  Focusing locally on the coercee's situation, such analysis seems reasonable enough. However, it is possible that some general threats, made against a group of people, may make the individuals in the group more rather than less free. Consider the threats that are part of laws against stealing. The state may threaten to jail those who steal, which (let us assume) makes it incompossible both to steal and to retain one's freedom. The possibility of a stable system of private property, however, would seem to depend on the existence of such laws which prohibit the wanton expropriation of the goods of others. If such a regime is in fact valuable, then the threat to incarcerate thieves may both reduce people's freedom with respect to one sort of action (by making stealing incompossible with remaining unincarcerated), while enhancing it with respect to others (by making it possible to accumulate, use, and trade private property). For another example, notice that the ability to make enforceable contracts with others greatly enhances one's abilities to gain through cooperation, but that it relies precisely on the fact that contracting parties give up certain seemingly compossible benefits (say, gaining the goods of another while failing to fulfill one's half of the bargain).