Retribution not enough

[David Honig]

At 12:21 PM 10/22/01 +0100, Ken Brown wrote:
>David Honig wrote:
>
>> No one forces a farmer to the city to look for an industrial job.
>
>In general, no. But it happens now and again.  

When someone initiates force, they have "earned" a physical reaction.

...

>There have been plenty of situations where are worker is not free to
>choose employment or to leave employment. Everything from outright
>slavery to  various tricks with company stores and debt bondage. 

So?  That people are coerced shows only that they value coerced life
more than resistance at that point.  This is how the coercers exist.

>And if someone comes along with an army, conquers the country and says
>"we own the land now, work for us or starve" most people will "choose"
>not to starve. 

That is called losing a war.  Historically, males were killed, children
and women enslaved.  It has nothing to do with morality, only with what
the winners can get way with.

You're mistaking the long and continuing history of force-based atrocities
with 
morality.

I still maintain: the transition from an dispersed agricultural to urban
'civilization' does not need central control or forceful coercion.

[And this bums me out --I loathe cities.]

Similarly the transition to 'service' economy, as other 'civilizations' take
over industrial production because they can do so more efficiently
("cheaper"), 
and intercivilization trade is somewhat free, is *natural*.

-----

"A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right,
under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human
being, or to advocate or delegate its initiation. Those who act
consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they
realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are
_not_ libertarians, regardless of what they may claim." -- LNS