That's how the coercion works. I started college as an experimental psychology major. We did experiments shaping the behavior of animals, like rats running mazes. B.F. Skinner discovered that what he called "positive reinforcement" (giving an animal a reward for desired behavior) works better than "negative reinforcement" (giving a punishment for not doing the desired behavior). So we'd give the rats food pellets when they did the kind of things we wanted. But you know what was the first thing we did with the rats, before the experiment even started?

We starved them. We made sure the rats were good and hungry so they would really need those food pellets and they would work effectively as a reward.

Similarly, things are set up so you can't support yourself without a job. You can't just go homestead on some land out in the wilderness and farm it. You can't just set up your own business without having a lot of capital to invest, which most people don't have and can't get. We're kept hungry, and then the companies give us food pellets to shape our behavior, and it works.

Don't give up so easily, Norrin. If a car salesman told you in order to get the car you love you're going to have to pay him, is that coercion?

Coercion is the use of force, or the threat of force, to make someone do something against their will. If your will is to get things you haven't earned, then I suppose you could make the claim the car salesman and your employer are using coercion. If that were the case I would have other questions about your morality and your philosophy.

If your will isn't to get things you haven't earned, which is what your posts lead me to believe, then you can't make the claim that the salesman, or your employer are forcing you to do something against your will.

Just because something is difficult doesn't mean coercion exists. It's hard for me to cut my lawn every week, but don't I believe my lawn is coercing me into cutting it. No one else is coercing me into cutting it either - I want a nice looking lawn, that is my will. Just because my will doesn't magically materialize doesn't mean I'm prevented from realizing it.

What do you call it when an employer wants yo to work overtime and if you want to keep your job, you HAVE TO work the overtime?

Extra cash at time-and-a-half. Look, there's really nothing you HAVE TO do. There are only choices and consequences. If your doctor said, "Eat or die." Is he coercing you? Of course not, but his statement is true. You can either choose to eat, and reap the consequence of continuing to live; or you can choose to not eat and suffer the consequence of death. Your will, and your will alone, determines what you HAVE TO do in order to achieve your will - in order to achieve the consequences YOU desire. If your doctor straps you to a table and hooks an IV into your arm - that's coercion. If you have already chosen not to eat - to accept the consequence of death - then feeding you by force would be coercion.

Back to your example, what is your will? Do you choose to keep your job, or not keep your job? There is no option: "Keep my job while dictating my own schedule." Suppose the roles were reversed, suppose you're so skilled and valuable you could get a job anywhere. If you told your boss, "I'm not coming into work Monday. I want to take a day off." Would that be coercion? Your boss doesn't want to fire you because you're valuable. Aren't you forcing him to accept your schedule? Imagine such an attitude in any other contractual arrangement - suppose you go into McDonalds and order a Big Mac. The counter girl says, "Okay, that'll be $2." You say, "I don't want to pay $2. I'm only going to give you $1." If she refuses to give the burger to you, is she coercing you?

TSG, like most liberals, wants to believe we can escape the consequences of our choices; that somehow we can have our burger and eat it, too; that whatever stands in the way of us getting everything we want is a social wrong and must be fixed by more social wrongs. It's this victim mentality, this belief that their own failings simply can't be their own fault and must be the fault of others, which leads liberals to believe everyone in a better bargaining position is forcing them to do what they don't want to do. It makes them hold the impossible position that consequences can be divorced from choices; that effect can be released from cause.

You didn't answer my question.

I was wondering what the situation I described would be called.

Most liberals I have known have very good hearts. Their biggest flaws seem to be their inability to recognize that there are many evil people in the world and that a lot of these evil people gravitate towards power. The more power that is given to these evil people, the worse it is for the masses.

Most liberals I know also have trouble looking at issues logically, without emotion.

I have had numerous debates with people from both parties, but the SCREAMERS are almost always liberals.

It is sad to me, as it should be obvious to any THINKING PERSON that both parties have sold out the American people.

The problem is that the people have been conditioned and they battle cry of the masses is "Your Party is Worse than my Party."

Oh well, freedom had a good run.

Too bad supporters of the two major parties are helping to destroy freedom.

Greetings and Felicitations,

The American People have also been sold out by those people who convinced them that having more and more stuff was really about freedom. People who have lots of stuff are actually less free than people who don't have a lot of stuff. The final removal of freedom was when so many people sold their future for credit. You can't be free when your a slave to credit debt. The same goes for countries and for people.

Sincerely Yours,
C. David Neely

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Bullshit.

Person A has no money or debt. He also has no goods and lives in a cave in Montana. He gets up every morning and spends all day gathering berries, checking his traps for small animals to eat and gathering firewood. He spends all evening starting a fire, cooking what he's caught or being hungry. He doesn't get a lof of sleep because he has to tend the fire and keep it high or the bear who really owns his cave will eat him

Person B lives in a major city. He's got a lot of money and a lot of things. He's got a lot of debt but his source of money is nearly unbreakable, being from depression proof investments. You can guess his lifestyle.

