mm

Feel free to explain why they can offer the facts that the UAW has a lengthy contract, demands to be paid a price for its concessions, and negotiates for its interests on a quid pro quo basis as criticisms of the union, and still claim to uphold the basic principles of the free market. Then explain how they can characterize the worker/employer parties to a labor contract as cooperative entities that exist to negotiate with each other, under any standard theory of labor relations.

That is precisely what they said. We’re apparently expected to take them seriously. There’s obviously no reason to. But at the same time, they’re not stupid enough to believe the stupid things they say. Those things just aren’t reasonable, or even seriously-intended, applications of business theory to a real-world example of labor contracting. They are intended for some other purpose entirely.

I suggest they are intended to be exactly what, in fact, they actually are: criticisms of union workers, serving to undermine support for union contracts, couched in the guise of apparently serious and high-sounding, though in fact absurd, business and economics terminology. As to why the Journal would undertake such a project, I can’t say with authority, but it isn’t hard to guess.

Alternatively, you can believe they really meant what they said, and that the editorialists of the Wall Street Journal actually believe, for instance, that true business and economic theory holds that a contract can be evaluated by how many pages it has, that it is a criticism of a contracting party that they “heavily negotiate” for their interests and demand quid pro quo for what they give up, and so forth. But, as I say, you’ll have to give evidence for that, because it’s unbelievable on its face.

UPDATE: Re-worded slightly to make clear it was the WSJ I was criticizing, not Uncle.