[baddox]

Out of curiosity, can you explain why you think there is a constitutionally protected right to support a political candidate and no such right to support a criminal organization (assuming by "support" you mean simply voicing support and not actually funding or committing crimes yourself)? It sounds good to me, but I can't think of where the constitution actually says that.

Of course, the real problem I have with your comment is that you say "collective punishment" is not justified. I'm not so sure I agree. I have no problem with collective action like boycotts, even if the boycott is in response to a perfectly legal action. This is just basic economic freedom and freedom of association. Perhaps you're speaking specifically about terminating someone's employment, which does have some specific legal protections.

[stillsut]

Milton Firedman's most famous work is Capitalism and Freedom and yet within that work, he completely rejects Hollywood blacklists (or "boycotts" if you prefer). If you consider his main point is that under communism, people are un-free, it seems odd that he would sympathize with avowed members of American communist party, who would ultimately like to bring communism to the US, and in Friedman's eyes, result in societal catastrophe. Doubly so given the power of persuasion that Hollywood writers wield. So why does he reject the ability of studio execs to simply exercise their freedom of association, and not contract with blacklisted writers?

The problem in Friedman's eyes is that this boycott reduces to collusion. And under collusion, the benfits of free market dry up: for example, in the free market you can shop your script, no matter who you are, and if your product is good, you could make a living out of it. When firms collude to establish acceptable political beleifs as a pre-condition to an economic exchange, you have reduced the economic freedom of everyone who is not wealthy enough to establish a movie studio for themselves. In effect, you have by-passed democracy ("one person, one vote") and moved to [benevolent] oligarchy ("one chairman, one vote"). As the old saying goes - you're freedom to swing your elbows ends where my nose begins, and so too with economic association. If you would starve a man until he renounced his political preferences - even if you deem them antithetical to the good of society - you're no better than Stalin.