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Existing violations of the freedom of contract are due to popular misconceptions and common tropes like the idea that two people of unequal power cannot arrived

Existing violations of the freedom of contract are due to popular misconceptions and common tropes like the idea that two people of unequal power cannot arrived at a genuinely consensual agreement. First of all a court will throw out any contract which is not genuinely consensual. Second, balance of power is irrelevant for a mutually agreed contract. Powerful companies compete with each just as much as they compete with workers. Powerful employers therefore neutralize each other's power because they are competing for the same pool of workers. A powerful corporation has no power to compel someone to agree to an employment contract that is not the best one on the market just as a powerful corporation has no power to compel someone to buy a product that is not the best one on the market. >>There aren't any that provide complete freedom to contract. That's an appeal to popularism. 300 years ago a slavery supporter could say the same about slavery. >>It's a highly fringe anarcho-liberetarian position vthat leads to exploration. There is no evidence at all that it leads to exploitation and name-calling basic principles of justice doesn't make them go away. Two consenting adults have every right in the world to enter into any agreement they want as long as it is mutually voluntary as judged by a competent court. Cookie cutter rules that generalize entire classes of interaction as non-consensual don't cut it. They are crude interventions that are based on popular misconceptions.

joshuamorton 7y ago
> First of all a court will throw out any contract which is not genuinely consensual. Sure, and minimum wage and fair housing laws are simply legal shortcuts to abbreviate arguments about non-genuinely-consentual contracts. > Second, balance of power is irrelevant for a mutually agreed contract. Powerful companies compete with each just as much as they compete with workers. This is naive. Certainly in markets where demand outstrips supply this is true, but for markets where supply is smaller than the demand (housing, jobs, healthcare, you see a pattern?) there's little need for suppliers to compete with each other, except at the very top of the market. Put it simply, if I can pay you $3.00 or $15.00, and make a profit either way, I'll choose to pay you $3.00, and there are markets where that is absolutely possible. > That's an appeal to popularism. 300 years ago a slavery supporter could say the same about slavery. No, there have always been some jurisdictions where slavery was outlawed. I'm saying that there are zero jurisdictions with an unrestricted "freedom of contract". In other words, literally no governing body recognizes such a freedom, anywhere in the world. > There is no evidence at all that it leads to exploitation and name-calling basic principles of justice Calling a position fringe has exactly as much merit (actually more, since its based on evidence that no one recognizes it) than calling it a "basic principle of justice". You're essentially claiming that there are no just governments anywhere, which is indeed your prerogative (and I might be inclined to agree although for vastly different reasons), but you have yet to justify why your world is more just. Below I outline why why I believe your world would increase homelessness and exploitation of lower class working people at the hands of employers and landlords, as one example. I claim that is less just than the world we currently inhabit. The onus is now on you to either explain why more exploitation is more just, or why it won't occur. > Two consenting adults have every right in the world to enter into any agreement they want as long as it is mutually voluntary as judged by a competent court. The assumption here is that the person with the lesser power will be able to successfully win in court quickly and cheaply enough to make a court case worth it. That's an assumption that doesn't hold out in practice and makes these legal shortcuts necessary to prevent. It relies on a basic level of safety: an income to sustain yourself, a place to live, at a minimum. When adjudicating a contract with the provider of your income or your home, you risk abuse at the hand of them. You also need to know your rights and responsibilities, and have some way of ensuring your continued safety in the meantime. That's not possible when you're taking an adversarial relationship with someone who could make you homeless. Even if (and that's an if) a court eventually finds them to have acted in bad faith, you're still homeless. You lose relatively more.
- CryptoPunk 7y ago
  >>to abbreviate arguments about non-genuinely-consentual contracts. They're over-generalizations. There is no way all work arrangements that pay below the mandated minimum would be thrown out by a court as non-consensual for example. Same with tenancy agreements that don't meet so-called fair standards. >>Certainly in markets where demand outstrips supply this is true, but for markets where supply is smaller than the demand (housing, jobs, healthcare, you see a pattern?) there's little need for suppliers to compete with each other, except at the very top of the market. That's not how supply and demand works. There is always demand for labor at a low enough price point. That's why minimum wage increases unemployment and reduces employment growth when it rises above market wages. It makes it illegal to satisfy demand that what otherwise exist at certain price points. No economist worth their salt would claim that at certain supply demand ratios, competition doesn't exist. >>Put it simply, if I can pay you $3.00 or $15.00, and make a profit either way, I'll choose to pay you $3.00, and there are markets where that is absolutely possible. Of course.. But that in no way implies employers aren't in competition with each other. You're just naively assuming that low wages is an indication of employers having no competition, when in reality means the level of capital is low. If in your scenario, I can pay you $3, it's in society's interest I do that and reinvest the rest to increase capital concentrations that are the source of all wage growth, or to hire 5 workers instead of one. And this isn't merely theoretical. If in Bangladesh, a minimum wage of $15/hour were instituted, it would outlaw huge swathes of voluntary employment contracts, and would devastate people's economic lives. Again, basic economics. >>No, there have always been some jurisdictions where slavery was outlawed. No there hasn't. Slavery was a universal institution for much of human history. >>Below I outline why why I believe your world would increase homelessness and exploitation of lower class working people at the hands of employers and landlords, as one example. Your exploitation arguments are basic on common fallacies held by those without an understanding of economics. >>Calling a position fringe has exactly as much merit (actually more, since its based on evidence that no one recognizes it) than calling it a "basic principle of justice". It's a basic principle of justice because once you strip away ideological rationalizations and appeals to legal conventions, almost anyone would acknowledge that forbidding two adults from partaking in an interaction they both genuinely consent to a totalitarian infringement of their rights. >>The assumption here is that the person with the lesser power will be able to successfully win in court quickly and cheaply enough to make a court case worth it. First of all, that's something the government can directly address, rather than social activists using it as an excuse to institute cookie cutter rules, and second litigation naturally balance is this because the more powerful party has more assets that can be confiscated by courts. Lawyers will represent under resourced parties for free because they can earn a commission on whatever the suit wins.

