Completely viable. It's part of history.
One thing though. Antitrust enforcement isn't at question. If one believes that past legislators and courts erred by embracing Affirmative Action, then similarly antitrust enforcement asymmetry is at question, but did they? Maybe Affirmative Action is wrong now, but was it wrong 30 years ago? Is principle to be absolute so that expediency can't operate? Were antitrust laws principled?
They were more expedient because unions had 1/3 of all labor as members, so antitrust laws were not explicitly enforced against what couldn't formally be defined as an antitrust law violating entity. In the first half of the 20th century a subtle compromise did evolve when legislators recognized they couldn't create laws that allowed unions to operate without constraint. Collective bargaining, Taft Hartley, and a myriad of other fixes were legislated. Do they enable the union monopoly? I think so.
I also think that monopolies are transient entities which won't exist long unless government passes laws to destroy them which has the unintended consequence of maintaining them. Why are monopolies transient? Inflexibility. That which cannot change, dies.
The ILWU is an example of a union monopoly that is destroying itself. I believe it will only last for 20 more years. Like a monopoly on a grab they got the big pay at the price of concession to technology. Big error. But like business monopolies which are constrained to operate narrowly and inflexibly, say like UAL under the union constraint, the ILWU is constrained by technology. Technology will gradually replace every last union member with a machine that works for nuthin' and likes it.
So why disrupt a good thing? |
