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Yes, as long as you take "protect them and ensure they have a decent quality of life" to not include employment! We're telling grown adults what they can't do,

by burfog 9y ago

Yes, as long as you take "protect them and ensure they have a decent quality of life" to not include employment! We're telling grown adults what they can't do, supposedly for their own good. That quote from C. S. Lewis applies: “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

dcow 9y ago
So we should let grown adults bypass our own ethical frameworks for minimum wage and worker protection and allow them to exploit foreign labor markets at the expense of local workers just because they're grown adults? Excuse me if I don't find that very compelling. Look I generally agree with your C.S. Lewis quote, seriously. But if it's tyrannical to maintain a baseline for workers, then we should abolish minimum wage and all worker protection laws and just let the adults go at it (I'm sure they'll eventually tap in cheap children too). Point being we've already agreed that workers need protection so you're arguing against the status quo (and calling it a tyranny nonetheless).
- jstanley 9y ago
  Workers are not exploited. If they have a better option they'll take it. If they don't have a better option, then you're not exploiting them, you're offering the best option available to them. > we should abolish minimum wage Certainly. > we've already agreed that workers need protection Actually, not all of us have agreed that. > you're arguing against the status quo (and calling it a tyranny nonetheless) Just because something is the way things are doesn't make it not a tyranny.
  - jgh 9y ago
    > Workers are not exploited. If they have a better option they'll take it You're arguing against things that workers put in place themselves a century or more ago. 8 Hour workdays. Weekends. No child labour. Minimum wage. Workers have already fought these battles, are you suggesting we should go back to square one and do it over again for the hell of it?

by burfog 9y ago

dcow 9y ago

So we should let grown adults bypass our own ethical frameworks for minimum wage and worker protection and allow them to exploit foreign labor markets at the expense of local workers just because they're grown adults? Excuse me if I don't find that very compelling. Look I generally agree with your C.S. Lewis quote, seriously. But if it's tyrannical to maintain a baseline for workers, then we should abolish minimum wage and all worker protection laws and just let the adults go at it (I'm sure they'll eventually tap in cheap children too). Point being we've already agreed that workers need protection so you're arguing against the status quo (and calling it a tyranny nonetheless).

jstanley 9y ago
Workers are not exploited. If they have a better option they'll take it. If they don't have a better option, then you're not exploiting them, you're offering the best option available to them. > we should abolish minimum wage Certainly. > we've already agreed that workers need protection Actually, not all of us have agreed that. > you're arguing against the status quo (and calling it a tyranny nonetheless) Just because something is the way things are doesn't make it not a tyranny.
- jgh 9y ago
  > Workers are not exploited. If they have a better option they'll take it You're arguing against things that workers put in place themselves a century or more ago. 8 Hour workdays. Weekends. No child labour. Minimum wage. Workers have already fought these battles, are you suggesting we should go back to square one and do it over again for the hell of it?