Yessss, we had several ton of examples in Brazil of how that don't work. And in the world we also had several examples of similar enthursting to a powerfull entity to get the better for everyone, never really working out.

Just on the union example that you brought... we have over 15.000 union in brazil and under 100 in UK right? Which place have better wages and working environment? And just on a quick look I saw that union membership halved since the 80's in UK and that it keep decreasing and one of the reasons is that workers see that one of the priorities of the union leads is to benefit themselves and get special threatment.

But we are going way off-topic.

Yessss, we had several ton of examples in Brazil of how that don't work. And in the world we also had several examples of similar enthursting to a powerfull entity to get the better for everyone, never really working out.

Just on the union example that you brought... we have over 15.000 union in brazil and under 100 in UK right? Which place have better wages and working environment? And just on a quick look I saw that union membership halved since the 80's in UK and that it keep decreasing and one of the reasons is that workers see that one of the priorities of the union leads is to benefit themselves and get special threatment.

But we are going way off-topic.

But I like to hold it here. The UK's union membership has been beaten over and over again by the former Thatcher administration and 2 rightist Labour governments didn't help. The social movement is gaining steam again in the UK.

Brazil is an entirely different story. Unions might have nodded in approval at Rousseff's social-democartic'ish policies, but an economic crisis due to overreliance on export and a political coup by a wealthy elite in lightning quick succession might have taken them by surprise. But don't be surprised that, if Temer stays in power, the unions become more militant.

In Belgium, we need the unions. We have a government that continuously tries to ram austerity down our throats while handing ever greater tax cuts to companies. Thanks to the unions, we managed to slow down their policies. Alone, we could not have tried to halt this policy direction.

And if it was not for unions historically, we'd all be working 50 hour weeks at least.

In the US, it's backwards.  We have practically no unions in the southern states and thousands in the northeastern states.  Higher wages are up north.  Median household income in Mississipi (southern state) is $36,919 per year.  Median household income in New Jersey (a northeastern state) is $69,825 per year.  That's double and within the same country.

BUT...there are pros and cons to unions and they work well in some places and poorly in others.  Depends on the laws that regulate them and other conditions.

The higher wage in the north are more due to what is produced and living costs than the presence or not of unions. As far as I know Silicon Valley is still south and with a lot higher pay average than several regions on the north.

Brazil have 50k unions, and yet we also have very big differences in income between south/southeast and north/northeast, guess what, it is also related to the value of what is produced and living costs than to having more unions in one or another place.

Each employee must pay one day wage for the unions even if he isn't unionized in here. It's just a way to enrich the leaders.

Any place you give special threatment and power to some individuals and monopolize actions through him you are in a way for those abuses that the union leaders are well know for.

As far as I know UK had several left wing government since the 80's so you can't put the weakness, lack of representative and people seeing what the union leaders truly are on the right wing.

Nope. Unions have nodded to Rousseff's money going to their pocket. When she was still president, CUT and other unions done a lot of parades (were paid to) where they paid for participants to go with food and 50 R$ and transportation costs. Few months later, with government funding cut from the unions for this type of activity there was almost no one and the unions said they didn't have money to go support Rousseff.

The crises have very little to do with export and political coup (she was indeed breaking the law, and sometimes she say she have and say it was for the party, and other times she say others acted by her back). Same with former president that were very deep on corruption but pretend to know nothing.

The unions can be as militant as they want, people are slowly noticing how crooked they are.

You can tax companies more and more if you want, the only thing that will happen is that cost will be added to the price of the product you pay (causing inflation and or diminish demand and job cuts) or you move the company from the country. You have just so many studies showing how innefective are the laws to tax more the rich, that is why the right way is for government to be smaller and more efficient not taxes to be higher to pay for their incompetent asses.

I don't mind working 50h a week as long as I'm being paid accordingly, and I preffer to negotiate directly.

The higher wage in the north are more due to what is produced and living costs than the presence or not of unions. As far as I know Silicon Valley is still south and with a lot higher pay average than several regions on the north.

Brazil have 50k unions, and yet we also have very big differences in income between south/southeast and north/northeast, guess what, it is also related to the value of what is produced and living costs than to having more unions in one or another place.

Each employee must pay one day wage for the unions even if he isn't unionized in here. It's just a way to enrich the leaders.

Any place you give special threatment and power to some individuals and monopolize actions through him you are in a way for those abuses that the union leaders are well know for.

Try raising the taxes for corporations and see what happens, just to remember, even a self employed is a corporation for governments when they want to tax.

Where have they been successful? As far as I know several countries in europe (France being a big case) have failed really hard when doing tax on the wealth because they are either capable of evading by sending money to other countries or just leaving the country... and just to remember that is basically what happened to USA industry, wages and taxes escalated and jobs gone to Asia.

Socialism is a dream, it destroyed several countries, so for this we have empiric results of how it work in reality. So between individual negotiations (which I have been successfull so far) and socialism and leaving my power to another to use I choose the first.

And then we go to the, does it have more unions because it have more wealth or is wealth created by unions?? I wouldn't bet on the second. And you were talking north versus south, not west vs east... and as far as I remember California is more to the south than to the north.

And then we go to the, does it have more unions because it have more wealth or is wealth created by unions?? I wouldn't bet on the second. And you were talking north versus south, not west vs east... and as far as I remember California is more to the south than to the north.

Guess how many big corporations we have in (tax loving) Sweden. Did you guess zero? Good job :)

In the US, the major regions do not correspond exactly to the directional terminology they represent.  See the map linked below:
http://thomaslegion.net/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/map_of_usa_regions_by_us_census_bureau.jpg

It gets confusing to foreigners.  Hell, it's confusing to many of us.  It's all based on what the regions were called as the US was growing (read: stealing land) rather than how it is now.  Nobody here would say California (especially not as far north as San Fransisco and San Jose) was part of the south.