I recommend you do some more reading on Libertarian theory, specifically Rothbard’s “Ethics of Liberty” which describes conditional contracts in great detail. If I trade you my money for your product, and the agreement is that I receive the product that you have advertised, then that is a conditional contract. My money is only your property under the condition that I received the product that you advertised. If the product that you gave me turned out to be something else, then my money is no longer yours as you have violated our conditional contract.
Suppose Bob and Jones intend to make an exchange whereby Bob will transfer ownership of a carton of milk to Jones if Jones transfers ownership of $10 to Bob. Jones hands Bob the $10, Bob hands Jones the carton of milk. Jones gets home and realizes the carton is filled with water rather than milk. Hence, the conditions of the exchange have not been met, which means that no exchange has actually occurred. It is the same as if Jones and Bob failed to reach initial agreement and parted company. This failure of the exchange to occur is not in itself a tort.
The tort lies in the fact that Bob is still in possession of the $10, which belongs to Jones. Is Bob a thief? One wants to say yes, but…
Consider that Jones is also in possession of property which he does not own: namely, Bob’s carton. So is Jones a thief too?
Perhaps theft only occurs when/if one party has his request for a reversal of the exchange (they each get their property back) denied by the other party?
Or we could say that each party is a thief, and owes the other 2x restitution. Suppose the carton full of milk is worth $.50, then Jones owes Bob $1 and Bob owes Jones $20. So, net, Jones wins $19. Since a fraudulent exchange is by definition not a mutually beneficial exchange, this rule for settling cases of fraud would assure that the perpetrator of fraud always paid something net to the victim. in effect, the victim would always get restitiution of an amount 2(V-F), with V being the value of the property of the victim taken by the fraudster, and F being the value of the property of the fraudster taken by the victim. As of now, I think I favor this view of fraud.
so it’s ok to go into property record books, take and edit a deed, and kick people out of their houses because they no longer own the house after you edited the deed to the property to now have your new edited information on it?
it’s ok to take someones name, bank account, property, simply if one wants to edit information?
it’s ok to sell poisen in place of food?
as if a DRO would not have antifraud rules or the premise of capitalism does not have antifraud rules?
there is no such thing as property if people can just change information and take it at will.
I realize you’re asking the OP, but I’ll give you my answers as well.
so it’s ok to go into property record books, take and edit a deed, and kick people out of their houses because they no longer own the house after you edited the deed to the property to now have your new edited information on it?
If a person edited a deed and convinced everyone that he was the rightful owner of the house, he is still not the rightful owner of the house. If he takes possession of the house, he is a thief. If he kicks out the rightful owners by force, he is liable for that use of force.
it’s ok to take someones name, bank account, property, simply if one wants to edit information?
Same as above. Altering the document does not change who is the rightful owner of the property. Ownership does not stem from the document itself, the document is just evidence of ownership.
it’s ok to sell poisen in place of food?
The person who did so would be guilty of fraud (which I’d deal with as described in my post above), and if someone actually ingested the poison and was harmed they would also be liable for that, the same as if they poured poison in the person’s coffee.
And a general point: you notice how many different kinds of issues come under the heading “fraud”? This is why I think it’s not very useful to talk about fraud. It’s better to consider the nullification of an exchange when the conditions aren’t met separately from any torts which may result therefrom, than to lump them all under “fraud.”
looking up definitions.
a fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual;
by definition that is anti free market capitalism.
if the op means state legislation is statist, then yes from definition it is. if he means that banks or DRO’s are statist should they have fraud protection service, then i don’t think that is the case that the banks or DRO’s are statist
Capitalism is protection of personal property and nothing more. No property is being “stolen” during fraud- a person’s identity is not a form of property. Saying otherwise suggests non-physical, intellectual property is legitimate, which is wrong.
As for this, which is basically a repeat of the water bottle example, the seller is not the one committing theft any more than the buyer committed theft by buying the wrong product. Individuals do not have an entitlment to be protected from their own poor decisions by statist antifraud institutions.
What you are trying to say is that he is breaching a contract, but under libertarianism contracts should be at-will rather than enforced by some agency. Without at-will contracts, slavery would be justified.
