Quote - Nathaniel Branden on the Standard of Living

"Let anyone who believes that a high standard of living is the achievement of labor unions and government controls, ask himself the following question: If one had a "time machine" and transported the united labor chieftans of America, plus three million government bureaucrats, back to the tenth century - would they be able to provide the medieval serf with electric light, refrigerators, automobiles, and television sets? When one grasps that they would not, one should identify who and what made these things possible.

Postscript: After completing the above, I noticed an article in The New York Times of September 8 that is too apropos to let pass without acknowledgment. The article, entitled "10 U.A.W. Leaders Find Unions Are Losing Members' Loyalty," by Damon Stetson, reports that executives of the United Automobile Workers met to discuss the problem of workers' increasing lack of loyalty to union leadership and union solidarity. One U.A.W. official is quoted as declaring: "How can we get greater loyalty from the individual to the union? All the things we fought for, the corporation is now giving workers. What we have to find are other things workers want which the employer is not willing to give him, and we have to develop our program around these things as reasons for belonging to the union."

Is any comment necessary?"

Nathaniel Branden, The Role Of Labor Unions, 1963.