Originally Posted by Matt1989

But surely you see the difference between rational persuasion and compulsion?

Sure, and I would always prefer the carrot rather than the stick. But sometimes the stick is necessary.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Coercion is the shaping of behavior through the imposition of penalties for disobedience. In the absence of a state, groups that all know each other impose penalties for socially unacceptable behavior ranging from expressions of disapproval to ostracism to banishment to flogging to death. (The last two are generally not permitted in the presence of a state.)

Coercion is a necessary part of human societies. It has not always been imposed by a state (because precivilized societies didn't have states), but it has always been imposed by something.

Originally Posted by Child of Socrates

Sure, and I would always prefer the carrot rather than the stick. But sometimes the stick is necessary.

Well, yeah. I think if we're using standard definitions there are legitimate uses of coercion -- at the clearest level, I think such legitimate uses would include, for example, a clear-headed response to something like rape or murder. But I'm not sure something like disapproval or social ostracism really counts as coercion; that's not the way I've ever seen it used, at least. And in a society with free association and all that (--> heading toward a libertarian analysis of coercion), I think the ability to force someone to behave in a certain way is mitigated, so that'd be a mistake to consider something along the lines of society's disapproval as an act of coercion.

Originally Posted by jamesdglick

2) No, historically, volunteers do a disproportinate amount of the killing and dying in combat in every US war of which I'm aware.

Only if you look at wars where there was no draft. In WWII, many people "volunteered" pre-empting their being drafted because it would allow them to pick safer parts of the service. The draftees overwhelming went into the infantry and suffered disproportionate casualties.

Originally Posted by jamesdglick

I was comparing the onerousness of the two seperately, on their own terms, as if it were one or the other- go back and check my post.

Which is disingenuous unless you are positing a society where veterans are exempted from all taxes after they serve.

Originally Posted by jamesdglick

Nope. Do the math.

I did. 100% plus a high likelihood of violence is worse than 18% with a low likelihood of violence. Taxes win.

from Matt 1989

(

$20 is so ridiculously overpriced for two movies!).

Which of course is your right to make that determination. What is clearly not your right is to steal that experience because you merely want it and deprive the theater owner of his rightful money.

Originally Posted by Matt1989

Well, yeah. I think if we're using standard definitions there are legitimate uses of coercion -- at the clearest level, I think such legitimate uses would include, for example, a clear-headed response to something like rape or murder. But I'm not sure something like disapproval or social ostracism really counts as coercion; that's not the way I've ever seen it used, at least.

It's not something that most people understand clearly. To a lot of people, "coercion" means something along the lines of, "forcing a person to do something so they have no choice and lose freedom of action." That's actually not coercion. The only way to do it is to literally, physically compel someone so that you're moving their bodies for them in some fashion. As long as they remain in control of their own actions, they always have a choice: they can refuse to cooperate and endure the punishment. That was even true of slaves. A slave could choose to disobey, but if he did he might be whipped, sold, even killed. If you're using a conception of "coercion" that leaves even slaves uncoerced, then a linguistic problem arises; if slaves weren't victims of coercion, who is?

So instead it comes down to how behavior is to be shaped. There are basically three ways to shape someone else's behavior: persuasion, reward, and punishment. If you persuade someone, you use arguments (logical or emotional) to convince them to voluntarily take action; if you reward, you offer a bribe to get them to do what you want; if you use punishment, you threaten some unpleasant consequence if they don't do what you want. The latter is coercion. Whether the punishment is mere disapproval or social ostracism, or burning at the stake, makes a difference but only one of degree. As long as cooperation is achieved through threat of punishment, what you have is coercion.

