> If you cannot see that unions are price-fixing conspiracies
Of course I do not. It doesn't meet the definition of conspiracy, and back in 1842 Commonwealth v. Hunt established that unions were not a conspiracy, in the context of common law, and even addressed and dismissed your "price-fixing" argument - in text I already quoted. The courts since then have never determined that unions are a conspiracy, and that's with judges from the left and right.
My "bizarre rant" contains the materials to support my answer to exactly the topic you addressed.
I don't know why you willfully ignore the last 180 years of history.
You are the one who eschews definitions, but that doesn't mean you can redefine well-understood terms without expecting general confusion.
The claim that unions couldn't exist without active government intervention is a claim I've only heard from ill-informed libertarians who view everything through a very ideological lens. Your responses are not dissuading me that you fall into that category.
You have yet to point to any external source which supports your arguments. I have pointed to primary sources demonstrating that your specific claims are invalid and your understanding suspect.
You make other claims like "the left pretends it is normal" without attempting to explain why your ideologically extreme viewpoint is correct, or meaningful, much less explain how the right - start with Reagan - is any different.
> So don't go round claiming it is just like a firm with multiple employees. That is nonsense.
I did not. Are you referring to my comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37274569 were I wrote "If it makes you feel better, think of the union as a co-op owned labor provider who made a multi-year contract with a company as the exclusive provider of a certain type of labor. Would that be "collusion"?"
That was meant to show how union "collusion" could be implemented in a corporation model, leading to similar economic results for the co-op owners, but demonstrably not seen as a collusion when done by companies like Adecco.
I did claim that you confused the abstract concept of "employer" with the concrete concept of "employee", leading to a failure in your analogy. It means you see a company as a distinct economic entity (created by government fiat) from the managers who make employer decisions. By analogy, a union is a distinct economic entity (yes, supported by government fiat) from the employees.
A union is not a firm, and claiming so would be counter to centuries of history dating back to the medieval guild era.