Doesn't the payor always have an advantage, in that all they are trading is money, not themselves. — James Riley

Such categorical statements work, but the larger the category, the more relevant information is lost. It is true that every wage earner "sells themselves" but the terms of the sale differ, and I think that difference is relevant. Prostitution is in a way a microcosm of this. Decent arguments can be made for the position that all sex work is inherently exploitative and objectifying. But it doesn't seem convincing to argue that no-one really wants to do it, and everyone who claims to is either lying or has internalised misogyny or somesuch. It's too dogmatic to apply a category judgement like "all wage labor is slave labor" and be done with it. Personalities and aspirations differ, a market economy does get that part right.

I'm leaning towards not being in favor of proactive action in this instance. At least, not in the shape of the use of force or coercion, unless there's a direct indication that physical violence is about to take place.

Coercion involves violence or the threat thereof. — Tzeentch

Fair enough. It does seem a far cry from the supposed world of mutual individualistic respect that has been brought up earlier in this thread though. In practice, individual rights under such a system are restricted to the right to not be directly physically attacked. All other rights only exist as mere potentials - they are there for you to take, if you have the power to keep them.

So individualist are in favor of antitrust laws? I thought y’all was all about FREEDOM!! — praxis

What does freedom entail to the individualist? How does the state of realized individualist freedom look in practice? — Echarmion

The right to bodily autonomy, the right to self-determination, freedom of speech, among other things.

A state that protects those essential freedoms, and nothing else. — Tzeentch

This is almost right. We seem to have forgotten that a company or corporation is not an individual and therefore doesn't possess rights as an individual.

Freedom is threatened when one individual or group possess to much power. Corporate monopolies are just as much a threat to individual rights as government monopolies.

But it doesn't seem convincing to argue that no-one really wants to do it, and everyone who claims to is either lying or has internalised misogyny or somesuch. It's too dogmatic to apply a category judgement like "all wage labor is slave labor" and be done with it. Personalities and aspirations differ, a market economy does get that part right. — Echarmion

Agreed. I'm sure there are some folks who enjoy their work and figure "Hey, if I can get paid too, great!" I know I've had work where I couldn't believe I was getting paid to do it. But, in general, most folks must be induced, hence the "market". I don't know why I even brought it up. I was just rambling.

You're thinking of the divine right of kings. — Tzeentch

No, I'm thinking of the social contract. It's an unfortunate fact of life. Only the King is somewhat exempt. But even he has obligations, and breach of the contract will at his peril.

This is almost right. We seem to have forgotten that a company or corporation is not an individual and therefore doesn't possess rights as an individual. — Harry Hindu

Actually it is, from a legal standpoint, although the rights are not identical to an actual person. In any case, the president’s or CEO’s can be individualists, can’t they?

I always understood coercion to be persuading someone with the use of force or threat of ruin, like extortion, torture, blackmail. It's like "duress". Perhaps the word is open to interpretation. At any rate, I wouldn't put the scenario you outlined on the same scale.

I always understood coercion to be persuading someone with the use of force or threat of ruin, like extortion, torture, blackmail. It's like "duress". Perhaps the word is open to interpretation. At any rate, I wouldn't put the scenario you outlined on the same scale. — NOS4A2

Basically, the reason I am asking is because there seemed to be a trend in this thread, where all questions concerning interaction between the individuals are answered by pointing to "respect for other individuals". But that's only a convincing answer if said respect actually covers at least all basic conflicts and is enforceable.

Having the enforceable rules limited to "no coercion" and the defining "coercion" in a very limited way obviously means a whole bunch of conflicts are outside this scope. And conflicts that are will be resolved either by compromise or by force. And if it's the latter, then someone is going to loose. What can the individualist offer the loosing side? There's obviously no guarantee for compromise.

I have been reading along with great interest (and, yes, rolling my eyes on occasion) and would like to make a few observations.

I can’t say that I favour either side of this debate - for me, it seems to be the ongoing dynamic of society to oscillate between individualism and some extent of collectivism.

That said, I don’t believe the ‘individual’ is as indivisible as he claims to be - he’s really just another form of collectivism. And, on the other hand, any form of collectivism we define and isolate from another is simply another consolidation of collaborative systems into an ‘indivisible’ structure.

