The right way to do this is via wealth redistribution via taxes. Not letting markets determine appropriate prices simply leads to society wide misallocation of resources.
So does wealth redistribution via taxes (and printing money, which is a significant component of wealth redistribution in all developed countries, and not to the advantage of the poorer people).
The right way to prevent exploitation is to equalize bargaining power. But doing that requires less government interference, not more; free markets aren't perfect, but they do better at equalizing bargaining power than the alternatives. For example, the reason Uber can exploit its gig workers is that its competition, taxis, is already regulated up one side and down the other by the government, and hence is horribly inefficient (and exploitative of its drivers), so Uber can compete simply by being a little bit less inefficient. Nobody has ever even tried to see what an actual free market in transit would come up with.
That is what wealth redistribution via taxes does. For example, a universal basic income gives everyone at least some amount of bargaining power.
No, it doesn't, because universal basic income doesn't create any wealth. Money isn't wealth; you still have to go buy the things you need, and what help is UBI if the things you need are so expensive that UBI won't buy enough of them?
Bargaining power in economic terms means you have the ability to create wealth.
If the problem is a society does not have enough means to produce the basics like food/housing/energy, then that is a different discussion. But I am under the impression most developed countries can and do make enough of these things to keep their populations sheltered and fed.
That doesn't solve the problem I described. It makes it worse. See below.
> If the problem is a society does not have enough means to produce the basics like food/housing/energy, then that is a different discussion. But I am under the impression most developed countries can and do make enough of these things to keep their populations sheltered and fed.
Most developed countries are that way now, but that's without UBI. If UBI were widely available, wealth creation would decrease, because much, if not most, wealth creation in any country is done by people who have to create wealth in order to earn a living. UBI means people no longer have to create wealth to earn a living--at least, that's what the sales pitch will be, and failure to achieve that in the short term will create huge political pressure to increase UBI until it appears to achieve it. But any such achievement can only be temporary.
Now if we were to use advancing technology to make the necessities of life cheaper, that would indeed be progress--but it would be progress not by giving people handouts, but by making the necessities of life cheap enough that nobody needs a handout to get them.
Yes, but it will also be removing all the sweetheart deals that companies now have with governments. (Btw, patents are a big part of this.) The power discrepancy you describe comes from those sweetheart deals. Without them large companies, being extremely inefficient producers of wealth, are open to all kinds of competition.
Btw, the labor laws you speak of do not actually favor labor. For example, minimum wage laws make it harder for people in that wage bracket to earn a living--because minimum wage laws prevent many jobs in that bracket from existing at all. Companies don't mind that: they just automate those jobs. The ones who suffer are the workers who now find jobs much scarcer.
I'm speaking of the power discrepancy between the employer and employee. Many of these sectors move towards a monopoly regardless of government interference. There's just no way a new infrastructure company is going to come in to destabilize, say, city sewers.
> The ones who suffer are the workers who now find jobs much scarcer.
This whole paragraph doesn't make a lot of sense to me. If the assumption is that a minimum wage job is the amount of money you'd need to make in order to survive (arguable) then the ability to create a ton of extra jobs below the subsistence level is useless to society but useful again to the employer.
To be more precise, I was thinking of things like laws that protect people at their workplace (work place safety) or those allowing employees to discuss their wages. The first set are obvious why they are important, and it would take a truly ghoulish argument to be against them, but the second are important as well. Without those there would be complete information asymmetry between the employer and employee. Information asymmetry is a huge problem.
Which only exists because the employer is in a privileged position due to government regulations that favor employers over employees.
That said, there is a fundamental power imbalance between someone who thinks of themselves as an employer (or more precisely, an independent wealth creator, who employs other people to help them) and someone who thinks of themselves as an employee--meaning, someone who just wants a "job" without wanting to think about the business risks that are inherent in any kind of wealth creation. That kind of employee will always be at a disadvantage in bargaining, yes. But you can't fix that problem by government regulation. You can only fix it by helping people to realize that they don't have to think of themselves as employees.
> Many of these sectors move towards a monopoly regardless of government interference.
What sectors are you talking about? Natural monopolies are extremely rare. The original meaning of the word "monopoly" was a government grant giving an exclusive right to sell a particular product.
> If the assumption is that a minimum wage job is the amount of money you'd need to make in order to survive
I made no such assumption. But it is true that many proponents of raising the minimum wage do make such an assumption, in order to argue that the current minimum wage is not enough to live on and so needs to be increased.
> the ability to create a ton of extra jobs below the subsistence level is useless to society
Nonsense. Every job I worked while I was in high school and college was below the subsistence level--I wasn't living on that money, because I was living with my parents (high school) or in a dorm the room and board of which my parents were paying for (college). I was using the money I earned to buy extras that weren't included in the room and board my parents were paying for, and to build up savings for the future. Doing that is a classic way of giving yourself a better start in life. But "you can't live on a minimum wage job" rhetoric takes all those opportunities away.
> Information asymmetry is a huge problem.
I agree. I don't agree, however, that the laws you say "protect" employees actually fix the problem. They don't. I have watched employer-union negotiations from up close. They don't actually help workers at all. In one case I saw, the union signed up to the same deal with the company on day ninety-three of a strike, that the company had offered on day two. Who suffered most because of those extra ninety-one days out on strike? The rank and file union workers. (In the next union election they voted out the union bosses who had managed the strike, but by then it was too late. Nor was the next set of union bosses any better.)
The issue is that the labor has no ability to correct the market - in the same fashion. (Ie: labor cannot exploit and downright _murder_ capital owners - like the owners can and have done. There are laws preventing that.)
If humans are not treated with a higher priority than roi or profit, the business is inherently evil. (Hint; they all are.)
If we have laws for some and not for all - that is to say privatization of all corps with no regulation - that is deplorable and will not end well.
A solution, imho, is for all services required for life, health, education, and safety to be public owned and not corporations.
All other services are owned equally by those that operate them, co-op like.
Free markets can still exist like this.
But hey. That’s not really what capitalists claim to want when they say “free market”; that phrase is a dog whistle for “legal exploitation of the labor pool.”
It is nothing of the kind. It is a perfectly valid description of what government-backed central banks do in all developed countries. It is also a very helpful description since it substitutes plain language for obfuscatory phrases like "quantitative easing".
It is ok to let people with bigger appetites to eat more; but if you cannot be civil and keep wasting food, why wouldn't the others kick you out of the table?
That's why we no longer have piece-work but hourly rates.