Thank you for making my argument for me. Now, what morally relevantly changes when workers cooperate to produce a widget on behalf of the employer instead of committing crimes for the employer? Do they become non-conscious non-responsible robots? No.
Legal responsibility matching de facto responsibility implies that all firms should be mandated to be worker coops, and rules out employer-employee contracts. In worker coops, the workers are jointly legally responsible for the results
The notion that legal responsibility should align with de facto responsibility and thereby necessitate that all firms operate as worker cooperatives, banning employer-employee contracts, is an egregious affront to the principles of individual rights and freedom. This proposition assumes a collectivist paradigm where the individual’s agency and sovereignty are subsumed under the collective will of the group.
In the moral universe that respects individual liberty, each person has the right to enter into contracts of their own volition. The employer-employee relationship is one such contract, where each party consents to specific terms for mutual benefit. To mandate that all firms must function as worker cooperatives is to obliterate the sanctity of voluntary association, replacing it with a coerced collectivism that is antithetical to the very essence of a free society.
Worker cooperatives may be suitable for some, but to impose this structure universally disregards the diverse needs and aspirations of individuals. It denies the entrepreneur the right to create and lead a venture according to their vision, and it strips employees of the choice to enter into employment agreements that they find advantageous.
Legal responsibility should indeed align with de facto responsibility, but this alignment must be rooted in the acknowledgment of individual rights and the freedom to choose. Forcing all firms to become worker cooperatives would destroy the foundation of capitalism—the system that recognises and protects individual rights, allowing for innovation, productivity, and human flourishing.
The tenet that legal and de facto responsibility match, when applied to property theoretic questions, is the tenet that people have an inalienable right to appropriate the positive and negative fruits of their labor. The latter is the principled basis of property rights. Since employment violates the former principle, it also violates the latter. Employment contracts violate property rights’ principled basis.
Labor isn’t transferable.
The foundations of capitalism need destroying
To assert that legal and de facto responsibility should match is to acknowledge the inviolable sanctity of individual effort and its resultant rewards. This principle, indeed, forms the bedrock of property rights, recognising that a person’s labour and its fruits are inherently theirs to claim. The notion that employment, by its nature, contravenes this principle is a profound misapprehension of the dynamics of a free-market system.
Employment is a voluntary transaction between individuals—an agreement where one chooses to trade their labour for compensation. This exchange is not a violation of rights but a manifestation of them. The freedom to contract, to negotiate terms, and to mutually benefit from each other’s strengths is the essence of a capitalist society.
To suggest that labour isn’t transferable is to deny the autonomy of individuals to dispose of their effort as they see fit. It is to ignore the fact that in a true capitalist society, the individual retains full control over their labour, choosing when, where, and for whom to work based on their own rational self-interest.
The foundations of capitalism do not need destroying; they need understanding and appreciation. They are built upon the recognition of individual rights, the freedom to engage in mutually beneficial exchanges, and the respect for personal property. It is through these principles that human potential is unleashed, innovation thrives, and societies flourish. To dismantle these foundations is to undermine the very source of progress and prosperity.
