Do you owe your soul....

.....to the company store?  Odds are, these days, the very chances of this are ludicrous, but the fact of the matter is that the 19th and 20th century unionization movements owed their existence, more or less, to the thing that Tennessee Ernie Ford's famous song decries; workers paid in company scrip owed large, enforceable debts to the company store--the only place where you could spend your pay.  Hence, you literally, and legally, could be trapped at a dead end job.

Fast forward to today, where unionization is endorsed as an unequivocal good by its supporters--but in a world that has repudiated the conditions that led to their creation.  Seems to me that union supporters need a good dose of Adam Smith's teaching (and Bastiat's, and a lot of other good economists') on the dangers of monopoly.

Oh, and enjoy: