The Socialist Dream Crumbles in Venezuela

[The Dharma Bum]

[broken robot]

it appears the consensus here is dharma is wrong.

[exploited]

[broken robot]

dharma the threat of force isn't always visible, but it's there in any society in the last instance. it's not like all crimes, social wrongs are met with raw violence and to that extent you're right there can be "soft" forms of coercion. but ultimately any society depends on maintaining boundaries, internal and external and in the case of people challenging the values on which that society is based there will be violence because the enemies don't share a mechanism of resolving disputes (this example can be scaled up to include modern global institutions)

[The Dharma Bum]

[exploited]

[broken robot]

[broken robot]

[exploited]

Another example:

All businesses and industries would be controlled by workers. Some natural resources and products are inherently more valuable than others - for instance, energy (oil, electricity, whatever) is more valuable than lumber. X-ray machines are more valuable than TVs.

Therefore, those who produce energy would have more negotiating power than those who produce TVs, as the TV producers are reliant upon energy.

So let's say that the energy workers demand concessions that everyone else thinks is unfair.

Now what? If consent is the only game in town, it follows that the energy workers will be able to get whatever they want, because they control an absolutely fundamental resource. They can simply withhold consent and wait all the other parties out.

The only way around this would be to establish a mechanism for making these decisions independently of the desires of the energy workers. That is coercion - plain and simple - and it is a fundamental part of any functioning society.

[The Dharma Bum]