So I think we can argue about this endlessly without reaching any conclusion, because we’re really just arguing about an arbitrary threshold of perceived consolidation/divisibility, and the merits and issues of the various structural possibilities on either side of that variable threshold.

Every individual is a construction that relies on collectivism for its existence - even in one’s rejection of that collectivism - and every identified instance of collectivism relies on the mutual awareness/ignorance, connection/isolation and collaboration/exclusion of consolidating systems. To double down on the ‘individual’ human being as the threshold of in/divisibility is as much an arbitrary perception as any collectivism argued for here.

I do think the experience of motherhood is a key aspect of my position. The notion of ‘individual’ becomes arbitrarily determined when your responsibility for another life must be gradually (and sometimes painfully) extricated from your own on a number of levels.

Actually it is, from a legal standpoint, although the rights are not identical to an actual person. In any case, the president’s or CEO’s can be individualists, can’t they? — praxis

Then from a "legal standpoint" of corporations being individuals, these groups would engage in competition? Do you even remember what you said from one post to the next?

CEO's are individuals that have acquired their power not through their work alone. Kind of like how the children of politicians acquired their power through no work of their own. End dynastic politics.

CEO's are individuals that have acquired their power not through their work alone. — Harry Hindu

What does that have to do with it, no one acquires their power through their work alone.

Define, "power", as it seems like we are now talking past each other.

Shortly after birth one is excised from his mother, thereby severing any connection to anyone else. There's nothing arbitrary about this very real uncoupling. Indivisibility beyond this point means death. What is arbitrary is any notion of responsibility toward others, towards some collective, even towards one's newborn. The history of infanticide attests to this.

Shortly after birth one is excised from his mother, thereby severing any connection to anyone else. There's nothing arbitrary about this very real uncoupling. Indivisibility beyond this point means death. — NOS4A2

Or life, in the form of offspring.

What is arbitrary is any notion of responsibility toward others, towards some collective, even towards one's newborn. — NOS4A2

It could only be arbitrary if there were no system (social, ecological, or whatever), but there is a system, so it's actually the case that the freer an individuals is the more responsibility they have and the less responsibility they assume the more arbitrary (loss of order) the system becomes.

What system would that be? I ask because when I look for these things I only ever see individual people, separated by the fact of their position in time and space. A relation, no matter what size, is no system. We live in parallel, not in series. The responsibility lies upon these beings themselves and not to any grand abstraction such as a “system” or “the general good”. That’s my view, anyways.

A system is a set of things working together as parts of a mechanism or an interconnecting network. Even you should be able grasp this rather simple concept. Your body, for instance, could be seen as a set of organs working together as parts of a, uh, largely functional individual. None of your organs functions are arbitrary, they each fit into the system in a particular way. There is an order, a system! If your bladder decided that it was an individual and had to express its individuality by peeing whenever you read the word "communist", well, you'd be sitting in a pool of urine right now and wishing your bladder were more responsible.

Shortly after birth one is excised from his mother, thereby severing any connection to anyone else. There's nothing arbitrary about this very real uncoupling. Indivisibility beyond this point means death. What is arbitrary is any notion of responsibility toward others, towards some collective, even towards one's newborn. The history of infanticide attests to this. — NOS4A2

What you see is a visible uncoupling only. Although this action is medically (or culturally) determined following birth, the uncoupling of the birth itself is as arbitrary as any notion of responsibility towards one’s newborn. It is medicine and socio-cultural structures that determine what is ‘normal’ here, and intervenes as it sees fit. Yes, there is a threshold to life, but that specific point is going to be different for everyone.

The physical cutting of a cord can mark the apparent end of a long and painful process, or seem just the beginning of an even longer one. In most experiences, this particular cut is symbolic at best. While there is a relative temporal range within which ‘uncoupling’ at certain quantifiable levels is deemed ‘healthy’, the experience itself is much less cut and dried, and only normalised by cultural accounts and medical data. If you’ve ever openly discussed with a pregnant woman her option or reasons to terminate, or had to determine the extent to which a post-natal mother might harm her newborn, then you can appreciate the arbitrariness of this connection between mother and child, regardless of the state of the umbilical cord.

Infanticide is not just about the notion of responsibility - the way I see it, it stems from the struggle to cope with this whole tangled web of ‘uncoupling’ in the relational structure of what we perceive, think and feel, and can begin as far back as (awareness of) conception. We need to understand this space more, if we’re to help all women to navigate it confidently.

