Unions and the Worker...

Henry George
.
.

What did Henry George mean, when he said, "The methods by which a trade union can alone act, are necessarily destructive; its organization is necessarily tyrannical"?

I believe he saw the Unions of his day (the late 19th Century) already becoming the coercive, political powers they've become since.

A group of workers SHOULD represent solely worker's interests and not any organization's.

Moreover, Unions have taken a power that no group has a right too, and that is "limiting access to specific work." Carpenter's Unions, Electrical Workers Unions, even Unions for attorneys (the ABA) and physicians (the AMA) exist primarily to limit access to those jobs, to create an artificial shortage and better/higher compensation for existing workers.

Often, such Unions enrich themselves at the expense of their membership and, in turn, fail to represent their member's best interests. In the 1960s, New York's newspaper Unions fought for "Pattern Bargaining," which would require all Pressman, mechanics, reporters, etc., be paid the same regardless of the size of the newspaper. That put dozens of small newspapers out of business, killing thousands of jobs. Recently Pathmark's Unions did an equally egregious thing. As that company was drowning in red ink, it sought to cut some night jobs to save the company. The Unions refused, issuing an "All or none," ultimatum. It came back...NONE, as Pathmark could no longer go on.

Those are examples of Unions NOT looking out for their worker's best interests.

Henry George (photo below) was NOT anti worker. In fact, he was derided as a "Socialist" by most Americans during his day, despite his religious, highly Christian leanings making him unpalatable to Marxists.

Henry George was, in every sense, a man alone.

Henry George's writings, like "Progress and Poverty" inspired Leo Tolstoy who corresponded with him and after Tolstoy's two initial works ("War and Peace" & "Anna Karenina") devoted all the rest of his efforts to religious works like, "The Kingdom of God is Within You," "My Confession" and "The Gospels in Brief." In turn, Tolstoy's works would greatly influence Mahatma Gandhi, so while Henry George is largely forgotten today, his influence lived on long after he did.

Henry George didn't oppose workers banding together for their own benefit, he just opposed political organizations misrepresenting worker interests...and we still have a lot of that today.