[shadowgovt]

> I am in favor of free speech and people being in charge of their own companies.

About half a century ago, after some difficult (and in some cases bloody) fights, the United States passed several laws curtailing some liberties a company owner may take with how they run their affairs with the aim of a net societal good. They are pretty well-constrained, place little burden on companies overall, and have the net effect of allowing a double-digit-percentage of working Americans of having a fair shot at doing the work they must do every day to make wage free of a kind of psychological torment that their peers are never at risk of experiencing daily.

It was certainly a curtailment of freedom of speech and expression. It was a curtailment of such with significant positive outcomes and made the country a better place.

Nothing I've seen about the way we are today suggests to me that rolling back the clock on those laws would be a net good.

[misslibby]

That's your opinion as a probably left leaning person. Other people may think differently. That such laws were passed 50 years ago does not prove that they were a net positive.

[shadowgovt]

Totally agree. They're the law right now, and if you're looking to change that, there is a process to do so. I haven't heard any explanation of how removing them would improve America other than "it would take us back to how things were before, which was better," which is a non-starter.

...And you will be fought every step of the way, as the people who got the laws first passed were fought every step of the way. Of course, I hope you fail, as I've never heard an explanation of how repealing those laws would improve things.

[misslibby]

The explanation is simple: freedom. People forget that when they curb the freedom of their employers, they also curb their own freedoms at the same time. They make sure that they can never escape from the hamster wheel. Of course most people are happy as long as other people are not better off than they themselves, so being stuck in the hamster wheel doesn't bother them that much.

More freedom also means more potential businesses who have to compete for workers, which is good for the workers. If businesses have to compete, they'll try to make things as nice as possible for the workers.

The argument that things would become what they "were before" doesn't make that much sense. In a poor economy, things are poorly, no matter what socialist laws try to prevent it (worker protection only helps you if you have a job, for example). There is no reason that by abandoning some law from the 50 years ago, the economy would fall back to the state of the 80ies. Also maybe the 80ies weren't actually so bad. I'm too lazy to look it up, but I keep hearing that in the old days, people could afford to buy houses and feed a family on a single salary.

I'm sure you can get better explanations and economic theories. You have never heard an explanation because you have never looked for it or listened to one, not because none exist.

[eesmith]

Freedom only for the owners of companies?

Or do you also respect the freedom of employees to engage in collective bargaining, the freedom of employees to negotiate a closed shop with the company, the freedom to engage in solidarity and political strikes, the freedom to carry out secondary boycotts, and so on.

Most of those are prohibited by law, where 100 years ago they were legal. And they didn't require a special law to enable those powers, because they grew out of the right to quit one's job.

> If businesses have to compete, they'll try to make things as nice as possible for the workers.

Which is why businesses don't like to compete, and will form cartels and informal agreements to prevent competition.

> I'm too lazy to look it up, but I keep hearing that in the old days, people could afford to buy houses and feed a family on a single salary.

We also had a lot higher tax rate on the wealth. And stronger union power. If you're going to lazily cherry pick history, then there are a lot of cherries to pick from.

[misslibby]

> Freedom only for the owners of companies?

Everybody can start a company - or should be allowed to, that is the point. Socialist rules making it difficult prevent people from becoming independent.

> Or do you also respect the freedom of employees to engage in collective bargaining, the freedom of employees to negotiate a closed shop with the company, the freedom to engage in solidarity and political strikes, the freedom to carry out secondary boycotts, and so on.

People should be free to do that, but "employers" should also be free to fire them if they do.

> Which is why businesses don't like to compete, and will form cartels and informal agreements to prevent competition.

That works by government intervention and freedom would prevent it.

> We also had a lot higher tax rate on the wealth. And stronger union power. If you're going to lazily cherry pick history, then there are a lot of cherries to pick from.

I am not the person who claimed things were so bad in the past that we must not go back.

[shadowgovt]

This is a country of over three hundred million people. Independence past a certain degree is intractable.

I recommend if you don't like the rules and are too lazy (as you've self-described) to do the hard work to change them, you should consider changing countries. After all, your remedy for employees who don't like working for employers who break the Equal Employment Act is they should change companies.

If that solution seems unpalatable, meditate upon why it is inappropriate to suggest that employees who don't like being discriminated against should just use the remedy of changing employers.

[shadowgovt]

> People forget that when they curb the freedom of their employers, they also curb their own freedoms at the same time.

Freedom to what, in this context?

> If businesses have to compete, they'll try to make things as nice as possible for the workers.

This is the "capitalism will solve it" argument which proved so untrue we passed the Civil Rights Act and the Equal Employment Act. It turns out that, no, even when it's economically obvious that catering to a minority population would be valuable, you can have 100% of a town refusing to do so because racism is more important to them than money. That creates entire regions of the country that are no-go zones if your skin color is wrong, and we decided that's not acceptable.

> There is no reason that by abandoning some law from the 50 years ago, the economy would fall back to the state of the 80ies.

I'm not concerned about what the economy would do; I'm concerned about whether it would be harder to keep a job free of daily torment if you're the wrong skin color than it is now. My mistake; the law in question isn't 50 years old, it's a 1970s law.

> I'm too lazy to look it up, but I keep hearing that in the old days, people could afford to buy houses and feed a family on a single salary.

If you can find some evidence that the passage of the ERA modified that, feel free to present it. But I'm pretty sure to explain why that changed, you're looking for Reagan-era deregulation (and the economic shift from a manufacturing economy, where unions were strong, to a service economy, where few unions existed).

> You have never heard an explanation because you have never looked for it or listened to one, not because none exist.

Interesting and unsupported hypothesis. But I don't expect you to bring me anything new because you've already declared you're "too lazy to look it up," so I think this conversation thread has ended.

[misslibby]

> Freedom to what, in this context?

The freedom to work in the way they want. To escape the hamster wheel, for example by starting their own company with the conditions they prefer.

> This is the "capitalism will solve it" argument which proved so untrue we passed the Civil Rights Act and the Equal Employment Act.

It didn't prove untrue. The early days of capitalism where marked by a previous population explosion and abandonment of the feudal system, with lots of people pouring into cities looking for work. That is why there was a lot of poverty.

> That creates entire regions of the country that are no-go zones if your skin color is wrong, and we decided that's not acceptable.

Pretty sure there are lots of No-Go zones for people with the wrong skin color today. At least if your skin color is white.

> I'm concerned about whether it would be harder to keep a job free of daily torment if you're the wrong skin color than it is now.

So you think there wouldn't be any businesses run by black owners? Why not?

> But I'm pretty sure to explain why that changed, you're looking for Reagan-era deregulation

So the economy was better in the past, but your argument was that it was worse?

> Interesting and unsupported hypothesis.

Well everybody who HAS heard explanations knows they exist, so the reason you have not heard of them must be that you wilfully denied their exoistence.