Recall that your initial assertion was that "The employee should negotiate “fireable offenses” into his contract." I'm not claiming that this particular "freedom" to openly criticize your employer deserves government intervention, but I really don't see any of your proposed solutions as generally viable. Negotiating that into a contract is not something a significant number of people can do.

>1. Work for a company that you don’t feel the need to publicly criticize.

Absolutely, in an ideal world everyone should. But many people do not and switching jobs can be difficult, particularly for people outside the tech bubble that HN exists in.

>2. Start your own company.

Not everyone can do that, and the skills required to start and run a successful company are almost completely orthogonal to those most people develop in their careers.

>3. Increase your market value thru hard work to improve your negotiating position.

There's a fixed number of people that can be at the top of any market (in proportion to market size), this will only work for a handful of people. It's not a general solution.

>I don’t want to make assumptions. Please describe forms of coercion other than (threats of) physical violence.

Coercion is the opposite of freedom, and in general coercion describes a party "forcing" another party to act in some way contrary to their preference either by force, implied force, or some form of a threat. As an example, a child could be coerced into cleaning their room by their parent shutting down the wifi until the chores were done.

>>In this case there technically _is_ coercion by men with guns, albeit a degree or two removed. People need money to keep a roof over their head, and they need jobs to receive that money.
>A man’s need for food does not override my natural property rights. He must use his mind to productively participate in commerce. If he does not, he will perish.

Are you trying to say that people who don't productively use their minds to participate in society deserve to die? How exactly would a hypothetical nonpunishable disparagement clause in an employment contract affect your "natural property rights" in any way?

>>My point here is that there are certain things which the invisible hand of the free market is unable to touch due to the dynamics of the market. That is, in my and many other people's opinion, where the government needs to step in and force the market to make decisions it would be otherwise unwilling to do. This has already been necessary many times before in American history, such as with the ending of slavery, child labor, and the introduction of minimum wage laws. In all of these cases government intervention was necessary to reduce human suffering and raise people's quality of life. Yes, some "market value" was lost in the process but to people with empathy that was a completely worthwhile trade.

>From a consequentialist framework: I suspect the government’s cure will be worse than the disease.

Do you think that the "government's cure" of ending slavery has left people worse off? Are children worse off now that they're required to stay in schools instead of working in mines or textile mills?

Even in the case of this hypothetical nonpunishable disparagement clause, how exactly would it leave people worse off?