12. Labor and Unions

02/12/2010 Murray N. Rothbard

In order for anyone to make ethical judgments, he must know the consequences of his various actions. In questions of union actions displacement or unemployment for oneself or others will be considered unfortunate by most people. Once understood, far fewer people will be prounion or hostile to nonunion competitors. Unions lower the marginal productivity of all union workers.

Part 12 of 14. Presented in 1986 at New York Polytechnic University.

The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.

Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.