Inequality and trade unions as prey and predator
Imagine a population of wolves and sheep. Wolves eat sheep. The wolve population grows, as long as there are sheep. But once the wolves have eaten all the sheep, the wolves starve and die. When the wolves are gone, the sheep population can recover. This is a basic prey and predator model. Essentially, it shows how trade union power is linked to inequality, trade unions are the wolves and inequality is the sheep. Using data from 12 countries over 100 years, I can show with my co-author Louis Chauvel that trade unions recruit more members after inequality has been high.