To to be recognized as a card-carrying progressive (called “liberal” in America), one sine-qua-non condition is a near-unconditional support for trade unions and the power that the state has outsourced to them—such as to force employers to negotiate or employees to pay dues. With that usually comes a deep reverence for the “Nordic model,” “Swedish model,” or “German model” in which powerful unions regiment most workers. This “corporatist model” is named as such and celebrated in the recent book of Daron and Acemoglu and Simon Johnson, Power and Progress—which is somewhat surprising as they seem to ignore the history of corporatism, including in Mussolini’s fascism. (I review Acemoglu and Johnson’s book in the forthcoming Winter issue of Regulation.)
Another sine qua non for a progressive is to worship “the environment,” which of course includes promoting EVs (at any cost to the taxpayer).
As Vladimir Lenin could have said, what is to be done when these legalized beliefs clash? When idealized trade unions want to grab money from capitalists producing glorified EVs? The Financial Times, itself philosophically closer to progressives than to classical liberals, reports on such a developing case (“Telsa Strikes in Sweden Are ‘Insame’, Says Elon Musk,” November 23, 2023) :
Dockworkers and car dealers have since refused to work with the brand, in sympathy strikes that threaten to harm the company’s business in Sweden and potentially further afield. The latest strike by postal workers means Tesla cars will not have their licence plates delivered to customers. …
Unions in Norway, one of Europe’s biggest markets for electric vehicle sales, said they will stop Teslas destined for Sweden being unloaded in the neighbouring Scandinavian country. …
“It could snowball into different countries and be replicated elsewhere,” warned [independent auto analyst Matthias] Schmidt. “The biggest risk is obviously Germany. We expected something similar to happen in Germany when they opened their plant there, with the unions being so strong.”
Yesterday and again today, the Financial Times provided more information on how the conflict is evolving (“Tesla Wins Interim Decision Against Swedish State Over Car Number Plates,” November 27, 2023):
Swedish unions argue that Tesla needs to sign a collective agreement as almost all businesses in the country do, meaning that wages and working conditions are set jointly in negotiations between unions and employer organisations.
Postal workers who deliver spare parts and registration plates, cleaners who clean Tesla’s dealerships, and dockworkers unloading their cars have all since refused to work with the US brand.
On impersonal markets with contractual freedom, it is difficult to imagine such conflicts, just as no inherent conflict opposes consumers who want cars and suppliers who make them available to whoever is willing to pay the market price. All parties to a voluntary exchange benefit; anyone who does not expect to will decline to participate. The more the state coercively intervenes, the more life becomes conflictual as we can now observe in so many areas.
All that is a matter of degree, at least up to a point, and Nordic countries are more “capitalist” than what many of our progressives usually like to believe. But they have also gone a long way on what Friedrich Hayek called the road to serfdom.
READER COMMENTS
David Seltzer
Nov 28 2023 at 1:51pm
According to de Jasay, the incentive of political actors is to gain power by putting together winning coalitions, and to stay in power by rewarding their supporters at the expense of their opponents. He doubt’s constitutional limits will countervail the statocrats as they will eventually work around them. I suspect only the prospect of severe economic conditions will initiate public resistance to the rascals.
Jose Pablo
Nov 28 2023 at 3:42pm
the prospect of severe economic conditions will initiate public resistance to the rascals.
You are an optimist!
You mean, as the severe economic conditions have initiated public resistance to the rascals in Cuba or Argentina? The rascals are thriving.
There is no such a thing as “public”, not even the “resisting” kind. Some “public” resist, other “public” thrives, other “public” goes along … so many “publics” doing “things” at the same time! …
You cannot count on the “public” force feeding common sense into the “Res publica”
David Seltzer
Nov 28 2023 at 6:50pm
Jose, I used “public” colloquially. If I were more careful I would have said individual activists. Anti-austerity activists started demonstrating in major cities across Greece. The demonstrations were peaceful but turned violent when quelled by Greek National Police. The Green Movement protests in Iran began peacefully but soon hundreds of people…individuals… were arrested. Several died as the protests become violent. I believe those movements failed because the regimes had weapons and citizens didn’t. Those challenging repressive regimes are why I’m an optimist. Carrying firearms for self-defense is not permitted for most Cuban citizens. In Argentina, citizens can legally own a gun but regulations are very strict.
