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> Government can provide incentives to people without enforcing that everybody follows those incentives. But the only way it can do that is by coercing other p
by p-e-w 3y ago
> Government can provide incentives to people without enforcing that everybody follows those incentives.
But the only way it can do that is by coercing other people. For example, if the incentives are monetary, the government must first obtain that money – which it does through coercive taxation.
It's coercion all the way down.
- jfengel 3y agoThat's just it. It is coercion all the way down. The state did not invent coercion. It's just one way of managing it. If one wants to present an alternative, it's incumbent to provide something more concrete than declaring it "requires complex resistance, continual struggle, with no easy resolution, no comforting collusion". Democracy is, famously, the worst system, except for all the others. The author claims to "dare to see beyond the suffocating language of power", but I'm not really seeing much "beyond". I'm seeing a not-inaccurate (albeit hyperbolic) criticism of the theory of the state, but without seeming to understand the history of how we got here or providing any deep thoughts into the alternative.