"Even if they do get sued for sexual harassment or whatever much later down the line (ie. when they're worth suing), it'll still be peanuts compared to their total profit and thus no disincentive to their behaviour."
Interesting example you use there as some sort of proof against "strict capitalism". Indeed, you claim that the individuals can sue, yet then you attribute the lack of sufficient penalty as a failing of capitalism? And not of, say, the state that's failing to regulate it to a sufficient amount of your liking?
A capitalistic answer is this: leave it alone, and it'll correct itself. You can't create an imaginary problem and then blame an economic system for not fixing it to your liking. By imaginary, I mean to say arbitrary, imagined by each individual based on his views/limits/boundaries. Take your examples, you seem to think that "toxic culture", "abuse" and "sexual harassment" are problems, and not just inconvenient situations. Others, like Ashley from the article don't see them as problems enough to warrant her losing her job over. She has other values in mind.
If you want to call "strict capitalism" then you have to admit that people will value non-tangible things. Sexual harassment, toxic culture, weird work hours. They're all factored in by individuals based on the their situation. And the mere fact that they're in that situation means that the return they get from the job is valued higher than the negatives.
Does bad stuff happen? Sure, that happens all the time. Some do cross the really bad boundaries that the majority of individuals agree on. Those are the sorts of things that your state should be "regulating", and not the fluffy stuff below that people are willing to work-around. We suck up and ignore all sorts of stuff all the time, just look at the numerous examples in this discussion. And of course, they also stand up and complain/leave/quit if something crosses their boundary. The big difference is that a lot of people don't go crying to the state to make their special little boundary a legal binding, enforceable on every single employer and employee that may or may not be affected by it.
As long as there is significant unemployment, an employee will never feel safe to change these situations for the better. As long as the pay is low, they'll never be able to just chuck a job on ethical principles - they can't afford to.
These problems aren't something that should be sucked up. They're abhorrent and I'm surprised that you're trying to defend it. It's not like it's difficult to not be sexist/racist/homophobic...
Unemployment level for high school graduates is now about 5.3%. [1] Maybe I'm living in a bubble but I think it's hard to believe that there's literally one single job available for a person asking for a low pay and if that person doesn't take that job they would have literally no options. Especially for something like phone support job - it's not really an uncommon field (2% of US workforce, over 2 mil. employed [2])
Well, what would you do? That is the point I was making my post, in case you didn't notice. That it's not up to me or you to decide what is/isn't acceptable for the third guy that we think we know best for.
Interesting example you use there as some sort of proof against "strict capitalism". Indeed, you claim that the individuals can sue, yet then you attribute the lack of sufficient penalty as a failing of capitalism? And not of, say, the state that's failing to regulate it to a sufficient amount of your liking?
A capitalistic answer is this: leave it alone, and it'll correct itself. You can't create an imaginary problem and then blame an economic system for not fixing it to your liking. By imaginary, I mean to say arbitrary, imagined by each individual based on his views/limits/boundaries. Take your examples, you seem to think that "toxic culture", "abuse" and "sexual harassment" are problems, and not just inconvenient situations. Others, like Ashley from the article don't see them as problems enough to warrant her losing her job over. She has other values in mind.
If you want to call "strict capitalism" then you have to admit that people will value non-tangible things. Sexual harassment, toxic culture, weird work hours. They're all factored in by individuals based on the their situation. And the mere fact that they're in that situation means that the return they get from the job is valued higher than the negatives.
Does bad stuff happen? Sure, that happens all the time. Some do cross the really bad boundaries that the majority of individuals agree on. Those are the sorts of things that your state should be "regulating", and not the fluffy stuff below that people are willing to work-around. We suck up and ignore all sorts of stuff all the time, just look at the numerous examples in this discussion. And of course, they also stand up and complain/leave/quit if something crosses their boundary. The big difference is that a lot of people don't go crying to the state to make their special little boundary a legal binding, enforceable on every single employer and employee that may or may not be affected by it.