Why Antifraud Regulations Are Statist

[John_James]

@alsdjfalsdjfos

When was property stolen in your example? You purchased the bottle voluntarily and unless the buyer somehow takes it back without your permission, there is no theft occuring.

I purchased a bottle of water that the seller maintained was from a glacier in Alaska. It in fact was something different. I did not get what I was paying for. I paid my money for one thing, and was given something else. He has stolen my money by defrauding me. I transferred title to my property to him under the understanding that he was transferring title to me of glacier water from a specific region. He did not hold up on his end of the bargain. He has stolen my money.

He still owes me either the glacier water I paid for, or my money back (plus redress).

Fraud has no place in voluntary transactions.

See:

Property Rights and the Theory of Contracts

The Problem with “Fraud”: Fraud, Threat, and Contract Breach as Types of Aggression

You don’t have an entitlement to punish people for “fradulent acts”, and if you did, who would do this “punishing”? What institution would exist in a free society to enforce these antifraud laws you propose?

Yes you do. And (probably) private agencies would exist to enforce these laws. (The same ones who enforce pretty much all of the laws in such a society. I’m curious how you think any laws would get inforced in a free society.)

See:

Fraud, Restitution, and Retaliation: The Libertarian Approach

Punishment and Proportionality

That’s not a reason to deprive individuals of their right to commit fraud.

I suppose it all comes down to how you define “fraud”, (of course, some people find this defining of terms useless and unnecessary, but still). But by the “libertarian definition”, there is no such thing as a “right to commit fraud”.

What you said could be taken to undermine freedom of speech. If someone says anything bad about another individual’s credit, this should be, according to your logic, illegal, because it “affects their property” by whatever meaning you attach to that phrase.

Sorry, I should have been more specific. If you make an insurance claim as someone else, you’re obviously taking property that is owed to someone else. I would assume that would be clearly recognized as theft. But even making a bank account using someone else’s information…there are costs involved with this. You are footing this person with the bill, effectively stealing from him. But even if you somehow pay the costs directly involved in what actions you take while impersonating someone else, there are still going to be indirect costs and future costs. I’m not sure one could possibly impersonate someone else to open a bank account, and never end up having the person get stuck with any bills or fines or any other costs.

I suppose if you could somehow accomplish that, and you never deprived them of any property, then I suppose there would be no harm done…but then I’m not exactly sure why anyone would go through the trouble of committing the fraud in the first place.