Lew Rockwell on unions. One of my favorite lines from people is the one that goes, “Well, nowadays unions are awful, but the early intentions were good.” The early intentions of unions were the same as the modern goals: to be a social-democratic ideological and political force by aligning class interests with the political elites who hold the power, and using that alliance to minimize the role of the free market and its impact on the lives of individuals by replacing market forces with an interventionist-social engineering order that would be directed by elites from government, labor, and the corporatocracy.
Which brings me to thoughts of Walter Reuther, a most powerful force in social activism and the move toward central planning. Walter Reuther was a socialist from youth, and all members of his inner circle were active in the socialist party. Walter Reuther was a man with an entire social democratic agenda. During the New Deal era, he built alliances with some of FDR’s most prominent insiders by showing New Dealers that he was a man to be taken seriously when it came to devising central planning mechanisms and shaping the regulatory environment. When America was ramping up for WWII, Reuther proposed that the private production of military aircraft be put into the hands of a federal Aviation Production Board which would be run by government planners, labor, and accomodating Yes Men from corporate America.Reuther and the union leadership under him consistently promoted economic planning and the expansion of the welfare state. Reuther supported Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, and in fact the UAW’s legislative agenda for fulfilling the Great Society included a planning mechanism, or an urban TVA, “to stop erosions of cities and people.” Reuther’s central planning mechanism called for the federal government to create “socially meaningful” cities by turning select cities into “research laboratories for the war against poverty.” The federal government would approve all planning aspects, channel funds appropriately, and create “Demonstration Cities” that would be a test run for future endeavors of social experimentation in order to meet the goals of national policy.
Reuther thought that government tax, fiscal, and monetary policy did not offer enough control, especially since corporate America could – through productive efficiency in spite of government – overcome the statist controls and therefore the market could thrive. What then? Government needed to take over private production and thus all economic planning for the nation. In essence, Reuther’s overall agenda called for privately-owned companies to be ruled by a National Planning Agency that would make all managerial decisions with any economic impact whatsoever.
You can read about the sordid history of union statism and social engineering activism in Kevin Boyle’s The Heyday of American Liberalism 1945-1968 and Nelson Lichtenstein’s The Most Dangerous Man in Detroit: Walter Reuther and the Fate of American Labor.
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Unions, just like big business, are dangerous when they become aligned with government. Unions in a free market can serve a purpose, just as business in a free market serves a purpose. But when the government gets into bed with both unions and big business you can be sure that the hard working taxpayers will be the victims.
One of my relatives was a coal miner, and an early officer of United Mineworkers. The family has all these pictures of him standing around with John L. Lewis in his early heyday.
He said that the reason he got into the union as deeply as he did was explicitly to fight the Truck System. Basically, this is where, as part of your employment contract, you were mandated to live in company housing, shop at the company commissary, and never quibble about prices. The prices were set in such a way that the average coal mining family could not afford to live within their means.
That was fine by the company. The employees were extended credit, which was deferred indefinitely, so long as the employee continued to work.
There were no other jobs available in these small towns. You worked for the company, in any one of its forms, or you worked nowhere. Serfery by any other name doth smell the same.
Ancestor mine didn’t want to be a serf, and I can’t say as I blame him. No matter whether you’re a serf of DC’s beltway bandits, or a serf of The Company, you’re still a serf. The only reasonable way to break out of this system was by collective bargaining. I won’t claim it was altogether peaceful, but I prefer this method to say, an uprising that takes over the company’s central office by storming the grounds with pickaxes and shovels, or by lobbying for outright nationalization.
Maybe some of the early theorists were socialists, communists, or whatever. Not all of them were, in spite of the end results.
It’s notable that toward the end of his life in the 1970s, my ancestor found the modern-day union to be somewhat morally repugnant. “This wasn’t how it was supposed to be,” he said.
You ancestor definately had the right to pack up and move somewhere that he could find work that was more appealing to him.
All unionists are socialists, whether they know it or not. The whole objective of a union is coercion. If you don’t like the terms of your work, then find a new job. The market should make these decisions not a bunch of angry socialists with signs and weapons to attack anyone who actually produces.
Unions have no place in a free market.
Lew’s post compares unions to the scorpion in the fable of the scorpion and the turtle/toad. This doesn’t fit, though, because in the fable the scorpion stings despite its rational self-interest, but to make the fable fit unions the scorpion has to be intending to sting all along.
