8 ms·

"Permitted" is a word I find distasteful in such a subject. That implies that there is a third party, beyond employer & employee, imposing himself upon the othe

"Permitted" is a word I find distasteful in such a subject. That implies that there is a third party, beyond employer & employee, imposing himself upon the other two without their consent. If both enter into the contract freely, 'tis nobody else's business but to ensure the contract is, in fact, freely entered into. Many jobs "don't respect their capacities" precisely because it needs doing, but nobody wants to do it - the only way to get it done is to pay someone accordingly. Following a script may be boring as he11, but may currently be the only way to build widgets which bring joy and/or give life to others. Of late, when visiting the pharmacist I wonder how much joy they really get out of filling little bottles with precise numbers of little pills, this after many years of studying pharmaceuticals at a intellectually high and stimulating level - and I thank them for doing such a mind-numbing job, precisely because it keeps me alive for decades (vs dead within weeks of a stroke). Scrubbing toilets isn't exactly rewarding either, but keeps our society sanitary & healthy. In neither case is anyone forced to do so, but does need to for there to be food on the table and a roof overhead. I have been mulling over "bottom line" sustenance vs minimum wage, poverty lines, guaranteed income, etc. Of late I note that one's "fair share" amounts to 8 acres of generally workable land, plenty for sustenance farming and then some. That's the baseline scenario for what work is expected of an individual: elicit your own food, shelter, clothing out of your fair share of land; from there, you can barter your way up to better living. It is fair, in terms of what our species has been given / ended up with, to consider that where to begin such questions (and not to start with a luxurious society where doing nothing can net you $30,000/yr).

