I was surprised to find out that Libertarians oppose unions. I do agree that Unions strip a lot of economic freedom from business' but they are formed by people, not by the law or government. They often prevent employers being abusive, or unfair however.
Democracy for Breakfast: I was surprised to find out that Libertarians oppose unions. I do agree that Unions strip a lot of economic freedom from business' but they are formed by people, not by the law or government. They often prevent employers being abusive, or unfair however.
It is illegal to fire an employee for joing a union, so they are protected by government. What does it mean for an employer to be abusive or unfair?
My favorite online shop: www.cafepress.com/libertyphile
Government protected unions, yes. Voluntary Unions, no.
"...The post-totalitarian system contrives to force life into its most probable states...This system serves people only to the extent necessary to ensure that people will serve it
Vaclav Havel
Saan: Government protected unions, yes. Voluntary Unions, no.
Is the UFT Government protected?
Democracy for Breakfast: Saan: Government protected unions, yes. Voluntary Unions, no. Is the UFT Government protected?
How is it not?
I can't understand why liberals are crying about the low percent of unions. To me that would seem like a good thing.....unions were started to hike wages and stop abusive treatment of labor. The less there are, the better the labor movement is doing right?
Obama and everyone else just want more unions for more coercive power to pass legislation that destroys businesses. Some unions seem fine like steelworkers, but a secretary's union.....you're kidding me
Democracy is nothing more than replacing bullets with ballots
If Pro is the opposite of Con. What is the opposite of Progress?
Andrew: I can't understand why liberals are crying about the low percent of unions. To me that would seem like a good thing.....unions were started to hike wages and stop abusive treatment of labor. The less there are, the better the labor movement is doing right? Obama and everyone else just want more unions for more coercive power to pass legislation that destroys businesses. Some unions seem fine like steelworkers, but a secretary's union.....you're kidding me
Why is a steelworkers union fine?
What about how most unions violate both private property and the nonaggression axiom... the core tenants of libertarianism?
Read this
http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/10317.aspx
If employers are abusive, that is illegal. If employers are unfair, that is tough luck.
Unions are mechanisms of exclusion, that traditionally relied on violence to gain privilege, (violence against the firm, and non-union workers competing for jobs) and now rely on government law (violence) to excluse other workers, limit labour competition and bully employers.
Yes, people can form unions voluntarily. But a union's bargaining power is tied to privilege which is a statist tactic, not exclusion (via property) which is a libertarian tactic.
A libertarian should be obliged to utilize Bastiat's seen and unseen analysis regularly. We see what the unions provide for union workers. Now what are the costs? Obviously, less competition, artificially higher wages, which lead to artificially higher prices, exclusion of workers without union membership, compromising the property rights of the firm etc etc etc.
In a free market, a union serves no purpose. Wages will be bid up to their market rate. But some (incorrectly) believe that the free market can't deal with racism, sexism or "unfairness" in general, and so we have a lot more work to do towards economic literacy, even within the ranks of libertarianism.
If you find something evil that wobbles, push it. - Gary North
liberty student: Read this http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/10317.aspx If employers are abusive, that is illegal. If employers are unfair, that is tough luck. Unions are mechanisms of exclusion, that traditionally relied on violence to gain privilege, (violence against the firm, and non-union workers competing for jobs) and now rely on government law (violence) to excluse other workers, limit labour competition and bully employers. Yes, people can form unions voluntarily. But a union's bargaining power is tied to privilege which is a statist tactic, not exclusion (via property) which is a libertarian tactic. A libertarian should be obliged to utilize Bastiat's seen and unseen analysis regularly. We see what the unions provide for union workers. Now what are the costs? Obviously, less competition, artificially higher wages, which lead to artificially higher prices, exclusion of workers without union membership, compromising the property rights of the firm etc etc etc. In a free market, a union serves no purpose. Wages will be bid up to their market rate. But some (incorrectly) believe that the free market can't deal with racism, sexism or "unfairness" in general, and so we have a lot more work to do towards economic literacy, even within the ranks of libertarianism.
Don't Unions exercise the right to assembly?
I see no problem with voluntary unions, only those protected by the government. Unions with government protection are coercive monopolies.
What is it called when the government protects Unions?
Certainly voluntarily unions are formed by people themselves.
Democracy for Breakfast: They often prevent employers being abusive, or unfair however.
They often prevent employers being abusive, or unfair however.
No, they do not.
Democracy for Breakfast: Certainly voluntarily unions are formed by people themselves.
Strictly unenforced professional associations do not exist for the purpose of affecting wages and working conditions for reasons that I and others explained in the other union thread.
Yep, voluntary arrangements of people are fine. Bribing government officials for special privilege is not. I believe there is a whole chapter of Rothbard's ME&S that is more detailed with some economic stuff, but this article I dug up seems very similar.
The issue of unions feels like a parallel to why I would consider myself a voluntarist before an anarcho-capitalist. I might be satisfied by an aggressive reeducation of moron cultural marxists but refuse to advocate such things. I don't advocate capitalism so much as I reject the initiation of aggression and simultaneously recognize why capitalism is superior to alternatives. A real libertarian can acknowledge 'voluntary governments' as legitimate while clearly seeing their methods as immoral. The economic reasoning of Rothbard, that either form of typical labor unions are inherently restrictionist, is sound as far as I can tell. People are free to live in primitive barter societies, just don't ask me to.
Why does many a man write? Because he does not possess enough character not to write. ---Karl Kraus.
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