>>You're assumption is that I'll reinvest the rest into the company, instead of just pocketing the difference myself. If I can sustain myself comfortably pocketing the difference, why re-invest the rest.

And that's fine too. The $12 profit is appropriate compensation for the person investing their capital into a capital starved sector of the economy. That compensation is incentive for others to invest in that sector.

Self-interest will drive many to reinvest that profit, because profit margins that good are hard to pass up, and don't last forever.

>>Near universal, not universal.

You are idealizing the past. Slavery was totally and utterly commonplace before the emergence of humanistic theological traditions.

>>That doesn't mean that some provisions cannot be universal. As a simple example, a contract between two consenting parties that contracts one to commit a crime on behalf of the other in return for some payment should be universally void, despite both parties consenting.

That is not consensual. Just as you cannot personally violate someone else's rights by depriving them of their property or damaging their person without their consent, you cannot collaborate with someone else to do so. Any contract formed toward that end is an act toward a commission of a violation of someone's rights, and thus appropriately prohibited.

No mutually voluntary contract falls in this category, and thus your example is inapplicable.

>>Leaving aside my personal opinions on any of these issues, I disagree that this opinion is anywhere near common.

I think anyone who's grown up with Western ideals would consider a third party interfering with a consensual interaction between two adults to infantilize and patronize one or both counter-parties and to be a totalitarian imposition.

That's why courts would rule all such contracts valid in the absence of legislative limitations on the freedom of contract. Courts with juries of one's peers which get an opportunity to deliberate on issues are the best arbitrator of justice and most accurate reflection of people's genuine beliefs on the issues.

>>Yet you've not actually addressed them

I have, a number of times. See my point about the 'fair' wage level and the existence of competition at any capital to labor ratio.

The fact that you're making these assertions at all, when they are so unscientific, is irresponsible.

>>They do, by streamlining certain court cases and making particular contract provisions explicitly illegal.

Blanket judgements based on crude generalization are not directly addressing the issue of less resourced parties being at a disadvantage in legal battles.

The issue is the legal disadvantage that less resourced parties face, which has to be addressed by more resources going towards legal counselling and representation for less resourced parties.

>>This is especially true if you allow the empowered group to write contracts which include stipulations to, for example, cap their own liability, or require arbitration outside of the court. Things that the empowered group is more free to do under your proposal.

If the less powerful party provides genuine consent to such a provision, then it's no one else's business. They agreed to those circumstances.

>To circle back to the beginning of this conversation, in the US, the freedom of contract you describe is not recognized

And to circle back to my first point, anti-free-market pro-union ideology is pervasive in the US.

Arguing with libertarians and showing how naive and simplistic their assumptions are is sport for intellectual types in the US.

>>So your original claim, that "unions got laws passed that violate the rights of employers" is untrue: the right is not and has not ever been recognized.

Just like slavery didn't violate anyone's rights 300 years? Just because something isn't recognized by the law doesn't mean it doesn't exist.