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Industrialization was a massive success, but classical liberalism had to be reined in by governments and unions. We as a society succeeded despite it. The peons had to get gunned down by the Pinkertons so we could get sane working hours, conditions, and fair pay. Thank god for the weekend? No, thank unions. I have this feeling folks learn about the invisible hand from Adam Smith, take nothing else from that text, and then have this magical thinking that benefits will accrue to everyone, when in fact we little people have to prevent that invisible hand from stabbing innocent people by creating the FDA, EPA, OSHA, FCC, FTC, SEC, NLRB, etc., and we have to have labor movements to get some of benefits of industrialization. Right now, our approach to life is to motivate everyone by profit, reducing fully-fleshed people to homo economicus, devoid of any other emotion and motivation other than money, and hope that somehow, magically, that will create the best civilization. |
And after industrialization, over the course of the 20th century, the most free market economies again saw the greatest gains per capita income and quality of life.
>>The peons had to get gunned down by the Pinkertons so we could get sane working hours, conditions, and fair pay. Thank god for the weekend? No, thank unions.
The unions murdered workers that crossed the picket line, or "scabs" as the socialists called them. Pinkertons were sent in to remove these violent illegal blockaders.
Once the unions succeeded in their cause, with exactly the kind of false narratives you're putting forth here, industrial expansion slowed, and eventually we entered into the current era of stagnation.
Case in point: Detroit. Detroit was the wealthiest city in the US in 1950, with the highest per capita GDP in the country. Over the course of the 1950s, 60s and 70s, the UAW union took over, with membership eventually peaking in 1978.
What followed was industrial collapse, and eventually, Detroit becoming a ghost town.
Unions are not good for labor at large, just the labor that is on the winning side of the zero sum rent extraction scheme.