I have been reading up a lot on libertarianism and anarcho-capitalism, and there are several situations that have come to my mind that would be permissible under an anarcho-capitalist society, but would appear to be disadvantages of such a society and would be strikes against it. I'd like to discuss the following scenarios:
Situation 1--------------
During the early morning, a woman is walking home from a subway station and gets raped and left for dead outside an office building. It is winter and the temperature is below freezing. She is behind some shrubs so can't be seen from the street. The next day the employees arrive at work. One of the employees sees the naked woman from the window. She's alive but unconscious, and will surely die if she doesn't receive help. The employee reports the situation to his boss, who immediately instructs him not to get involved as he doesn't want the company to be liable for anything that may occur.
We have two possible situations here: The employee helps the woman and in turn is fired by his boss for insubordination, or the employee leaves the woman to die but gets to keep his job. It is wrong to most people to just let someone die when they are in need of help, but this seems to be permissible under anarcho-capitalism.
Situation 2---------------
A woman has been performing well at her job as an accountant for several years. She is a single mom raising two children and cannot afford to be without employment. One day, a new executive comes in, notices her, and asks her to either perform sexual favors for him or to be fired.
The woman can perform the sexual favor to keep her job, in which case it would seem she has no recourse since she did it voluntarily. On the other hand she can be fired for refusing to perform the sexual favor, and again this seems to be permitted under anarcho-capitalism since employment is voluntary and can be terminated by either party at any time. Again, she has no recourse and is left to fend for herself.
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I don't want to make this post too long, so let's start out with these two morally ambiguous situations and how they could be dealt with in an anarcho-capitalist society.
This is less of an intellectual excercise than a situation designed to invoke a strong emotional responce. In any world, including an anarcho-capitalist one, there are situations in which one's own moral pricinple must dictate one's actions no matter what the consequences. Individuals are respncible for their own behavior and must take initiative for their own actions and not just rely on an employer's command or whatever path is easier. Who cares what society says? If your moral beliefs dictate that you do something, whether it is refuse to serve in the Tsar's army as followers of Tolstoy did or accept being fired as individuals above may very well have to, then do it! Don't expect society to be on your side; rather, if you believe you obey higher moral principles than just mundane self-interest prepare to have society against you!
Abstract liberty, like other mere abstractions, is not to be found.
- Edmund Burke
Ultima: Situation 1-------------- During the early morning, a woman is walking home from a subway station and gets raped and left for dead outside an office building. It is winter and the temperature is below freezing. She is behind some shrubs so can't be seen from the street. The next day the employees arrive at work. One of the employees sees the naked woman from the window. She's alive but unconscious, and will surely die if she doesn't receive help. The employee reports the situation to his boss, who immediately instructs him not to get involved as he doesn't want the company to be liable for anything that may occur. We have two possible situations here: The employee helps the woman and in turn is fired by his boss for insubordination, or the employee leaves the woman to die but gets to keep his job. It is wrong to most people to just let someone die when they are in need of help, but this seems to be permissible under anarcho-capitalism.
Why would anyone be liable, why would anyone get fired, and why would not helping be more permissible in Market Democracy(that sounds cool). Helping would probably be great publicity, and not helping would probably result in negative publicity. Everyone benefits from helping her, why wouldn't they?
Ultima: Situation 2--------------- A woman has been performing well at her job as an accountant for several years. She is a single mom raising two children and cannot afford to be without employment. One day, a new executive comes in, notices her, and asks her to either perform sexual favors for him or to be fired. The woman can perform the sexual favor to keep her job, in which case it would seem she has no recourse since she did it voluntarily. On the other hand she can be fired for refusing to perform the sexual favor, and again this seems to be permitted under anarcho-capitalism since employment is voluntary and can be terminated by either party at any time. Again, she has no recourse and is left to fend for herself.
