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From: fagin@ucbvax.ARPA (Barry Steven Fagin)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: The libertarian solution to probs. of occup. safety
Message-ID: <7505@ucbvax.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 27-May-85 18:01:39 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.7505
Posted: Mon May 27 18:01:39 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 29-May-85 23:52:59 EDT
References: <466@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP>
Reply-To: fagin@ucbvax.UUCP (Barry Steven Fagin)
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Lines: 59

>... what
>about the problems of worker safety and health that OSHA was intended
>to address?  ...
>
>Let us have [trumpets, please] the Libertarian Solution to the
>problems of occupational risk.  And make sure it's a simple one.
>
>Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes

(Ta-rum-ta-ta-tum!)
Try this one: enforce laws that guarantee sanctity of contract, individual
rights, property rights, and establish standards of negligence.  When
an employee has foreign substances introduced into his body, a violation
of rights (i.e. a crime) has occurred, and those responsible owe him
compensation.  If, in our desire for occupational safety, we focused
not on the "public good" but on individual rights, employers might
just find that unsafe workplaces cost money; an awful lot of money.

This solution is NOT simple (sorry, Richard, but I did my best (:-)).  
It isn't perfect, of course,
and even in Libertaria one must deal with elusive concepts like
negligence, what exactly is contracted when employers higher employees,
and so on.  However, this approach would still be MORE effective than
our current policy of giving employers specific rules and standards to hide
behind.  Don't forget that OSHA, as a political agency, can be lobbied.
Employers can (and do!) influence it and get standards passed leaving
workers LESS protected than they would be in Libertaria.  So often,
proponents of regulating employer/employee relations ignore this.

An individual-rights oriented approach to worker safety has other
advantages.  How should we balance the consumer's desire for
cheap chemical products with the safety of those who produce them?
Currently, because this balance is deemed to be a "social goal",
we attempt to achieve it through an agency with coercive power
(OSHA), which establishes by fiat what is permissible and what
is not.  This is like fine tuning your TV set with a sledgehammer.
If widgets can be produced more cheaply with no
additional risk to those who manufacture them, OSHA has no
incentive to lower expensive safety standards for widget manufacturers.
If people are dying due to inhaling widget-grease
fumes, OSHA will conduct a 2-year study,
appropriate legislation wil get stuck in some congressional commitee,
and nothing will happen until Jane Fonda wins an Oscar for her heartbreaking 
portrayal of the wife of a widget maker with terminal cancer.
By contrast, if employers know that getting a jury convinced that
their company poisons its employees will cost them money, 
they've got incentive to develop cheap, effective safety measures.
Likewise, if they can get rid of unnecessary protective gear,
their powerful drive to cut costs and make more money will lead
them to do it, quickly.

So often, there's no conflict at all between the things that most
of you out there want (safe workplaces, cheap necesseties, clean
air and water), and individual rights.  The libertarian solution
to occupational safety problems illustrates this quite well.

--Barry
-- 
Barry Fagin @ University of California, Berkeley