The Dignity of Man: it became an evolutionary necessity during the overwhelming Industrial revolution of all human economies for people to self-organise. It didn't really matter that Industry gave people the means, however arbitrary, dangerous and scarce, to earn their own comfort and shelter. What really mattered is that the Industry made some people rich! Like the Merchant Princes that preceded them, the ones that "thought outside the box", that "displayed less than acceptable morals", that "were different", were also the ones that had imagination, took risks and became (although this was never a popular concept) "wealth creators". In the meantime, the ones not employed were trapped in a cycle of poverty that had no end. And the ones employed weren't always happy either. Why should they be when obvious signs of wealth were paraded on their doorsteps?
So the the "proletariat" organised. And their arguments are still valid today. With the creation of enormous economical structures such as clothing factories or steel mills or coal mines came the need for workers. With the workers came the need for stability for their offspring. Again, Maslow had it right: "Air, water, and food are metabolic requirements for survival in all animals, including humans. Clothing and shelter provide necessary protection from the elements. While maintaining an adequate birth rate shapes the intensity of the human sexual instinct, sexual competition may also shape said instinct" And there is nothing stronger in primate relations, especially if the factory meta-structure becomes the only deity in the village; the source of basic anthropological family needs plus the security to plan outside the depredations of a cruel world. Hardly a thing of worship, the industrial machine does however become the center for the future of all life in the community. And its permanence also becomes a necessity, across generations.
But, the problem with organisations among primates is that they are inherently territorial. It doesn't matter the scale (village-states; city-states; nation-states; etc.). Nor does it matter the subject (religious; political; sexual). Organisations are territorial. And, of course, they become political the greater in size they evolve.
So while an ever-changing trading world grows ever-more complex, small territorial village organisations become obsolete. Trade Unions are a prime example of organisations that, despite their rational origins, become destructive, viral political machines that rival the very "greedy" industrial organisations they fight against. Consider a complex interdependent society like Greece. A socialist society that wanted a good life for all its citizens; except they didn't balance the books. The first reaction of the trade unions at a time of national economic breakdown was to call a week long general strike. Very helpful in a decayed economy where the income from workers' taxes failed dramatically to pay the cost of the non-working citizens' good life!
In France there is still a violent reaction to any form of economic reform. The trade unions control every aspect of the French economy. If threatened, they will not just go on strike but perform acts of social disruption that would give an Islamic terrorist a wet dream: blockading ports in a storm; burning rubber tyres on a busy motorway; scrapping air traffic control for an entire continent. And successive French Socialist governments continue to defend inefficiencies in their own farming and trade markets by creating wholly artificial EU Common Agricultural Policies.
In the UK in the '70s it was far worse. In the economic euphoria that followed a world war devastation a Socialist government came to power. The Trade Unions, who had gained power on all levels of the industrial shop floor over the previous decade, now had complete control of the work force. The "shop steward", usually caricatured as a man of limited intelligence and vision, giddy on petty power trips, held sway over all "his" members. Each function of a complicated industrial machines were systematically hit by "strikes" coordinated by the steward. All other aspects of similarly complex industries were held to ransom. If one strike was successful, other shop stewards would withhold their members' labour to achieve even greater benefits. The country suffered a "Winter of Discontent", as the media put it, that left what a latter day media would call the "vulnerable" at the mercy of power brownouts, disease caused by the pile-up of rubbish, and "essential services" disrupted by "wildcat strikes". (It is not hyperbole to remind that respected institutions such as the firemen went on strike for a 30% pay increase under this regime.) Those individuals who declined to participate in the strike were branded and hounded by the mob (because any job was a "closed shop" -- all must be part of the union or ostracised). Rather than representing the dignity of man, the trade union movement's cry became "MeMeMeMe!!" Parliament Ministers declined to interfere because those very trade unionists who were ruining the country had put them in to power in the first place. Stalemate! Anyone who had not lived those years in the UK would have difficulty believing they ever existed!
Of course, like most natural storms, it came to a head. One community of labourers, who held power over the only fuel source available to a nation in those days, elected a "leader for life" and the revolution began. The rest of the country didn't really have a say in it, apart from "sympathy for the poor miners" or "wait a minute, I have no coal for my fire" (remember, this was before the availability of central heating). Misery compounded misery for the rest of the nation; idealism warred against economic pragmatism. Eventually the Trade Unions created their own Monster -- it was called Thatcher. And the rest, as they say, was History . . .
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