Premium
Coercion and the Trade Unions: a Reconsideration of Hayek
Author(s) -
Richardson Ray
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
british journal of industrial relations
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.665
H-Index - 70
eISSN - 1467-8543
pISSN - 0007-1080
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8543.1996.tb00649.x
Subject(s) - coercion (linguistics) , power (physics) , economics , political economy , world trade , law and economics , sociology , positive economics , international trade , philosophy , linguistics , physics , quantum mechanics
Friedrich Hayek was an influential critic of trade unions, especially critical of their presumed ability to act ‘coercively’. Without coercive power unions could be benign; with coercive power they were seen to be a force for profound loss and danger. The paper examines Hayek's understanding of the general concept of coercion, and discusses how he applied it to the analysis of trade unions. It also looks at his more speculative treatment of trade unions in a ‘non‐coercive’ world to see what that suggests about his analysis of trade unions. I conclude that Hayek's notion of coercion was unsatisfactory, that he was seriously inconsistent in his use of the term, and that he was hopelessly confused in his analysis of unions.