6 ms·

But you can't remove labour unions or government intervention either. Capitalism didn't come up with workplace safety standards and it didn't make kids go to sc

by rvense 6y ago

But you can't remove labour unions or government intervention either. Capitalism didn't come up with workplace safety standards and it didn't make kids go to schools instead of working in factories.

throwaway0a5e 6y ago
It kind of did. Nobody wants to stop a factory line to hose a worker out of it and workers that are scared of getting maimed or killed are less productive. Workplace safety is a win-win in most cases. We didn't get government mandated workplace safety until it was basically the norm and people convinced the government to crack down on the places it wasn't the norm. Many, dare I say most, societal changes follow this "the change mostly happens then the government forces the stragglers to get on board" manner. You simply don't have strong legislation in democracies until after the public opinion has already shifted (see same sex marriage for another example).
- WalterBright 6y ago
  True enough. Child labor laws came about after child labor became unproductive - you can see this in that there exemptions in the law where it was still productive, such as agricultural work. Kids make for lousy workers. For example, for the sake of this discussion put aside your moral feelings, and think about kids in your workplace. That's right, there's little useful they could do, and you'd have to dedicate adults to trying to get them to do something useful. Think of what schoolteachers go through trying to get work out of kids. Think of what parents go through trying to get their kids to clean their rooms.
  - Apocryphon 6y ago
    One would expect child labor shops to not have the same moral reservations that parents and teachers have.
    - WalterBright 6y ago
      Abusing people doesn't result in very effective workers. It's another reason why free markets outproduce coercive economic systems.
      - Apocryphon 6y ago
        That's because abuse and coercion leads to workers pushing back. So what are labor unions, then, but a natural by-product of a free market capitalist system?
        WalterBright 6y ago
        There is nothing anti free market about unions.
      - rvense 6y ago
        This is an incredible argument. Abuse and coercion (and poor working conditions in general, and long working hours, lack of holidays and sick leave and all the other things that progressive politics and labour unions have given us) are extremely common part of the workplace outside of western society - say in clothing sweatshops, on deep sea fishing ships, or many other places. This will possibly get better if and when the workers in these places get better opportunities for bargaining, but of course there will be push-back from the factory-owning classes. Similarly, child labour is still very common and as far as I'm told in some places even on the rise, so there must be more to the story of its disappearance from the west than "children make bad workers".
        nickpp 6y ago
        You’ll notice that those abusive places outside the "western society" seldom have functioning free markets. That is what made those societies successful anyway: freedom which brought innovation which brought prosperity. Not the fact that they were "western".
        6y ago

by rvense 6y ago

But you can't remove labour unions or government intervention either. Capitalism didn't come up with workplace safety standards and it didn't make kids go to schools instead of working in factories.

throwaway0a5e 6y ago

It kind of did. Nobody wants to stop a factory line to hose a worker out of it and workers that are scared of getting maimed or killed are less productive. Workplace safety is a win-win in most cases. We didn't get government mandated workplace safety until it was basically the norm and people convinced the government to crack down on the places it wasn't the norm. Many, dare I say most, societal changes follow this "the change mostly happens then the government forces the stragglers to get on board" manner. You simply don't have strong legislation in democracies until after the public opinion has already shifted (see same sex marriage for another example).

WalterBright 6y ago
True enough. Child labor laws came about after child labor became unproductive - you can see this in that there exemptions in the law where it was still productive, such as agricultural work. Kids make for lousy workers. For example, for the sake of this discussion put aside your moral feelings, and think about kids in your workplace. That's right, there's little useful they could do, and you'd have to dedicate adults to trying to get them to do something useful. Think of what schoolteachers go through trying to get work out of kids. Think of what parents go through trying to get their kids to clean their rooms.
- Apocryphon 6y ago
  One would expect child labor shops to not have the same moral reservations that parents and teachers have.
  - WalterBright 6y ago
    Abusing people doesn't result in very effective workers. It's another reason why free markets outproduce coercive economic systems.
    - Apocryphon 6y ago
      That's because abuse and coercion leads to workers pushing back. So what are labor unions, then, but a natural by-product of a free market capitalist system?
      - WalterBright 6y ago
        There is nothing anti free market about unions.
    - rvense 6y ago
      This is an incredible argument. Abuse and coercion (and poor working conditions in general, and long working hours, lack of holidays and sick leave and all the other things that progressive politics and labour unions have given us) are extremely common part of the workplace outside of western society - say in clothing sweatshops, on deep sea fishing ships, or many other places. This will possibly get better if and when the workers in these places get better opportunities for bargaining, but of course there will be push-back from the factory-owning classes. Similarly, child labour is still very common and as far as I'm told in some places even on the rise, so there must be more to the story of its disappearance from the west than "children make bad workers".
      - nickpp 6y ago
        You’ll notice that those abusive places outside the "western society" seldom have functioning free markets. That is what made those societies successful anyway: freedom which brought innovation which brought prosperity. Not the fact that they were "western".
        6y ago