The Politics Thread (PLAY NICELY!)

"freedom of contract" is a made-up expression created by libertarians with very little actual support in the real-world. It is of course favoured by people who don't think you should pay people a decent wage - like yourself.

But I'm glad we've finally dispensed with the small talk and actually come out with your own (obvious) ideology. You are imposing a worldview on the world that you personally hold. No wonder you reject every law that comes into conflict with it. Another cornerstone of libertarian theory. Problem is, you need laws to regulate wrongdoing. Absolute fact: society tends to collapse without some vague idea of laws to follow (don't kill folks, don't steal from folks, etc).

So you protecting this idea of "freedom of contract" is utterly alien to anyone who believes people to be paid for a job, because according to you if you can get away with it, people wouldn't even have to be paid for a job if their job is arbitrarily or otherwise pettily-defined as worthless.

You accuse me of not understanding law despite not even understanding the most basic arguments surrounding duress - it has to be proven. As a relatively dramatised historical example, it has never been proven to this day that Guy Fawkes' confession to attempting to blow up the Houses of Parliament was ever given under duress. There is plenty of evidence for it, but it is not conclusive. You can't just claim duress and go with that. It's part of how law works, and is prosecuted. Which is hilarious because as someone who holds faith in libertarian theory you don't even believe the law helps people anyway. So why rely on it? You're being hypocritical - you're trusting in your theory of law to protect those who you deem needs protecting, but any law that you disagree with or impinges upon your libertarian worldview is oppressive and bad for business.

Employers refusing to hire people that are underqualified is entirely the point of requiring qualifications for a job. And yet, here you are twisting it into some form of racism. Racism prevents job hiring when candidates are qualified. If someone doesn't meet basic requirements and the interview doesn't convince you that they can make that difference up then in absence of other factors that is entirely up to the employer.

Even in the event a person is qualified, refusing to hire them because you don't want to pay minimum wage still isn't racist. It'll get you sued into oblivion, under some form of discrimination, but it isn't racism, and in the event of racism it still isn't the fault of minimum wage. It's the fault of the employer being unwilling to pay that minimum requirement. People deserve to be compensated for the effort they put in. The fact that a minimum wage is necessary is very simple to explain:

Employers would not do so if they could get away with it.

See: Apple (and god knows who else) using sweatshops in Eastern countries.

It also serves as a safety net against excessive inflation but it isn't even managing to keep up with that - another indication of how broken the global (and relative national) economy is.

And wow, given that you brought up the plight of Aboriginal people, yes, there is a reason they're doing badly. It's called racism. Nothing to do with economic theory, or minimum wage. It's racism, pure and simple. I have no idea what Australia have in place to safeguard their working condition, but removing a minimum wage if they have one would not help the plight of those people. I'm amazed you even brought them up.

Black people in America are getting shot at a relatively unprecedented rate by police. They have historically been forced into less-affluent areas and living conditions and historically been prevented from seeking the same jobs as non-blacks. Minimum wage has nothing to do with it, and it's really revealing to see your opinions on this finally take shape.

feel free to convince your govermeant to do that, i rather have my homestate and the state i live in radiationfree
if you are so unhappy with your govermeant then why don´t you .. you know demonstrate or more frankly rebel against it? .. because you guys have guns right? you can do whatever you want ...

feel free to make mistakes after mistakes ..

Also, if taxation and regulation are a form of theft, what does that make managers who benefit from the labour of their underlings?

If your answer is "they get paid", the answer to taxation is "you are provided with services in return". It's a simple transaction!

That's the thing, I'm not paying for a service voluntarily. I don't want public health care because it's **** so I pay both public and private, I don't want to pay people to make films but I'm forced to... the same way people was forced to pay for "protection" to their lord just because they were born on a territory. On the very contrary I voluntarily signed my working contract. Please defend your position but not with misleading arguments.

It's been a while since there were any burns on this thread.

Exactly.

Imagine if BMW put a car on your drive way without you ordering one and then forced you to pay for it at a price you never agreed to.

And decide you should pay more than your neighbour because you earn more.

Oh look! More people who think blacks get shot more by police!
Wait, could it be because blacks are convicted of crimes more per capita than whites? Could it be that blacks are more likely to join gangs? Could it be that the culture of shirking responsibility and blaming others is choking the growth of healthy, two parent black families?
But Mered! It HAS TO BE RACE. If it's not someone's fault for shooting them, then it must be a legislators fault or an educators fault for forcing them into the poverty and despair!

Idiots. Grow up and take responsibility for your decisions.

A question for you, Gorbles. If you don't want the aristocracy of money and free markets, where a man's worth is determined by the work of his mind and his hands, the what form of law and order to you want?

There is only one other: the aristocracy of pull. The constant struggle for influence and fame. The ultimate circlejerk.

There is no other option. One may lead to a company like Apple or Google - the other will lead to tyrants like Hitler and corrupt politicians like Hillary Clinton.

