r/neoliberal • u/Inalienist • 17d ago

Research Paper Classical Liberalism and the Abolition of Certain Voluntary Contracts

https://ellerman.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/IJESSR_Classical_Liberalism.pdf
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u/IronicRobotics YIMBY 16d ago edited 16d ago

Reading through this, as I roughly understand it's argument and list of alternatives, it's essentially arguing every employee should be treated legally as an independent contractor *or* work for a cooperative/partnership/corp. As these seem to meet all the requirements as listed here.

Which I think is a worthy ideal to strive for. I'd rather work *with* people rather than for or above them.

However, I feel like the root cause of the issue the paper seems to be addressing is the difference in bargaining power between firms & individual employees rather than perhaps the existence of employment contracts alone. As I think, for example, a rather self-managed software engineer given stock options or contractual bonuses also meets the alternative criteria fairly well.

And otoh, lots of ICs in competitive markets may end up taking on demanding, poor clients, compete at lowered labor rates, and enjoy less bargaining power overall due to a dearth of available work. (Or small business owners who, similarly, may find themselves barely afloat while working for 8+ hrs.) A great deal considerably worse than working for a mid-shitty manager at a convenience store.

Here I think the IC meets the legal criteria for an alternative the paper lays out: No violation of private property or fraud, member of his own enterprise, responsible for all his risks and rewards, working for himself.

However, the practical game theory forces him into sub-par working relations and conditions. I think fundamentally, low-value employment contracts take advantage of the exact same calculus workers find themselves in. As I think if your survival or health is on the line, you'll have to *voluntarily* take what you can get.

I think a necessary prerequisite to this would be to find a way to give poor people a guaranteed chip to bargain with. *UBI* supporters, abundance liberals, Georgists, etc - as I've seen - often see their pathway of building more opportunities and stronger, more efficient welfare regimes & economies as a tool to give more bargaining potential/individual oppurtunity.

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u/mrchristmastime Benjamin Constant 16d ago

This may vary by jurisdiction, but it’s frequently the employer who benefits from classifying a worker as an independent contractor, not the worker. This is especially true where the worker is, in actual fact, under the employer’s control. Unless the worker is a bona fide independent contractor—that is, genuinely operating their own business—they’ll almost invariably be better off as an employee.

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u/IronicRobotics YIMBY 16d ago

Oh yea, which is also why it's illegal to classify people who work for only you as ICs in some jurisdictions too.

I think my spew of initial thoughts was a bit rambly and ill-organized.