Florin_Andrei 10y ago
> If both enter into the contract freely Ah, yes, the "freedom" thing again. When you're on a salary that barely keeps you afloat, that you cannot really afford to lose, suddenly you start reading different meanings into that word.
- gozur88 10y ago
  Other people have freedoms, too, one of which is to not associate with you financially.
  - ctdonath 10y ago
    That being a worthy juxtaposition of my "8 acres" point: it's not hard to find, acquire, and move to enough land to survive on independently. Fire up zillow.com, pick a state (assuming USA here), set a very low maximum price for search, and you'll likely find something somewhere useable for homesteading. Contending that "freedom" somehow requires others to associate with you, or requires an effort-free poverty-line income, is to grossly misunderstand the nature of "freedom". Your "freedom" starts with the bottom-line obligation to work hard enough to sustain yourself, by whatever means morally available without compelling others to comply or supply.
- ctdonath 10y ago
  Hence my argument: what is the barest "barely" that can keep you afloat? 8 acres is your fair share of Earth. Here's a $20 bag of assorted nutritious seeds. (If you're really uptight about this, I'll throw in a $40 sack of rice as enough to get you to first harvest.) There we have the stark reality of "barely keeps you afloat" and "cannot really afford to lose": subsistence farming. Harsh as it sounds, that's the real-world baseline. Capitalism gives you the option of doing something other than self-sufficient farming. You can put in the same effort, with the equivalent "cannot really afford to lose" work-or-starve option, and leverage the available contract - or not. The notion that you're somehow not "free" to accept or reject the contract (if living at that bare edge of survival) is practically no different than subsistence farming. I acknowledge that "freedom" seems rather moot at that level, but so long as the effort required is little different from the effort for subsistence farming, that's the hard reality of being a human living on Earth. If you're accepting the contract because of "work or starve" in the context of effort I'm harping on, and you have the liberty to pick between whatever contracts are available ("start digging & planting" always being one) then yes that's "freedom". If you're compelled under threat of abuse/injury/death to work for a disproportionately meager return, and/or literally confined with no options, then that is an immoral denial of the "freedom" I'm referring to. To wit: the natural law of "produce or starve" is not to be confused with, nor equated to, compulsory hard labor within incarceration sustained with a scant moldy loaf. (I'm writing this much about the subject because I'm trying to sort thru & refine ideas, bouncing 'em off HN for insight.)
  - erikpukinskis 10y ago
    Where do I sign up to get my 20 acres? And do I get free agriculture school? Because capitalists took the land from indigenous people who were surviving and then intentionally destroyed the social institutions that would've let them revive their culture on a land grant. Ironically, capitalists eventually did the same thing to the descendants of the settlers, with a little less outright slaughter. Therefore, I would say society owes all of us at least the land and the education—real hands on education and family-style support—before anyone can start saying wage "slavery" is a choice.
    - 10y ago
- sinxoveretothex 10y ago
  Nobody owes it to you to make sure you keep surviving. Imagine yourself back in a time where a flood or some random "act of god" could destroy your harvest and make it so you and your whole family died of hunger through no fault of your own (or anyone else's). Today, thanks to centuries of improvements, one doesn't have to know how to build a house or even how to acquire food or clean water. These things are given even to people who do nothing but drink and play video games all day on government dime. Do you realize? We live in a time and place where not being basically given food, water, sanitation and shelter, even for contributing absolutely nothing of value is seen as shocking. And then, some of the people from that time and place go on this crazy thing that allows them to communicate with half the population of the world in realtime and complain about "barely keeping afloat"! The very notion would have been laughable 100 years ago. Hell, it's disconnected from the reality of even a large part of the world TODAY.
  - frgtpsswrdlame 10y ago
    >Nobody owes it to you to make sure you keep surviving. Actually our society has decided that that is not the case. >These things are given even to people who do nothing but drink and play video games all day on government dime. When will this welfare queen myth end?? This is not most people. >Do you realize? We live in a time and place where not being basically given food, water, sanitation and shelter, even for contributing absolutely nothing of value is seen as shocking. I don't see the problem. >And then, some of the people from that time and place go on this crazy thing that allows them to communicate with half the population of the world in realtime and complain about "barely keeping afloat"! I don't see the problem.
    - demonshalo 10y ago
      >Actually our society has decided that that is not the case. Yet society could easily have decided the other way around. I bet you wouldn't be calling the majority rule moral at that point. The argument of "social morality" is only used here because it is convenient for you and aligns with your own values. Just think about those "societies that decided on policies that you disagree with". Those are the ones you would call immoral. Saudi Arabia, Iran, N.K. and Afghanistan comes to mind (?) > When will this welfare queen myth end?? This is not most people. True. It's not most people. But then again, it's not about the number of people. It's about the idea that I owe you something simply because you breath. > I don't see the problem. That's the problem. > I don't see the problem. Again, that's the problem.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- Jarwain 10y ago