Money assumes you take full responsibility for your actions - pull gives you a scapegoat should you make a mistake.

@Gorbles

What does freedom of contract have to do with being 'made up' or having 'support in the real world' or 'decent wage'? It's quite apparent you don't understand what the concept means and I suggest you take a course in contract law. Two people should be free to voluntarily agree to whatever terms they like between themselves. You make it sound like freedom of contract means one person is imposing their will on another when in reality it means both people are exercising their freedom.

Have you even worked a low paying job in retail or hospitality? I have. When a new owner took over the store and offered me bad hourly wages, guess what i did? I said no thanks, I'll find another place. Novel idea isn't it?

Libertarianism is not the freedom to harm others. It is the belief in the non aggression principle. My freedoms end where your freedoms begin and I cannot initiate force upon you or your property. The only legitimate use of force is in self defense in appropriate measure as a reaction to someone else initiating force.

Unbelievable the extent to which you keep trying to strawman me. If this continues I really have no choice but to ignore your posts. It's very scary to hear you talk about individual freedom as if it is an imposed world view. I sincerely hope for your sake this is only because you're arguing for the sake of arguing and thus not paying attention to what you're saying.

Yes, and that racism is a welfare state including minimum wage. Policy can have unintended racist outcomes regardless of intention. The difference between the virtue signaller and the person who really cares is what they do when they observe those unintended outcomes.

I suggest you follow the scientific method which you reference in your signature. When a hypothesis doesn't match observation, it's time to change the hypothesis.

And maybe you don't want public law enforcement, or fire department, or libraries, or schools! Even prisons.

It doesn't matter, these things aren't for you in particular. Many people need them but would be incapable of paying "for protection" as you stated. I recognize the flaw in Gorble's logic there, but what you're saying doesn't make much sense either ignoring Gorbles. Public services exist on the principal of avoiding bias.

While your idea itself might make sense this argument you've formed for it doesn't. The government doesnt only provide you with one giant service you must pay for- it is providing you and everyone else equal opportunity and always available services. Please can we stop using cars as an example for everything. Context.

This statement is misleading. Even on a flat tax rate the richer pay more. You should say you pay a higher percent for being rich- not a higher rate itself.

Just because minimum wage had a racist undertone in the past doesn't mean it does now or will continue to. In the past it had been used to counter certain groups who were open to lower wages as they were desperate for work- pushing out others who expected a real living wage. Which by the way I don't see in itself as racist. The idea isn't necessarily to hurt a minority group as a white man who had been very poor would have attempted to work for just as little. It hurting a minority group is more so just a side effect at the time.

To act like a policy can't change it's targeted issue or group over the course of 70 years plus makes no sense. Minimum wage today is a means to make sure our base workers are kept up with inflation. As otherwise companies would happily continue to pay their manual labour very little because their real buyers are the middle class who tend to work more I'm the service industry.

Libertarianism believes in small government that enforces non-aggression between individuals because government is distinct as a monopoly on the use of force. This involves a judiciary and a military. Whatever activity in which violence is justified is the role of government. The rest is very much like a car being put on your driveway and should be left to private enterprise. Context.

If someone can only produce $9 of value and the minimum wage is $10, then he/she won't be able to get a job because some bleeding heart thought $10 was a 'decent wage'.

Take a guess what something like a minimum wage is doing in places like Europe right now with their huge influx of immigrants. Only 100 out of a million refugees were able to get jobs. There is even talk of moving towards instituting "special wages" for refugees as a result of understanding this.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-migrants-germany-companies-idUSKCN11J281

How is it you know how much people are willing to accept as payment? Do you have a minimum price law for tomatoes to make sure they are kept up with inflation? Or does the market perform price discovery all on it's own?

Jobs that don't pay enough for a person to live on tend not to be jobs people take, and thus tend not to be jobs that are offered. Would you take a job that shortly eventuated in your death if you continued in it?

@squishypon3
"This statement is misleading. Even on a flat tax rate the richer pay more. You should say you pay a higher percent for being rich- not a higher rate itself."
That's not misleading, you have only considered flax tax rate and increasing tax rate, not a fixed amount tax.
If you wanna play this game...

Not even gonna bother responding to the bait about racial injustice. Better things to do with my time.

Fun fact: people don't get paid for a job that they work at "voluntarily". They get paid because it's required of their employer by law.

Nothing misleading about it. What is misleading is painting a comparison to wages paid as something that's voluntary.

Unless, of course, you also object to the existence of laws that require you to pay people. I'd love to hear a justification that doesn't boil down to "I don't think people should get paid".

1. Freedom of contract has no basis in law, barring some individual cases and some fun tidbits on historical English law. You say that people should be free to do what you want them to do (within the use case of agreeing on something; I'm not trying to misrepresent you here) - that is not contract law. That's your ideal of what contract law should be.

2. I have worked in a low-paid job. More than one, actually. My most recent one (though still some years back) was a necessity and regardless of any changes in my wages I would've stuck with it because my job options were non-existent at the time and I needed to pay rent.

