one of the arguments you have been advancing in the last few years
is that you will never be able to defeat inflation until you tackle the trade unions which I
think is the argument behind the rigidities of wages do you take the view that
more needs to be done - oh I am quite sure oh yes
that
particular and effective
prevention of all use of violence by pickets
must be carried through in all strictness
so long as there are possibilities of
workers prevent other workers from working
I think we will still have an intolerable position
which is not compatable with an operating market system - does
your liberal individualist society have any role for trade unions and if so what is it
well no doubt if I were an owner of an enterprise
and trade unions had not been invented I would invent them I would want someone to talk to on behalf of the
workers
but I
would not tollerate them taking any
exclusive monopolistic control
so far as collective contracts for the people who want to accept them i'm all in favour
but of course the whole problem is that the trade unions particularly in this country more then else-
where
in the course of time were granted privileges which the ordinary citizens has not
essentially various uses of force & violence
in order to prevent other people from working at the terms that they work
and I am convinced that in a
functioning market order
trade unions must have no monopolitic power of any kind so you would outlaw the closed shop
you would presumably also insist that trade unions must be answerable at law for any actions they undertake like
other citizens
and the underlying principle here I suppose you're saying that
people have a right to undercut other peoples wages that is a human right like any other
I am sure they have
I don't see how you can possibly morally justify...
see it is not realised the extent
present trade union powers leads to an exploitation of a large part of the
workers by the others
and one of the most
extreme forms of it is
that by
driving up the wages of a particular group far above the level of others
these groups attract most of the available capital
because the more expensive labour becomes
the more it is worthwhile to replace labour by capital
with the result that capital is attracted to those industries
where wages have
been driven up fastest
at the expense of the others
the mass of the workers
can't get better equipped
and therefore can not be made more efficent
by investment because the investment goes all to where wages are highest already
so you are saying that trade unions cause unemployment i'm sure they do... not only unemployment they
keep the wages of a large part of labour low
why then do they continue to be so widely supported I think in Britain for example
because they just don't understand it
the thing is that it is not too difficult to understand the naive
idea
that you can by
fixing wages drive up the wages of all workers still prevails although it should be obvious to any intellegent
person
that any
wage above
competitive level
must mean that some people earn more at the expense of others who don't get employment at all
but i noticed that for example recently in America some defenders of unions have argued
that by increasing wages they compel companies to be more efficient
then they would otherwise be in other words that they are themselves part of the cold blast of competition - but you see that is exactly what
I have been saying in a different form yes
it is true
that where wages are pushed up most highly the
firms are compelled
to invest much more then they otherwise would and therefore adopt
technically advanced things
but that happens at the expense of labour elsewhere
capital which ought to go
to the industries where labour is least well equipped by
capital
is diverted to the industries where labour is already equipped with a great deal of capital
where wages in consequence however are pushed still higher
while the workers who need
assistence from capital most urgently
and those which are still little mechanised
are deprived of that capital - but I wonder if there isn't a change coming up for example in the United
States recently labor unions have agreed contacts which actually reduced their wages and
benefits under the impact of recession and in Great Britain
again under the impact of recession the labor unions/trade unions have been prepared to abandon
restrictive practices which in many cases have been there for
thirty, forty, or fifty years, well they're beginning to see it but I don't think you can really compare the two countries
in the United States there...
I have said and I think it's still true
the Unions are really a capitalist Racket
fully accepting the capitalist system and just trying
on the imitation of capitalist monopolies to get a
to get a local gain by enforcing a local monopoly
they're not inspired by any
any...
labour theory, any
ideology
the English are still much to much tied up with an idea of
changing order of society all together
american trade unionists
knows
that he is dependent on competition he just wants to protect himself but he knows he lives in a competitive society
the typical English trade unionist has a contempt for competition he thinks competition is something
unfair and unsocial
and this attitude is
as far as I can judge still very strong
I think in England it is a question of
converting the workers to admit the market order as a principle