Mises on Labor Unions

In a 1964 issue of Christian Economics Ludwig von Mises wrote:

“What is today euphemistically called the right to strike is in fact the right of striking workers, by recourse to violence, to prevent people who want to work from working. This means that the authorities have surrendured to the unions an essential attibute of their governmental functions . . . . If a union succeeds in forcing the employers to pay higher wage rates than those they were prepared to pay under the prevailing state of market conditions, this is not a victory for “labor” . . . . It is a boon only for those workers who will be employed at the new rates. It is a calamity for all those whom it condemns to lasting unemployment.”

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12:38 pm on September 16, 2004