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Matt Yglesias could be the Gilbert Arenas of libertarianism
If only he wanted to. Matt writes:
I actually think I am pretty cynical about government. I've learned a lot from my various libertarian friends, from my seminar with Robert Nozick, from libertarian blogs, etc. and I think public choice economics is a very important perspective. The upshot of this is that, as a general matter, I'm considerably less enthusiastic about regulatory solutions to policy problems than are most liberals.
Sadly, though, the upshot of my libertarian-infused cynicism has mostly been to push me left of where I used to be on domestic policy issues. It's cynicism about government and the political process that, for example, has made me much more enthusiastic about labor unions and much more hostile to means-testing entitlements than I used to be. If I believed that the deliberative democracy people weren't naive fools, I'd be much more sanguine about various "third way" approaches to things.
Matt is probably the closest I will ever get to thinking I could be a Democrat. But I am not sure what he is favoring in his post.
One view is that a once-and-for-all change favoring labor unions would produce a stream of ongoing benefits greater than we could achieve through smaller piecemeal government interventions. On empirical grounds I am skeptical of our ability to manipulate the union participation variable in a very useful way, and that is assuming I were to like labor unions more than I do (I do like them somewhat; I am not a union-basher, but I am not nearly as keen on unions as Matt.) Union participation varies largely with whether "unionizable" sectors of the economy expand and contract. Clearly we are headed away from labor unions as manufacturing shrinks as a percentage of gdp.
Another view, not excluding the first, is that Matt has abandoned Rawls's "publicity condition." That is, he is willing to advocate policies he knows to be bad, out of fear that they prevent a political tidal wave. Means-testing Medicare, for instance, might lead the whole system to lose favor and collapse. Therefore we shouldn't means-test, even if the idea taken on its own terms has merit. I don't dismiss this possibility.
If Matt is willing to admit I am right about unions (I am pretty sure about that one), I am willing to call the other question a draw. Deal?
Addendum: Here is Matt's new book-to-be.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on August 31, 2006 at 02:54 PM in Political Science | Permalink
Comments
I'd say that you have a substantial difference of opinion with Yglesias (and with me) on governmental ability to easily affect the percentage of union participation. The manufacturing sector isn't largely unionized because of some fundamental difference between manufacturing and service work, it's unionized because it was organized at a time when the legal climate made organization much easier than it is now. Make it possible to organize by card-check, for example, and put some teeth in the prohibition on firing workers for union participation, and I'd be willing to bet you'd get a huge jump in union participation for a fairly small policy intervention.
Posted by: LizardBreath at Aug 31, 2006 3:07:33 PM
People want competing choices. A choice between Union A and Union B is superior to a choice between Union A and nothing. Allow employees to chose any union they want, thereby creating different classes of workers at the same facility, and let employees choose the union they prefer. Younger workers might join the union with the best wage guarantees, older workers might select the one with the best health programs, and ideologues might join the union that lobbies for certain advocacy groups.
Posted by: Henry at Aug 31, 2006 3:18:59 PM
And don't forget the choice of not joining a union at all, which some workers do not have the choice of doing.
Posted by: Hei Lun Chan at Aug 31, 2006 3:33:59 PM
If Yglesias ever figured out that other people's lives aren't his business, he would make an excellent left-libertarian in the vein of Brad Spangler or Kevin Carson. Both of them are enthusiastic lefties, including pro-unionism, and both are deeply opposed to state power.
- Josh
Posted by: Wild Pegasus at Aug 31, 2006 4:01:32 PM
Oh great more unions. Just what we need, politics in the private sector. As if politics has not brought about enough carnage in the public sector, lets just expand its influence within something that we actualy do well in the U.S, the private sector.
Posted by: John Pertz at Aug 31, 2006 4:03:57 PM
You don't think that the nature of the industry affects the unionization potential? It feels like the threat of a strike is one of forcing expensive capital assets to sit idle because there is no one to work them. An empty factory costs a lot more than an empty office building.
Posted by: Jake at Aug 31, 2006 4:06:33 PM
Means testing doesn't work as well in heterogenous societies, like the US, as in homogenous societies, like Japan or Finland. People are more likely to support help for the poor when they identify with the poor.
Posted by: joe o at Aug 31, 2006 4:18:07 PM
Its difficult to read this post. I've read all of the tribulations of unions and about the willful non-enforcement of even the laws on the books. I can't square this with the opinion that policy has no effect. It doesn't make sense to me after even a cursory reading of what has happened to unions by the lack of govt. regulation and enforcement over the last 30 years or so.
I am not even that large of a supporter of unions. In general, I think they are good for workers. I think we as a country could massivly benefit from more and stronger unions - up to a point. But they have problems too, and specifically, they take away flexibility from economies. This is bad. However, right now we're not anywhere near the point of having too much union power. We're at the other extreme, with too much corporate power.
