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"Labour Market" (lemmy.ml)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/microblogmemes@lemmy.world
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[–] 7 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Capitalism doesn’t have to be coercive to be wrong.

Capitalism is, necessarily, coercive. You can find other things wrong with it, but this is an inherent characteristic of reserving ownership to a "landed" class.

Even some perfectly voluntary capitalism with a UBI would still be wrong because capitalism inherently violates workers’ inalienable rights to workplace democracy

But it achieves that end through the process of "Capital Strikes" (ie, lockouts, hiring freezes, speculative hording, etc). And capital strikes are only possible via coercive force (ie, putting a guy with a gun in an industrial site who shoots any worker that tries to enter and engage in production).

The much stronger framing is alienable vs. inalienable rights.

Rights are legal fictions. There is no such thing as an inalienable right in a material sense. You show me a right, I'll show you a guy with a gun who can alienate it.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago

    Here's the thing: as long as poverty exists, poverty exists as a threat to get people to do things without their full consent. In some cases, like in the case of sex work, that can be actual sex, in which case, it cannot be faithfully said that all sex is fully consensual as long as it's agreed to out of survival fears. In other cases, like for example minimum wage labor, people are accepting minimum wages out of fear of having nothing, and so they accept anything. This complete lack of bargaining power is behind low wages, dangerous conditions, terrible hours, poor treatment, etc.

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  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 child)

    Alienated ≠ violated
    An inalienable right isn't one that should not be alienated, but rather can't be alienated. For labor's rights, responsibility can't be alienated at a material level. Consent isn't sufficient to transfer responsibility to another. For example, a contract to transfer responsibility for a crime is invalid regardless of consent.

    Legal rights can be fictions but also can be based on ethics.

    Workers consent to employment unlike kings. Inalienability shows it's invalid

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    Consent isn’t sufficient to transfer responsibility to another.

    These are legalistic concepts, not materialistic concepts.

    For example, a contract to transfer responsibility for a crime is invalid regardless of consent.

    A contract is valid when it is enforced. And any cartel boss will tell you how "illegal" contracts are regularly enforced between criminal organizations.

    Past that, the very subject of crime and enforcement is subjective, as illustrated by the various states of the drug trade, human trafficking, and stolen property. More than one pawn shop has subsisted primarily on fenced goods. The legality of their stock does not appear to inhibit the success of their business.

    Legal rights can be fictions but also can be based on ethics.

    Ethics has no material basis.

    Workers consent to employment unlike kings.

    This doesn't mean anything.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 child)

    Consent and responsibility are descriptive not legal concepts there.

    Opposing coercion is an ethic. Certain material facts logically imply ethics. A brain has finitely many states it can be in. The whole state space is finitely representable. Minds can be mathematically modeled completely in principle. The concept of strong attractors and flows in the space of all possible minds is thus coherent. The transcendent truth about ethics is unknowable, but that doesn't allow denial of moral realism.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    Consent and responsibility are descriptive not legal concepts there.

    When you're discussing contracts and property - which is also a legal concept - they absolutely are legal concepts.

    Minds can be mathematically modeled completely in principle

    https://www.amazon.com/When-We-Cease-Understand-World/dp/1681375664

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    Sure, consent and responsibility can be legal concepts. De facto responsibility, which is the "who did the deed" sense of responsibility, is what can't be transferred even with consent. Responsibility in this sense is descriptive. Property and contract play no role in determining who is de facto responsible for an action

    The moral claim is that the de facto responsibility should match legal responsibility. This is why contract to transfer legal responsibility is invalid @microblogmemes

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago* (1 child)

    De facto responsibility, which is the “who did the deed” sense of responsibility, is what can’t be transferred even with consent.

    The process by which de facto responsibility is established is a legal process. The adjudication of blame is a legal decision. Case in point, the current dust up over abortion rights involves states assigning culpability for homicide of a fetus to anyone aiding a pregnant woman in pursuing an abortion.

    Everything about this is a legal issue:

    • The legality of the original act

    • The culpability of individual participants

    • The definition surrounding the concept of "aid"

    • The definition surrounding the concept of "pregnant"

    • The definition surrounding the concept of "abortion"

    Property and contract play no role in determining who is de facto responsible for an action

    Property and contract play a role in determining whether an action is socially permissible.

    The moral claim is that the de facto responsibility should match legal responsibility.

    Morals aren't objective and the idea of "responsibility" is relative. Parents are considered responsible for the acts of a child, but the legal definition of "parent" and "child" vary by legal jurisdiction. The core concept of "responsibility" is therefore rooted in the legal framework that assigns culpability.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago* (1 child)

    "Responsibility" has different senses. One must be clear which sense is being discussed. Who is legally culpable for an action is what I am talking about with "legal responsibility." De facto responsibility is a descriptive concept independent of whether there even is a legal system to impute legal responsibility. Property and contract determine the legal consequence of being held culpable. De facto responsibility is about purposeful results of deliberate actions. Morals have an objective part

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    De facto responsibility is a descriptive concept independent of whether there even is a legal system to impute legal responsibility.

