2.) Vulgar adjectives do little to the wall of text.
How did I object to that? You cannot stop people forming unions, just as you cannot stop people from refusing to employ union members, as long as the unions are voluntary & non-coercive, and the refusal to employ is voluntary & non-coercive. How does this not make sense?
I never said you did, I see no reason for a defensive strawmen. Chill out, lol.
I thought as an anarchist, you must also respect the ability to not voluntary interact with unions, as well.
Unions in a stateless society, yes; unions in a State society, not necessarily. Okay, remind me again why you are disagreeing with me, since you basically just agreed with me?
Unions do not have a monopolization over free association & voluntary interaction (i.e. not everyone needs to be in a union if they choose it). I realize you did not argue that they did, I just bring it up since it reinforces the point that it’s equally free-associative & voluntary to not associate with unions.
So yea, really didn’t mean to offend you in anyway. Just felt like contributing :\
It seems that we agree then and did as libertarians often do(demonstrated quite well in this thread): argue past each other. LL do not support state unions, for they would not be LL if they did. If they do, they fall in to the same trap that AnCaps do when they support state capitalism, and the corporations that have arisen in that system.
One poster insinuated that Murray Rothbard would not support unions, thus making it impossible for him to be a LL, which I found ridiculous. This is why I showed that unions are perfectly compatable with libertarianism, while opposing unions is the exact opposite.
I know, but a few of the notorious right-libertarians here do say otherwise. The point is, there is a double standard. Too often, ancaps simply bash the very concept of unions and cooperative management as if it’s inherently coercive by definition, which is a mischaracterization when one is dealing with a libertarian-contextual favor for such things. Left-libertarians do not favor state-created union cartels, it’s just that to one degree or another they might favor the general concept of a union (I.E. an organization for the purpose of increasing the bargaining power of workers) in a libertarian context.
Only, there are other advantages to limited liability contracts and corporations. Unions are just cartels, I’m sure you’ve read enough economics to know what AE has to say about cartels, no?
You’re right, they couldn’t. I certainly support cartels that are not created by state intervention.
If it’s inefficient, then it will be driven out of the market place, just like everything else.
Rothbard coined the term “left-libertarian” and it is used to describe Rothbardians and market anarchists, which certainly accurately characterizes Rothbard. Rothbard’s cultural preferences has nothing to do with this.
No it doesn’t. There is a qualatitive difference between something being just inefficient and something being coercive. Something being coercive does not logically follow from it not being efficient. Efficiency /= the criteria for voluntaryism vs. coercivism.
No, I’m refering to the mere voluntary organization of workers. That’s all that a union is in theory, and in the context of a libertarian society, there’s nothing inherently wrong with such an organization granted that it doesn’t initiate force. Your argument would be no more legitimate than calling any buisiness, by definition, a “cartel on capital”.
How many times do people have to point you to his writtings from the 60’s and early 70’s where he clearly expresses LL views, or presents ideas that form the basis for many contemporary LL views? You can’t just dismiss it out of hand, and the fact that he was a cultural conservative isn’t the only criteria. Regaurdless, cultural preferance is not the sole thing that makes the LL vs. RL distinction. Stop being disingenuous. Rothbard inspired the LL, wether you like it or not.
You are superimposing the state-definition of unions onto the concept of a union as a whole, which is misleading. Furthermore, your exact same arguments apply no better or worse to corporations, one could just as easily call them cartels as well.
I would go so far as to say it may be completely unrelated. I myself hold more than a few culturally conservative (or traditional or popular or however youw ant to see it) cultural values but still call myself a left libertarian. I was not aware that one had to have certain cultural preferences in order to call oneself a libertarian of any stripe.
You see, the concept of a union in a libertarian society is fairly self-defeating. Ok so the workers form a union after hours to keep it hidden from the management. Then, as an earlier poster suggested, the union strikes suddenly, making the usual union demands. But in most cases, it would be over before it got under way - management fires every worker who participated in the strike, so the whole ordeal was pointless. Short of strikes, how would this new ‘libertarian’ union be able to accomplish anything without resorting to criminal acts?
And that brings up another question - when havent unions simply been a cartel to achieve above-market level wages?
You should read Carson. Labor has what’s called human capital where production-specific information is not known to management and is not easily replaced. A sudden and uniform strike would be disastrous to any firm, especially if the management did the worst thing and fired everybody at once.
Management does not understand or cannot perform most of the jobs that it handles, and so a catastrophe would result. The idea that you can just easily replace all the workers at once, comes from a collectivist and deliberate underestimation of labor’s value. Now this happens in degrees, where for example, shelf-stockers are more easily replaced than more skilled labor, but the assumption that all labor is basically brain-dead and interchangable, is ridiculous (and it violates methodological individualism).
While the premise is possible, it is not likely. Have you ever worked a union job? I know that a ‘statist’ union isnt the same thing, but when I worked a particular union job I was dragged into strikes I did not want to start. You’d have a hard time preventing every last employee from working.
I agree. But the current union group think also violates methodological individualism, and it would be unworkable.
The closest thing you’re going to get in a libertarian world to a union is a trade guild.
I believe in a decentralized economy, there won’t be such a demand for unions anyway. Unions are just now, because I don’t believe the corporation is a just private owner. But in a free market, the conditions would be different, the basic bargaining ability of labor would be already much stronger, denecessitating much union activity. It would still be a perfectly viable and voluntary option, though.
I was going to point this out.
This obviously relies on state collusion to be workable.
I think both objections rely on statist conditions existing, and therefore are invalid criticisms.