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Old 10-20-2017, 10:10 AM
 
Location: *
13,242 posts, read 4,890,581 times
Reputation: 3461

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Quote:
Originally Posted by pknopp View Post
So the contract ends and the workers are offered $1.25 because that is what the lazy SOB's on Wall Street demand to gautantee continued record profits.
The libertarian ideology tends to ignore externalities, i.e. the many factors involved which inevitably produce power imbalances when one is considering industry v labor, employer v employee & so on. Some of these externalities or factors are the barriers to entry for certain fields, economies of scale, information asymmetries, network effects, & the fact there are industries that have far more resources than do their customers, their employees, their suppliers, & their non-existent 'competition'. Inevitably, the 'multiplier effect' becomes evident, i.e. the power imbalances will only increase over time & only in one direction. Particularly when 'rent-seeking' behaviors are not identified as such & remain un-checked. It's not just folks like the Koch brothers & the Mercers, it's those who find no issue with these 'status quo' arrangements, & also seem to fail to recognize who is, in fact, benefitting from these grand manipulations of the economy.
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Old 10-20-2017, 10:14 AM
 
45,103 posts, read 26,276,555 times
Reputation: 24840
Quote:
Originally Posted by djmilf View Post
So collective bargaining and labor unions are libertarian concepts? Interesting.
Quote:
Originally Posted by djmilf View Post
Who said the farm workers used violence? Who said that the land owner would even want to enter a contract, especially since he could pump up the local labor pool by enticing people travel to his farms to pick his crops for an offer of $2.00 per bushel, then, when more people show up than can be employed, the land owner can then start lowering his offered wage?

This really happened during the 1930's, when landless and hungry agricultural workers were chasing rumors of employment in order to keep themselves from starving.

I keep asking for the libertarian answer to an actual situation that occurred, and I keep getting theoretical answers that don't address the historical events I've described.
I never said the workers used violence. You asked about unions (and no they arent libertarian concepts). Again libertarianism isnt a panacea for every ill. It is non agression and private property.
The farmer owns his crops, the workers own their labor, if they the principles agree on a contract that trades dollars for labor, both parties should honor it. If looking for answers as to what happened in the 30's you might start by asking why the depression occured in the first place?
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Old 10-20-2017, 10:32 AM
 
Location: Texas
37,937 posts, read 17,786,558 times
Reputation: 10366
Quote:
Originally Posted by djmilf View Post
Bro, the above story actually happened during the 1930's, it was called whipsawing. And, may I point out in my example, the Land Owner had been paying $2 per bushel and unilaterally decided to lower wages. There was no 'agreement' between the Land Owner and the Farm Workers, but simply an offer that was proffered and later rescinded in favor of an offer more advantageous to the Land Owner.

Libertarian thought is that the Land Owner and the Farm Workers are on equal terms vis-a-vis their bargaining positions, but the reality is that the Land Owner, with armed security and force of the law behind him, has all of the power behind him.

May I ask, in the story that I presented what libertarian solution is available to the Farm Workers?
Bro that has nothing to do with Libertarianism and everything to do WITH ONE PERSON BREAKING A CONTRACT. To think that the ONE INCIDENT is an example of libertarianism is absurd.
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Old 10-20-2017, 10:32 AM
 
16,212 posts, read 10,776,206 times
Reputation: 8442
Quote:
Originally Posted by zzzSnorlax View Post
I like a lot of libertarian ideas particularly their positions on bodily autonomy rights and basically keeping their noses out of people's business as long as they are not hurting anyone else. The government should not be in the business of "protecting" people from themselves, especially when that "protection" is often more harmful than the consequences of the bad decision the person is making in the first place (things like tossing people in jail for drugs basically making them unemployable for life). I think that taken to their extreme logical anarchist conclusion however is ignoring human nature and history. Like most things, there is a happy medium and compromise between not wanting the government poking their nose in most of your day to day life and full on anarchism. For one thing, libertarians are big on contract law, but in a society with no overarching power to enforce those contracts, each contract is only worth the amount of power the weakest party of the contract has available to them to enforce it. A large scale tax free society is a pipe dream that has never and will never exist, access to road infrastructure alone is worth the price of admission - but I am entirely open to negotiations and stripping down as much of the taxation as possible while still being able to keep the lights on, so to speak.
I also agree with the bold in regards to the current conversation on labor contracts.

We'd even have to define what type/sort of "contract" it would be. A verbal contract? A written, simple contract in script? Or an actual long, legal standard service agreement as a contract?

If you have no public schools and want legal agreements, then those better able to educate themselves and their children will have the upper hand in contract negotiation and execution. Most people today, even with public schools don't read contracts and are taken advantage of.

Again, humans take advantage of each other. Someone will always find a way to outsmart an individual or even the system.

Once you have a contract, if you don't have any sort of local government or enforcement authority, then how can you be sure that each party will fulfil the requirements as written in the agreement.

FWIW, I work with contracts and have for many years and know that even large organizations don't follow everything in their contracts all the time because people just don't read them and once they are signed, they don't even pay attention to the contract.