There's one other circumstance that should IMO be considered coercive, and that's when a reward is used to shape behavior, but the reward has enhanced value because independent achievement of it is denied. The classic example is rats in a maze in a psych experiment. The rats are kept hungry and denied the opportunity to hunt for their own food, and so the proffered reward (food) has an enhanced value. If the rats were allowed to hunt and forage, the food wouldn't work as well as a reward. Similarly, the system of private capital property ownership in a capitalist economy, or that of state capital property ownership in a socialist one, keeps most people from independently earning a living by starting their own businesses, the way most people did in pre-industrial times, and so wages for work have an enhanced value as a reward. For this reason, I feel that the labor market should be considered coercive for most people, even though it doesn't rely on punishments per se.

And in a society with free association and all that (--> heading toward a libertarian analysis of coercion), I think the ability to force someone to behave in a certain way is mitigated, so that'd be a mistake to consider something along the lines of society's disapproval as an act of coercion.

I disagree, for reasons already stated. Coercion never literally forces someone to behave in a certain way, rather it shapes behavior through threat of punishment. As such, society's disapproval is definitely coercive, in that it's a punishment for unacceptable behavior. This form of coercion predates the state, of course, and exists on the tribal level that still operates beneath the state.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

That's fine as long as it's a service that's provided on an individual basis, but what if it's something that's provided collectively instead? Common defense is a classic example. It's not possible to deny someone the benefit of military protection unless it's denied to everyone equally. Say you have a voluntary collective of some sort with a militia for defense; everyone is expected to pony up a share of the costs, but it's a natural human tendency (at least for some humans) to shirk duties and let the rest of the population carry them along. What do you do with people who don't want to do their fair share?

Whether this is a problem depends on just how common free riders are. The existence of free riders depends greatly on the level of cost versus the perceived quality of the service. This would put constraints on the amount of money that could be spent and the type of services provided. I've previously argued that funding collective defense in this manner would very likely make imperialism impossible. Whether it would also impede an effective defense is a complex question and the answer is not intuitively obvious.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

The problem lies in that not everyone fits that description. What do you do about those who don't?

The same thing you do under any other circumstances. Live with them. It's what people have been doing for as long as there have been people.

No system of organization (or lack thereof) can change or negate the facts of the variety of humankind. That seems to be something that only the anarchist, of all the myriad worldviews, takes fully to heart.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

The same thing you do under any other circumstances. Live with them. It's what people have been doing for as long as there have been people.

No, they haven't. As long as there have been people, those people have lived in cooperative societies. All cooperative societies, both pre-state and state-governed, have employed means of behavior-shaping to keep behavior within acceptable bounds. That includes persuasion (propaganda), reward (incentive payments) and punishment (law). "Live with them," i.e. do nothing, is not a course of action undertaken by any human society at any time, historical or prehistorical, that I know of.

No system of organization (or lack thereof) can change or negate the facts of the variety of humankind.

No, but that's unimportant as long as you can change the way people behave, regardless of who and what they are. Better souls are moved by persuasion; the greedy are moved by reward; the worse by threat of punishment; at very worst there is execution or banishment. The soul, arguably, indeed remains unchanged by all this, but that is of importance only in terms of religion, not politics.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

The same thing you do under any other circumstances. Live with them. It's what people have been doing for as long as there have been people.

No, they haven't. As long as there have been people, those people have lived in cooperative societies. All cooperative societies, both pre-state and state-governed, have employed means of behavior-shaping to keep behavior within acceptable bounds. That includes persuasion (propaganda), reward (incentive payments) and punishment (law).

I was completely baffled by your response, given that you started out saying "no", then followed up immediately by listing the ways in which the answer is "yes". Then I got to the final sentence of the paragraph, which cleared up your disconnect for me.

"Live with them," i.e. do nothing, is not a course of action undertaken by any human society at any time, historical or prehistorical, that I know of.

Of course, "live with them" and "do nothing" are far from the same thing. In fact, the realm of 'do nothing' occupies only a miniscule part of the possible range of behaviors of living among people.

