Comments on: There is always already coercion https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/there-is-always-already-coercion/2008/06/03 Researching, documenting and promoting peer to peer practices Fri, 06 Jun 2008 08:11:20 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.5.15 By: Kevin Carson https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/there-is-always-already-coercion/2008/06/03/comment-page-1#comment-252757 Fri, 06 Jun 2008 08:11:20 +0000 http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/?p=1583#comment-252757 Most libertarians who oppose coercion as a matter of principle acknowledge the need for some preexisting (or at least logically prior) social consensus by which legitimate (defensive) force can be distinguished from illegitimate (aggressive) force. That would include property rules (in Nozick’s schema, rules for 1) initial appropriation, 2) transfer, and 3) abandonment). It would also include conventions for defining fraud, implied contracts, and so forth. In the traditional common law, such things as fraud were generally defined in terms of the “reasonable expectations” of the public in a given jurisdiction. For example, someone advertising something for sale as “bread” is making an implied promise that it fits the usual specifications of bread, under local convention.

I’ve seen some libertarians who give the Law Merchant as an example of an autonomous system of law that evolved outside the state.

One libertarian thinker, “quasibill” of The Bell Tower blog, takes a very minimalist view of the amount of contract law that could be coercively enforced. In the case of bankruptcy, for example, he starts from Rothbard’s assumption that compelling specific performance is a form of slavery. But he takes it further, arguing that it is virtually impossible to prove, in the event of default, fraudulent intent at the outset. So essentially, in almost all cases, he would regard arranging adequate security, requiring default insurance on the debtor’s part, etc., as the creditor’s responsibility, and consider default just another part of the business risk.

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By: P2P Foundation Echoing Hayek and Toffler « Chief Outhouse Correspondent https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/there-is-always-already-coercion/2008/06/03/comment-page-1#comment-251169 Tue, 03 Jun 2008 22:43:18 +0000 http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/?p=1583#comment-251169 […] Foundation Echoing Hayek and Toffler From one post: The real task for libertarians and other defenders of sound economics and law is not to try to […]

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