by robtherobber | 2026-02-27 11:15:36+00:00
Thanks for clarifying.

> It should be as easy as possible, if the goal is to have an efficient market.

I'd argue that the goal was never to just have an efficient market, for there's absolutely no reason to have a market to begin with, unless society at large benefits from it (not just the employers and the employees, since they don't exist and operate in isolation). The employees, who are real people rather than - or before they are - legal entities, absolutely need protecting. Their bodies can break, their time is limited, and they have tangible and intangible needs that have existed before - and will exist after - businesses were a thing. But once we've adopted this economic model, market efficiency is certainly an aspect to it, agreed. However, it still can't be the most important factor or even one more important than individual rights and their wellbeing.

As such, I'd agree that selling one's own services/skill (labour) should generally be easy, but a fairly long list of failsafes is still unavoidable and necessary simply because businesses are predatory entities by their very nature (a necessary evil, it could be argued), especially after the onset of neoliberalism in the 80s, and there's an inherent imbalance of bargaining power between employers and employees. [0][1][2][3]

Labour is not just a market commodity because the seller is a person embedded in family/community. So I am all for giving employees (but not employers) more control over this relationship (selling labour) for multiple reasons, the two most important being that this is inherently good for democracy and also because what's good for workers/citizens may legitimately override narrow "economic efficiency" metrics. [4][5]

> My evidence is the ever increasing push for "privatization" and loans instead of subsidies. And voters support it, especially in the US. But I believe it is like that in the UK also. For example, I think the UK has reduced its higher education subsidies so that now 18 year olds in the UK also take out student loans, at least borrow much more than before.

I am fairly sure that this push doesn't come from citizens/workers, but from the private business sector, which has all but accaparated the political power in the US and other countries, UK being the closest in terms of mentality and approach (think Thatcher & Reagan). US can now be considered without any exaggeration an oligarchy. It is more or less a consensus among economists and historians that privatisation generally works against the best interest of the citizen and very much to the interest of the wealthy and the business class. [6][7][8][9]

The privatisation of public services and the other mechanisms that you mention have had undeniably negative effects on citizens and workers, and it was very much not a choice they made, but it was forced upon them. US and the UK have been the only two countries that have embraced neoliberalism so fast, blindly, and without guardrails, and it definitely shows. [10][11][12][13][14]

[0] https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/how-economis...

[1] https://www.yesmagazine.org/economy/2020/09/16/failing-globa...

[2] https://www.epi.org/unequalpower/home/

[3] https://bclawreview.bc.edu/articles/3109/files/65b9360509de1...

[4] https://is.muni.cz/el/1423/podzim2016/POL401/um/Pateman_Dahl...

[5] https://economicsociology.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/the...

[6] https://aeon.co/essays/privatisation-is-bad-economics-and-wo...

[7] https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/chiara-cordelli-harms-...

[8] https://truthout.org/articles/the-political-economy-of-preda...

[9] https://weownit.org.uk/privatisation

[10] https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/the-dark-side-of-e...

[11] https://www.eurozine.com/the-us-and-the-uk-after-neoliberali...

[12] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/21/death-...

[13] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/nov/14/the-fatal-flaw-...

[14] https://www.socialeurope.eu/neoliberalism-still-to-shrug-off...