This could be permissible, if the new executive has the power to make such requests. Although highly unlikely and uneconomic. Again, if the woman told that the executive sexually threatened her, it would make the business look bad, and make the other employees feel less comfortable, less safe and less efficient, and many would probably quit. But if they both consented to it, what's the difference between that and "regular" sex. If it's the executive's job to decide who gets fired or not, then hey, let him do it his way. The market will decide if his methods are out-competed or not by businesses that don't threaten and sexually harass their employees.
Thank You - Brandon
*sighs*
When will the emotive pleas ever stop? Seriously: stop confusing aesthetics with morality and rights.
Life is full of emotions... get used to it. Dismissing a scenario just because it is an emotional scenario is not justified.
In the first scenario, I like your answer and generally agree that it should be good publicity that they help the woman out, but life does not always work out that way. It is entirely conceivable that the employer would wish to prevent the employee from assisting the woman (this is based on a real scenario).
As for the second, yes, I agree with you that if the woman agrees to have sex with the executive it is consensual, and it is most certainly the executive's job to decide who gets fired or not.
However, something that's not being mentioned is that there is a vast imbalance of power here. If the woman agrees to have sex but only does it because of the threat of losing her job, is the action still voluntary? Through the use of "government-enforced laws at the point of a gun", the woman could sue the employer based on sexual harassment laws, but in an anarcho-capitalist society the woman would have no such recourse. The employer could easily spin the story to slander and defame the woman, and there is little she could do about it because she wields so little power compared to the company. Sure, her family and friends might believe her, but that is little consolation. Tell me why the market would necessarily even care that one woman claimed to be sexually harassed by her executive? How many people would know or care about this one event that doesn't concern them?
Good thing then I dismissed it because it had nothing to do with rights and ethics, and everything to do with aesthetics.
It's time for people to Learn. The. Difference. Please note that for future reference. The aesthetics of a situation are different from morality/rights/ethics. It may look gross to put ketchup on eggs, but it's that person's right. And it may be a breach of etiquette to tell your employee to have sex with you or she's fired, but as long as it's either the business owner or the owner is ok with that, there's no rights violation. How long that business would remain in business is a different story.
So please: let's never have any more conflation of aesthetics with morality/rights/ethics, OK?
While you're arguing about words you're still ignoring my scenarios. Please discuss them or please don't jack my thread. We can argue about the "conflation of aesthetics with morality/rights/ethics" in another thread. Thanks :)
I'm not threadjacking; I'm critiquing your scenarios by noting how wrong-headed your approach is. If you do not like that, feel free to not offer your opinion for others to critique.
The moral error that you seem to endorse is enforcing what an individual can and cannot do with his money: you object to the "disbalance of power" that emerges if an employee hires those only willing to perform sexual favors on him and an employer firing an employee if he cares to someone in need of help. However, though you may object to how each of the employers utilizies his property, an employee has no right to that job for it is the employers propety and his to give out as he sees fit, you cannot legitately utilize force upon the employer to force him to use his property as you see fit and that's what you seem to want to do in these situations.
Quite honestly, the two employees should grow a spine and do what they believe to be right, the "balance of power in society" influences neither their free-wills nor their moral culpability in each situation.
I don't see what's "wrong-headed" about discussing two different scenarios and how they could play out under an anarcho-capitalist society. I'm not discussing an activity that has no impact on anybody else (i.e. putting ketchup on eggs), but on the relationship between different players of society.
You said "And it may be a breach of etiquette to tell your employee to have sex with you or she's fired, but as long as it's either the business owner or the owner is ok with that, there's no rights violation.". Even if on the surface there is no "rights" violation, but does that make it right? Morality aside, I'll also disagree with you that there is no rights violation here. Even if the woman does agree to the sex, then although it was technically "voluntary", was it truly voluntary?
She's not a prostitute, she's an accountant; having sex with the employer or with anyone else for that matter is not part of her job description. If she decides to have sex with the executive based on his commanding it on threat of being fired, she is only doing so under the threat of losing her job and the hardships that would entail. Does that not make the employer guilty of invading her property rights to her own body through the use of force and extortion?
