[claudius]

> There is no free lunch. If you introduce regulation to protect a group of people, another group of people loses out.

And the correct way to change that in a modern democracy is to lobby for better laws in parliament and/or found your own party and then win the population’s votes to fix your issue.

Wilfully ignoring existing laws implies a fundamental lack of respect for society and democracy.

[wskinner]

Why shouldn't people willfully ignore unfair laws? Isn't there quite a bit of that sort of behavior in the history people fighting for civil and economic rights?

[toomuchtodo]

Immoral? Yes. Unfair? Laws will sometimes be unfair. Citizen's rights trump consumer demands.

[wskinner]

Who gets to decide what's immoral and what is only unfair? And just because a French person puts on his consumer hat, does he suddenly cease being a citizen? By granting monopoly rights to one group (the taxi industry) you limit the rights of another group (everyone who wants to get from point A to point B). If the war on drugs, gay marriage, and free love teach us anything, it's that violence can't stop consenting adults from transacting with each other.

[toomuchtodo]

> Who gets to decide what's immoral and what is only unfair?

A government, as governed by its citizens. That's what laws are for.

[asift]

Why should people respect a system that doesn't respect them? Disrespect for immoral laws is valuable for the continued evolution of liberal societies.

[claudius]

> Why should people respect a system that doesn't respect them?

The people are the system, it is impossible for the system “democratic society” to disrespect “the people”. I also did not say that one must respect immoral laws, I said that breaking laws implies disrespect for the way by which these laws were put into place – namely the free democratic society.

You can disrespect immoral laws all day long and I encourage you to do so, just don’t break them unless absolutely necessary (because the alternative would be much worse). Taxi transportation is such a triviality that it certainly doesn’t qualify for that.

[toomuchtodo]

Labor laws aren't (EDIT: intended to be) immoral.

[asift]

A sweeping statement such as this is almost certainly false. Of course, some labor laws are perfectly moral, but some are immoral as well.

In general terms, labor laws such as wage prohibitions and occupational licensing tend to give relatively economically advantaged workers artificial advantages over lower skilled workers. In this respect, they serve as upwards redistribution of wealth and opportunity. At the same time, they restrict consumer sovereignty and the ability for people to freely engage in commerce. Of course, there are counter arguments to these as well. My intent here is not to make any overly simplistic sweeping claims, but to point out that there are some thoughtful and powerful lines of reasoning that call into question the morality of many existing labor regulations.

[toomuchtodo]

> My intent here is not to make any overly simplistic sweeping claims, but to point out that there are some thoughtful and powerful lines of reasoning that call into question the morality of many existing labor regulations.

I don't believe we disagree on this. Labor laws are a balance between the right of a citizen to earn a living wage and the right of a consumer to engage in commerce permitted by the State.

With that said, I believe that consumer sovereignty should never take precedence over labor rights.

[asift]

>With that said, I believe that consumer sovereignty should never take precedence over labor rights.

Because the buggymaker's job is more important than the consumer's right to buy an automobile?

[toomuchtodo]

You don't have a right to someone's labor below a minimum rate set by the government. We call that slavery.

[UK-AL]

Huge chunk of them have unintended bad effects.

French labour laws in general overwhelmingly advantage the older(as in already employed), and established workers and disadvantage younger workers and new entrants.

[toomuchtodo]

Unintended bad effects != immoral.

[asift]

It does when those unintended consequences are immoral.