Quote from: JoelKatz on July 15, 2011, 05:35:06 PM

Quote from: Babylon on July 15, 2011, 05:15:58 PM

Don't take this deal and starve is definitely a threat of violence.

Assuming the speaker will somehow induce you into starving, then yes. Or if the reason you would starve would is something out of the ordinary (for example, you landed on his island due to a plane crash), then yes. But if the result of your failure to take the deal would be your starving through no fault of the offeror and not through any emergency, then no.

Otherwise, people could never do anything and others would always be forced to provide for their every survival need. After all, not doing things for them would mean they starve and therefore be a threat of violence. If a person doesn't take any action to obtain food for themselves, if you don't give them free food, they will starve. If they have no place to live and won't do anything to get one, if you don't let them live with you, they will freeze. And so on.

Nature starves people who don't act to secure food, not the people who didn't feed them.

If the land is all owned by the ruling class then it is very similar to having landed on their island.