non-coercion.
It sure as Hell involves a lot of coercion against anyone who doesn’t accept your conception of property bounds, or who happens not to fit the judgment of arbitration agencies.
‘Coercion’ has no meaning except in terms of social convention.
permabear86 wrote,
Well I certainly don’t defend sweatshops, however I agree the workers are better off with employment at a sweatshop than they would have otherwise been.
Given that sweatshops pay their employees more than other employers, why not defend sweatshops?
The question is, why are the workers in countries with sweatshops paid so little? Is it “big bad capitalism”? Or is it a government that violates private property rights and doesn’t allow the labor market to function correctly?
It’s actually probably because of rising income levels. Two hundred years ago working conditions in the United States were as bad, or worse. But, capital accumulation, investment and production slowly leads to large increases in real wages, and an increase in the standard of living. That is what is occuring in China and many other third world countries.
Thank you to whomever moved all of this off of the thread I started.
False. There is a praxeological difference between a coerced exchange and a free exchange.
I’ll pay for Drace’s one way plane ticket to go to a poor country and tell some factory workers that he is shutting down their factory.
Shoot I’ll chip in on that. Now who’s going to pay for the camera man’s ticket to record the resulting consequences?
I can’t imagine what people will think of the average American’s working conditions 400 years from now.
I always think of the petulent brat from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory when I hear people complain about working conditions. “I want better working conditions and I want them NOW!”
False. There is a praxeological difference between a coerced exchange and a free exchange.
No, there isn’t. The difference is not in praxeology, it’s in customary law (torts, specifically). Everything is force and power, customary law simply decides what kinds of force under what circumstances are unlawful.
So there’s no difference between mugging someone and selling lemonade?
So there’s no difference between mugging someone and selling lemonade?
Not in Libertay’s imaginary world where s(he) is führer.
So there’s no difference between mugging someone and selling lemonade?
There is a difference that is relevant to people. There isn’t some cosmological difference.
are you capable of taking the teleological or intentional stance?
remind me what we are again?
“There is a difference that is relevant to people. There isn’t some cosmological difference”
Well, there’s no cosmological difference between killing an ant and killing an adult.
Or killing an adult and writing a book. Or anything.
are you capable of taking the teleological or intentional stance?
Whether I use a gun to convince a man or a legal document, I am in the same position - using my power to convince him that it is better for him to do as I please than not. He just finds the latter more tolerable.
remind me what we are again?
Ugly bags of mostly water (Star Trek joke).
The point is that there is nothing inconsistent about being indifferent between the gun and the contract, and there is no existential difference - it just so happens that due to biological and sociological reasons people prefer the force of social pressure than the force of bayonets. But, ultimately, persuasion is persuasion.
are overpowering people and doing things to them a form of persuasion?
There’s a huge difference between a gun and a contract. I’d think it would be pretty obvious that forcing someone with a gun is different than persuading someone to sign a contract. In the former he has only one choice or his life, the latter he can walk away unharmed. How is there not a difference in the two?
Whether I use a gun to convince a man or a legal document, I am in the same position - using my power to convince him that it is better for him to do as I
please than not. He just finds the latter more tolerable.
I was asking about you, when you philosophise, when you think about things and write about them on forums…
I should hope that you have access to the teleological/intentional stance… If so then the concept of coercion really shouldn’t prove such an insoluble issue for you, any more than say…the concept of ‘choosing’ and other such things
The difference between coercion and freedom is praxeological. In a free exchange, both parties benefit; in a coerced exchange, one party benefits at the expense of the other. Do you not see how this is praxeological?
What happened to Drace? Did he/she quit the forum?
Hopefully he took our advice and went to the library to read some Hayek.