Coercion

[daveon]

A thread on RASSF has led me to think about coercion formally defined thus:  

Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law - Cite This Source - Share This

Main Entry: co·er·cion
Pronunciation: kO-'&r-zh&n, -sh&n
Function: noun
: the use of express or implied threats of violence or reprisal (as discharge from employment) or other intimidating behavior that puts a person in immediate fear of the consequences in order to compel that person to act against his or her will

This is a reasonably workable definition, but I think it is often too narrowly interpreted, especially by those, of shall we say, a more Libertarian bent.  The problem is that I've noticed people tend to think of the BIG picture of coercion i.e. the government will send "men with guns"(tm) to take you to jail if you don't pay your taxes, they therefore fail to miss the small ways in which people are coerced, day in and day out.

The problem with the later form of coercion is that it is done in the open and with the apparent full support of the people it's being done to.  I personally think that it's a huge mistake to pretend that things done with an illusion of free will are any more free than the version where the evil "men with guns"(TM) turn up and force you to pay your taxes.

I suppose the problem for many libertarians, and, for that matter, others, is that it's not nice to think that we're not all Heinleinian supermen who are not going to fall for the spin of the advertiser or the specialist work of the direct salesman.  The simple fact is, by and large, we're not.  Salespeople, and the entire marketing industry is pretty damn good at finding a lot of the triggers that make people want to do things they normally wouldn't want to do.  There are whole volumes written about how to get people to sign an order, there's literally hundreds of tricks that people can use to get their way in an apparently free negotiation.  It's often nasty and manipulative and sometimes definately dishonest.  But is it really any different from a man with a gun?

A lot of the triggers used appeal to the same base instincts for survival.  "I'll look stupid in front of my peers if I don't have XXX", "I'll be stupid to miss THAT deal.", "I need to be accepted."

The triggers are varied but there's often cases for each of them.  Individually they don't all work, but what Derran Brown does on TV isn't magic, its the tricks that sales people use all the time.

Think about it next time somebody tries to sell you something...

Now.  That said.  I have this bridge....

Comments

[t--m--i.livejournal.com]

I would be disinclined to invite anyone (libertarian or not) to "do it like they do on the Discovery Channel" (my joints!) but I find the phrase, "You and me baby we ain't nothing but mammals" very useful. And true.
Human decisions *are* mostly unconscious (and amusingly, unconscious decisions are generally better and quicker than the ones we have to think about), so all the "power of the will" lot are working on a completely out-of-date theory of how humans work (one for which there was never any evidence anyway).

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

I don't think categorizing advertising, sales, and propaganda as coercion is an especially useful model of what goes on when someone tries to sell you something. Sales pitches work by carrot as often as, or more often than, they work by stick. I also don't think that categorizing the leveraging of a Skinnerian response as coercion is very useful. Look, just because two different things both fall under the rubric of "not an example of Platonic Free Will" doesn't make them the same thing. Especially because Platonic Free Will is a nasty old tarbaby that muddies more issues than it clarifies.

Yes, libertarians ignore the viability of lots of everyday instances of coercion, but I don't think you need to conflate those with all failures of free will to make that point.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

I see your point but I think what is missed is that the sticks, at least in the case of most direct selling, are hidden as carrots and most people don't spot that. I'm stretching the point slightly here but I don't think to breaking point because, as you point out, the notion of free-will is pretty murky to start with.

I think it's a very murky set of lines to start drawing here, especially in the large scale "social engineering" type things we see. It's not just about buying brand X of a product, but more about missing entirely that the product in question isn't needed at all.

A quick example; Sunny Delight is, in the UK, an orange coloured drink which is almost utterly free of any nutritional value at all. It is bright Orange in colour and pumped full of sweetners. There are now many classes of those types of drink and the marketing push has moved from creating a market for SunnyD, to companies (including in several circumstances the same FMCG manufacturers) competing to sell more of a class of item for which the demand has been entirely created from scratch. It might not be coercion but its close.

Another one: mis-selling of direct financial services; insurance, disability insurance, private pensions and my current favourite the good old 100%+ low start mortgage.

The last item is a real killer. So you get some poor schmuck to buy into the concept of owning a home as a must have or they're losing out. So they get a mortgage they can't afford ("but don't worry, house prices may go down sir, but (wink,wink) look AT THAT MARKET!!!") and, here's the kicker, get them to pay for an insurance policy that indemnifies the lender against the loss and still allows them to come after the debtor! Finally, they get to sell the mortgage to hedge their risk even further. Bloody genius and the poor buggers think they took that decision of their own free will and in posession of all the facts? Wow. That's perfect.

[marypcb.livejournal.com]

peer pressure to follow fashions from leg waxing to heroin is pretty coercive, but not many people pin the label on it because fitting in is supposed to be a good thing...