If someone buys an insurance/rights enforcement policy in an anarcho-capitalist society, can the purchase really be said to be voluntary?
With the policy, there is less of a chance that the buyer’s rights will be violated. Because of this threat to his rights, he buys the policy. So isn’t that coercive?
I’m not sure as to who you are saying is coercing you. Are you saying the company is threatening you to buy a policy with them?
No, I mean the threat that evil-doers pose to the buyer’s rights.
Tell me, do you have a lock on your door and do you have homeowners insurance?
I have a lock on my door. Is buying a lock really “voluntary”? People only buy them because there are bad guys out there.
You buy a lock as a preventative measure. Sometimes someone has threatened and sometimes not.
Preventative measure…against people who violate peoples’ rights.
People eat food because of the threat of starvation. They breathe because of the threat of asphyxiation. Both acts are non-voluntary. Right?
Did you miss my second sentence? You know, the one where I said that the prevention is against those you don’t want to touch your stuff…whether they have threatened you or not.
@Andris
Starvation doesn’t violate the NAP because starvation isn’t an agent. I’m talking about agents living in your society that violate rights.
The existence of agents who threaten your rights is what I’m talking about. That’s why you take preventative measures. So even if you haven’t been specifically targeted by anyone, aren’t you still buying these things because you feel your rights are more likely to be violated if you don’t?
Your OP was about coercion. You put a lock on your door because you don’t want unauthorized people to enter. A drunk who enters your house accidentally because you forgot to lock the door is not necessarily coercing you, by threat or force. You may not have put a lock on your door until someone specifically threatened you, but that was not what you asked in the OP. You asked about people who had not threatened you. If they haven’t threatened you or used force against you, then they cannot have coerced you.
But you still want to protect what is yours.
I’m using the definition of coercion provided by Rothbard in Ethics of Liberty.
Using Rothbard’s definition of coercion I think the drunk guy entering your house is coercion. If he’s unwelcome, then he’s violating your property right, thus the violence in the definition, right?
Anyway, let’s say a lady buys a lock for her door to protect her against Jack the Ripper and people like him. Nobody has aggressed against the woman buying the lock; Jack the Ripper and people like him have only aggressed against others. But without Jack the Ripper and people like him living in the lady’s area, she wouldn’t buy the lock. So isn’t she being coerced into doing it?
That definition doesn’t change anything. Has Jack the Ripper used force against this woman? Has Jack the Ripper threatened this woman? If neither, then he has not coerced her. Yet she still wants to protect herself from the possibility of future coercion.
The question is what constitutes a threat of invasive physical violence against someone else’s person or property. I think the threat needs to be direct, as in “clear and present danger”.
Jack the Ripper’s existence threatens her.
I think your point is similar to that of Autolykos:
But why does it have to be direct? If there’s a rapist on the loose, and as a result you have to hide your kids and hide your wife to protect them, are you really doing it voluntarily?
What if you thought a rapist was on the loose, and took defensive measures, but you were actually mistaken because you mis-heard the news report?
Now you are equivocating on the definition of coercion. You said:
In what manner is Jack the Ripper’s mere existence invading this woman’s property through either the use of force or the threat thereof?
Who says the rapist is trying to rape any/all women and/or children he finds? Is that your definition of “rapist”?
Who says that hiding your wife and kids is necessarily the only way to protect them?
Finally, by your apparent reasoning, everyone presents a constant threat to everyone else, therefore no one ever really does anything voluntarily.
I’m not equivocating.
How is Jack the Ripper a threat to this woman? Because he kills people!!
What in the world do you mean by “he kills people”? Are you saying he kills (or tries to kill) every single person he lays eyes on?