I think you're being a little reductive here. I started with a qualification - 'in this case' - and am not talking about loaning people money in general but how, as rainbow put it, coercion can be a form of or feature of violence. If I'd said that loaning people money was a deliberate act intended to harm in every instance you might have had an excellent point.pErvinalia wrote: ↑Fri Sep 13, 2019 10:34 amLoaning people money isn't a deliberate act intended to harm. Where are you getting this stuff from?Brian Peacock wrote: ↑Fri Sep 13, 2019 10:06 amThen in this case coercion becomes a form of violence - a deliberate act intended to harm - or a feature of violence.rainbow wrote: ↑Fri Sep 13, 2019 6:28 amThe term that covers this is 'coercion'.Brian Peacock wrote: ↑Fri Sep 13, 2019 1:41 amI dispute that this is taking the term 'violence' beyond its usual meaning.
Where I'm getting this from is a number of places (this is a good read for example), but what I'm trying to articulate is how a system which can fully predict its potential and ability to cause harms,and then proceeds to act and cause those predictable harms, conforms to a simple definition of violence: a deliberate act intended to cause harm. In this case, a system which removes someone's access to immediate and necessary medical treatment and then repossess their property is knowingly causing actual physical harm to an individual, and the fact that this is backed by the state with specific legal frameworks makes the state, and by extension the citizenry, complicit in that act.
But then again, I am a bit of a lefty.
Threats can do harm if those making them have the power to fulfil them. As I mentioned earlier harm can cover emotional or phycological distress as well as physical distress. Perhaps a dictionary definition of 'threat' would be useful here?pErvinalia wrote: ↑Fri Sep 13, 2019 10:34 am...That doesn't follow at all. A threat of violence is a threat, not violence.If violence is only a deliberate act that results in physical harm then the threat of violence isn't itself an act of violence, but I'm pretty sure that most of us would accept that a threat of violence is at least an expression of violence, which basically makes it a form of violence (here, a form of emotional or mental violence) or a feature of violence.
Again, you're talking about 'loans' in a general, or all-inclusive sense and not in the good-faith context of my reply, but nonetheless, one might suggest that the point doesn't rest on whether people service their loans but on what basis and under what conditions they are obliged to do so.pErvinalia wrote: ↑Fri Sep 13, 2019 10:34 am...The vast majority of people service their loan without default. There's been no violence towards these people.Somehow we don't see this harm as a violence not only because the 'assault' portion of the equation doesn't seem to take place - although making people bankrupt and homeless while limiting or completely removing their access to necessary medical treatment is certainly an unavoidable consequential harm in those circumstances - but also because we're encouraged to see the so-called real moral crime as being the one against money: the debt, the inability to pay for treatment and the defaulting on a finance agreement. The medical finance entity has all the power and yet as the judge basically pointed out the victim of the system only has themselves to blame for taking out a finance agreement for immediate and necessary medical treatment which they couldn't service because of their illness.