4 ms·

People have every right to refuse to enter into an employment contract that imposes such obligations. What they don't have a right to do is deny employers the

• franzen 10y ago
  Yes indeed, and it's also a disgrace that children lack the freedom to work! Many children want to work in factories, why let the state interfere? Absolute bollocks.
  • aminok 10y ago
    Children are not "consenting adults", but in any case, child labour was essential for survival in the 19th century, because productivity was much lower than it is today. If you were to invade Myanmar today, and impose a social democratic government that bans child labour, the result would be an increase in mortality. Child labour only became unnecessary as a result of economic development increasing the average level of wealth in society. Going back to the article, it's telling that you're trying to justify the authoritarian prohibition by comparing adults to children. Your ideology sees ordinary people as effectively children, and the state as their parent.
    • franzen 10y ago
      Then how are workers supposed to win better terms from their capitalist employers, outside of collective bargaining or state intervention? Is a football player being infantilized when he joins a union -- because he ought to be able to negotiate contracts by himself? When a union helps him extract a more equitable share of the profits, is he being infantilized, or is he being smart? You're free to frame this argument in terms of individual rights or "economic competitiveness" or state paternalism. Unfortunately it amounts to little more than economic handwaving. At worst it's a disingenuous ploy to undermine the interests of the labour class, deluding workers into thinking you're giving them economic rights and freedoms ("you should be able to choose when you work!") when really you're just justifying your extraction of an even bigger share of their labour. The common labourer has no economic power. The state, the firm, and (to a diminishing extent) unions do. I hate paternalistic states (and unions) as much as you do, but when you place no limit on firms' ability to extract labour from their workers, you end up in twisted situations where people are being paid sub-livable wages and expected to be on call 24 hours. Not because it's an economic "inevitability" (child labour inevitable? You seriously believe that?), but because it's the most amenable socioeconomic arrangement for the capitalist class.
      • aminok 10y ago
        >Then how are workers supposed to win better terms from their capitalist employers, outside of collective bargaining or state intervention? I recommend you study a bit of economics. Start with Adam Smith: >It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. Then read this: http://nyti.ms/2cfMjs4 http://nyti.ms/2cfMjs4 This isn't free market dogma. This is what 400 years+ of economic history shows us, and what any economist would confirm. Wages and benefits improve as the wealth of society increases, and wealth increases as a part of the normal course of history, particularly when market institutions are strongly in place. Wage growth slowed as a result of the institution of economic-growth-destroying socialist laws and programs in the US and Europe. And putting all of this aside, you have no moral right to violate another person's right to freely contract to increase your own wages. So even if economies didn't work as they do, such authoritarian prohibitions would be unjustiable.
        • franzen 10y ago
          And I recommend you read some Dickens. Good night.
          • aminok 10y ago
            I can't stress enough that the conditions found in Dickens's time had nothing to do with a lack of prohibitions limiting contracting rights, and everything to do with people being poor and technology being less advanced. That is what all the statistical evidence suggests. Anecdotally, I've spent a fair bit of time in the developing world, and to me at least, it's obvious that the root source of the difference in working and living conditions between the developing world and the developed world is the comparatively lower levels of capital (tools, equipment, machinery, social capital, skills, knowledge) in the developing world.
• mnm1 10y ago
  According to this logic, civil rights legislation is also an authoritarian infringement on employers' right to discriminate based on their racism, sexism, etc.
  • aminok 10y ago
    Yes, it is. It shouldn't be illegal to exercise racist values in one's business decisions. The job of government is not to police our motivation and values, or, in the name of making the world more fair, to play the role of a self-righteous Robin Hood and commandeer the resources of private citizens in order to redistribute them equitably.
    • JoeAltmaier 10y ago
      Except for the numerous cases it does. Like murder, traffic behavior, private property, religion and on and on.
      • aminok 10y ago
        The subtext in my comment is that the proper role of government is not to do those things I mentioned. And policing violations of other's right to their person or property, in prosecuting murder, and managing public property, in instituting and enforcing traffic rules, is absolutely a proper role for the government.
        • JoeAltmaier 10y ago
          I got the subtext, thanks. The role of government is to avoid unnecessary pain and disorder. Discouraging bigots and racists from hurting others is arguably also a proper role. Consider: things done in the name of racism anywhere but on the premises of their otherwise-public business could be classed a hate crime. But we want that to be ok in special places? Really?
          • aminok 10y ago