Saturday, 6 November 2010
Failure to repay a debt of money is not a crime because ownership is transferred
It is a crime to fail to repay debts only if we have physically obstructed the lender from gaining access to the object which was loaned. If we have not used physical force to prevent the loan from being repaid, then we have committed no crime and no arrest can rightfully be made. So then unless the loan is of a physical object which we expect to be returned (in itself) and ownership is not transferred to the borrower, then we have no right to punish those who do not return the debt. We cannot expect a person to be obliged under law to return something which is not physical, or something which is generic. In the case of money, we do not harm the lender if we fail to return a debt because the money has been spent and it was not expected that we would be able to return the precise notes and coins. If ownership has transferred then we cannot be preventing the lender from regaining access to the material object, since it is no longer theirs, and we commit no crime if we fail to make a repayment. Only if the lender retains ownership of the object do we (can we) commit a crime by obstructing repayment.
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