Not really, he always was stupid. When you are stupid and your mind is closed to any kind of data, the degradation of your brain at 87 would not have any significant impact on its performance.
Eli W Tell me something are you angry that people who are in unions have higher wages and benefits than you? Are you angry that they went to school, got educated mastered liberal arts, such as math, science, foreign language, writing, English and now have higher wages than you who dropped out of school and decided public education wasn't for you?
What he says here also applies to minimum wages. Yes, they provide some people with higher wages, employers however adopt labour saving technologies whenever it is profitable to do so (and the higher the min. wage, the more profitable it is to turn to labour saving technologies) and some people lose their jobs but also, and more importantly, jobs that would have existed b4 the min. wage, would never even be created in the first place. It's not merely that it causes some people to be fired; it's much more that it causes a reduction in the long-term employment prospects of low skilled workers.
@@Jmriccitelli yes, u’re absolutely right, check A critique of interventionism by Ludwig Von Mises, he explains very well how interventionism leads to socialism.
"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration." -- Abraham Lincoln.
Also Lincoln., "I flunked economics so please don't quote my ramblings and take anything I say about economics with a grain of salt and consult with an economist before making any decisions."
@@Markdfadf I don't think Lincoln was making a purely economic statement. It seems to me he was making, in part, a moral statement. You can't establish with any research whether labor is "superior" to capital or whether it "deserves" more consideration.
@selfrealizedexile Yes. It's the effect of a guild. The older workers drive up their wages by suppressing employment opportunities for younger workers.
@mcshobe2008 The first category is simply cash payments, which is what many people imagine when they hear the word “compensation.” It includes wages, overtime and vacation pay, and comes to about $40 an hour. (The numbers vary a bit by company and year. That’s why $73 is sometimes $70 or $77.) The second category is fringe benefits, like health insurance and pensions. These benefits have real value, even if they don’t show up on a weekly paycheck. At the Big Three, the benefits (Part 1)
@mcshobe2008 essentially fixed costs that have no relation to how many vehicles the companies make. But they are a real cost, so the companies add them into the mix - dividing those costs by the total hours of the current work force, to get a figure of $15 or so - and end up at roughly $70 an hour. The crucial point, though, is this $15 isn’t mainly a reflection of how generous the retiree benefits are. It’s a reflection of how many retirees there are. [emp. added] The Big Three (Part 3)
May be an overly simplistic reduction, but I wonder if the distinction he's identifying between "acceptable" unionism is the difference between ALO-CIO and IWW praxis. The former is much much bureaucratized and embedded in state functioning and the latter is less hierarchical and more driven by the rank and file.
That is, in reality, some employers DO conspire to keep the price of labor low, or they may be the only game in town. Not everyone can just go work somewhere else! If there is one firm and a pool of workers, the firm sets an asking price. If you live in that area and want to work, you have to work at that employer. There are plenty of situations where even in large cities, there are only one or several firms offering employment in a given industry. Think of a factory or mining town. The employer makes the market. If you don't want the wages, where else do you go? You probably don't have the capital to move. If you have one buyer of labor, doesn't it make sense that there should be one seller? In that case, the "invisible hand" is slapping workers in the face.
@1madmartagan1 Sure, but wages aren't the quantity of money. Inflation and deflation, in my opinion, are more appropriately tied to overall prices. If a good rises in price relative to others, it is poor nomenclature to call that inflation even if you want to say 'local' inflation.
@mcshobe2008 Add the two together, and you get the true hourly compensation of Detroit’s unionized work force: roughly $55 an hour. It’s a little more than twice as much as the typical American worker makes, benefits included. The more relevant comparison, though, is probably to Honda’s or Toyota’s (nonunionized) workers. They make in the neighborhood of $45 an hour, and most of the gap stems from their less generous benefits. The third category is the cost of benefits for retirees. These(Part2)
yeah right.. still has a terrible poverty problem (chile), and relies purely on the price of copper... also,liberalist economics erre not the short, nor long term impulse to democracy in chile.. just like china today..
