Quote:
Originally posted by ltl/fb
Re: your first paragraph, I think you may have a point as to recent developments with unions, but at the outset, I think unions were a natural outgrowth of industrialization/mass production. With large employers, especially those who dominate the industry in a particular area, workers have very little bargaining power (even more so a bazillion years ago when communications and transportation were so much more primitive) and factory owners really were exploiting them and getting ridiculously rich. I think the choice at that point was between unions and socialism, and unions seem more market-y than socialism. It's people banding together to bargain. I don't think that bringing in armed guards to force people back to work has a role in a free market. I don't think that "company towns" where the mill or mine or factory owner controls the price of food and housing -- keeping them artificially high -- so that workers have no way to save etc. to leave and get a better life is part of a free market.
Re: your second paragraph, I wasn't saying "we can't have winners without losers." I was saying, we can't develop a modern, industrialized society if everyone is an entrepreneur and does the bootstrap thing. Small businesses may drive growth, but hugenormousgantic businesses (not as much industrial anymore) are the backbone of the economy. And, for some people, becoming what you see as a drone is a big step up and is challenging.
Go suck on that silver spoon you've had since birth. Your forebears would be ashamed of you.
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Ahem. My grandfather was a coalminer for a few months when he came over on the boat. He guaged very quickly that only a dope would stick it out in such work, so he opened a store. And things went from there. He despised unions because he saw them as bastion of what he called "Shanty Irish," who didn't work hard enough. He also claimed income tax ruined the country and wouldn't do business with people who wouldn't have a drink with him, so maybe my views come from a damaged source...