  I wouldn't necessarily say people are reading different meanings into the word, but rather that there are different meanings that exist for the word. Namely, the ideas of positive vs negative liberty
germinalphrase 10y ago
Your comment made me curious what the average farm nets per acre. I'm seeing wildly different answer depending on region and crop choice. Based on a "good year" - as low as $900 an acre (corn) to $5,000-6000 (strawberries/raspberries). So, at 8 acres we'd assume a basic income of somewhere between $7,200 - 48,000 per year.
- ctdonath 10y ago
  My point is your fair-share 8 acres nets you 2000+ kcals per day, enough BTUs to keep you warm, enough shade to keep you cool, and enough fibers/leather to keep you clothed. Having been raised where we grew half our food, heated on burning wood, and clothed largely via "thrift" sources, all with an eye being able to achieve complete self-sufficiency in short order, my baseline question is "what does a normal adult require for outright self-sufficiency?" Crunching your numbers brings us decently around the US poverty line of ~$17,000/person (less for larger families). That's a connection I was looking for and hadn't gotten to yet. ...and, oddly, you touch on the reason illegal hard liquor was popular to produce in my region: you could get a lot more money out of a bushel of corn if you fermented & distilled it first, using pretty primitive equipment. Easier to transport, too. Eventually moonshining collided with automotive technology, leading to NASCAR (powerful engines & skilled drivers outrunning police). But I digress...
- aidenn0 10y ago
  You forget that that also includes the rights to build shelter on the land.
eli_gottlieb 10y ago
>If both enter into the contract freely, 'tis nobody else's business but to ensure the contract is, in fact, freely entered into. If someone does not possess the means of independent subsistence, there is no such thing for them as "freedom" to enter into an employment contract.
- ctdonath 10y ago
  Basic fair reality: if you don't work, you starve. I'm working out the baseline effort required for "here's your fair share of Earth, and a bag of assorted seeds - fend for yourself." The notion that you should be able to exist indefinitely without effort is preposterous. Either you put in that basic effort (which I'm trying to quantify), or that effort is taken under threat from someone else and redistributed to you. Finding the latter morally abhorrent, I have to conclude that "freedom" is predicated on the axiom that one must produce enough to sustain oneself. From there we can return to your assertion. If someone does not possess the means of independent subsistence, then it is not unreasonable to expect that someone to at least generate equivalent productivity under whatever circumstances are available, trading it for equivalent subsistence. "Produce 730,000 consumable kcals annually or starve" being a practical law of nature, it is not "unfair" nor "un-free" to enter into an employment contract trading productivity for sustenance. Your "freedom" is, however repulsive the choices, to either expire or produce enough to survive - and that either thru independent subsistence farming, or an equivalent effort traded for equivalent nourishment etc. It's not unfair to expect a baseline productivity of someone, and whether it's complete self-sufficiency or capitalistic contract to work makes little difference. (Whether someone takes "unfair" advantage of that arrangement is a different discussion.) Fair work for fair pay exchangeable for fair sustenance is fair.
  - frgtpsswrdlame 10y ago
    Redistribution increases social mobility. It gives all people in society a better chance to achieve as much as they can. That sounds a lot more like freedom to me than what you are advocating.
    - 10y ago
mch82 10y ago
If everyone chose your "fair share" scenario, would the world as a whole be better off or worse off? For example, how do you account for the environmental impact likely to accompany the loss of agricultural efficiencies? Do you really believe that employees are on equal footing with employers and a third party (let's call it government) is not required to enforce fairness?
- ctdonath 10y ago
  The "fair share" scenario is a bottom line thought experiment. If we did in fact start with exactly that, we would quickly make arrangements changing the situation to something akin to what we see today, leveraging agricultural efficiencies suitable to the region and to the skills of the workers (be they mundane laborers or talented supply-chain managers or ...). I believe a small amount of governance is needed to address systemic abuses unto criminality. I believe most employees have far more alternatives than they believe they do, limiting their options by their choice of value prioritization - which they are free to do, and for which there are natural consequences. I am not a anarcho-capitalist (contracts only, no government), but am a conservative libertarian (minimal government facilitating contracts with moral limits).
Glyptodon 10y ago
Unfortunately so long as people are needy enough to be vulnerable your nice idealism of "free contracts" is a farce of the "freedom is slavery" kind. There are limitations on what may be contracted for good reason in our often pleasant but less than utopic world.

