Coercion, how I see it

[bkholdem]

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The man is free to quit his job, but he is subject to the inherent coerciveness of his own human nature. That doesn't, however, mean that his boss is the coercing agent; his personal needs are.


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This seems like a strange argument to me. By the same logic, say my friend is in bad gambling debt and comes to me (his rich friend) for help. I offer to pay off his debt, with the stipulation that he pays me back tenfold what I loan him. Basically, he would be my indentured servant for life. But this isn't me being exploitative or coercive, it's him being coerced by his own need not to be killed and dumped in the East River.

This seems clearly untrue--it's obviously exploitative, and is coercive by the OP dictionary definition.

"the use of express or implied threats of violence or reprisal or other intimidating behavior that puts a person in immediate fear of the consequences in order to compel that person to act against his or her will"

In my example, I'm using a situational threat from a third party to get someone to act against his will. It's less direct than the loan shark threatening to murder him, but it's still coercive.

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You make a pretty convincing case as to why people should not incur debts when they do not have the money available to pay that debt off. I encourage you to continue to spread the word at your leisure. I support your efforts to educating people about why gambling with money one can not afford to loose is generally something to be avoided.

[neverforgetlol]

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The man is free to quit his job, but he is subject to the inherent coerciveness of his own human nature. That doesn't, however, mean that his boss is the coercing agent; his personal needs are.


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This seems like a strange argument to me. By the same logic, say my friend is in bad gambling debt and comes to me (his rich friend) for help. I offer to pay off his debt, with the stipulation that he pays me back tenfold what I loan him. Basically, he would be my indentured servant for life. But this isn't me being exploitative or coercive, it's him being coerced by his own need not to be killed and dumped in the East River.

This seems clearly untrue--it's obviously exploitative, and is coercive by the OP dictionary definition.

"the use of express or implied threats of violence or reprisal or other intimidating behavior that puts a person in immediate fear of the consequences in order to compel that person to act against his or her will"

In my example, I'm using a situational threat from a third party to get someone to act against his will. It's less direct than the loan shark threatening to murder him, but it's still coercive.

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You make a pretty convincing case as to why people should not incur debts when they do not have the money available to pay that debt off. I encourage you to continue to spread the word at your leisure. I support your efforts to educating people about why gambling with money one can not afford to loose is generally something to be avoided.

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That's great but you didn't address his comment. If everyone was a genius that never did dumb things that would be great, but that's not reality.

[bkholdem]

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The man is free to quit his job, but he is subject to the inherent coerciveness of his own human nature. That doesn't, however, mean that his boss is the coercing agent; his personal needs are.


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This seems like a strange argument to me. By the same logic, say my friend is in bad gambling debt and comes to me (his rich friend) for help. I offer to pay off his debt, with the stipulation that he pays me back tenfold what I loan him. Basically, he would be my indentured servant for life. But this isn't me being exploitative or coercive, it's him being coerced by his own need not to be killed and dumped in the East River.

This seems clearly untrue--it's obviously exploitative, and is coercive by the OP dictionary definition.

"the use of express or implied threats of violence or reprisal or other intimidating behavior that puts a person in immediate fear of the consequences in order to compel that person to act against his or her will"

In my example, I'm using a situational threat from a third party to get someone to act against his will. It's less direct than the loan shark threatening to murder him, but it's still coercive.

[/ QUOTE ]

You make a pretty convincing case as to why people should not incur debts when they do not have the money available to pay that debt off. I encourage you to continue to spread the word at your leisure. I support your efforts to educating people about why gambling with money one can not afford to loose is generally something to be avoided.

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That's great but you didn't address his comment. If everyone was a genius that never did dumb things that would be great, but that's not reality.

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He does not sound like this persons 'friend' to me. His little comment puts up one possible scenario, like a false dichotomy. I do not feel any obligation to respond when he is attempting to box in a discussion in such a manner.

[ShakeZula06]

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That's great but you didn't address his comment. If everyone was a genius that never did dumb things that would be great, but that's not reality.

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So, do you have some type of system in which people don't have to act? Do angels guide us through all of our actions?

[hmkpoker]

EDIT: No, I'm not even going to bother.

[nietzreznor]

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Just my two cents. I think either both cases are coercive or neither are. Either you accept capitalism and government or you reject both.

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I tend to reject both, but I think you are using a very loose defintion of 'capitalism'.

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Capitalism is a system by which there is a market for labor power.

