Date: Thu, 12 Sep 1996 15:37:53 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: coercion


On Thu, 12 Sep 1996, Hartin, Tony wrote:

> Secondly, on "coercing" individuals. The way I envisage this happening is by 
> community discipline. I don't think society will be nearly as impersonal as 
> it is now, and I'm sure that any individual's bad behaviour will be 
> corrected by those immediately around them. People will take matters into 
> their own hands rather than to rely on some centrally appointed police.

This is the really scary elimination of pluralism of which I have spoken.
It is the only real alternative to law and cops. I for one prefer law law
and cops if that means we can have pluralism. I'd like people who find
this position attractive to think throough what it really means. I
recommend in particular Tocqueville's discussion of "The Power Exercised
by the Majority Over Thought" in vol. 2 of Democracy in America. "In
America," hesays, "while majority is in doubt, everyone talks, but when it
has irrevoccably pronounced, everyone is silent and fiends and enemies
alike make for its bandwagaon....No monarch is so absolute that he can
hold all the forces of society in his hands and overcome all resistance as
a majority...can do....[T]he majority is invested with bith physical and
moral authority, which acts as much upon the will as upon behavior and at
the same time prevents both the act and the desire to do it.

....

I know no country in which....there is less independence of mind and true
freedom of discussion than in America.... In America the majority has
enclosed freedom of thouyght within a formidable fence. A writer ius free
inside that area, but woe to the man who goes beyond it. Not that he
stands in fear of an auto-da-fe [being burned alive], but he must facr all
kinds of unpleasantness and efveryday persecution. A career in politics is
closed to him, for he has offended the only power that holds the keys. He
is denied everything, including renoun. Before he goes into print, he
feels that he has supporters; buyt he feels that he has them no more once
he stands revealed to all, for those who condemn him express their views
loudly, while those who think as he does, but without his courage, retreat
into silence as if ashamed of having told the truth.

....

The master [the majority] no longer says: 'Thank like me or you die.' He
does say: "You are free to not think as I do; you can keep your life and
propoerty; but from this day you area  stranger among us. You can keep
your privileges in the township, but they will be uselfess to you, for if
you solicit your fellow citizens' votes, they will not give to you, and if
youy ask for their esteem, they will make excuses for refusing thsat. You
will remain among men, but you will lose your rights to count as one. When
youa pproach yoyr fellows, they will shun you as an impure being, and even
those who believe in your innocence will abandon you too, lest they in
turn be shunned. Go in peace. I have given you your life, but it is a life
worse than death.'" (Doubleday Anchor ed., pp. 254-256).

I do not comment on this as an accurate picture of America in the 1830s or
today. I only say, that is how the enforcement mechanism will have to work
without the law. Do we really want that? I don't. 

In addition, there is the further point that this sort of mechanism can
only work in societies that are small and isolated, a nation of small
towns or association of city states, where the society and the economy are
very simple and everyone knows everyone else. This is incompatble with a
modern industrial society, and, what shoulkd matter to those Marxists who
hang their hat on abdundance, incompatible with a high level of production.

> 
> The most important factor that makes this work (according to Marxism) is 
> that capitalism creates a class that is disciplined, acts cooperatively and 
> is the majority of society (i.e. workers). Also, the process of taking power 
> and throwing out the old gives the impetus to everyone to empower themselves 
> and to reform/discipline bad elements.

That's the scary picture Tocquville is painting, precisely.


--Justin




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