Subject:
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Re: Rights to free goods? (was Re: What happened?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Thu, 1 Jul 1999 16:07:02 GMT
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Viewed:
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1063 times
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Jeff Stembel wrote:
>
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Mike Stanley writes:
> > Jeff Stembel <Dragonelf1@aol.com> wrote:
> > > But Unemployment runs out. What if the only people hiring are minimum wage
> > > jobs? Oh, wait! Larry doesn't believe in the Minimum Wage (I believe he
> > > said so a couple months ago), does he! I guess "A" will be working in a
> > > sweat shop for $1.10 an hour!
> >
> > Ignoring the minimum wage issue, who cares if the only jobs available
> > are minimum wage?
>
> If he gets hit by a truck (this is what the original post was about), he'd be
> refused medical attention because he has no benefits and can't afford it on his
> own. Through no fault of his own, society and the government have just
> condemned him to death or disability. Since he has no disability protection,
> chances are he'd get fired from his minimum wage job and be unable to get
> another one. Oh, well, I guess he's just not trying hard enough, is he?
I think the problem here is that you are looking at the libertarian
perspective piecemeal. As I understand it from what Larry has said is
that since everything is connected, a truly (or at least much more than
the one we have now) free market will generate a "fair" minimum wage. If
you really need a cashier at McDonalds, and it is cost effective for
that cashier to be healthy (and I believe it is), and retention of
employees is valuable (and I believe it is), then the compensation
package offered to cashiers at McDonalds will be sufficient to cover a
decent health plan. That plan may not cover purely discretionary
services such as facelifts, or treatments for conditions with low chance
of positive results compared to cost. Disability insurance of some sort
would presumably be provided (and if the person choses to work at
McDondalds for 5 cents an hour more than at Wendy's, but Wendy's uses
that 5 cents an hour to provide disability insurance, and the McDonalds
employee choses not to seek disability insurance himself, oh well, maybe
a charity will come to his aid, or perhaps society will voluntarily
realize that there is some cost to society of people making this wrong
decision, and will somehow provide disability insurance, perhaps with a
tax to the corporation or individuals who chose not to have disability
insurance). My guess is that the employee would have some disability
insurance. The trucking company would also have some liability (unless
the person was an idiot and walked out in the middle of a highway
because he felt like it). If there are lots of hit and runs by trucks,
society might chose to tax trucks to pay for disability payments to
those who are victims of a hit and run. Note here that this isn't some
arbitrary tax. Its a tax hitting a specific set of people, because those
people are attempting to steal anothers goods by not owning up to their
responsibility when their truck hits someone and they don't stop.
That I think is the point of libertarianism. Everything has a cost, and
the cost should be recovered from those who are incurring the cost, not
from a nebulous "because it feels good" mandantory tax (individuals may
still chose to do things because "it feels good", that's their right,
they're using their resources to do it).
--
Frank Filz
-----------------------------
Work: mailto:ffilz@us.ibm.com
Home: mailto:ffilz@mindspring.com
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