As societies become increasingly regulated by central bureaucracies, the working man’s traditional freedoms are slowly being extinguished. Less than a century ago, doctors, lawyers and engineers could work without any state oversight, regulation or licensing. The free market employed a system of apprenticing and relied upon reputation to sort the good practitioners from the bad. In this pre-regulatory and pre-licensing world, the sciences, medicine and engineering grew in leaps and bounds. The greatest discoveries were made, great buildings and structures were constructed and standards of living grew faster than ever before.
The Rise of Trade Unions
During the nineteenth century, special interest groups saw that they could use the power of the state to increase their personal wealth. Trade unions were born as organizations that lobbied for changes in law that reduced competition, increased revenue for members and eliminated the need to develop a reputation. They supported a legal framework whereby employers and customers would be required to pay what unions demanded. In moral terms such a tactic is called extortion, but it was given the more palatable term ‘union bargaining’.
Politically, the trade unions were sold as being necessary to protect workers and the public, but it was understood that it was workers’ salaries that were to be protected first and foremost. In 1918, a Saskatchewan engineer named F. H. Peters came clean when he said that ‘only a trade union could give such guarantees [of increased remuneration]… that is the sum and substance of what we want.’ [1].
This post was published at Mises Canada on NOVEMBER 23, 2015.
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