4 ms·

What you earn depends on the market, the bargain you strike with other free people. It's not arbitrary.

by dpatru 13y ago

rayiner 13y ago
Those bargains only exist in the context of an arbitrary legal framework for enforcing them. As soon as you make certain actions illegal and certain ones not (e.g. Burning your boss's house down is illegal, firing someone just when they find out they have cancer is not) you've descended into the realm of arbitrary. There is nothing fundamental about setting wages using a peculiar flavor of free bargsining in which people are not really free (and you're never free if physical coercion is off the table). It's just how we do it.
- dpatru 13y ago
  Rights are not arbitrary. Like the laws of physics, the gory details of what rights are may be hard to pin down exactly, but this doesn't mean that they don't exist. In the examples you gave, it's had to imagine a just society in which it would be OK to burn down another's house (violating physical property) or to be forced to hire someone or keep them employed (violating the right to contract.)
  - ralfn 13y ago
    It is not arbituary, but it is mostly subjective. For example, here in Holland, an appearantly unjust country, you can not fire someone without cause after they've worked a steady year for you, in most but not all cases. This rule is the result of negotiations not between the individual employer and the employee, but between the brance of the economy, labour unions and the central government. The problem with just having the employee and the employer come to a contract, is that the negotiation position is not on equal terms. And since the economy is here to serve us; not the other way around; we democratically elected this policy and have preferred it for almost half a century. Your notion of rights, esspecially economic rights, as somehow inherent to reality as laws of nature, seems awfully short sighted. My neigbour is not free to have himself exploited, as it will affect my negotiation position as well. And i honestly dont understand why so many Americans keep focusing on their rights to be exploited and abused in an economic sense. Of all inalienable rights i can think off, like autonomy of your own body (drugs? sex?) or freedom of speech (swearing?), that do not legally, socially or culturally apply to americans, the narrative limits itself to guns and slaves (exploitable workforce). The only two situations where it obviously does affect others, aand therefor the right can not be inherent. I would not trade my rights for yours.
  - rayiner 13y ago
    Both physical property and right to contract are arbitrary. A hyena cannot sue in civil court if a lion violates his right of owning chattel property by divesting him of a carcass!

What you earn depends on the market, the bargain you strike with other free people. It's not arbitrary.

by dpatru 13y ago

What you earn depends on the market, the bargain you strike with other free people. It's not arbitrary.

Those bargains only exist in the context of an arbitrary legal framework for enforcing them. As soon as you make certain actions illegal and certain ones not (e.g. Burning your boss's house down is illegal, firing someone just when they find out they have cancer is not) you've descended into the realm of arbitrary. There is nothing fundamental about setting wages using a peculiar flavor of free bargsining in which people are not really free (and you're never free if physical coercion is off the table). It's just how we do it.

dpatru 13y ago
Rights are not arbitrary. Like the laws of physics, the gory details of what rights are may be hard to pin down exactly, but this doesn't mean that they don't exist. In the examples you gave, it's had to imagine a just society in which it would be OK to burn down another's house (violating physical property) or to be forced to hire someone or keep them employed (violating the right to contract.)
- ralfn 13y ago
  It is not arbituary, but it is mostly subjective. For example, here in Holland, an appearantly unjust country, you can not fire someone without cause after they've worked a steady year for you, in most but not all cases. This rule is the result of negotiations not between the individual employer and the employee, but between the brance of the economy, labour unions and the central government. The problem with just having the employee and the employer come to a contract, is that the negotiation position is not on equal terms. And since the economy is here to serve us; not the other way around; we democratically elected this policy and have preferred it for almost half a century. Your notion of rights, esspecially economic rights, as somehow inherent to reality as laws of nature, seems awfully short sighted. My neigbour is not free to have himself exploited, as it will affect my negotiation position as well. And i honestly dont understand why so many Americans keep focusing on their rights to be exploited and abused in an economic sense. Of all inalienable rights i can think off, like autonomy of your own body (drugs? sex?) or freedom of speech (swearing?), that do not legally, socially or culturally apply to americans, the narrative limits itself to guns and slaves (exploitable workforce). The only two situations where it obviously does affect others, aand therefor the right can not be inherent. I would not trade my rights for yours.
- rayiner 13y ago
  Both physical property and right to contract are arbitrary. A hyena cannot sue in civil court if a lion violates his right of owning chattel property by divesting him of a carcass!