On Wed, 17 May 1995, Steven G Medema wrote: 
 
>  
> > Economists who see all government activities as coercion are basing their 
> > view on an extremely abstract theory if not plain ideology.  Useful theory  
> > sees government activity as essential to an advanced economy (although not  
> > all governmental behavior will be good). 
>  
> This statement reflects a very narrow view of what is implied by the term  
> "coercion."  Coercion is not a pejorative term.  The essence of  
> government lies in the establishment of a system of laws (running the  
> gamut from common and/or statute law to tax policy, etc.).  Law, in turn,  
> is coercion, taking a sphere of action and establishing, within that  
> sphere, rights, duties, liberties, exposures, ....  This is not  
> ideological, it is simply what is.  Where the ideology can enter the   
> picture is in the normative judgments as to who is to be allowed to  
> coerce whom.  But where there is government, and thus a system of law,  
> there is coercion, and, since the form that this coercion is allowed to  
> take affects the allocation and distribution of resources, an  
> understanding of the role that it plays is a good and proper part of  
> economic analysis. 
>  
> Steven G. Medema 
> University of Colorado at Denver 
>  
>  
I think that Steven's position is a perfect example of a contestable  
account of the "essence" of government (or the state) that is assumed to  
be universal or "the way things simply are" but one that is in fact  
peculiar to a very specific period of time (as a description of  
legitimate government authority, it would not, for example,  
sit well with the communitarian elements of Anti-Federalism) and even at  
that point more common to some people than others.  The claim that the  
essence  
of government is law and that law is coercive simply wouldn't be  
accepted by a number of accounts of the origin/basis/justification for  
legitimate authority (many consent theorists, for example).  Steven's  
statement also suggests that those  
responding to Mary's comments who have suggested she is misconstruing  
what economists think need to qualify their denial.   
 
 
I would also dispute the claim that coercion is simply a value neutral  
term.  I would suggest that it is a term that is developed, in part, from  
a normative point of view, that there are a number of terms in our  
discourse shaped from the normative point of view, and that to try to  
deny that or to purge that normative dimension is to do violence to tha  
lnaguage in such a way that it hampers our ability to explain the world  
rather than helps. 
 
 
Mike Gibbons 
U. of South Florida