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From: faustus@ucbcad.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Freedom, coercion, and free markets (III)
Message-ID: <115@ucbcad.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 21-Feb-85 12:51:21 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbcad.115
Posted: Thu Feb 21 12:51:21 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 26-Feb-85 04:54:26 EST
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Organization: UC Berkeley CAD Group, Berkeley, CA
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> 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