Free Markets are not coercion

Time to address some more leftist rubbish (particularly anarcho-syndicalism and anarcho-communism):

“Profit is theft”

Ok so their general argument goes something like this: “Evil entrepreneurs buy things, produce goods and sell the goods for more than what the component goods cost. Anything above the costs of production rightfully belongs to the worker”

This is stupid, since the worker has already agreed to whatever his terms of payment are. If I sign a contract saying that I will work for $x/hr, I can’t then go back to my employer and claim that I was stolen from because the stuff I was working on was worth more than $x/hr.

“Working for an employer is wage-slavery”

First and foremost, it’s not wrong because its voluntary on the part of both parties.

Secondly, I’d like to point out that anybody is free to become an employer or an employee if they so choose, so obviously there can’t be any issue with the idea of working for somebody as though it were “wage slavery”. One may become the other at any time, and some people are both.

“Owning property is coercion/exploitative”

Whether the anarcho-lefties like it or not, private property rights exist. It is a consequence of everybody having a self-ownership right. Here’s a video showing an example of how private property could be shown to exist. I’ve summarised it below:

1. Individuals have a right to freedom of association, which includes the right to not associate.
2. Individuals have a right to privacy
3. There is a right to claim personal space, or otherwise there could be no privacy
4. There must be some method by which boundaries can be defined, or else there is nothing preventing two individuals claiming the same space
5. If boundaries are defined, it becomes property
6. Depriving an individual of any of the above, is an act of aggression
7. Once a person owns property, he/she is allowed to use the property as they see fit.

Here’s a great explanation of why anarcho-syndicalists and anarcho-communists are wrong by Brainpolice (he also runs a great blog which you can find here):

They’re portraying the lavishness of nature, in the absence of human agency, as “coercion”. They think that the absence of taking an action that benefits someone else is coercion, while they themselves advocate coercion in bestowing a positive obligation for people to take a particular action to benefit someone else. There’s no getting through to such people. Negative circumstances in themselves are equated to coercion, regardless of whether or not those negative circumstances came about as the result of any forceful action. They argue that you are “coerced” into working to live by the unfair facts of life and the basic requirements for survival. But unless they can explain how it is possible to create a perfect world without scarcity and a perfect man that can be 100% self-reliant, they are demanding something that is impossible (the outright defiance of nature and overcoming of basic requirements for survival, as well as the creation of a perfect human being).