Libertarianism' greatest failure:

[Ziggy Stardust]

Yes, that would be correct. As for your question, while it's true that companies have the ability to abuse their power with a weak government, this becomes counter-beneficial to them given adequate competition.

Why? This has been mentioned a couple of times in this thread, but I have yet to see any sort of explanation or logical reason why this would be the case. Why does competition make it counter-beneficial for a company to abuse their power? In the idealized libertarian model, there are no "political" barriers to market entry, but there are economic and social ones, correct? However, a powerful enough monopoly, with a weak government, would be able to impose de facto political barriers, would it not? How could competition form if the monopoly decides that it doesn't want competition to form, and there is no external force of any kind that can prevent it from imposing barriers?

[Samuel]

Yes, that would be correct. As for your question, while it's true that companies have the ability to abuse their power with a weak government, this becomes counter-beneficial to them given adequate competition.

Why? This has been mentioned a couple of times in this thread, but I have yet to see any sort of explanation or logical reason why this would be the case. Why does competition make it counter-beneficial for a company to abuse their power? In the idealized libertarian model, there are no "political" barriers to market entry, but there are economic and social ones, correct? However, a powerful enough monopoly, with a weak government, would be able to impose de facto political barriers, would it not? How could competition form if the monopoly decides that it doesn't want competition to form, and there is no external force of any kind that can prevent it from imposing barriers?

First, the only barriers the monopoly can raise are economic ones. The monopoly faces a problem when doing so- the higher it raises prices and profits, the more and more lucrative the field looks to competitors. Sure, it can try to get suppliers to only sell to them, but as you raise prices, a competitor coming into the field can offer low prices to consumers and offer suppliers a better deal.

Adequate competition makes it harder to abuse power for a couple reasons. The simplest is that more competition reduces profits and the company's potentional political slush fund. It also insures that any attempt to try to control the market will be meet by its competitors countering, be the attempt political, social or economic. Unlike regulators, companies have a strong incentive to keep their opponents from gaining political power.

[Lord Zentei]

Right. Because it isn't coercion. At least, not simply by dint of being made between non-equals. Neither is a deal between non-equals necessarily as you describe it, i.e. "one that detriments his interests more so than those of the other party".

I'll have to think over my argument again.

Of course, not every deal is coercive, only one where (a) parties have different capacity for loss absorption (which is, being non-equals) and (b) one party uses this advantage to make or persuade the other party enter the deal - via threats of losses, joblessness, or engineered bankruptcy. Being equal is not a complete necessity, if the losses of each party due to the deal falling apart don't exceed the matter of the deal. E.g. if a person already employed is asking for a job in another corporation which does not grant him that job, but he still keeps his prior job, parties are clearly not equal, but none of them can put pressure on the other party and threaten greater losses than just the subject of the deal: wage offered or services rendered in case of the person. Without (b) satisfied, a deal between non-equals cannot be called coercive, although they must be non-equals for such a situation to arise in the first place.

So it is a necessary, but not a sufficient condition for a coercive deal.

Depending on your idea of "equality", that might be true. Though advantages come in many shapes and sizes, and just being big and rich doesn't mean you can't be forced into doing something you don't want to do.

The libertarian position is that there's a difference between living a moral life and forcing it on others, the latter of which is not moral.

For a humanist there is no difference. Reasonably enough one can conclude that no human desires biological suffering, and therefore if you force him to be fed and clothed, that is not going against his desires. One has to be pretty misantropic to presume that humans who are experiencing extreme privation desire to experience it and not desire to abolish it.

Well, that's a path paved with good intentions. Forcing someone to lead a moral life makes you morally culpable for far more things than just your own actions. The methods you hope to impose on others can be counter-productive and can have adverse unintended consequences which can undo any benefit that might be achieved on top of the negative utility of forcing people to do what you think that they ought to do. And at the end of the day, forcing people to uphold your values - that is certainly coercive.

Other than that, you'd have to ask a libertarian.

I'm not sure I'll find any that wouldn't be a corporate stooge. You're not a typical libertarian that's for sure.

I'm not really sure that I qualify as a libertarian at all, since I'm pro-welfare. But I guess it's a sliding scale, and I do have significant leanings in that direction.

[K. A. Pital]

And at the end of the day, forcing people to uphold your values - that is certainly coercive.

I never said I'm going to abolish coercion the next day after Christmas so everyone can be happy. All progressive ideas triumphed through the application of violence and coercion. Secularization and the limitation of absolutist monarchial power was often a violent affair, and it remains so. But the benefits of progress and secularism justify the coercion; because otherwise there would be a pervasive cultural coercion on all levels.

In essence, that is why if someone would ask me, what is better, mass coercion of people to your "progressive" values or people who are completely "uncoerced" and decide to follow Medieval-style moral norms and only use them for cultural coercion inside families and small communities, which you'd rarely see unless you are inside the society?

I would prefer a coercive secular dictatorship to a non-coercive democratic state where it is reasonable to rape your spouse or commit honor killings because that is a "cultural issue". In fact, this is why I would prefer the USSR to Turkey any day.

Depending on your idea of "equality", that might be true. Though advantages come in many shapes and sizes, and just being big and rich doesn't mean you can't be forced into doing something you don't want to do.

That is true. Administrative coercion can be used to force even an agent with a lot of economic clout. I was, however, refining my argument as to what constitutes economic coercion and what sort of a deal could be called coercive - obviously, not any deal between non-equals, but one where a non-equal uses his position to threaten the other party and thus coerce it into the deal.