Hayek on Trade Unions: Social Philosopher or Propagandist?

Abstract

When reviewing one of Hayek’s books recently I became conscious of his willingness to make a number of important empirical judgments, particularly on trade unions, without accompanying them by any supporting evidence. 2 As an example, just one among many, consider his remarkable claim (in ‘1980s Unemployment and the Unions’ — Hayek, 1991) that the legalised powers acquired by British trade unions prior to 1980 became ‘the biggest obstacle to raising the living standards of the working class as a whole ... the chief cause of the unnecessarily big differences between the best- and worst-paid workers ... the prime source of unemployment... [and] ... the main reason for the decline of the British economy in general’ (Hayek, 1991, p. 344). These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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