mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) (02/15/85)
>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. If you are using the word with some other definition >in mind, please say so when you use it. > >--JoSH No, it isn't clear. If you don't want to do it, you don't do it, no matter what threat of force may be used. You have a choice: do it or be beaten up (non-violent civil disobedience often leads to the second choice). It isn't clear where deception links with the usual meanings of coercion, either. I'd say that Carnes' extreme examples are just as good descriptions of coercive situations as one that might satisfy JoSH: somebody standing in your house with a gun, saying "this is my house now, so you get out." You have many choices: decline, fight, pretend to go, or truly go. Coercion comes in many forms, moral and physical, and economic, too. 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. Coercion seems to be a shibboleth for libertarians. If coercion is involved in something, that something is bad. Since taxation is bad, we must conclude that coercion is what makes it bad, because there really isn't any other reason (I'm not arguing tax levels, here; just the principle). But an unequal economic transaction isn't coercive, because we know beforehand that it is free and therefore good. Couldn't we stop playing word games that rely on hidden codes, and talk about what does or could happen as a consequence of political structures involving real people? -- Martin Taylor {allegra,linus,ihnp4,floyd,ubc-vision}!utzoo!dciem!mmt {uw-beaver,qucis,watmath}!utcsrgv!dciem!mmt