Lately the maid has started objecting to washing dishes I use to prepare meat. She is a staunch vegeterian, like many Indians. I wonder what I should do.

Cheers
MCLA

I didn’t really to imply that it’s minimum wage laws that are the issue, merely the fact that /lower wage/ workers don’t have much choice. I suppose they’d /arguably/ have more job choice if there were no minimum wage. Then again, as you say, two wrongs don’t make a right, and refusing them protection against passive smoking hardly compensates them for their lack of job choice.

By necessary means of subsistence, I meant something like a method of providing (at least) food, clothing and shelter for oneself and dependents.

It’s also worth noting that appeal to the choice of individuals is not solely a libertarian idea. The rest of us can also be very interested in freedom, and the fact that individuals should make up their own minds. It’s precisely that worry that leads me to think that regulation /might/ be beneficial if it gives workers the choice as to whether to inhale smoke or not. More generally, appealing to “freedom” in argument isn’t likely to settle the argument since that’s precisely what’s under dispute.

Pointing out the atrophying of worker freedom due to a previous government policy is a good thing to remember, however. In fact, the atrophying of individual freedom at large due to social ignorance – not technically coercive – is also worth remembering.

This means whatever you want to read into it. This term is so vague as to mean anything. Value is subjective. Although Statists fear many things, an individual making up their own mind seems to be their worst fear of all. Whatever is not forbidden is compelled!

And you don’t like the smoking restrictions in your country/state/county/city, you can always move. (That was rhetorical, by the way.)

Pintofstout, I didn’t say I wanted a law to fix things.

Minimum wage reducing opportunity to work is a shitty excuse for imparting a ban on smoking in a private establishment. I’m sure you wouldn’t be hard-pressed to find servers who smoke, either. For those that don’t smoke, McDonalds is almost always hiring. Just don’t bitch that you have no other options because you wanted a guaranteed, market-ignorant wage then decide you have no place to work. I want to work for a million dollars a year, but – boohoo – I can’t find a job I like that pays that; there aught to be a law…

… so long as they have some choice over where they can earn their necessary means of subsistence, which minimum wage workers usually do not, and so long as when they do have a choice, those alternatives do have a no smoking policy, which they almost solely do not. I live in a fairly large city, and know of only one pub, bar or club that freely has a no-smoking policy. (Restaurants are a different matter, as they are regulated over here in Britain)

Roderick also says “so long as their activities are peaceful”; but it’s fairly obvious in this case that smoking does have negative effects on those around you.

The guy who makes the decision on whether or not to allow smoking in an unregulated environment is not the same guy who has to breathe it all day in exchange for tips, in most cases.