Unions like the Guilds of the Middle Age Feudalist Model predating Mercantilism, became corporations with the various central governments of the various regions and became tools of coercion backed by threat of aggression. By aggression I mean the unprovoked, unsolicited initiation of forceful action, interference, or interaction upon others whether it be theft, rape, murder, molestation, taxation that is not contractual, violence, or fraud.
Whether or not what Hayek said is true is not the present day concern. The real concern is how these logics are used by capitalists to discipline labour and states through increased mobility. And the desire for reduced production costs is realized by taking advantage of regulatory weakness of labour, human rights, etc. in order to externalize true costs of production.
In reality, some employers DO conspire to keep the price of labor low, or they may be the only game in town. Not everyone can just go work somewhere else! If there is one firm and a pool of workers, the firm sets an asking price. If you live in that area and want to work, you have to work at that employer. There are plenty of situations where even in large cities, there are only one or several firms offering employment in a given industry. Think of a factory or mining town. The employer makes the market. If you don't want the wages, where else do you go? You probably don't have the capital to move. If you have one buyer of labor, doesn't it make sense that there should be one seller? In that case, the "invisible hand" is slapping workers in the face unless the workers establish their own "firm".
Hayek is correct (as always). Look no further than the UAW. Look at the prices of an American automobile. Say Chrysler. They build an inferior product to a Japanese product. They do! Everyone knows this. Yet, tho the Japanese manufacturer has to export their cars to America. By in large, the price of their automobiles are not only competetive, in some cases actually cheaper. Why? The UAW have their workers at 75 an hour while the Japanese have theirs at 45. No doubt. Unions destroyed Chrysler!
oddly I agree with you. Although I think the value in unions is say things like social cohesion etc. That said they drive wages up and thus drive cost of product up. This might be ok in one firm, however I think this spreading arguably creates issues as a whole, most likely increased inflation etc
solution would have been to put Tariffs to cover wage difference on Japanese imports. There was no need to destroy America's middle class. If American average wage is 60$ an hour, it can never compete with countries with wages of 6$ an hour. But solution is not race to the bottom by liberalizing trade. if trade effect is just reducing wages, it's not beneficial.
Worst unions are government worker unions. Government workers are already some of the most protected workers in the economy. Plus governments can, and do, tax citizens.
Not too many liberals able to stomach Hayek, but in a nutshell, to my liberal fiends out there, I have a retort to your constant refrain of "corporations aren't people", and that is, "(trade) unions aren't people/"
Unions don't work because they only benifit a few people and further there are some in the union who have power (basically like a mini government).... What if the whole world was a labor union...No one could be exploited, everyone could be employed with living wages...Not only this but the workers could choose which tasks deserve workers, those that are good for humanity. This would have to be done via direct democracy... And it would mean the end of capitalism :) Of course I am no liberal, I'm far left on the spectrum...
Workers don't have the proper imagination to decide where to put workers. Workers work because they depend on others, who they hope are smart, to define something 'profitable' to do. This is the fundamental construct on which society is formed. It is not a moral construct, it is a performance based meritocracy. If things don't work out, because the workers have been given something unprofitable to do, the effort collapses, the managers are fired, and the skilled workers find new work appropriate to their skills. If workers had the imagination to define profitable work, they would spontaneously split off and form new enterprises. Some do this. An example can be found in some notable pottery guilds. However, most workers lake the necessary imagination. I am a worker.
DumbledoreMcCracken soooo what happened after the 2008 crisis? A lot of CEOs of that banks gone bust either stayed in their position or remained pretty comfortable after while the workers at the bottom of pay scale all around society who need mortgages to get a house ended in a far worst position. If society was really a meritocracy then those CEOs should have suffered the same fate of those at the bottom.
@bonfirejovi market needs to adjust by to a smaller range by cutting the money supply, but the losses suffered through the discoordination can never be redone and the market will eventually liquidate, rearrange, and replenish wasted resources.
