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justice is fairness in all your relationships. That is, is it fair for the government to take a larger percentage of the rich minority's money than the rest of the people? I use Martin Luther King Jr.'s definition of a just and unjust law. A Just law is a law that affects all people equally. An unjust law is a law that the majority enforces upon the minority and not enforce upon itself.
All good in theory, except that people vary in any number of characteristics. Hence you have rules for
positively discriminating when it comes to people with disabilities, and the types of positive discrimination vary according to the disability. A universally enforced law which does not take into account inherent differences in people is naive. Think of employment laws regarding maternity leave. Are they biased against men?
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I apologize. To clarify, I do not think man should live outside of society, Man needs one another. Each man in a relationship has something to offer. The parent chooses to have a child it doesn't just happen. I believe that capitalism is more cooperative than socialism. In capitalism each man exchanges something for something voluntarily. In a socialist society, it is impossible to quit your job, or engage in a private dealing with another person without being prosecuted.
You are talking from idealistic cases. In fact, under
unregulated capitalism, most people have the option of work for bastard employer #1, #2, ... #n, or starve. The labour market is a monopsony--that is, there are many sellers (workers selling their skills), and few buyers (employers). That puts workers automatically at a disadvantage, and hence trade unions are a means of offsetting this inequality. As for socialist society, there has
never been a socialist society, so you are spouting nonsense again. If you're talking about authoritarian state capitalism, as in the former USSR, you will still find that labour mobility was possible.
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Please explain exploitation to me.
For a simplistic example, let's assume there are no labour laws, minimum wages--it's the free market utopia. We'll imagine a worker--let's call him Emo. Let's say Emo's contribution in labour to the factory is worth $1000 (i.e. the value he adds to the products he works on). However, because of competition for a job in that factory, different workers have underbid for the position (after all, they'll starve if they don't get a job), resulting in a market equilibrium pay of $500. Emo knows that if he demands more than $500 will lose his job (and other starving unemployed workers will quickly step in to fill his shoes at no cost to the factory), so he cannot claim his fully deserved pay. Thus, Emo ends up being exploited because he is not fully remunerated for his services to the firm. Er, ceteris paribus (all other things being equal), as you need to say in Economics 101.
Now the profit-maximising firm decides that it needs to cut costs. So it turns off the fans that were keeping the workers cool, and turns off the drinking fountain, since it was running up the water bill. It also decides that scheduled tea breaks, which the workers are being paid for, are an additional burden, and removes that too. The firm also notices that some workers are popping out for a quick cigarette, and thereby sneaking breaks, so it allows the workers to smoke while they work. Also, it stops hiring cleaners as frequently, letting them come in once a month instead of every day, since that's just wasteful.
Because of all these, we need such things as minimum wages (which puts a minimum on how low the firm can undercut their workers' wages), labour standards (to prevent firms from abusing their workers), welfare (so that people don't starve to death while unable to find work), etc. All these are value-laden, but the free market cannot determine "right" levels of values, only what the laws of supply and demand tell it to. Since one of the good things about humanity is the ability to rise up beyond the invisible hand and create a just order where previously there was none, these laws are in place to prevent the likes of 19th century industrial conditions from happening again. Of course, not every labour market is monopsonistic, but the vast majority are, and hence these rules seek to prevent exploitation. You need only visit a Third World country to see how horrible the conditions are for workers who do not benefit from these enforced standards. A bare minimum of these is not negotiable, but again,
how far these rules should extend are open for debate.
Joel
[This message has been edited by Celsus, 04-28-2003]
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