Who can DO more things?

Buddha didn't say that not having things would make you free. He said that freedom too was Maya, illusion.

Is the measure of freedom how many things you can do? Or is it how few things you MUST do according to the will of another? Or both?

Greetings and Felicitations,

I wasn't speaking from a Buddhist perception and that has nothing to do with the thread anyway. The Buddha was a slave-monger just like the rest of the religious prophets.

Define a depression proof investment. The only depression proof investment is in caskets. Everything else is dependent. The person in example B is a slave to his creditors. If his ability to pay his creditors suffers then his freedom suffers. He is dependent on his creditors not deciding to demand payment immediately or to increases his rates beyond his ability to pay. Let me give you a counter example.

Person A: Has no debts at all. He competely owns his means of transportation. Let's say he owns a car or van. Everthing he owns is paid for and belongs to him. In addition, it can all fit into his car. He has a skill or trade that will allow him to get a job pretty much anywhere and enough money saved to allow him to live in between jobs.

Person B; Owns several cars which he is in debt for. He has a mortgage and he must make payments on a regular basis or he will lose his place to live. He owns a great number of other items to the point where it would take him a large moving van and help in order to move. He has a specialized skill which is only of use in a city. He has no money in savings because he is living from paycheck to paycheck in order to pay his credit bills.

Which one is more free?
Which one is more representative of the Average American in this time of economic crisis?

Sincerely Yours.
C. David Neely

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Benjamin Franklin had a good saying, as he did for many things, in regard to the idea that an employee has always "freely" entered into a contract to sell his labor:

"Necessity never made a good bargain."

Yes, Norrin, I did. I gave you far more information in addition to my simple answer, but I did answer your question. I also referrenced your example a couple times.

I'll repeat the simple answer: I would call it extra cash at time-and-a-half if my employer told me to work overtime or be fired. That is, of course, assuming I want to keep my job.

Judging from your other posts, I wouldn't have expected this position from you. Since I eat meat, am I a slave to the butcher? Since the butcher needs to get his meat from a processor, is he a slave to that processor? Since the processor needs to get his meat from a rancher, is that processor a slave to the rancher? Since the rancher ultimately has to get his meat from the cow, does that make the rancher a slave to the cow? Wouldn't it all just flow downhill and, in reality, I'm a slave to cows? Am I a slave to everything I buy? Can a slave put himself in chains?

a. you didn't answer my question, but then it was a stupidly oversimplified example, still...ok, b's income is from his store of gold bars, kept in his cave next to this really tricked out stealth atv and watched over by his butler Alfred...

What if in your example your man gets married and has C. Are his wife and children going to like living in his car?

oh..who makes the car, and where does the fuel come from? Don't we need some rather specialized skills, only usable in a city, for these "things" to be available?

Greetings and Felicitations,

If you can't live without meat then the chain is complete and you are a slave to the cow. There are many things we are willing slaves towards. For example, my fiance is a slave to tobacco products. No one makes her partake but she is enslaved to them anyway. So, yes, it is possible for the slave to put himself in chains. Many people do so everyday. The secret is to be cognizant of these facts and to be very careful about what one allows to enslave you.

A great many people are willing slaves. Slaves to alcohol. Slaves to tobacco. Slaves to drugs. Slaves to other people. Anytime you create a situation where you are dependent on some product created by others you are, in essence, a slave to them and they have a level of control over you. A truly independent human being is a fearful thing to behold for many people. He, or she, is a rarity.

The master is the one who realizes and pays attention to the bonds he allows to be placed upon him. I think that is the true nature of responsibility and everything else is window dressing. It doesn't mean you can't interact, and depend, on other people. It simply means that you have to pay attention to the demands and chains they place upon you.

The current set of economic problems has a lot to do with this issue. Too many people got themselves chained to others without thinking about what they were doing and now they are paying the price.

Sincerely Yours,
C. David Neely

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Which isn't nearly the same as Patton's: "Negotiation is best done with your knee on their chest and a knife at their throats."

Life, and continuing to live it, is the only necessity. All else flows from that. You can be released from having to make bad bargains, as you see it, as soon as you choose to stop living. If you're going to argue this makes you a slave and subject to constant coercion, then you have my pity. Clearly, this is not how our lives really are - if they were, we wouldn't have a concept of coercion to describe what is in reality opposite to how our lives really are. "Coercion" would just be another word for "life." Yet it is not. It is a word which names a concept describing the unnormal; something which is anathema to the norm; something to be avoided and fought against. For most people, coercion isn't life, yet they still have to make choices and bargains.