@bonfirejovi Technically, there is no such thing as an optimum amount of money (cutting it itself isn't actually a solution). Prices of goods in a given currency constantly fluctuate. If I have more of a good, it is worth less in a currency which hasn't increased in quantity. So, the market already adjusts to changes in the money supply. Where there becomes a problem in relation to the money supply is the discoordination. So, Thatcher might be in a position to decrease the gap the
@samm1809 "whatever" That's a huge dismissal of everything I wrote in my last comment, which touched on a considerable range of topics and issues. "the US is heading down the road to serfdom" A catchy phrase pitting on economic system against another. What it ignores is that serfdom has arrived in many countries already, and not via any leftist movement. Neoliberal economic policy & the IMF (whose loans stipulate labor have few rights) have placed multitudes into debt servitude.
Hes talking about feudalism really isnt he? Anyways, funny to see that he sort of respected the European unions as opponents, whilst laughing at the US...
a rbe solves all labor problems by accelarating robotic and cybernetic production of all goods and service - thus freeing man from labor -while sharing the fruits equally
Zero inflation with competing currency is the answer for sustainability. look at his explanation of flexible wages which shows the distributon of capital and equity in a justified manned. Also examine his view on targeting an inflation rate which is not gonna help anyway. All that we are heading for is a global systematic disaster!!!!!!
Abba Lerner also wrote about that. In fact, the relationship between growing wages and inflation is much clearer, than between the quantity of money and inflation.
@@2rooms19 a grocery store has a 1% margin. So of course they need to increase prices of goods to accommodate higher labour costs. Do this across many organizations and this will be highly problematic. Labour unions don't produce anything other then say social cohesion.
with nafta and gatt - which opened up world wide labor markets - now we have more employment but at slave wages - nike contracts with vietnam where people earn 10cents an hour and work 16hours a day and resorces are wasted moving goods so far is perrferred method now- my gandfather worked in the coal mines of tennessee at 6yrs old - wtg capatalist - couple the massive oversupply of labor worldwide and increasing technological unemployment - and the over supply of labor = more sweat shops
Unions engage in the same monopolistic practices as the capitalist. Unions benefit unions; that’s it. I have seen no evidence that I have benefited from lower prices or higher quality because of unions. That unions generally benefit working people or me specifically is marketing at best and propaganda at worst
the living standards of the working class went way up after the labour unions won their battles .And i dont recall hearing about any great recession of jobs in america or anywhere else in those eras.
Look at the trends before unions emerged, living standards where increasing. Increased living standards or wealth is only achieved by increases in productivity.
DarkMageB8 really?all the economists and papers ive seen says there is a massive increase in productivity and the real wages are lower than they were in 1970.1970 being the time where union busting was takeing hold.plus productivity doesn't increase wages.supply and demand changes wages.the capitalists want to drive wages down to their lowest while getting the most productivity out of them.as long as crony capitalism exists then the unions should have a right to exist.
reachforacreech "then the unions should have a right to exist" I don't think that you will get many liberals disagreeing with trade unions existence. After it basically comes under freedom of association. One of the most basic freedoms. 0:54 "If trade unions had not been invented I would invent them" Hayek.
+reachforacreech Unionization has similar effects of firms colluding on pricing. The workers are in the business of selling their labor to employers; together they collude to set the price of labor artificially high. Furthermore, if unions get laws passed making it illegal for non-union workers to undercut union workers, you now have a legalized monopoly on labor in the field which the union operates. This sets the a firm's cost of employment artificially high compared to competitors (maybe in another state or country) and will force the firms who employ the union-workers to go out of business.
+Nick V well yes,that is what class struggle is.the businesses collude with government to overthrow the workers and consumers and the workers collude to fight back.The workers have,by and large,lost the battles and they continue to lose battles. Daily i see how businesses are owning more and more of government local and federal.But one thing is clear.until capitalism dissolves into something better,the vast majority of people will never live free, for the cost of living is the cost of submission and the cost of submission is eternal bondage.cyclical.
