2 posts of mine, recovered from the sent mail of the period
Two short posts to the Research on Anarchism list, in English. Quoted text from other people has been removed, so some replies start mid-argument; other people’s addresses are omitted. The posts were public on the list when written.
Well, the subject is almost the question: Does anybody in the list know about an Hungarian Esperantist called "Soros", who escaped from hungary in 1944? Any clue about esperanto groups in that time and/or its ideological bias? Alejandro Rivero Zaragoza Univ. Spain.
Hmm..we are dangerously confusing coercion with force. They are separated concepts. Coercion can act through force or through other mechanisms, as sophisticated as ownership or as brute as blackmailing. Refusing to follow a coercive suggestion is not a coercion, although it can be an act of force. Coercion is basically an attempt of adding artificial limitations or "laws" to the natural ones. I am not coerced by the fact of having all the electrons in my body the same electric charge, or by the fact of finding pi always evaluating to 3.14159... We are coerced with the application of false "natural laws", such as "struggling for life" (which is not a darwinian concept, remember), or the unavoidability of money, possession, etc. These limitations, which clearly RESTRICT the set of possible outcomes of human development, are done by applying principles and power. Such is the meaning of the word "arch", and from here it deduces the one of our label, "an-arch-ists". Anarchist theory assumes that a society without coercion would be stable. Well, there is not absolute proof of this, neither of its contrary. The "counterexamples" sketched in the board are too naive. If they directly try to use force as coercion mechanism, they are dammed to be replied by "restoration force", which is non coercive, as only aims to restore the previous "uncoerced" status. It they try to use market or capitalist techniques, they are dammed to failure also, as they would outcompete the production system of a whole cooperative world, so it is unlikely for they to be able to attract any customer after all. And secret research & development is not the answer, as a world with worktime under 30 hour week would have enough "free developers" to outcompete any private researcher. Yours, Alejandro