I am not the state. And when I look around, a lot of states certainly aren't 'for' or 'by' the people. Maybe you have to start thinking independently, rather than smugly reciting one-liners from school. The state is a large entreprise that gives us some things and forces us to do things and pay money under the threat of violence and incarceration. I argue for voluntaryism, the notion that people enter into contracts and relationships by their own free will and without force, which is fundamentally at odds with most of what the state does.
What you argue has been tried in the early have of the 20th century in the United States where workplace safety laws and minimum wages were ruled unconstitutional based on the theory of free contracting parties. It failed MISERABLY and by miserably I mean it left working people in ... literally ... misery.
BTW, my 'smug one liner' I learned in school was uttered by President Abraham Lincoln who is widely regarded as our nations greatest President.
Why do you say it failed miserably? Compared to what? Why do you think the conditions of that time were a result of legislation being insufficient as opposed to quality of life simply being lower in that period of time?
By the same logic I can say that not having minimum wage in the 12th century was the reason why people were suffering. It's entirely true there wasn't a minimum wage at that time either, but it completely ignores that:
- It would have been impossible to implement during that period because of the way the job market worked and because of the technology of that time.
- Their suffering is attributable to other things than the lack of legislation.
Until advances in technology makes safety regulations and safety equipment cheap, legislating them means putting people out of a job because the employer cannot pay for all of that, so they can't operate their business anymore. Have you ever considered that perhaps that was the case in the early half of the 20th century?
As far as I can tell society and the market does all the heavy lifting and then the government comes and enacts laws for things that were already becoming safer and better. Graphs like this are what lead me to the conclusion I've mentioned:
The conqueror of half the country, who set the stage for federal government uber all?
Oppressive power structures want freedom for large structures at the top (themselves), to enable domination over individuals on the bottom - a lack of workers' rights fits right into this. Libertarians want freedom for the bottom and should only be secondarily concerned with freedom for the top, lest their philosophy be coopted into supporting standard tyranny.
You misquoted me. I didn't say 'smug one liner'. I said you smugly recite it. Using an adverb, meaning that the manner in which is was recited was smug, rather than the quote itself, with which I actually am familiar, though I still think it's way too idealistic and plain wrong for most governments in the world.
Believe it or not - there are states with virtually no working poor and no minimum wage laws.
