The argument is: "people are not rational", by which I mean that in people, there are multiple forces at play, rationality being just one of them. Circling back to the original argument, I followed that because of this, businesses aren't perfectly rational either, because they are run by people. And so, businesses cannot be expected to optimize for rational goals. For at least two reasons actually: one, the business by itself isn't rational, and neither are their customers! And so, the market itself either.
The Denmark vs US Big Mac is the go-to example here. People argue that businesses need to be free so that labor, and therefore Bic Mac can be cheap. But real-world examples show that labor protection and cheap goods can co-exist, such as the case of Denmark's Big Mac. I think this would be the same in our context, and unions. Unions would bring changes for a business for sure, but they would find that they can be profitable just the same, just doing things differently. But if left to their own devices, businesses don't have incentive to optimize for that.
Writing a series of disjointed thoughts doesn’t automatically turn it into an argument… you need to connect the dots somehow, via some plausible line(s) of argument.
Question: "If a business, after unionizing, ultimately delivers more value per dollar to the end customer… then why would anyone even need to write essays arguing for it?"
Argument: This can happen because businesses are not rational. Businesses are not rational, because people run businesses, and people are not rational. People are not rational, because while they are capable of rationality, they are neither perfect, nor simply just rational - rationality is but one of the components that influence their decisions.
Evidence of people not being rational: the very lifestyle they end up living. Personal development demonstrably works to improve life outcomes, and yet people often give up on it.
Evidence for business being profitable despite heightened worker protections: McDonalds in Denmark. US routinely rejects increase to minimum wage or worker rights, citing economic unviability. But the very same businesses flourishing at places where such things were implemented demonstrate otherwise.
If so, then by definition the real world success rate is somewhere between 0% and 100% for both.