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merjet

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On 6/20/2019 at 4:15 AM, merjet said:

A complete separation is impossible. 

I just wanted to circle back to this.  To clarify, the separation between the government and the economy I was referring to was specifically the governmental powers of coercion qua “governance” and the economy.  Rightly pointed out government is administered or manifested by actual individual actors employing material resources in reality... these must be sustained and produced and in that sense they are part of the economy.

 In the sense that I meant it, what is separate from the economy is the use and direction of coercive government power.  The government does not wield power to violate economic rights, and no actor in the economy can “vote” for the erosion of rights.

Edited by StrictlyLogical
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48 minutes ago, StrictlyLogical said:

In the sense that I meant it, what is separate from the economy is the use and direction of coercive government power.  The government does not wield power to violate economic rights, and no actor in the economy can “vote” for the erosion of rights.

I suspect that our differences would diminish if we discussed this more. For now, I will limit myself to the following. I believe that coercion by government should be severely limited. On the other hand, (1) I don't believe it can realistically be eliminated, and (2) coercion comes in degrees. There are guns, incarceration, regulatory prohibitions which have economic effects, court summons, quarantines, etc. Consider settling disputes, familial or business lawsuits or bankruptcy. The parties to such disputes often don't happily and voluntarily submit to remediation. But in order to protect the rights of the wronged in such cases, government must use some degree of coercion -- such as a court summons -- if the dispute is going to be settled rather than do nothing. The latter could possibly make matters worse.

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4 minutes ago, merjet said:

I suspect that our differences would diminish if we discussed this more. For now, I will limit myself to the following. I believe that coercion by government should be severely limited. On the other hand, (1) I don't believe it can realistically be eliminated, and (2) coercion comes in degrees. There are guns, incarceration, regulatory prohibitions which have economic effects, court summons, quarantines, etc. Consider settling disputes, familial or business lawsuits or bankruptcy. The parties to such disputes often don't happily and voluntarily submit to remediation. But in order to protect the rights of the wronged in such cases, government must use some degree of coercion -- such as a court summons -- if the dispute is going to be settled rather than do nothing. The latter could possibly make matters worse.

I oversimplify... you may know the Objectivist position but other readers may not.   

Government is force... and when a proper government protects individual rights it of course uses force. It does not however initiate the use of force in any way which violates individual rights as such it is used only in retaliation against those who act to violate the rights of others eg with the Initiation of force or fraud... 

A proper government does not inject force into voluntary dealings in the free market.  Objective law of course deals with disputes among people but only in the context of a proper conception of individual rights.  

Proper use of force in economic relations is not initiated by Government, it is in reaction to an individual right being violated, and those rights include principles of contracts between people about which they may have a disagreement.

As for force by degrees, Govt has ultimate power to enforce any of its laws no matter how trivial the law or decorous the process by which it initially requests compliance.  Non compliance can and will be met ultimately with force... seizure of property or incarceration ...  and a threat of force is force.

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