Organized labor has been much more sensitive to the danger of government power
and much more aware of ideological issues. Its spokesmen have fought the
government in proper, morally confident terms whenever they saw a threat to
their rights. (To name a few examples of such occasions: the attempt at labor
conscription in World War II, the issue of U.S. contributions to the
Soviet-dominated International Labor Organization, President Kennedy’s attempt
to impose guidelines in the steel crisis of 1962.) Labor’s concern was aroused
only in defense of its rights; still, whoever defends his own rights defends
the rights of all. But labor was pursuing a contradictory policy, which could
not be maintained for long. In many issues—notably in its support of
welfare-state legislation—labor violated the rights of others and fertilized
the growth of the government’s power. And, today, labor is in line to become
the next major victim of advancing statism.
It was business, not labor, that initiated the policy of government
intervention in the economy (as long ago as the nineteenth century)—and
business was the first victim. Labor adopted the same policy and will meet the
same fate. He who lives by a legalized sword, will perish by a legalized sword.