Pierre Lemieux
Nov 28 2023 at 9:07pm
José: To intermediate the disagreement between David and you, I can only here quote Antonio Gramsci from my young man’s readings: “Pessimisme de l’intelligence, optimisme de la volonté“– which in English would be “Pessimism of the intelligence, optimism of the will.” The original of course was in Italian and not exactly in line with how my ideas have evolved. I also hope that my memory does not betray me on the exact quote in the French translation.
It is true, though, that to go from the intelligence to the will, there is what economists call the problem of collective action.
Roger Depledge
Nov 29 2023 at 4:46am
Actually, Gramsci’s first use of the expression in April 1920 attributes it to Romain Rolland, who used it in a book review the previous month. So your French is not a translation.
Pierre Lemieux
Nov 29 2023 at 9:14am
Roger: Very interesting, thanks! Would you have a handy citation for this?
Roger Depledge
Dec 1 2023 at 4:01am
https://books.openedition.org/enseditions/17064?lang=en
Footnotes 85-87.
MarkW
Nov 28 2023 at 3:04pm
Tesla is now not to be given any leeway for at least a couple of reasons: 1) Tesla’s EVs are direct, strong competitors to European EV models that have struggled to compete, and 2) Musk’s purchase of Twitter and his outspoken, anti-woke politics. Oh, and, Musk’s SpaceX, too, has put a big hurt on Ariane. So anti-Tesla actions are overdetermined, as they say. And no, there’s no way that climate concerns will outweigh these other considerations (they never do). The climate ‘crisis’ will certainly be used whenever possible to further other more important progressive goals, but they will be quietly disregarded when necessary.
Craig
Nov 28 2023 at 3:28pm
Four score and six years ago the world’s most evil dictator started a car company! The above dispute could be some form of soft protectionism. As a counterpoint not Sweden, but I’ve been to Wolfsburg and I’ve been to Detroit, yeah, there’s that, right? To be honest when the first thing that I think of when I think of Europe is that all you have to do is to scratch the surface and you’ll find an ‘anti-American’ and I’d be out of NATO and Ukraine without blinking. Indeed as a general rule I’m not a fan of Northern Europe at all, particularly right now during the gray malaise. The place is flat out depressing if you ask me; that’s why God invented Florida. That being said that doesn’t mean I don’t want to trade with Europe, indeed EU/US should have an FTA, they’re obviously quite capable people who have built an enviable society for themselves, the life expectancy in TN is 73 and in MS 71 and you just don’t see that there….or quite as much obesity….as for Musk if he wants to do business in Sweden then he has to do business like Swedes do and if he doesn’t want to nothing made him make cars there to begin with or at his Gigafactory in Berlin for that matter.
The above article notes: “Swedish unions argue that Tesla needs to sign a collective agreement as almost all businesses in the country do, meaning that wages and working conditions are set jointly in negotiations between unions and employer organisations.”
If the bolded portion was true, perhaps he should’ve looked before he leaped, no?
steve
Nov 28 2023 at 5:19pm
I lived in Florida. You can have it. I agree that Musk should have known the working conditions in Sweden. If he didnt want to deal with them he should have stayed away.
That said, I am unclear about why libertarians would oppose the Swedish model. In it the employers and the union work together to solve issues. As per the article cited here it doesnt have government interference. If other workers outside of Tesla dont want to work with Tesla why should we force them to do that?
Steve
Also “promoting EVs (at any cost to the taxpayer)” is a straw man.
Craig
Nov 28 2023 at 6:08pm
“I lived in Florida. You can have it.”
Well, I suppose I’ll have to have you deported to Sweden though you might claim you’re not from there. 😉 [I’m probably carbon dating myself with that movie reference actually]
“why libertarians”
Well, in Germany I know that labor has to have seats on the board. To a certain extent it IS government compelled cooperation. Compelled or not when VW came to Chattanooga (I also live in TN), they actually wanted to emulate a workers council type of situation and apparently THAT structure violated US law: https://www.columbiadailyherald.com/story/news/local/2015/11/18/vw-works-council-doesn-t/25690823007/
Jon Murphy
Nov 28 2023 at 6:52pm
An obscure reference to one of my favorite movies. Well done
Craig
Nov 30 2023 at 12:20pm
*Aside @ Professor Murphy. Just curious what your students call you in LA?