Not everyone has the same opportunities in life that you have had. Every libertarian I argue with online struggles with this concept, and I don't know why. Your experiences are not the default for every person on the planet. Not everyone can just "find a new job".

3. You complain about being "strawmanned" but you repeatedly insinuate things about my positions and motivations. That's called strawmanning too, ya know?

Ignore me if you want, no skin off of my back if that's how you choose to respond to criticism. Just don't make silly attempts at painting me as "arguing for the sake of arguing" instead of "arguing because I think you're wrong". It's facile, not to mention transparent.

Libertarianism, as a set of principles, is more than a simple reductionist statement. You can't boil it down to an innocent-sounding statement about non-aggression when the consequences of believing in libertarian principles means you oppose government regulation. How do you think the basis of opposing the government functions? I'll give you a tip: it isn't with non-aggression (and physical violence is not the only form of aggression).

Why? Because opposing that regulation would lead to negative consequences for people who aren't you. For people who don't have the personal leverage that you do. For people that aren't as lucky or fortunate as you have been. Life isn't all about hard work. There are tons of invisible factors at work that people (who benefit from these factors) tend to ignore or simply not be aware of. Racism is just one single obvious example of such a factor.

4. "virtue signalling" is a conservative buzzphrase (well, it had a wider application now but was primarily used against leftist principles on social media), I'm surprised to hear a libertarian come out with it considering how much libertarians I've met hate being confused for conservative (or Republican, to name a party example) ideologists.

Policies cannot have unintended racist consequences. The implementation of policy can depending on the people who implement it; the racism is theirs, and doesn't originate from the policy. The only case where policymaking has racist consequences is if the racism is enshrined within the policy (as an extreme example, "black people can't buy houses" - this of course is a fictional example in this context).

People subverting a particular piece of policy to enact a racist system are to blame for said racist system. The policy itself is not, and cannot be, blamed. It's a piece of paper (if that).

On this, English contract law stipulates that for a contract to be legally binding, it requires four elements.

1. Offer
2. Acceptance
3. Consideration
4. Legality

The idea is that any two individuals can contractually bind themselves to do anything they wish so long as it does not conflict with any current legislation. (There are different mechanisms for handling agreements between more than two parties.)

The offer and acceptance is evidence that both parties wish to be bound by the contract.

Consideration is the concept that both parties should stand to benefit from the contract in some way. For example you cannot contractually commit yourself to a monthly donation to a charity, as there is no consideration from the charity back towards you.

If any part of a contract conflicts with the law, the entire contract is null and void.

What Elodea is saying here is that there should be fewer laws, and that there would therefore be fewer situations in which the fourth requirement for a binding contract is unobtainable.

Apologies for just quoting the whole thing, on mobile atm.

I don't understand what you mean by "if a certain person can only produce 9$ of value the wont get a job with 10$ minimum wage"

What do you mean can only produce 9$ of value? Why is their work valued less? Are you sure the minimum wage is racist and not the employer who devalues equal work from a particular race? This is why we have rights...

And saying that nobody would take a wage that isn't actually survivable is just.. Wrong. People do that even today! As current minimum wage isn't enough to live on. And maybe it never should be completely- only using it as an example. We have workers rights because otherwise people will be forced to work shitty underpaying jobs that are literally killing themselves... The industrial revolution, remember? Children workers, trash conditions, low pay meaning 12 hour work days...

I don't understand how you can forget all that happened, and that these workers rights and laws exist for a reason.

I can answer this one.

I work in shipping. A lot of what we do is the movement of low-value commodities, things like sand, aggregates, stones etc. We're talking low value as in about $10 per tonne or less.

With those sorts of things, every penny counts. The companies moving these materials are making margins of pennies per tonne and rely on bulk and efficiency to generate any profit whatsoever.

It is very common for someone, somewhere in the chain to decide that they will try their luck and increase the amount they charge, whether this be the shipowner, the stevedores at the load or discharge port, the road haulage company, or the shipbroker raising their commission. When this happens, it often causes the whole chain to collapse, because it suddenly doesn't make sense for the buyer to buy the commodity at $0.10 per tonne more.

==

If we convert this back to employment - someone setting up a company calculates that it can sell widgets at a price of $X and sell enough to generate a profit. It also calculates that if they sell them at a price of $(X+1) they won't sell enough to make a profit.

They calculate that in order to sell them at the price of $X, they need to employ workers at a piece rate of $Y per unit, otherwise again, they won't make a profit.

If Y works out as being below the minimum wage, the company never even starts. It never gets off the ground, because it knows from the outset that it can't make a profit. That means that the potential jobs that were about to be created never get the chance to exist.

@cwarner7264

I can see where you are coming from, but I mean in the context of race- as it seemed Elodea was implying with his statement of workers worth. If he meant just in general- then my bad.

I'll be honest, I'm not 100% sure how race ties into this. I tend to gloss over arguments about racism because the terms gets banded about so much these days it's lost all meaning to me.