Florin_Andrei 10y ago

> If both enter into the contract freely Ah, yes, the "freedom" thing again. When you're on a salary that barely keeps you afloat, that you cannot really afford to lose, suddenly you start reading different meanings into that word.

gozur88 10y ago
Other people have freedoms, too, one of which is to not associate with you financially.
- ctdonath 10y ago
  That being a worthy juxtaposition of my "8 acres" point: it's not hard to find, acquire, and move to enough land to survive on independently. Fire up zillow.com, pick a state (assuming USA here), set a very low maximum price for search, and you'll likely find something somewhere useable for homesteading. Contending that "freedom" somehow requires others to associate with you, or requires an effort-free poverty-line income, is to grossly misunderstand the nature of "freedom". Your "freedom" starts with the bottom-line obligation to work hard enough to sustain yourself, by whatever means morally available without compelling others to comply or supply.
ctdonath 10y ago
Hence my argument: what is the barest "barely" that can keep you afloat? 8 acres is your fair share of Earth. Here's a $20 bag of assorted nutritious seeds. (If you're really uptight about this, I'll throw in a $40 sack of rice as enough to get you to first harvest.) There we have the stark reality of "barely keeps you afloat" and "cannot really afford to lose": subsistence farming. Harsh as it sounds, that's the real-world baseline. Capitalism gives you the option of doing something other than self-sufficient farming. You can put in the same effort, with the equivalent "cannot really afford to lose" work-or-starve option, and leverage the available contract - or not. The notion that you're somehow not "free" to accept or reject the contract (if living at that bare edge of survival) is practically no different than subsistence farming. I acknowledge that "freedom" seems rather moot at that level, but so long as the effort required is little different from the effort for subsistence farming, that's the hard reality of being a human living on Earth. If you're accepting the contract because of "work or starve" in the context of effort I'm harping on, and you have the liberty to pick between whatever contracts are available ("start digging & planting" always being one) then yes that's "freedom". If you're compelled under threat of abuse/injury/death to work for a disproportionately meager return, and/or literally confined with no options, then that is an immoral denial of the "freedom" I'm referring to. To wit: the natural law of "produce or starve" is not to be confused with, nor equated to, compulsory hard labor within incarceration sustained with a scant moldy loaf. (I'm writing this much about the subject because I'm trying to sort thru & refine ideas, bouncing 'em off HN for insight.)
- erikpukinskis 10y ago
  Where do I sign up to get my 20 acres? And do I get free agriculture school? Because capitalists took the land from indigenous people who were surviving and then intentionally destroyed the social institutions that would've let them revive their culture on a land grant. Ironically, capitalists eventually did the same thing to the descendants of the settlers, with a little less outright slaughter. Therefore, I would say society owes all of us at least the land and the education—real hands on education and family-style support—before anyone can start saying wage "slavery" is a choice.
  - 10y ago
sinxoveretothex 10y ago
Nobody owes it to you to make sure you keep surviving. Imagine yourself back in a time where a flood or some random "act of god" could destroy your harvest and make it so you and your whole family died of hunger through no fault of your own (or anyone else's). Today, thanks to centuries of improvements, one doesn't have to know how to build a house or even how to acquire food or clean water. These things are given even to people who do nothing but drink and play video games all day on government dime. Do you realize? We live in a time and place where not being basically given food, water, sanitation and shelter, even for contributing absolutely nothing of value is seen as shocking. And then, some of the people from that time and place go on this crazy thing that allows them to communicate with half the population of the world in realtime and complain about "barely keeping afloat"! The very notion would have been laughable 100 years ago. Hell, it's disconnected from the reality of even a large part of the world TODAY.
- frgtpsswrdlame 10y ago
  >Nobody owes it to you to make sure you keep surviving. Actually our society has decided that that is not the case. >These things are given even to people who do nothing but drink and play video games all day on government dime. When will this welfare queen myth end?? This is not most people. >Do you realize? We live in a time and place where not being basically given food, water, sanitation and shelter, even for contributing absolutely nothing of value is seen as shocking. I don't see the problem. >And then, some of the people from that time and place go on this crazy thing that allows them to communicate with half the population of the world in realtime and complain about "barely keeping afloat"! I don't see the problem.
  - demonshalo 10y ago
    >Actually our society has decided that that is not the case. Yet society could easily have decided the other way around. I bet you wouldn't be calling the majority rule moral at that point. The argument of "social morality" is only used here because it is convenient for you and aligns with your own values. Just think about those "societies that decided on policies that you disagree with". Those are the ones you would call immoral. Saudi Arabia, Iran, N.K. and Afghanistan comes to mind (?) > When will this welfare queen myth end?? This is not most people. True. It's not most people. But then again, it's not about the number of people. It's about the idea that I owe you something simply because you breath. > I don't see the problem. That's the problem. > I don't see the problem. Again, that's the problem.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
Jarwain 10y ago
I wouldn't necessarily say people are reading different meanings into the word, but rather that there are different meanings that exist for the word. Namely, the ideas of positive vs negative liberty

germinalphrase 10y ago

Your comment made me curious what the average farm nets per acre. I'm seeing wildly different answer depending on region and crop choice. Based on a "good year" - as low as $900 an acre (corn) to $5,000-6000 (strawberries/raspberries). So, at 8 acres we'd assume a basic income of somewhere between $7,200 - 48,000 per year.

