From: egnilges@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges)
Subject: Re: Hate Speech Okay, says the Supreme Court
Originator: news@nimaster
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 18:29:42 GMT

In article <1992Aug26.174235.12399@fid.morgan.com> sethb@fid.morgan.com (Seth Breidbart) writes:
>>
>>The employment contract is a good example of a contract which runs the
>>gamut from voluntary (John Reed of Citicorp volunteers to contract his
>>services as CEO for a princely sum) to involuntary (with five children
>>to support, the farm worker is forced to sell his labor at sub-mininum
>>wages.)
>
>It's still voluntary, unless the farmer is physically preventing him
>from working for someone else.

In many cases, farmers do exactly that to Mexican workers.  And in many
other cases, economic terror IS physical prevention of choice.  When
you're offering to let me (or my children!) starve, that's tantamount to
physical coercion.  Also, coercion can be quite subtle.

For as Marx wrote one hundred years ago, the employee/employer
relationship is by nature coercive to the employee, since the employee
has only one thing to sell.  This is his time, and Marx shows how the
employee's time is uniquely irreplaceable...whereas the employer sells
access to the means of production, an access which is NOT, for the
employer, irreplaceable.  If this seems wrong to you, ask yourself: why
is it, in our society, do the direct producers of wealth, whether
computer programmers or Outward Bound instructors, always seem to fare
badly until they become administrators, managers, or brokers of the
services of another?  That is, I can make lots more money if I can
arrange with ten programmers, each earning 35.00/hour as contractors at
various companies, to pay me 10.00/hour for finding them the job
(brokerage.)  I can make 100.00 per hour, and the magic is that I still
have my time!  I can market other programmers, work on a job myself, or
sit on my duff!  

This coercion may be necessary to the proper functioning of business and
society and certainly "actually existing socialism" has failed as an
alternative.  But you cannot deny that there is an element of coercion
about it, for the programmers in my "stable" have to be persuaded to act
against their interests, which would seem to be either to do nothing, go
on welfare, or become brokers themselves.  The idea that this situation,
with its irreducible elemnt of unfairness (an unfairness which is indeed
celebrated by capitalist ideologues in their honest moments), is
something that we'd choose for ourselves given the power is nonsense.
>
>>  And in a true democracy, laws represent the fairest and most
>>voluntary summation possible of a collective will.
>
>When did you last see a true democracy?  And would you accept one, if
>the majority will included things you believe are evil and immoral
>(e.g. slavery)?

Of course, rights and separation of powers are a check upon democracy.
My point is that you can emphasize bogus rights to the destruction of
democracy.  This is what the National Rifle Association does, in a
country in which the majority would prefer to see some form of gun
control.  And the Supreme Court's care for the rights of Viktora
directly thwarted the democratic will of St Paul, NOT to safeguard a
minority, but to protect a sick white racist.