5 ms·

I'm not sure that is true (all laws are about contracts), but your comment suggests an indifference to the notion that laws should be evaluated based on how bur

I'm not sure that is true (all laws are about contracts), but your comment suggests an indifference to the notion that laws should be evaluated based on how burdensome they are to individual liberty. My comment was intended to illustrate that minimum wage laws not only restrict employers but they also restrict workers. The rationale for these laws is necessarily built upon the assumption that individuals are incapable of determining what is in their own best interest and must be forcibly prevented from making unwise decisions regarding their own employment. The government's centralized one-size-fits-all solution represents an infringement on individual liberty and individual rights, the exact opposite of the proper role for government.

dragonwriter 8y ago
> I'm not sure that is true (all laws are about contracts) Whether they are about contracts are not, laws restrict the right to enter contracts, because contracts that involve violations of the law are prohibited for that reason. (And, in the case of criminal law, the contracts themselves are not merely restricted but criminalized.) > but your comment suggests an indifference to the notion that laws should be evaluated based on how burdensome they are to individual liberty. No, it suggests that I find the observation that a law restricts the ability to enter contracts to be something that doesn't say anything meaningful about the degree or manner in which it burdens individual liberty, since it is true of most laws, no matter how much or how little they burden individual liberty. > The rationale for these laws is necessarily built upon the assumption that individuals are incapable of determining what is in their own best interest I disagree; the laws are adopted precisely because individuals are perceived as very capable of optimizing for their own self-interest in a way which is perceived as harmful to the general interest. It's seen as a collective action problem; in game theory terms a multiplayer generalization of prisoners dilemma with workers as the participants.
- gwright 8y ago
  So you think that if I find someone willing to do data entry for $10/hour that there is some danger to the "general interest"? Where does that end? How does $15/hour protect the general interest but $14.50 doesn't? Does $20 provide more "protection"? The proper role for government is to protect individual rights not to manufacture collective rights that are more important. You are arguing that the individual rights need to be subservient to the "general interest" collective rights and I don't like where that argument leads.

dragonwriter 8y ago

> I'm not sure that is true (all laws are about contracts) Whether they are about contracts are not, laws restrict the right to enter contracts, because contracts that involve violations of the law are prohibited for that reason. (And, in the case of criminal law, the contracts themselves are not merely restricted but criminalized.) > but your comment suggests an indifference to the notion that laws should be evaluated based on how burdensome they are to individual liberty. No, it suggests that I find the observation that a law restricts the ability to enter contracts to be something that doesn't say anything meaningful about the degree or manner in which it burdens individual liberty, since it is true of most laws, no matter how much or how little they burden individual liberty. > The rationale for these laws is necessarily built upon the assumption that individuals are incapable of determining what is in their own best interest I disagree; the laws are adopted precisely because individuals are perceived as very capable of optimizing for their own self-interest in a way which is perceived as harmful to the general interest. It's seen as a collective action problem; in game theory terms a multiplayer generalization of prisoners dilemma with workers as the participants.

gwright 8y ago
So you think that if I find someone willing to do data entry for $10/hour that there is some danger to the "general interest"? Where does that end? How does $15/hour protect the general interest but $14.50 doesn't? Does $20 provide more "protection"? The proper role for government is to protect individual rights not to manufacture collective rights that are more important. You are arguing that the individual rights need to be subservient to the "general interest" collective rights and I don't like where that argument leads.