Uke 21

Juridiske tvetydigheter

I boka "Primate Change - how the world we made is remaking us" av Vybarr Cregan-Reid finner jeg et avsnitt om lover som forbyr barnearbeid og farlige arbeidsforhold (side 191-192):

“The legislation table gives only a sense of what was going on in workplaces. It’s also important to remember why such legislation existed. It is easy to assume that once these acts were passed they marked the end of a particular brand of exploitation. We have laws to protect equal pay in the workplace, not because the problem no longer exists, but because unequal pay is omnipresent. These acts did not signal the end of such practices, but their prevalence. So common were they in fact that the practices required the gathering of Parliament for debate so that legislation might be penned.”

Det enkle paradokset er: lover som forbyr farlig arbeid betyr ikke at det ikke finnes, men at det er så utbredt at det må forbys.

Tilsvarende er lover og forskrifter om likelønn som ikke sikrer likelønn, kun stadfester at ulik lønn er utbredt…!

“When ignorance reigns in society and disorder in the minds of men, laws are multiplied”

― Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921)

“Laws should be made, not against quacks but against superstition.”

― Rudolf Virchow (1821-1902)

“the laws govern the poor, and the rich govern the law”

― Oliver Goldsmith (1730-1774)