this post was submitted on 11 Nov 2023
33 points (90.2% liked)

Work Reform

10012 readers
323 users here now

A place to discuss positive changes that can make work more equitable, and to vent about current practices. We are NOT against work; we just want the fruits of our labor to be recognized better.

Our Philosophies:

Our Goals

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

"Inalienable Rights: Part I The Basic Argument" Against the Employer-Employee System and for Workplace Democracy

https://www.ellerman.org/inalienable-rights-part-i-the-basic-argument/

This article discusses how the contemporary system of labor relations treats employees as things rather than persons thus denying their humanity, and violating rights they have because of their personhood. Instead, work should be democratically controlled by the people doing it

@workreform

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Responsibility's inalienability is a descriptive fact not a moral claim. Giving up de facto responsibility is impossible.

The moral basis here is the principle that legal and de facto responsibility match. The legal system applies this principle when it holds the person that actually committed the crime legally responsible for it. When an innocent is held legally responsible, that is a miscarriage of justice.

The fact that the workers are oppressed is what the argument is establishing

[–] unfreeradical 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I am not rejecting the sensibility or agreeability of the principle on its merits as a moral principle, but I do reject your characterization of any representation of responsibility as being a "descriptive fact".

I feel, unfortunately, that such conflations represent a thematic flaw latent throughout the argument.

Simply because we approve of particular facets of social relationship and social structure, we may not assert them as facts, transcending our preferences, whether individual or shared, except as that they are facts of our preferences.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Responsibility has many meanings. We are referring specifically to de facto responsibility, which is descriptive concept about who intentionally did an action. De facto responsibility's meaning combined with facts about humans imply its inalienability. We can imagine fictional scenarios where the facts about humans are different such that de facto responsibility is alienable.

In reality, the whole product of the firm is a premeditated and purposeful result of the workers' actions. @workreform