Ultima: She's not a prostitute, she's an accountant; having sex with the employer or with anyone else for that matter is not part of her job description. If she decides to have sex with the executive based on his commanding it on threat of being fired, she is only doing so under the threat of losing her job and the hardships that would entail. Does that not make the employer guilty of invading her property rights to her own body through the use of force?
She's not a prostitute, she's an accountant; having sex with the employer or with anyone else for that matter is not part of her job description. If she decides to have sex with the executive based on his commanding it on threat of being fired, she is only doing so under the threat of losing her job and the hardships that would entail. Does that not make the employer guilty of invading her property rights to her own body through the use of force?
What use of force? Are you speaking of him bartering with his own property to acquire her sexual favors? There is no coercion whatsoever in either of these scenarios - the position of accountant in this firm has now some prostitution in it, so what?
And its not "her job", the job is a relationship between the employer and the employee in which the employer buys the labor of the employee, whether that labor is in accounting or whoring, for the price of the wage of the employee. Both the employer and the employee here do this transaction vountarilly, and if the employee values her labor more than the wage, viewing the cost prostituting herself not worth the benefits of the wage, then she will simply quit the job and find a new, more suiting job.
What's so difficult to understand here?
Ultima: Life is full of emotions... get used to it. Dismissing a scenario just because it is an emotional scenario is not justified.
Unfortunately, it is. We try to rationally argue here. Emotion and subjectivism never leads to a conclusion and less rarely leads to any truths.
I appreciate you are new and curious, but every week someone arrives here, and makes the same arguments. What if X bad thing happens, What if Y starving person needs food.
The Newbie forum is loaded with this stuff, maybe you could take a look see, and perhaps some of these sorts of examples have already been answered.
I'll tell you right now, anarcho-capitalism, libertarianism and anarchism do not promise you utopia, or perfect solutions. What they offer, is a rational, consistent alternative to the status quo that is based on human action, and geared towards providing as much liberty as possible. But if you are going to offer specific scenarios ad infinitum, then these ideas will never be able to satisfy you, because the world will always have violence, and poor, and people dying. The goal is to limit that naturally, as morally as possible.
Ultima, I'm not sure that your second example really applies to a radically decentralized social order any more than it does to any other system of social organization. It seems to me that under most conceptions of just treatment, the boss would be recognized as having acted inappropriately and abusively towards the employee; sexual harrassment is not an artifice of centralized government. If, however, generally accepted legal norms in a particular place somehow didn't protect women from abuse of that kind (which could occur in a state-ordered society as well as a decentralized one), we might expect that women would begin to demand clauses in their employment contracts which stipulated that sexual acts could not be required by superiors. Or maybe nothing would be done about it; there's no guarantee that, in the absence of social norms which empower and dignify women, there would be any protection against this sort of thing. But that has nothing to do with anarcho-capitalism; that's a problem with oppresive, mysogynistic cultures in general.
The first example is more interesting, I think. The point you seem to be making is that there are situations in which people have moral duties to actively do things for other people, even though there's no issue of rights violation going on (that is, no one's being deprived of some condition or state of affairs to which they have a right). I think that this is a serious problem for "hard-libertarians" who believe that there can never, under any condition, be such a thing as an unchosen positive moral duty. I'm not one of those people, so I can agree that this case is a genuine problem for that view. However, I will point out that again, this isn't exactly a problem with anarcho-capitalism. There's no reason that a decentralized social order would be inherently incapable of enforcing positive duties, if it were the case that enforcing them were appropriate. The real issue seems to be one about the proper way to think about our ethical obligations to other people, and not about the way that a social order could accomplish a particular task.
Hopefully that helps.
liberty student: Ultima: Life is full of emotions... get used to it. Dismissing a scenario just because it is an emotional scenario is not justified. Unfortunately, it is. We try to rationally argue here. Emotion and subjectivism never leads to a conclusion and less rarely leads to any truths.
