carnes@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP (Richard Carnes) (02/11/85)
This is a continuation of Lindblom's discussion of the extent to which market systems support freedom. The following should be of particular interest to libertarians. ______________________ DISPARITY IN ATTRACTIVENESS OF ALTERNATIVES. Many of the coercive potentials in exchange can be subsumed under one generalization. Suppose A offers something of overwhelming value to B -- say, a lifetime income -- in return for which B must do something he abhors. Is he really free to refuse? Suppose A offers something that B must have -- water when he is stranded in the desert -- but at an exorbitant price. Is he not then coerced? Clearly freedom depends on the character of alternatives. The generalization, then, is that exchange best supports freedom when every party can choose among offers that do not greatly differ in value from each other or from no exchange at all. The requirement can be met in either of two circumstances. One is that exchange is limited to small values (hence livelihood must not be at stake). The other is that, although important values are exchanged, no single act of exchange is greatly more advantageous to either party than other available exchange opportunities. In neither circumstance can anyone be coerced, since he can, without great loss to himself, easily refuse any offer. COMPETITION AND LIBERTY. The second circumstance -- no exchange opportunity is greatly more advantageous than any other -- makes liberty depend on competition. On this the liberal argument is correct: liberty in market systems exists only if everyone is able to escape coercion at the hands of any one buyer or seller by turning to another. If that proposition holds out hope for enlarging man's freedom, it also tells us that poor labor markets stand as a worldwide enemy of freedom. Landless rural laborers in much of the world remain dependent for livelihood on land-owning employers too few to compete. That helps explain why, for example, during twenty-five years of democratic national government, millions of India's agricultural laborers often surrendered control of local government to the landlords, submitted to beatings and other indignities at their hands, and accepted exploitative work contracts. LIMITED CAPACITY TO OFFER. Precisely why do inadequate labor markets count so heavily against freedom? For two interconnected reasons. One is, again that livelihood is at stake in market systems. The other is that hundreds of millions of people have nothing to offer in their pursuit of livelihood than their labor, an obvious truth the significance of which has long been obscured. Landless laborers, laborers without assets of any kind, must count on jobs alone to protect their freedoms in the market. So also millions of industrial workers. In a wealthy society like the United States, as of the early 1960s only about 3 percent of families had assets of as much as $50,000, and 75 percent had assets less than $5,000. Marx saw the staggering importance of that simple fact; classical liberal thought has been embarrassed by it. Income-earning property is a bulwark of liberty only for those who have it! [Footnote: The conventional liberal argument alleges, however, that because a system of private property disperses control over production, it guarantees the political liberties of the propertyless as well as the propertied (Hayek, *Road to Serfdom*). The allegation is silent on the effect of property on the market liberties of those who have very little of it or whose share of it they never voluntarily chose.] Those who do not [have income-earning property] are vulnerable to coercion when jobs are scarce and insecure to the degree that jobs may become scarce. Unemployment compensation and other welfare programs are -- by such a line of analysis -- necessary to freedom in market societies. [Charles E. Lindblom, *Politics and Markets*] _______________________ Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes
josh@topaz.ARPA (J Storrs Hall) (02/13/85)
> Carnes: > .... Suppose A > offers something of overwhelming value to B -- say, a lifetime income -- in > return for which B must do something he abhors. Is he really free to > refuse? Suppose A offers something that B must have -- water when he is > stranded in the desert -- but at an exorbitant price. Is he not then > coerced? You are not coercing someone if, by taking his choice of the alternatives you offer, he is better off than if you weren't there at all. If I appear in the desert and offer a dying man water on the condition that he give me all he owns, he is free to ignore me entirely and crawl to his death. He may not like this, but it was his original situation with which I had nothing to do. > Clearly freedom depends on the character of alternatives. The > generalization, then, is that exchange best supports freedom when every > party can choose among offers that do not greatly differ in value from each > other or from no exchange at all. I think that is a bit of a contradiction-- let's look at the man in the desert again. Without my showing up, he dies. To give him "an offer that does not differ greatly in value from no exchange at all" I would have to demand something that was almost worth his