# Coercion as a Crime: Is it Realistic?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coercion-as-a-crime-is-it-realistic/347885
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [March 10, 2006, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coercion-as-a-crime-is-it-realistic/347885 "2006-03-10T22:25:52Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@spazattak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spazattak)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2006, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coercion-as-a-crime-is-it-realistic/347885/1 "2006-03-10T22:25:52Z")
I’ve been enthralled by the whole concept of the Libertarion philosophy of having anti-[coercion](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coercion) be the end-all be-all purpose of government. It is a very elegant and sexy proposition. The question that I have though - Is it realistic? Given our current criminal justice system, is coercion easily provable? What would the burden of proof constitute? Would it be easy or difficult to find loop-holes? If it is problematic in our current system, what kind of system would be robust while still maintaining our philosophies on rights and innocent until proven guilty?
To give an example from another thread I’ve read:
Company X pollutes a stream. This stream runs through my property (I’m down stream). Company X is guilty of coercion because ultimately it is polluting my stream. Now I (or the government) have [has] to prove in a court of law that 1)My stream is polluted and 2)The pollution came from Company X. Even assuming this is possible, and reasonable doubt can’t be cast by just saying ‘It came from Company W further up-stream’, what would potential punishments entail?
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### Author:  [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2006, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coercion-as-a-crime-is-it-realistic/347885/2 "2006-03-10T22:52:04Z")
> [@spazattak](#):
>
> I’ve been enthralled by the whole concept of the Libertarion philosophy of having anti-[coercion](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coercion) be the end-all be-all purpose of government. It is a very elegant and sexy proposition. The question that I have though - Is it realistic?
I’ve only heard cohersion used in a philosophical sense and not as a legal term by Libertarians. I don’t think we’d see people charged with “cohersion” we’d see them charged with crimes similiar to what we currently have on the books. So we wouldn’t have someone charged with cohersion when he holds someone up we’d just call it robbery.
Marc
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### Author:  [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2006, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coercion-as-a-crime-is-it-realistic/347885/3 "2006-03-10T23:09:01Z")
Coercion is a good entry point for a political philosophy I’m fond of (anarchy, not libertarianism). If you make coercion a crime, does that mean you’re going to arrest people for it? Impose sanctions on them for engaging in it?
Even in a discussion of anarchy, a focus on coercion tends to loop you into paradoxical territory, although it becomes definitional, not procedural (i.e., even once we agree that a prerequisite for a functioning anarchy is a sincerely shared commitment to refrain from coercion on the part of participants, you get into things like: “Well, OK, what if I really want to listen to the Rolling Stones and you really don’t and we both want to sit at the same picnic table, well doesn’t the social pressure on me to refrain from turning on the Stones constitute coercion? Doesn’t my playing the Stones, thereby imposing that sound on your eardrums, consitute coercion?” and so on)
Generally and loosely speaking, by the time you’re seriously talking about eliminating coercion, you’re also in a realm where hard-coded rules (and, therefore, strict definitions) have pretty much gone by the wayside.
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### Author:  [@Menocchio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Menocchio)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2006, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coercion-as-a-crime-is-it-realistic/347885/4 "2006-03-10T23:12:31Z")
> [@spazattak](#):
>
> Company X pollutes a stream. This stream runs through my property (I’m down stream). Company X is guilty of coercion because ultimately it is polluting my stream. Now I (or the government) have [has] to prove in a court of law that 1)My stream is polluted and 2)The pollution came from Company X. Even assuming this is possible, and reasonable doubt can’t be cast by just saying ‘It came from Company W further up-stream’, what would potential punishments entail?
How does this differ from existing environmental laws which state, more or less, “don’t pollute the stream”? You’d still have to prove points one and 2.
The difference is, you’ve added an additional test: is this act coercive? This has its upsides and downsides. In current law, only a certain number of acts are illegal, and can have legal reprucussions. Under the coercion doctrine, any and every act that’s can be shown to be coercive (“shown” meaning here that you can convince the court) can result in penal or civil actions. This means that you could sue the company for dumping a chemical that hasn’t been specifically banned for dumping by the government.
