I am a free market lover, and I absolutely reject the idea of forced, low or no pay prison labor
I think all prisoners who voluntarily choose to work should be paid a market wage for their labor. I also think some of that wage should be used as compensation to the victims of their crimes.
> Nearly every weekday morning for much of last year, Mr. Forseth would board a van at the minimum-security prison outside Madison, Wis., and ride to Stoughton Trailers, where he and more than a dozen other inmates earned $14 an hour wiring taillights and building sidewalls for the company’s line of semitrailers.
> After he was released, Mr. Forseth kept right on working at Stoughton. But instead of riding in the prison van, he drives to work in the 2015 Ford Fusion he bought with the money he saved while incarcerated.
> Meghen Yeadon, a recruiter for Stoughton, found part of the solution: a Wisconsin Department of Corrections work-release program for minimum-security inmates.
> Work-release programs have often been criticized for exploiting inmates by forcing them to work grueling jobs for pay that is often well below minimum wage. But the Wisconsin program is voluntary, and inmates are paid market wages. State officials say the program gives inmates a chance to build up some savings, learn vocational skills and prepare for life after prison.
While those programs are easy to abuse, it is very important that someone released from prison has a path to an honest life. Few places will hire felons, so dumping someone on the street with no job ensures they turn to crime, it is the only way they can get food. If they have a job though you can arrange an apartment and other than a new place to sleep things seem normal and so they have a chance.
I will have to agree with the other commenter. While the natural response is to try ad protect the privacy of the accused or even the convicted by sealing the records, history is full of proof that governments that can act in secret rarely works out well for the people under the thumb of those governments.
Secret Police records, generally result in a system where people just "disappear". So while there are good intentions to sealing police records, the result of those good intentions would likely result in extreme abuse of power
I think the better course of action would be a path to have convictions expunged, and once expunged allowing for civil defamation against any entity or person that reports the individual was convicted once the record was expunged.
The time it takes to expunge a record should be determined by the courts with a max time set in statute
Fair competition is the ideal state for a market to be in, but a free market is about unrestricted competition and that can easily turn into monopolies or cabals.
Ok then, highlight all the times where a market has resulted in a monopoly with out underling government regulations limiting the ability of new entrants to the market.
That was the obvious rebuttable, and to be honest I have a hard time countering that however the obvious statement is search really a market since it is a "free" product. One has to ask what is the actual market, is it the search engine or the advertising that pays for the search? Google while dominate is not a monopoly for Online Ads, so while they command a 90-95% market share in "online searches" that is not the product they sell so traditional market dynamics are not at play so I am hard pressed to call online search a "free market" given nothing it being sold, what is being sold is the ad space on google search.
It's the very definition of a free market concept. The price the market determines for something is the fair price, to charge more or less would be unfair to someone else
You know this was common in the States too until very recently, right? That's the origin of summer break in schools. I'm guessing there are plenty of places today that will absolutely close school to support agriculture both in the States and many capitalist countries.
Source: I spend a lot of time on wheat, barley, and lentil farms in the US.
