At 12:21 AM 10/23/01 +0300, Sampo Syreeni wrote:

On Mon, 22 Oct 2001, David Honig wrote:

...

Sure. But unions work to make membership *compulsory*. They have other legal privledges.

What can you say? People rent-seek. That's an axiom which also goes by the name of "rationality". So the problem is not the union, but the legislators and their backers.

Absolutely. There should be nothing stopping, nor encouraging, private assemblies. To give them --or anyone-- special privledges enforced by the state is wrong. But the state is composed of politicians who care not for principle but for votes. .... "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the Public Treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits from the Public Treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy always followed by dictatorship." --Alexander Fraser Tyler