Let’s say I was uninsured and I accidently ruined an extremely expensive piece of equipment, worth 10 million dollars. I don’t have the money to pay for it. Do you think it should be legitimate for the owner of the equipment to force me to work until I pay for the piece of equipment, even if it takes my entire life?
What if it was worth 10 dollars. Would you even be asking this question?
why not?
No, he should not. I’m curious, though, as to why you would not be working anyway, so as to feed yourself and such.
That’s an interesting question. I guess that depends if a contract was signed prior to employment that stated whether the employee would be responsible. If not, then it’s the risk that the owner takes. If I was that employee, I would just walk away.
it’s the risk that the owner takes
So as long as I don’t sign any contract with anyone I can break their stuff?
Let’s say I was uninsured and I accidently ruined an extremely expensive piece of equipment, worth 10 million dollars. I don’t have the money to pay for it. Do you think it should be legitimate for the owner of the equipment to force me to work until I pay for the piece of equipment, even if it takes my entire life?
Good luck to that employer in finding workers willing to be employed by him.
I didn’t say it was an employer-employee relationship. You just accidently ruined a piece of equipment of someone else.
Do you say that it is legitimate for the owner of that equipment to force me to work all my life to return the value of that equipment?
What if you had to work all of 2 hours to return the value of that equipment? Would you still be asking this question?
I don’t know John. Can you answer my question first?
No, in practice there would be some opportunity for personal bankruptcy.
Why do you believe such opportunity is just? After all, you have to pay the victim for the damages.
Well, it’s part of the contract from the beginning. Business partners are essentially making a contract with a certain legal alias, not a flesh and blood human being. So a person can ‘leave’ that legal alias like a company can go bankrupt. No legal obligation is going to follow you to the grave. It’s like when musicians change their stage names to get out of their old contracts. If the risk of suffering damages is too high, someone can choose to not engage in a transaction. And of course there is always insurance.
@Eugene: JJ is trying to get you to come to a logical conclusion yourself. Answer his question. He’s trying to help you
About the bankruptcy thing: I am not sure it would be the same type of bankruptcy as the current ones, but here is what I envision: an “workplace damage insurance” which covers you when you need it.
If the person came on to your property and damaged your equipment you could force them to repay as much as possible. But allowing the person to freely work and pay an affordable sum is much more reasonable and what would probably happen. It is debatable whether having to repay a debt at reasonable terms would be considered slavery. If anything it would be a massive consequence that could prevent damage to your equipment. I guess the person could declare bankruptcy. That is if there is no contract. If there is a contract then it is different. If the equipment is not on your property and you left it freely available for people to use and someone broke it, you would be less likely to be able to get compensation let a lone force someone in to debt slavery.
Also, the problem is 100% avoided if you just include a clause in the contract about damaged equipment requiring a 10% decrease in salary for 2 years or something.
you can beg his pardon!
Why would anyone allow you to operate a $10 million piece of uninsured equipment???
Clayton -
Because it happens ALL THE TIME! I juggle expensive centrifuges in combination with gold plated chainsaws while blindfolded and let’s be honest…I’m not perfect.
This would be my answer.
So the employer provides you with equipment to do your job. You accidentally ruin it. He makes a call to the insurance company.
Let’s look at it from a contractual perspective. X is lending you (Y) a tool he owns to do productive work with. Now, before that happens you both should have terms written down for what happens if there’s an accident with the tool, including not just breaking the tool but breaking something others own with the tool.
If the contract says the Y will be liable for both damage to the equipment and other’s property, and Y agrees to that. Okay then. But X will have a hard time finding anyone willing to use his equipment under those terms and/or will have to pay an exceedingly high salary. At least enough for Y to find someone to indemnify him against all damages. (Meaning this situation actually only shifts the cost of insurance to the employee instead of the employer).
If the contract says X will be liable in both cases, as long as Y is operating within certain parameters set by X (not high, not drunk, not goofing around, etc.), then Y is not liable, or may only be contributarily liable if he was violating the set parameters, and that would be a matter for a court to decide.
What’s really wrong with the scenario you give is that it assumes an implied contract where there should be an explicit one. If a just court were to receive such a case, the judge would do right to yell at X for not having insurance and providing equipment to someone, and yell at Y for not having insurance and agreeing to operate equipment.
A reasonable outcome under such a situation would probably be something like the damage to the equipment to be paid for by X and damage caused to other things by the equipment to be paid for by Y.
I should mention that this question assumes some sort of special relationship between employer and employee, when in fact no such relationship exists. The employee is merely selling his labor to an employer contractually (explicit or implied, tho excplicit is much better). That must be the basis of all such scenarios.
As for “actual slavery” no debt amount results in 100% wage garnishment. You must allow people to live as a precondition for generating income 
So, actual slavery? No.