hehe yeah I thought about that. The “coercer” is nature in this case. It certainly is consistent (maybe not required) by libertarianism to claim that nature is also an aggressor.
The point is that we know if a trade is voluntary, it benefits both parties. But if the trade is involuntary, then what? It seems that the choice between a life of slavery and death is a beneficial one to make. I noticed on a thread a while back there was a link to an article about coercive action. I should probably read that. Anyone got a link to it or similar material?
Coercion does not require private property to exist, and private property can be coercive. Say that I am a socialist who has grown up in a society which enforces private property. Given that I am being forced to abide by a social construct which I oppose and do not recognize as legitemate, I am being coerced. So if I go to a capitalists house and take his car, punishing me for doing so is coercion as I do not recognize the capitalists claim to the car to begin with. You are saying “abide by these rules to aquire goods or be punished.”
This is one of the reasons why it is better to use economic and consequentialist arguments for private propery. Arguing over which form of property is less “coercive” never gets us anywhere.
“How can you be coerced in the first place if you reject private property?”
By being forced to abide by private property when it is a social construct which you find immoral or illegitemate.
"Being coerced assumes that you see your body as your private property.
In other words, coercion cannot be defined without using the concept of private property in its definition."
Being coerced assumes no such thing. I don’t think it even makes much sense to say that I own my body, and I don’t think it is even very useful as far as making a convincing argument for abidibng by private property either.
So you don’t see a difference between coercion and self defense? That is, if you lived in a society where attacking people was illegal, but you thought you could attack people, you’d say you were being coerced? None of us the word coerced like that.
I am honestly uncertain about it. I don’t really fully accept it or reject it.
Snowflake,
Yes, I myself would certainly find that coercive. If I was prevented by some authority from attacking someone who tires to steal my money, I would certainly feel like I am being coerced.
Now, I think I know what you are saying, and you are referring to someone who just wants to go run around attacking people for fun or something like that. Assuming that their justifications for attacking others is not contradictory, then yes, they are being coerced when they are forced to abide by a social construct which they reject. Obviously, I see nothing wrong with coercing these people.
I say we haven’t defined starving, properly I think it’s a relative term. You need to eat or you die, sure but how close to death do you have to be to be considered starving. Any point you consider starving is arbitrary and therefore I think we are all starving on some level, you can say that you’re not starving if you have food stored, but how much food do you need stored? Certainly I can still be starving if I only have a single pea in my food stock. I think we are all therefore starving on some level and what they are suggesting, followed to its logical conclusion would mean all economic activity is coercive.
“by being forced to abide by private property when it is a social construct which you find immoral or illegitimate”
So what if someone said for example that they thought the rape laws were an illegitimate social construct as well? What if this person was also okay with being raped?
So lets say there is someone who doesn’t believe in any property rights system and he proceeds to use something. They have excluded someone from property, and thereby consented to being excluded from property. Because we live in a world of scarcity using something necessarily means excluding someone else to some degree. To legitimately own property is essentially the right to not be excluded introduce scarcity and you now have the right to exclude others.
Because of scarcity by using something you are physically and forcefully preventing someone else from using it (at least in the form it was prior to you using it). So therefore it is permissible to use force to defend against this, at this point it is self defense.
The question is not whether or not we have property it is in what way should we determine who is the owner of said property. To say that no one owns property is nonsense for scarce goods, whoever uses it owns it. So for scarce goods it cannot be the case that no one can ever own it, ownership being control.
If you decide for example that everyone is equally entitled to own it, then anyone can use force to obtain control over it and you have just consented to the neolockeian using force to prevent you from taking it.
Also in response to your most recent problem, if someone thinks they have a right to attack people, They do not believe violence is coercion, so therefore if you used violence against this person it wouldn’t be coercion.
“So what if someone said for example that they thought the rape laws were an illegitimate social construct as well? What if this person was also okay with being raped?”
Well I myself do not view it as coercive since I do not recognize any right to rape others. However, the person who does recognize this as a right is in their mind being coerced when they are prevented by some authority from doing so.
