Reflection on coercion

[Schrödinger's Cat]

In lieu of having nothing to do, I started writing down some thoughts that I found defensible in public. This thought process further confirmed my suspicions that anarcho-capitalism made no sense from both an ethical and consequential standpoint; please note the following analysis does rely heavily on the premise of consensus democracy (agreement through negotiations, arbitration, or something similar). All criticisms and opinions are allowed. I do warn some of the structure may be sloppy. Please take special care in being picky about my use of "can" and "should." One applies to a physical possibility; the other is more of an ethical statement:

Facts:

- At birth, I am truly an individual. I am not physically dependent. I may require parenting assistance, but this is not the same thing as being dependent.
- A segment (not necessarily determinable) of people want their own possessions like clothes, food, and computers.
- For private possession to exist, force must be displayed and functional. It must outmatch antagonist forces for these possessions to become solely usable.
- If I lay claim to land and land only - with appeal from others - I must defend this claim. In a micro-example, it can be the stronger against the weaker. I can use land ownership to my advantage by linking up with another property owner and promising each other mutual protection against opposite forces. This excludes people from use.
- A segment of people have the ability to change nature with their own labor. I am still excluding others from use.
- Ownership can extend to other people with the use of stronger force.
- Labor is dependent of the individual. If someone knows how to sing, that person can request anything from another individual wanting to learn. However, for there to be guarantee of an exchange, force must be present. I can take your coin and refuse to sing. Or, reversely, I can sing and you refuse to pay.
- That other individual can reciprocate with either labor or property. In the case of labor, no coercion occurs. In the case of property, one should remember it was originally acquired from force. This includes such exchange material as gold, land, or even people.

Thoughts:

- If I exclude others from use of any resource, I am creating coercion. Labor is dependent on the individual, but land is not.
- For there not to be any coercion, everyone interested in using the land must agree on some particular resolution.
- Force is going to occur regardless of the system. Consensus amongst the respected individuals must be reached. Forcing people to agree on something requires a force, but the question turns to - who is the source of force?
- The answer: people. Not democracy, not monarchism, not liberal republicanism. People.
- If agreements are not met, the property continues to be public use. There is no "ownership."
- If an agreement is met between all parties, it becomes defensible by the people.
- This agreement is over property, not humanity (no slavery). The agreement can demand that the land is put up to "use."
- For this to be possible, the strongest force in existence needs to agree on this principle. But this is true of any system.

Consequentialist capitalists will sometimes advocate a "no force at all" policy against property ownership, but this legitimizes:

- Slavery
- Child sex
- Extremely, undeniable cases of wage slavery

Dilemmas

- Some joker could claim to wants to use property, but he just turns property into public land by never agreeing. Would then the people force the two into arbitration and/or mediation?
- Of course these are all ethical discussions. Perhaps we could focus on the argument of which works best.
- If an old party wants to change a precedent, should they?
- It's been claimed consensus democracy is more coercive than 50%+1 because there is a tendency to agree with the majority rather than dissent. I'm not sure about this.

Note: I'm not necessarily defending this system, just thinking it makes some logical points. I made this thread more to show that some nature of coercion may always exist, that no perfect property system exists, and that we may (must) look at what's most beneficial production-wise.

[Self-Owner]

In lieu of having nothing to do, I started writing down some thoughts that I found defensible in public. This thought process further confirmed my suspicions that anarcho-capitalism made no sense from both an ethical and consequential standpoint; please note the following analysis does rely heavily on the premise of consensus democracy (agreement through negotiations, arbitration, or something similar). All criticisms and opinions are allowed. I do warn some of the structure may be sloppy. Please take special care in being picky about my use of "can" and "should." One applies to a physical possibility; the other is more of an ethical statement:

Here are some likewise unformed thoughts from an anarcho-capitalist (leaning, at least). I don't necessarily disagree with everything you say, by any means.




Facts:

- For private possession to exist, force must be displayed and functional. It must outmatch antagonist forces for these possessions to become solely usable.The existence of private property (in a descriptive sense, i.e. ignoring any moral claims and focusing entirely on the practicalities) may well be dependent on an ultimate appeal to force. But it looks to me like you're saying that in order for each individual to own stuff, he needs to be able to outmatch any possible antagonist who might otherwise steal his property, which I don't think is true. All that is required is for the prospective owner to have at his disposal enough force to make it prohibitively costly for anyone to take it, which is not the same thing at all. For instance, I could live next to someone much stronger than me who could, if he wanted, take my house. But if I could break his arm in the process, he may not think it worthwhile. The point is more generally that there is an asymmetry between the costs of aggressive and defensive force, for various reasons (natural - it's easier to defend a castle than to attack it, and game theoretic - check out http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academic/Property/Property.html).



