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Comment by goldstone26 | Hacker News Reader

As a free-market proponent who isn't 100% sold on all of the democratic socialism stuff, I don't understand how anyone can deny that having your literal physical well-being tied to your employment is not an enormous problem for anyone who values the efficient allocation of labor/capital (which should hopefully be everyone?)

It's literally just a cash-equivalent (in that nearly every employer is going to provide a plan, and you'll need to pay for health coverage somehow, whether it be in taxes or in premiums) part of your compensation that is also coincidentally an enormous arbitrary sticking point that makes moving jobs that much more of a pain and danger. But only for the employee, of course.

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What is your definition of a free market? I see this so often but few people seem to understand the inherent contradiction. If a market is truly free it will naturally tend toward monopoly thereby extinguishing itself. If it is regulated to prevent it's own destruction, it ceases to be truly free. In either case it is a transient condition. A brief glorious moment in time that cannot, by its own definition, be anything more than ephemeral.

It’s possible to have laws that increase freedom overall. For example: a law against murder restricts some people (the murderer) but frees many more people from (their victims).

Markets can be regulated to make them more free as well - if we pass a law to enforce mutually agreed upon contracts, some people (those that would go against the contract) have their freedom restricted but the market as a whole now has a trust mechanism allowing them to actually hold others accountable and thus overall it improves society.

“Free market” still implies certain restrictions, like “no stealing the other person’s stuff”.

Could you rephrase that first paragraph without the triple negative?

It sounds like you are saying that having your physical well-being tied to employment is good for efficient allocation of labor/capital, but I have some problems with this claim and I’d like to check that this is what you’re actually saying.

The economic problem is that having well-being tied to employment pushes people towards employment short-term rather than value long-term.

Then there’s the moral problems, which can’t be ignored.

I think he is saying the opposite.

Also, having your health care, retirement and general well-being tied to a particular job reduces employee "freedom", which in his point of view is not efficient.

Because it benefits employers to have desperate employees. If your short-term survival is tied to your job, you'll be willing to take a lot more abuse (and less pay) in order to maintain your core needs.

You literally cannot have comfortable life for the majority of society under a free-market system because it relies on the threat of being outcast from safety. The most socialist era of this country (1930-1980) is widely regarded as the American "Golden Era". I don't think that's a coincidence.

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