Posted on 10/31/2003 8:34:12 PM PST by The Bronze Titan
For example, multiple examples of collectivisation of agriculture have resulted in famine. Another example, partial deregulation of airlines has led to lower prices, more widespread access to air travel, and the creation of many new air travel companies. Thus, though perhaps no country is purely communist, or purely capitalist, the effects of communist and capitalist policies can be observed.
Actully, I tried not to call you a marxist -- which you obviously aren't. I said your argument is marxist.
My old grandpappy, rest his soul, was an unrepetent Red. He was always trying to use the "economic corecion" line on me when I was in high school. I didn't buy it then, and I don't buy it now. There is no such thing as "economic coercion". It's just a bunch of whining about not wanting to pay the asking price.
"Purist" capitalists are completely at a loss to explain why no society practices pure capitalism.
The reason no society practices pure capitalism is that it is an economic system, not a political one. Pure capitalism leaves a political power vacuum into which step tyrants of various stripe. In order to maintain their power they appeal to envy and other emotions with sophist arguments like "economic coercion". They then sell la cosa nostra type "insurance" to a sometimes gullible public proclaiming they are the only ones who will protect those of us on the crappy end of the "economic coercion" stick from those bad, evil, selfish, horrible, baby-eating, dog-kicking, baby-seal-clubbing, polluting, fire-breathing, fork-tongued, earth-destroying, exploitive capitalists! Viola, unpure capitalism.
Only if you are prevented from doing something about it. Some years ago, Honda was prevented from entering the automobile market in Japan. The government there had already decided that Toyota and Nissan would be the country's standards bearers in that industry. Honda was told to stick with motorcycles. That's why they went to the American market with their cars.
So long as the government isn't threatening you with jail time, or worse, if you attempt to deliver a product or service, the choice is yours to make. And what an exhilerating option it is!
Funny some people think parroting glib absurdities is a substitute for thoughtfulness.
Coercion is about interpersonal relationships. Our actions or promised actions into each other's realm of ownership can be nonexistent, mutually voluntary, or involuntary to one or both parties. The latter involves coercion. Ending a relationship, stopping action into another's realm of ownership, is not, in and of itself, coercion.
In your example, I have promised an action on my part into your realm of ownership (your life). That is coercion. Whatever you next decide to do, my coercive act has already been performed. That is why you are wrong.
If I create a life-saving product that can cure your terminal ills, and charge it at a price you cannot pay, I haven't altered any of your options, since I did not give you the terminal illness. I have not interfered with your choices, and I have not taken action into your realm of ownership. If I charge it at a price that you can pay but will bancrupt you, then I have at my discretion offered you a choice that you did not have before. I have offered a mutually voluntary action into each others realm of ownership. If I choose to not sell you the cure, then I have simply chosen not to venture into your realm of ownership, which I can do since I am not your slave.
The fact that you may hold great value in our relationship, may make it distressing for you if I end the relationship, but for you to force me back into the relationship would be an act of coercion on your part.
You may have spent your whole life accustomed to our relationship such that if I decide to pick up my marbles and go home, you may even wonder how it is you are going to live. You can deal with this in a number of noncoercive ways such as with contracts, or by hedging your relationships, but often governments use coercion to deal with it on your behalf.
So if you want to make sense, you might simply say that the noncoercive relationships of capitalism can lead to the difficult situations for people that you've described. There is no need to get absurd and start redefining common words to their antonyms.
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