Comments on Mutualist Blog: Free Market Anti-Capitalism: "Contract Feudalism"

It's none of their business,Unless it's their busi...

2006-09-23T11:15:00.000-07:00

It's none of their business,
Unless it's their business.

Just as a Fur factory should
overlook their entry level 18 yr
old employee (cage cleaner)
rants on the People for Ethical Treatment of Animals PETA website...

So too, should your governor reinstate
a 15 yr. Veteran State trooper who dismissed for contributing hate comments to
white supremecist websites.

Which do you think is more likely
to be able to seperate his personal
views from his professional conduct?

I'm sure that went over like a lead balloon, Charl...

2005-03-01T21:16:00.000-08:00

I'm sure that went over like a lead balloon, Charles (or should I say Drizzten?).

Do you have a link to the offending post? It sounds like a damn good one.

Having been involved in a job search myself not to...

2005-03-01T08:09:00.000-08:00

Having been involved in a job search myself not too many months ago, I know firsthand how paranoid a job applicant can become that the Human Resources Thought Police are Googling him, and perhaps deciding on the basis of a high internet profile in radical political circles that he "ain't got his mind right."I know the feeling. The day after I wrote a mini-screed about the importance of devolving and privatizing Texas's public education system to the very root of the institution, I walk past my boss's office and see her reading my blog. We work at the Texas Association of School Boards, an entity as firmly committed to public education and taxation as you'll find. We had a quick talk ("I promise not to let me political beliefs interfere with my work"), but I fully expect that after a long enough time, someone will make the connection between my words and where I work, painting me as a liability.

Google my name and my website is up, front and center. I have no doubt some nannying board member, parent, or lawyer would see this as some breach of contract or safety issue and attempt to get me fired.

"But the point is that a priori analysis can tell ...

2005-02-28T16:01:00.000-08:00

"But the point is that a priori analysis can tell you direction but not magnitude."

Well, that's certainly a fair criticism

"'In a truly free market workers would be no worse off than they are now and *might* be much better off' is a claim defensible by a priori arguments. 'In a TFM workers would definitely be much better off' is not. And I read Tucker's claims, and yours in the original post, as closer to the second than the first."

That's a pretty accurate assessment. My assertions concerning the magnitude of change, as opposed to its direction, are the product of a seat-of-the-pants assessment of the effect of different forms of state intervention taken severally, and the synergy between them. But it's counter-factual speculation, and such speculation always runs the risk of talking out your ass. So take it for what it's worth, I guess.

Hm, my skepticism in the last post perhaps came ou...

2005-02-28T06:59:00.000-08:00

Hm, my skepticism in the last post perhaps came out sounding too overbroad. I agree with everything you say about the direction in which all those laws influence the market. As you say, it is a priori self-evident that they cannot increase the bargaining power of labor.

But the point is that a priori analysis can tell you direction but not magnitude. "In a truly free market workers would be no worse off than they are now and *might* be much better off" is a claim defensible by a priori arguments. "In a TFM workers would definitely be much better off" is not. And I read Tucker's claims, and yours in the original post, as closer to the second than the first. Maybe that's a misreading, in which case I apologize, but point out that it's an easy misreading to make.

--Nick Weininger

Nick, I hate to sound like, of all things, a Mise...

2005-02-27T21:45:00.000-08:00

Nick,

I hate to sound like, of all things, a Misean, but some of it is just logical deduction from basic axioms of human behavior. The main effect of current banking laws is to create market entry barriers. The purpose of entry barriers, for the supply of any good or service, is to artificially restrict the supply and raise the price. So it doesn't take any large-scale exercise in econometrics or modeling to deduce that the main effect of market entry barriers in the banking industry is to raise the price of capital relative to labor.

Same goes for land, in spades; it wasn't just Tucker--even Mises and Rothbard argued that illegitimate monopolies on land raised its value relative to labor.

Anything that creates artificial scarcity of land and capital will increase their price in terms of human labor.

But besides the landlord and money monopoly, there's all sorts of other nifty stuff on the books that Tucker didn't have in mind, like the restraints of boycott and sympathy strikes and organizing pickets, the mandate that bargaining units include scabs and that scabs vote in decertification elections, etc., in Taft-Hartley. Seems self-evident to me that that doesn't *increase* the bargaining power of labor.

The problem I have with this analysis is that Tuck...

2005-02-27T16:01:00.000-08:00

The problem I have with this analysis is that Tucker's approach smells of wishful thinking. "Designed to limit" is certainly right. "Effective in limiting"-- maybe, but how does he know? And how do you?

If, as you contend (and I agree), a really free labor market is an unknown ideal, whence such a high level of confidence about what the results of such a market would be? It's plausible that mutual credit, land reform, etc. might make a big difference in favor of workers' bargaining power, but in as large and complex an economy as ours is, I think it's also plausible that they'd make hardly any difference at all.

Now this doesn't really weaken the case for freedom, since the regulations whose removal you think would be so effective are wrong in themselves, and so there can be no objection to removing them and seeing what happens. But libertarianism (of whatever variety) is so easily, and so often, characterized as utopian that I think it important to take considerable care when predicting outcomes.

--Nick Weininger

Thanks, Beowulf. And thanks for reminding me of t...

2005-02-26T17:58:00.000-08:00

Thanks, Beowulf.

And thanks for reminding me of that Idaho case, Larry. When you posted it on the VCM list, I meant to include it in something like this contract feudalism post, but I forgot about it.

This reminds me of the guy in Idaho who was fired ...

2005-02-26T08:45:00.000-08:00

This reminds me of the guy in Idaho who was fired for attending an environmentalists meeting. The Idaho Supreme Court decision was "that the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution does not establish a “public policy” supporting free speech/free association. Thus under Idaho’s “at-will” doctrine where an employee can be fired at any time for any reason so long as it doesn’t violate “public policy,” the Idaho Court held that the firing was fine because free speech/free association is not a public policy of Idaho"

Feudalism indeed. No worker has any rights at all by this case,Very scary, Larry Gambone

Excellent post, am gonna send a few of my British ...

2005-02-25T17:03:00.000-08:00

Excellent post, am gonna send a few of my British Trot fellow bloggers over here to read it I hope.