On the other hand, a good lawyer and a sympathetic judge could make decisions regarding what’s coercive that you don’t agree with. For example, the company may get the court to say that they can dump the chemical, becuase, hey, they aren’t making you drink the water, and it’s unreasonable of you to expect that nothing will ever be carried down the stream.
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### Author:  [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2006, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coercion-as-a-crime-is-it-realistic/347885/5 "2006-03-10T23:13:49Z")
After rereading the OP, I’ve decided to deliberately belabor what to me is obvious: arresting someone is intrinsically a coercive act. Sanctioning someone for something they did that you deem wrong is intrinsically a coercive act. So any political philosphy that continues to assume the existence of law enforcement while considering “coercion” a crime goes immediately deep into paradoxical territory. (And “coercion” becomes “what we, the state, determine to be ‘coercion’”)
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### Author:  [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)
#### Post date: [March 11, 2006, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coercion-as-a-crime-is-it-realistic/347885/6 "2006-03-11T16:48:56Z")
> [@spazattak](#):
>
> Even assuming this is possible, and reasonable doubt can’t be cast by just saying ‘It came from Company W further up-stream’, what would potential punishments entail?
Making you whole. That is, restoring to you the rights and property that were vandalized. Your stream must be cleaned up. Any problems that you’ve suffered due to the pollution (such as ill health or spoilage) must be paid for and fixed. In addition, there may be retaliatory force applied, on the theory that the company’s manager usurped your rights and thus waived his own. In other words, punative damages.
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### Author:  [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)
#### Post date: [March 11, 2006, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coercion-as-a-crime-is-it-realistic/347885/7 "2006-03-11T16:55:35Z")
> [@Menocchio](#):
>
> How does this differ from existing environmental laws which state, more or less, “don’t pollute the stream”?
It differs in how it is conceived. Existing laws are drafted from political expediency, not ethical principle. Therefore, while there may or may not be a law saying “don’t pollute the stream”, there will certainly be a thousand ways around the law, designed specifically to protect governors and those who support them. For example, it may be the case that government’s own toxic waste dump pollutes your stream, but before you can sue, you must get the permission of the criminal. Or perhaps Monsanto is allowed to put some minimal amount of pollution in your stream established by bureaucrats in the EPA, and you can’t do anything about it.
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [March 11, 2006, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coercion-as-a-crime-is-it-realistic/347885/8 "2006-03-11T17:15:32Z")
> [@Liberal](#):
>
> Or perhaps Monsanto is allowed to put some minimal amount of pollution in your stream established by bureaucrats in the EPA, and you can’t do anything about it.
How would envision an ideal situation to be? It certainly doesn’t make sense to allow people to sue for an arbitrarily small amount of pollutant, and someone or some agency needs to determine what constitutes a pollutant in the first place.
Seems like you only have 3 choices: 1) Vote on these things directly 2) Litagate each case as if it were the first or 3) appoint some agency to set the standards.
Options 1 and 3 are pretty much the same, since you’re own input is diluted to the point of meaninglessness in #1. Option 2 seems completely unworkable.
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### Author:  [@Menocchio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Menocchio)
#### Post date: [March 11, 2006, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coercion-as-a-crime-is-it-realistic/347885/9 "2006-03-11T20:08:07Z")
> [@Liberal](#):
>
> It differs in how it is conceived. Existing laws are drafted from political expediency, not ethical principle. Therefore, while there may or may not be a law saying “don’t pollute the stream”, there will certainly be a thousand ways around the law, designed specifically to protect governors and those who support them. For example, it may be the case that government’s own toxic waste dump pollutes your stream, but before you can sue, you must get the permission of the criminal. Or perhaps Monsanto is allowed to put some minimal amount of pollution in your stream established by bureaucrats in the EPA, and you can’t do anything about it.
Well, we could vote in a new crop of legislators who support firmer environmental guidlelines.
The problem with a legal system comprised entirely of an ethical principal, is that applying that general principal to specific cases becomes controversal at best, and utterly arbitrary at worst.
“Compound X is illegal over Y ppM” is fully quantifiable and absolute. If you could prove that the letter of the law was broken, then you win. And which judge and jury you have doesn’t matter quite as much, because every court is constrained by the letter of the law. But “don’t comitt coercion” is a much more nebulous statement. Three judges would give three different answers.
