Gadarene, this is a good question, and my response demands a perspective that living requires effort to begin with—this is a biological necessity. It is therefore not a part of coercive determination per se, it is one of the assumptions made already. One has to do something to live, this is part of our physiological strucutre, not a facet of society. The manner in which one does things to live, this is a facet of society.
My outline of coercion was possibly too broad, as—for those like Ramanujan—some do not like to consider coercion unless another person or persons’ will is involved in the scenario. Thus, he mightn’t consider education as a factor in coercion since no one did it to him (our arbitrary person under consideration). I, on the other hand, still find it to be a factor limiting his choices, possibly in such a way as to fall under one of my four assertions.
This could be a chicken and egg problem, for on one hand we would like to have a semi-stable background already on which we may build our conception of coercion; on the other, the subject often comes up when we try to consider just how we would build such a background (a la the thread linked in the OP). To resolve this the question that primarily needs to be addressed is: is coercion subject to relativism? And unfortunately even this question is loaded with problems; on one hand, what one man calls coercion another might not have a problem with (taxation), and yet, an another hand, any definition we choose is likely to exclude relevant behavior and include irrelevant behavior (like Ramanujan’s point may be, contrary to mine). From an individualistic perspective coercion is definitely subject to relativism; from a cultural standpoint the question is not so easily answered.
Well, in what way? If one of the criteria for determining an acceptable a priori system of evaluation is that everyone agrees then you are most assuredly right. But the problem here isn’t one of according with a metaphysical attribute (as, say, physics might seek to understand or describe), but a metaphysical method of ascribing value. It is all well and good, then, to note that this is subject to relativistic critique, much like almost any line-drawing on acceptable behavior, but the fact remains that we do draw lines. They only need to be good enough.
Yes; don’t you live in one such system?
Coercion cannot simply the limiting of choices as all actions, once taken, limit the number of further choices available and we would be bound, absurdly, by coercing ourselves among others doing it to us. It could be, however, that limiting another’s choices is a factor in coercion—provided we outline what makes a choice viable in the first place (which is what I tried to do). But what makes a choice viable is, to a large extent, a subjective determination in a system of relativism, so an objective description can only take place to whatever extent people inter-subjectively agree. And so if most of us agree that people need to work to live, then Gadarene’s question is answered: no, it can’t be coercive, because this is something we must do already, it is part of the context in which choices operate. For this same reason I choose to not consider death as a choice, because one must be alive to choose, and so for choices to operate (in the sense we are discussing) death cannot be an option (though, strictly speaking, it always is). But we get struck by another bug here, for if we are forced to assume that people needing to work to live is not coercive, then it must be possible for them to do, else our entire analysis falls apart.
A man can be fired from his job, for example, without us considering the behavior coercive. And yet, a man can also be fired from his job coercively, in some attempt to, perhaps, purchase the property he owns and yet can now no longer afford. But it is not merely the factor of treating another as a means to an end that is prima facie coercive as while the man was willfully employed there he was a means to an end: the boss, owner, or stockholders were making their living off of him. Sure, the man is an end in himself—to himself. But that is no skin off his employer’s nose. His employer counts on that when he hires him, and should he choose to coerce him, he will count on that, too.
The reason I consider coercion not just a factor of a person or persons’ will (as Ramanujan suggests) lies in my response to Gadarene. Since we must assume some background in which coercion operates, if that background is not available then the person is either being coerced (as I suggest) or there is no analysis possible—and so we should then work to create the background possible. For example, by taxing those who are relatively safe, and using those gains to help provide other jobs, or infrastrucutre to accelerate the economy, and so on (this is an example of a solution, not a comment on it being the best or only solution).
So to summarize my almost lack of a point thus far, coercion involves—in some fashion, and I’ve outlined my take on it—what choices a person has and why he might make them. Thus, before we can describe coercion, we must have a backbone available in which viable choices can operate. The declaration of the formation of the backbone as coercive is possibly analytic, but meaningless, as the only way coercion could be describes was inside of the framework to begin with. What makes a framework in which viable choices can operate? Only then can we address the problem of coercion specifically (rather than in the generalities I’ve offered), in my opinion.
I say this mostly in hope that Libertarian is reading it, because we had once split on the matter of reasonable coercive behavior, and this is what I’ve come up with in the interim.
I hope it isn’t seen as tangential to the intent of the OP as I have a tendency to ramble.