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From: josh@topaz.ARPA (J Storrs Hall)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Freedom, coercion, and free markets (III)
Message-ID: <605@topaz.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 13-Feb-85 04:55:01 EST
Article-I.D.: topaz.605
Posted: Wed Feb 13 04:55:01 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 14-Feb-85 01:24:20 EST
References: <328@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP>
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
Lines: 57

> Carnes:
> ....  Suppose A
> offers something of overwhelming value to B -- say, a lifetime income -- in
> return for which B must do something he abhors.  Is he really free to
> refuse?  Suppose A offers something that B must have -- water when he is
> stranded in the desert -- but at an exorbitant price.  Is he not then
> coerced? 

You are not coercing someone if, by taking his choice of the alternatives
you offer, he is better off than if you weren't there at all.  If I appear
in the desert and offer a dying man water on the condition that he give 
me all he owns, he is free to ignore me entirely and crawl to his death.
He may not like this, but it was his original situation with which I had
nothing to do.

> Clearly freedom depends on the character of alternatives.  The
> generalization, then, is that exchange best supports freedom when every
> party can choose among offers that do not greatly differ in value from each
> other or from no exchange at all.  

I think that is a bit of a contradiction-- let's look at the man in the
desert again.  Without my showing up, he dies.  To give him "an offer that
does not differ greatly in value from no exchange at all" I would have to
demand something that was almost worth his life!  That's crazy.

The benefit of free exchange is that in every transaction, total utility
rises.  If I demand enormous payment from the desert man, he would still
rather pay than die.  So he's doing better.  And we may also assume I'm
doing better.  What the collectivist objects to is that I make an enormous
profit on the deal.  Let me explain it to you this way:  enormous profits
like this are made when the value of something (like saving someone's
life) is is much more than the cost of producing it (we didn't specify
how much it cost, but assume it's cheap).  This sends a loud clear signal
--much more efficacious than any number of bureaucratic memos--to everyone
that there ought to be more people out in the desert saving lives.  And if
the profit is indeed high, they will rush to do it.  The high profit of the
initial few is only what they richly deserve for sparking the whole
life-saving business in the first place.

In a free market, people seek out those services others need the most
for just the reasons above.  If I'm limited to the same rate of return
no matter what I do, why innovate?  It's a real pain to try to push a 
new idea through in a bureaucracy. It's risky in both cases.  The initial
high profit motivates the innovater and rewards him when he discovers
a way to satisfy a great need no one has met before.

Carnes has challenged libertarians to provide a theory of "distributive
justice".  Here's mine, it's simple:  Everyone deserves exactly what 
he can make himself.  How can the poor man have a "right" to handouts
when if the other people weren't there, he'd merely starve?  Any benefit
someone gets from association with others is purely "good luck".
No one deserves something someone else has made.  He has the right
to try to make something that is worth more to the other person, and 
offer an exchange;  it is our great good fortune when such an exchange
is possible.  It isn't always, and we can't claim it as a right.

--JoSH