joshuamorton 7y ago

> First of all a court will throw out any contract which is not genuinely consensual. Sure, and minimum wage and fair housing laws are simply legal shortcuts to abbreviate arguments about non-genuinely-consentual contracts. > Second, balance of power is irrelevant for a mutually agreed contract. Powerful companies compete with each just as much as they compete with workers. This is naive. Certainly in markets where demand outstrips supply this is true, but for markets where supply is smaller than the demand (housing, jobs, healthcare, you see a pattern?) there's little need for suppliers to compete with each other, except at the very top of the market. Put it simply, if I can pay you $3.00 or $15.00, and make a profit either way, I'll choose to pay you $3.00, and there are markets where that is absolutely possible. > That's an appeal to popularism. 300 years ago a slavery supporter could say the same about slavery. No, there have always been some jurisdictions where slavery was outlawed. I'm saying that there are zero jurisdictions with an unrestricted "freedom of contract". In other words, literally no governing body recognizes such a freedom, anywhere in the world. > There is no evidence at all that it leads to exploitation and name-calling basic principles of justice Calling a position fringe has exactly as much merit (actually more, since its based on evidence that no one recognizes it) than calling it a "basic principle of justice". You're essentially claiming that there are no just governments anywhere, which is indeed your prerogative (and I might be inclined to agree although for vastly different reasons), but you have yet to justify why your world is more just. Below I outline why why I believe your world would increase homelessness and exploitation of lower class working people at the hands of employers and landlords, as one example. I claim that is less just than the world we currently inhabit. The onus is now on you to either explain why more exploitation is more just, or why it won't occur. > Two consenting adults have every right in the world to enter into any agreement they want as long as it is mutually voluntary as judged by a competent court. The assumption here is that the person with the lesser power will be able to successfully win in court quickly and cheaply enough to make a court case worth it. That's an assumption that doesn't hold out in practice and makes these legal shortcuts necessary to prevent. It relies on a basic level of safety: an income to sustain yourself, a place to live, at a minimum. When adjudicating a contract with the provider of your income or your home, you risk abuse at the hand of them. You also need to know your rights and responsibilities, and have some way of ensuring your continued safety in the meantime. That's not possible when you're taking an adversarial relationship with someone who could make you homeless. Even if (and that's an if) a court eventually finds them to have acted in bad faith, you're still homeless. You lose relatively more.

CryptoPunk 7y ago
>>to abbreviate arguments about non-genuinely-consentual contracts. They're over-generalizations. There is no way all work arrangements that pay below the mandated minimum would be thrown out by a court as non-consensual for example. Same with tenancy agreements that don't meet so-called fair standards. >>Certainly in markets where demand outstrips supply this is true, but for markets where supply is smaller than the demand (housing, jobs, healthcare, you see a pattern?) there's little need for suppliers to compete with each other, except at the very top of the market. That's not how supply and demand works. There is always demand for labor at a low enough price point. That's why minimum wage increases unemployment and reduces employment growth when it rises above market wages. It makes it illegal to satisfy demand that what otherwise exist at certain price points. No economist worth their salt would claim that at certain supply demand ratios, competition doesn't exist. >>Put it simply, if I can pay you $3.00 or $15.00, and make a profit either way, I'll choose to pay you $3.00, and there are markets where that is absolutely possible. Of course.. But that in no way implies employers aren't in competition with each other. You're just naively assuming that low wages is an indication of employers having no competition, when in reality means the level of capital is low. If in your scenario, I can pay you $3, it's in society's interest I do that and reinvest the rest to increase capital concentrations that are the source of all wage growth, or to hire 5 workers instead of one. And this isn't merely theoretical. If in Bangladesh, a minimum wage of $15/hour were instituted, it would outlaw huge swathes of voluntary employment contracts, and would devastate people's economic lives. Again, basic economics. >>No, there have always been some jurisdictions where slavery was outlawed. No there hasn't. Slavery was a universal institution for much of human history. >>Below I outline why why I believe your world would increase homelessness and exploitation of lower class working people at the hands of employers and landlords, as one example. Your exploitation arguments are basic on common fallacies held by those without an understanding of economics. >>Calling a position fringe has exactly as much merit (actually more, since its based on evidence that no one recognizes it) than calling it a "basic principle of justice". It's a basic principle of justice because once you strip away ideological rationalizations and appeals to legal conventions, almost anyone would acknowledge that forbidding two adults from partaking in an interaction they both genuinely consent to a totalitarian infringement of their rights. >>The assumption here is that the person with the lesser power will be able to successfully win in court quickly and cheaply enough to make a court case worth it. First of all, that's something the government can directly address, rather than social activists using it as an excuse to institute cookie cutter rules, and second litigation naturally balance is this because the more powerful party has more assets that can be confiscated by courts. Lawyers will represent under resourced parties for free because they can earn a commission on whatever the suit wins.