Am catching up on a deep backlog of email from 8 days of scuba diving in
Cozumel and may write more in this thread if I can dig that far this weekend,
but thought I'd throw some semi-random thoughts out this morning:
1. People that labor under threat of force are not freely selling their
services. If one defines a "sweatshop" as a business that uses threats of
violence to extract service from people, then it can't be judged on the same
terms as one that freely bargains for the work of its employees.
2. The actions of and toward children present sharp challenges to
libertarians. Can a child of 7 or 8 be said to be capable of bargaining
freely for her labor?
3. As I have become more libertarian in my social and political thinking, I
have come to re-evaluate my opinions about labor unions. So long as threats
of force are not used to enforce membership or other aspects of their
dealings, it seems perfectly consistent with libertarian principles to
endorse organization of workers into labor-selling and mutual-benefit groups,
which can be seen as the core function of a "labor union" in a free society.
(attached is proof that I spent the last week doing something more fun than
taking depositions.)
Greg Burch <GBurch1@aol.com>----<gburch@lockeliddell.com>
Attorney ::: Vice President, Extropy Institute ::: Wilderness Guide
http://www.gregburch.net -or- http://members.aol.com/gburch1
ICQ # 61112550
"We never stop investigating. We are never satisfied that we know
enough to get by. Every question we answer leads on to another
question. This has become the greatest survival trick of our species."
-- Desmond Morris
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon May 28 2001 - 09:59:47 MDT