David Boaz has some thoughts on our mythical libertarian past, and offers some useful perspective.
12 thoughts on “Up From Slavery”
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David Boaz has some thoughts on our mythical libertarian past, and offers some useful perspective.
Comments are closed.
Extreme libertarianism has the same problem as pure communism. In practice it’s untenable and devolves into something else. Communism devolves into statist tyranny. Perfect libertarianism devolves into anarchy and chaos which then further devolves into despotism (per every example of history so far). Pure anarchy doesn’t work, there is a need for structure to keep it from devolving into rule by violence, currently the best option is restricted government devoted to individual liberty, in the future we may develop societal techniques that are more advanced, but for now the idea of a society without any law or governance remaining peaceful for long is a fantasy.
Unfortunately I think a lot of libertarians today are living with fantastical ideals that are unworkable in practice. The libertarian idea is a good one, I think, but with so many proponents living in la-la land it makes it very difficult to advance the cause.
Boaz’s analysis is interesting. I think he glosses over the period from 1870 to 1900, but that’s tangental to my real question.
He says “Unionization of the private sector work force has collapsed” as a good thing. Could somebody explain why unions are a bad thing?
I’m not arguing that they are good, I’m just looking for the libertarian answer as to why they are apparently bad.
“Perfect libertarianism devolves into anarchy and chaos which then further devolves into despotism (per every example of history so far).” Could you show me an example of that from history, Mr. Goodfellow?
The special legal powers that unions enjoy is anything but Libertarian. In mythical Libertopia where that is not the case, there’s no issue.
Unions tend to protect and enforce mediocrity and lack of productivity, and artificially raise wages above the market. They’ve destroyed the public educational system, by (among other things) making it impossible to fire bad teachers. The UAW is a major (though not the only) reason that GM and Chrysler (and Ford, to a lesser degree, because it was better managed) are such a mess.
I wrote about this several months ago.
He says “Unionization of the private sector work force has collapsed” as a good thing. Could somebody explain why unions are a bad thing?
People are free to join a union and that’s all well and good. However, in many places, they don’t have the freedom NOT to join a union if they work for many industries. Compulsury unionism isn’t freedom. Union leaders and many Democrats are pushing to end the secret ballot when it comes to voting about joining a union. That isn’t freedom, either.
The actual practices of private sector unions drive up costs, hurting American competitiveness. This causes economic damage beyond the immediate companies – e.g. the GM and Chrystler bailouts. All American taxpayers were hit to protect the jobs of union auto workers whose demands over the years had rendered their companies non-viable.
Public sector unions are another matter. IMO, most if not all of them should be outlawed.
Indeed. What labor unions have to “sell” is not quality of labor, because employers aren’t their customers. A union’s job is to control as much of the market for labor as possible for the benefit of its members, who are its customers.
A labor union’s role in the labor market is to distort that market as much as possible and put employers at a disadvantage at the bargaining table, with no regard for whether that employer will be able to stay in business and keep hiring beyond the term of the current contract.
Unions distort the labor market – got it.
I have to agree with this. In the private sector, the legal muscle of unions is checked by the fact that they can and do put companies, and thus their members, out of business when they go to far. There’s no such check for public corporations — taxpayers are always going to need police, firefighters, schools, etc. So there’s almost no limit to their extortion — only the ballot box keeps them in check, and that’s far and away too removed from the action on the ground to be effective.
Perhaps if they repealed the special legal rights of unions for public unions, I might be convinced otherwise, but fat chance of that happening.
I found Boaz’s piece to be quite good, and a glass of cold water on the faces of those few — if occasionally loud — Libertarians who make common cause with Neo-Confederates and the like.
There’s no such check for public corporations — taxpayers are always going to need police, firefighters, schools, etc. So there’s almost no limit to their extortion — only the ballot box keeps them in check, and that’s far and away too removed from the action on the ground to be effective.
It goes even further. Take public employee pension plans – one of the looming financial disasters of many states and cities. The government officials who negotiate with the unions on the matters of pension benefits also get those same benefits for themselves. That’s a built-in conflict of interest. The way things are heading, those of us in the private sector (the ones with no pension plans other than 401Ks and IRAs) are going to have to pay much higher taxes so public employees can enjoy a cushy retirement. We’ll be eating dog food so they can enjoy steak.
Excellent point, Larry. I’ll go one step further — public employees shouldn’t have pension plans backed by future taxpayers. They should pay for their own retirements just like the rest of us in the private sector.