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So do you think, on a free market, no one should be able to work for anyone else?
I agree and sympathize with some of the points you make in this post, but I fully support someone's right to live as they see fit, including 'selling their labor' if they so choose. On a free market, however, I see no reason to beleive that such transactions would be inherently coercive, since there would be full right of unionization, far less consolidation in industries, more competition, and less concentrated wealth.
If free markets don't lead to "work for employer X or starve" situations, then it is hard to see why "have sex with me or be fired" scenarios would be truly coercive, since the woman really would have other available options.

[lehighguy]

She can likely go to the factory across the street, or in the next town over, where the manager doesn't molest employees. This doesn't require her to sell her home, or leave her family, or travel halfway around the world and learn a new language in a strange culture. A bad government does require those things.

[valtaherra]

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We have two classes, and it is clear that in most cases those who sell labor power need the buyers more than vice versa. It is one thing to be a lawyer or a physician, but your average factory or farm worker doesn't have the privelege of market power. Thus the employer is able to act in a way that I consider coercive and essentially "get away with it."

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Your troubling conclusions stem from the following:

1) You incorrectly divide "us" into two classes, capital-owning labor buyers and capital-less labor sellers. In truth, there are capital-less labor buyers and capital-owning labor sellers, as well as capital-owning do-nothingers and capital-less do-nothingers.

2) You imply that capital-owning labor buyers owe something to capital-less labor sellers, put another way, that CL-LS's are entitled to something owed to them by CO-LB's. At least that's what I understand when you say employer's act in a way "you consider coercive" and "get away with it". However, you do not define or justify this entitlement. Whatever this entitlement is though, it cannot possibly be natural, and so it can only be your subjectively determined, arbitrarily defined entitlement.

3) You fail to understand capitalism as a continuous development of the division and specialization of labor, and the continuous increase in the productivity of labor. Inherent within capitalism is the continuous increase in laborer market power.

[neverforgetlol]

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We have two classes, and it is clear that in most cases those who sell labor power need the buyers more than vice versa. It is one thing to be a lawyer or a physician, but your average factory or farm worker doesn't have the privelege of market power. Thus the employer is able to act in a way that I consider coercive and essentially "get away with it."

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Your troubling conclusions stem from the following:

1) You incorrectly divide "us" into two classes, capital-owning labor buyers and capital-less labor sellers. In truth, there are capital-less labor buyers and capital-owning labor sellers, as well as capital-owning do-nothingers and capital-less do-nothingers.

2) You imply that capital-owning labor buyers owe something to capital-less labor sellers, put another way, that CL-LS's are entitled to something owed to them by CO-LB's. At least that's what I understand when you say employer's act in a way "you consider coercive" and "get away with it". However, you do not define or justify this entitlement. Whatever this entitlement is though, it cannot possibly be natural, and so it can only be your subjectively determined, arbitrarily defined entitlement.

3) You fail to understand capitalism as a continuous development of the division and specialization of labor, and the continuous increase in the productivity of labor. Inherent within capitalism is the continuous increase in laborer market power.

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1) We can just say capital owners and non-capital owners, i.e. the bourgeouisie and proletariat. zomg marx

2) i did not say capital owners owe something to those who don't own capital, i just believe the system of owning capital is exploitive.

3) Absolutely not true, if productivity does not increase for a certain time period it's somehow not capitalism anymore? bs.

[ianlippert]

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Capitalism is a system by which there is a market for labor power. Thus there are some who own capital and buy labor power to produce using said capital, and those who do not own capital and thus must sell their labor power.

We have two classes, and it is clear that in most cases those who sell labor power need the buyers more than vice versa. It is one thing to be a lawyer or a physician, but your average factory or farm worker doesn't have the privelege of market power. Thus the employer is able to act in a way that I consider coercive and essentially "get away with it."


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The ultimate goal is to get the labour market to a point where its a sellers market. We want labour to be in high enough demand that people are going to pay high prices and not resort to being douchebags by asking for sexual favours. Free market capitalism is the system that maximizes the value of labour. Every pro-labour initiative almost invariably hurts the worker. Min wage, unions, trade barriers, etc. Increasing the cost of labour decreases its demand and hurts labour in the long run.

The reason walmart can get away with paying people minimum wage is because so much consumer capital is being ripped out of the economy through taxation. This money gets spent on the most rediculous government programs and prevents the average worker from earning a decent living.