Reply to post:

"Sorry Trevor. I agree with your general sentiment but you didn't live through the mess that was the UK in the 1970s."

You're right, I didn't. But trade unions still represent people directly. They are the equivalent of a music label, not of an association that represents music labels. The AARC is the equivalent of an organisation that represents a group of trade unions. Not the equivalent of trade unions themselves.

There is a difference. Good or bad, the trade union directly represents it's members. They are directly responsible for what happens. But the AARC doesn't answer to the artists at all. That's what makes it dangerous. They are far enough removed that they have lots of power and no restraints.

As for "how horrible your trade union strife was", I probably will understand. I live in a province that puts huge amounts of time and effort into union busting, so all I see is that there are damned good reasons for unions to exist, and that people in power always try to grind down individuals who seek to use collective bargaining to not end up becoming a slave class.

I'm a socialist. I believe in the right to collective bargaining. I believe in quality of opportunity and that we should strive towards equality of outcome...but that there need to be wiggle room in the outcome, because some humans are naturally far more greedy than others. If they don't have the ability to lord it over others, bad things happen.

In my view of the world we all contribute as we are able to society and we all benefit together. I have no time for those who don't want to contribute and I have even less time for those who want all the benefit and damned be those who will themselves giving their contribution.

So maybe the UK went through a bad time. That isn't going to either convince me unions are evil or that an organization that represents companies which then represent people is somehow the same as an organization that represents people directly (and whose leadership is elected by those it represents, which is still very unlike record labels!)

And I believe that difference is important.