Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: $Revision: 1.6.2.16 $; site inmet.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!harvard!think!inmet!nrh From: nrh@inmet.UUCP Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: Re: Red plot foiled at govt. agency Message-ID: <7800332@inmet.UUCP> Date: Wed, 29-May-85 02:15:00 EDT Article-I.D.: inmet.7800332 Posted: Wed May 29 02:15:00 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 3-Jun-85 00:39:11 EDT References: <466@gargoyle.UUCP> Lines: 132 Nf-ID: #R:gargoyle:-46600:inmet:7800332:000:7125 Nf-From: inmet!nrh May 29 02:15:00 1985 >/**** inmet:net.politics / gargoyle!carnes / 5:08 pm May 24, 1985 ****/ >In article <> mms1646@acf4.UUCP (Michael M. Sykora) writes: > >>There's a simple solution to all of this -- get rid of OSHA. > >One thing for which I admire libertarians is their ability to come up >with a simple solution for almost any problem you can name. Mike >points out that you can get rid of all the problems associated with >the existence of OSHA by getting rid of OSHA. How come we never >think of these things. Oh, I don't know. I find that some liberals have marvelously simple solutions to things: workers paid too little? Simple: just make it illegal to pay them that little. Prices getting too high? Why just make it illegal to charge those prices. Given the two types of solutions, that is, eliminating government agencies or making things you don't like illegal, I find myself more comfortable with the former. You don't like SIMPLE solutions? Do you by some chance write any that human lives depend upon? If so, let us know, but I find that my digital watch (number of moving parts = 1) works better than my old mechanical (number of moving parts >> 10) watch, is cheaper, and can be read in the dark by pushing a button (arguably the only moving part). The libertarian solution, a mixture of liability and publicity, has fewer "moving parts" (government regulations), but more subtle and correct feedback mechanisms. > >The 1984 Libertarian Party platform makes a similar recommendation: > > We call for the repeal of the OSH Act. This law denies the > right to liberty and property to both employer and employee, > and it interferes in their private contractual relations. > OSHA's arbitrary and highhanded actions invade property > rights, raise costs, and are an injustice imposed on > business. > >Heaven forbid we should impose an injustice on business, but what >about the problems of worker safety and health that OSHA was intended >to address? Millions of workers are daily exposed to such toxic >substances as lead, cyanide, silica dust, cotton dust, pesticides, >asbestos, and radioactive materials, and many workers are required to >risk their physical safety in various ways. Let's continue this logic, shall we? It'll be tough to have action movies because stunt men must not be allowed to risk their lives. It'll be illegal to get fish from the sea because of the possible danger to fishermen of their working environment. It'll be illegal to be a bicycle delivery person in New York, because of the triple whammy of unsafe conditions (NY traffic), bad environment (toxic junk in air from NY traffic) and dangerous persons (Taking the subway to avoid the two previous hazards lets you in for a fight with subway criminals, right)? The interesting thing about Carnes' paragraph above is that he merely IMPLIES that libertarians advocate exposing people to toxic chemicals. It's possible that Carnes stops at implication because he knows that libertarians do NOT advocate such exposure, but merely the freedom to take hazardous jobs freely, and the responsibility of employers not to mislead (use fraud upon) their employees regarding the danger of a given job. Fraud, of course, is something libertarians frown upon to the extent of making it actionable, whether in Minarchist courts or Anarchist arbitration. In other words, libertarians (and here I mean, of course, "libertarians who agree with me") feel that jobs known to be hazardous should be presented as such, and jobs NOT known to be safe should probably be insured anyhow (How much more would we know about how to measure such things if there were a great deal of money to be made by a private firm which was 99% accurate the about the safety of a given job?) >According to my understanding, libertarians deeply deplore the fact >that thalidomide was not allowed to be marketed in the US; they >profoundly regret the fact that crib safety standards have interfered >with the right of infants to strangle themselves; and they are >outraged by government-imposed safety standards for both airlines and >nuclear power plants. Does this antiregulatory stance extend to the >prohibition of all workplace safety and health regulation as well? For such a foe of simplicity, you certainly apply a lot of it. Here, for example, you mention Thalidomide, which caused birth defects in the children of pregnant women who used it. You didn't mention Beta Blockers, which could have saved 10,000 lives/year in the US, but didn't, because the FDA didn't approve of them (See Milton & Rose Friedman, "Free to Choose", pp 196-197). If we absolutely MUST have government agencies evaluating drugs, why must we give them CONTROL over access to the drugs? One alternative is to cede the agency the right to post warnings on drug packages, for example "UNTESTED", "THOUGHT TO BE SAFE" "KNOWN TO BE SAFE", "THOUGHT TO BE DANGEROUS". This would have made Beta Blockers AND thalidomide available to those willing to take risks. The net effect? Well, as I recall, thalidomide was a mild tranquilizer, thought to be free from side-effects. Few would have risked a drug marked "DANGER - *NOT* FDA-APPROVED", as a means of relaxing themselves. On the other hand, the people who could have been saved by Beta Blockers (they help prevent death after heart attacks) might well have taken them in defiance of the warning. So we'd have a few more deformed children, and (I suspect) a great many more live adults. As for nuclear power plants, the same government you like for giving us OSHA also arbitrarily limits the possible damages of a nuclear accident to some artificially low figure. Why? Because insurance agencies would hardly insure reactors in cities for the amounts of damage they might actually cause. As it is, of course, the government has spoken, and it is the government, not the market, which must be blamed for any artificially imprudent placement or construction of nuclear power plants. As for airline safety, I leave it as an exercise for the reader, but I give you one hint: airlines with records of danger are not going to be more popular than cars with a record of exploding. [I can just hear Carnes screaming: "How many airliners would have to crash before Howard will concede that I'm right?" To which I reply that nothing would keep Ralph Nader from publishing a report "Unsafe at any Altitude" about some dangerous airlines, that there tend to be safety standards even when NOT required by government, and that insurance companies take a vigorous interest in the safety practices of their industrial clients.] >Let us have [trumpets, please] the Libertarian Solution to the >problems of occupational risk. And make sure it's a simple one. The envelope, please..... Ah here we are. The winner is: LIABILITY FOR FRAUD COMBINED WITH A FREE PRESS. What's that? You prefer the government solution? Including, I assume, a government that may not be prosecuted for exposing people to asbestos during their work on WWII ships, nor for the aftereffects on people of the supposedly safe "Agent Orange".