I am not talking about arguing rationally, I am saying that we should not dismiss a scenario just because the scenario itself happens to be an emotional issue. We can argue rationally about the scenario, but we should not dismiss it, just because some people find it controversial or emotional. That is what I meant. Too often people immediately dismiss something and refuse to discuss it because the person is "playing to emotions". Well, some topics simply are touchy and controversial. You shouldn't be afraid to discuss them just because of that reason.
It's not my intention to bring up topics of discussion to simply debunk anarcho-capitalism; these are issues that concern me personally as I try to come to grips with different philosophies and as I try to determine for myself if government does some things better than the free market, or if leaving everything to the market truly would result in a more just and humane society.
That being said, I'll be sure to check out the newbie forum and see what's been posted there.
Donny (Danny?),
Your post has helped answer some of the issues for me, and also opened up some new avenues for discussion.
For the second example, I would tend to agree with you that this is not necessarily an issue of central govts vs decentralization but has a lot to do with the underlying culture itself. In a tolerant culture, we could expect to see this treated as an abuse on the part of the employer. The employer/employee contract may be voluntary, but because of the imbalance of power it is less voluntary on the part of the employee and more on the part of the employer. Unless the employee is a wealthy individual, she NEEDS the job... the employer in most cases does not have the same need. It can be contested that the demand itself was an abusive behavior on the part of the employer and constitutues a coercive action - coercive because the employer is demanding the favor upon penalty of losing her job. The imbalance of power is what renders the action coercive to a certain degree, and some societies may decide to codify this based on employment contracts, while less tolerant societies may not, but then these less tolerant societies don't enjoy these protections now, anyways. I can accept that answer.
For the first example: Does the employee, or the employer for that matter, have the duty to assist someone who is clearly in need? Do they have the right of doing nothing and letting the person die? This is a gray zone of which we could come up with many situations where doing nothing may be ok (a person is inside a burning building about to collapse and you may very well be committing suicide), and other situations where doing nothing clearly would be repugnant (a toddler is in a subway station and is walking toward the tracks, but the mother is distracted. You are nearby and see the child is about to fall onto the tracks. Do you just watch it happen and do nothing?). I agree with your take on things that this is more about moral duties and ethical obligations. This is something I would love to discuss more, in regards to our ethical obligations, mechanisms and means of dealing with these issues in a decentralized, free society.
I think the point is being made that you can 'what-if' any type of government all day long, but it isn't exactly relevant to the form of that government.
How about if either of the situations occured under a communist government? I should think that disobeying your employer would be like disobeying the law under that system- which would mean that you would be legally obligated to violate moral principles.
Under a government like ours, you might be able to sue your employer for asking you to not help somebody or have sex with your boss, but either way your employer is paying you to be his employee. That means that he is paying you to do what he asks. If you don't like what he asks, then you may find employment elsewhere. Suing your employer for asking you to do something is infriniging on his rights.
Asking your employee to have sex with you would be considered wrong by most people. Most people would not work for an employer that requested sex. What about asking your employee to be more polite, or to say 'Happy Holidays' instead of 'Merry Christmas'? Most people wouldn't consider that wrong, but some would be deeply offended by that. Who should decide if it is wrong or right? Should it be some court somewhere? A bureaucrat? A legislator? If we have to consult one of the aforementioned before each and every request made to an employee would running a business even be possible?
The answer is that the only parties that should be able to decide if an action is appropriate at work or not are those directly involved, i.e. the employer and the employee. If the employer doesn't view it as appropriate, then he won't ask it of his employee. If the employee doesn't view it as appropriate, then the employee may refuse and/or seek employment elsewhere. An employer may not make any employee do anything, he can only compensate an employee for an activity.
Aside from all that, society would likely be less tolerant to that sort of activity, as people would have to learn to be responsible for themselves. Both the situations you mentioned would have the same moral consequences in an anachro-capitalist society as they do in any other.
Ultima:She's alive but unconscious, and will surely die if she doesn't receive help.
If the employee find it inconvenient to assist her, he could summon a third party to assist her. The local detective agency, the church, the hospital, the Red Cross, the crisis/suicide hotline.... anybody!
