Libertarian Anti-exploitation
Exploitation talk is usually Marxist. I will argue, though, that some instances of coercion favoured by libertarians — private property, contract enforcement, and fraud prevention — are best justified as defenses against exploitation, even if libertarians do not discuss it in such terms.
In my experience, when libertarians talk about exploitation, it is to dispute Marxist claims that capitalism and markets are exploitative. When they acknowledge exploitation, it is usually to attribute it to the state. Libertarians also don’t tend to think of things like private property, contract enforcement, and fraud prevention as coercive.
I believe that libertarians are largely incorrect about all of this, except that states are often instruments of exploitation. In what follows, I will use some scenarios to argue that private property, contract enforcement and fraud prevention are coercive. I think most people will agree with my judgment that the coercion is often justified because the alternative is an unacceptable level of exploitation.
Exploitation
My general definition of exploitation, based on Alan Wertheimer’s work, is:
A exploits B iff A, intentionally and unfairly, acts in a way that makes A better off, and B worse off, than if A acted fairly.
In this argument, I focus on a specific type of exploitation in which A intentionally, unfairly, and nonaggressively takes possession of something that B could expect, under principles of fairness, to have the right to possess, and that both A and B consider valuable to have in their possession.
I am therefore focusing on a specific subtype of exploitation. It meets the better off/worse off part of the definition of exploitation, because A benefits from having possession of the thing taken from B, and B malefits by losing possession of the thing, when compared to a scenario that is identical except without the taking.
Private property
Consider the following scenario.
Hamburglar: B makes a burger out of ingredients that she has a moral right to. It is a vegan burger, so there are no fairness concerns arising out of B’s possible exploitation of animals. B sets down the burger as she goes to wash her hands in preparation to eat it. A walks up and takes the burger, which is not near B.
A has exploited B. He intentionally and unfairly took the burger. He is better off, and B is worse off, for A having taken the burger, compared to A not taking the burger. B had the right to possess the burger because she had a moral right to the ingredients, and sacrificed by using her own labour to make the burger. A did not use any force or coercion to take possession of the burger.
One way for a society to avoid exploitation such as we see in Hamburglar is private property. Private property gives people the right to use some degree of force in order to exclude others from physically using certain things, including the use of force to take back possession of their property if taken by others. In most societies, it also includes the right to call upon the state (broadly defined) to use force to prevent or recover the physical things that are one’s private property.
In Hamburglar, if the burger were B’s private property, B would probably have several options. B could threaten or use (a reasonable amount of) force to prevent A from taking the burger. If A has taken it and not done anything with it, B could use (a reasonable amount of) force to take back possession of the burger, or call law enforcement to recover it on her behalf. If A has eaten the burger, the B could insist that the state punish A by use of force, and/or compensate B by giving B something of value.
Notice that in all of these scenarios, A did not use force or coercion against B. B initiated or threatened force or coercion (“aggressed”) against A, or called upon the state to do so, as part of her private property rights.
Most normal people would judge that B was right to aggress against A in this scenario. So would most libertarians, even those who claim that opposition to aggression is their fundamental principle. People generally, including libertarians, believe that the coercion associated with private property can be morally justified as a defense to exploitation. As I’ve pointed out, anti-exploitation is Murray Rothbard’s sole justification for the institution of private property, at least in his main work of political philosophy.
Contract enforcement
Consider this scenario, called Rachel.
Rachel: In the kingdom of Haran, all girls are by default the property of their fathers (and not, as natural law libertarianism dictates, the property of their mothers). We will suppose this to be fair for the sake of example.
Laban, a prominent resident of Haran, owns many sheep and two daughters: Rachel, who is 8 years old, and her older sister Leah. Laban is visited by his nephew, Jacob. Jacob, a 77-year-old libertarian, falls in love with his 8-year-old cousin Rachel, and is determined to acquire her from Laban. Jacob and Laban, being Blockians, enter into an agreement in which Jacob exchanges 7 years of slave labour for Laban’s little daughter Rachel, with the goods to be delivered at the end of Jacob’s term of service.
Jacob works as Laban’s slave for 7 years. After the 7 years are over, Laban delivers his older, soft-eyed daughter Leah instead of Rachel. Jacob protests, but Laban says Jacob should accept the substitute goods, arguing (i) that older daughters are substitutable for younger ones by local custom and usage, (ii) that Jacob accepted delivery of the substitute good by sleeping with her on the night of the big feast, and (iii) that Jacob had not fulfilled his end of the bargain because time is relative, and Jacob’s term of servitude appeared to Jacob as a few days, not seven years. Laban offered to settle the case by throwing in a fertile female slave, Zilpah. By substituting Leah for Rachel, Laban was hoping to get Jacob, who was not very bright, to agree to seven more years of slavery in exchange for a promise to deliver Rachel, for real this time.
Jacob, who is not that dumb, rejects the offer and sues Laban in the courts of Haran. The court dismisses Laban’s arguments as “frivolous” and orders Rachel to be seized and delivered to Jacob as per the contract.
Assuming we accept the fairness of the property rights in Rachel, the court’s decision is justified because it is anti-exploitative, despite being coercive. If the court allowed Laban to violate the contract by failing to deliver Rachel, it would have vindicated Laban’s exploitative actions.
Laban intentionally and unfairly reneged on the contract. His action was to his advantage, because he believed that retaining ownership of Rachel would provide him with the bargaining power to extract more labour from Jacob. It was to Jacob’s disadvantage because he wanted Rachel, not Leah or Leah + Zilpah. Laban’s actions would have had Jacob labouring for Laban’s benefit, without receiving the benefit of the bargain that they entered into. But there is no aggression or coercion on Laban’s part, just unfaithfulness.
Jacob’s exercise of his contract rights, on the other hand, was coercive. If Laban did not voluntarily deliver Rachel to Jacob after the judgment, then the sheriff of Haran would have taken her forcefully from Laban, entering his property and even removing her from his physical grasp if necessary, and subduing him on order to do so. This would clearly be aggression against Laban, and, if Haran recognizes violence against property as aggression, also against Rachel.
I believe that most people, including libertarians, would accept contract enforcement like this as justified (again, assuming the underlying property rights are recognized). We can conclude from this scenario, and our judgments about it, that enforcement of contracts is justified, notwithstanding that it is coercive, as an anti-exploitative measure.
Fraud prevention/correction
Consider Imposter:
Imposter: You contact somebody in a different country, pretending to be a friend of theirs who is travelling in your country. You pretend that the friend was robbed during his travels, and ask the victim to make a wire transfer to an account that you claim their friend can access. The person you have contacted is deceived, and sends money to the account, thinking that it will reach their friend. In fact, it is your account, and you pocket the money.
This is another example of noncoercive exploitation. The person sent the money voluntarily — it just wasn’t sent to whom they thought it was going. You acted deceptively, and therefore intentionally and unfairly, in a way that made you better off because you got the money, and made the victim worse off because they sent money to help a scammer rather than their friend.
Can force be used to correct such fraud? I believe so. This scenario is a little fuzzy because it involves money, which can exist in purely nonphysical form, and therefore might be recoverable without recourse to aggression. If fraud was used to obtain physical object rather than money, it is clear that the victim or the authorities could initiate force to recover the object or obtain restitution, just as if the item was stolen rather than obtained by fraud.