"And don't forget the choice of not joining a union at all, which some workers do not have the choice of doing."
Most workers around the world don't have this problem. They face another problem, where if they try join or start a union, they and their family are likely to be killed. Here in the states, far more workers face the problem of getting fired for trying to organize, than face the problem of not wanting to be in a union when they are forced to be. Most union workers are very happy with the wages and benefits.
My father was a union bricklayer who didn't want to be in a union. He was and is the hardest working person I've ever met in any field. He ended up starting a business that uses most of the skills that he learned as a bricklayer. I think that most people that don't want to be in the union should probably do something like this. They aren't really cut out for the union lifestyle, and would better serve the world and far more importantly themselves in every way if they just quit and started a business. There is no union prohibition against doing that, just quitting and starting a business.
Posted by: mickslam at Aug 31, 2006 4:22:50 PM
Means-testing Medicare, for instance, might lead the whole system to lose favor and collapse. Therefore we shouldn't means-test, even if the idea taken on its own terms has merit.
Don't you mean, therefeore we should means-test, so that maybe we can get rid of the damned thing.
Posted by: tenkev at Aug 31, 2006 4:40:23 PM
Of course changes in the legal enviroment can change the union participation
rate. After all, that in Sweden 80% are members of unions can not plausibly
be explained by which sectors people work in.
Posted by: Johan Richter at Aug 31, 2006 4:47:19 PM
The political problem is that in an educational meritocracy, as John Derbyshire pointed out today, all the articulate members of the working class get siphoned off into the middle class or above, so there is nobody left to eloquently advocate working class interests against the vast array of self-interested chatter put forth by the better-educated classes except for a handful of eccentric middle class class-traitor intellectuals such as Pat Buchanan and Michael Lind.
In the old days, big unions gave the working class an institutional heft so big that its voice was loud enough to be heard.
Posted by: Steve Sailer at Aug 31, 2006 5:02:14 PM
'A choice between Union A and Union B is superior to a choice between Union A and nothing.'
Not at all. The first is a choice between 2 things, while the second is a choice from however many alternatives you can imagine.
Posted by: Patrick R. Sullivan at Aug 31, 2006 6:59:41 PM
Clearly we are headed away from labor unions as manufacturing shrinks as a percentage of gdp.
Actually, Matt addresses that point elsewhere today with a post about the problems the writers on America's Next Top Model are having with organizing a union.
Posted by: william at Aug 31, 2006 8:31:49 PM
I have worked both Union and non Union jobs. Currently I am Union. All of this doesn't mean squat since having a up close view can blind you to the big picture. But since one guy complained about all the articulated dudes leaving for the middle class, I figure I should speak up and prove him right.:)
From my perspective the unions have only themselves to blame for their failure. I must not be alone in that view because a lot of what I am about to say got said by those unions that broke with the AFL-CIO.
Most unions are run by political ideologues that have a far broader agenda than representing the narrow interests of their members. If they think that it is necessary to trade away the interests of their workers to make sure that the right people get elected they will do so in a heart beat. In its most extreme form this means supporting Democrats even when the Democrat in question does things that directly harm their constituency's interest. In it most banal form it means that they spend so much time campaigning for and hanging out with their political friends that they neglect what they are suppose to be doing.
Some people have mentioned that laws on the books protecting those who want to form unions get ignored. Well whose fault is that?
If the union leaders are not willing to spend the time to try to expand their base and keep an eye on the opposition, they don't have much of a right to complain. If they put as much as effort into building unions as they did into trying to get out the vote for Gore\Kerry then they would have a lot more members now.
Oh sure, every now and then they tell about some case or other where they tried and failed to unionize a joint. Then they go on to moan about how this shows that we need to get more labor friendly politicians elected.
I am sorry, I just don't buy it. If you look at the bad old days and read about what people had to go through to start up unions and you look at the puny little problems that they face today, what does that tell you? It tells you that today's union leaders are wimps.
The Union movement started out with far more hostile legal environment than it has today and it managed to grow up big and strong. Now, the unions want to get everything they want handed to them on a silver platter.
That is why you see all those unions bolting AFL-CIO. People are starting to get fed up.
Having said all that, I think that on the balance unions as they are presently constituted have done this nation more harm than good. I could tell you stories…
But there are already enough guys on this forum willing to bash unions.
Posted by: The Chieftain of Seir at Aug 31, 2006 8:33:52 PM
"willing to advocate policies he knows to be bad, out of fear that they prevent a political tidal wave"
--Wait, isn't this exactly what economists say the fed should sometimes do in order to maintain its credibility and public trust.
Posted by: ASB at Aug 31, 2006 9:44:57 PM
Unions would be fine *if* the anti-trust laws applied to them (which they don't) OR there were no anti-trust laws. People volunatarily joining together should be encouraged, but not by the government.
Posted by: John Jenkins at Aug 31, 2006 10:43:53 PM
Why don't the Unions start their own companies that use only union labor ?
