I am under the impresssion that late 19th century America was characterized by increasing wages, productivity and competition in spite of efforts by large interests like Morgan and Rockefeller to shield themselves from competition through politics and cartelization. Further, the emergence of massive political machine corruption, anti-market moralizing elitism, unionism, and technocratic thought (efficiency, rule by experts, etc) were further factors making for a mixed picture indeed.

BTW, there’s the entirely separate issue (which P. M. Lawrence brings up) of whether conditions at the turn of the century actually constituted a free market, and whether the gains from union activity might have come out of employer monopsony rents.

Now, union activism may seem an odd sort of project for any sort of libertarian to choose to undertake. If Labadie had had a firmer grasp of economics, he would have seen the long-term futility of such activism; he would have seen that unions can never improve working conditions or wages beyond the level the market would attain anyway.

That simply isn’t true of a rigged market, or for particular groups within an unrigged one which they then manage to rig in their favour – and, of course, the first case can make it worth unionising once others have unionised and caused the second case (which isn’t only caused that way).

Here’s what Brad Spangler wrote in response to that argument in an earlier thread:

Negotiation of terms is part of the transaction process and, hence, the market.

Are you implying that sellers ought only passively accept or decline deals and never assertively negotiate with a potential buyer, merely so long as more than one potential buyer exists?

And…

1) If so, do you apply that dictum universally, or just in the case of labor deals?

2) If so, AND if you limit that view solely to the labor market, then I must ask what (in economic terms) is so special about labor?

If so, AND if you apply it universally, then I must say you’re really doing yourself a disservice when it comes to selling a home or car.
http://blog.mises.org/7391/hollywoods-workers-and-peasants/

One might argue with just as much validity that Wal-Mart’s attempts to use its oligopsony power to force lower prices on suppliers are doomed to futility, because they couldn’t achieve prices any lower than what “the market” would produce. I don’t see how it makes sense to treat the bargaining activities of a large number of market actors as something distinct from “the market.”