Since I invoked Knight's name, and Mary picked up on it, let me just add
that altho Knight believed that government action was necessarily
coercive, he believed the coercion was necessary (if lamentable). Just as
he believed that order was as essential to society as freedom (and in
conflict with it), he also believed that force was as necessary as
voluntary exchange (and obviously the two were in conflict).
I might add that Knight often argued that love and force were, in the
final analysis, equal (the point being, that "love" was a poor reason for
social action). He was ever the cynic.
Ross
Ross B. Emmett, Augustana University College, Camrose, Alberta
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