From: wlee@argo.acs.oakland.edu (Walter Lee)
Subject: Re: Private sector coercion and equal footing
Reply-To: wlee@argo.acs.oakland.edu
Organization: Oakland University, Rochester, MI
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 01:03:44 GMT

In article <1992Sep30.133958.28286@news.cs.indiana.edu>, "Tim Bomgardner" <bomgard@moose.cs.indiana.edu> writes:
>
>By private sector coercion, I take it you mean the right of the owner
>of some particular goods or property to determine under what conditions
>or on what terms he will part with them.

No.  I don't have any problem with that right.

>
>"Private sector coercion" is also often used in the context of employment
>contracts, the idea being that any conditions placed by an employer on
>his offer of employment is coercion, since you have no choice except to
>acquiesce or starve.  

You may or may not have another choice.  Whether you do depends largely on
the market.  In a buyers' market for labor the terms of the contract may
involve not only exchange of value, but also waivers of political freedoms.
That is why I say that market leverage is Power just as political a sense as
public sector Authority is.  I accept leveraged transactions as an unfortunate
fact of life, but I refuse to call them Voluntary Associations.

>
>Is that really the case?  (I quote from one of my previous articles:)
>
>If you don't want to starve, you have two choices.  You can produce food
>directly yourself (e.g., farming), or acquire it from someone who does.  

Granted.  But I would guess here (U.S.) and now (1992) food is a market
where primarily the producers are being exploited.  If you produce food
you have a vested interest in a food shortage.  If you produce x you
have a vested interest in an x shortage.

>There are no other possibilities.  They only question is how you will 
>acquire it.  Socialism is based on the premise "If you need it, someone 
>has a moral obligation to give it to you", or, for the more highly 
>motivated, "If you need it, you have the moral right to take it."  A
>recent Statist revision is this: "If you need it, someone has a moral
>obligation to give it to you, or at least offer it to you on terms you
>personally consider reasonable."
>
>The "economic dictation" (or private sector coercion) of capitalism amounts
>to this: I will trade you the product of my labor for the product of yours,
>if we can agree on terms.  The moral basis of capitalism is the uncoerced 
>exchange of value for value.
>
>As an employer, this means I will pay you to work for me.  It also means
>you have no "right" to the job, and no right to compel the terms under
>which I offer it.  If you don't like the terms, you are free to seek
>employment elsewhere, or negotiate to change them if your services are
>that valuable to me ("your" meaning you as an individual, or you as a 
>member of a group, i.e., a union).
>
That's assuming your initial terms don't include a waiver of that right.

>What if you can't find employment elsewhere?  In other words, what if 
>what you can (or are willing) to do is of no value to anyone else?  Then 
>you have no choice but to acquiesce or starve.  Your desire to not starve
>does not constitute a moral obligation on my part to feed you on whatever
>terms you decide are acceptable.  
>
>As others have pointed out, the term coercion, as used by libertarians, 
>means governmental coercion, ultimately at gunpoint.
>

I expand the definition of coercion to include market leverage.
I expand the definition of government to include de-facto governments,
such as corporations.

>
>So you would be "freer" absent a free market.  I wonder what you mean by
>"freer".  Since you talk about "the short end of the deal", I suppose
>what you mean is that as a buyer you would be free to ignore the market 
>price and coerce the seller into accepting whatever you thought was "fair"
>(if anything), and as a seller, you could prevent buyers from doing business
>with your competition at a lower price (or alternately, prevent your 
>competition from offering less than a "fair" (i.e., your) price).
>
>"Equal footing" seems to mean that YOU determine the value of both your 
>goods (or services) and your adversary's, and can force your adversary to 
>accept your evaluation.  Or, put another way, there is some mechanism that 
>forces your adversary to want your goods just as much as you want his.  You
>certainly don't seem to mean that you are both equally free to accept or
>decline the exchange, which is what a libertarian would call equal footing.
>

No, what I mean by "footing" is this:  If party A needs party B more than
party B needs party A then B is effectively A's ruler.  The question of
whether B is public or private sector becomes irrelevant.  Right-wing
libertarians (correctly IMHO) point out that need is not a claim on wealth.
My left-wing libertarian view is that need is something most people suffer
from time to time and people should have some kind of recourse against
exploitation of it.  Without becoming dependent on the Authorities.
People say I'm a dreamer...


>If you don't want a free market, does that mean you want a regulated
>market?  Who regulates, and on what moral basis?
>

I want to abolish economics PER SE (market or otherwise).  Actually abolition
is a function of Authority...more like , I want to obsolete economics.
We have to produce to survive even in post-economic society, but under the
leviathan known as economics we have a vested interest in the scarcity of
what we produce.  (See "Post-scarcity anarchy" by Murray Bookchin, ISBN
0-920057-39-x)  I see this conflict between production and scarcity as a
contradiction.  Do we want an ample food supply or do we want to be able to
command an income from food production? (or any other kind of production?)
I guess it's a question of which job is first on the agenda...freedom from
governmental coercion or freedom from market leverage.

>
>Tim Bomgardner
>
Walter Lee    wlee@argo.acs.oakland.edu, lee@plex-1.ann-arbor.mi.us

Keep the Aspidistra Flying!