One might say that any pollution, at any level, that crosses property lines is coercion, a standard that would destroy modern industry and agriculture.
Another might say that it’s only coercion if the pollution can be proven to be harmful.
A third might say that this type of pollution is never coercive, as the nature of a stream is to flow from one place to another, and someone who owns a segment of stream must accept what flows into his property. Further, telling the company what it can or cannot do with its segment of the stream is itself coercive.
Which one is right? To whom do I appeal if I disagree? What should I tell my cousin in the next county who has an identical situation, but will be seeing another judge?
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### Author:  [@Frankenstein\_Monster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frankenstein_Monster)
#### Post date: [March 11, 2006, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coercion-as-a-crime-is-it-realistic/347885/10 "2006-03-11T20:40:31Z")
> [@Menocchio](#):
>
> And which judge and jury you have doesn’t matter quite as much, because every court is constrained by the letter of the law.
Huh?? Do you mean to suggest that a legalistic system does not encourage [forum shopping](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forum_shopping)?
> [@](#):
>
> But “don’t comitt coercion” is a much more nebulous statement. Three judges would give three different answers.
Three judges will always give three different answers in a sufficiently non-trivial case. I don’t think the NP is nebulous. I think it would be an excellent basis for the judicial branch in a sufficiently ethically developed society. The idea just takes some getting used to.
> [@](#):
>
> The problem with a legal system comprised entirely of an ethical principal, is that applying that general principal to specific cases becomes controversal at best, and utterly arbitrary at worst.
The same thing happens today in sufficiently non-trivial cases. I don’t think judgment under a libertarian system would be “arbitrary”. Quite the opposite. But cases could certainly be controversial. Libertarianism does not intend (or pretend) to solve people’s controversies.
> [@](#):
>
> Which one is right? To whom do I appeal if I disagree? What should I tell my cousin in the next county who has an identical situation, but will be seeing another judge?
I think your first and last examples are unreasonable by current ethical standards (as you already suggested). The middle sounds about “right”. What you should tell your cousin is to do his best to present a clear case of having suffered coercion, rather than trying to whine about other people.
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### Author:  [@Frankenstein\_Monster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frankenstein_Monster)
#### Post date: [March 11, 2006, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coercion-as-a-crime-is-it-realistic/347885/11 "2006-03-11T20:47:29Z")
> [@me](#):
>
> Three judges will always give three different answers in a sufficiently non-trivial case.
I should have written, **nine** judges will almost always give two or three different answers…
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### Author:  [@LawMonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LawMonkey)
#### Post date: [March 11, 2006, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coercion-as-a-crime-is-it-realistic/347885/12 "2006-03-11T20:54:00Z")
> [@AHunter3](#):
>
> After rereading the OP, I’ve decided to deliberately belabor what to me is obvious: arresting someone is intrinsically a coercive act. Sanctioning someone for something they did that you deem wrong is intrinsically a coercive act. So any political philosphy that continues to assume the existence of law enforcement while considering “coercion” a crime goes immediately deep into paradoxical territory. (And “coercion” becomes “what we, the state, determine to be ‘coercion’”)
The state’s special, and gets to legally exercise all sorts of powers that would be crimes if its citizens attempted to exercise them. The philosophical justification is that we’ve effectively entered into a contract with the state, granting it these rights (which we would otherwise have ourselves) in exchange for the state’s vastly more efficient ability to provide services to us, such as defense.
That said, it gets rather sticky when you go from a voluntary association of free individuals to something more like the modern state, into which you are born, and from which it is effectively impossible to ‘opt-out’.
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### Author:  [@Civil\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Civil_Guy)
#### Post date: [March 11, 2006, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coercion-as-a-crime-is-it-realistic/347885/13 "2006-03-11T23:52:06Z")
I’ve always had a little trouble myself with this Libertarian principle. Seems to me, gettin’ philosophical, that “coercion” is not the either/or simple thing that Libertarians would like to condemn. Seems to me that it has all sorts of shades of gray.
Certainly, a direct threat of physical harm is pretty clearly coercion, but even there, circumstances will determine how great any given threat is. “Give me all your money, or I’ll slap you” just doesn’t sound very coercive. Still, “sign here, or I’ll yank out your IV tube” is a much greater threat to a conscious person who in fact has an IV drip going than it is to others. And for that, the worst mental coercion is probably the implied threat, unspoken, that might be impossible to demonstrate in a court of law.