Very smart fool........Economists are social scientists and Hayek has missed this. Trade unions are a reflection of our human nature to organize and improve conditions. Workers have lives and interests too. It's called freedom....But yes violence and keeping others from crossing a picket line is wrong.
Trade unions are a social construct designed to benefit the 'owners' of the trade unions (who have ascended up out of work, into a pseudo management position that does not benefit profitability, but instead erodes it). Hayek is correct here. I have no problem with people collectively bargaining, but the individual must be at liberty to seek his own terms, if he so desires, and the employer thinks there is value for money with that employee's terms. There is no freedom, but the individual may seek liberty.
In reality, some employers DO conspire to keep the price of labor low, or they may be the only game in town. Not everyone can just go work somewhere else! If there is one firm and a pool of workers, the firm sets an asking price. If you live in that area and want to work, you have to work at that employer. There are plenty of situations where even in large cities, there are only one or several firms offering employment in a given industry. Think of a factory or mining town. The employer makes the market. If you don't want the wages, where else do you go? You probably don't have the capital to move. If you have one buyer of labor, doesn't it make sense that there should be one seller? In that case, the "invisible hand" is slapping workers in the face, so people must unionize. Otherwise, it's a rigged game. Companies may subsidize new employees moving there. They can take all sorts of measures, because they have the capital.
@@DumbledoreMcCracken An employer with a lot of capital can resort to all sorts of measures to get the labor they need. Individual workers, not so much. There is an inherent imbalance of power. Indeed, labor unions can be corrupt. They should not be able to resort to violence as a matter of course. But I don't know too many people who think that. With violence, then the union becomes a protection racket. But there is nothing wrong with labor unions who negotiate a contract, even if the contract requires them only to hire union members. Sometimes, when labor unions block the entrance to a building, etc., It is because the company just said "to hell with you and your bargaining, I'm gonna get workers any way I can". Now, perhaps that is warranted, but you can see how the firm has advantages that the workers don't, right?
@@DumbledoreMcCracken In reality, firms may indeed conspire to keep the price of labor low. What he is saying is absolutely correct given his assumptions The problem is that in the real world, his assumptions do not always hold. Also, he is assuming that the employer is a perfectly rational agent. Some employers DO drive down wages just because they like to. Hayek says, "If they hadn't been invented, I would have invented them myself ..." That is because he is a good faith actor who is thinking logically. Not all owners of enterprises are.
@@DumbledoreMcCracken What you describe is a corrupt labor union. Some are corrupt, and some aren't. If one is to undertake a value-free analysis (which is what Hayek generally championed), then one must assume that all participants are acting as rational agents. A corrupt labor union is not merely an effective one. If they merely are effective, how is a union boss any different from a CEO? They are morally equivalent. It is unfair to impugn labor unions on that basis unless the employer is a good faith actor.
I've grown to love the way Hayek speaks.
I was born to love it
what's amazing is he was around 87 years old during this interview
Not really, he always was stupid. When you are stupid and your mind is closed to any kind of data, the degradation of your brain at 87 would not have any significant impact on its performance.
The biggest problem is unions getting in be with the government (and making things like compulsory unionism)
same problem with big corporations. I think I am starting so see some kind of pattern here...
Eli W Tell me something are you angry that people who are in unions have higher wages and benefits than you? Are you angry that they went to school, got educated mastered liberal arts, such as math, science, foreign language, writing, English and now have higher wages than you who dropped out of school and decided public education wasn't for you?
What he says here also applies to minimum wages. Yes, they provide some people with higher wages, employers however adopt labour saving technologies whenever it is profitable to do so (and the higher the min. wage, the more profitable it is to turn to labour saving technologies) and some people lose their jobs but also, and more importantly, jobs that would have existed b4 the min. wage, would never even be created in the first place. It's not merely that it causes some people to be fired; it's much more that it causes a reduction in the long-term employment prospects of low skilled workers.