life! That's crazy. The benefit of free exchange is that in every transaction, total utility rises. If I demand enormous payment from the desert man, he would still rather pay than die. So he's doing better. And we may also assume I'm doing better. What the collectivist objects to is that I make an enormous profit on the deal. Let me explain it to you this way: enormous profits like this are made when the value of something (like saving someone's life) is is much more than the cost of producing it (we didn't specify how much it cost, but assume it's cheap). This sends a loud clear signal --much more efficacious than any number of bureaucratic memos--to everyone that there ought to be more people out in the desert saving lives. And if the profit is indeed high, they will rush to do it. The high profit of the initial few is only what they richly deserve for sparking the whole life-saving business in the first place. In a free market, people seek out those services others need the most for just the reasons above. If I'm limited to the same rate of return no matter what I do, why innovate? It's a real pain to try to push a new idea through in a bureaucracy. It's risky in both cases. The initial high profit motivates the innovater and rewards him when he discovers a way to satisfy a great need no one has met before. Carnes has challenged libertarians to provide a theory of "distributive justice". Here's mine, it's simple: Everyone deserves exactly what he can make himself. How can the poor man have a "right" to handouts when if the other people weren't there, he'd merely starve? Any benefit someone gets from association with others is purely "good luck". No one deserves something someone else has made. He has the right to try to make something that is worth more to the other person, and offer an exchange; it is our great good fortune when such an exchange is possible. It isn't always, and we can't claim it as a right. --JoSH
fagin@ucbvax.ARPA (Barry Steven Fagin) (02/14/85)
In article <328@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP> carnes@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP (Richard Carnes) writes: >DISPARITY IN ATTRACTIVENESS OF ALTERNATIVES. Many of the coercive >potentials in exchange can be subsumed under one generalization. Suppose A >offers something of overwhelming value to B -- say, a lifetime income -- in >return for which B must do something he abhors. Is he really free to >refuse? Yes. >Suppose A offers something that B must have -- water when he is >stranded in the desert -- but at an exorbitant price. Is he not then >coerced? Yes, he is not then coerced. >Clearly freedom depends on the character of alternatives. Nope. Not from what he's shown so far. >.... On this the liberal argument is correct: liberty in market >systems exists only if everyone is able to escape coercion at the hands of >any one buyer or seller by turning to another. Implicit in Lindblom's arguments is the belief that *circumstances* can coerce. I believe, however, that this is false; only people can coerce. Circumstances are impassionate, inanimate things that lead people to do one thing or another. If circumstances can indeed coerce, then in order to dispense justice, we are faced with the problem of determining when circumstances are coercing people, and when people are making a free choice. How is such a determination to be made? Undoubtedly through the political marketplace, using arbitrary and capricious methods similar to those we use today. For those who believe in a deeper, more objective kind of justice, believing that circumstances can coerce is unsatisfactory. As an aside, I would prefer the phantom coercion of circumstance to the very real coercion Lindblom and others would employ to protect against its ravages. Lindblom of course makes lots of other points in his assault on the classical liberal argument, which I hope other libertarians will address. >Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes --Barry -- Barry Fagin @ University of California, Berkeley
faustus@ucbcad.UUCP (02/14/85)
> >Suppose A offers something that B must have -- water when he is > >stranded in the desert -- but at an exorbitant price. Is he not then > >coerced? > > Yes, he is not then coerced. So what if A again offers B something that he must have -- that A not shoot him -- at great price? This is coercion. But I don't see much difference. (Unless you want to say that it is a difference between doing and not doing something, in which case I'll think of some more examples. But you probably get the idea.) The problem is that you seem to be fixing an entire ethical and political system on on idea -- coercion -- when it isn't even that well defined. I haven't seen anybody explain exactly why coercion is the worst possible evil, except maybe to the "ethical relativism" argument, which doesn't hold water. Does anybody want to define "coercion" properly for me and explain why it is so bad? (Don't get me wrong -- I don't think it is a good idea, but absolute freedom of will doesn't seem to be a likely candidate for the ultimate good, either.) Wayne
mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) (02/15/85)
JoSH says "No one deserves something someone else has made."
This being the case, who gets the loot when someone dies?
