许多美国人，或许占绝大多数，仍然认为，无论他们可能造成何种问题，工会本质上都是为劳动者自身利益而存在的机构。事实上，许多人认为正是工会站在普通劳动者与维持生计的工资、繁重的工作时间以及恶劣的工作条件之间。

工会和公众几乎完全忽视了价格下降在实现实际工资上涨中所起的关键作用。他们只关注货币工资的增长，认为这值得重视。然而，在我们长期通货膨胀的环境中，真正出现价格下降的情况相对罕见。

然而，唯一能够解释整个经济体系中实际工资上升的原因，就是相对于工资而言价格的下降。而实现这一变化的唯一途径，是每位工人生产量的增加。更高的生产率意味着每位工人的产出更多，从而增加了商品和服务的总供给，同时减少了生产这些商品和服务所需的人力投入。这样一来，它相对于工资降低了价格，从而提高了实际工资和总体生活水平。

在整个经济体系中推动货币工资上涨的因素，并非导致实际工资上升的根本原因。货币工资的增加本质上只是由于货币量增加，进而导致经济体系总支出规模扩大所引起的。如果劳动生产率没有提高，那么货币和支出的增加将使物价上涨的程度超过或等于工资上涨的程度。然而，只有在货币量和支出总量同时增加的同时，单位工人的产出也在提高，从而使物价上涨幅度小于工资增长，这种结果才得以避免。因此，即使仅因货币量和支出总量增加而产生影响，物价仍会低于本应达到的水平，表现为价格下降。

除少数相对较小的例外情况外，整个经济体系中的实际工资并不会因为货币工资的提高而上升。本质上，它们仅源于商品和服务供给相对于劳动力供给的相对充足，从而源于价格低于工资。事实上，提高个人劳动者、个体商人和资本家生活水平的方式，与提高经济体系中普通劳动者生活水平的方式大不相同。对个人而言，是赚取更多的钱；而对经济体系中的普通劳动者来说，则是支付更低的价格。

这场讨论表明，工会所追求的货币工资增长绝非实际工资上涨的根源，而实际上，实际工资上升的来源是劳动生产率的提高，这种提高总是通过价格下降来实现，而非货币工资的上涨。

事实上，工会试图提高货币工资的做法，与提高实际工资和生活水平的目标背道而驰。当工会希望通过提高成员的货币工资来提升其成员的生活水平时，其政策不可避免地演变为试图人为地使劳动力供给稀缺化。这是他们提高成员工资的唯一手段。工会对劳动力需求的实际影响力有限，但往往能对劳动力供给施加相当大的控制力。他们提高工资的实际策略，就是尽可能使特定行业或职业中的劳动力供给变得稀缺。

因此，只要有可能，工会就会试图控制劳动力市场的进入。他们试图推行学徒制，或要求政府实施许可制度。这些措施旨在限制该领域的劳动力供给，从而让有幸进入该行业的人能够获得更高的收入。即使工会未能直接减少劳动力供给，其设定的高于市场水平的工资要求，仍会降低该领域提供的就业岗位数量，进而减少能够找到工作的劳动力供给。

当劳工工会人为地在经济体系中施加高于市场水平的工资时，就会导致失业。这种情况往往发生在工会易于组建的环境中。例如，在当今美国，只要企业内多数工人决定希望由工会代表，工会所施加的工资要求便能在非工会领域同样有效。

非工会领域的雇主将被迫向员工提供与工会工人相当甚至更高的工资，以确保他们不会加入工会。

广泛的薪资上涨使大量工人无法进入许多职业领域，这给经济体系中仍存的某些领域带来了巨大压力。这些有限的领域或许能以足够低的工资吸收来自其他行业的过剩劳动力。但最低工资法却阻止了这些剩余领域工资水平降低到足以吸纳这些工人的程度。

