labor unions–do we like them?

The Atlantic Wire has published an editorial about the fight over labor unions in the US state of Wisconsin. The popularity of unions has suffered greatly since the 1970’s as people recognize that unions can sometimes bring higher prices and contribute to unemployment.

Another purpose of unions is to shift power and income from the wealthy to the middle and lower classes. It is largely a response to Marxist economics that has largely become irrelevant in our modern society.

Stripped of the power to collectively bargain, Wisconsin public unions will have lost their ability to “act as counterweights to the power of big money. And unions are among the most important of these institutions,” argues Paul Krugman. “You don’t have to love unions, you don’t have to believe that their policy positions are always right, to recognize that they’re among the few influential players in our political system representing the interests of middle- and working-class Americans, as opposed to the wealthy.”

I have written before that I believe American politics is mostly concerned with big business and helping the profits and income of the wealthy. This seems another example of just that. At least there is some controversy and argument left in the American people.