Creating an artificial market with government intervention leads to communism......😂
@@Jmriccitelli yes, u’re absolutely right, check A critique of interventionism by Ludwig Von Mises, he explains very well how interventionism leads to socialism.
"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration."
-- Abraham Lincoln.
Also Lincoln., "I flunked economics so please don't quote my ramblings and take anything I say about economics with a grain of salt and consult with an economist before making any decisions."
@@Markdfadf I don't think Lincoln was making a purely economic statement. It seems to me he was making, in part, a moral statement. You can't establish with any research whether labor is "superior" to capital or whether it "deserves" more consideration.
@selfrealizedexile Yes. It's the effect of a guild. The older workers drive up their wages by suppressing employment opportunities for younger workers.
Great argument against public sector unions
Except for the 1940s thru the 1960s when economic development was at its highest and labor unions were most prevalent.
I love the way he talks... long live the Austrian school.
Hayek was never on the side of workers. He was on the side of the elites and the status quo.
Very interesting food for thought.
i agree
@mcshobe2008 The first category is simply cash payments, which is what many people imagine when they hear the word “compensation.” It includes wages, overtime and vacation pay, and comes to about $40 an hour. (The numbers vary a bit by company and year. That’s why $73 is sometimes $70 or $77.) The second category is fringe benefits, like health insurance and pensions. These benefits have real value, even if they don’t show up on a weekly paycheck. At the Big Three, the benefits (Part 1)
Yep, like Kaiser William 2, Hayek knew what was best for workers.
@mcshobe2008 essentially fixed costs that have no relation to how many vehicles the companies make. But they are a real cost, so the companies add them into the mix - dividing those costs by the total hours of the current work force, to get a figure of $15 or so - and end up at roughly $70 an hour. The crucial point, though, is this $15 isn’t mainly a reflection of how generous the retiree benefits are. It’s a reflection of how many retirees there are. [emp. added] The Big Three (Part 3)
I need subtitles!!!!!
LOL
May be an overly simplistic reduction, but I wonder if the distinction he's identifying between "acceptable" unionism is the difference between ALO-CIO and IWW praxis. The former is much much bureaucratized and embedded in state functioning and the latter is less hierarchical and more driven by the rank and file.
The problem with his analysis is that he is presuming that there isn't a monopsonistic labor market.
That is, in reality, some employers DO conspire to keep the price of labor low, or they may be the only game in town. Not everyone can just go work somewhere else! If there is one firm and a pool of workers, the firm sets an asking price. If you live in that area and want to work, you have to work at that employer. There are plenty of situations where even in large cities, there are only one or several firms offering employment in a given industry. Think of a factory or mining town. The employer makes the market. If you don't want the wages, where else do you go? You probably don't have the capital to move. If you have one buyer of labor, doesn't it make sense that there should be one seller? In that case, the "invisible hand" is slapping workers in the face.
@1madmartagan1
Sure, but wages aren't the quantity of money. Inflation and deflation, in my opinion, are more appropriately tied to overall prices. If a good rises in price relative to others, it is poor nomenclature to call that inflation even if you want to say 'local' inflation.
@mcshobe2008 Add the two together, and you get the true hourly compensation of Detroit’s unionized work force: roughly $55 an hour. It’s a little more than twice as much as the typical American worker makes, benefits included. The more relevant comparison, though, is probably to Honda’s or Toyota’s (nonunionized) workers. They make in the neighborhood of $45 an hour, and most of the gap stems from their less generous benefits. The third category is the cost of benefits for retirees. These(Part2)
yeah right.. still has a terrible poverty problem (chile), and relies purely on the price of copper... also,liberalist economics erre not the short, nor long term impulse to democracy in chile.. just like china today..
Unions like the Guilds of the Middle Age Feudalist Model predating Mercantilism, became corporations with the various central governments of the various regions and became tools of coercion backed by threat of aggression.