As for pollution, well, it just seems that many, many variables would go into determining just how much harm any particular effluent source would cause. A great problem of controlling storm water pollution is precisely the fact that it’s caused by many, many small by-themselves-trivial-seeming sources.
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### Author:  [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2006, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coercion-as-a-crime-is-it-realistic/347885/14 "2006-03-12T01:15:36Z")
> [@spazattak](#):
>
> I’ve been enthralled by the whole concept of the Libertarion philosophy of having anti-[coercion](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coercion) be the end-all be-all purpose of government. It is a very elegant and sexy proposition. The question that I have though - Is it realistic? Given our current criminal justice system, is coercion easily provable? What would the burden of proof constitute? Would it be easy or difficult to find loop-holes? If it is problematic in our current system, what kind of system would be robust while still maintaining our philosophies on rights and innocent until proven guilty?
>
> To give an example from another thread I’ve read:
>
> Company X pollutes a stream. This stream runs through my property (I’m down stream). Company X is guilty of coercion because ultimately it is polluting my stream. Now I (or the government) have [has] to prove in a court of law that 1)My stream is polluted and 2)The pollution came from Company X. Even assuming this is possible, and reasonable doubt can’t be cast by just saying ‘It came from Company W further up-stream’, what would potential punishments entail?
So what if I had a lone pig upstream drinking from that river, could the jewish family living downstream sue us for pollution?
---
### Author:  [@Menocchio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Menocchio)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2006, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coercion-as-a-crime-is-it-realistic/347885/15 "2006-03-12T02:17:55Z")
> [@Frankenstein Monster](#):
>
> Huh?? Do you mean to suggest that a legalistic system does not encourage [forum shopping](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forum_shopping)?
Not nearly as much as this one would.
> [@](#):
>
> Three judges will always give three different answers in a sufficiently non-trivial case. I don’t think the NP is nebulous. I think it would be an excellent basis for the judicial branch in a sufficiently ethically developed society. The idea just takes some getting used to.
It transforms the judiciary from the interpretors of laws written by representatives to an absolute government based on a single principle so vague as to mean nothing at all. And some cases \*are \*trivial under a legalistic system. Never so under a NP system.
> [@](#):
>
> The same thing happens today in sufficiently non-trivial cases. I don’t think judgment under a libertarian system would be “arbitrary”. Quite the opposite. But cases could certainly be controversial. Libertarianism does not intend (or pretend) to solve people’s controversies.
Solving people’s controversies is half the point of a government.
> [@](#):
>
> I think your first and last examples are unreasonable by current ethical standards (as you already suggested).
Actually, all three are acceptable interpretations of the NP. Only the middle is good public policy, but that’s why we have laws instead of vague philosophical principals.
The NP sounds like a good underpinning for making laws, and perhaps a final constitutional check on the law (any law that doesn’t prevent coercion being null and void), but as the only law of the land, it could only lead to one of two conclusions:
1. The breakdown of civil government as every court decides every case differently and in completely different ways.
2. An arbitrary dictatorship as the courts assume more and more control over people’s lives unde rthe guise of preventing coercion.
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### Author:  [@Frankenstein\_Monster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frankenstein_Monster)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2006, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coercion-as-a-crime-is-it-realistic/347885/16 "2006-03-12T10:57:44Z")
> [@Menocchio](#):
>
> The breakdown of civil government as every court decides every case differently and in completely different ways.
Probably pointless to argue our philosophical differences but let me expand on this issue.
With libertarian justice, the precise criteria for a judgment would be, does it compensate for the damage and is it not excessive? Within that framework, an arbitrator would have great freedom to reach the best solution in every individual case. With your polluted stream, the judge might order the perpetrator to clean up the stream, restoring it to your satisfaction. With my polluted stream, another judge might order the perpetrator to compensate me by giving me a different plot of land, by a different stream, equivalent in all respects to my original plot to my satisfaction.
Frankly, I would greatly prefer such a system over the rather arbitrary system we have now. Quite possibly, there would be more variation among judgments. But there would be much **less** arbitrariness. Far from a breakdown of civil government. IMHO, YMMV, ETC.