Does anyone know of any comprehensive history of the labor union movement in america from a libertarian perspective? I’ve looked around a bit, and the only things I’ve been able to find have been from a socialistic/communistic perspective, so I find it difficult to trust them.
Jaq Phule:
Having heard the “company store” legends for years, I, too, tended to merely accept that they were used as tool a to re-extract what had been paid to the workers and to keep them available for duty.
But, some years ago, I heard differently from a life-long miner (who recently died at 86 from “black lung” complications). I have to qualify that this particular man had lived in only one “company town” but knew of and was acquainted with many others (in the soft-coal-
mining region of central-western Pennsylvania).
Rather than a “trap” for the men, the company town was the “best deal going” as far as rents and facilities were concerned (not that they were anything more than serviceable). The same was true of the “company store.” In many places, such store was the only place to get the necessaries simply because the location (nearer to the mine and work) wasn’t close to alternative shopping, as it was, in the small towns. But it was emphasized to me that prices and qualities were competitive (or better) with town shopping (and, of course, there was the fact that the workman had credit, based on his coming payday.
My friend Joe explained that miners were the highest paid of any ordinary workers–it was hard and dangerous (and also, “spotty,” with frequent strikes or shut-downs due to market conditions).
But Joe was nothing if not industious; he held down a second job with a country club–bartender, greenskeeper, etc., and, when idled (about
40% of the time, over a lifetime, due to causes previously mentioned) hustled other jobs (Jewel
Tea, other route-work, etc.) He was convinced that the main obstacle the men faced were their own propensities to drink and gamble (neither of which he did) and to stay unemployed when circumstances idled them. He (with a young family) moved out of the company town after about 5 years to a nearby town, believing the general moral climate less than he wanted for his family. When he died, he’d put two daughters through college (they were able to live at home) and had accumulated over a quarter-million (invested only in U.S. bonds).
“Unions have no place in a free market.”
Workers should not be able to collectively organize and bargain for their wages? Provided it is all voluntary, where is the problem?
Nasika, I think Hoppe mentions some sources on company towns in DTGTF, but nothing much on unions (although he does reference one or two works on them.)
And now they’re taking Twinkies away from us. Will their evil never cease?
I think on the free market, Unions will have a place–they’ll revert to fraternal organizations, like the Knights of Pythias or even the Freemasons.
“You ancestor definately had the right to pack up and move somewhere that he could find work that was more appealing to him. ”
As I understand it, no. This was considered breach of contract, and prosecuted as such. In those days, the state sided with the employer. This is as serious a problem as the state siding with the unions.
“All unionists are socialists”
Come on, that’s just sloppy thinking. All Cretans are liars, too.
Gene Berman:
Your friend was two generations younger than my ancestor, who would be about 120 if still alive today. Conditions improved, largely because of the union’s efforts rather before your friend’s heyday. Like Joe, my ancestor was also teetotal, but the opportunities for living a sustainable life (not to mention putting your child through college) were just not available in spite of industry in Pennsylvania around 1910-1920. My ancestor was able to put his eldest grandson through college, but not his own children. Conditions had improved by the 1950s-1960s.
In spite of what you all may have heard in specious conservative rhetoric, unions are not intrinsically against free market principles. It is true that they have evolved this way over time, and there is no argument that Rich Trumpka is a socialist. I want to stress, however, that advancing a philosophical socialist agenda was not their aim as understood by early union rank-and-file.
You’re right, Jaq. Though unionists operate collectively, the major thrust of most rank-and-file is not specifically socialist (though there have been certain unions–the ILGWU and some others–whose membership, by and large, was specifically of that stamp and indoctrination).
But I differ with your belief that the unions (which one doesn’t really matter) were actually responsible for improving the lot of the workers except through exercise of violence and the threat thereof upon both persons and property. We could argue the matter back and forth, citing examples from history but that wouldn’t get us anywhere. As impractical as it may sound, true understanding of such matters cannot be attained through study, no matter how thorough and penetrating (and honestly pursued) of the data of experience; they are simply too complex and admit, frequently, of opposite (though entirely plausible) interpretations and conclusions. In such cases, theoretical analysis is far more important–not only for understanding the events of the past but to improve conditions of the future.
Mises covers these matters (especially in HUMAN ACTION) with a thoroughness that leaves little room for uncertainty about the role of unions and whether or not their activities should be considered beneficial to those who must actually labor for their livlihood. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that one who hasn’t read what Mises expressed of the matter is highly unlikely to know anything useful of the subject. Try it–everyone can benefit from a better understanding of those matters on which they hold and express opinions.
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