Topic: Women and free market - page 2. (Read 5500 times)

Not during pregnancy. About (late) abortion, even libertarians are divided.


Don't say that too loud. 


Not *my* values, but the values the market enforces. That's exactly my point.


A woman who temporarily cannot offer her service in the marketplace cannot satisfy others, although as said, bearing a child is a service to society, but is left uncompensated, although undoubtedly, most people would agree it's a necessary service for humanity. Hence, there is a tragedy of the commons of the market here.


In such contracts, the woman is still in a disadvantaged position, i.e. has more to lose, which may manifest in the contract's terms in one way or another.


Your thinking is too black and white here. The choice is not an easy choice, like going to the cinema tonight or not. But the biological clock women feel ticking does not mean they're enslaved to their instincts either. They of course mostly make a conscious choice. I merely state they may prefer to live in a society where they feel more secure and more rewarded for taking on this endeavor.


In western countries, birth rates have long been stagnating at best. States seem to see the need to incentivize with tax reliefs, family allowances etc. Overpopulation occurs in poorer countries, which mostly are also more patriarchal.


Joel, don't go strawman and false dilemma. *I* don't want to force anyone to do anything. I'm merely an observer and wondering (or not) why all those libertarian conventions and festivals are essentially sausage fests.

If you have some kind of point, you're going to have to make some effort to tell me what it is. I'm not going to try to figure out how this could possibly be a point of some kind. Women have the free choice to procreate if they wish to or not to if they don't wish to. I cannot see how having a choice can be a bad thing. But if you can, you're going to have to explain it.

Even assuming this is true, so what? Is there some need to incentivize procreation? Is the human race in danger of extinction? Is your point that if people are free they will do what they want to do and they won't do what *you* want them to do? If so, I say great. People aren't yours to experiment on and social and biological pressures shouldn't force them to do things that aren't in their interest. If that means less procreation, that's fine with me. If it means more, that's fine with me too. I don't share your need to manage how people choose to live their own lives.

+1
It's not that hard to understand. They actually have an advantage, a choice men don't have.


Nor women! Nobody would have to contract them, since nobody would have to be a mother.


Here you make it clear why having a kid is a "disadvantage" under your values.


Try to understand something before criticizing it. Visibly you don't really get how market incentives work.
Market incentives will push people to satisfy others with their actions, in order to have themselves satisfied. Market will "incentivize procreation" as long as people believe such procreation satisfy them.

Relax, the human race will not voluntarily extinguish itself, despite some environmentalists outcries.


In a free society, contracts could be made to give that guarantee, if that makes people feel better. These contract could foresee things like pensions, sharing of rights/responsibilities, conditions under which one of the parents would lose his parental rights etc. All this can be foresee in an enforceable contract. But it must be contractual (i.e., voluntary). Nobody should be forced to be a parent.

Exactly. Is that a bad thing?

I have two kids. My wife's salary almost doubles the first year and has to work less when we have a baby. As if our actions benefit anyone else. In turn, we have to submit the kid to an education program determined by the State, so I guess that's to ensure at least some benefit to society.

In the ideal free market circumstances, rational people would only procreate when the situation is manageable in itself. And I think it's a good thing.

Would it work though? Not automatically. Absolutely not. Poor people would become poorer by making tens of children, women would get more oppressed by men, the usual story. However, if we don't have nation states to impose some sort of status quo, then these problems would be solved in mere generations.

There could be a contract.  Ideally, one drawn up by the individuals involved in the compact, not one handed down by the state.  I think the current deal offered by the state has serious shortcomings, but that's another tangent.

I do hope you realize that women are perfectly capable of breaking familial commitments as well.

If they want to get away from the time-proven solutions, that's fine, but they have to come up with an alternative on their own.  Passing the cost onto society should not be among the options to consider.

So there'd be insurances to compensate her temporary inability to carry out a job in the marketplace, insurances that a man would not have to contract. Then what are the (material) benefits anyway? The child owns itself. The emotional factor doesn't mean powerlessness "to make sensible choices", that's exaggerated. The bottom line still is that the market does not incentivize procreation in any form.


There is no guarantee that a guy would stay and form a family, especially in these modern times.

Look, the more primitive a civilization is, the more patriarchal it tends to be. And this is exactly what "progressives" want to get away from.

Throughout history and across cultures, societies have successfully created collectives to pool resources in support of this indispensable service.  They're called "families", and they're perfectly capable of existing in a free market.

She doesn't "have to" do anything she doesn't wish to. If she thinks the costs outweigh the benefits, she need not get pregnant or she need not carry the pregnancy to term. However, women have the option of conceiving if they think the benefits outweigh the costs, a choice men don't have.

The idea that this is somehow a disadvantage to women is only sensible if you see women as slaves to their biology who are powerless to make sensible choices. I utterly reject that premise.

never  


The observation is rational and objective that due to biological reasons, women are more likely to conceive than men. A woman has to invest time and resources during childbearing that she cannot freely choose. The free market does not compensate this undoubtedly indispensable service to society.

The OP's premise is inherently misogynistic. It's really hilarious.

Women are apparently so weak, they need men to help them to become more equal in society.

Am I too late to this thread to join in rejecting the premise?

You will never have a libertarian Utopia because libertarians are not Utopianists, that's just some Statist projection going on.

It's hard to find reasonable women. No big news here 

Such image shows quite well how "mainstream economics" is everything but scientific.

Also to this thread. 

ad hominem, the surest sign of a lost argument. I warned you not to dig that hole. You didn't listen.

Cavemen got family right, without such thing as obligations. Why our society fails at this baffles me.

IMO, there's a right to interfere once there's an individualized showing of abuse or neglect. I think it's also reasonable to require that for some extreme cases, a showing that something is not abuse or neglect be required in advance.

However, in general, I see children as the property of their parents, to raise as they see fit. I don't believe the community is likely to be able to do a better job, no matter how well-intentioned its interference is.

I'm a bit torn about parental obligations towards children. The last time I really thought about it, my position was that parents should be free to abandon their children at any time they please and others are free to adopt those children if they please. There might be an obligation to give others a fair chance to support your children if they please. It's not so much that I like this result, it's that I can't see a justification for imposing obligations. (And I would hope that this would be rare, others would step in when it happened, and social and business ostracism and blacklisting would punish those who take advantage of it.)

Fortunately, I'm not ruler of the world. So I don't have to get this right.

I think the views discussed in this thread are far too prohibitive, freedom-destroying, and contractual. Why should family be a contract? Families work well in all parts of the world, regardless of government, without contracts today. If anything, a contract destroys the natural evolutionary bonds that hold families together.

So what about child abuse (or even just spanking), etc? Where does a child's rights begin? Do neighbors/community ever have a right to interfere?