    Absent a system to impute legal responsibility, this is an entirely subjective question. In fact, the whole reason we have courts and juries is to answer the question relative to the local norms. That's why jury selection is such a pivotal part of the trial process.

    Property and contract determine the legal consequence of being held culpable.

    They determine the perceived de facto responsibility from the perspective of an outside observer, as well. Law influences public opinion. A country in which smoking is taboo will treat the harms inflicted by second hand smoke as far more material than one in which it is decriminalized or socially encouraged. Same with getting vaxxed/masking up during a pandemic. Or driving while intoxicated.

    De facto responsibility is about purposeful results of deliberate actions.

    It can just as easily be defined as the neglect of certain actions. But, again, this depends on the social standards of one's neighbors, which are then commonly enshrined into regional laws.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago* (1 child)

    Who is responsible for smoking remains the same. It is just the legal consequences associated with that action that change.

    The kind of responsibility being discussed when someone neglects their duties is different from what is being discussed when we are talking about de facto responsibility.

    A group of people is de facto responsible for a result if it is a purposeful result of their joint intentional actions. Production is a planned and deliberate process. Workers are de facto responsible

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    Who is responsible for smoking remains the same.

    The cigarette manufacturers? The retailers? The smokers themselves? Ad agencies? Nicotine? Workplace anxiety? Who IS responsible?

    The kind of responsibility being discussed when someone neglects their duties is different from what is being discussed when we are talking about de facto responsibility.

    It is not, because its not objectively certain where the buck stops.

    A group of people is de facto responsible for a result if it is a purposeful result of their joint intentional actions.

    A group of people can engage in individually virtuous actions while generating a villainous result. The classic example is the "Tragedy of the Commons". Six individual shepherds grazing on a hill that can only support five flocks. Each doing an honest day's work, but collectively destroying each others' livelihoods.

    Individuals lack perfect information and cannot be held culpable for unforeseen consequences.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago* (1 child)

    The smoker is de facto responsible. Other kinds of responsibility could extend some blame to the manufacturers etc. Those are not responsibility in the de facto sense.

    For example, someone sells a car to a person that commits a crime using it; the car seller is not involved in the planning or execution of the crime. The car purchaser is solely de facto responsible for the crime. I am using responsibility in the narrow de facto sense.

    The tragedy of the commons is not a purposeful result

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    The smoker is de facto responsible.

    Then why do companies need to spend enormous sums on advertising and marketing?

    Those are not responsibility in the de facto sense.

    You seem to suggest there is no de facto responsibility for lying.

    someone sells a car to a person that commits a crime using it; the car seller is not involved in the planning or execution of the crime

    A mob boss throws one of his cronies the keys to his car. "If my rival ends up dead tomorrow, the car is yours. By the way, he's going to be at the corner of 5th and Main tomorrow."

    But he's not de facto responsible, because he contracted a third party to handle the dirty work.

    The tragedy of the commons is not a purposeful result

    The tragedy of the commons is a foreseeable consequence of individual actions.

    You can see this play out in a game of Jenga. Everyone is pulling blocks out of the base of the tower. Asserting that the last person to pull a block is "de facto responsible" neglects culpability of each of the other participants.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago* (1 child)

    What do you mean?

    There is de facto responsibility (DFR) associated with any intentional action.

    The mob boss situation is different from the car situation I was presenting The mob boss and his crony are both jointly DFR. The mob boss participated in the planning of the crime. Furthermore, the situation is a conspiracy.

    Each party is DFR for their contribution to the tragedy of the commons at a bare minimum. DFR doesn't subsume other notions of culpability

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    There is de facto responsibility (DFR) associated with any intentional action.

    An act performed under misinformation isn't intentional.

    The mob boss situation is different

    Only because the mob boss's intent is made explicit in the example. The same boss who owns a car dealership, and all his gang members just happen to get cheap cars there that they use to commit crimes, we're back to your example.

    Each party is DFR for their contribution to the tragedy of the commons

    That doesn't mean anything. There's no logical consequence that flows from it.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago*

    It depends on how the misinformation relates to the act. There can be cases where such an act is intentional

    That sounds like a conspiracy. There are cases where the DFR party isn't imputed legal responsibility because there isn't enough evidence to determine who is DFR. It means we don't know not that there isn't a fact of the matter.

    Natural resources are not fruits of labor. They should be socially owned. Each worker coop DFR for greenhouse gases would be liable to society

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