L&L Contributing Editor Mark Pulliam recently wrote on “The Exploitation of Labor and Other Union Myths” for The Independent Review. He posted an abridged version of his argument here at L&L. I accept the bulk of his analysis given his assumption of “the existence of competition among uncoerced market participants.” But this is a crucial assumption for his analysis. If this assumption is relaxed, however, and we remember that significant amounts of government-sponsored “crony capitalism” exist in the United States, then there is a prudential, conservative case for granting legal privileges to private-sector labor unions in collective bargaining. (Government-sector unions are a different matter. And union activities outside of collective bargaining, such as using union dues for political campaigns, are a different matter.)
A couple of definitions and a bit of brush clearing to set the stage.
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