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>This is a voluntary exchange and an action. And yet it is necessarily conditioned; it takes place within a context in which many of these interactions happen

>This is a voluntary exchange and an action. And yet it is necessarily conditioned; it takes place within a context in which many of these interactions happen simply because people on at least one end must engage in it in order to survive. Liberal philosophy, perhaps best espoused by Mises, aims for complete ignorance of the causes leading up to an action, an "infinite chain" as Spinoza said. For if they were not ignorant then they would realise that the conditions of a particular action, a particular choice, are not freely determined at all. It would be the end of liberal philosophy. Lordon, on the other hand, makes an important point from Spinoza and Marx: the difference between consent and coercion is in effect a matter of judgement, whether one's mind experiences a joyful affect from this chain of actions and conditions, or whether one's mind experiences a sad affect. >Yes, it is. All voluntary interaction are ethically good/correct. What is a "voluntary interaction"? Does something count as "voluntary" in the case where the interaction is wholly dependent on factors determined outside of one's control? Of course that's inescapable, but if we're only focusing on the final decision being made then the same standard of "voulntary" can be used, for example, when someone puts a gun to your head and demands you do X, and if you don't then they shoot you. You do, in a technical sense, have a "voluntary" choice to make here - it is, in fact, the conditions of the choice which make us uneasy with this. >The opposite would be to participate in involuntary interactions and force people around It has been argued that the market may be considered creating a dystopia without a despot; the idea that there must be some dedicated group is very strange. Alienation, as it is laid out by Marx, is actually to be chained down to something other than oneself, in this case, chained down to "the market", abstract labour and the sad/joyful affects created. by (neo)liberal business management hierarchies. >You can easily see that money is a coordination+relocation tool. I can; that doesn't mean that I automatically approve of its use, as the utility of an object or action is insufficient for me to make a moral comment. >I know this would be "impossible" by marxist analysis, since wealth would be a zero-sum game Not at all; Marx doesn't consider capitalism a zero-sum game, nor is his theory of value incompatible with the theory of subjective value. Marx's ignorance of marginalism isn't a very convincing point given how Marxist and post-Marxist scholars have considered both neoclassical and Austrian economics in their writings. >Central banking and forcing the usage of that ever inflating currency is basically melting people's money away, preventing savings and longer term thinking (on average). This is absolute rubbish, it has nothing to do with central banking and everything to do with the social psychology of capitalism, which contrary to the 19th c. could not afford to only use the sad affect of depriving one's means of material reproduction and now instead focuses on the joyful affects of consumption to induce "voluntary servitude"; consider how most arguments for removing the minimum wage or increasing work hours appeal to the joyful affects, in a rather devious (consciously or not) psychological trick. Our identity as consumers is exploited over our identity as workers to push (neo)liberal ideology. Unfortunately you have done no different in your comment.

swfsql 8y ago
> And yet it is necessarily conditioned {..} I partially agree. I agree that we don't exist from any kind of "null initial state", there is always context. But we are able to reason about how are the initial state between two individuals' interaction. It's obviously possible that they never did anything bad towards each other, in physical-agressive sense. Sure, let's say A has a sick kid in urgent need, and B hasn't. Sure they have different backgrounds and urgencies, but still, we can say A owns nothing to B and back-and-forth. Assuming that the sickness is natural, A can't blame B for nature's reality. B can't be blamed for nature's reality that everyone must eat and drink to survive, etc. B can't be blamed that others do have urgencies. The fact that people do have needs and do have to sacrifice something is reality and always will be. And this doesn't change anything at all on libertarian ethics. This fact is not ignored, on the contrary, it's part of the philosophy oh Von Mises' "Human Action". > the difference between consent and coercion is in effect a matter of judgement, whether one's mind experiences a joyful affect {..} As I said earlier, you had the wrong assumption that human action (a mises) ignored specific urgencies. Sure context may have a great great impact on the goals and means pursued by individuals, but they are actions nevertheless. Survivalist, auto-destructive, careless, loveful, joyful, hateful, wrongful, whatever. They are all misesian's actions. Consent then is just a distinction between initiation of force, or not. Charity vs Robbery, Romance vs Rape, Employment vs Slavery. If and only if both parties agreed and there were no usage of force by any side, nor the threat of force usage, it is consensual. By definition, all consensual agreement IS joyful, as a psychological effect, as something desired, wanted, perused. Because if it were not, the agreement would be declined (and the expected consequences from the lack of that agreement would possibly happen). It was never assumed that the world and nature would stop working by a non-agreement and the lack of some interaction. But this has no affect on consent on itself. > Of course that's inescapable, but if we're only focusing on the final decision being made then the same standard of "voluntary" can be used, for example, when someone puts a gun to your head and demands you do X, and if you don't then they shoot you. Surely, consent must depend on "chain of states" of interactions between the parties. The interaction started (assuming precisely an initial state condition of interactions) when one party (the "Bad") pointed the gun at the other. From this moment, Bad party lost the argument for it's life. It can't argue that it ought to not be killed, or Bad party enters in an performative contradiction ("by pointing the gun, Bad party performance proves that for Bad party, it's 'ok' to kill anyone; so this can be applied back to itself. It cannot arguably defend it's own life, thus can be ethically killed"). -- that's how libertarian ethics works.. [see Kinsella's Estoppel or Hoppes' Argumentation Ethics if you need more info] > Marx's ignorance of marginalism isn't a very convincing point given how Marxist and post-Marxist scholars have considered both neoclassical and Austrian economics in their writings. This was unknown to me. But I can't really comment on anything since it's also unknown to me the arguments.. > This is absolute rubbish {..} Really? Central banking and massive inflation has nothing to do with consumption, in/outdoor warfare etc? reeeally?? > consider how most arguments for removing the minimum wage or increasing work hours appeal to the joyful affects what? virtually 100% of people around me are in favor of minimum wage or it's increase, all having no clue of why it was imposed in the first place, or it's consequences. It's all for some form of ignorant joy, as I think you put it. I mean that what you just described is simply unreal for my context, so I really don't know what you are talking about.