Your -- and here I mean the group of rigid-minded sociopolitical theoreticians -- problem is well-illustrated by the question you posed me (which elicited the respone to which you commented). You asked, "What do you do about...", where the 'you' was clearly intended to be society at large (since I had already said what I have done in those cases). This, as if there were some sort of universal True Answer(s) to the question. In fact, as I very clearly responded, there are no such Answers. The variety of reality does not lend itself to an Answer, and all your various sociopolitical Systems -- being, as they are, attempts to force reality into a particular unyielding framework -- are profoundly in dischord with the reality of people living together.

And people living together is the essence of politics.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Of course, "live with them" and "do nothing" are far from the same thing.

Well, then we can I think discard the "live with them" phrase. If it does mean "do nothing," then it describes NO human societies (either pre-state or state-governed), while if it does not mean that, then the only thing it could mean is "don't kill or banish them" (one must after all live with them in some fashion otherwise), and thus it describes ALL human societies (either pre-state or state-governed). Either way, it's not much of an answer, is it?

Please feel free to provide a better one, now that we have established that "live with them" is non-responsive.

You asked, "What do you do about...", where the 'you' was clearly intended to be society at large (since I had already said what I have done in those cases). This, as if there were some sort of universal True Answer(s) to the question.

On the contrary. The question was meaningful only on the assumption (for sake of argument) that there is more than one answer, rather than a single universal answer. I know very well what societies that employ coercive measures do about such people. I am asking what you would have a non-coercive society do. Presumably, it's a different answer.

In fact, as I very clearly responded, there are no such Answers.

Ah. In that case, you DO mean "do nothing." Or at least, that's the clear interpretation of your words here. If not, please explain what you would do. If it isn't nothing, and if it isn't a single thing in all cases, it must therefore be a variety of things depending on circumstances.

Expound, please.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Well, then we can I think discard the "live with them" phrase. If it does mean "do nothing," then it describes NO human societies (either pre-state or state-governed), while if it does not mean that, then the only thing it could mean is "don't kill or banish them" (one must after all live with them in some fashion otherwise), and thus it describes ALL human societies (either pre-state or state-governed). Either way, it's not much of an answer, is it?

The fact that you think so is the major delusion under which you labor -- and, on a wider scale, symptomatic of the most serious sociopolitical problem that personkind has to face.

Conviction that There Is An Answer leads people to try to change the nature of humankind to fit the answers they fabricate. It renders them -- and ultimately, the societies they form -- to be increasingly less reflective of the realities in which they swim, and thus increasingly less capable of thriving (or even, of surviving in the face of adversity).

Perhaps human beings (maybe even all people) need religion. But even if that is the case, religions, too, can be more or less conducive to the thriving of society. The myth of "Answers" is, from that standpoint, an unhealthy one.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

The fact that you think so is the major delusion under which you labor -- and, on a wider scale, symptomatic of the most serious sociopolitical problem that personkind has to face.

Conviction that There Is An Answer leads people to try to change the nature of humankind to fit the answers they fabricate. It renders them -- and ultimately, the societies they form -- to be increasingly less reflective of the realities in which they swim, and thus increasingly less capable of thriving (or even, of surviving in the face of adversity).

Perhaps human beings (maybe even all people) need religion. But even if that is the case, religions, too, can be more or less conducive to the thriving of society. The myth of "Answers" is, from that standpoint, an unhealthy one.

Interesting broad generalization. Does it follow that those who think Libertarianism / Anarchism is An Answer have the same problems that followers of other philosophical or religious systems have? The argument seems to suggest that attempting to solve social problems is futile?

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

If that is not the case, then you are NOT a slave. A taxpayer is no more a slave to the state, then a debtor is a slave to a creditor; in both cases, an obligation exists to pay a portion of property to someone else. But in neither case is the taxpayer/debtor himself the property of that someone else.

-Only if freely entered into. Where's your contract?

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

That of whoever is making the allegedly free agreement. If this party NEEDS the agreement, and cannot walk away from it without heinous consequences, the agreement is not free. That describes most employment contracts...