By aggression I mean the unprovoked, unsolicited initiation of forceful action, interference, or interaction upon others whether it be theft, rape, murder, molestation, taxation that is not contractual, violence, or fraud.
Whether or not what Hayek said is true is not the present day concern. The real concern is how these logics are used by capitalists to discipline labour and states through increased mobility. And the desire for reduced production costs is realized by taking advantage of regulatory weakness of labour, human rights, etc. in order to externalize true costs of production.
In reality, some employers DO conspire to keep the price of labor low, or they may be the only game in town. Not everyone can just go work somewhere else! If there is one firm and a pool of workers, the firm sets an asking price. If you live in that area and want to work, you have to work at that employer. There are plenty of situations where even in large cities, there are only one or several firms offering employment in a given industry. Think of a factory or mining town. The employer makes the market. If you don't want the wages, where else do you go? You probably don't have the capital to move. If you have one buyer of labor, doesn't it make sense that there should be one seller? In that case, the "invisible hand" is slapping workers in the face unless the workers establish their own "firm".
Hayek is correct (as always). Look no further than the UAW. Look at the prices of an American automobile. Say Chrysler. They build an inferior product to a Japanese product. They do! Everyone knows this. Yet, tho the Japanese manufacturer has to export their cars to America. By in large, the price of their automobiles are not only competetive, in some cases actually cheaper. Why? The UAW have their workers at 75 an hour while the Japanese have theirs at 45. No doubt. Unions destroyed Chrysler!
oddly I agree with you. Although I think the value in unions is say things like social cohesion etc. That said they drive wages up and thus drive cost of product up. This might be ok in one firm, however I think this spreading arguably creates issues as a whole, most likely increased inflation etc
solution would have been to put Tariffs to cover wage difference on Japanese imports. There was no need to destroy America's middle class.
If American average wage is 60$ an hour, it can never compete with countries with wages of 6$ an hour. But solution is not race to the bottom by liberalizing trade. if trade effect is just reducing wages, it's not beneficial.
Worst unions are government worker unions. Government workers are already some of the most protected workers in the economy. Plus governments can, and do, tax citizens.
Hayek was a "right" Karl Marx!
Not too many liberals able to stomach Hayek, but in a nutshell, to my liberal fiends out there, I have a retort to your constant refrain of "corporations aren't people", and that is, "(trade) unions aren't people/"
Unions don't work because they only benifit a few people and further there are some in the union who have power (basically like a mini government)....
What if the whole world was a labor union...No one could be exploited, everyone could be employed with living wages...Not only this but the workers could choose which tasks deserve workers, those that are good for humanity.
This would have to be done via direct democracy... And it would mean the end of capitalism :)
Of course I am no liberal, I'm far left on the spectrum...
Workers don't have the proper imagination to decide where to put workers. Workers work because they depend on others, who they hope are smart, to define something 'profitable' to do. This is the fundamental construct on which society is formed.
It is not a moral construct, it is a performance based meritocracy.
If things don't work out, because the workers have been given something unprofitable to do, the effort collapses, the managers are fired, and the skilled workers find new work appropriate to their skills.
If workers had the imagination to define profitable work, they would spontaneously split off and form new enterprises. Some do this. An example can be found in some notable pottery guilds. However, most workers lake the necessary imagination.
I am a worker.
DumbledoreMcCracken soooo what happened after the 2008 crisis? A lot of CEOs of that banks gone bust either stayed in their position or remained pretty comfortable after while the workers at the bottom of pay scale all around society who need mortgages to get a house ended in a far worst position. If society was really a meritocracy then those CEOs should have suffered the same fate of those at the bottom.
As old as this is it is still relevent, yet people do not listen.
@bonfirejovi
market needs to adjust by to a smaller range by cutting the money supply, but the losses suffered through the discoordination can never be redone and the market will eventually liquidate, rearrange, and replenish wasted resources.
