Comment by palmotea
1 day ago
> I agree that democracy requires the bargain you imply: ceeding the right of personal violence to the state in exchange for law and order. I was with you until you framed withholding labour as violence. I think that's the opposite of violence.
I would frame "withholding labour as violence" as more as labor flexing its power nonviolently. Violent action is also a way of flexing power, but more extreme.
> I also don't follow the logic that workers must use violence to enact change.
I think they need to use power, which is not necessarily violent.
> Why don't they just vote for change?
At least in the US, democratic institutions are dysfunctional and there are techniques the ruling class can use to neutralize the threat they pose (e.g. propaganda, divide-and-conquer). For instance, I think the combination of "culture war issues," [1] campaign contributions, and well-funded special-interest think tanks means neither US political party will take effective action to answer the threat of AI to the livelihoods of most people. You might see some campaign rhetoric and window-dressing bills, but nothing that will really threaten AI special interests.
[1] I think the practical purpose of "culture war issues" is to fragment the working class by alienating a significant fractions from each other. IMHO, if the Democratic party was serious about representing labor, it would call a truce on them (either significantly compromise or table the issues), but it's not serious, so they continue to divide.
I agree with this, however I’m not sure where the idea of refusing labor as not a form of violence comes from. The WHO describes violence as “the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, which either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation” and refusal of labor as a political tactic definitely falls under the category of “use of power, threatened or actual, against another person, group, or community, resulting in deprivation”.
That falls cleanly in the realm of a violent act, unless you disagree with that definition of violence, or my interpretation of the quote. I suppose you could interpret it as only applying to physical violence, but I don’t think anyone would agree that psychological or emotional violence simply don’t exist.
> That falls cleanly in the realm of a violent act, unless you disagree with that definition of violence, or my interpretation of the quote. I suppose you could interpret it as only applying to physical violence, but I don’t think anyone would agree that psychological or emotional violence simply don’t exist.
Your interpretation seems like it's overbroad and contradicting typical usage. I don't think "refusing to cooperate" (except in some very narrow circumstances) should ever be considered violence, because that definition is in itself coercive. For instance, if quitting my job will cause my boss's business to fail (causing him "psychological harm... or deprivation", because he won't be able to make payments on his boat anymore), am I committing violence against him? Should I be force to work for him to avoid that "violence"? I don't think so.
My guess is you're interpreting "deprivation" very broadly and literally, when it's probably being used in a narrower technical sense. Either that or the definition you quote is nonsense [1].
[1] Which is entirely possible. Nowadays it seems to be a pretty common manipulative tactic to collapse a spectrum of meaning onto the most extreme term, as if words used to describe something controls what it is.