-Yes, but most employment contracts are freely entered into. Or are people drafted to work for Microsoft? The draft is not voluntary, neither is jury duty.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

None of these are slavery. Again, you are committing the same logical fallacy...

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

LOL -- obviously you have no children...

-Interesting. Who forced YOU to have children? I'd be curious to discover the legal mechanism by which this occured.

And then, having the children, the only reason you took care of them was to avoid prosecution from the government?

Do Tell.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

Only if you look at wars where there was no draft. In WWII, many people "volunteered" pre-empting their being drafted because it would allow them to pick safer parts of the service...

-I'm aware of that theory, but:

1) That's not a sincere volunteer, is it?

2) There was plenty of opportunity for draftees to get the safe jobs, and they did;

3) Plenty of guys who volunteered, volunteered for the riskiest stuff, like aircrews, or the airborne, or submarine crews, or infantry lieutenants, which were all-volunteer by definition (even if originally drafted. See Below).

As for your other concern, volunteers definitely do a dis-proportionate amount of the close-up killing.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

...The draftees overwhelming went into the infantry and suffered disproportionate casualties...

-In DEC 1942, the military shut down the enlistment centers, so techinically, everyone who came thereafter was a "Draftee", but combat units were dis-proportionately volunteer in function, particulalry the USMC, which still usually only took draftees who volunteered.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

...100% plus a high likelihood of violence is worse than 18% [my figure was 16%] with a low likelihood of violence. Taxes win.

-You're missing the key point:

100% over a maximum of 6 years (in reality, usually far less)

vs.

16% over a minimum of 35 years (usually far more).

Granted, the increased liklihood of violence or mishap in the military vs. the civilian world varies.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

...Which is disingenuous unless you are positing a society where veterans are exempted from all taxes after they serve...

-That was exactly my point in the original post [#1045 of 4T and anything military]; I was directly comparing the onerousness of the two on their individual merits.

---
Back to Playwrite:

I'd still love to know: When PW was supposedly visiting SE Asia, did he bother to check out the "Anti-War" movement's handiwork in the re-education camps, and in the killing fields? The answer seems to be NO...

Back to Haymarket':

I'd still love to know: Who paid Haymarket's Military Service Tax? Come on, I know you're retired, Haymarket. I'd think it'd be easy to go check out the old county draft records from 1971. You can look the guy up, and thank him for his inconvenience...

---

Originally Posted by haymarket martyr

WARNING: The poster known as jamesdglick has a history of engaging in fraud. He makes things up out of his own head and attempts to use these blatant lies to score points in his arguments. When you call him on it, he will only lie further. He has such a reputation for doing this that many people here are cowed into silence and will not acknowledge it or confront him on it.

Anyone who attempts to engage with glick will discover this and find out you have wasted your time and energy on an intellectual fraud of the worst sort.

-So cry many Boomers (self-professed Lefties, mostly) whenever they fail to explain their hypocritical self-justifications, their double-standards, and their double-think forays into evil. Perhaps their consciences bother them, perhaps not. Who knows.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

Does it follow that those who think Libertarianism / Anarchism is An Answer have the same problems that followers of other philosophical or religious systems have?

The the extent that a person holds 'libertarianism' to be a system, then yes. Of course, anarchism, like a-theism, is not a system and has no claims to being an Answer (in fact, holding the contrary view that I expressed above -- there are no such things as Answers).

The argument seems to suggest that attempting to solve social problems is futile?

More of the statist delusion. You imagine that there is a category -- in the sense of a group that can be meaningfully acted upon based on some sort of delineated model -- of states called 'social problems'. And that one either can 'solve' that category (via, of course, the Right Answer...), or else one is helpless to do anything at all.

