e
shoemakers, the tailors, and the seamstresses try to make similar
unions, and to restrict the numbers employed. If they could succeed in
doing so, the result would be absurd; #they would all be trying to grow
richer by beggaring each other#. As I have pointed out in the _Logic
Primer_ (section 177, p. 117), this is a logical fallacy, arising from
the confusion between a general and a collective term. #Because any
trade separately considered may grow richer by taxing other trades, it
does not follow that all trades taken together, and doing the same
thing, can grow richer.#

No doubt, working men think that, when their wages are raised, the
increase comes out of the pockets of their employers. But this is
usually a complete mistake; their employers would not carry on business
unless they could raise the prices of their goods, and thus get back
from purchasers the increased sum which they pay in wages. They will
even want a little more to recompense them for the risk of dealing with
workmen who strike at intervals, and thus interrupt business. It is the
consumers of goods who ultimately pay the increased wages, and though
wealthy people no doubt pay a part of the cost, it is mainly the working
people who contribute to the higher wages of some of their own class.

The general result of trades-union monopolies to the working people
themselves is altogether disastrous. If one in a hundred, or one in a
thousand is benefited, the remainder are grievously injured. The
restrictions upon work which they set up tend to keep men from doing
that which they are ready and willing to do. The lucky fatten at the
cost of those whom they shut out in want of work, and the strikes and
interruptions of trade, occasioned by efforts to keep up monopolies,
diminish the produce distributed as wages.

#54. Professional Trades-Unions.# We often hear the proceedings of
trades-unions upheld on the ground that lawyers, doctors, and other
professional men have their societies, Inns of Court, or other unions,
which are no better than trades-unions. This is what may be called a _tu
quoque_ (thou also) argument. "We may form unions because you form
unions." It is a poor kind of argument at best; one man acting unwisely
is no excuse for another doing so likewise. I am quite willing to allow
that many of the rules of barristers and solicitors are no better than
those of trades-unions. That a barrister must begin to be a barrister by
eating certain din