've ever worked with their
international physical site auditors. I have and they were hired by an
employer for my direction, and were awful. I put aside the historical context
I knew of the company because in fact I was hiring a totally different company
in the 2010's.. and reached the same conclusion. Thuggish, awful translation,
basically came off as a hired gun, when they were supposed to be craftspeople
of gentle mutually agreed site security audits.

~~~
gwern
> Couple things. Pinkerton's president Jack Zahran says what next, a game
> where Coke poisons people- well in fact, Coca-Cola has a pretty awful past
> and present of hiring "the pinkertons" of south america to murder and
> "disappear" labor organizers. That's something Coke lives with.

It's an awkward analogy because, whether you believe in caloric or sugar
theories of the obesity epidemic, Coca-Cola is not a good guy either way.
Quite a few people would say that yes, "Coca-Cola poisons mankind"...

~~~
cronix
> Quite a few people would say that yes, "Coca-Cola poisons mankind"

If you can use it to clean the contacts and corrosion buildup on car battery
terminals... My dad used to do that.

~~~
whoopdedo
Coca-cola has a pH of 3.4 and in conjunction with carbon dioxide is good at
dissolving metal oxides. And since one of the components is carbonic acids, it
also works against lime. But then you still have to deal with the syrup
residue.

Fortunately, humans aren't made of metal so when you pour it into a stomach
that's somewhere between 1.5 - 3.5 pH, not much happens. Except that suspended
carbon dioxide is released and has to go somewhere.

~~~
crankylinuxuser
> Except that suspended carbon dioxide is released and has to go somewhere.

That's an awkward way of saying that people belching is contributing to global
warming!

~~~
benj111
No because the CO2 came out of the atmosphere!

Coke is carbon negative!!

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AndyMcConachie
Anyone who has studied even a smidgeon of US labor history knows the
Pinkertons as hired thugs who intimidated and sometimes killed workers. They
should be portrayed as villains.

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Animats
The Pinkerton National Detective Agency is pretty much gone. Some guard
services survive as part of Securitias. But at one time they were a big deal.
Not so much in the West, but in major American cities. Willie Sutton, the bank
robber, wrote of the Pinkertons "they were as powerful as the cops, and much
better organized".

That was their real power. They had national reach, good communications, and
record keeping. Until the FBI got their act together in the 1940s, nobody else
in the US did. Law enforcement was very local. Only a Pinkerton could order
"so and is on a train to Chicago. Have him followed when he leaves the
station."

By the 1960s, they were no longer really necessary, and mostly became a rent-
a-cop service.

~~~
zeckalpha
They may have less power today, but they do still exist, and do still do the
same kind of work. I knew a union infiltrator in the transportation industry
through a friend just a few years back.

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madeofmeat
The Pinkertons have been corporate mercenaries for the railroad corporations
in western genre novels, since I was old enough to read. The only new thing
here is it's a top-selling video game instead of a dime novel.

~~~
beautifulfreak
And for Henry Ford, too, dealing with labor strikes.

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User23
One of the reasons Dashiell Hammett's hard-boiled fiction is so good is that
he actually worked for the Pinkertons as an operative before getting into
writing.

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viraptor
I find this interesting also because there's a few security agencies which
reuse the Pinkertons name. For example I see these cars all the time:
[https://www.psecurity.com.au/](https://www.psecurity.com.au/)

It looks like there are people who do remember them and the history.

~~~
stebann
They should be "proud" for their history. Their reaction was completely
exaggerated.

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hutzlibu
It remainds me a bit of similar discussions about GTA San Andreas, where there
is a line "kill the haitians" which created offense. Or "the hot coffe patch"
\- which unlocked soft porn in the game. Oh my god!

A game where your mission is to kill for fun, fame and money ... and the
problem is not the main concept, but NO SEXUAL CONTENT. And NO RACISM. (even
though it was not racism. the haitians were just one of the other gangs you
fought)

And here again, a game which is about murder in the first place (did not
played it though) ... and someone (with an awful history) thinks he is
missrepresented in a game that glorifies crime.

Something is very weird here.

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DoctorOetker
>“However, what I would argue, on balance, in a free-market environment where
ultimately clients decide whether you live or die, you don’t survive for 167
years if you don’t operate with a high ethical standard.”

What is this quote supposed to mean?

"you" refers to the Pinkertons obviously, but are they insinuating that
clients without muscle would kill the muscle? or just stop using the company
if they behave _too_ ethical? he's justifying unethical behaviour ... by
calling it highly ethical in a free market environment?!

~~~
atombender
"Live or die" as in whether the company survives. They're not talking about
clients literally killing them. They're saying the company has survived all
these years in the free-market environment because of their high ethical
standards.

~~~
DoctorOetker
that's also how I read it, but that doesn't mean it makes sense: if they had
in that time and place set a high ethical standard of not participating in
strikebreaking, they might indeed not have survived as a company, so their
survival was the result of their _lower_ ethical standards...

~~~
wmf
Maybe they're libertarians so they think strikes are unethical.

