<DIV> John Thornton <jthorn65@mchsi.com> wrote: <BLOCKQUOTE class=replbq style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #1010ff 2px solid"> At 07:26 PM 8/13/2004, you wrote: >If you were right, most contracts would be breached and there would be lot >more business for me that there already is. Why? This statement doesn't make sense. There is nothing in what I or you or anyone has written that would make this statement true. Well, my thouight is just that if people and businesses didn't in fact trust each other to follow through, you'd seea  lot more breach than you do. > You're putting words in my mouth if you claim I made any statement concerning criminality or chicanery. I made no such claim. OK > I did however notice you declined my offer to speculate on the outcome of the business transaction I posed. Why? What do you think happened in the case I posed? I don't offer legal advice in cases where I'm not licensed and where I don't want to be put in the position of even potentially representing a client I couldn't take. > Does it defend or undermine your argument or mine? A simgle case can't shwo anything one way or another. > People generally sign contracts with the intention of following through on them. You make the claim it is because they trust each other I claim they do not or they wouldn't have the contracts. They want to make money, they want to do business, the terms of the contract generally allow both parties to profit so both parties follow through. It is mutually beneficial I don't understand how these are mutually exclusive alternatives. Btw, I think you imagine, as many lay people do, that contracts are writen instruments with lots of fine print. In fact most contracts are oral and involve simple sales -- you take a loaf of bread off the supermarket shelf, you accept the store's offer, now you owe them money. In more complex cases, the parties are geberallyu more interested in califying the terms of the agreement -- it's we lawyers who insist on the CYA clauses, which are generally never triggered anyway. > but that has nothing to do with ethics, trust or the decency of the people involved contrary to what you claim. You again default to the binary it is all about trust or it is all an unsustainable cheat. Yeah, pretty much. If you don't think that you're dealing with ethical, decent people, and you hve any alternative, you'll go elsewhere. The labor market that some have mentioned as a counterexample is a special case, generally workers don't havea  choice and operrate from a position of more than usual asymmetry. When that happens, there is more room for cheating, and it happens.  > By the way, when the capitalist keeps his promises, he steals. It is not an either or proposition. Why is that so hard to understand? Exploitation is theft.You know this. What exactly is it you're trying to say? Well, long aho I wrote a paper arguing that this claim that exploitaion is theft exactly misses Marx's point (Justin Schwartz, What's Wrong With Exploitaion? Nous 1995, I think available in a fairly late draft on the web if you look), so not only don't I know this, I don't even agree. I think Marx was wrong to reject the injustice of exploitaion as a reason for condemning it, but I don't think that injustice can be reduced to theft. It's more like a lack of reciprocity. So that's what I am trying to say. We can discuss this more if you like. But it's sort of off the point that capitalism requires trust and indeed ethical behavior and general decency to survive. Which doesn't preclude exploitation. ></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV> <hr size=1>Do you Yahoo!? <a href="http://us.rd.yahoo.com/mail_us/taglines/50x/*http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail/static/efficiency.html">Yahoo! Mail</a> - 50x more storage than other providers!