I really don’t think this person would get to say what is coercive and what isn’t coercive. If we came up with some clean definition of coercion, even if it didn’t include theft of property. That would sort things out.
I just don’t think that you can point to anything you don’t like and say it’s coercive. For example I don’t think because person X has certain physiological needs (like the need to eat) you can say that economic transactions with him are coercive.
“No, that’s just common sense and objectively provable. It’s too bad reality is annoying to you”
Right but the question is, who has put him in this state of having no choice, if it is another man with a gun that is wrong, if it is qualities inherent in himself that is nature. Otherwise it is wrong to exchange with anyone who is in need of something. So the logical conclusion of your viewpoint is that any economic exchange of goods that are essential to human life is illegitimate.
Now you can’t say he isn’t willing to work the very fact that he works on his own accord, means that he is apodictically willing to work.
However he may not like certain aspects of working and this is what you object to. Him having to put up with what he doesn’t like in order to live.
Now labor is not intrinsically special, we are talking about a simple exchange here. So how is having to work for food any different then say me having to put up with paying money for food when I don’t like that particular aspect of buying food. I however have no choice but to buy food.
Therefore according to you any economic exchange involving human essentials is coercive.
The Chomskian viewpoint is probably best summed up by Emma Goldman, when she said:
“If you are hungry, ask for work. If they won’t give you work, ask for bread [charity]. If they won’t give you bread, take the bread.”
The idea is that the purpose of an economy is first to meet essential human needs, and second to satisfy non-life-essential human wants. As such, anyone who’s fundamental needs aren’t being met (they can’t find work or charity sufficient to survive) has every right to ‘tax’ those making more than subsistence.
This ideology is very close to how people actually behave; there’s a saying that “every society is three meals away from anarchy.” That is, very few people are going to care about abstract issues like ethics once they’ve missed three meals. So, if you want to be a “praxeologist,” you’ll have to recognize that the basis of property rights claims or market exchanges is people who have eaten in the last 24 hours…
Even crazy Emma Goldman says that ideally, human needs will be met by ability to find work or find charity. But sometimes they’re not…
Well I myself wouldn’t be willing to starve to death just to avoid violating my principles, that seems downright dogmatic. I would still be in the wrong for doing so but I’d rather survive and deal with the punishment.. i don’t think I would have a right to do so, but I’d do it anyway. If I had a right to do so what would stop people from falsely claiming they couldn’t find work or charity and going straight to plundering.
I just seriously doubt that you would find yourself in a situation where you couldn’t either find work or find charity. Unless a natural disaster caused famine hits and many people are starving, which would be due to nature not the political economy and if your country is constantly facing famine then that means that you’re probably overpopulated which is again a natural not political economic shortcoming. As a general rule if you are barely able to feed yourself and you decide to have kids then it is your fault that you are starving.
So you wouldn’t support say public schooling because it is not physiologically essential?
I tried reading Chomsky’s Profit Over People a while back, but I couldn’t stomach it. Too much ignorance, too many fallacies, too much assuming what he ought to be proving. He’s not worth your time.
Is it just me or does anyone else think that if you are starving (in a capitalist economy) you probably made a series of choices that put you in that position (natural disasters and things of that nature excluded) and you probably, for the good of us all, should die out and not pass on your genes? I find it so strange that we feed starving populations in Africa so they can have 12 kids that will also starve. It seems to me an intelligent species would let its weak die out. Maybe I’m just an insensitive bastard lol.
Making bad choices is not genetic. But feeding Africans is pointless. If they have 4 times population growth in 40 years, imagine if they have full fridges.
The choice itself may not be genetic, but many of the factors that could sway the choices in one direction or another are genetic. For instance, most people with high levels of depression or anxiety are predisposed genetically to these conditions, which could color the way they see the world and thus effect their choices.
“Is it just me or does anyone else think that if you are starving (in a capitalist economy) you probably made a series of choices that put you in that position (natural disasters and things of that nature excluded) and you probably, for the good of us all, should die out and not pass on your genes? I find it so strange that we feed starving populations in Africa so they can have 12 kids that will also starve. It seems to me an intelligent species would let its weak die out. Maybe I’m just an insensitive bastard lol.”