I was talking to another Libertarian about how contracts cannot always be enforced, if to do so would initiate Aggression. He then brought up the example of gambling:
“Under this, gambling should be illegal since you promise to pay Amount X depending on Event Y. If Event Y doesn’t happen, I don’t have to pay you anything… too bad if I signed a contract agreeing that I would pay if Event Y occurred… I didn’t initiate aggression on you, so you can’t do anything me.”
And I said:
"Gambling wouldn’t be illegal, per se…but what you said is true. Though the ass who did that could be ostracized.
I’m pretty sure there would be Libertarian solutions to this though. For example, pooling the winnings to a reputable third party before the event, who will then dole it out to the winner? There’s lots of other secure ways this could be done."
What do other Rothbardians think about this? What other solutions might you propose, asides from Initiating Aggression against the gambler who non-aggressively opted out of the contract?
This is why the whole notion of blanket non-aggression is confusing. What matters is the specific system of property that you support.
All political systems have a different meaning of non-aggression. Just saying non-aggression is not enough.
In this case, you’ve entered a trade that is dependent on an event. It means you’ve already given it up, and may receive some, none or more of it back. Not following the contract would be a violation of the libertarian property system.
The real question is: which system of property is the one that we want to support?
Well, I’m absolutely not a contractarian. To enforce this contract against a man who has not InitiatedForce, would itself be an Initiation of Force. Rothbard very clearly explains this in Chapter 2, Section 13, of Man, Economy, and State. If the man had frauded (stolen) from the other man, then of course the man who has been frauded could use Retaliative Force. Only actions of assault, theft, or slavery justify Retaliative Force; and the Retaliative Force must be roughly equivalent to the original crime. But in this case, B has not been frauded by A’s fundamentally non-violent (though dickish) action of not paying his bet. Initiating Aggression is always Immoral, and Morality, of course, is an objective concept. To say elsewise is, quite frankly, absurd and base.
The contract system, by its very nature, is not always Libertarian. To claim that because a contract stipulates that Aggression can be used, Aggression legitimately can be used, is to deny the very inalienable will of of man.
Your notion is confusing, not that of our Great Professor.
@hashem- Really? Rothbard clearly disproves that in his example of the movie actor, in Man, Economy, and State. The Rothbardian cannot be a contractarian, per se.
The Rothbardian cannot be a contractarian
You’re confused. How much have you read by Rothbard? From the The Ethics of Liberty:
“The right of property implies the right to make contracts about that property: to give it away or to exchange titles of ownership for the property of another person...the only enforceable contracts (i.e., those backed by the sanction of legal coercion) should be those where the failure of one party to abide by the contract implies the theft of property from the other party. In short, a contract should only be enforceable when the failure to fulfill it is an implicit theft of property…where the failure to abide by the contract means that the other party’s property is retained by the delinquent party, without the consent of the former (implicit theft). Hence, this proper libertarian theory of enforceable contracts has been termed the “title-transfer” theory of contracts.”
Retaliative Force must be roughly equivalent to the original crime.
Are we talking about Rothbard? He advocates proportionality, not equivalence.
To claim that because a contract stipulates that Aggression can be used, Aggression legitimately can be used, is to deny the very inalienable will of of man.
“The right of property implies the right to make contracts about that property: to give it away or to exchange titles of ownership for the property of another person...the only enforceable contracts (i.e., those backed by the sanction of legal coercion) should be those where the failure of one party to abide by the contract implies the theft of property from the other party. In short, a contract should only be enforceable when the failure to fulfill it is an implicit theft of property…where the failure to abide by the contract means that the other party’s property is retained by the delinquent party, without the consent of the former (implicit theft). Hence, this proper libertarian theory of enforceable contracts has been termed the “title-transfer” theory of contracts.”
That’s precisely what I was saying! What has the man stolen?
“Are we talking about Rothbard? He advocates proportionality, not equivalence.”
I was using them synonomously. Yes, I know what proportionality is.
Precisely right. B has not “implicitly stolen” from A in any way. For what has he stolen? His action not to pay A was fundamentally not theft. Forcing B to pay A, in fact, would be theft.
Similarly, if I agree to pay you $100, weekly, for the rest of my life, could that be enforced if I opt out? By proper Rothbardian contract theory, absolutely not.
By the way, that’s why I said: we’re not contractarians, per se. We are, I suppose, if there is implicit theft.
Now, if I make a contract to trade you my puppy for your cat, and I give you the pup but you don’t give me the cat, then that is fraud, i.e., implicit theft. Restitution of the contract can be enforced.
At this point, you are disagreeing with the Professor, not me. To be implicit theft (fraud), there must be something stolen. In this case, nothing was stolen. To say that a contract can be enforced simply by its virtue of being a contract is Anti-Rothbardian. There must be an act of theft for the contract to be enforced. See the example of the pup and the cat above.
And I recommend you read the little part of MES (Chapter 2, Section 13) that elaborates on this. Focus on the example of the movie actor.
Wheylous doesn’t get my point. Of course you could be frauded for a service. See my example of fraud above:
Now, if I make a contract to trade you my puppy for your cat, and I give you the pup but you don’t give me the cat, then that is fraud, i.e., implicit theft. Restitution of the contract can be enforced.
Is the same as:
Now, if I make a contract to trade you [cleaning your floor] for you [sweeping my porch], and I [clean your floor] but you don’t [sweep my porch], then that is fraud, i.e., implicit theft. Restitution of the contract can be enforced.
Obviously, Wheylous. Doesn’t at all change the point of my argument.
Why not? It creates “legal” gambling, which you were trying to disprove.
Because in the initial scenario there was no implicit theft. For who stole from whom? For a contract to be enforced, there must be implicit theft, as my friend hashem’s Rothbard quote shows.
