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Originally Posted by loquitur
"In general, private business certainly can't be counted on to act responsibly in terms of the environment and employee welfare."
Can't tell you about the environment, Filtherton, but you're wrong about employee welfare. Back when workers were fungible that might have been true, but I'm an employer (partner in a law firm) and one of the biggest problems we have is finding good people, at all levels of the firm. Once we get them, we would be pretty damn foolish not to treat them well, wouldn't we? And believe me, we're not the only ones.
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What you're saying is only true for skilled labor. It isn't true anywhere where labor is cheap and the supply is large. It makes good economic sense to put profits before employee welfare when it makes economic sense to put profit before employee welfare. When it doesn't it doesn't. Private business can be counted on to do whatever makes them the most money, and often what makes them the most money is directly at odds with providing a safe work environment. Just because it isn't profitable for many companies to put their workers in jeopardy doesn't mean that it isn't necessarily to force all companies to provide a safe work environment. Most people won't commit murder but murder laws are still necessary.