Ok, we'll agree to disagree on the different connotations of the word. Fact remains that whatever it is that drives a person, the problem still is aggression. The problem still are people who violate other people's property rights. Whether it is by forcing them to buy something they don't want to buy or by stealing part of their property to make up the losses of some shady corporation etc.

A free and prosperous society is one where people are free to use their own property, one where people feel secure to save their property for later use if they want (unlike our current system that encourages people to spend their income because otherwise they would lose part of it to the tax man or to inflation),...

How do you feel about trade unions?

Unions and their influence are different in different parts of the world, but in general: there's nothing wrong with a union per se.

If workers want to organize themselves and have someone represent them in negotiations etc with their employer or potential employer, there's nothing wrong with that. People are free to associate themselves with whoever they want. Employers are also free to hire whoever they want, so in a free world, employers would also be free to refuse to hire people who are represented by certain organizations like a union for example. Freedom works both ways.

The problem with unions and the way they operate in most countries these days is that they have become a part of the state. In this part of the EU for example, every couple of years a small number of people who represent a couple of 'employers organizations' and the unions get together and discuss how wages will go up or down etc. These talks influence not only the people who are a member of those unions but also the people who aren't.

Years ago, before I became (full time) self employed, my boss asked me if I wanted to work on a holiday. They needed a small group of people to work that day and offered 3 times the normal pay. I agreed to work that day, as did a lot of other people. But in the end we weren't allowed to work that day because some union (that I wasn't even a member of) refused to ok this deal. So my boss voluntarily agreed to the deal. I, as an employee, agreed. But because of some union (and the powers it has) we weren't allowed to complete "our voluntary transaction".

Yes, some of the employees are so will they commit suicide at the awful conditions and poor wages corporations pay making western gadgets.

The employers control the STATE and the STATE makes sure that wages are kept low by outlawing and restricting Trade unions, creating unemployment, importing cheap foreign labor.

The idea that the market is free is deluded. On one side is the employer backed by the courts, wealth and power and on the other the worker who has little or nothing and the need to feed his family.

The result of this can be see in the fact that the economies have grown over the last 30 years but wages have not. The workers are just "Willing" to give more of the money to the rich....

:1orglaugh
Sure kid, let's change the meaning of 1% so you can seem to be right.

Because our govt. gave the money to them.
Meanwhile how many people that really NEEDED that money got a penny of it?

I'd say we start first with voting out of office EVERY elected official. One term and then OUT.

All of this class warfare nonsense is just another smokescreen to cover the crooks in Washington D.C. and the media is perpetuating it.

It's "con man 101" kind of stuff. Distract you with something flashy while picking your pocket with the other hand.

NRA nuts seem pretty sane now. Seems very wise idea to keep the middle class armed.

Sad that you're too stupid to realize nobody is talking about your pennies.

:1orglaugh