On 1/9/2015 4:26 PM, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List wrote:
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*From:* meekerdb <[email protected]>
*To:* [email protected]
*Sent:* Friday, January 9, 2015 2:49 PM
*Subject:* Re: Democracy
On 1/9/2015 1:08 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:
j'y
Le 9 janv. 2015 21:59, "meekerdb" <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>
a écrit :
>
> On 1/9/2015 5:55 AM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:
>>
>> It is not until you accept it and you have been meant to accept it... at the moment
that your boss has coercive capacity against you, what will make you have the capacity
to go against it ? We're talking about hierarchy here, not collaborative working for
the benefit of both that you seem to conflate.
>
>
> Is it coercive capacity if the boss can refuse to pay you if you don't do the work to
his satisfaction?
Well how is his satisfaction satisfied? The thing is, he only has the coercive
capacity to judge it, you're not on equal footing here. Hierarchy implies coercion.
What if he owns all the land and is the only person within a 100 miles that has money
with which to pay you and a job for you to do?
As long as he is the boss, he has coercive capacity against you, that's what it means
to be the "boss" .
>>So anyone very much wealthier than you has coercive capacity against you. I would
agree with that, and it is one of the reasons to prefer constitutionally limited
government to anarcho-capitalism. Libertarians like to think money is just a medium of
trade, but it is also power.
I agree with that!
Money itself may just be a medium of trade, but the possession of great amounts of money
is a means of amassing great amounts of power. The Koch brothers (or Soros) have much
more influence on the daily exercise of power that your average citizen, because they
have the option of directing a small part of their immense wealth into influencing
social outcomes as they desire.
I was adding up what I had donated to political campaigns during 2014 the other day. It
was about $2000. That's an amount I can afford without feeling any serious pinch. But
then I reflected that either of the Koch brothers could donate $2,000,000 and say the
same. I've run a local political campaign and I know you can't just buy elections - the
biggest spenders can lose. But with a lot of money you can create a lot of concern about
an issue within a selected demographic and influence the turn-out enough to swing
otherwise close elections.
For example, my mother continually receives mail that looks as if it's from the Social
Security Administration (it says /*Social Security*/ across the top and it's from a
Washington D.C. address) which warns her that SS is going bankrupt and she needs to send
money right away to prevent Obama or the Democrats or somebody from destroying social
security. This gets her all worried. Fortunately she's 100yrs old and doesn't get out to
vote.
Brent
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