So, as I take it, the basic tenet of the NAP is that you can do anything you want as long as you don’t harm someone else. Clear enough for me.
But what about the cynical businessmen? If a baker holds a monopoly on breadmaking libertopia, and I come along and set up a new bakery that sells bread at half the price, there being no barriers to entry. So he goes and drags me to court, on the pretense I am harming his livelyhood. What will he feed his children?
I am well aware a clear violation of the NAP would be setting his bakery on fire, not setting up a competing establishment. But can these arguments that competition is harmful take hold? Just wondering.
No. If the baker is selling bread at twice the price that it can actually be produced, he’d be harming people by forcing them to pay extra for a necessary food group. He’s also harming the second baker because he won’t let him bake.
And if the masses decide they no longer want bread, would he be entitled to compensation due to their change in taste?
The only way the competitor could be aggressing is if the established baker had some sort of right to his income; say, people entered a contract stating they would buy his bread exclusively. Unless this is the case, then he has no legitimate complaint. He may have spent his income under the assumption that he would never face a competitor, and so his prospects may be severely damaged by this development, but that is his own fault.
For this reason, I think it is misleading to say that this competition is “harmful.”
The non-aggression principle applies to someone’s person or their property. Trading goods with other people has nothing to do with the property of the baker. You only own your property, you don’t own the value of your property; it would lead to absurd conclusions.
the basic tenet of the NAP is that you can do anything you want as long as you don’t harm someone else.
I dont think harm is the right word. Violate someone else property rights would be better, I think.
In the baker scenario, the second baker may have made the first baker worse off (harmed him) by setting up a competing shop, but he would have also made all those who buy bread better off (helped them). So harm is too vague.
The second baker has not violated anyones property. The first baker still has his shop and his customers still have their money. The customers have the right to spend thier money where ever they choose.
The key word when trying to understanding the Non-Agression Principle is agression. It’s not the “non-harming-principle”. Successful self defense certainly “harms” the attacker, just restitution in arbitration “harms” the party found to be at fault. However, agression, in terms of the NAP, is the initiation of violent action against ones person or property.
Simply by selling bread at a lower cost, the second baker is not agressing against anyone. He is merely convincing customers, via his better deals, to come to his bakery of thier own free will. This is voluntary transaction. As others have noted niether baker has the right to a certain “value” of the bread. They just have the right to sell the bread they made. It’s up to them and thier customer to arrive at a “fair” price.
"Legal and political theory have committed much mischief by failing to pinpoint physical invasion as the only human action that should be illegal and that justifies the use of physical violence to combat it. The vague concept of “harm” is substituted for the precise one of physical violence.[13] Consider the following two examples. Jim is courting Susan and is just about to win her hand in marriage, when suddenly Bob appears on the scene and wins her away. Surely Bob has done great “harm” to Jim. Once a nonphysical-invasion sense of harm is adopted, almost any outlaw act might be justified. Should Jim be able to “enjoin” Bob’s very existence?[14]
Similarly, A is a successful seller of razor blades. But then B comes along and sells a better blade, teflon-coated to prevent shaving cuts. The value of A’s property is greatly affected. Should he be able to collect damages from B, or, better yet, to enjoin B’s sale of a better blade? The correct answer is not that consumers would be hurt if they were forced to buy the inferior blade, although that is surely the case. Rather, no one has the right to legally prevent or retaliate against “harms” to his property unless it is an act of physical invasion. Everyone has the right to have the physical integrity of his property inviolate; no one has the right to protect the value of his property, for that value is purely the reflection of what people are willing to pay for it. That willingness solely depends on how they decide to use their money. No one can have a right to someone else’s money, unless that other person had previously contracted to transfer it to him.
In the law of torts, “harm” is generally treated as physical invasion of person or property. The outlawing of defamation (libel and slander) has always been a glaring anomaly in tort law. Words and opinions are not physical invasions. Analogous to the loss of property value from a better product or a shift in consumer demand, no one has a property right in his “reputation.” Reputation is strictly a function of the subjective opinions of other minds, and they have the absolute right to their own opinions whatever they may be. Hence, outlawing defamation is itself a gross invasion of the defamer’s right of freedom of speech, which is a subset of his property right in his own person.[15]" - MNR, http://mises.org/daily/2120
So why isn’t he also suing all of the people who chose your bakery over his? His income has diminished due to their choices as well.
On another note, people have this funny habit of believing that, because something could be theirs, it should be theirs (as in now it’s owed to them). However, no one is prima facie entitled to any particular amount of income.