One place I worked, they had a contract that said once they used a certain software they'd be charged a certain amount of money for each software/subscription they used. I did an audit of the contracts and services that I was supposed to administer and came across this agreement and saw that that organization had never used about 10 of the software/subscriptions that they had been paying for for 5 years. They paid nearly $500k over that period for software they weren't using. The people at the business didn't know that other people weren't using it and so they just paid it. We tried to get the money back but the company didn't want to agree to give it back since they felt that the company should have told them about the billing error. Mind you, there was no clause in the contract that stated that the company had to inform them of billing errors and they were the ones who confirmed to me that the company had never used their software/subscription lol.

That was a while ago and all the time I worked at that company they were in a disagreement over that contract and wanted back their money and I believe they eventually went to court. But contract law and disputes can be lengthy battles and to expect common laborers to know what to do when someone doesn't pay them their $2 a bushel is kind of silly IMO especially since in a libertarian-esque type of society, who exactly would they take the complaint to and how would their complaint be arbitered or argues or entered or enforced?
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Old 10-20-2017, 10:32 AM
 
Location: USA
18,453 posts, read 9,090,926 times
Reputation: 8492
Quote:
Originally Posted by GunnerTHB View Post
Even if you could wave a magic wand & get rid of all special interest influence in government, it still would not fix the problem. Special interests aren't always businesses throwing their money & influence around. Individuals get elected/appointed & use their positions to attack those outside of government for personal reasons. You lefties complain about this all the time but you always have to tie the problem to a corporation rather than blame the individual for being a corrupt POS.
That's why we have elections: to get rid of the bad actors.


Quote:
Originally Posted by GunnerTHB View Post
You are literally doing exactly what I was talking about in my post that you quoted. Please show me where the Cato Institute or the Reason Foundation has said something to the effect of "We believe that rich people should have the freedom to take away someone else's freedom". You can't, because you are trying to equate what you think the results of libertarian policies would be with what libertarians believe.
Lol. You don't see the phrase "we hate black people" on a KKK website. But it's pretty clear what the movement stands for, based on their actions and stance on specific issues.

The Koch-funded libertarian think tanks want to eliminate all restrictions on business and taxes on wealth, to return to the 1890s. They want big business to have as much power as possible, and want consumers and workers to have as little power as possible.

Quote:
Originally Posted by GunnerTHB View Post
So you have an issue with think tanks? Or just ones that you disagree with? I don't see a problem with groups doing research on issues that they care about, conservative, liberal or libertarian. Sure, the partisan think tanks are biased, but there are usually truths in research from the good think tanks, no matter what side they are on.
Think tanks often unwittingly expose a movement's true agenda. So I can appreciate them.
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Old 10-20-2017, 10:34 AM
 
Location: Texas
37,937 posts, read 17,786,558 times
Reputation: 10366
Quote:
Originally Posted by djmilf View Post
But we're talking subsistence workers here, not highly skilled professionals. And we're talking about actual events that happened, not theoretical situations.



Then you're one of the few who do have an employment contract. Unless you're highly skilled, corporate, or union, then odds are that you don't have an employment contract. That's the situation for most people working today.



A personal attack? You do understand that's one of the signs of being on the losing end of a debate, don't you?

My scenario, an example of actual events, was to show that, IMO, the libertarian solution for the migrant workers was for them to either starve slowly or starve quickly, until the surplus had been removed from the labor pool.

So far, the only libertarians solutions offered up by others have been in the form "well, those migrants should of not have been in that situation in the first place"...
Your post is dishonest. You made up a scenario attributing the end result to libertarianism when in fact the result has nothing to do with libertarianism.
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Old 10-20-2017, 10:35 AM
 
Location: Texas
37,937 posts, read 17,786,558 times
Reputation: 10366
Quote:
Originally Posted by Freak80 View Post
That's why we have elections: to get rid of the bad actors.
How'd that work out in the last presidential election?
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Old 10-20-2017, 10:38 AM
 
45,103 posts, read 26,276,555 times
Reputation: 24840
Quote:
Originally Posted by Freak80 View Post
That's why we have elections: to get rid of the bad actors.
And four years later at best. Bush had two terms and so did Obama no matter your leanings thats eight years of a bad actor...and if you're a libertarian, its 16 years! Ahh the damage they have done in that period.
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Old 10-20-2017, 10:47 AM
 
Location: CT
3,440 posts, read 2,513,641 times
Reputation: 4639
Quote:
Originally Posted by Freak80 View Post
Libertarians want the freedom to oppress others. They simply want the freedom to take away someone else's freedom. And they don't want the government standing in their way.

Libertarians dislike the government for the same reason that the schoolyard bully dislikes the teacher and the school principal.
I've read most of this thread, where do you get that Libertarians want to oppress others? Do you mean reducing or eliminating federal rule vs state and local choice?
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Old 10-20-2017, 10:50 AM
 
Location: USA
18,453 posts, read 9,090,926 times
Reputation: 8492
Quote:
Originally Posted by Loveshiscountry View Post
How'd that work out in the last presidential election?
Can you please be more specific?
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