从大多数有幸保住工作的人的角度来看，工会最严重的后果就是压制甚至直接降低劳动生产率。除极少数例外，工会公开反对提高劳动生产率。他们几乎出于原则立场采取这种做法：他们反对引入节省劳动力的机械，理由是这会导致失业；他们反对工人之间的竞争。正如亨利·哈兹利特所指出的，他们迫使雇主容忍“铺垫式”用工制度，例如要求消防员——原本的任务是为蒸汽机车铲煤——仍被安排在柴油机车上工作。他们推行强制劳动计划，比如要求将带螺纹的管材运送到工地时，必须先截去管端原有的螺纹，并在工地上重新安装新的螺纹。他们实行狭窄的工作分类，要求以一天工资支付给专业人员完成本可由他人轻易完成的工作——例如，要求请泥瓦匠来修补电工造成墙体损坏的问题，而电工本人完全可以轻松修复。

对于任何理解劳动生产率在提高实际工资方面作用的人来说，显然工会为对抗劳动生产率上升所采取的政策，实际上使他们成为实际工资上涨的主要敌人。尽管这一结论看似激进，与过去一百五十多年甚至更长时间里普遍认为工会是实际工资上涨主要来源的观点相悖，但事实是：工会在抵制劳动生产率上升的过程中，正积极地阻碍着实际工资的上涨！

工会并未对普通工人的生活水平改善负有责任，他们在很大程度上完全不了解真正提升普通工人生活水平的因素。由于这种无知，他们导致了工资水平的人为不平等、失业问题，并持续压低实际工资和普通工人的生活水平。所有这些破坏性、反社会的后果，都源于这样一个事实：尽管个人通过增加生产以及商品和服务的总体供给来提高收入，从而在整个经济体系中降低价格并提高实际工资，但工会却以完全相反的方式增加向其成员支付的薪酬。他们减少了劳动力的供给和生产率，从而减少其成员所参与生产的商品和服务的供给，并推高其价格，最终导致整个经济体系中的实际工资下降。

Labor Unions Are Anti-Labor

George Reisman

Many Americans, perhaps a substantial majority, still believe that, irrespective of any problems they may have caused, labor unions are fundamentally an institution that exists in the vital self-interest of wage earners. Indeed, many believe that it is labor unions that stand between the average wage earner and a life of subsistence wages, exhausting hours of work, and horrific working conditions.

Labor unions and the general public almost totally ignore the essential role played by falling prices in achieving rising real wages. They see only the rise in money wages as worthy of consideration. Indeed, in our environment of chronic inflation, prices that actually do fall are relatively rare.

Nevertheless, the only thing that can explain a rise in real wages throughout the economic system is a fall in prices relative to wages. And the only thing that achieves this is an increase in production per worker. More production per worker — a higher productivity of labor — serves to increase the supply of goods and services produced relative to the supply of labor that produces them. In this way, it reduces prices relative to wages and thereby raises real wages and the general standard of living.

What raises money wages throughout the economic system is not what is responsible for the rise in real wages. Increases in money wages are essentially the result just of the increase in the quantity of money and resulting increase in the overall volume of spending in the economic system. In the absence of a rising productivity of labor, the increase in money and spending would operate to raise prices by as much or more than it raised wages. This outcome is prevented only by the fact that at the same time that the quantity of money and volume of spending are increasing, the output per worker is also increasing, with the result that prices rise by less than wages. A fall in prices is still present in the form of prices being lower than they would have been had only an increase in the quantity of money and volume of spending been operative.

With relatively minor exceptions, real wages throughout the economic system simply do not rise from the side of higher money wages. Essentially, they rise only from the side of a greater supply of goods and services relative to the supply of labor and thus from prices being lower relative to wages. The truth is that the means by which the standard of living of the individual wage earner and the individual businessman and capitalist is increased, and the means by which that of the average wage earner in the economic system is increased, are very different. For the individual, it is the earning of more money. For the average wage earner in the economic system, it is the payment of lower prices.

What this discussion shows is that the increase in money wages that labor unions seek is not at all the source of rising real wages and that the source of rising real wages is in fact a rising productivity of labor, which always operates from the side of falling prices, not rising money wages.

Indeed, the efforts of labor unions to raise money wages are profoundly opposed to the goal of raising real wages and the standard of living. When the unions seek to raise the standard of living of their members by means of raising their money wages, their policy inevitably comes down to an attempt to make the labor of their members artificially scarce. That is their only means of raising the wages of their members. The unions do not have much actual power over the demand for labor. But they often achieve considerable power over the supply of labor. And their actual technique for raising wages is to make the supply of labor, at least in the particular industry or occupation that a given union is concerned with, as scarce as possible.