The reality is that there are people and there is their environment -- society. And everything people do, whether they imagine it to be an Answer or not, is potentially a step in a solution to something. One need have no Answer to solve problems, and in fact trying to impose an Answer on humanity only obfuscates things, since the Answer being imposed must necessarily be fundamentally dischordant with the reality of society and people.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

More of the statist delusion. You imagine that there is a category -- in the sense of a group that can be meaningfully acted upon based on some sort of delineated model -- of states called 'social problems'. And that one either can 'solve' that category (via, of course, the Right Answer...), or else one is helpless to do anything at all.

The reality is that there are people and there is their environment -- society. And everything people do, whether they imagine it to be an Answer or not, is potentially a step in a solution to something. One need have no Answer to solve problems, and in fact trying to impose an Answer on humanity only obfuscates things, since the Answer being imposed must necessarily be fundamentally dischordant with the reality of society and people.

I guess you'll just have to call me a deluded statist, then.

*Odin rolls his eyes*

Justin... when you keep using the term The Answer - are you using it to mean that there is One True Way to Solve The Problem and all other ways will not solve problems?

"The Answer is 42." Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

"The Answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind." Peter, Paul & Mary, Silent troubadours par excellence.

Originally Posted by haymarket martyr

Justin... when you keep using the term The Answer - are you using it to mean that there is One True Way to Solve The Problem and all other ways will not solve problems?

Not so much the thinking that that there is only one true answer, as the belief that there can be formulated any True answer.

No answer -- no matter how broadly worded or thought out -- can be applicable for the entirety of society. And a worldview that insists on imposing one on society can only be in conflict with society.

I would agree that there is not such a thing as the Right Answer Which Will Solve All Mans Problems. But so what? The perfect should not be the enemy of the good. A society needs a variety of approaches for a variety of people..... ie: rewards, incentives, sanctions, punishments, etc. The vast majority will respond in a socially acceptable way given the proper combination of factors. No system is ever going to reach or please anyone. So what. As long as it works for the vast majority and the rights of them minority are respected within reason then its fine by me.

I suspect that is the way most enlightened systems work.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Not so much the thinking that that there is only one true answer, as the belief that there can be formulated any True answer.

No answer -- no matter how broadly worded or thought out -- can be applicable for the entirety of society. And a worldview that insists on imposing one on society can only be in conflict with society.

I might also distinguish between broad systematic answers and issue specific answers. The debates here feature people locked into broad value systems. For example, the recent Republican coalition featured strong defense, tax cuts for the rich and advocating evangelical values. A libertarian / anarchist value set tends to reject solving problems using government as the government itself is presumed to be part of the problem.

It might be possible to daydream about solving each individual problem independently of such broad value sets, but representative democracy results in political parties which result in values clashes.

The classic Republican / Democratic divide in recent decades as pitted rural values against urban. Different regions see different problems which have different solutions which are summarized in different broad philosophies and political principles. So long as there are conflicting values within a society one would expect friction within a representative democracy. Such conflicts might properly indicate that democracy is to some extent working. The idea that democracy creates conflict might in some way be viewed as true, but one also might see democracy as a method to resolve conflicts. Few societies are so monolithic that no values conflicts will exist. The alternatives to democracy -- such as kings or dictators -- do not seem advisable.

There might be two alternatives (at least) if one wishes to avoid the partisan Republican, Democratic and Libertarian political perspectives. The first would be simply to talk specific issues rather than philosophy. I try to nudge things in that direction here, but fat chance. Too many people here put partisan political values ahead of other ways of looking at problems.

I also try to use S&H theory. New values are proposed in the awakening. Major problems grow to must-solve severity during the unraveling. Government structure and policy shift during the crisis. New infrastructure is built to establish a new economic base during the high.

One asks what new values are being proclaimed during the high? What problems are growing during the unraveling? How might these problems be solved during the crisis? What then is the resulting new economy going to look like?

I just wouldn't advise ignoring the new values, ignoring the problems, and resisting the change. I might advise investing in the new infrastructure. I am not a great fan of lumbering bureaucratic government, but I am dubious about static political perspectives that don't roll with the cycles.

