The idea is that government is a tool for enforcing a group decision. If at any given time half of workers are holding out for higher wages and half are scabs, then the managers are always fed and can always starve out the striking workers. So the striking workers want to use violent threats to prevent other workers from breaking the strike, i.e. making a deal they want to make with the managers. And this enforcement can be formalized / sublated into government, both as specific negotiating outcomes (wage, working conditions) and as process (unions given some power by government-enforced law, I assume?). (In practice this might be very far from what actually ends up happening. And I’m not particularly in favor of gvt. But I can see the game-theoretic use, and I think this is the historical origin of unions and wage laws and worker’s rights… or maybe it’s not?)
If our libertarianism implies no monopoly on force, then unions can still prevent trades between willing parties. If it implies enforcing no use of force at all, then it seems like we’ve severely limited the ability of workers to bargain, relative to the “state of nature”. Maybe unions would regrow without being founded on threats of violence? But this seems surprising; it seems like it would require a high degree of game-theoretic fluency.
The idea is that government is a tool for enforcing a group decision. If at any given time half of workers are holding out for higher wages and half are scabs, then the managers are always fed and can always starve out the striking workers. So the striking workers want to use violent threats to prevent other workers from breaking the strike, i.e. making a deal they want to make with the managers. And this enforcement can be formalized / sublated into government, both as specific negotiating outcomes (wage, working conditions) and as process (unions given some power by government-enforced law, I assume?). (In practice this might be very far from what actually ends up happening. And I’m not particularly in favor of gvt. But I can see the game-theoretic use, and I think this is the historical origin of unions and wage laws and worker’s rights… or maybe it’s not?)
If our libertarianism implies no monopoly on force, then unions can still prevent trades between willing parties. If it implies enforcing no use of force at all, then it seems like we’ve severely limited the ability of workers to bargain, relative to the “state of nature”. Maybe unions would regrow without being founded on threats of violence? But this seems surprising; it seems like it would require a high degree of game-theoretic fluency.