If we should get rid of the Minimum wage, should be abolish labor laws?

[Patricius Maximus]

Originally Posted by bUU

There are a lot of things that are within the realm of labor laws that are matters of fundamental human rights, even if, driven by your own personal political preferences, you choose to deny that.

When people (including the OP) say "abolish labor laws", they're not talking about slavery. Besides, labor laws regulate what form labor shall take, such as "no laborer may work more than 8 hours in a day" or "every laborer must be paid at least $5 an hour" - these regulations apply just as much to slave labor as they would to voluntary labor, but fortunately slavery was abolished long ago, and it had nothing to do with the labor movement or with concerns about what kind of labor the slaves were doing. The complaints about the fundamental injustice of forced labor were far louder than complaints about the number of hours the slaves worked.

No it doesn't. Perhaps you've never run a business, but it is extremely difficult. Success is to a great extent dependent on focusing very directly on what's best for the business, based on the risks, probabilities and rewards/penalties inherent in each decision to be made.

That's the whole point I was making about shifting the cost/benefit calculation. Anyone with enough brains to run a business would know that the risk of fire increases if you don't take measures to prevent fires, and hence your risk of shelling out money in damages. Assessing more punitive damages for neglecting the safety of your workers increases that potential cost. It also allows people to innovate and create anti-fire procedures that differ from the checklists of regulators.

A related example is car safety requirements; requiring every car to have seat belts and airbags impedes the installation of a different (perhaps better and/or more cost-effective) safety system. As far as I know seat belts and airbags are the best we've got currently, but the point is that if something better were invented, regulations would be a great impediment to installing that better system. The same applies to worker safety, constructing buildings, guarding against fire, and just about every other aspect of life.

Deceiving yourself into ignoring the abject selfishness of vast swaths of the population is not a sound foundation for make arguments related to this issue.

Your worldview seems to assume that workers are automatons who will not look after their own interests and therefore the iron fist of government must dictate their every move. Also, if so many people are selfish and untrustworthy what makes those with government power immune to such failings? It is the height of naivete to assume that the oath of office passing someone's lips inoculates them from human failings. Claiming to stand in favor of compassion and against callousness while holding such contempt towards people outside of government and naivete towards people in government, effectively rendering those in government the superior group and those not in government the inferior group, is very hypocritical.

So what you're really saying here, putting aside the ridiculous self-deception that you posted, is that most people calling themselves libertarians don't care one bit about what you and some other libertarians want libertarianism to mean, and so consequently the number of people in support of what you consider true libertarianism is incredibly small, far overshadowed by those who are simply exploiting "your" label to lend credibility to their wholly immoral, egoistic, avaricious perspectives. To that I can agree.

All you did was repeat the same old lies about libertarians - you provided no logic or examples, only repetition. I have yet to encounter any significant manifestations of the behavior you've outlined within the libertarian literature or movement. The libertarian movement you describe simply does not exist in the real world. That is a fact. Take off the blinders - you have obviously been hoodwinked by inaccurate smear campaigns, probably emanating from the left judging on the content of the lies.

I'm sure that db108108 was speaking metaphorically. The issue isn't one of physical age but rather the level of maturity of one's consideration and compassion for others. Writer John Rogers amusingly referred to it as being "emotionally stunted".

Libertarians recognize other people as equal to and having the same rights as themselves, instead of dehumanizing them and reducing them to inferior beings that one has a right or a duty to dominate - recognizing the fundamental equality of your fellow man is called empathy, which goes hand-in-hand with compassion. Libertarians believe no man or group of men has the right to lord over any other, which is an emotional and intellectual leap that non-libertarians have yet to make.

Paul has very generously given away free medical services at times, but cannot seem to embrace a more comprehensive socially conscious perspective. Perhaps he feels that it isn't worth being considerate of others unless he's praised as a hero for doing so - I don't know.

You honestly cannot comprehend how genuine compassion and charity can be done by non-coercive means . He's not doing it for selfish reasons or to be praised as a hero - he's doing it so that he can improve the lives of those around him and to set a positive example for everyone of how to do real good for other people, not the phony good that is actually a product of evil (such as stealing and forcing other people's economic activities to comply with your own views). Compared to your dismissing perspective of anything that isn't like you, libertarians are overflowing with empathy and compassion.

Remember that every restriction you make to curb the activities of the selfish also restrict the activities of the selfless - a fundamental principle based on compassion and logic is that the many should not be punished for the transgressions of the few.

Your entire philosophy is based on punishing and restricting everyone, including the selfless, because some people are selfish. What you need to understand is that the authoritarianism you advocate for is punishing those who want to do something different from what the government dictates, even if that different way of doing things saves lives and improves health and safety; people who do create those different ways of doing things are called inventors and innovators; impeding them impedes us as a nation and as a species. Libertarians wish to criminalize harming others, instead of criminalizing mere non-compliance with government instructions. Workers, consumers, and ordinary citizens will greatly benefit from such an approach - criminalize harm, not non-compliance.

Originally Posted by Memphis1979

Which is why labor laws should be repealed, and have power given back to labor unions.

Who knows what is best for the employees of a company? The federal government, or a localized union work force of employees actually working at the company.

No strike unions are bull****.

Finally something sensible is said . I would personally prefer a more Nordic/central European approach to labor regulation over the American approach. The Nordic system or laissez-faire would take labor issues out of the realm of politics and put it back where it belongs, with the workers and their organizations.

[hawaiian by heart]

Originally Posted by Zelva

You do realize that there will always be a minority (small number) who doesn't, right? Utopia is a ways off, right?

Yup thats why i said what i said, because of some peoples argument about no government. Most of the time the reason we have labor laws is because somewhere, sometime as a society, we proved there was a need for it. Either because a group of peoples abused, exploited there workers or had really unsafe working conditions. Im a positive thinker. I would love to think after 100years we as a people have evolved where we wouldn't need laws to protect employees. But reality tells me humanity has a problem learning from the past.