ACHTERGROND - Wat is er mooier dan dat twee partijen elkaar vinden op de vrije markt, zonder bemoeienis van een almachtige overheid, en vervolgens vrijwillig een overeenkomst sluiten die beide partijen tot economisch voordeel strekt?
Heel erg mooi, zou ik zeggen. Bijzonder jammer dat het in de praktijk zo niet werkt.
Het probleem is dat marktpartijen zelden gelijkwaardig zijn. Een werkgever houdt het doorgaans een stuk langer vol om iemand niet in dienst te nemen, dan dat een werknemer het volhoudt om niet in dienst te treden. En is er dan nog wel sprake van een vrijwillige overeenkomst?
De Britse liberaal Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse (1864-1929) vond van niet:
We have seen that the theory of ‘laissez-faire’ assumed that the State would hold the ring. That is to say, it would suppress force and fraud, keep property safe, and aid men in enforcing contracts. On these conditions, it was maintained, men should be absolutely free to compete with another, so that their best energies should be called forth, so that each should feel himself responsible for the guidance of his own life, and exert his manhood to the utmost.
Echter:
Well, it may be said, ‘volenti non fit injuria’. No wrong is done to a man by a bargain to which he is a willing party. That may be, though there are doubtful cases. But in the field that has been in question the contention is that one party is not willing. The bargain is a forced bargain. The weaker man consents as one slipping over a precipice might consent to give all his fortune to one who will throw him a rope on no other terms. This is not true consent. True consent is free consent, and full freedom of consent implies equality on the part of both parties to the bargain. Just as government first secured the elements of freedom for all when it prevented the physically stronger man from slaying, beating, despoiling his neighbors, so it secures a larger measure of freedom for all by every restriction which it imposes with a view to preventing one man from making use of any of his advantages to the disadvantage of others.
