4 ms·

I agree with this, despite the resistance it seems to be getting. There should be a very high bar for making illegal any activity between two consenting partie

I agree with this, despite the resistance it seems to be getting. There should be a very high bar for making illegal any activity between two consenting parties where there's no obvious and severe externalities. I don't see how this harms anyone outside of the intern/company, both of which should be free to make their own decisions.

anyfoo 8y ago
I could not have afforded my internships, had they been unpaid. A potentially less qualified person with more affluent parents maybe would have. As it is, those internships proved to be vital to my career, and I hope the company that I ended up with is happy that they paid me my internship salary in exchange for a later employee. But then again I went to a highly renowned university in Germany, which I also could not have afforded if it wasn't completely free. So, I was not free to make the decision to take unpaid internships.
- ttoinou 8y ago
  The university was completely free for you because someone else paid for it. If you're not free to make the decision of internships how did you choose the company you went into ? Also, I guess the company and their managers, because they have a budget to respect, are not free either to make decision, by the same logic ?
  - anyfoo 8y ago
    > The university was completely free for you because someone else paid for it. Exactly, "everyone" did. And I probably already paid it back with my taxes already. And, one can dream, maybe in another way too, through the work I perform. Had university or my internships been very costly, it's not unfathomable that I would have a lower salary, in addition to performing lower-quality work (in terms of knowledge going into it).
    - ttoinou 8y ago
      There would be others way to monetize and fund education / scholarships. The money that you won't pay in taxes could go somewhere else. There could be more businesses trying to improve the education field, which would be very useful seeing what we learn in our currently heavily subsidized schools/universities.
      - anyfoo 8y ago
        You mean like the model that exists for US universities? No thank you. I had quite a good experience with the public higher education system in Europe, and would want as many people as possible to be able to participate in it as well. Education should not be limited to wealthy people, and pretending that offering soul and finance crushing debt opportunities can counteract that imbalance is naive at best and malicious at worst. I am done discussing with you. The viewpoints that you have presented so far seem shortsighted and detrimental to society to me. Luckily, you are unlikely to have any effect on standing law.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
dominotw 8y ago
> I don't see how this harms anyone outside of the intern/company perhaps it harms ppl who cannot afford to do an unpaid job?
- ttoinou 8y ago
  Making unpaid internship illegal is not going to magically turn current unpaid internship into good jobs for everyone, quite the contrary. So in that case those people that are supposedly harmed will be even more harmed
nindalf 8y ago
How do you feel about the minimum wage? Do you think workers who flip burgers or stock shelves have the bargaining power to reach a fair wage? In such a negotiation who will blink first, the individual, replaceable worker or the multi billion dollar corporation?
- ttoinou 8y ago
  It's not always about flipping burgers or waiting tables and even those "basic" jobs needs training. Some employers don't want to deal with untrained staff, so increasing the minimum wage or making internship illegal is going to do more harm than good and the people you want to protect will have a harder time getting trained on the job
shafyy 8y ago
But there are obvious and severe externalities as mentioned by some other comments...
mehrdadn 8y ago
> There should be a very high bar for making illegal any activity between two consenting parties where there's no obvious and severe externalities. I don't see how this harms anyone outside of the intern/company, both of which should be free to make their own decisions. Why is "obvious" a requirement? A hidden or indirect but severe externality is fine?
chasing 8y ago
There are extremely obvious negative externalities, though. That's why minimum wage laws exist in almost every country in the world.

anyfoo 8y ago

I could not have afforded my internships, had they been unpaid. A potentially less qualified person with more affluent parents maybe would have. As it is, those internships proved to be vital to my career, and I hope the company that I ended up with is happy that they paid me my internship salary in exchange for a later employee. But then again I went to a highly renowned university in Germany, which I also could not have afforded if it wasn't completely free. So, I was not free to make the decision to take unpaid internships.

ttoinou 8y ago
The university was completely free for you because someone else paid for it. If you're not free to make the decision of internships how did you choose the company you went into ? Also, I guess the company and their managers, because they have a budget to respect, are not free either to make decision, by the same logic ?
- anyfoo 8y ago
  > The university was completely free for you because someone else paid for it. Exactly, "everyone" did. And I probably already paid it back with my taxes already. And, one can dream, maybe in another way too, through the work I perform. Had university or my internships been very costly, it's not unfathomable that I would have a lower salary, in addition to performing lower-quality work (in terms of knowledge going into it).
  - ttoinou 8y ago
    There would be others way to monetize and fund education / scholarships. The money that you won't pay in taxes could go somewhere else. There could be more businesses trying to improve the education field, which would be very useful seeing what we learn in our currently heavily subsidized schools/universities.
    - anyfoo 8y ago
      You mean like the model that exists for US universities? No thank you. I had quite a good experience with the public higher education system in Europe, and would want as many people as possible to be able to participate in it as well. Education should not be limited to wealthy people, and pretending that offering soul and finance crushing debt opportunities can counteract that imbalance is naive at best and malicious at worst. I am done discussing with you. The viewpoints that you have presented so far seem shortsighted and detrimental to society to me. Luckily, you are unlikely to have any effect on standing law.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

dominotw 8y ago

> I don't see how this harms anyone outside of the intern/company perhaps it harms ppl who cannot afford to do an unpaid job?

ttoinou 8y ago
Making unpaid internship illegal is not going to magically turn current unpaid internship into good jobs for everyone, quite the contrary. So in that case those people that are supposedly harmed will be even more harmed

nindalf 8y ago

How do you feel about the minimum wage? Do you think workers who flip burgers or stock shelves have the bargaining power to reach a fair wage? In such a negotiation who will blink first, the individual, replaceable worker or the multi billion dollar corporation?

ttoinou 8y ago
It's not always about flipping burgers or waiting tables and even those "basic" jobs needs training. Some employers don't want to deal with untrained staff, so increasing the minimum wage or making internship illegal is going to do more harm than good and the people you want to protect will have a harder time getting trained on the job

shafyy 8y ago

But there are obvious and severe externalities as mentioned by some other comments...

mehrdadn 8y ago

> There should be a very high bar for making illegal any activity between two consenting parties where there's no obvious and severe externalities. I don't see how this harms anyone outside of the intern/company, both of which should be free to make their own decisions. Why is "obvious" a requirement? A hidden or indirect but severe externality is fine?

chasing 8y ago

There are extremely obvious negative externalities, though. That's why minimum wage laws exist in almost every country in the world.