Harm and Coercion
by Joseph Rowlands

Discussions of initiations of force are often a little vague in the details. For instance, it is common to regard any use of force as a kind of coercion. This makes some sense as any use of force is a violation of the victim's consent. You are forcing an interaction on them that they wouldn't otherwise choose. But there is a different way to consider the various uses of force. It's possible to distinguish between coercion and harm.

Harm is when a use of force actually damages a person or his life. Killing someone is the most significant example, but there are varying degrees of bodily harm from inflicting pain to crippling a person.

Coercion, on the other hand, is an attempt to force someone to act in a particular way against their own judgment or desire. Coercion always comes in the form of a threat of harm. By creating a threat, it changes the costs and benefits to the victim. If someone puts a gun to your head and tells you to hand over your wallet, you are confronted with a situation where the costs of refusing are overwhelming whereas the cost of handing over your wallet is limited to the money you have on you.

Harm and coercion are different. Coercion uses a threat of harm to change your actions, while harm is a direct use of force that damages you in some way. Someone may use harm in order to make a threat more believable, like breaking someone's legs so they know they better pay back a debt or things will get far worse. But even in those cases, the harm and the coercion are different.

What about violations of property? Someone could steal from you or they could damage your property, like with arson. These aren't forms of coercion. There's no threat, and no attempt to influence your behavior. These are just acts of harm. By taking or destroying your wealth, they make it impossible for you to use it yourself. Your life is made harder. Your life has been damaged.

A trickier case is the use of fraud to illegitimately gain the property of another. The fraud isn't a form of coercion, as there is no implied threat. In fact, it is usually the opposite. There is usually a gain offered, although not delivered. So if it isn't coercion, it must be harm. And in fact, it is just another form of theft. The fact that they get you to willingly part with your wealth, under false pretenses, doesn't change the basic nature of the crime. The physical wealth may have changed hands, but the transfer of ownership is conditional. If the conditions aren't met, ownership doesn't transfer.

In common language, to force someone is to coerce them. It is to use the threat of harm to make them act. The language of initiating force is slightly a misnomer, as it also includes acts of harm.

What about the idea that harm is a violation of a person's consent? In a voluntary society, where interactions required both parties to each consent, there would be no coercion or harm. Yes, its true that consent is lacking when someone initiates force and harms a victim. But it isn't an act of coercion. There's no attempt to force an action or behavior. It is a simple attack.

The case against harm is straightforward. When someone harms another, they are attacking their life. It is an act of violence and destruction.

There are two ways to make the case against coercion. The first way points out that we live by our minds. We have to make judgments about which actions are appropriate. If others attempt to coerce us, they are destroying our ability to live by our minds.

A different way to make the case is by pointing out that every act of coercion is backed by a threat of harm. And if we've already made the case against harm, then the threat of harm is also wrong. In this sense, the case against harm is more fundamental than the threat against coercion. It covers both.

In some ways, the two are closely linked. If someone steals your property, or threatens you with violence if you use the property, the results are the same. Your actions are limited, and your judgment is invalidated. The use of coercion can be seen as a kind of harm. Just as theft harms your life by partially invalidating your means of living your life, so does coercion. Your decisions and actions are part of your life. An attack on those is an attack on your life.

So while it doesn't make sense to describe every initiation of force as a kind of coercion, it can make sense to think of each of them as a kind of harm.

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