Mind you, none of those social democratic successes has anything like the TWU. In the Netherlands, the transit unions strike by not collecting fares but otherwise operating transit normally. And you’ll never hear a Swedish or Danish trade union demand a 4% raise for its members during a recession. Where unions do not have that sense of social responsibility, you get either union-busting and high inequality, as in the US and Britain, or high unemployment and stagnation, as in France and Italy.

The link you give doesn’t control for qualifications or industry. You can’t compare Wal-Mart workers and janitors to subway drivers and soldiers; you need to compare soldiers to private security contractors and subway drivers to freight train operators.

Also, Ben, the retire-at-55 benefit has nothing to do with the “physicality” of labor. All city workers get it, don’t they? It has everything to do with the control that unions have over elected officials in certain parts of the country. The reason these costs are out of control is because our elected officials are out of control–bought and paid for with union donations.

It’s silly to blame the capitalism that so many of you despise–and which has made us a very wealthy and productive country. The socialist countries of your fantasies are suffering the same problems we are–and more quickly, as they too realize that you can’t get something for nothing.

Besides, Wal-Mart’s labor standards aren’t that bad by the standards of the mom and pop stores they replace. The main issue with Wal-Mart isn’t wages – it’s that it’s a local subsidy hog that practices severe racial and gender discrimination.