soreff (02/27/83)
I'd like to thank Tom Craver for his reply. It is always gratifying
to see that someone reads and thinks about what one writes.
I think that the definitions of "force" are really at the heart of
the disagreement over the legitimacy of laissez-faire capitalism.
I don't believe that definitions are purely arbitrary or purely
linguistic things. I think that there is an empirical element
to most definitions. To take a legal/medical example: The old
definition of death as when the heart stops beating has required
revision in the past few decades because it has become possible to revive
some patients whose hearts had stopped beating and it has become
possible to maintain heartbeat (for some time, at least) in patients
with no hope of revival. As a result of these experimental findings,
death is often defined now in terms of brain function rather than
heartbeat. If one wants to decide if some action is a use of "force",
there are some empirical tests that may be relevant. If one threatens
a person with that action (firing, expulsion, incarceration,
conscription, evisceration, etc.) if the person does not perform some
service, does the person feel COMPELLED to perform that service? Does
the person threatened feel that they have a choice? If one has the
option to threaten someone with the action in question, would one be
surprised to see the person NOT avoid the action against them?
If most people would answer "yes" to those questions about some action,
then I think the action can usually be considered a use of force.
I think that if "There cannot be any force in a free market - by
definition" then the definition is not a very realistic one.
I regret my phrasing of the original reply. I should have said that
I believe that Rand et. al. oversimplify (and actually lose qualitative
information) rather than saying that they simplify to an extreme degree.
I do think that economic force can occur in a free market, and that
firing someone when economic conditions are such that they would
starve is an example of it. Yes, I would also consider a strike
which sufficiently reduced an employer's income that the employer
starved to be a clear use of force. I don't think that such events are
very frequent. The first type of situation is uncommon now, but in 19th
and early 20th century laissez-faire (mostly) economies it was not very
uncommon. As a result it is NOT irrelevant to discussions of libertarian
politics, because it is perfectly possible that without the partly
socialist "safety net" built up since FDR, that use of economic force
would be as extreme as anything in a 19th century company town.
This is also not a case of "lifeboat ethics" because the usual
situation in "lifeboat ethics" is one where there are insufficient
resources to keep everyone alive. In the situation I described, the
employer has the option to retain all the employees, in which case no
expirations occur. There are often more options available than are
obvious at first glance. To pick another 19th century example: during
the Irish potato famine, Ireland was EXPORTING some agricultural
products (and not in exchange for a more plentiful form of food for
famine relief either). This clearly resulted in some deaths that could
have been avoided without causing any other deaths, in contrast to
the lifeboat situation.
I still don't see the logical progression from "One's own life is
valuable to oneself" to "Property rights are valid"
(quotes used to indicate others' ideas: not really quotes!)
as plausible. One could equally well say "One's own life is
valuable to oneself," "What enhances one's ability to achieve
one's values enhances one's life," "Controlling the actions of other
people enhances one's ability to achieve one's values," "Power is a
legitimate goal." This ignores the fact that if person A can control
some of the actions of person B, then person B cannot control as much
of his/her life as if person A didn't exist. Rand's argument ignores
the fact that if person A can totally control access to and use of
object Obj, then person B cannot obtain as much access to object Obj as
if person A didn't exist. To some extent purchasing exclusive access
rights to an object that one did not create is an act hostile to
bystanders. It is not wholly neutral.
-Jeffrey Soreff (hplabs!hplabsb!soreff)