The Freeman 1972 - The Ludwig von Mises Institute

1972 MORALITY AND CONTROLS 31force the worker to sell his laborfor less than its value to him andto his employer?By any standards, the edicts ofthe pay board and the price board,like the initial freeze, will be fullof inequities and will be judged tobe by ever increasing numbers ofpeople. You believe that you areentitled to a pay raise, your employeragrees and wishes to giveyou one, yet the pay board says no.Will there not be a great temptationto find a way around theruling? By a promotion unaccompaniedby any change in dutiesbut to a job title carrying ahigher permitted pay. Or by youremployer providing you withamenities you formerly paid for.Or by one or another of the innumerablestratagems - legal,quasi-legal, or illegal - that ingeniousmen devise to protect themselvesfrom snooping bureaucrats.Two W fongs = Two W fongsIn general, I have little sympathywith trade unions. They havedone immense harm by restrictingaccess to jobs, denying excludedworkers the opportunity to makethe most of their abilities, andforcing them to take less satisfactoryjobs. Yet surely in thepresent instance they are rightthat it is inequitable for the governmentretroactively to void contractsfreely arrived at. The wayto reduce the monopoly power ofunions is to remove the speciallegal immunities they are nowgranted, not to replace one concentratedpOWE1!" by another.When men do not regard governmental.measures as just andright they will find a way aroundthem. The. effects extend beyondthe original source, generate widespreaddisrespect for the law, andpromote corruption and violence.We found this out to our cost inthe 1920's. with Prohibition; inWorld War II with price controland rationing; today with druglaws. We shall experience it yetagain with price and wage controlsif they are ever more thana paper fa