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Should US workers be guaranteed more vacation time? Guaranteed by whom?

The obvious implication here is that it will be guaranteed and enforced by government. Offices will have to be set up to monitor compliance, or the additional duty will be added to already existing offices. In either case, the government gets a little more bloated. Then the government gets to go around ensuring compliance, levying fees, and arresting those who don't pay the fees for violation of government policy. This is just on the government side.

The popular argument for government intervention in private affairs is always based on something that says, "Look at how Europe operates!" That's a good idea. Let's look at how Europe operates and ask ourselves if we really want to emulate them. French and German unemployment rates have only recently left double digits, by loosening its policy hold on labor. Whereas Ireland, with a hands-off approach to labor, has had phenomenal growth. Recent German economic growth is more of an adjustment to where it should have been, had wage control, pensions, and other benefits (to include vacation) not been so vigorously controlled by government policy.

What is the relationship between government control and stagnation? Socialization always has a parasitical draining effect on economic growth. The greater the degree of socialization, the greater the drain. European economies have been mixed, more socialist than ours, and they have seen the consequences. We ourselves have been drained by similar policies. The stagnation in the United States during the 60s and 70s connected directly to our drift toward collectivism, and our economic revival in the 80s was, as Britain's, a consequence of government getting out of the way.

Why is that? The real negative consequences of socialism, which includes government guarantees of private workers' vacation time, have a bankrupt philosophy at their root. Guiding philosophy matters, and philosophy has real practical consequences. Are people free and autonomous and able to deal with the real world on their own terms? Or are people untrustworthy and incapable and need to be coddled with government guarantees?

A free man enters into employment willingly, to further his own survival and benefit, and his employer, also free, enters willingly as well. Both understand the terms of the agreement, and the trade is beneficial to both. If it is not mutually agreeable, then both are free to seek

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