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From: fagin@ucbvax.ARPA (Barry Steven Fagin)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Freedom, coercion, and free markets (III)
Message-ID: <4793@ucbvax.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 13-Feb-85 20:02:29 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.4793
Posted: Wed Feb 13 20:02:29 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 14-Feb-85 03:24:54 EST
References: <328@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP>
Reply-To: fagin@ucbvax.UUCP (Barry Steven Fagin)
Organization: University of California at Berkeley
Lines: 48
Summary: 

In article <328@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP> carnes@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP (Richard Carnes) writes:
>DISPARITY IN ATTRACTIVENESS OF ALTERNATIVES.  Many of the coercive
>potentials in exchange can be subsumed under one generalization.  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?  

Yes.

>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?  

Yes, he is not then coerced.

>Clearly freedom depends on the character of alternatives.  

Nope.  Not from what he's shown so far.

>....  On this the liberal argument is correct:  liberty in market
>systems exists only if everyone is able to escape coercion at the hands of
>any one buyer or seller by turning to another.

Implicit in Lindblom's arguments is the belief that *circumstances* can
coerce.  I believe, however, that this is false; only people can coerce.
Circumstances are impassionate, inanimate things that lead people to do
one thing or another.  If circumstances can indeed coerce, then in order
to dispense justice, we are faced with the problem of determining when 
circumstances are coercing people, and when people are making a free
choice.  How is such a determination to be made? Undoubtedly through the 
political marketplace, using arbitrary and capricious methods similar to 
those we use today.  For those who believe in a deeper, more objective
kind of justice, believing that circumstances can coerce is unsatisfactory.

As an aside, I would prefer the phantom coercion of circumstance to the
very real coercion Lindblom and others would employ to protect against
its ravages.

Lindblom of course makes lots of other points in his assault on the
classical liberal argument, which I hope other libertarians will address.

>Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes

--Barry


-- 
Barry Fagin @ University of California, Berkeley