Unions and Democracy: Replies to Steve Fraser

Steve Fraser’s article renders me virtually (but not totally) speechless. He doesn’t claim, directly, that democracy, as a general system of governance, is bad for unions. Had he done so, it might be easier to have a clear discussion. Although he makes a number of points worth thinking about, they are buried in and surrounded by a turgid swirl of irrelevancies and non sequiturs, all of which give the impression that it is possible, or even probable, that in many instances unions would be better off with less rather than more democracy.

Nowhere does Fraser suggest what alternative system of governance he thinks would be more likely to produce strong and effective unions: kleptocracy? gerontocracy? patriarchy? cronyism? r...