great amount, in particular
economic situations.

Sec. 14. #Open vs. closed shop.# The question of labor monopoly is
involved in the very crucial question of the closed vs. the open shop.
A closed shop (or union shop) is a shop in which no non-union men may
be employed, even at union wages. Its existence is evidence that the
union is strong enough to compel the employer to act on this principle
and thus virtually to force all his employees into the union. The
refusal of a demand for the closed shop is often the ground for a
strike. Where this is so unions usually assert that the closed shop
is essential to the existence of the union. If union and non-union men
work side by side there are many ways in which the employer is able
to discriminate so as gradually to break down the union. If business
slackens, the union man may be the first to be discharged; if any
preference is given it is to the non-union man. While this may be
true, it would seem, on the other hand, that an unmodified closed
shop, with the conditions of membership in the control of the union,
creates a distinct monopoly of labor leaving the employer helpless in
any wage dispute and enabling the union to enforce its every demand
regardless of the competitive conditions of the labor-market for that
class of services.

Sec. 15. #Political and economic considerations.# The question here takes
on a broad aspect, Is the closed shop, and are the other policies of
trade unions, morally right; and ought they to be legally sanctioned?
The answer to such questions is not for the economist alone to give.
The questions involve other than economic considerations. They involve
moral and political considerations--not merely existing formal law,
but the fundamental issue of personal liberty and of interference with
the liberty of some citizens by another group acting without political
authority. For example, if a workman is unable to earn the standard
rate[10] and is not permitted to take less, he is forced to move to a
place where there is no union, or is forced out of the trade entirely.
In the latter case he probably is compelled to take a lower wage
than he could get in his regular occupation. Likewise, this change
artificially increases the pressure of competition and reduces the
wages of others in the occupation to which he turns. So in the case of
persons prevented from becoming apprentices in a trade, or kept from
taking work by threats, or by the dread of boycot