I’ve been thinking a lot about unions lately, who isn’t? It seems to me that there are possibly some good points to unions, but I think that the adverse economic impacts, especially if they are run poorly and state enforced, are far greater than any good that comes of them. For example, it seems almost apparent to me that they stifle innovation. I would argue that by forcing employers to keep on workers who would otherwise be fired they prevent those workers from being employed, or employing others, in more productive areas. Furthermore, they stifle innovation by removing the necessity for entrepeneurship. I think that I could argue for this, but I would like a more detailed study of this and other economic impacts of union activity over the pat century or so. Does anyone know of any books or peer-reviewed articles that deal with this topic more rigorously?
I can’t find an article right off the bat even though that’s a debate that’s been going on for a long time so I daresay it’d be easy to find things on it. However, Mises does deal with it in Human Action in his sections on wages and monopoly prices.
I must disagree with you, however, that labor unions are generally postive. In most situations (today at any rate there were some examples in the past that I think might have been different) they only make labor more expensive. It raises the price without raising value because it increases scarcity.
Oh and of course there happens to be this which I assume that you’ve seen
http://mises.org/daily/5092/More-for-Me-Does-Not-Mean-Better-for-Us
I activated your hyperlink for you.
I know it would be nice if the software did it automatically, but it only takes like 3 clicks to activate a hyperlink with the rich text editor.