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>For me personally, I cannot ethically abide coercion, ever. Do you support Basic Income? The system of "free market capitalism" is certainly coercive in the w

>For me personally, I cannot ethically abide coercion, ever. Do you support Basic Income? The system of "free market capitalism" is certainly coercive in the way it walls resources off and forces people to play into the system of exchanging labor for money so they can survive.

burntsushi 11y ago
I think I made my position clear. If "basic income" requires coercive force, then I'm against it. If "basic income" does not require coercive force, then go for it. > The system of "free market capitalism" is certainly coercive in the way it walls resources off and forces people to play into the system of exchanging labor for money so they can survive. If exchanging labor for goods required for survival meets your definition of coercion, then we do not share the same definition. I submit that you can keep your definition. Instead, simply replace all occurrences of the word "coercion" in my comments as "the initiation of physical force (or threat of) by a specific person or group." I'm happy to support the eradication of social ills that meet your definition of coercion; but I will not abide my definition of coercion in the process.
- asgard1024 11y ago
  It seems to me, since basic income didn't appear spontaneously so far, it probably requires coercive force to appear, so you're against it. Anyway, thanks for the reply to my original comment. Like user "solipsism" though, I found your views somewhat contradictory. But it seems very apparent that your answer to my question "would you help me if I am in trouble?" is "NO, if it would mean to coerce the other party to leave you alone". Which is a rather weak ethic in my book.
  - burntsushi 11y ago
    > But it seems very apparent that your answer to my question "would you help me if I am in trouble?" My answer to that question is: "yes." I'm not sure how you arrived at your conclusion.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- wfo 11y ago
  If you claim that you "own" something, like property or a car, and the government disagrees, and you threaten to shoot anyone who takes it, but then the police come and take it from you, who has "initiated" force? All of your "possessions" are really things that are currently being lent to you by the government. If the government chooses to stop allowing you to borrow some of its possesions, that's not initiating force. You're initiating force if you prevent the state from taking what it owns.
  - burntsushi 11y ago
    Well, obviously I disagree that the government owns all of your possessions.
    - wfo 11y ago
      What gives you the moral authority to prevent others from using things that you claim you own? Where do your claims come from, if not the government? Because a relative who also claimed to own it in the past and backed that claim up with physical force claims that you now own it? No, there is no ownership or property without societal and cultural agreement made formal, i.e. government, and no moral authority beyond the ability to kill or injure those others who wish to use it if there is no government. I've encountered this extreme and radical ideology before; it seems you want to take a snapshot of private property ownership /now/ and claim that it is right and just, ignoring injustices of the past and how these things came to be, and then claim that the property rights are inviolable and any violation of them with physical force is injustice. No, the property rights themselves as they exists now are an injustice without the support of the state.
      - burntsushi 11y ago
        > it seems you want to take a snapshot of private property ownership /now/ and claim that it is right and just I don't actually. I don't see anything black & white about property. Instead, I view it as a means to attempt to resolve conflict over scarce resources peacefully. I do not believe this requires moral authority or coercive government. I mean, the presence of coercive government doesn't really resolve any of your criticisms either. Where does it get the moral authority to apply coercion come from? 51% of the population? Why does 51% of the population have a moral authority over the other 49%? I'll say this to re-emphasize the message I'm trying to convey: I really don't care much at all about property or ownership. Sure, I do believe they are useful constructs to reason about interaction between actors in society, but its particular formulation isn't a sticking point to me. What I care about is: are you trying to justify coercion? If so, then it isn't OK with me. If you have some means of satisfying your "moral authority" without the use of coercion, then great! Let's do it.
olalonde 11y ago
There are two kinds of libertarians: the consequentialists who think a libertarian system (small government) would lead to overall better outcomes for society and the deontologists who think individual liberty and the non-aggression principle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-aggression_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-aggression_principle) are morally superior philosophies (and everyone in between). I personally fall in the first camp while sympathetic to the moral arguments. I would support basic income as it gets us closer to a libertarian system as opposed to status quo and has an actual chance of happening. Milton Friedman, a key figure of the modern libertarian movement and a Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences recipient, was also a proponent for similar reasons (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Friedman#Social_security.2C_welfare_programs.2C_and_negative_income_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Friedman#Social_securit...). If you're genuinely interested in learning more about libertarianism from a consequentialist perspective, I would strongly recommend the "Free to Chose" tv series by Milton Friedman which is freely available here: http://www.freetochoose.tv/ftc80.php http://www.freetochoose.tv/ftc80.php. I was in the "statist" camp for most of my life because I had never been fairly exposed to the other side of the medal and this series is what pushed me to dig more into the subject.

