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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 11, 2023

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I'm confused. You seem to be trying to get from "union labor has allies willing to use violence" to "this is good" without advancing any argument why. Instead, you are just repeating truisms that no one disagrees with as if they make your case.

Your last sentence is an odd non-sequitur since free market types don't object to using violence against others who initiate violence.

In this very thread we have arguments that unions are bad because their restrictions are based in law and thus enforced by the threat of government violence whereas in contrast the market does not rely on threats of violence. I am pointing out the underpinning of markets is also supported by the same threat of government violence and therefore this argument is not a strong one.

The violence may be good or bad, that isn't my point, merely that if both sides are reliant on it, it isn't a justification for markets being good, or unions being bad, or indeed vice versa, because it applies to both of them.

I am making a narrow rebuttal to this particular reasoning that is apparent above. If you said capitalism is bad because it relies on government violence to enforce private property laws, and therefore we should pick communism, a rebuttal might be, that communism also relies on threats of government violence and therefore this particular argument is not a good one. It doesn't say whether communism or capitalism is better, merely pointing out the specific justification being used is erroneous.

Again, the distinction they make is initiation of violence, which you seem to be trying hard to ignore.

Perhaps you are not understanding, in each case the government will initiate violence. If companies break anti-union laws or if thieves steal property from a company or whatever. We're talking about the back up of government sanctioned violence via law enforcement here, and how both union and markets rely upon that to exist.

Whether it's enforcing IP laws, private property laws so that companies products cannot simply be taken with no comeback and so on, the government will initiate violence (through law enforcement). Sure it might start with fines and so on, but all government action is ultimately backed by state sanctioned violence.

That is the violence both unions and markets are built upon.