Re:The Bitcoin Whales: 1,000 People Who Own 40 Percent of th...
by monort on Friday December 08, 2017 @01:08PM
(#15880580)
While this position is technically correct, it is absurd. By this logic, enforcing freedom from slavery is coercive as well, because it requires threat of violence.
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Re:The Bitcoin Whales: 1,000 People Who Own 40 Percent of th...
by frgtpsswrdlame on Friday December 08, 2017 @01:29PM
(#15880725)
Exactly! Which exposes the flaw in basing your political ideology around the removal of coercion.
Re:The Bitcoin Whales: 1,000 People Who Own 40 Percent of th...
by Emma_Goldman on Friday December 08, 2017 @04:16PM
(#15882107)
Hmmm I think it's important to emphasise that anarcho-capitalism necessarily relies on coercion, but it's probably a strawman when speaking about its philosophical defenders. Libertarians want to maximise the account of freedom they build up from the originating premise of self-ownership. They are perfectly willing to license the use of coercion to uphold that propertarian system of rights. What they have issue with is the existence of an overweening state that has de facto and de jure power over you no matter what. They want the means of coercion to be privatised; to be outsourced to local militias, private security firms, and the like.
Of course, like all ideologies, they don't think of this as a system of accumulated power that exploits destitute workers and relies on dystopian bands of warlords to beat anyone who protests into submission, but as something like 'a pure state of freedom'.
Re:The Bitcoin Whales: 1,000 People Who Own 40 Percent of th...
by xg15 on Friday December 08, 2017 @03:05PM
(#15881545)
Indeed, it is - which proves the parent's point. This would be an example of something that's both just and coercive.
Re:The Bitcoin Whales: 1,000 People Who Own 40 Percent of th...
by monort on Friday December 08, 2017 @03:24PM
(#15881722)
But this definition is unusual and doesn't bring any insight. It reminds me about psychological egoism, that says that there is no altruism, everything is egoism. Technically correct, but doesn't help to explain altruism-behavior.
Re:The Bitcoin Whales: 1,000 People Who Own 40 Percent of th...
by frgtpsswrdlame on Friday December 08, 2017 @04:17PM
(#15882117)
No, I don't believe so. Take taxes, taxes are coercive because if you refuse to follow tax law then the government enacts violence against you right?
Now take property, property is coercive because if you refuse to follow property law then the government enacts violence against you.
It's one to one.