For a human being to manage the process of pregnancy entirely alone would likely mean death to both mother and child. I think it is how we connect to others, how our self-identity shifts between individual and collective, that supports this process of uncoupling.

A system is a set of things working together as parts of a mechanism or an interconnecting network. Even you should be able grasp this rather simple concept. Your body, for instance, could be seen as a set of organs working together as parts of a, uh, largely functional individual. None of your organs functions are arbitrary, they each fit into the system in a particular way. There is an order, a system! If your bladder decided that it was an individual and had to express its individuality by peeing whenever you read the word "communist", well, you'd be sitting in a pool of urine right now and wishing your bladder were more responsible. — praxis

I can relate to this experience throughout my two pregnancies: the notion of a part of your bodily system ‘expressing its individuality’ by responding in its own way to certain foods, bodily movements/positions or environmental factors (sounds, temperature, etc)...

What system would that be? I ask because when I look for these things I only ever see individual people, separated by the fact of their position in time and space. A relation, no matter what size, is no system. We live in parallel, not in series. The responsibility lies upon these beings themselves and not to any grand abstraction such as a “system” or “the general good”. That’s my view, anyways. — NOS4A2

I don’t think we live either in parallel or in series. It’s a far more complex relational structure than this.

But I do see the attraction of this simplicity as ‘individuals’ living in parallel, like billiard balls on a plane. We used to believe the atom was indivisible in this way, too. It’s only when you look closer at the process of splitting an atom that you recognise the ‘individual’ as a relational structure in itself - a system, an “interconnecting network” of potential: value, energy, information, etc.

A relation may not be a system, but its relative in/stability points to the potential or possible existence of a system structured to maintain it as such. I don’t really see this as ‘the general good’, but I will admit that I used to assume so. Nowadays, my view is that we continually critique, imagine, simulate, test, adjust and then ‘act as if’ it is.

Fair enough. It does seem a far cry from the supposed world of mutual individualistic respect that has been brought up earlier in this thread though. — Echarmion

It may seem that way, but mutual respect can only come about as a result of free interaction. Mutual respect enforced through state coercion is just a deception.

In practice, individual rights under such a system are restricted to the right to not be directly physically attacked. All other rights only exist as mere potentials - they are there for you to take, if you have the power to keep them. — Echarmion

In a system where states are chosen as the guardians of individual rights, it would simply be a matter of what the state can coerce individuals into. More rights equals more coercion. From the perspective of individual rights it is self-defeating.

I like your way of considering things. Thanks for the insights.

I can relate to this experience throughout my two pregnancies: the notion of a part of your bodily system ‘expressing its individuality’ by responding in its own way to certain foods, bodily movements/positions or environmental factors (sounds, temperature, etc)... — Possibility

Men too can certainly relate to a body part reacting to stimulus in a way that may not be inline with conscious will. The reaction nevertheless has a purpose and isn’t random or arbitrary.

Men too can certainly relate to a body part reacting to stimulus in a way that may not be inline with conscious will. The reaction nevertheless has a purpose and isn’t random or arbitrary. — praxis

:lol:

It’s not quite the same thing, though - the process is not one of awareness and assimilation, but of awareness, connection and collaboration with a newly forming identity. Men eventually need to accept that this body part and its reactions are your own - with pregnancy, you may reach that point... and then have to turn around and untangle it all again.

It may seem that way, but mutual respect can only come about as a result of free interaction. Mutual respect enforced through state coercion is just a deception. — Tzeentch

That seems contradictory to me. If the mutual respect is already a human tendency, then enforcing it wouldn't be "coercion". You can only coerce someone into doing something they would not otherwise do.

And if mutual respect is not already a given, what makes you think it'll appear?

In a system where states are chosen as the guardians of individual rights, it would simply be a matter of what the state can coerce individuals into. More rights equals more coercion. From the perspective of individual rights it is self-defeating. — Tzeentch

Then what even are "rights", according to you? Where do they come from, what's their purpose?

I’d say that the line between pre-birth and after-birth is arbitrary, and we touched on this earlier with Tzeentch‘s claim that ‘all people are born free’. Babies are utterly dependent and have yet to develop a self-identity. A newborn is more an extension of the mother than an independent being, in other words. At least that’s how I see it. Religious folk will see it differently of course.

Define, "power", as it seems like we are now talking past each other. — Harry Hindu