The poster I was responding to was actually asserting that unions are bad because he would be forced to pay the dues, which you also seem to be asserting here. An argument that unions are bad because closed shops violate an individual's autonomy is completely incoherent if one also holds a belief that sometimes coercion is justified. This particular logical fallacy is commonly used by libertarians to dismiss policy proposals out of hand, in my experience.
To see why this belief is fallacious, abstract the proposition "Unions violate individual autonomy, therefore unions are bad" to "P violates individual autonomy, therefore P is bad." Replace P with criminal penalties, taxation, etc, and it is immediately obvious that this belief is logically incoherent if one also holds the belief that civilization is preferable to the state of nature.
Logical consistency matters. You can't make rational decisions without it. Either you believe that sometimes coercion is morally justified to achieve other ends, or you cannot have a consistent belief that any societal organization is morally correct. We can debate the pros and cons of unions, and yes, there are cons. But it makes no sense to dismiss it out of hand due to an incoherent moral belief.
You can coherently believe that coercion in and of itself is a bad thing, and I agree. That must be weighed against the benefits of said coercion when making such decisions. For example, most people don't like to go to prison, so I think there should be a really good reason to violate someone's autonomy in such a massive way. Thus, I only support prison for serious crimes that I really don't want people to do.
Taxation is also coercion. I don't like paying my taxes, but I support coercive measures to make sure everyone does because I like having a government.
To see why this belief is fallacious, abstract the proposition "Unions violate individual autonomy, therefore unions are bad" to "P violates individual autonomy, therefore P is bad." Replace P with criminal penalties, taxation, etc, and it is immediately obvious that this belief is logically incoherent if one also holds the belief that civilization is preferable to the state of nature.
Logical consistency matters. You can't make rational decisions without it. Either you believe that sometimes coercion is morally justified to achieve other ends, or you cannot have a consistent belief that any societal organization is morally correct. We can debate the pros and cons of unions, and yes, there are cons. But it makes no sense to dismiss it out of hand due to an incoherent moral belief.
You can coherently believe that coercion in and of itself is a bad thing, and I agree. That must be weighed against the benefits of said coercion when making such decisions. For example, most people don't like to go to prison, so I think there should be a really good reason to violate someone's autonomy in such a massive way. Thus, I only support prison for serious crimes that I really don't want people to do.
Taxation is also coercion. I don't like paying my taxes, but I support coercive measures to make sure everyone does because I like having a government.