Ultima:A woman has been performing well at her job as an accountant for several years.
If she is any good at her job, she should have little difficulty finding employment with a boss who isn't a scumbag.
"As long as there are sovereign nations possessing great power, war is inevitable."
We can replace all the words 'employer' and 'boss' with any title of politicians or bureaucrats in goverment.
And it doesn't make the scenarios better,
unless we hypothesize that people work in goverment would be blessed and holy.
Even a church doesn't guarantee this.
Ultima:I am not talking about arguing rationally, I am saying that we should not dismiss a scenario just because the scenario itself happens to be an emotional issue. We can argue rationally about the scenario, but we should not dismiss it, just because some people find it controversial or emotional.
If you wanted to discuss ethics then why did you present the scenarios as maudlin sob stories? More to the point, why did you bring in ethically irrelevant details like "She is a single mom raising two children and cannot afford to be without employment" and "left for dead outside an office building. It is winter and the temperature is below freezing"? It sounds like you're making an emotive plea to get us to reconsider the absolutism of libertarian priniple.
At any rate both situations have the same boring answer: no one has any moral obligation to keep any one employed, sans any self-imposed legal contracts prohibiting termination.
Diminishing Marginal Utility - IT'S THE LAW!
Both of these scenarios are far more likely in the present order.
It is far more likely the state will come up with some silly law to hang you if you lend a hand than private courts.
And it is far more likely a buerocrat with no stake in his "agency" will abuse his position in the way decribed than a private owner of a company who would be limiting his potential workforce and therefore be spending more of his money on wages if he did so. Esspecialy since a buerocrat can be a much more important person, because his "agency" is a monopoly. Such harrassment by a "boss" can be easily avoided by simply quitting the job, but what if the harrasement is being done by a local police chief?
Ultima: Situation 2--------------- A woman has been performing well at her job as an accountant for several years. She is a single mom raising two children and cannot afford to be without employment. One day, a new executive comes in, notices her, and asks her to either perform sexual favors for him or to be fired. The woman can perform the sexual favor to keep her job, in which case it would seem she has no recourse since she did it voluntarily. On the other hand she can be fired for refusing to perform the sexual favor, and again this seems to be permitted under anarcho-capitalism since employment is voluntary and can be terminated by either party at any time. Again, she has no recourse and is left to fend for herself. ----------------
Situation 3---------------
A woman has been performing well at her job as an accountant for several years. She is a single mom raising two children and cannot afford to be without employment. One day however she is deemed surplus to requirements and fired.There are no other jobs to be had in the whole world except for an opening for a prostitute in a local brothel. The woman can perform sexual favors for pay there to feed her two children, in which case it would seem she has no recourse since she did it voluntarily. On the other hand she can not take that job, and again this seems to be permitted under anarcho-capitalism since employment is voluntary and one does not need to take a job, in which case she and her two children will starve to death. Again, she has no recourse and is left to fend for herself.Is Anarcho-Capitalism evil?
Ultima isn't exactly that wrong that because something has an emotional issue we shouldn't examine it. However I don't believe it would offer anything... In fact it is the same old Homo Homini Lupus tired rhetoric that statists use SO MUCH... Most of us are good people (from the bourgeious merchant to the proletariat worker) and do the right thing. In fact antisocial acts exist due to
1) unsatisfied needs
2) moral/psychological illness
3) anti-status-quo feelings
The antisocial act (1) you describe are a rather unlikely scenario, since no rational businessman would go in such a trouble unless he raped the woman. But he wouldn't be that idiot to leave the body outside his building.
(2) A rather likely scenario in the present reality, but no rational businessman would do such a thing to a good employee... In fact such things happen to women who are ASKING for it (believe me I know a thing or two about that). Sexual Harassment has been so exaggerated by asexual feminists, who in fact consider a warm "good morning" sexual harassment, if you judge by the look on their face... I am "insensitive" enough that they WANT to believe that somebody would want them (wishful thinking)
Otherwise those two situations are the stuff an low-in the-hierarchy acolyte of statism would use against Libertarianism...
