tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post2525241038913228733..comments2024-03-06T06:34:42.881-05:00Comments on EconoSpeak: Ownership,Trade and Equilibrium: Locke, Graunt and GracianUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-56133347315257122932016-02-02T13:34:02.327-05:002016-02-02T13:34:02.327-05:00Denis,
Tuesday happens to be the day I teach coll...Denis,<br /><br />Tuesday happens to be the day I teach collective bargaining. So, in principle, we are agreed about collective bargaining being "the only known way to promote maximum efficiency." But I would go further to say that the Wagner Act administrative model of collective bargaining is <i>not collective enough</i>. What I mean is that North American unions operate on a business unionism model collectively bargaining for largely individualized wage and benefit packages. The historical exception to that rule came in campaigns for shorter hours of work, which today are virtually off the agenda of organized labor. <br /><br />Collective bargaining for collective outcomes would mean adopting the perspective that labor power is a common pool resource. That is actually what I am getting at obliquely in the above discussion -- the possessive individualist reading of Locke's "Of Property" is not consistent with Locke's natural law philosophy. Thomas Hodgskin's reading of Locke, in <i>Labour Defended against the Claims of Capital</i>, IS consistent with that philosophy.Sandwichmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-49667921107997240572016-02-02T09:59:17.398-05:002016-02-02T09:59:17.398-05:00Jimmy Hoffa would say that labor owned half the me...Jimmy Hoffa would say that labor owned half the means of production -- the labor half -- and that short of law requiring labor, ownership and the (ultimate) consumer to get together to set all product prices (an impractical way to sell candy bars), that collective bargaining is the only way to keep labor in the product price setting game.<br /><br />I know the dictionary definition of "perfect competition." I don't know if economists (or some economists and not others) think that any deviation from results in lower efficiency. Seems to me that imposing market power just rearranges distribution of the "lump of product." No matter.<br /><br />What I want to load on the balance in favor of labor unions is that by definition unions bring the market closer to perfect competition -- by balancing the monopoly power of labor -- one seller (ask any conservative if a labor union is a monopoly) against the monopsony power of ownership -- one buyer.<br /><br />Ownership could counter that there are many "one buyers" in the labor market. That is certainly closer to perfect competition than only one big buyer who hires everyone: that would allow ownership to get away with paying computer programmers and burger flippers the same. What multiple monopsonists set up (which is what we have in the US today) is a subsistence plus ladder where labor's price is set by subsistence (if that much) plus how ever much more labor has to give compared to other labor (not how ever much the ultimate consumer might have paid).<br /><br />If another definition of efficiency could be maximizing psychic satisfaction/dissatisfactions all around -- as is achieved when labor/owner/(ultimate) buyer get together to make a deal -- then collective bargaining is the only known way to promote maximum efficiency. A multiple-monopsonists/subsistence-plus market prejudices production in favor of which employees can be most/least squeezed by market muscle.<br /><br />Low skill labor market monopsony is three-ways intense: the customary race-to-the-bottom price problem, aggravated by the infinite supply of interchangeable employees, which employees have to sell today or "throw away" (not to mention miss meals).Denis Drewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11833367196756465896noreply@blogger.com