swfsql 8y ago

> And yet it is necessarily conditioned {..} I partially agree. I agree that we don't exist from any kind of "null initial state", there is always context. But we are able to reason about how are the initial state between two individuals' interaction. It's obviously possible that they never did anything bad towards each other, in physical-agressive sense. Sure, let's say A has a sick kid in urgent need, and B hasn't. Sure they have different backgrounds and urgencies, but still, we can say A owns nothing to B and back-and-forth. Assuming that the sickness is natural, A can't blame B for nature's reality. B can't be blamed for nature's reality that everyone must eat and drink to survive, etc. B can't be blamed that others do have urgencies. The fact that people do have needs and do have to sacrifice something is reality and always will be. And this doesn't change anything at all on libertarian ethics. This fact is not ignored, on the contrary, it's part of the philosophy oh Von Mises' "Human Action". > the difference between consent and coercion is in effect a matter of judgement, whether one's mind experiences a joyful affect {..} As I said earlier, you had the wrong assumption that human action (a mises) ignored specific urgencies. Sure context may have a great great impact on the goals and means pursued by individuals, but they are actions nevertheless. Survivalist, auto-destructive, careless, loveful, joyful, hateful, wrongful, whatever. They are all misesian's actions. Consent then is just a distinction between initiation of force, or not. Charity vs Robbery, Romance vs Rape, Employment vs Slavery. If and only if both parties agreed and there were no usage of force by any side, nor the threat of force usage, it is consensual. By definition, all consensual agreement IS joyful, as a psychological effect, as something desired, wanted, perused. Because if it were not, the agreement would be declined (and the expected consequences from the lack of that agreement would possibly happen). It was never assumed that the world and nature would stop working by a non-agreement and the lack of some interaction. But this has no affect on consent on itself. > Of course that's inescapable, but if we're only focusing on the final decision being made then the same standard of "voluntary" can be used, for example, when someone puts a gun to your head and demands you do X, and if you don't then they shoot you. Surely, consent must depend on "chain of states" of interactions between the parties. The interaction started (assuming precisely an initial state condition of interactions) when one party (the "Bad") pointed the gun at the other. From this moment, Bad party lost the argument for it's life. It can't argue that it ought to not be killed, or Bad party enters in an performative contradiction ("by pointing the gun, Bad party performance proves that for Bad party, it's 'ok' to kill anyone; so this can be applied back to itself. It cannot arguably defend it's own life, thus can be ethically killed"). -- that's how libertarian ethics works.. [see Kinsella's Estoppel or Hoppes' Argumentation Ethics if you need more info] > Marx's ignorance of marginalism isn't a very convincing point given how Marxist and post-Marxist scholars have considered both neoclassical and Austrian economics in their writings. This was unknown to me. But I can't really comment on anything since it's also unknown to me the arguments.. > This is absolute rubbish {..} Really? Central banking and massive inflation has nothing to do with consumption, in/outdoor warfare etc? reeeally?? > consider how most arguments for removing the minimum wage or increasing work hours appeal to the joyful affects what? virtually 100% of people around me are in favor of minimum wage or it's increase, all having no clue of why it was imposed in the first place, or it's consequences. It's all for some form of ignorant joy, as I think you put it. I mean that what you just described is simply unreal for my context, so I really don't know what you are talking about.