The most important thing about unions
Soros-sponsored TAC has a pretty good article on the importance of unions as a counterforce to robber barons.

The author makes the same point I made a few months ago about the three ages:

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Between the two Gilded Ages we had the Union Age, 1933 to 1979. Predatory corporations existed, but they were CONSTRAINED by hardass Fed regulators AND by hardass unions. They knew exactly how far they could grow, and they didn't try to go beyond the limits. They were forced to operate on PROFIT and DIVIDENDS instead of share value, which means they were forced to have EMPLOYEES and PRODUCTS.

I've covered that territory too often.

New thought:

During a Gilded Age, robber barons have names. Everyone can list several robber barons. During the Union Age, there weren't any named or famed robber barons. In fact the most famous leaders were union leaders.

Gilded Age 1 = Carnegie, Vanderbilt, Morgan, Mellon, Stanford.

Union Age = Jimmy Hoffa, James Petrillo, Walter Reuther.

Gilded Age 2 = Gates, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Jobs, Musk.

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I wrote a comment on the article appreciating the main focus and adding the most important aspect of unions: SKILL aka HUMAN CAPITAL.

Humans are meant to be useful. Specifically, men are meant to MAKE THINGS. Unions were organizations of makers, and they did everything necessary to preserve the GOD-ASSIGNED DUTY of their members.

In writing the comment I also caught something that I hadn't thought of before. I've said before that unions amassed and protected human capital by training and improving the skills of their members.

I hadn't noticed before that unions protected their human capital from cheap knockoffs and foreign competition. When unions were in charge of a workplace, they had strict rules forbidding non-union workers from doing jobs that were part of the union's skill capital. These rules often seemed silly, but they were the most important part of the union's task.

The analogy between money capital and human capital was complete. Unions treated human capital the same way banks treated money capital. Savings earned interest (experience and training); savings were guarded against theft; savings were employed to create more value.

In the '70s unions lost the human capital aspect and focused solely on wages, which really meant the wealth of the union leaders. They were perfectly willing to destroy entire categories of skills to maintain the wealth of the leaders.

Unions lost their DUTY and deserved to fail.

Labels: Natural law = Sharia law, Natural law = Soviet law, skill-estate

  ¶ 11:01 PM