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Mandatory minimum employment standards aren't progress. Work hours were declining on their own, just as the trend toward a 4 day work week is happening on its o

Mandatory minimum employment standards aren't progress. Work hours were declining on their own, just as the trend toward a 4 day work week is happening on its own due to fundamental changes in the economic structure. But point granted that not all regulations are a result of rent-seeking. Some are a consequence of misguided common wisdom (e.g. labor regulations, tariffs, restrictions on foreign investment).

TeMPOraL 8y ago
Yeah, right. But you're forgetting few other categories of regulation. Like, protection of health and life - that's something companies don't tend to do on their own; in fact, it usually goes strongly against their interest[0]. Or, protection of environment. Or, protecting people from countless of individually and socially destructive activities that the market will happily engage in if left to its own devices, as evidenced by hundreds of years of history over which those issues were recognized and then regulated. -- [0] - A common theme in recent discussions serves as a great proof: Chinese counterfeits on Amazon. By far, Chinese export goods are a product of an environment free from regulations applying in the Western world - so how come people are so afraid they'll get a Chinese-made toy or baby formula?
- CryptoPunk 8y ago
  >>Like, protection of health and life - that's something companies don't tend to do on their own The trends in place before labor regulations were enacted were toward workplaces becoming safer over time. Companies absolutely do care about having safe work environments. Where workplaces are less than 100% safe is where trade-offs exist between safety and minimizing spending-outlays that favor minimizing spending outlays, and the simplistic assumption that safety always trumps minimizing spending outlays for the public interest is simply not true, because we live in a complex world where scarcity is a reality, and minimizing costs in one area can increase spending in another, more critical area. >>so how come people are so afraid they'll get a Chinese-made toy or baby formula? Because Amazon has introduced a new market of suppliers and consumers haven't adjusted to it with effective filtering tools, so they're reacting correctly and fearing the unknown until the assessment tooling is in place.

TeMPOraL 8y ago

Yeah, right. But you're forgetting few other categories of regulation. Like, protection of health and life - that's something companies don't tend to do on their own; in fact, it usually goes strongly against their interest[0]. Or, protection of environment. Or, protecting people from countless of individually and socially destructive activities that the market will happily engage in if left to its own devices, as evidenced by hundreds of years of history over which those issues were recognized and then regulated. -- [0] - A common theme in recent discussions serves as a great proof: Chinese counterfeits on Amazon. By far, Chinese export goods are a product of an environment free from regulations applying in the Western world - so how come people are so afraid they'll get a Chinese-made toy or baby formula?

CryptoPunk 8y ago
>>Like, protection of health and life - that's something companies don't tend to do on their own The trends in place before labor regulations were enacted were toward workplaces becoming safer over time. Companies absolutely do care about having safe work environments. Where workplaces are less than 100% safe is where trade-offs exist between safety and minimizing spending-outlays that favor minimizing spending outlays, and the simplistic assumption that safety always trumps minimizing spending outlays for the public interest is simply not true, because we live in a complex world where scarcity is a reality, and minimizing costs in one area can increase spending in another, more critical area. >>so how come people are so afraid they'll get a Chinese-made toy or baby formula? Because Amazon has introduced a new market of suppliers and consumers haven't adjusted to it with effective filtering tools, so they're reacting correctly and fearing the unknown until the assessment tooling is in place.