I would be interested to hear what certified libertarians think of this example. I am only an amateur libertarian. Did I get it wrong?
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### Author:  [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2006, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coercion-as-a-crime-is-it-realistic/347885/17 "2006-03-12T15:04:34Z")
> [@John Mace](#):
>
> Seems like you only have 3 choices: 1) Vote on these things directly 2) Litagate each case as if it were the first or 3) appoint some agency to set the standards.
>
> Options 1 and 3 are pretty much the same, since you’re own input is diluted to the point of meaninglessness in #1. Option 2 seems completely unworkable.
Or litigate the case as thought there had already been cases similar to it, using precedence and common sense — rather than immutable rule — as guides. That’s the problem with central planning: what might be appropriate for South Central LA might very well not be appropriate for rural Wyoming. To take the point you’re making, suppose Smith sues his neighbor Jones for exhaling carbon dioxide, arguably a pollutant. The problem, of course, is that Smith, were he to prevail, would indeed bind himself to the same restriction, thus choking himself to death as a consequence of being ornery. And so it isn’t a matter of a vote, but a matter of people coming to mutually satisfactory standards by means of spontaneous order.
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### Author:  [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2006, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coercion-as-a-crime-is-it-realistic/347885/18 "2006-03-12T15:14:42Z")
> [@Menocchio](#):
>
> Well, we could vote in a new crop of legislators who support firmer environmental guidlelines.
If only people were cardboard cutouts, that would be a great idea. Unfortunately, there is a tendency for politicians to say what you like to hear in order to be elected because, for some percentage of them, serving you is not their actual goal. Their actual goal is to amass power and wealth for themselves. The other two problems are that (1) you must wait until election time (and for whatever period will then follow for the bureaucracy to implement your wishes), by which time your property might be unlivable, and (2) you must be a part of the majority of “we” who want the same thing you do. And so, given sufficient goodwill from an honest politicians, dutiful and diligent bureaucrats incentivized chiefly by concern for your welfare, an efficient legislative machinery, and the convergence of consensus steadfastly toward your own preferences — given all that, the idea should work fine.
> [@](#):
>
> Which one is right? To whom do I appeal if I disagree? What should I tell my cousin in the next county who has an identical situation, but will be seeing another judge?
Those are good questions. Good for the present system. With millions of laws, decrees, executive orders, statutes, ordinances, rules and regulations on the books, which one is right when two or more conflict? What do you tell your cousin in the next county who is under a differenct ordinance?
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### Author:  [@Tevildo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tevildo)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2006, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coercion-as-a-crime-is-it-realistic/347885/19 "2006-03-12T15:31:48Z")
> [@Liberal](#):
>
> And so it isn’t a matter of a vote, but a matter of people coming to mutually satisfactory standards by means of spontaneous order.
Two questions.
1. How does this differ from anarchy? What role does the state have in such a system if it can’t set standards for the behaviour of its citizens?
2. What, if any, are the safeguards against the rich and powerful obtaining complete control of such a society? Emphasis on “complete”. The rich will always have _more_ power in any society, and I don’t claim that democracy is perfect in this respect - however, the existence of a democratic state does, at least, set limits on the amount of power the rich can obtain.
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### Author:  [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2006, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coercion-as-a-crime-is-it-realistic/347885/20 "2006-03-12T15:42:36Z")
> [@Tevildo](#):
>
> 1. How does this differ from anarchy? What role does the state have in such a system if it can’t set standards for the behaviour of its citizens?
The role of the state is to suppress coercion (defined as initial force or deception) by the use of defensive and retaliatory (as opposed to initial) force and deception.
> [@](#):
>
> 1. What, if any, are the safeguards against the rich and powerful obtaining complete control of such a society? Emphasis on “complete”. The rich will always have _more_ power in any society, and I don’t claim that democracy is perfect in this respect - however, the existence of a democratic state does, at least, set limits on the amount of power the rich can obtain.
I disagree. Otherwise, old Widow Smith wouldn’t have to worry about Senator Fatcat partnering with Tycoon Moneybags to pass special legislation condemning her property and taking it from her. In a libertarian system, Moneybags can offer Smith all the money he wants to, but nothing compels her to accept it.
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