| sc94597 said: Isn't your version of a contract a legally binding promise? If that were the case, then all promises can be perceived as oral contracts. What distinguishes a contract (in your view) from a promise? Why would you give somebody (or bodies) that much power over your business in the first place? Any good business doesn't depend on a single trade partner so much that it would be devastated by a separation from that trade partner. If your business fails because of something like that then it fits well with the nature of the competitive market, we need both profit and losses for the system to work, and smart decisions should be profitable and poor decisions unprofitable. Just because you're a small guy or poor doesn't mean you should get special priveleges, just the same priveleges. Same is true for big companies, there should be no such thing as "too big to fail." The reason why we have contracts and people can terminate their employment is because labor contracts are precisely recognized for what they are, promises, and they are unenforceable. A worker is recognized to have a right to quit, regardless of what his/her contract was, just like an employer is recognized to have the right to fire. This has not always been the case though. Indentured servitude was a real thing. Contracts can get in the way of wage bargaining though. For example, if there is a stipulation in the contract, a company can refuse to pay the employee the accepted rate (and this is entirely "contractual.") That is theft of the other participant's labor. Another example of a bogus contract that hurts consumers is the termination fee one pays the phone or cable company. One should be able to secede from any agreement upon one's choice and not be extorted. Also, you seem confused. I never argued that the existance of enforceable contracts contradicts at-will employment. I argued that contracts which codify a promise are not enforceable. Only contracts grounded in property rights are enforceable. |
But then things could be manipulated so as to specifically damage you. A company could literally just pay your suppliers not to give you parts. I dunno. You sound like a very smart person, but I'm highly skeptical on how this would possibly work. And phone contracts are made to offset the cost of the phones you're provided at a huge discount. What would you do? Just give back the phone? Give them back a NEW phone? You're now in possession of their property by cancelling the contract.
Not to mention that we'd be up to our ears in convicts. We are already the top convict capital of the world.
