Comments Elsewhere

Bill: If it’s “oppression”, then the voluntary arrangement fundamentally implies an injustice, a victimization, and, yes, an aggression …

“Hey, if I re-interpret your statements about oppressive social relationships according my definition of ‘oppression’ in terms of aggression, which you just explicitly rejected, then you end up with an inconsistent position.” Well, yes … yes, I guess you would.

Bill: If it’s okay to engage in directing social opprobrium at people engaged in voluntary behavior you find objectionable, why would it be wrong to impose a tax on them? …

Because “social opprobrium” is a voluntary process involving non-violent social relationships, without the use of legal sanction or physical force against your person or your property. Taxes, fines and jail obviously are not.

Social reputation, social tolerance and social approval are the products of other people’s opinions and choices; but while you own your possessions, and your body, you don’t own other people’s opinions of you. if they choose to cast opprobrium on you for non-violent but oppressive behavior, then they are within their rights on most any minimally libertarian theory.

Of course, it might be that in a particular instance they are acting wrongly, even if they are not acting aggressively — people can use social opprobrium to harass and to bully and to dominate and to exploit the vulnerable even though they are not violating anyone’s rights to person and property. Certainly anyone who advocates the particular “thick” conception of libertarianism that I am defending would agree with you there. But then in order for you to help yourself to the claim that there is something wrong with this kind of misdirected social opprobrium, you must accept the claim that people can act oppressively towards each other without acting aggressively. Which is precisely the claim you were trying to deny.

(My own view, on the contrary, allows for a fairly simple understanding of what’s going on: social opprobrium is not force; it is a social process which can be used either rightly or wrongly; but when social opprobrium is used abusively, oppressively, or in some other way wrongly, then the way to deal with that is to respond to it in kind — with solidarity and social activism of your own, but used rightly and supportively. The reason you shouldn’t use taxes, fines or jail is because physical force is only justified by defense of person and property, and what you’re combating here, while abusive, is not a violation of your rights to person or property.)