@bonfirejovi
Technically, there is no such thing as an optimum amount of money (cutting it itself isn't actually a solution). Prices of goods in a given currency constantly fluctuate. If I have more of a good, it is worth less in a currency which hasn't increased in quantity. So, the market already adjusts to changes in the money supply. Where there becomes a problem in relation to the money supply is the discoordination. So, Thatcher might be in a position to decrease the gap the
@ComradeFlorian28 What is unfettered capitalism? Are you confusing capitalism and corporatism?
Anyone know of anything written by Hayek on Unions in particular
Hey! Did you find anything ? I am doing research on Hayek's view on unions and how they cause unemployment. Would appreciate if you could help
@@momilali3150 there's a book published by "Union Editorial" named "Sindicatos, para que?". It's in Spanish, so there have to be material in English
@samm1809 "whatever"
That's a huge dismissal of everything I wrote in my last comment, which touched on a considerable range of topics and issues.
"the US is heading down the road to serfdom"
A catchy phrase pitting on economic system against another. What it ignores is that serfdom has arrived in many countries already, and not via any leftist movement. Neoliberal economic policy & the IMF (whose loans stipulate labor have few rights) have placed multitudes into debt servitude.
Hes talking about feudalism really isnt he?
Anyways, funny to see that he sort of respected the European unions as opponents, whilst laughing at the US...
a rbe solves all labor problems by accelarating robotic and cybernetic production of all goods and service - thus freeing man from labor -while sharing the fruits equally
Smart man but he is not a businessman. Businessmen work with contracts, contracts assure work is done.
Zero inflation with competing currency is the answer for sustainability. look at his explanation of flexible wages which shows the distributon of capital and equity in a justified manned. Also examine his view on targeting an inflation rate which is not gonna help anyway. All that we are heading for is a global systematic disaster!!!!!!
lol, inflation caused by trade unions?
Abba Lerner also wrote about that. In fact, the relationship between growing wages and inflation is much clearer, than between the quantity of money and inflation.
@@2rooms19 a grocery store has a 1% margin. So of course they need to increase prices of goods to accommodate higher labour costs. Do this across many organizations and this will be highly problematic.
Labour unions don't produce anything other then say social cohesion.
@BritishBroom
Britain where freed? rofl
with nafta and gatt - which opened up world wide labor markets - now we have more employment but at slave wages - nike contracts with vietnam where people earn 10cents an hour and work 16hours a day and resorces are wasted moving goods so far is perrferred method now- my gandfather worked in the coal mines of tennessee at 6yrs old - wtg capatalist - couple the massive oversupply of labor worldwide and increasing technological unemployment - and the over supply of labor = more sweat shops
"Economics is a religion, not a science or philosophy." Oh cool are you one of those trendy Anarcho-Communists?
Unions engage in the same monopolistic practices as the capitalist. Unions benefit unions; that’s it. I have seen no evidence that I have benefited from lower prices or higher quality because of unions. That unions generally benefit working people or me specifically is marketing at best and propaganda at worst
the living standards of the working class went way up after the labour unions won their battles .And i dont recall hearing about any great recession of jobs in america or anywhere else in those eras.
Look at the trends before unions emerged, living standards where increasing. Increased living standards or wealth is only achieved by increases in productivity.
DarkMageB8
really?all the economists and papers ive seen says there is a massive increase in productivity and the real wages are lower than they were in 1970.1970 being the time where union busting was takeing hold.plus productivity doesn't increase wages.supply and demand changes wages.the capitalists want to drive wages down to their lowest while getting the most productivity out of them.as long as crony capitalism exists then the unions should have a right to exist.
reachforacreech "then the unions should have a right to exist"
I don't think that you will get many liberals disagreeing with trade unions existence. After it basically comes under freedom of association. One of the most basic freedoms. 0:54 "If trade unions had not been invented I would invent them" Hayek.
