Currently viewing the tag: "crooked timber"

Coercion in Employment: Putting the Concept of Coercion to Work

By On July 16, 2012 · 40 Comments · In Academic Philosophy

[Editor's Note: The following is a guest contribution from Scott Anderson, professor of  philosophy at the University of British Columbia. Scott's not a libertarian, but he'a friend and a good philosopher who specializes in coercion. He offered to share his reflections on the subject in light of the recent BHL-Crooked Timber Debate.]

Do [...]

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Liberal BHLs and Labor BHLs

By On July 12, 2012 · 13 Comments · In Libertarianism

Our recent series of discussions on libertarianism and workplace coercion has led me to formulate yet another distinction among types of BHLs. Liberal BHLs and Labor BHLs.

One way to distinguish Liberal BHLs and Labor BHLs is by which non-libertarians they cite as influences. Liberal BHLs like John Tomasi, Matt Zwolinski, Jacob Levy, [...]

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Libertarianism Means Worker Empowerment

By On July 10, 2012 · 102 Comments · In Democracy, Exploitation, Left-libertarianism, Libertarianism, Social Justice

Advocates of free markets and advocates of worker empowerment often find themselves at odds, as is attested by the current controversy between Bertram, Robin, and Gourevitch on the one hand and members of this blog on the other.

This was not always so. In the 19th century, free-market libertarians were in the forefront [...]

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Libertarianism, Freedom, and Coercion

By On July 9, 2012 · 13 Comments · In Academic Philosophy, Current Events, Libertarianism, Liberty

Bertram, Robin and Gourevitch (BRG) don’t think that libertarianism takes seriously enough the ways in which workers’ freedom is restricted in a capitalist economy. Jason Brennan thinks that BRG misunderstand the sort of libertarianism to which we Bleeding Heart Libertarians are attracted. I see a bit more merit in BRG’s [...]

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Cruelty and power

By On July 7, 2012 · 15 Comments · In Current Events, Economics, Libertarianism

I’m mostly offline for a while so I won’t be taking part in the labor discussions for a while yet. I haven’t had time to properly think about Kevin Vallier’s attempt at resolution at the level of the moral order– and I still haven’t read Gaus’ Order of Public Reason, which I suspect [...]

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My Bottom Line on Worker Freedom

By On July 6, 2012 · 32 Comments · In Exploitation

Bertram and company’s criticisms of BHL have gotten some attention. Some of my fellow BHLs think their arguments are important. I’m not as impressed. I think their arguments miss the mark.* They have not yet produced a real objection to BHL.

Here’s the bottom line. We BHLs are for the most part not hard, deontological [...]

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Why Are Employers So Mean?

By On July 6, 2012 · 49 Comments · In Exploitation, Libertarianism, Social Justice

Chris Bertram, Corey Robin and Alex Gourevitch have given us a lot to think about in their recent essay at Crooked Timber. There’s a lot I want to say about it. Rather than saving it all up for one large post though, I thought I’d take things one point at a time. And I want [...]

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Denmark vs. France: On Worker Liberation

By On July 5, 2012 · 30 Comments · In Current Events

From the Wall Street Journal and Heritage Foundation Index of Economic Freedom:

DENMARK:

Property Rights            90.0
Business Freedom       99.1
Labor Freedom      92.1
Monetary Freedom     80.7
Trade Freedom             [...]

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Libertarianism, the Workplace and the Reconciling Power of the Social-Moral Order

By On July 5, 2012 · 22 Comments · In Libertarianism, Liberty, Rights Theory

I am delighted that Chris Bertram, Corey Robin and Alex Gourevitch (BRG) decided to engage BHL on workplace coercion. For my part, I will be disappointed if this discussion merely replays century-old arguments between socialists and liberals about the freedom of workers under capitalism. My aim is to demonstrate that BRG’s central [...]

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Freedom and Work

By On July 4, 2012 · 30 Comments · In Libertarianism, Liberty, Rights Theory, Uncategorized

Crooked Timber just posted an article that discusses the posts I’ve written about the workplace. I enjoyed reading it (also- these follow ups) and I’ve been thinking about where we disagree. One charge is that I either am a garden-variety liberal or I am not [...]

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