--
Martin Taylor
{allegra,linus,ihnp4,floyd,ubc-vision}!utzoo!dciem!mmt
{uw-beaver,qucis,watmath}!utcsrgv!dciem!mmttonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch) (02/16/85)
Barry Fagin says circumstances can't coerce, only people can coerce? Incredible. Tony Wuersch amdcad!cae780!ubvax!tonyw
ncg@ukc.UUCP (N.C.Gale) (02/19/85)
In article <1397@dciem.UUCP> mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) writes: > >JoSH says "No one deserves something someone else has made." >This being the case, who gets the loot when someone dies? >-- I have the (Libertarian-like) answer to this one. It's not my idea, but one suggested to me by rjc of Nottingham, England, in a private arguement by mail ( I wish rather more private arguements took place via mail rather than on the net) When someone dies, all his worldly is auctioned off, and the money gained from this sale is burned. Destroyed. The value of everyone elses' money rises accordingly. The next-of-kin feels a bit p**sed off though. Unfortunately, this gives equally to every single pound note already in existance. So the rich get much richer, and the poor get negligibly richer. Like I said, it wasn't my idea. -Nigel Gale
josh@topaz.ARPA (J Storrs Hall) (02/19/85)
>> >Suppose A offers something that B must have -- water when he is >> >stranded in the desert -- but at an exorbitant price. Is he not then >> >coerced? >> >> Yes, he is not then coerced. > >So what if A again offers B something that he must have -- that A not >shoot him -- at great price? This is coercion. But I don't see much >difference. (Unless you want to say that it is a difference between >doing and not doing something, in which case I'll think of some more >examples. But you probably get the idea.) > Wayne You are claiming that because you cannot see where to draw the line between them, there is no difference between coercing someone and failing to do something good for someone. Consider the following situations: (a) I shoot Mr. A. (b) I stand by (I am unarmed) while Mr. B shoots Mr A. I could have saved Mr A (for a minute at least) by jumping in front of the gun at the cost of my own life. By your (and Carnes') definition, I am coercing Mr A equally in (a) and (b). This is preposterous. Just because you can imagine a lot of twilight situations doesn't mean there is no difference between night and day. I offer someone a choice of their money or their life, am I coercing them? It depends on what would have happened if I hadn't been there at all. If the "victim" has a choice of proceeding as if I had never existed, I am not coercing him. If I offer someone the choice of giving me his wallet or I will shoot him, he would obviously prefer "none of the above". Thus I'm coercing him. If I offer him water in the desert, he has the option of replying, "Buzz off, smelly bum!" and I'm not coercing him. Our Socialist friends will instantly respond that I am (in some cases) sitting on some property, and they would like nothing better than to wish me to disappear so they could have it. Am I not coercing them? After all, they'd like to act as if I weren't there. Well, remember, what I said was "had never existed". The desert fellow can hardly expect me to walk miles to his side with a glass of water and then vanish conveniently leaving him with the goods. He must choose that I never poured it or carried it in the first place. Similarly, if I have a house that I built with my own hands, the socialist must accept that I am not coercing him to live in it without inviting him. If I hadn't existed, the house wouldn't have either. Similarly, if I sold the house and bought another, he would have no right to it. If I had not existed, I couldn't have bought it, and it would belong to someone else. If the socialist wishes that no one else had ever existed, it would never have been built in the first place. So the existence of property per se is not coercion. This is not to say that it cannot be acquired without coercion--we all have our favorite examples. It is a subject of considerable interest to propertarians just which rights are legitimate property rights (ie, non-coercive) and which aren't. Since I anticipate that Carnes will run crying to his dictionary, I will suggest that in future discussions we make clear just what we mean by "coercion". I've provided a clear and usable definition, I think. --JoSH
jlg@lanl.ARPA (02/20/85)
> When someone dies, all his worldly is auctioned off, and the > money gained from this sale is burned. Destroyed. > The value of everyone elses' money rises accordingly. > The next-of-kin feels a bit p**sed off though. This would never work in a libertarian style society. How are you to enforce the burning of the auction profit? Seems like there would have to be a law which required the burning of the money, a court system to adjudicate fair settlement (how much money get burned if there is a living partner in the estate?), and a police force to ensure that the laws were carried out. Libertarians would never pay taxes to support such a scheme. Of course, you could give the money to the police and court system to make the thing self sufficient, but then there would be no external control over the court's actions. They could start having the police force execute people in order to gain their estates. :=) J. Giles
faustus@ucbcad.UUCP (02/21/85)
