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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 11, 2023

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Ok so you don’t like my frame. It doesn’t change what unions do which is theft. They don’t abide by market forces. If you want to propose something similar I will agree it’s theft.

  • -10

So it’s theft by my definition. Sorry you don’t like my frame but using government mandated force to make others poorer well is theft.

Almost all unions require government intervention to exists because they violate market forces. UAW wouldn’t exists without government protection.

The market needs government intervention to exist in any meaningful fashion too. So that is not a compelling argument.

They are of a different kind. Basic market rules (eg secure property rights, ability to sue for breach of contract) are like rules of the road. They are indifferent to where people are going but regulate activity wherever you are going. The rules for unions are more like road rules that tell you where you have to go. Yes both are rules but are of a different kind.

Entirely irrelevant. If markets emerge naturally so too do governments and whatever rules they enforce are the rules they enforce. The market isn't some special thing, its an emergent behavior just like government and laws and unions. Governments get to build roads, where they want them, close roads and so on. They emerge in every human society, just like markets.

Markets must adapt to the society they are in, not vice versa. Markets are made for man, not man for markets.

I’m not sure markets are made for men. As you note, it is an emergent phenomenon that will exist precisely because it is evolutionary. It would be like claiming nature is for man, not man for nature.

With that aside, yes governments are natural responses by men who are good at fighting or politicking but not good at commerce to try to steal value. We should try to keep that to a minimum.

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