> The problem with your definition, Steven <Medema>, is that it is
> slightly different from the dictionary definition. The dictionary
> definition is very narrow: coerce means "to restrain or dominate
> by nullifying individual will; to compel to an act or choice; to enforce
> by force or threat." If you define all government activities as
> coercion, you are going to get yourself into a lot of circular
> reasoning, or self-reinforcing reasoning -- for example, what does it
> mean to use force to prevent someone from using force to rob me?
> This also leaves little room for the concept of a public good,
> and really the idea of a democracy.
> For example: I am happy to support public education, IF my
> neighbor also supports public education; conversely, my neighbor is
> happy to support public education if I do. The only way I can be
> sure that my neighbor will pay his share -- and vice versa -- is
> if the government requires it -- but mind you, it requires it because
> we both voted for it.
> And, yes, there are some cases where you are in the minority,
> and you lose the vote. THEORETICALLY at least, you agree to that
> by agreeing to be part of the body politic of the United States (sorry
> those of you across the sea; translate it into something that fits
> your situation ...), and presumably you also get your way on some
> issues that I don't. We agree to this, we compromise, if the
> democracy/republic is working as it is supposed to.
> It is important to make distinctions between actions by the
> government that are "coercive" because we have voted for them to be
> so, actions that are "coercive" because if the government is not
> coercive, some individual is going to be (armed robbery), and
> actions that are "coercive" because the government is overstepping
> its bounds -- that is, exercising power in a way that goes against
> the common will.
> When you are dealing with economic matters, all three distinctions
> (and probably more) hold. If you use "coercion" indiscriminately,
> it makes it very difficult to communicate these distinctions --
> which I think are very important distinctions to make.
> And if you set up a discourse whereby free trade = freedom;
> market = best possible solution; and government = coercion; it may
> make policymaking easier, but it won't make for very accurate
> analysis (IMHO).
> Would you use the term "coercion" in all three cases that I
> mentioned?
> -- Mary Schweitzer
>
Mary:
The following reflects a rather fast reading of your message.
I indeed would use the term coercion to describe each of the three
cases. One might say that they are different forms of coercion, but they
are coercion nonetheless. The point is that the coercion manifests
itself in different ways, depending on the context. It also has
different forms of origin, as you note. It may be agreed to
democratically, it may be imposed, etc.
Your second-to-the-last paragraph is exactly right. But I never said,
indeed it would be wrong to say, that trade/markets can be identified
with freedom and government with coercion. Such an argument implies that
one can separate "government" from "market." Yet, what gives effect to
the operation of the market is a system of laws that underlies it --
property and contract law in particular. That is, government (and the
coercive force of law) is present. The distinction between
"market/freedom" on the one hand and "government/coercion" on the other
is a false one, although, unfortunately, not one without rhetorical force.
George Will wrote an interesting column during the Regan years lamenting
the Republican tendency to speak of removing the influence of government,
when, if fact, what they were really doing was trying to change the role
of government from supporting one set of interests (and thus one form of
coercion) to another. In terms of economics, there are nice treatments
of all of this in JR Commons, and, more recently, the work of Warren
Samuels.
Steve Medema
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