But BELIEVE me My friend Ultima society doesn't need you and me to philosophise about everything to work correctly. It takes it's own way with us being just a very small part of the equilibrium. Society existed before you and me and would work a lot better if only a caste of power-lustful criminals (known as the state) would leave it be...
Ultima:I don't see what's "wrong-headed" about discussing two different scenarios and how they could play out under an anarcho-capitalist society.
Ultima:You said "And it may be a breach of etiquette to tell your employee to have sex with you or she's fired, but as long as it's either the business owner or the owner is ok with that, there's no rights violation.". Even if on the surface there is no "rights" violation, but does that make it right? Morality aside, I'll also disagree with you that there is no rights violation here. Even if the woman does agree to the sex, then although it was technically "voluntary", was it truly voluntary? She's not a prostitute, she's an accountant; having sex with the employer or with anyone else for that matter is not part of her job description.
She's not a prostitute, she's an accountant; having sex with the employer or with anyone else for that matter is not part of her job description.
Ultima:If she decides to have sex with the executive based on his commanding it on threat of being fired, she is only doing so under the threat of losing her job and the hardships that would entail. Does that not make the employer guilty of invading her property rights to her own body through the use of force and extortion?
What we ALL forgot to remind Ultima is that an anarcho-capitalist society is the epitome of choice (from security to even the form of governent they wish). These situations (which are hardly an issue even in the statist world). It is an ultra-flexible system that everybody gets what he wants (if it's possible).
I have Ultima to teach you what an uncle of mine calls the Saturn's Lesson. "Her" Job is not her job... As others have pointed out is just a relationship between the employer and her, when one wants to finish it it's over. Do you find it insensitive? I'm sorry, but it's the truth. We're not bourgeious capitalists or statists so you can trust us a bit more than Hillary Clinton! If in an anarcho-capitalist society she loses her job in that way and doesn't want to face the problems of hierachy she can join a worker cooperative in order to feel more safety. However NOBODY has given her the right to use external power to bring "justice". That's rough, you might say! It is. But it is fair... Despite what the statists say liberty is the mother not the daughter of order or equality. And you and I COULD have more choices in every domain of our social life. However left-right-wingers keep on addressing this kind of arguments in order to appeal to emotions not logic. Even if those situations were ACTUALLY problems, defending the state (the national Jacobin/police state that exists since the French Revolution) who murdered, robbed and enslaved people more than any other political institution in the face of earth, because it's going to fool a woman that security is freedom, it's like defending a serial killer because he likes puppies.
Thanks for the responses everyone. I believe I understand the situation better now and how it could be dealt with in an an-cap society, as well as the underlying issues surrounding it.
To those who complained that my situations were unfounded or that I was making an emotive plea: I'll say it again, just because a situation is touchy or emotional does not make it not (oops) worthy of discussion. To the guy who accused me of trolling: give me a break. If I was interested in being a troll it would be far, far easier than these posts. If that's how you're going to treat everyone who wants to learn more about liberty you are going to turn off a lot of people.
To everyone else who contributed fruitfully to the discussion and helped me to understand it better... thanks!
You turn off a lot of discussion by using the same tired, worn-out, emotive plea garbage. Please do not attempt to play the victim; you knew precisely what you were doing. You knew you were tossing out naught but a sob story. The problem for you is that sort of behavior does not go over well here. If you wish to have a genuine discussion in the future, I suggest you no longer try the sob stories.
Just some friendly advice to help you.
Knight_of_BAAWA: You turn off a lot of discussion by using the same tired, worn-out, emotive plea garbage. Please do not attempt to play the victim; you knew precisely what you were doing. You knew you were tossing out naught but a sob story. The problem for you is that sort of behavior does not go over well here. If you wish to have a genuine discussion in the future, I suggest you no longer try the sob stories.