~~~
benj111
Wouldn't libertarians support your right to strike?

~~~
hutzlibu
Depends. Libertarians believe in free individuals making contracts. So unless
the right to strike is somewhere included (here in germany it is through laws
on a higher level) they would not, as strike is a breach of contract
otherwise.

~~~
benj111
Why would the right to strike have to be in the contract? The contract just
doesn't have to ban strikes, surely?

Libertarians default to liberty, unless opted out of, that's my understanding
at least.

~~~
hutzlibu
You make a contract which says you work for money.

If you strike, you do not work - you therefore break contract.

"libertarians default to liberty"

True. The liberty of individual. For example to make contracts - or to brake
them. But the idea is, that society can only work if people do not break their
contracts. Otherwise whats the point in them?

~~~
benj111
Surely then it depends upon the reason for the strike?

If the strike is over layoffs, wage cuts, unsafe work practices. They're all
potential contract breaches.

~~~
hutzlibu
"Surely then it depends upon the reason for the strike?"

For sure. If the other side breachs contract then, then strike is a very good
way to fight that. Like work safe issues.

But layoffs for example ... are not really a breach of contract. (unless of
course their contract was fir a longer time)

~~~
benj111
So we are back to the beginning again.

Libertarians aren't ideologically against strikes.

~~~
hutzlibu
Well, if you define things like that, than I have to ask who do you mean by
libertarians? There are many different branches.

I was refering to the free market libertarians and with strike I meant the
ordinary one, like the one in question. Workers strike to get a better deal.
Better money mostly and or less hours. And this is a breach of contract, which
the free market libertarians I know, would be against.

The leftwing anarchist libertarians I know on the other hand would be all for
strike and workers seizing the factory for themself.

~~~
benj111
I'm not sure there was a particular strike in question?!

You're right there are many varieties of libertarian. My understanding is that
they are at least united in their small government ethos. With that in mind
they would be against the levers of the state that could protect workers
rights, and so be more likely to support systems that put those levers in the
hands of individuals.

Also lets look at the US, they have fairly weak employment rights, you can be
sacked without reason (as I understand it). Going on strike in that situation
is functionally equivalent to handing in your notice and demanding that your
employer reemploys you under a new contract. You are hoping that your value to
your employer is still greater than the costs, if not he can just sack you and
re employ someone else.

In that situation there isn't a breach of contract. I suppose you could argue
semantically that that isn't a strike, but strikes (should) operate within the
laws in force at the time, so I don't have a problem with the method of labour
withdrawal changing to stay within these constraints.

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godelmachine
Don’t the Pinkerton agents always get killed in movies?

I think I saw two of them in one of Indiana Jones.

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keymone
> What’s next? A game where Coca-Cola poisons mankind?

He’d be surprised.

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52-6F-62
Spoiler warning! They go into RDR2 plot details for anyone who’s currently
playing it.

~~~
djsumdog
eh .. not a lot. They touch on when the Pinkertons are first introduced and
they also talk about one showdown scene between the main characters and the
Pinkertons. I'd say two to three mild spoilers, but nothing that really
surprises you in the game (it's a great game, highly recommended).

Until this article, I had no idea the Pinkertons were a real outfit, or that
they're still around! In the game, your character(s) are bandits, and
portrayed that way from the very first hour of game play. The Pinkertons may
seem aggressive, but the players characters are never portrayed as malevolent.
It is a western after all. Client Eastwood might have done some nice and
honorable things as The Man with No Name, but he was hardly a hero.

This would be different if it were a household name like Sears or General
Electric or IBM; very old 100+ year companies. I wouldn't be surprised of some
lawyers at Rockstar were like, "Fuck...they still exist? Really?" The article
shows how they were in other fiction (Boardwalk Empire and Deadwood) and I
honestly do not remember them being mentioned at all. They're not even that
big in RedDead2 really; just one of the many many people who want to kill the
protagonists.

Maybe they're just suing so people still remember they exist. No publicity is
bad publicity right? Besides if they didn't defend their historic trademark in
other fiction, they've got no case here. Without constant trademark defense, a
trademark can turn into a common name or generic idea. Bikini is one example
(once a trademark), although there are counter examples (Band-aid is still
trademarked even though it's commonly used as generic, where the correct non-
brand term is Bandage or adhesive bandage .. or plaster if you're an Aussie).

~~~
darkpuma
Pinkertons are practically a mainstay of the western genre. One example I've
seen recently is the 2007 remake of _3:10 to Yuma_ in which they play a fairly
important role.

IMDB has a list that's far from comprehensive:
[https://www.imdb.com/search/keyword?keywords=pinkertons](https://www.imdb.com/search/keyword?keywords=pinkertons)

~~~
TylerE
Also a relatively major sub-plot in Deadwood.