+reachforacreech Unionization has similar effects of firms colluding on pricing. The workers are in the business of selling their labor to employers; together they collude to set the price of labor artificially high. Furthermore, if unions get laws passed making it illegal for non-union workers to undercut union workers, you now have a legalized monopoly on labor in the field which the union operates. This sets the a firm's cost of employment artificially high compared to competitors (maybe in another state or country) and will force the firms who employ the union-workers to go out of business.
+Nick V well yes,that is what class struggle is.the businesses collude with government to overthrow the workers and consumers and the workers collude to fight back.The workers have,by and large,lost the battles and they continue to lose battles. Daily i see how businesses are owning more and more of government local and federal.But one thing is clear.until capitalism dissolves into something better,the vast majority of people will never live free, for the cost of living is the cost of submission and the cost of submission is eternal bondage.cyclical.
NEVER DONE A DAY'S WORK IN HIS LIFE!!
Worked his entire life until he dropped.
Indeed, there should be no legal privileges or preferential treatment be given to labor unions!
I hate to say it, but Economics is a religion, not a science or philosophy.
Very smart fool........Economists are social scientists and Hayek has missed this. Trade unions are a reflection of our human nature to organize and improve conditions. Workers have lives and interests too. It's called freedom....But yes violence and keeping others from crossing a picket line is wrong.
Trade unions are a social construct designed to benefit the 'owners' of the trade unions (who have ascended up out of work, into a pseudo management position that does not benefit profitability, but instead erodes it). Hayek is correct here. I have no problem with people collectively bargaining, but the individual must be at liberty to seek his own terms, if he so desires, and the employer thinks there is value for money with that employee's terms.
There is no freedom, but the individual may seek liberty.
In reality, some employers DO conspire to keep the price of labor low, or they may be the only game in town. Not everyone can just go work somewhere else! If there is one firm and a pool of workers, the firm sets an asking price. If you live in that area and want to work, you have to work at that employer. There are plenty of situations where even in large cities, there are only one or several firms offering employment in a given industry. Think of a factory or mining town. The employer makes the market. If you don't want the wages, where else do you go? You probably don't have the capital to move. If you have one buyer of labor, doesn't it make sense that there should be one seller? In that case, the "invisible hand" is slapping workers in the face, so people must unionize. Otherwise, it's a rigged game. Companies may subsidize new employees moving there. They can take all sorts of measures, because they have the capital.
@@DumbledoreMcCracken An employer with a lot of capital can resort to all sorts of measures to get the labor they need. Individual workers, not so much. There is an inherent imbalance of power. Indeed, labor unions can be corrupt. They should not be able to resort to violence as a matter of course. But I don't know too many people who think that. With violence, then the union becomes a protection racket. But there is nothing wrong with labor unions who negotiate a contract, even if the contract requires them only to hire union members. Sometimes, when labor unions block the entrance to a building, etc., It is because the company just said "to hell with you and your bargaining, I'm gonna get workers any way I can". Now, perhaps that is warranted, but you can see how the firm has advantages that the workers don't, right?
@@DumbledoreMcCracken In reality, firms may indeed conspire to keep the price of labor low. What he is saying is absolutely correct given his assumptions The problem is that in the real world, his assumptions do not always hold. Also, he is assuming that the employer is a perfectly rational agent. Some employers DO drive down wages just because they like to. Hayek says, "If they hadn't been invented, I would have invented them myself ..." That is because he is a good faith actor who is thinking logically. Not all owners of enterprises are.
@@DumbledoreMcCracken What you describe is a corrupt labor union. Some are corrupt, and some aren't. If one is to undertake a value-free analysis (which is what Hayek generally championed), then one must assume that all participants are acting as rational agents. A corrupt labor union is not merely an effective one. If they merely are effective, how is a union boss any different from a CEO? They are morally equivalent. It is unfair to impugn labor unions on that basis unless the employer is a good faith actor.
A very well put,eloquent,well written,one sided elegy of total shite!