The seller is also not guilty of theft because no aggression was used during the transaction. Handing someone a water bottle, regardless of whether it is the particular type of water they agreed to get, or regardless of whether or the seller passively accepted their money, is not aggression under any non-ridiculous definition of the term. Again, you are statist because you are trying to justify legislation like truth in labeling regulations.
Oh, alright. So you think there should be an agency protecting lying salesmen from retaliation by their customers? Statist…
I am not a statist. You advocate the kind of truth in labeling regulations that crush small businesses and promote corporatism.
When?
They’re a form of the antifraud regulations you are trying to defend.
What? Where… The hell are you talking about?
Do you think antifraud legislation is inherently illegitimate and statist like all other forms of regulation? If so, I agree with you.
Obviously a person might steal physical property or deliberately poison someone, but those are dealt with under separate laws, and fraud (fraud itself, not using it as a means to commit some other crime any more than some statists would argue that driving should be a crime to prevent people running over pedestrians) is completely legitimate. But I assumed people here were against intellectual property. I may have been wrong.
Antifraud legislation is meant to prevent businesses from marketing their own product under another company’s brand or another intellectual property characteristic of the product. For example, it is illegal for new macaroni companies to package their product as if it was Kraft macaroni and cheese, because that would would be “fraud”.
This is a clear reason why fraud should be legal, because making it illegal is a form of intellectual property protection, in this case and in all other instances of fraud.
This thread is good for laughs. Sometimes things just get too serious around here. Thanks for keeping things in perspective, ajklagrgafakl.
i did not justify legislation
i said fraud is immoral
dro’s would deal with fraud
contracts would deal with fraud.
anyone who ignores fraud is a idiot risking his/her life and the lives of others.
identidy is the foundation of property, if we don’t have identidy, we don’t own physical things as anyone can claim to be anyone, anyone can claim to be owner of any physical property and anyone can claim to be anyone and forge papers to say they own anything. part of physical property is being able to trace it back to a legit owner, if identify is subjective at whim to be stolen, then there is no way to trace ownership back to a owner.
Stealing physical property is different from fraud. There is no physical property stolen when a bank account and so forth are registered in another person’s name, or when a mislabeled product is sold; or, if trading a misabeled product is “stealing”, then both parties are equally liable.
No, it is illegal because it is a violation of trademark. It should be considered fraud; trademark (and other forms of intellectual property) laws should be considered illegitimate. Again, fraud is (and ought to be) outlawed because one party, for example, takes money from another party in exchange for product A, but under guise that it was actually product B. The selling party has not held up their end of the bargain. This has similarities to contracts agreed to under duress, and those should not be upheld either.
There is no right to commit fraud (impala). To do so is not very (cavalier).
stealing physical property is part of fraud.
if i have a credit card, and someone steals the information from my credit card, they can use my credit card to purchase products in my name, stealing my money and commiting fraud. this is called credit fraud. a collection agency will try to collect from me, not the random person who stole my credit card information.
if someone registeres a bank account in another persons names, the dro of the original person will find out about the activity and the original owner would have protection.
if someone trades a mislabled product, the purchaser is not liable for the fraud of the seller.
That’s a stretch. There is no duress taking place during fraud- in fact duress requires that the victim(s) be aware of the crime, while fraud can only occur using deception. Lying certainly isn’t a crime (by itself).
I don’t understand how you can consider lying about trademark a form of fraud while acknowledging IP is illegitimate.
I’m sure you would be right up there assisting the 19th century progressives in campaigning for the “truth in labeling” portions of the tyrannical Pure Food and Drug Act.
That’s called stealing. Credit card fraud itself does not necessarily involve stealing money, it merely involves opening/possessing (without physical theft) a credit card in someone elses name.
if someone uses my name to hire a hitman, i will be the one blamed for the hitman.
i will be held responsible for bank accounts oppend in my name, so if someone opens a account and commits crimes, i will be blamed, not the random person who stole my name.
if someone writes a book advocating childrape, then uses another persons name, picture, signature, personal seal. people are going to blame the person represented to write the book rather than the real author if the identity fraud is successfuly pulled off.