Many people who come to the philosophy of liberty from the right hold on to their conservative talking points on corporations and unions. I came here from the radical left. So it was obvious to me that organized labor played a legitimate role in a free market and that corporations were a creation of the state. But I hadn’t committed a lot of time to forging my opinion.
Both unions and corporations are rooted in freedom of association, but it seemed to me that corporations limit legitimate liability, and unions violate freedom of disassociation. They seem fundamentally similar because they both mitigate economic liability with state force. But I wanted to check my own ex-liberal bias. So, I interviewed one person from each side, a radical unionist and a tea-party patriot, to talk me through the gaps in my understanding.
Imagine you and another person squaring off in a game of poker. Now pretend that your style of play is generally aggressive, whereas your opponent is generally defensive. When the action is upon your opponent he will only apply passive measures, such as checking and calling bets. You, however, choose the aggressive strategy of betting. Over the long hall the aggressive player is almost surely to be the victor by a large margin. The state, therefore, wisely values aggression as a long term stratagem.