> You are claiming that because you cannot see where to draw the line > between them, there is no difference between coercing someone and > failing to do something good for someone. > > Consider the following situations: (a) I shoot Mr. A. (b) I stand > by (I am unarmed) while Mr. B shoots Mr A. I could have saved Mr A > (for a minute at least) by jumping in front of the gun at the cost > of my own life. > > By your (and Carnes') definition, I am coercing Mr A equally in (a) > and (b). This is preposterous. Just because you can imagine a lot > of twilight situations doesn't mean there is no difference between > night and day. I wasn't claiming that there wasn't a difference, all I was claiming was that none of the definitions I have seen so far make the distinction between coercion and non-coercion clear. I think that the reason is that coercion is a pretty intuitive concept, like "good", and that these sorts of things are both very hard to define accurately and inappropriate to build legal systems on. > I offer someone a choice of their money or their life, am I coercing them? > It depends on what would have happened if I hadn't been there at all. > If the "victim" has a choice of proceeding as if I had never existed, > I am not coercing him. If I offer someone the choice of giving me his > wallet or I will shoot him, he would obviously prefer "none of the above". > Thus I'm coercing him. If I offer him water in the desert, he has the > option of replying, "Buzz off, smelly bum!" and I'm not coercing him. > > Since I anticipate that Carnes will run crying to his dictionary, > I will suggest that in future discussions we make clear just what we > mean by "coercion". I've provided a clear and usable definition, I think. So your definition is as follows: A is coercing B X iff A offers B a choice of actions, none of which is what B would do if A had not offered the choice. You would also like to claim (correct me if I'm wrong) that it is wrong to use coercion except in response to previous coercion. I will accept the definition of coercion, because I don't claim any special properties for coercion, but the definition of "wrong" leaves a lot out. For instance: Why is it wrong (or at least, how can you justify it being illegal) to steal things, to defraud people, to build huge bombs on your property with cheap firing mechanisms and leave monkeys to guard them, and so forth? Do people who are incapable of making choices, and are therefore unable to be coerced, have rights? Is pure violence coercion? If I shoot you a few times but claim that I wasn't coercing you because you weren't given any choices, is this right? Again, I'm not claiming that there is no difference between mugging somebody and these cases -- all I want is to see if somebody can come up with a definition that makes the distinction. Wayne
faustus@ucbcad.UUCP (02/22/85)
> >JoSH says "No one deserves something someone else has made." > >This being the case, who gets the loot when someone dies? > >-- > > I have the (Libertarian-like) answer to this one. > It's not my idea, but one suggested to me by rjc of Nottingham, > England, in a private arguement by mail ( I wish rather more > private arguements took place via mail rather than on the net) > > When someone dies, all his worldly is auctioned off, and the > money gained from this sale is burned. Destroyed. > The value of everyone elses' money rises accordingly. > The next-of-kin feels a bit p**sed off though. Well, the idea is that the deceased has decided whom to give his stuff to, and that is his right to do (even after her has died). If he dies without a will, then the idea is that he naturally would have wanted to give his stuff to his next of kin (which is not usually a good assumption to make)... Instead of burning the money, why not let it support the government instead of taxes? (I.e., the default will is to the government.) Wayne
laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton) (02/26/85)
Wayne, your definition won't work. If you offer me a job and I take it this is not coercion. Yet I would not have taken it if you were not there to offer the choice to me. Any workable definition of coercion is going to have to include that the person being coerced is compelled to act against what he considers his best interest. The usual things which compell people to act this way is violence, threat of violence, and fraud. If you aer going to see if you can use this definition, here is a game you cannot play. You cannot say that when a mugger says ``your money or your life'' it is now in your best interest to fork over the money -- so you are acting in your best interest. These games either assume that one can look at events distinct from their immediate causes (and thus any time is good to begin thinking about ethics) or that it is possible to live ethically while being subject to the whims of others who are irrational and unethical to boot. Nothing doing. If you adopt this definition of coercion (and I am perfectly willing to expand the list of coercion to include thigns besides violence, threat of violence and fraud if you can make a good case) then I think that you must also accept teh ethical position of ethical egoism. Otherwise I do not think that the principle of non-coercion can be justified. I have to go to work now. I will write this one up (it is going to be long) while I format packs today. sorry to break off so shortly. Laura Creighton utzoo!laura