Historic evidence shows that most workers do not have the ability to negotiate with their employers on workplace safety, and that many workers are sufficiently economically constrained to accept high long-term health, and short-term accident risks at a job.

Competitive companies will rarely make decisions that lower worker productivity. So the case of "freedom to be stupid" tends to lead to a race to the bottom on safety standards, as companies cut safety to increase productivity - and workers get dragged along for the ride.

> Historic evidence shows that most workers do not have the ability to negotiate with their employers on workplace safety

I wonder how the perception of these laws would change under a more unionized workforce.

As an example, professional sports players unions are fairly powerful and the risk of injury is pretty high, much higher than I'd expect to be acceptable under OSHA, and people seem pretty comfortable with it as long as the players are informed of the risk (CTE disclaimer).

Isn't that just the Nordic model? No minimum wage, but omnipresent collective bargaining for every field.

Safety standards could be addressed by insurability, and this is really a very separate concept from wage.

Look up the Underwriters Laboratory for a real life example of this happening without government, it’s successes are all around us.

Without the government playing default insurer, it's difficult for market insurance to cover extreme cases and externalities. Consider cases such as all employees develop cancer after 10 years, employees working years reduced by 20 years due to wrist/back/eye injuries, or .5% of employees die onsite.

For insurance carried by or provided the employer, any event that happens after employment ends is an externality and not covered. Extreme cases involving death will be underpriced as the employee won't have use for the money if they're dead.

In my own finances I carry a life insurance policy less than 1/10th of my nominal future earnings.

Why is that unquestionable? Children are a big economic drain on society. We’d be better off with youngsters unable to afford private school picking up garbage and performing other tasks less suited to older people. Imagine how much cheaper Uber would be if you could just give some 11 year old $0.50 to pick up your Starbucks and run it back to you! Plus, we’d all be relieved of the burden of educating these kids — it would save me like $8k/year in taxes.

Consumer protection is similar. I don’t need the government to tell me that my Honda airbag may explode in my face, as an independent agent, I have the ability to go to arbitration with my concerns without some bureaucrats getting in the middle. If I choose, I can ignore the problem — that’s what freedom is all about!

I for one totally agree. I don't want to pay some lefty tax instead of just being able to sue the company after it kills me through negligence. That'll show em.