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It's not just that, though. There is a really profound, fundamental mismatch in power between employers and employees: an employee depends upon the employer fo
by bkeroack 12y ago
It's not just that, though.
There is a really profound, fundamental mismatch in power between employers and employees: an employee depends upon the employer for the means of basic existence, while the employer does not have the same dependence on any given single employee.
That disparity in power means that there must be very strong legal and social constraints on employers to make the labor market reasonably fair and equitable. Since essentially the only means the employee has at their disposal to better their situation is leaving or seeking better offers elsewhere, this fundamental right must be strongly protected.
Employers can't have it both ways: laws that allow them to fire for any reason or no reason, set any level of compensation they choose (including cutting pay at any time for any reason) all in the name of the free labor market, but at the same time making secret backroom deals to limit compensation or employee attrition. It's either a free labor market or it isn't.
- dreamdu5t 12y agoYour definition of a "free labor market" is a contradiction in terms. A free labor market is one where people are free to exchange their labor (collusion), not one where a third party decides who gets to exchange what labor and for how much. Laws against hiring and pricing agreements are interventions in the market. Laws against hiring agreements are not consistent with a free market. There's nothing wrong with people (employers) making agreements with other people (employers) regarding the things they own (their money).
- JDShu 12y agoAs always, wikipedia is a good start. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antitrust_law_theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antitrust_law_theory
- dreamdu5t 12y agoI'm familiar with anti-trust theory. The idea of collusion reducing competition is fallacious because market competition is not a quantity, but a process by which goods and services are exchanged. Price fixing and hiring agreements do not involve force, fraud, or misrepresentation- yet the regulation or prohibition thereof directly violates the property rights of the market participants. I've read the Wikipedia entry you've linked to in its entirety, so I kindly ask that you will read this one: https://mises.org/daily/4397 https://mises.org/daily/4397
- rayiner 12y agoWhy do you distinguish force and fraud arbitrarily from collusion? Me bashing you over the head and taking your stuff is the ultimate freedom of action.
- dreamdu5t 12y agoIt's not arbitrary. Hiring agreements (collusion) do not involve force or fraud. Do you truly not distinguish between bashing someone over the head for my stuff from agreeing to exchange something for it? The latter is voluntary and the former is forced.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- Goronmon 12y ago>Hiring agreements (collusion) do not involve force or fraud. Hiring agreements are where an employer uses the power of their position (and those they are colluding with) to control their employees. I would argue this is just another form of 'force'. You don't need to physically harm someone to control them.
- dreamdu5t 12y agoA shop that opens across the street from another shop doesn't "force" the other shop to lose money. Your definition of force is contradictory, as it leaves no room for anything that is not pre facto considered force.
- rayiner 12y agoI don't distinguish between a group of people colluding to beat someone up, and colluding to subvert the market by suppressing wages. I think it's entirely arbitrary to say that the state should use violence to prevent one kind of harmful activity and not the other.
- 12y ago
- phaus 12y ago>There's nothing wrong with people (employers) making agreements with other people (employers) regarding the things they own (their money). If you ever own a business, you deserve for it to fail.
- dreamdu5t 12y agoPersonal insults aren't an argument.
- Jaslanin 12y ago@dreamdu5t in your view, it is acceptable to person to freely agree to be enslaved?
- dreamdu5t 12y agoIn my view, the only problem with slavery is that it's involuntary. It's important to make a distinction between voluntary servitude and involuntary servitude (real slavery). To prevent someone from voluntary servitude would require their involuntary servitude to whomever is preventing them. To put it another way: If person A is forcefully preventing me from voluntarily serving person B, that makes me person A's involuntary slave.