Cooperation vs Coercion

I am sure most people would agree that cooperation is better than coercion. But what I think is an interesting question is to ask "why"? I suspect if I was to ask this question the most common objection to coercion that people would say is that coercion, unlike cooperation, happens against the will of the other party, so we are doing harm to someone else if the other party does not comply and this is immoral. Coercion is also often done with violence or the threat of doing violence against an innocent party, which, hopefully, people will agree is immoral. Cooperation does not have this problem with it. Coercion has a moral objection to it.

Besides for this problem coercion has another problem with it. When two parties cooperate they are both better off. They come together and work towards some goal because each benefits from the mutual cooperation. This is the nice feature behind cooperation, both people are better off. Coercion is different. Coercion benefits one party at the expense of another. Suppose Adolf is a dictator of Germany and he hates Poland. If he threatens Poland to do as he says then he is benefiting himself at the expense of Poland. This is another inherent problem with coercive methods. One can perhaps call this a second moral objection. Namely, one party benefits itself by doing damage to another.

These two objections taken together form a good refutation against coercive methods. Most nice loving people who want the world to be a better place would immediately realize these inherent problems that are present with coercion. They would object to this method because they see it as immoral. What is very interesting is that we can ignore these two moral objections to coercion and come up with completely different objections that are from the point of view of Adolf. Adolf, the dictator, is clearly not a nice guy, so does not care that what he is doing is evil, he wants more for himself. Thus, the two above objections would not concern Adolf. The above arguments we can refer to "objections from morality", but there is also "objections from efficiency". Coercion is just so highly inefficient in attaining its goals that Adolf, even though is not a nice guy, should seek to strive to a cooperative system to improve his own efficiency.

Cooperation induces trust and dependency between two parties who trade with one another. Two businessmen can work together their entire lives. They come together because each one is unable to do the other's work, so they depend upon each other. It is also unlikely that these two businessmen think about how he is benefiting his partner. Rather each businessman thinks about himself first, his primary motive is his self-interest which he best satisfies through his partner. Likewise his partner feels the same way about his business partner. There will probably be a certain level of benevolence between them after working together, that is part of human nature, but their benevolence will not be sufficient to satisfy each other. It is rather their self-interest that keeps their business going. Coercion is not so. With coercion there is no trust and there can be no dependency. A thief who steals money must always find new people to steal from. While an entrepreneur can have a stable career his entire life. The reason is very simple. If one party steals from another through the use of coercion then the other party has no incentive to produce. If Adolf requires all citizens from Poland to hand over their cars then Poland will stop producing cars. Poland will have no desire to produce what it cannot keep. Thus, Adolf will not be able to depend on cars from Poland because of his coercive methods. It is not a surprise, therefore, why the richest and most successful people in history were all cooperative. Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Andrew Carnegie, Julius Vanderbilt, John Rockefeller did not get wealthy by stealing, but by producing for the masses, they attained their wealth with cooperation methods. (Bernie Madoff is an exception to this rule but we must remember that he got caught eventually). The thieves simply have no dependency to make their coercive methods efficient.

Cooperation also generally induces peace with those who trade for a very simple reason. If two businessman work together they are unlikely to kill one another. Even if they hate each other. Because each businessman realizes that his own wealth is promoted by the existence of his partner businessman. If he kills his partner then he will ruin his wealth. Thus, motivated by their own self-interest, the businessmen have an incentive not to kill one another even if they can get away with it entirely. By the same manner two countries that trade with one another are unlikely to go to war with each other. If the US trades fast food to Canada for maple syrup then both have an incentive not to fight one another. If US attacks Canada they fail to get their maple syrup. If Canada attacks US they fail to get their fast food. Thus, both parties are worse off. Trade between countries is what makes them a lot more peaceful with one another. Perhaps, this is the idea behind Thomas Jefferson's statement, "Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none.". Friedrich Bastiat, the philosopher and economist of France, is well-known for stating his famous principle, "if trade does not pass between borders then armies will". It seems that the inverse of this statement, which does not logically follow, but in this case it happens to be true, "if trade passes between borders then armies will not". Put simply cooperation helps maintain peace. Coercion is not so. Coercion makes the violated party angry at those who violated them. Coercion leads to war and conflict.

Therefore, Adolf, entirely for his own self-interest, should seek to move to a more cooperative system. Because coercion is just so highly inefficient for the reasons just explained. Coercive methods vs cooperative methods apply on all sorts of levels. Individuals between individuals, groups between individuals, and groups between groups. In all of these instances coercive methods ultimately fail on all of the accounts just explained. This is the other side of why we need to avoid coercive methods. Coercion is not a way to solve problems but to create new ones.