> Speaking of unions . . . My views on unions have evolved considerably over
> the last few years as I've become more and more libertarian in my political
> philosophy. I don't see why people shouldn't be able to band together into
> collective bargaining arrangements or why a union shouldn't be able to make a
> contract with a company that forbids the hiring of non-union employees. Of
> course, state sanctioning shouldn't be tolerated, but I can see unions doing
> a lot of good in a more libertarian world, especially in taking over and
> decentralizing many of the functions of the state social welfare function.
> Many of the things that anarcho-capitalist theorists see as being provided by
> privately-produced law agencies would be more effective if coupled with
> social welfare unions that also had some economic functions such as
> collective bargaining. Individuals would have to have the freedom to enter
> and leave unions (with some costs imposed, I'm sure). I wonder what others
> think of such ideas?
That's pretty much the (libertarian) party line, and I don't think anyone
would much object. We've always opposed so-called "right to work" laws
that are basically government support of union breaking, and we've also
opposed "right to strike" laws that were government support of unions.
In short, let 'em fight it out for themselves.
I applaud recent moves, for example, of Doctors unionizing to fight
restrictive HMO contracts. Collective labor can be a strong force for
fighting the power of big money in the absence of big government, and
libertarians have always favored that.
-- Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lcrocker.html> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC
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