Labor rights, who owns them?

You can own something, or the government can own something, but you can’t both own the same thing.

It’s no surprise, then, that the most fundamental way to characterize economies is by the level of private ownership enjoyed. Economists take three very basic and broad categories (labor, capital, and land) of stuff, and examine whether the rights of ownership are with individuals or thegovernment. Prosperous economies are rooted in more individual ownership rights, while poor economies have more ownership in the hands of government.

So far, so simple, and it’s a good lead into the minimum wage issue, which is a hot topic both in the Commonwealth and the United States. The underlying issue is this: Who owns labor–the laborer, or the government? It’s more profound than mere economics, and is downright philosophical. Were you born free, or are you owned by your government?

In days of old (“when knights were bold…”), feudal systems kept the peasants under the power grip of kings and princes. Modern societies have a different twist, and the economic story of this century is how governments don’t have to force people to give up their labor rights. People–via the ballot box or revolutions–are happy to give these rights to the government.

A minimum wage–at any level–transfers the ownership of labor from the laborer to the government.

To souls that value freedom, the ownership of one’s own labor seems like a pretty fundamental right, a philosophical no-brainer. We weren’t, however, built for freedom as a species, and most people would rather have the government own their labor than retain their own rights to it. When the masses cry out for the government to enforce minimum wages, or raise those wages, they are essentially asking the government to take more ownership of the labor markets.

The two largest revolutions of this century were waged not for freedom, but in order to give governments total ownership of labor, which is what we know as socialism. The workers’ paradises of China and the U.S.S.R. were the utopian results. People are willing to kill, and be killed, in order to be relieved of ownership of their own labor. Freedom is a spiritual poison to most. People are far more comfortable with the concept of secret police and labor camps–if they weren’t, then we wouldn’t have secret police and labor camps. Society demands it.

Economics can be brought more into alignment with human nature when we take this premise: The most fundamental need of most people is for authority. There are few economic–or social– issues that aren’t touched by this fact. Pointy headed economists might live in rational and mathematically precise little worlds, but when projecting such rationality on the world at large, they open up a Pandora’s box of misunderstandings.

A rational discourse on labor rights is, therefore, impossible in society at large. It runs afoul of the basic emotions that drive the species, and nothing will ever change that.