mwm@ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA (02/17/85)
References: Sender: Reply-To: mwm@ucbtopaz.UUCP (Praiser of Bob) Followup-To: Distribution: Organization: Missionaria Phonibalonica Keywords: [coercion] >>The technical meaning of coercion is clear: Someone is coercing you when >>he makes you do something, or does something to you or your property, >>that you did not want to do or have done, by force, threat of force, >>or deception. >>--JoSH >No, it isn't clear. It is the promise (delivered by a person >or by nature) that if you don't do something you will be worse off >than if you do it. Its inverse is seduction: if you do something >you will be better off than if you don't. Rephrasing to (try) and make the differences obvious: Josh: Coercion is the promise "I will make you worse off than you are now unless you do this." Martin: Coercion is the promise "You will be worse off if you do this than if you don't." Also note that Martin has made coercion and seduction synonymous by symmetry. For example, I am coerced/seduced into paying taxes. After all, if I pay taxes I'm better off than if I don't pay taxes (I'm not in jail), and if I don't pay taxes I'm worse off than if I do pay taxes. Given that, I think the arguments about why calling a "democratic republic" a "democracy" (which I agree with) apply, and we should stick with Josh's definition. [subsidizing obsoleted labor.] >> Given Martin Taylor's leisure-subsidy plan, the economically >>efficacious thing for the worker to do is train for a profession which he >>can expect to soon become obsolete. Wonderful. >> Daniel Kian Mc Kiernan >It might be so. Is that so bad, if we all benefit from that choice? What happens when nearly everybody is subsidized as obsoleted labor? For that matter, how do you handle the claim that I'm <obsoleted labor class>, even if I happen to have other, still saleable, skills? I missed the suggestion that Martin orignally made, but similar things have been put into print. [No, I won't tell you where it came from - You'll have to look in the universe next door.] The ideas looked *marvelous*, so I will post them so everybody can poke holes in them. First, anytime a profession is obsoleted by automation [a profession obsoleted by lack of sales - such a buggy whip makers - looses], the government provides a subsidy to all companies that employed such people so that the company can automate. The cost to the company is that they pay everybody who is replaced by this automation their salary at the time they are fired, for life. The benifits of workers who now don't require coffee breaks, etc, and the ability to run 24 hours a day should make this move benificial to the company. The workers still have to pay taxes, and inflation (if it is still around) provides an incentive for them to find other work. The government provides motivation for this move to automation by giving anyone who obsoletes there own profession a stipend equal to their salary, in addition to that provided by the company, and not taxing any of it. Thus, workers are provided with an incentive to help automate their own profession out of existence. An inventive person moving from profession to profession could become quite well off. >On a more theoretical note, this exchange illuminates what I think to >be a serious problem with McK's style of argument. The assumptions >are clean, the arguments mathematical and possibly correct; but they >don't apply to the nasty real complex world as closely as he would >have us believe. The same can be said for anything posted to net.politics.theory. Now, can you prove that your assumptions are better (closer to reality) than McK's? [Inheritance tax.] >JoSH says "No one deserves something someone else has made." >This being the case, who gets the loot when someone dies? How about "society?" In other words, turn it over to the government, and let them spend the monetary part, and draw dividends on stocks, etc. <mike
faustus@ucbcad.UUCP (02/17/85)
> Rephrasing to (try) and make the differences obvious: > > Josh: Coercion is the promise "I will make you worse off than you are now > unless you do this." > > Martin: Coercion is the promise "You will be worse off if you do this than > if you don't." > > Also note that Martin has made coercion and seduction synonymous by > symmetry. For example, I am coerced/seduced into paying taxes. After all, > if I pay taxes I'm better off than if I don't pay taxes (I'm not in jail), > and if I don't pay taxes I'm worse off than if I do pay taxes. Since we're trying to find a definition for coercion, consider some cases: say our definition of coercion is Josh's. Then if there is a burglar in your house and you threaten him, by saying "I will make you worse off than you are now unless you leave", he can claim that you have initiated the coercion. (He never made any threats against you, but has just come to take some of your things.) Since coercion is anathema to Libertarians, it seems that you can't defend your own house. Then you might define coercion as: "Telling somebody that you will make him worse off than he is unless he does something, or violating his 'basic rights'". But then what are the basic rights? Assuming that we can make a list of basic rights (which I think is unlikely), there are cases like: Jones, a rich man, owns a rich bakery, and Smith, a poor starving man, steals a loaf of bread that is cooling off outside. Is this right? (It isn't coercion, certainly, so Libertarians can't say that coercion is the only evil...) All I am trying to point out is that Justice isn't as simple as Libertarians want to make it seem. A few clear rules just can't cover what is right and wrong, at least the way that we think of the concepts. Wayne
laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton) (02/18/85)
Wayne, you cannot say that the burgler did not coerce anyone because he did not threaten to kill you -- therefore you cannot threaten to kill him unless he leaves your property alone. Either you are limiting your definition of coercion to attac ks of violence on a person (and assuming that the burgler isn't going to attack the victim when the victim discovers him) or you are defining a ``start time'' to look at the problem which occurs after the burglary but before the victim threatens the burgler. Both approaches would be rejected by libertarians. Laura Creighton utzoo!laura