If there was anything that characterized the Old Left it was adulation of labor unions and of the process by which the government has created, maintained, cabined, and confined these unions to its will. Government control inevitably follows government privilege, and, as in the Fascist or Communist countries, privileged unionism has become in effect a powerful arm of the State apparatus for controlling the labor force and the economic system as a whole. Rather than representing their members, union leaders have been co-opted into the power elite, there to serve as transmission belts for keeping the workers under the control of the various governmental “guidelines” (an apt term.)
Labor Unionism, Two Views
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Rothbard, Murray N. “Labor Unionism, Two Views” Left and Right 2, No. 2 (Spring 1966): 12-16.
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