Quote Originally Posted by honedright View Post
I think everyone should be able to keep the fruits of their labor. After all, what right does anyone else have to other peoples stuff? Oh that's right, "You didn't build that..."
The real fruits of the collective labor (or the trickle down) is not so much in the money that you may or may not have but in the overall efficiency that the economy achieves. Unions do not create this. The benefit that we see comes in the lower prices and ease of bringing goods to the market in abundance at prices that people can afford. In 1900 a person would have to labor for nine hours to buy a pair of pants. In 1999 it was three hours. A three minute long distance call in 1950 would require 104 minutes of labor. In '99, two minutes. Today's poor walk around with more goods and services than the poor of yesteryear could never have imagined. There will always be someone with more than you have. Even in former communist states, there were some with more than others. The idea that rich people are holding all the wealth and not sharing it is a silly assumption.