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Page 125
The distinction I have been drawing between labor monopoly and enterprise monopoly is in one respect too sharp. To some extent, labor unions have served as a means of enforcing monopoly in the sale of a product. The clearest example is in coal. The Guffey Coal Act was an attempt to provide legal support for a price-fixing cartel of coal-mine operators. When, in the mid-thirties, this Act was declared unconstitutional, John L. Lewis and the United Mine Workers stepped into the breach. By calling strikes or work stoppages whenever the amount of coal above the ground got so large as to threaten to force down prices, Lewis controlled output and thereby prices with the unspoken co-operation of the industry. The gains from this cartel management were divided between the coal mine operators and the miners. The gain to the miners was in the form of higher wage rates, which of course meant fewer miners employed. Hence only those miners who retained employment shared the cartel gains and even they took a large part of the gain in the form of greater leisure. The possibility of the unions playing this role derives from their exemption from the Sherman Antitrust Act. Many other unions have taken advantage of this exemption and are better interpreted as enterprises selling the services of cartellizing an industry than as labor organizations. The Teamster's Union is perhaps the most notable.
3. Government and Government-Supported Monopoly In the United States, direct government monopoly in the production of goods for sale is not very extensive. The post office, electric power production, as by TVA and other publicly owned power stations; the provision of highway services, sold indirectly through the gasoline tax or directly by tolls, and municipal water and similar plants are the main examples. In addition, with so large a defense, space, and research budget as we now have, the federal government has become essentially the only purchaser of the products of many enterprises and whole industries. This raises very serious problems for the preservation of a free society, but not of a kind that are best considered under the heading of "monopoly."
The use of government to establish, support and enforce cartel and monopoly arrangements among private producers has grown much more rapidly than direct government mo-

 
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