Originally Posted by The Grey Badger

"The Answer is 42." Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

"The Answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind." Peter, Paul & Mary, Silent troubadours par excellence.

Off topic, but I just heard on the radio that Mary Travers is dying of cancer. Sad.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

It might be possible to daydream about solving each individual problem independently of such broad value sets, but representative democracy results in political parties which result in values clashes.

[...]

There might be two alternatives (at least) if one wishes to avoid the partisan Republican, Democratic and Libertarian political perspectives. The first would be simply to talk specific issues rather than philosophy. I try to nudge things in that direction here, but fat chance. Too many people here put partisan political values ahead of other ways of looking at problems.

Well addressing specific issues divorced from philosophy, in it's broadest sense, is going to be futile. But if you are merely suggesting that we drop steadfast commitment to well-articulated ideology in favor of judging simply "what works best," as I think you are, then I think there are going to be some problems with getting people, particularly radicals and kooky right-wing ideologues, to accept this approach.

I'm an anarchist. I oppose the State, and I oppose violations of what I think are peoples' natural rights -- and my conception of natural rights tend to be generally stricter than that of the average American. To me, most of the problems presented by common political discourse generally have two-three-four unappealing (and unacceptable) proposed solutions. Some of these solutions are better than others, but so long as they are rights-violating, I cannot "favor" them; that is, while I may be pleased if piecemeal utilitarian gains are made, I'm not nearly pleased enough to lend my official support. From what I gather, you are essentially asking us to focus on the 'issues," where the best solution to the problem is, in my mind at least, a certain evil. And being that I come to this conclusion virtually every time important issues are being discussed, then clearly the problem is with the question(s) being asked, a limitation that seems inherent to the ongoing project of statism. For this reason (and some others), I feel much more comfortable discussing philosophy and ideology than specific issues.

I just wouldn't advise ignoring the new values, ignoring the problems, and resisting the change. I might advise investing in the new infrastructure. I am not a great fan of lumbering bureaucratic government, but I am dubious about static political perspectives that don't roll with the cycles.

I don't know what this means. What kind of political perspective do you find to be static?

First you say

Originally Posted by haymarket martyr

I would agree that there is not such a thing as the Right Answer Which Will Solve All Mans Problems.

Then you say

The vast majority will respond in a socially acceptable way given the proper combination of factors.

Do you see how the first and the second are mutually exclusive? You in fact do imagine there could be a system (for what else do you call a 'combination of factors'?) that is True. That is the major delusion.

Since society is a fundamentally dynamic environment, the systems which, under some specific circumstances appear to fit, are doomed to be immediately subsequently left further and further out of harmony with the reality of things. The "I've got mine, screw the rest of you" attitude you display is, while not a particularly unworkable way of doing things, hardly the way best suited to the thriving of the system overall. And since society is the environment of people, as goes its health, so go we. I admit, I'm biased in favor of people -- so I prefer that we do as well as possible.

Originally Posted by Roadbldr '59

Off topic, but I just heard on the radio that Mary Travers is dying of cancer. Sad.

Oh, no. That is sad news indeed. Thanks for telling me.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

First you sayThen you sayDo you see how the first and the second are mutually exclusive? You in fact do imagine there could be a system (for what else do you call a 'combination of factors'?) that is True. That is the major delusion.

Since society is a fundamentally dynamic environment, the systems which, under some specific circumstances appear to fit, are doomed to be immediately subsequently left further and further out of harmony with the reality of things. The "I've got mine, screw the rest of you" attitude you display is, while not a particularly unworkable way of doing things, hardly the way best suited to the thriving of the system overall. And since society is the environment of people, as goes its health, so go we. I admit, I'm biased in favor of people -- so I prefer that we do as well as possible.

Just because there is no single correct answer to ALL social problems does not mean social problems don't have answers and can't be inspired by an over-arching ideal.