Who decides? The state or the individual?

You said: "On the other hand, I doubt employer and worker have a work contract in this case, as there is no consideration on Boss's part." My example of the indentured servant is a contract where there is consideration even if no wage is paid.

As a Lockean, though, I don't see how you can justify any program of wealth redistribution.

Unless, of course, the guy with the time machine held a gun to my head. A literal gun, that is.

joefromchicago wrote:

As a Lockean, though, I don't see how you can justify any program of wealth redistribution.

I think you can justify it as a side effect of a modest welfare state, one that constrains itself to assuring the survival of poor people. I think you could also argue that while any social-democratic welfare state would be unjustified in a Lockean view, the EITC is less bad than the minimum wage. The EITC infringes on the property rights of the (usually rich) people who pay them. The minimum wage infringes on the property rights of the employers who pay them, and on the liberty of both employers and workers. That makes the EITC an improvement over the minimum wage even from a Hobbesian perspective. But I admit that's not literally Hobbes, it's my personal extrapolation from Hobbes.

Fair enough. And in this case, what would your choice be, and how do you reach your decision?

You're cherry-picking theories again.

In other words, it wouldn't matter to a Hobbesian (or a Lockean) that one permissible system is somewhat better than another, as long as both are permissible.

I guess I'd choose to go back in time to Germany.

Aw jeez. Now the idjit's writing back and forth to himself.


Sure hope this f*cker hasn't bred.

Suppose Worker and Boss decide that the limitations on information that they both have frequently cause them to enter into bad bargains, and so they have both freely ceded a portion of their liberty right to a third party mediator, whose job is to decide upon the terms of Worker's employment, based upon all relevant factors, including those unknown to both Worker and Boss.

This is a continuation of another discussion, but I'd like to start by addressing the basic philosophical point first. To do so, let's examine this situation:

Worker is looking for a job and Boss is looking to hire someone. We can assume that Worker, all things considered, would prefer to work for the highest wage and the fewest hours, whereas Boss, all things considered, would prefer to hire someone for the lowest wage and the most hours. Now, suppose also that the state is considering a law that both sets the minimum wage at which an employee may be paid as well as the maximum hours that an employee may work. Without the law in place, however, we can assume that Boss and Worker might negotiate a deal which would fall short of the law's minimum wage limit or exceed the law's maximum hour limit.

In this situation, who should make the decision regarding Worker's wages and hours:
Worker and Boss, negotiating between themselves,
or the state, through its minimum wage/maximum hour legislation?

I'd like to amend my earlier response to this. I already made the two points that 1) I have no problem if Worker and Boss agree to mandatory arbitration by the government, and write this into a clause of their contract. 2) I don't believe that the "social contract", which Worker and Boss agreed to by entering political society, requires this kind of mandatory arbitration. It isn't a work contract in the sense of point #1.

The point I'd like to amend is that plain vanilla contract law already remedies the more extreme cases of the problems people suggested in this thread. For example, courts can void contracts for error, concealment, fraud, and incompetence. I can imagine many scenarios where that would be the case -- for example, when a Mexican farm worker works for an English-speaking farmer, has no idea what their agreement is, and in practice is at the mercy of the farmer. I have no problem voiding this. And if the information problems you suggest in the beginning of your post occur frequently and gravely, courts would often void work contracts that way.

Also, plain vanilla contract law can deal with egregious abuses of Boss's bargaining power: if Worker proves to a court that he's done this, the court can void the work contract for being signed under duress, or undue influence, or something similar. I have no problem with any of these limitations on what Worker and Boss can agree to.

But you go further. You seem to believe that 1) the traditional restrictions of contract law do not exhaust the reasons why the government may legitimately infringe on freedom of contract. You also seem to believe that 2) the legislature may prejudge that employers so frequently abuse their bargaining powers to put workers under duress, that they so frequently conceal facts abut the job, and that workers are so frequently so uninformed as to be practically incometent, that low-wage work contracts are void a priori. These are the two points where I get off the boat. I do believe that all legitimate restrictions are contained inthe usual constraints of contract law, and that you can't apply these constraints without looking at the facts of the individual case. To enforce them legitimately, I feel someone first ought to prove to a court that they actually apply.

Thomas wrote:

I'd like to amend my earlier response to this. I already made the two points that 1) I have no problem if Worker and Boss agree to mandatory arbitration by the government, and write this into a clause of their contract. 2) I don't believe that the "social contract", which Worker and Boss agreed to by entering political society, requires this kind of mandatory arbitration. It isn't a work contract in the sense of point #1.

To be clear, I never said that Worker and Boss were required to submit to an outside mediator. Rather, I said that they both chose to submit to state mediation voluntarily because they viewed it in their best interests to do so.

The state!

Quote:

I would follow what the state had for us
if the state had a system of telling us what we should do.

It's a good idea when you think about it

So the state having a SYSTEM,
is the determining characteristic,
as to whether its a good idea.
I 'm thinking of Hitler 's national socialists and Stalin 's international socialists.
Thay had systems,
so I guess thay had good ideas.

Quote:

Then there would be peace on earth at last!

Yeah, because states never go to war with one another, right ?
David