Contracts and Coercion

Contracts and the act of coercion are the only two ways in which human beings are able to interact with one another. A contract is a written agreement, signed by all parties involved, declaring their willingness to abide by a set of rules, or some other arrangement that is made between two or more individuals.

Coercion is the use of violence or the threat of violence in order to force someone to obey a particular law or set of laws, or some other decree proclaimed by an individual or group of individuals.

Coercion, by its very nature, is unethical and wrong. Unfortunately this is the method used by all forms of governments, both secular and religious. Because of this, government would also be considered wrong, because it is based entirely on the idea of force, therefore, coercion.

Even the first president of the united states, George Washington, made this very obvious observation (quoted from James Bovard's Freedom in Chains, page 10):

"Government is not reason, it is not eloquence - it is force."

While the "founders" of this country attempted to allow every man and woman to vote for the laws and regulations they would live under, their attempts ultimately failed, and peoples' votes end up needlessly restricting peoples' freedoms.

It is force when a government declares it "illegal" to park in a certain spot, to place certain substances into your own body, to marry whomever you want (whether it's a man, woman, etc.). It is force when the government demands that people cannot drive faster than a predetermined speed; when a government steals money from its citizens.

All of these actions take place without the consent of all whom these laws and regulations are foisted upon.

In contrast, an ethical civilization would be one in which each person agrees, in writing, to the rules and regulations they will live under. Those who do not sign (agree) are not under obligation to obey said rules and regulations. Those who do sign are obligated to abide by the rules laid out and if the rules are broken then a method to resolve any breaking of the rules will be used.

Such methods could be to have a separate contract that can lay out possible consequences for a breaking of the rules that each individual agrees to, or a person can attempt to renegotiate their contract.

In this way, all actions are not based on coercion, but agreements and contracts. Each individual having a say in the laws they will live under.

An obvious objection to this might be that, if all rules must be agreed to in order for them to be enforced, what happens if an individual neglects to sign a contract saying they will not rape or kill for example?

Harming another individual is clearly wrong regardless if a person signs anything, but as I've explained elsewhere, a better method to replace the inhumane institution of incarceration would be restitution. Such restitution could be agreeing to go into a work prison or even mediation. These solutions provide something to the victims, and provide some kind of possible punishment if the perpetrator's guilt moves them to agree to work to pay back the victim/s. If a perpetrator doesn't agree to pay their victim/s back, then the victim can be paid by an insurance company, as I've explained elsewhere.

According to some studies, mediation has been very effective in reducing recidivism rates, and helping the victim gain some closure after being assaulted, robbed, etc.

It was "found [that] 18 percent recidivism across four victim - offender mediation sites...and 27 percent...for comparable nonmediation cases at those sites, a difference that was encouraging but fell short of statistical significance. However, a follow-up in 2000 on these and other programs on a much expanded sample of 1,298 again found mediation recidivism to be one-third lower than court recidivism (19 percent versus 28 percent), this time a statistically significant result after entering appropriate controls" (Source: A Restorative Justice Reader: Texts, sources, context, edited by Gerry Johnstone, page 330)..

Another study evaluating six U.S. restitution programs (Schneider, 1986, 1990) found a significant reduction in recidivism across the six programs (Source: A Restorative Justice Reader: Texts, sources, context, edited by Gerry Johnstone, page 330).

Contracting with each individual is the most ethical means for human beings to interact with one another. Having each individual agree to the regulations they will follow prevents individuals from forcing their morality upon others (as in the cases where religious fanatics vote to disallow homosexuals to marry). If such force is applied, self-defense would be a reasonable solution to such a situation.

Because a government uses coercion to force individuals to obey their (oftentimes pointless) rules and regulations, it is more than reasonable for me to say that government in all its forms is an unethical, unnecessary, and useless institution.