[thegrimmest]

Can I say "yes" without being down-voted? I'd like the government not to limit free association of moral agents. Two people should be free to work together under whatever arrangement they voluntarily enter into.

All our current system of labour and union law has accomplished is the offshoring of suffering. We've not gotten rid of the existence of, nor our reliance on abhorrent working conditions. We've just moved them elsewhere, in the process wasting tremendous amounts of energy (not to mention the associated destruction of the environment) shipping things to and from more lenient jurisdictions.

I propose that if the working conditions we rely on were present under our noses, we would do more to try to actually mediate our dependence their production.

[lovich]

I understand that viewpoint,and even agree with it mostly on a person to person level, but if the government didn't have these laws why would it be any better. When people tried to negotiate with companies without the states involvement, the companies used violence to try and get their way.

Corporations aren't moral agents and can't be treated as such

[thegrimmest]

  the companies used violence to try and get their way

And that's exactly where we need the state, in order to protect us from violence. I'd just like there to be limits on the scope of its authority. Corporations are just groups of people.

[lovich]

Corporations may be groups of people but they don't get treated like people. There's no corporate death penalty for companies that end up killing people. There's no corporate jail to remove companies that can't behave out of society for a set amount of time. There's fines that seem to never be greater than the profit the companies earn from breaking the law and it just becomes a cost of business.

If they're going to be treated like people then go all the way, but until then they need to be regulated to prevent the worst of their excesses that have been played out again and again

[thegrimmest]

  Corporations may be groups of people but they don't get treated like people

They don't have to be. All we have to do is hold individuals accountable for their actions. If a person in a corporation orders violent suppression of a labour dispute, then they are personally accountable. A corporation is a legal fiction. It can't be held accountable because it doesn't do anything, the people who run it do.

[kelnos]

As I replied to the parent, the laundry list of items is a little odd, since, in the US at least, the only thing there that's protected by law are the workplace health and safety standards.

And... I guess I must not be as optimistic as you are. If we didn't have things like OSHA, I do not expect that most workplaces would act in the best interests of their workers' health and safety. Look at countries where there aren't OSHA-like laws and see how well they do there. (Hint: not well.)

[thegrimmest]

Minimum wage is certainly protected by law.

  Look at countries where there aren't OSHA-like laws and see how well they do there

That's exactly my point though isn't it? We still rely on goods produced in those places, we just don't have any visibility into the conditions they are produced in. We've just offshored the suffering, not alleviated it.

[bbddg]

I'm fully agreed with this. The question is then what are the ways we can improve the working/living conditions of people around the world. The way workers around the world have fought for better conditions is by using their ability to withhold labor and collectively bargain with the capitalist class.

[thegrimmest]

And they should continue to do that. In fact this works quite well without government interference (labour/union law) or even in spite of it (See the Indian independence movement). I'm suggesting we need the government to protect us from violence when negotiations go awry, not to interfere in said negotiations between free private entities.

[your-nanny]

See: the Inclosure Act.