ctdonath 10y ago
My point is your fair-share 8 acres nets you 2000+ kcals per day, enough BTUs to keep you warm, enough shade to keep you cool, and enough fibers/leather to keep you clothed. Having been raised where we grew half our food, heated on burning wood, and clothed largely via "thrift" sources, all with an eye being able to achieve complete self-sufficiency in short order, my baseline question is "what does a normal adult require for outright self-sufficiency?" Crunching your numbers brings us decently around the US poverty line of ~$17,000/person (less for larger families). That's a connection I was looking for and hadn't gotten to yet. ...and, oddly, you touch on the reason illegal hard liquor was popular to produce in my region: you could get a lot more money out of a bushel of corn if you fermented & distilled it first, using pretty primitive equipment. Easier to transport, too. Eventually moonshining collided with automotive technology, leading to NASCAR (powerful engines & skilled drivers outrunning police). But I digress...
aidenn0 10y ago
You forget that that also includes the rights to build shelter on the land.

eli_gottlieb 10y ago

>If both enter into the contract freely, 'tis nobody else's business but to ensure the contract is, in fact, freely entered into. If someone does not possess the means of independent subsistence, there is no such thing for them as "freedom" to enter into an employment contract.

ctdonath 10y ago
Basic fair reality: if you don't work, you starve. I'm working out the baseline effort required for "here's your fair share of Earth, and a bag of assorted seeds - fend for yourself." The notion that you should be able to exist indefinitely without effort is preposterous. Either you put in that basic effort (which I'm trying to quantify), or that effort is taken under threat from someone else and redistributed to you. Finding the latter morally abhorrent, I have to conclude that "freedom" is predicated on the axiom that one must produce enough to sustain oneself. From there we can return to your assertion. If someone does not possess the means of independent subsistence, then it is not unreasonable to expect that someone to at least generate equivalent productivity under whatever circumstances are available, trading it for equivalent subsistence. "Produce 730,000 consumable kcals annually or starve" being a practical law of nature, it is not "unfair" nor "un-free" to enter into an employment contract trading productivity for sustenance. Your "freedom" is, however repulsive the choices, to either expire or produce enough to survive - and that either thru independent subsistence farming, or an equivalent effort traded for equivalent nourishment etc. It's not unfair to expect a baseline productivity of someone, and whether it's complete self-sufficiency or capitalistic contract to work makes little difference. (Whether someone takes "unfair" advantage of that arrangement is a different discussion.) Fair work for fair pay exchangeable for fair sustenance is fair.
- frgtpsswrdlame 10y ago
  Redistribution increases social mobility. It gives all people in society a better chance to achieve as much as they can. That sounds a lot more like freedom to me than what you are advocating.
  - 10y ago

mch82 10y ago

If everyone chose your "fair share" scenario, would the world as a whole be better off or worse off? For example, how do you account for the environmental impact likely to accompany the loss of agricultural efficiencies? Do you really believe that employees are on equal footing with employers and a third party (let's call it government) is not required to enforce fairness?

ctdonath 10y ago
The "fair share" scenario is a bottom line thought experiment. If we did in fact start with exactly that, we would quickly make arrangements changing the situation to something akin to what we see today, leveraging agricultural efficiencies suitable to the region and to the skills of the workers (be they mundane laborers or talented supply-chain managers or ...). I believe a small amount of governance is needed to address systemic abuses unto criminality. I believe most employees have far more alternatives than they believe they do, limiting their options by their choice of value prioritization - which they are free to do, and for which there are natural consequences. I am not a anarcho-capitalist (contracts only, no government), but am a conservative libertarian (minimal government facilitating contracts with moral limits).

Glyptodon 10y ago

Unfortunately so long as people are needy enough to be vulnerable your nice idealism of "free contracts" is a farce of the "freedom is slavery" kind. There are limitations on what may be contracted for good reason in our often pleasant but less than utopic world.