Standards sharpened in argument.

No. Capitalism is not whatever people who own capital happen to do. Capitalists who seek subsidies, tariffs, licensing barriers, bailouts, regulatory protection, or political restrictions on rivals are attempting to escape market discipline. Criticism of those practices may be entirely justified while the description of them as “free-market capitalism” remains false.

No. A union created and sustained by workers who freely join, finance, leave, and bargain is a voluntary association. Exclusive representation, compulsory financial support, restrictions on alternative bargaining, and political privileges are additional legal powers. They must be identified and justified rather than smuggled into the analysis under the attractive label “association.”

Not by themselves. Labor conditions coevolved with productivity, capital accumulation, technology, worker alternatives, profitability, social expectations, unions, and law. Unions sometimes accelerated, negotiated, or codified improvements. Growing wealth made those improvements feasible and gave workers both the bargaining power and organizational capacity to demand more.

No. Spontaneous describes the absence of a directing mind; it does not certify justice, efficiency, or voluntariness. Bad conventions, cartels, political machines, and systems of privilege can also emerge. The next questions concern entry, exit, consent, information, incentives, coercion, and the available alternatives.

Of course. But “we can rewrite the rules” does not settle which rules, who writes them, whose knowledge is used, who is compelled, which outsiders bear costs, or how the rule-makers will be disciplined. Institutional change is itself subject to capture, error, unintended consequences, and concentrated benefits.

The first draft treated labor organization too readily as voluntary association and conceded too much of a monocausal union history. The correction is symmetrical: neither corporations nor unions receive moral immunity. Both may cooperate voluntarily; both may use political power to impose costs and suppress competition. The governing distinction is voluntary cooperation versus political privilege.