I know I already asked this in another (locked) thread and John James answered but I still have some questions.
The original question was: What exactly constitutes fraud in a libertarian society?
John James answered: The appropriation of individual A’s property by another individual (B) without A’s consent. Essentially ‘implicit theft’
But couldn’t one argue that say if Ford Motors advertised their car as having a Five star crash rating despite having only a two star crash rating and a person purchased this car, that would be an implicit theft? Since the person, to their knowledge, was paying for a five-star rated vehicle but recieved a two-star rated vehicle, which definitely would have different values.
Nevermind. It is, but not in a regular way. Usually it shows it’s locked, but when I originally checked, it didn’t. It has to do with a spammer who messed up some threads. Should be opened back up again in a while.
Thanks. Also, granting that a news organization’s product is the content/information that they present to viewers, would lying about certain events (that is, speaking directly contrary to the facts) constitute fraud?
No, the “not necessarily” answer is correct, but it has nothing to do with the person lying gaining anything by it. It has to do with the person being lied to losing something by it…i.e. property.
…fraud “involves the appropriation of someone else’s property without his consent, and is therefore ‘implicit theft.’”
OK. Hopefully last hypothetical here: Is it possible for product advocacy to constitute fraud if the advocate could be proven to be financially connected to the product-seller?
Say a financial advisor tells you to buy one of JPM’s funds, and JPM is a majority shareholder in that advisory’s stocks. The next day that fund crashes (and JPM bet against it like they did a few years ago). Could that be considered fraud? I ask because the advisor is not selling his own products and theoretically doesn’t have complete knowledge of the fund’s reliability, so it could easily be bad business (incompetence) on the advisors part. i realize that it would be more direct to sue JPM for betting against its own products, but still. I guess is this is the kind of thing that could go either way depending on the evidence…
That’s basically it. It would have to be determined (in a free society, probably in a privatecourt) that you were deprived of property without your concent. If it were blatant that the financial advisor (who had a fiduciary duty to give you the best possible advice for you and your situation) deprived you of vital information needed to make your investment decision, and therefore sold you something that you didn’t think you were buying, you wouldn’t have a problem proving your case that you were robbed.
This would be even more evident if you flat out asked him if he benefitted in any way from you buying one investment over another. Obviously if he lied then, it would be a pretty easy case. Which is why common sense questions like that are very important. Plenty of people will mislead you, and take advantage of your assumptions…but I doubt many people would take the risk of lying outright…even in today’s society/legal system.
Can’t you lie as much as you want in advertising? There’s no contract involved… If you lie in a contract and that leads to lost property, then yes, it’s fraud. But false advertising isn’t fraud. Just like counterfeiting isn’t fraud unless a contract explicitly specifies the validity of the money.
I actually haven’t done a great amount of research or thinking about this, but If you subscribe to a title transfer theory of contracts, then, when you transfer title to property you own (say, 50 lbs of apples) in exchange for a transfer of title to property from someone else (say, 5 grams of gold), then you are owed 5 grams of gold. If you were given a diluted coin that only contained 1 gram of gold, you are still owed the other 4, as title for 5 grams was transferred to you. So there is at least a matter of you getting what you paid for…which a private court could rule on.
Obviously there’s no real way to predict, but one guess is, in a free society, venders might have something like a free-standing performance bond, valid for each transaction…a contract that basically says “If I do not meet condition X at such and such a date, I hereby transfer as of the date the following sum _____, to ____.” That would make customers feel more confident in patronizing that vendor. Again, I haven’t given it much thought, but there’s no telling what the market would come up with…what would make customers feel safe, and what would be profitable for merchants. That’s the amazing part…if left to their own devices, people are nothing if not innovative.
A good start to thinking in these terms would be Rothbard’s chapter…
Another option might be “consumer insurance”, which might be sold by private firms, or even by the merchant himself. There’s a myriad of “if, then” terms that could be set up in that kind of arrangement. And that’s the great part…everyone would be constantly competing to offer the best deal. And then on top of that, you’ve got their inherent interest in having a good repuation. Brand loyalty is so huge, yet people don’t even think about it. They themselves make decisions every single day determined (many times entirely) by their feelings/confidence about a certain institution. But the minute you start talking about a free market, it all becomes “oh yeah, and what about when the big guy drops his prices and then jacks them up again after all the competitors are gone?”
I completely agree with you on this, JJ. If there is a contract, then there is a title. And the transfer idea is one I’ve had as well (as well as probably many others).
Even though individual-A has no claim to individual-B’s body, individual-B requires property outside of their own body as a means of survival: the means of life. This is a delimma for individual-B when individual-A has claim to the property which is necessary for the means of living.
There is a delimma for individual-B born into a world where individual-A has claim to all of the property.
Only if 99% of the people are retarded and don’t prevent this from happening in the free market.
Hey, if an evil Walmart in 100 years owns 100% of the world, then I think it would say a lot about the stupidity of the consumer and the devolution of humanity.
What is the most fair way to handle the reality of the situation where some people are born into more advantageous environments than others? I think this is a primary question that people should ask themselves when they consider various economic systems.
There is no fair way. Fairness doesn’t exist out in the world for us to discover. It’s entirely subjective. And the same is true for (dis)advantageousness.
On the other hand, why are you suddenly changing the context?