Seconded. You are ultimately bound to annoy quite the few people who are tired of arguing against the same argumenta ad misericordia each and every day when you attach emotional strings to a thought excerise - its plain tiring.
Knight_of_BAAWA: You turn off a lot of discussion by using the same tired, worn-out, emotive plea garbage. Please do not attempt to play the victim; you knew precisely what you were doing. You knew you were tossing out naught but a sob story. The problem for you is that sort of behavior does not go over well here. If you wish to have a genuine discussion in the future, I suggest you no longer try the sob stories. Just some friendly advice to help you.
You are mistaken if you think I had an ulterior motive or that I perceive myself as having been victimized, as you seem to be stating when you say "you knew precisely what you were doing". My intention was to bring forth items of discussion that I have been thinking about, and nothing else. I'll apologize if I was unable to make myself clear enough to get the point across to you, but don't invent stories about my motives or agenda to try to fit me into your pigeonhole.
I will not refrain from posting similar topics in the future, but I will see if I can word them differently so you are not so quick to jump to conclusions.
laminustacitus: Seconded. You are ultimately bound to annoy quite the few people who are tired of arguing against the same argumenta ad misericordia each and every day when you attach emotional strings to a thought excerise - its plain tiring.
How would you seperate the emotions out, exactly? It's like arguments for abortion... there is not really any "right side" of the debate, and many people can logically argue different opinions, and undoubtedly the topic is an emotional one for many people. Unlike what Knight_of_BAAWA is accusing me of, I wasn't trying to toss out garbage but to me it was a honest question and a honest debate. But like you said the emotional aspect will tend to annoy some people, so I will try to frame my questions in a different way so that I can ask the same thing with less "emotional strings" attached to the question.
Ultima: Thanks for the responses everyone. I believe I understand the situation better now and how it could be dealt with in an an-cap society, as well as the underlying issues surrounding it. To those who complained that my situations were unfounded or that I was making an emotive plea: I'll say it again, just because a situation is touchy or emotional does not make it not (oops) worthy of discussion. To the guy who accused me of trolling: give me a break. If I was interested in being a troll it would be far, far easier than these posts. If that's how you're going to treat everyone who wants to learn more about liberty you are going to turn off a lot of people. To everyone else who contributed fruitfully to the discussion and helped me to understand it better... thanks!
No one said that the situations are not worthy of discussion, people just pointed out that you're obviously using an appeal to emotion in your posts. Why is it a single mother with 2 children? Why will those children starve if she loses her job? Because you are obviously trying to present a situation which evokes emotion in many people, in order to get them to violate their principles. The children are immaterial the the scenario, and are only there to try to pull on the heart strings of those you pose this hypothetical to. Why couldn't the situation be of a single woman with no children who has a large trust fund to fall back on? The actual content of the hypothetical is still there: a woman being pressured into sex by her superior, but there's no sob story there, which wouldn't be as effective at challenging libertarian principles.
The reason several people jumped all over you for this is because it is a very common tactic that is employed by statists to try to legitimize the government: "BUT THINK OF THE CHILDREN!" It has no place in a philosophical discussion as it is a well known logical fallacy, so it would behoove you to not use it again when having a philosophical discussion, especially with those who are so well acquainted with these underhanded debating techniques.
Ignoring the effect of emotion is just like the 'mainstream' economics does.
Sometimes it just works. However an essential keystone of Mises's thesis is the Subjective Theory of Value.
As we know, the 'emotional' factor is far vital than 'rational' ones, in all markets,
just like we seem never to hear any history is driven by anyone's rational scheme.
For example, envy plays an important role in the measurement of one's easiness or uneasiness.
People evalute it by not only comparing with their own previous conditions, but also the surrounding people's.
Thus there's always the demand of 'keep no others better than me', even one may pay very high price such as wars, revolutions, coups and any kind of totalitarianism.
Often, the libertarians believe that their opponents can be eliminated by 'correct' advertisement, education, public opinion...etc. It's just same as what their opponents believe.
However A good politician/agitator/speculator always knows how vital the emotional is.