| There's a lot in here that I don't really have the time to address because I'm wrapping up my day, but I don't really feel the need to litigate reasons why radical unfettered libertarianism doesn't work. But hey, I'll toss out a few notes: >Collective bargaining (like any bargaining) requires no laws, it is a natural right. No it isn't, because absent laws people tend to do things like break your knees with a lead pipe if you're a union organizer. Which happened in the states. All the time. Until the union organizers hired the mob to defend them, resulting in the teamsters running a number of unions like a racket. No thanks. I don't like any of that. >Safety standards are an interesting topic. Last I heard, there's no law forcing employers to publish statistics on accidents, to properly inform the laborer on the risk they are taking. They're expected to trust "safety standards" set by the government and (presumably) checked by the government. Yet they fully bear the risk of their job. They are responsible for themselves. They can and must refuse to perform an action that they deem is endangering themselves unduly. 1) Who are "They"?
2) So you agree there's an informational asymmetry, but you put the burden on the weaker party in the transaction to be responsible for the calculation of the costs and effects of it (despite agreeing they don't know as much about it).
3) You should look up OSHA. Lol. Are we starting to understand how that allocation of responsibilities, along the axis of 'who has power here', results in sub-optimal procedures for mitigating risk? Or did you expect everyone who works in a factory to have a triple PhD in materials engineering, industrial chemical design and ergonomics, so that when a piece of warehouse scaffolding is stressed because it is loaded past it's specs, they can diagnose the defect through examined differences in metal spalling patterns, then inform their employer and not be censured for the act (because, remember, according to you we shouldn't have labour standards). Again, no thank you. I'd rather have society put together so that people don't need to be an expert in every safety critical expertise in order to avoid harm from others. |
I agree.
> No it isn't, because absent laws people tend to do things like break your knees with a lead pipe if you're a union organizer.
You keep dragging things out further and further. Am I led to believe that without laws supporting unions, breaking knees suddenly becomes legal?
> So you agree there's an informational asymmetry, but you put the burden on the weaker party in the transaction to be responsible for the calculation of the costs and effects of it (despite agreeing they don't know as much about it)
I'm not putting the burden on them. The burden is on them, as a pure matter of fact. Every worker is ultimately responsible for the risk they put upon themselves. If they get injured or killed, they are the ones harmed. They're the ones who have to make the call.
Of course an employer that hides information on safety hazards or is otherwise negligent is liable for endangering others.
None of this is specific to trade. You're talking about fraud, coercion and extortion and all kinds of things. It's going nowhere. Of course nobody willfully "consents" to being endangered, defrauded or extorted.
> Again, no thank you. I'd rather have society put together so that people don't need to be an expert in every safety critical expertise in order to avoid harm from others.
You arguing against straw man libertarian, not me.