I heart unions, unions are we

Ezra Klein tells me to go out there and tell people I support unions.  I do.  Alex likes unions too.  But we felt unions do not go far enough.  So we bypassed the capitalist altogether and started marginalrevolution.com.  (The sinister Jane Galt, on the other hand, rules over Winterspeak and Mindles with an iron fist and rakes in all that Amazon revenue for herself, surely they need to combine against her.)  MR is run solely by its laborers and when it comes to decision-making I can assure you there are no secret ballots. 

Labor-run firms are common in law, book agency, real estate, landscaping, and many other sectors; we even see them in airlines.  When labor in charge creates more value, labor starts its own firms or buys out the capitalist or buys greater control rights.  Growing capital markets make these evolutions easier all the time.  Cooperatives, which are governed by consumers, also are found.  Mutuals, non-profits, and yes unionized firms are common too.  I heart all of these organizational forms.  Keep in mind that if both workers and customers will be better off, yes it probably can happen; it is naive to think that liquidity problems are the major issues preventing workers from enjoying greater control rights.

In the short run, the mental model of the left-wing bloggers is a bunch of janitors trying to get better working conditions but opposed by employers.  In the longer run what is striking is the competition across different organizational forms.  It doesn’t always make sense to give labor residual control rights over capital goods, or the right to halt production. 

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