- Labor is dependent of the individual. If someone knows how to sing, that person can request anything from another individual wanting to learn. However, for there to be guarantee of an exchange, force must be present. I can take your coin and refuse to sing. Or, reversely, I can sing and you refuse to pay.Not necessarily. You've portrayed trade as a sort of prisoner's dilemma, which in the absence of 'guarantees' backed by force, both participants have an incentive to defect in. What this analysis misses is that the structure is more like an iterated prisoner's dilemma, where the possibility of future cooperation is contingent on present cooperation. In other words, if you look at each trade in isolation it might look like force is required for the transaction to go through, but there is also the benefits of further trade to take into account. If we make a deal for you to sing and I pay you but you fail to uphold your end of the bargain, you may well get my gold. But you also lose the opportunity to ever make a deal with me again (plus you take the reputational hit when I tell everyone you are not to be trusted.)


Thoughts:

- For there not to be any coercion, everyone interested in using the land must agree on some particular resolution. [/QUOTE]

Bear in mind that you're using 'coercion' in a sense which is not exactly agreed upon. If you mean it in an unmoralized way, where coercion is literally just the threat of force, then there's no reason why stopping anyone else from enslaving you does not count as coercion.

[quote]
- Force is going to occur regardless of the system. Consensus amongst the respected individuals must be reached. Forcing people to agree on something requires a force, but the question turns to - who is the source of force? This doesn't make much sense to me. If you really want a true consensus amongst everyone, why do you need force to do it? People voluntarily agreeing on stuff don't need to be forced. It sounds like what you really want is submission, which is a different matter.


- If an agreement is met between all parties, it becomes defensible by the people. If what you're saying is that there must be an agreement between every human being before a natural resource can be justifiably appropriated, everyone will starve. No doubt about it.


Consequentialist capitalists will sometimes advocate a "no force at all" policy against property ownership, but this legitimizes:

- Slavery
- Child sex
- Extremely, undeniable cases of wage slaveryIt's probably deontological libertarians who will allow (voluntary) chattel slavery and your cases of wage labour (I've never known one to advocate child sex though).



Note: I'm not necessarily defending this system, just thinking it makes some logical points. I made this thread more to show that some nature of coercion may always exist, that no perfect property system exists, and that we may (must) look at what's most beneficial production-wise.
I don't really get this either: you seem to want unanimous agreement before resources are used, and yet you want to show that coercion always exists. And how does it follow that this is 'most beneficial production wise?'

[apathy maybe]

Just a quick post, will reply more later.

Firstly, I disagree with many of your "facts".

- Labor is dependent of the individual. If someone knows how to sing, that person can request anything from another individual wanting to learn. However, for there to be guarantee of an exchange, force must be present. I can take your coin and refuse to sing. Or, reversely, I can sing and you refuse to pay.
I reject that force is required here, as mentioned above by Self-Owner, you could look at it like a prisoners dilemma. However, it isn't really a prisoners dilemma, because not only is the entire history of each interaction public to all, but it is not just between two persons.

Contracts can work, even without force existing, because if one party doesn't uphold their end of the contract, they won't agreement for others into the future. (For a fictional look at such, check out the story in my sig, And Then There Were None. Freedom, I won't.)

Likewise,

- For private possession to exist, force must be displayed and functional. It must outmatch antagonist forces for these possessions to become solely usable.
Two things, if I were a hermit, and no body lived or visited the area around where I lived, and no one knew about me and the area where I lived, then no force is even required or needed. Private possession could exist in such a scenario indefinitely.
But, this isn't the case where there are others around. In a future perfect society, with a high level of technology capable of reproducing complex items for dirt or whatever, for (relatively) very little energy cost, then private possession could easily exist without any desire to take from someone else.

Let's pretend that I have a CD of music. I then rip it to my computer and put it in a publicly accessible folder. You then access that folder and copy all that music. We now each of that music, no one is deprived, and no force was ever mentioned, implied or required on either side. Indeed, in such a scenario, force (or the threat of force) from either side would more likely be counter-productive!
If physical goods were as easy to copy as digital goods, then again, your "fact" doesn't hold up.

I would suggest (and I don't have time just now to "prove"), that my two extreme cases put enough holes in that "fact" for it not be worth anything.

I would further suggest, that many of your other "facts" have similar holes.

:)