[JumpCrisscross]

> Those in the unions are the public

This is a nonsense delineation in systems thinking. That railroad shareholders are also the public doesn't justify ripping them off.

Unions are beholden to the same impulses towards monopoly and rent-seeking as corporations. Swap members (i.e. sellers of labour) for shareholders (i.e. sellers of capital) and employers (i.e. buyers of labour) for customers (i.e. buyers of goods and services) and union management starts looking remarkably like its corporate analog, churning undifferentiated workers into a differentiated and thus premium block of labour as truly as a mill grinds forests into houses.

[arethuza]

"That railroad shareholders are also the public"

They are the public, just not the UK public!

[giraffe_lady]

"If you change every detail of both things they're the same thing!"

Labor and capital aren't the same concept no matter how much you scramble them. One is powerful enough that the entire system is named after it.

[ClumsyPilot]

> railroad shareholders are also the public

Lets see the shareholders:

* French government

* Chinese government

* Australian banks