...and The Right of Coercion shall be the whole of The Law

Never Wm. M. S. Hall (23Oct25)

Of course, I borrow the title from a quote; "...the Freedom of the Market is essentially a Freedom of Individuals and Groups to coerce one another, with the power to coerce reinforced by agencies of the State itself."(*1) But I have to wonder if Steinfeld, the man responsible for that quote had any idea of the depth of the truth he was revealing. 

Sometime during the middle Eighteenth Century a certain group of individuals decided that it was time for British North America to become The United States of America, and thus the first thoughts of exactly how to make that happen were sparked. ...the first thoughts, not actions.

We read James Otis, The Rights of British Colonies (1764); William Blackstone, Commentaries of the Laws of England (1765); Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776); The Declaration of Independence (1776); James Madison, Vices of The Political System of The United States (1787); Elbridge Gerry, Anti-Federalis Critique, and we learn very quickly that the American Revolution was not simply a civil uprising. It was a Legal Battle, a battle of research, thought, interpretation and argument. And the art of coercion was at its very core. Because it was the goal of the individuals of that 'Certain Group' to convince, i.e. coerce, both sides, the Colonizers and the Colonized, that the Colonized maintained the same Rights and Privileges as the Colonizers.

Now, of course, if the legal battle had been a total victory, then the ensuing Revolutinary War and the War of 1812 would not have been necessary. But this Art of Coercion... this new science had taken root here in the newly won United States of America. And every single step of its progression through to this very day has been the result of some legal argument, at whatever level ...some Legal Battle ...one side practicing its Right of Coercion over another in order to either maintain, or change, the opion of the court, and, thus, The People of whom the governing body of this Nation so often speak. (Whoever they, The People, may be. But that's another argument.) 

When Steinfeld points out that individuals and groups have a Right to Coerce one another through State Agencies, he reveals the very foundation of not only the United States, but the whole of modern day Western thought and whatever progress it may produce, or hinder.

Thus, in a Nation created by Legal Coercion, The Right of Coercion shall be The Whole of The Law.

(*1)(Steinfeld, Robert J.; The Philadelphia Cordwainers' Case of 1806: The Struggle Over Alternative Legal Constructions of a Free Market in Labor, in Labor Law in America: Historical and Critical Essays (1992), 20-43)