Libertyblues Posted December 10, 2015 Share Posted December 10, 2015 Hello everyone! Looking forward to going through the forums..but for now I have a question. .maybe someone can pinpoint me: Are you free in a free society if your opportunity costs are immensely high if you misconduct (according to some normative pressures) and get ostracized? LionBlue Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted December 13, 2015 Share Posted December 13, 2015 Hello and welcome. Your question is abstract and I'm not sure I entirely follow. Are you talking about something extreme like if you murder someone and most people in society decide they don't want to participate in voluntary exchanges with you? In the imaginary free society in my head I think there would be very few misdemeanors you could do that would dictate being ostracized from all of society forever. It might require many years of restitution and rehabilitation before you could enter back into the same social networks again, but I don't think a free society would want a bunch of psychopaths and convicts wandering around in the woods either. Does that answer your question? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GailG Posted December 13, 2015 Share Posted December 13, 2015 Not to my way of thinking. If you are being forced to do something against your will, you are not free. I happen to believe that if you think of opportunity costs as financial ones, then again, you are not free. Capitalism is a softer version of slavery. Adam Smith called workers in a capitalistic system "free slaves". Somehow along the line, we dropped the word slaves. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin Beal Posted December 13, 2015 Share Posted December 13, 2015 Ostracism is a peaceful alternative to kidnapping, theft and assault. Ostracism is not the initiation of violence and neither is it immoral. Ostracism is the primary negative incentive in the Dispute Resolution Organization (DRO) model that Stef proposed at the very beginning of the podcast series. For a more full account, you can listen to: FDR1 The Stateless Society - An Examination of Alternatives FDR2 Caging the Devils: The Stateless Society and Violent Crime FDR3 These Cages Are Only For Beasts The free book Practical Anarchy also gives a full account of what would constitute a free society. It depends on your definition of a free society. The original subtitle to the show was: The Logic of Personal and Political Freedom. The word "freedom" is used in two different senses here. The first is being free from illusion, and the second is being free from coercion. Ostracism is not coercion, and it's certainly possible to ostracize without relying on moral manipulations and propaganda (i.e. illusion). In any case, it is consistent with a free society insofar as it's not coercive. Not granting access to your property is not coercion. A bunch of bronze aged tribal people sending a person out into the desert to die is obviously homicidal, but that's not typical of ostracism by any means, clearly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Libertyblues Posted December 14, 2015 Author Share Posted December 14, 2015 Thanks for the answers! I will go through the given links first to get more familiar with Stef's interpretation, then I'll come back here Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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