Posted by: Azer at Aug 31, 2006 11:32:12 PM
Chieftan,
Love your post on goths. Read it a few weeks back and actually spent about 10 minutes trying to find you again today and was very happy to find it - take care.
Posted by: mickslam at Sep 1, 2006 12:21:00 AM
Power in a society is always acquired by the most successful thugs and crooks. Democracy works because it is a sort of antitrust mechanism-it prevents any one group of crooks from obtaining absolute power, and forces them to compete with each other for power. This is probably an extreme, and somewhat Hobbesian view, but I think it is at least partially true.
The same principle applies on a smaller scale at an industrial level. If a union gets too powerful, it defeats the very aim of maintaining worker's rights and kills industry. If employers become too powerful, workers get the short end of the bargain and lose out. I think the real problem is to balance the two against each other- rather like needing to have an antitrust law against unions. So, I think Yglesias' cynicism about government applies equally well to the functioning of unions.
Posted by: ksrh at Sep 1, 2006 4:55:41 AM
Joining a union has a non-zero cost to the worker (dues, having to strike if the man says strike, etc.). If the union, even having organized the labor force, still has a weak negotiating position, then the benefits the union can deliver to labor may well be less than the cost of organizing. In which case, it makes sense not to orgnanize.
On the other hand, the International Longshoremen's Association is quite healthy these days.
Posted by: Cyrus at Sep 1, 2006 8:19:44 AM
When producers of goods organize to set prices we call it "collusion" and "price fixing" and set the federal goon squad on them.
When producers of labor organize to set prices we call it a "union," use the force of the state to compel consumers of labor to buy from them, and permit them to engage in acts of violence to protect their cartel.
Unions benefit union members at the expense of *everyone* else, just as trade restrictions benefit domestic producers. I cannot say that one is irrational for supporting unions, only evil.
Posted by: Noah Yetter at Sep 1, 2006 12:18:43 PM
"The Union movement started out with far more hostile legal environment than it has today and it managed to grow up big and strong. Now, the unions want to get everything they want handed to them on a silver platter."
This is true, and hundreds of people died during this hostile period in clashes with police. This would be unacceptable today. One reason unions partnered with the mob early on was to provide 'muscle' in ways that they simply couldn't.
I am not trying to defend these guys, as parts of unions now are among the most corrupt parts of moderns US society. I grew up in Northwest Indiana, the home of East Chicago, Indiana. Is it the most corrupt city in the United States? It might be. I don't have any illusions about these guys - they are criminals.
Additionally, as you point out, these unions are largely ineffectual. I don't fault them for getting out the vote, as the Repubs are so actively hostile to unions that keeping them out of office is a rational survival response. I do fault them for their lame public relations campaigns. I don't fault them for how ineffective they are at increasing membership, as the environment is so hostile to unions and so employer-friendly right now (and has been for over 20 years) that its just about impossible to expand unions, as the laws on the books are simply not being enforced. I do partially blame them for allowing those laws to not be enforced. I do blame them for allowing people like you, Chieftan, to move on to the white collar world. I do blame them for financially ripping off their members. I blame them for simply being stupid about so many things, even when they aren't criminal.
When I look at unions, they have done so many things wrong and have had so much opposition that I am surprised they still exist in any form in the United States. Its a statement on how much people like to be in unions that they exist at all.
Posted by: mickslam at Sep 1, 2006 1:37:36 PM
No, Noah, when producers of goods organize we call them corporations.
I cannot say that someone who would say collective organization is only permitted for the best off among us is irrational, only evil.
Posted by: jon at Sep 1, 2006 2:15:55 PM
Unions are essentially labor cartels, and
like most cartels, are proably not a good thing during
most economic periods.
Now, I think we might have had a time period when
employers had monopsony power, when a single
employer (or small group of employers) controlled
over 20% of the jobs in a town. Maybe Detroit in the 1930s, maybe some coal towns in the early 1900s, maybe some steel towns would fit this mold.
Then, a union labor cartel turned a monopsony into a bilateral bargaining situation. That probably moved wages closer to waht they would have been under competitive labor markets.
But those conditions don't prevail that much any more.
Wal-Mart, for instance, just doesn't employ a large
enough fraction of people, especially in an urban area,
to have monopsony power.
Posted by: Keith at Sep 2, 2006 10:38:21 AM
"No, Noah, when producers of goods organize we call them corporations."
No, Jon. Unions are cartels, and thus probably not good under normal situations. (See my post above.)
Now, if groups of workers wanted to get together, get
volume discount on skill-enhancing training, and brand
themselves and sell their labor through their own non-profit or for-profit firm, then that would be the logical equivalent of a corporation, and it's perfectly legal.
Unions, however, are price-fixing cartels, and price-fixing is not legal for any other economic entity.
Posted by: Keith at Sep 2, 2006 10:42:25 AM
