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Telemakhostoday at 2:34 PM2 repliesview on HN

Let's say she has ten employees. They all voluntarily agree to work for her: slavery is illegal, so people work for others on a consensual basis. Both the employer and employee negotiated and consented to a salary or wage schedule for that employee. The employer pays the agreed-upon compensation, and the employee receives it.

If the company makes an unexpectedly large profit, the employer is not obligated to redistribute that to her employees in addition to the already agreed-upon and paid compensation. If the employees think that what they agreed to work for is no longer sufficient, they are welcome to renegotiate their compensation or, if they feel they have been wronged and are being paid less than they are worth, to take their talent to a different employer. After all, everything so far has been consensual. The only thing that would be non-consensual would be obligating the employer to redistribute her profit over and above what had already been negotiated.


Replies

JimmyBucketstoday at 2:49 PM

This completely negates the fact that due to how the labor market is structured, most people who sell their labour to survive are in a disadvantageous position for the negotiation you are talking about. What you are talking about works well in a basic economics text book but does not translate to the real world.

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AndrewKemendotoday at 2:46 PM

> slavery is illegal, so people work for others on a consensual basis

Well there you have it folks case closed.

Slavery is illegal therefore there is no slavery. Geniuses at work indeed

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