[mitigatedchaos]

Here, bonus hot take @ranma-official might agree with:

Actually, employees burning out or dying is an externality.

The company profits from the temporary boost in productivity while destroying the future economic value of up to an entire lifespan, denying other companies and the economy as a whole future production. As employers do not own employees, this creates a Tragedy of the Commons situation, justifying the existence of state interference. (etc)

[shieldfoss]

“Externality” is not just a word that means “bad thing” you buffoon, you fool, 

[mitigatedchaos]

Ssssh, I’m trying to sneak ultracaps into admitting employment laws may potentially be Good.

[mitigatedchaos]

Anyhow, the purpose of this hot take is to point out that while it is in the interests of every company to induce burnout and risk death if they can pass the costs of dealing with that onto someone else to get more productivity - families, society, the state, other future companies - much like it is in the interests of every company to emit pollution if they can do the same, it is in fact economically destructive in ways that may not be adequately represented, and, while not an explicit subsidy, could have effects like one.

If one dude would generate three million dollars in economic activity over his life but dies one third of the way through his career, two million dollars of economic activity is not generated. This is very often due not to being genuinely suicidal for the job but due to a mismatch in negotiating leverage.

Considering what a spectacular waste of resources this is, it could make sense to require employee death insurance to ensure that the costs - to everyone else - of getting dudes killed is reflected in the price of goods and services. (After all, the State spent a lot of money educating that guy, his family spent a lot of money raising him, humans depend on generations, etc, so goods from Sparky’s McDeath Factory should only be chosen over Reasonably Cautious Joe’s Factory goods if they really do present enough of an advantage to outweigh this.)

It also matters why people get killed. Some jobs are just more risky, but without labor protections it’s likely often because some power-tripping bastard did something stupid and ignored obvious warning signs. People might die but at least let’s not be stupid about it.