Is Capitalist Employment a Punishable Offense?

In my previous post I argued that socialism is illiberal in virtue of failing to respect freedom of occupational choice. More specifically, socialist regimes restrict citizens’ freedom to choose to work for a capitalist employer instead of, for instance, joining a democratic cooperative.

But perhaps things aren’t so straightforward. Socialist regimes can avoid punishing workers for choosing capitalist employment by only punishing the employers, just as the state punishes employers—but not employees—for violating other labor laws. Moreover, the punishment itself needn’t be draconian—perhaps it simply involves a fine. See the debate below between Ben Burgis and Gene Epstein, where Burgis offers this kind of reply to Epstein:

However, the socialist argument for fining capitalist employers doesn’t succeed unless the employee’s choice to work for a capitalist employer is itself impermissible. And I explain why the choice is permissible here—in short, just as people have different preferences for leisure that are permissible, they can have different preferences for labor (including a preference to work for a capitalist employer) that are permissible.

Suppose I’m right about that. Now consider this claim: if it’s permissible for Alice to make a certain choice, then it’s permissible for Bob to facilitate that choice. Let’s look at a case. Alice’s decision to take a beach vacation rather than a ski vacation is permissible—more specifically, it would wrong for the state to interfere with her decision to take a beach vacation. Given that her choice to vacation at the beach is permissible, it also seems permissible for Bob to facilitate Alice’s beach vacation, say, by letting her stay at his spare beach house. (Contrast this with a case where Bob facilitates an impermissible choice—for instance, by driving the getaway car for Alice’s bank robbery. Here Bob is doing something impermissible.) Similarly, if it’s permissible for Conrad to work for a particular wage in a capitalist workplace, it’s permissible for Donna to hire Conrad to work for that wage in a capitalist workplace.

The takeaway: socialists can’t dodge the objection that socialism fails to respect freedom of occupational choice by arguing that only capitalist employers should be punished for capitalist wage labor—they need to argue that an employee’s choice to work for a capitalist employer is not permissible.

What about the claim that punishments for employers would only involve a fine and are therefore unobjectionable? The problem is that the state shouldn’t fine the facilitation of a permissible choice.

Think back to the vacation case. Bob shouldn’t be fined for giving Alice use of his spare beach house. Why not? Alice’s choice to stay at that beach house is permissible, so it’s permissible for Bob to facilitate that choice, which, in turn, makes it wrong to fine him. Similarly, if an employee’s choice to work for a capitalist employer is permissible, then it’s hard to see why fining capitalist employers for facilitating that permissible choice is justified.

Here’s an objection: the choice to work for a capitalist employer is not genuinely free in the way that the choice to take a beach vacation is genuinely free. Perhaps Conrad only takes the job because he has no other options—it’s work for the capitalist or starve. We shouldn’t blame or punish Conrad for taking the job, but we should blame and punish Donna for taking advantage of Conrad’s lack of options and hiring him.

This objection fails to vindicate socialism for a variety of reasons. For one, it doesn’t show that capitalist employment as such should be punished. If someone has multiple attractive job offers (including, let’s stipulate, from some cooperatives) and chooses to work for the capitalist, then the exploitation objection simply doesn’t apply.

Moreover, the same objection can apply to socialist employment. Suppose Conrad only joins a cooperative because he has no other options—it’s join the cooperative or starve. Presumably a socialist would not take this case to show that offering socialist employment as such ought to be punished. They might reply that this example shows why cooperatives need to be supplemented with redistribution to ensure that no one is forced to take a job due to economic vulnerability. That’s a fair point, but the same reply is available to the capitalist—we allow capitalist workplaces and simply transfer cash to those in poverty.