The solution is a society of equal power where any small group can stake out their own space, workers can control their working conditions, and so smoking or non-smoking spaces can actually be founded by groups of patrons or employees as they see fit.

In defense of Joel Wiens' original posts, though, this in itself is not a good argument against prohibiting smoking in workplaces.  If we had a fair economy, where everyone had some wealth, we wouldn't need a minimum wage law.  But we don't have a fair economy, and does anyone think we should abolish minimum wage, given the way things are now, simply because fair wealth distribution, the right to organize on the job, and non-market forms of interacting would be better solutions if we get them?

Ben, your logic is flawed.

You argue, essentially, that because there is a minimum wage law, there should also be laws banning smoking in the workplace. Your reasoning is that we don't live in a perfect world, so we can't wait around until it is perfect before banning smoking in the workplace, again on the premise that a smoking ban is good for the workers.

But the problem is that the efforts to ban smoking are not being brought forth by a workers' movement, but rather by other forces in society who hide behind the cover of "workers' rights," and other conceits.

If it were left to market forces, we would have no minimum wage requirements. In fact, it may be a law that gets rolled back over the next several years as conservative interests are very opposed to minimum wages, arguing they distort the marketplace. And undoubtedly, as part of the argument for ravaging minimum wage, "leaders" will step forward to argue that it is a good thing for the workers.

The only reason we have a minimum wage law is because the labor movement did organize around that issue and forced the system to incorporate that workers' right into the law. But you can't equate a labor success in advancing rights with a movement to roll back rights -- such as the worker's right to make other decisions about their workplace.

It's the similar flawed logic being advanced by the right with respect to gay marriage. You can't contend that the rights of one group of people, gays, must be rolled back to accommodate the beliefs of another group -- fundamentalist Christians. In a truly local model, both groups can be accommodated. God nuts can set up their own church communities where they can exclude gays if they so desire, but by the same token, gays should be able to set up their own communities where gay marriage is accepted and God nuts who hate gays are excluded.

But in no case should a democratic government, a representative, in theory, of all the people, take away the rights of either group to make those decisions for their local communities. And in the public spaces, which everyone shares, we should all be tolerant of those democratic rights -- or we can be content with bunkering down in our own exclusionary worlds with other exclusionary people.

But as you note, we do not live in a perfect society, so we still have wars, Abu Ghraibs and Enrons. Those seem to slide by, written off as the way things are in an imperfect world, but smoking is somehow the scapegoat we focus on to reform civilization.

That is bogus and a distortion of civil society. There is nothing inconsistent with maintaining the minimum wage -- even advancing it to include minimum benefits -- and allowing workers to set their own parameters on smoking within the workplace, and we don't have to wait for utopia to secure those rights.