Trope-a-Day: Weird Trade Union

Alistair Young

Feb 17, 2016 — 1 min read

Weird Trade Union: As is to be expected for a Privately Owned Society, the Empire has associations for everything. The Accidental Sapience League, The Belter Work and Welfare Association, the Board of Merchane Propriety, the Council of Forthright Tongues, the Edifacient Sodality of Bakers and Pastrywrights, the Fellowship of Natural Philosophy, the Free Minors’ Eleemosynary COG, the Functionality of Mechanicians and Clockwork Engineers, the Guild of Formal Obligation, the Heralds of the Glorious Atom, the Invisible Exchequer, the Orderly Amalgam of Farspeakers, Senders, and Learned Scriveners, the Society of the Ivory Flower, the Windrider’s Fellowship… and thousands of others.

Of course, none of these are actual trade unions. Fraternities, mutual-assistance and benevolent associations, professional bodies, standards-setters, qualification-issuers and old-sophs’ networks, yes, absolutely, but the attempt to cartelize the supply of any good or service, labor included, is one of those things upon which the Market Liberty Oversight Directorate frowns very hard indeed.

If you’re lucky, they’ll send someone around to break your legs. If you’re unlucky, they’ll send someone around to audit you, and the resulting externality-correction fine will make you wish they’d just sent someone around to break your legs.

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