burntsushi 11y ago

I think I made my position clear. If "basic income" requires coercive force, then I'm against it. If "basic income" does not require coercive force, then go for it. > The system of "free market capitalism" is certainly coercive in the way it walls resources off and forces people to play into the system of exchanging labor for money so they can survive. If exchanging labor for goods required for survival meets your definition of coercion, then we do not share the same definition. I submit that you can keep your definition. Instead, simply replace all occurrences of the word "coercion" in my comments as "the initiation of physical force (or threat of) by a specific person or group." I'm happy to support the eradication of social ills that meet your definition of coercion; but I will not abide my definition of coercion in the process.

asgard1024 11y ago
It seems to me, since basic income didn't appear spontaneously so far, it probably requires coercive force to appear, so you're against it. Anyway, thanks for the reply to my original comment. Like user "solipsism" though, I found your views somewhat contradictory. But it seems very apparent that your answer to my question "would you help me if I am in trouble?" is "NO, if it would mean to coerce the other party to leave you alone". Which is a rather weak ethic in my book.
- burntsushi 11y ago
  > But it seems very apparent that your answer to my question "would you help me if I am in trouble?" My answer to that question is: "yes." I'm not sure how you arrived at your conclusion.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
wfo 11y ago
If you claim that you "own" something, like property or a car, and the government disagrees, and you threaten to shoot anyone who takes it, but then the police come and take it from you, who has "initiated" force? All of your "possessions" are really things that are currently being lent to you by the government. If the government chooses to stop allowing you to borrow some of its possesions, that's not initiating force. You're initiating force if you prevent the state from taking what it owns.
- burntsushi 11y ago
  Well, obviously I disagree that the government owns all of your possessions.
  - wfo 11y ago
    What gives you the moral authority to prevent others from using things that you claim you own? Where do your claims come from, if not the government? Because a relative who also claimed to own it in the past and backed that claim up with physical force claims that you now own it? No, there is no ownership or property without societal and cultural agreement made formal, i.e. government, and no moral authority beyond the ability to kill or injure those others who wish to use it if there is no government. I've encountered this extreme and radical ideology before; it seems you want to take a snapshot of private property ownership /now/ and claim that it is right and just, ignoring injustices of the past and how these things came to be, and then claim that the property rights are inviolable and any violation of them with physical force is injustice. No, the property rights themselves as they exists now are an injustice without the support of the state.
    - burntsushi 11y ago
      > it seems you want to take a snapshot of private property ownership /now/ and claim that it is right and just I don't actually. I don't see anything black & white about property. Instead, I view it as a means to attempt to resolve conflict over scarce resources peacefully. I do not believe this requires moral authority or coercive government. I mean, the presence of coercive government doesn't really resolve any of your criticisms either. Where does it get the moral authority to apply coercion come from? 51% of the population? Why does 51% of the population have a moral authority over the other 49%? I'll say this to re-emphasize the message I'm trying to convey: I really don't care much at all about property or ownership. Sure, I do believe they are useful constructs to reason about interaction between actors in society, but its particular formulation isn't a sticking point to me. What I care about is: are you trying to justify coercion? If so, then it isn't OK with me. If you have some means of satisfying your "moral authority" without the use of coercion, then great! Let's do it.

olalonde 11y ago

There are two kinds of libertarians: the consequentialists who think a libertarian system (small government) would lead to overall better outcomes for society and the deontologists who think individual liberty and the non-aggression principle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-aggression_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-aggression_principle) are morally superior philosophies (and everyone in between). I personally fall in the first camp while sympathetic to the moral arguments. I would support basic income as it gets us closer to a libertarian system as opposed to status quo and has an actual chance of happening. Milton Friedman, a key figure of the modern libertarian movement and a Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences recipient, was also a proponent for similar reasons (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Friedman#Social_security.2C_welfare_programs.2C_and_negative_income_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Friedman#Social_securit...). If you're genuinely interested in learning more about libertarianism from a consequentialist perspective, I would strongly recommend the "Free to Chose" tv series by Milton Friedman which is freely available here: http://www.freetochoose.tv/ftc80.php http://www.freetochoose.tv/ftc80.php. I was in the "statist" camp for most of my life because I had never been fairly exposed to the other side of the medal and this series is what pushed me to dig more into the subject.