An Alternative Theory of Unions
Paul Graham argues that the high-paying union manufacturing jobs of the mid-20th century were not a triumph of the labor movement but a temporary bubble created by rapidly growing companies that prioritized speed over cost. He compares it to the overpayment for web consultants during the Internet Bubble. When growth slowed, companies cut costs and unions shrank. The article rejects moral decline narratives in favor of economic cycle explanations.
May 2007People who worry about the increasing gap between rich and poor generally look back on the mid twentieth century as a golden age. In those days we had a large number of high-paying union manufacturing jobs that boosted the median income. I wouldn't quite call the high-paying union job a myth, but I think people who dwell on it are reading too much into it.
2007年5月。那些为贫富差距扩大而担忧的人，通常会将20世纪中期视为黄金时代。那时有大量高薪的工会制造业岗位，拉高了中位收入。我虽不完全称高薪工会职位为神话，但认为念念不忘此事的人有些过度解读了。
Oddly enough, it was working with startups that made me realize where the high-paying union job came from. In a rapidly growing market, you don't worry too much about efficiency. It's more important to grow fast. If there's some mundane problem getting in your way, and there's a simple solution that's somewhat expensive, just take it and get on with more important things. EBay didn't win by paying less for servers than their competitors.
说来也怪，正是与初创公司打交道的经历让我意识到高薪工会职位从何而来。在快速成长的市场中，你不太担心效率问题。更重要的是快速增长。如果某个平凡问题挡了路，而有一个简单但有些昂贵的解决方案，那就采用它，然后继续处理更重要的事情。eBay并非通过比竞争对手支付更少的服务器费用而获胜的。
Difficult though it may be to imagine now, manufacturing was a growth industry in the mid twentieth century. This was an era when small firms making everything from cars to candy were getting consolidated into a new kind of corporation with national reach and huge economies of scale. You had to grow fast or die. Workers were for these companies what servers are for an Internet startup. A reliable supply was more important than low cost.
尽管现在难以想象，但制造业在20世纪中期是一个增长型行业。那时，从汽车到糖果的小公司正被整合成一种具有全国覆盖范围和巨大规模经济的新型企业。要么快速成长，要么灭亡。工人对这些公司而言，就像服务器对互联网初创公司一样。可靠的供应比低成本更重要。
If you looked in the head of a 1950s auto executive, the attitude must have been: sure, give 'em whatever they ask for, so long as the new model isn't delayed. In other words, those workers were not paid what their work was worth. Circumstances being what they were, companies would have been stupid to insist on paying them so little.
如果你看穿一位1950年代汽车高管的头脑，态度一定是：当然，他们要什么就给什么，只要新款不延误。换句话说，那些工人并非按其劳动价值获得报酬。在当时的情况下，公司坚持支付极低工资反而是愚蠢的。
If you want a less controversial example of this phenomenon, ask anyone who worked as a consultant building web sites during the Internet Bubble. In the late nineties you could get paid huge sums of money for building the most trivial things. And yet does anyone who was there have any expectation those days will ever return? I doubt it. Surely everyone realizes that was just a temporary aberration. The era of labor unions seems to have been the same kind of aberration, just spread over a longer period, and mixed together with a lot of ideology that prevents people from viewing it with as cold an eye as they would something like consulting during the Bubble. Basically, unions were just Razorfish.
想要一个争议较小的例子，问问任何在互联网泡沫期间从事网站建设咨询的人。90年代末，你构建最琐碎的东西就能获得巨额报酬。但当时在场的人中，有谁还会期望那些日子重现吗？我怀疑。显然每个人都意识到那只是暂时的反常。工会时代似乎也是同样的反常，只是持续时间更长，且掺杂了大量意识形态，使人们无法像看待泡沫期间的咨询那样冷静审视。基本上，工会就是Razorfish（互联网咨询公司）。
People who think the labor movement was the creation of heroic union organizers have a problem to explain: why are unions shrinking now? The best they can do is fall back on the default explanation of people living in fallen civilizations. Our ancestors were giants. The workers of the early twentieth century must have had a moral courage that's lacking today. In fact there's a simpler explanation. The early twentieth century was just a fast-growing startup overpaying for infrastructure. And we in the present are not a fallen people, who have abandoned whatever mysterious high-minded principles produced the high-paying union job. We simply live in a time when the fast-growing companies overspend on different things.
那些认为劳工运动是英勇工会组织者创造的的人，有一个问题需要解释：为什么现在工会正在萎缩？他们最多只能搬出生活在堕落文明中的人常用的解释：我们的祖先曾是巨人。20世纪初的工人一定拥有今天所缺乏的道德勇气。事实上，有一个更简单的解释。20世纪初只是一个快速增长的初创公司，在基础设施上过度支出。而我们当今并非堕落之人，没有抛弃什么产生高薪工会职位的神秘高尚原则。我们只是生活在这样一个时代：快速增长的公司把钱花在了不同的地方。