In NJ when I was in high school teachers were called Mr./Mrs {surname} [sometimes Miss and every once in a blue moon there was a Ms.] if a name was difficult perhaps a Mr. {single letter} might be acceptable. College and on same thing except now the title went to Professor instead of Mr,/Mrs. so in NJ if I were in your class I’d call you Professor Murphy. If an MD and I were visiting you it’d be Doctor Murphy.
Where I live in TN there’s quite a bit of Mr. Jon or Doc Jon. Not exclusively of course, but myself get called Mr. Craig a bit, indeed I have even been called Mr. Daughter’s Name Dad.
So I’m just curious you were in NC and LA, I’m just curious if you might be called Professor Jon there? You’re from the north so you might stick with the Murphy of course, so perhaps your Southern colleagues might go by Professor {First Name}?
john hare
Nov 28 2023 at 6:45pm
You can’t understand objections to labor unions and the companies being in cahoots?
steve
Nov 28 2023 at 7:15pm
They are working together voluntarily if the cited article is correct. The companies still need to compete with other companies so they arent price setting. Not really seeing how this should hurt me as a consumer.
Steve
Pierre Lemieux
Nov 28 2023 at 8:25pm
Steve: Sweden is not fascist Italy but, from what I understand, as either an employee or an employer, you have to conform to the pay and working-condition decisions made above your head by corporatist allies. I am pretty sure that not mailing or delivering car registrations is not the only way the state, from the top of its majesty, “take sides” (as de Jasay emphasizes) for some citizens and against others.
Freedom of contract is quite simple. If an employer wants a union and will only hire people who want to be union members, let him, if he can find such employees. If an employee wants to work only for unionized shops, let him, let him, if he can find such shops. If an employee does not want to work for unionized shops (or at a decreed wage that makes him unemployable), let him, if he can find such an opportunity. If an employer wants to hire only employees who agree not to become members of a trade union (or if he simply will not let union organizers come into his shop), let him, if he can find such employees. Laissez faire (as a merchant told Colbert)!
Capitalism and Freedom, the old and moderate 1960 book by Milton Friedman, made this argument neatly.
Thomas L Hutcheson
Nov 28 2023 at 5:25pm
You have sort of definition of “progressive” that distinguishes it from Liberal.
Liberals, too, have a mildly positive attitude toward private sector unions; public sector unions are more problematic as they are more inclined to intervein with management beyond pay and “working conditions.”
Liberals look on environmental issues in terms of CBA. Untaxed negative externalities reduce real incomes. Unfortunately interventions other than optimal pigou taxes are used. Reform is an ongoing process, never perfect.
The Nordic model does seem to balance transfers and taxes to pay for them better than the US system and is not vitiated by forcing employers to “provide” benefits with implicit taxes on workers compensation.
Liberals general a quite favorable to transfers, but prefer that the be explicit and financed with taxes rather than through manipulation of market prices
Pierre Lemieux
Nov 28 2023 at 8:57pm
Thomas: Labels of course are just labels, and their only usefulness is to help make distinctions and carry out analysis, not to speak of acting in the world. If nearly everybody but me used authoritarianism and tyranny to mean liberalism and dirigisme, I would (probably) be happy to argue for authoritarianism and tyranny. If you speak with people who read books and know some history, there is some pedagogical advantage in using labels that have some historical correspondence. Most people who call themselves liberals today (especially in America) are much closer philosophically to the progressives of the late 19h century and the first third or so of the 20th than they are to the liberals of the 18th and 19th centuries. Some of these progressives even claim to be “democratic socialists”!
I do understand that there are fuzzy zones at the margins of (“historically correct”) liberalism. There you find some reasonable, rational, and often talkable-to conservatives, social-democrats, and utilitarians. (After all, there are even some “bleeding-heart” libertarians!) I believe however that most of these people are mistaken, often because they don’t take methodological individualism nor philosophical individualism seriously.
Richard Fulmer
Nov 28 2023 at 8:03pm
And at any cost to the environment.
nobody.really
Dec 1 2023 at 10:07am
Uh … carry a card? Is this a trick question or something?
Craig
Dec 1 2023 at 1:30pm
As long as its not VoterID 😉
nobody.really
Dec 1 2023 at 1:48pm
Ha!
Comments are closed.