On Unions again - Some Objections

Sometimes I get objections that have so many different issues intertwined. Not to say that socialists are always this way, but I tend to run into socialists that argues using so many different statements and topic at once, that whatever comes out is a mish-mash of rhetorically well-sounding rubbish. Unfortunately.

Anyways, I had a friend of mine replying this to my post on Union Strikes the other day:

"This makes me genuinely angry. Some things can't be left to the market. Your definition of employment lacks one very important point: stability. We have to, as a society, compensate some things so that humans are viewed as humans, and not commodities. You would never pay for librarians if there was a volountary cost, yet we all agree that they are an important institution for culture and education.

Do you have any idea how many people have died for the right to organize unions? How much the opportunity to strike has changed the working and living conditions of workers everywhere? When you are a craftsman or local farmer or whatever, your customer is your employer, and you have leverage by your self. But in a post-industrial world, most workers have very little power over their bosses. That's a necessary trade off for effectivity. Unions is the only leverage most workers have. The government allows strikes as a guarantee of stability. There are certain jobs that nobody would ever train for if there wasn't the opportunity to organize. In your ideal world, everyone would be a farmer, we'd have no culture and the world would only support a fraction as many people as there are today."

Here are my replies. I tried to be brief, but failed. I'll work on that. 

1) Some things can’t be left to the market you say. Like what? And why is that? If the market is more efficient than the state in providing shoes, massage, food or homes that people desire, why would the state suddenly be a much better actor in healthcare or education? I’m still to find any area where the state outperforms a free market, essentially in any respect.

2) Humans, commodities and stability. I’m not sure what stability has to do with it, but everything IS a commodity (or rather a service), whether you like it or not. Only thing is, in socialist Sweden we made sure some of these services are provided free of charge for the user, under the communist dogma that everyone deserves x according to y. In no way does a view of services mean humans are less humans. We are the carries, providers, recievers, producers etc of these services, essential to the process.

3) Librarians. First, not everyone agree librarians are important institution for education/culture. Libraries, knowledge and books might be, but hardly librarians. Besides, in a free market, if people would demand libraries in their current forms, that would be provided. I don’t know about you, but I’d be willing to pay quite substantial amounts to have a properly-working library accessible to me.

4) People dying for Union Rights. Ok, you made this argument in the sense that BECAUSE people died for something, it is worth preserving. I strongly disagree; people have died for all kinds of things (anti-gay, rallying against women entering the work force, stopping migrants etc), and none of that means it’s a good thing. What I DO think you were trying to say was that because loads of people valued the rights to unionize so much as they actually died for them and because they perceived that to help them in the past (and the present), we should be thankful for their sacrifice. I disagree in that regards as well. Unionized workers cannot produce better salaries in any other way than creating employment for others. The working conditions in the past were indeed improved, but not because the Unions demanded it and fought for it, but because it made economic sense for business to change. What kinds of jobs are you arguing ‘nobody would train for’ if not for Unions? In a free market services are values and provided according to what people are willing to give up for them. In a sense, there CANNOT be such jobs, because employers would raise wages/conditions until people accepted them, thus leveling out the “nobody” part of it.

5) Leverage against employer. The only leverage workers have is quiting. Provide your services to someone who values them differently. If whatever demand you’re making is a sensible one, the employer could see to that, and improve. If not, you'd have to value if whatever inconvenience is worth whatever difference another employer would provide. If it is, your option is leaving. No need to Unions, no need for strikes, no need for messing around waving signs and pretending you're fighting for something. You're wasting and destroying resources. Nothing more, nothing less. 

Right, in my world everyone would be a farmer. Not quite. How did the world move from such a society in the 1700s to a countless times more affluent one today? Unions? State interventions? Hardly. Free markets, trade, globalization, business. In my world, defined as a free market without state regulations or interventions, we’d likely see similar improvements.