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You bring up a good point: if you’re dying of thirst you aren’t really agreeing to a deal you’re actually giving up everything you have to what amounts to a robbery. Someone with a stranglehold over your basic needs is coercing you, not doing business with you.
And not just is that a fact about the universe in general, it’s also a fact manifesting actively right now in our economy. People are actually stuck, with zero power, and are being milked like cattle because the wealth divide is too large between employers and employees.
Am I summarizing that right?
I think I know how I’d respond to that but before I do, I want to make sure I’m hearing you and not just arguing with some mental projection of my own
That’s basically what I’m saying, though this is a problem that has always existed in the US and isn’t just something that’s started recently. It’s also a problem that is unevenly distributed along racial, ethnic, ableist, and sexual lines.
Essentially, all agreements are coerced by the surrounding material conditions, which themselves are created by private property. I can’t just go out into the woods and catch food, I need a permit or permission from the local land owner. I can’t just tear up the ground and grow crops, I need to own the land or make a business arrangement with the person who does own the land.
Society is run by petty tyrants, the fact that my Lord is a business owner instead of a member of government makes no difference to me.