Jim Hlavac
Economic Theory
Economic Theory
        Crime is a part of human nature. It is not part of an economic
system. Crime can best be defined as any action by one or more
persons which interferes with another person's ability to survive.  
Denying someone of life, limb or liberty are crimes. Stealing, which
takes away from a person's ability to survive, is a crime.  But so also
are preventing a transaction, whether it is an individual or a
government doing the prevention -- preventing a person from engaging
in a transaction from which he thinks he will derive profit is a crime.  

     Now, if you aim to "profit" from some action which interferes with
another's right to survival than you are in fact engaged in crime, not a
transaction.  Crime's are not transactions. Crimes are committed
against people, transactions are conducted between people voluntarily.
Forcing someone to buy something is as much a crime as preventing
him from buying something.

     A government which outlaws the writing of books is committing a
crime.  Governments have no right to commit a crime.  Since a
government is a tool, it is obvious that some individual, using the
government, is committing a crime.  

     It is the duty of all persons to not only not engage in crime, but to
prevent crime, and seek to apprehend criminals.  

     Governments which have state run corporate monopolies are
committing a crime because they are preventing other individuals from
transacting in a way they think they can profit from. Government
protected corporations are criminal enterprises because they rely on
force of one sort or another against those whom do not work for or
with the government corporation.

     There are many so-called crimes, because there are laws which say
this or that action is a crime.  But crime can only exist in the situation
stated, where one or more individuals interfere with the right of
survival of another. If survival is not affected, there can be no crime.  
It matters not what the rationale claimed is -- morality, God, the good
of society, tradition, the law, the state, the king, the good of the
people -- there are a hundred words for the use of power to prevent
peaceful mutually agreeable transactions, that is non-crimes -- and
those actions are the real crimes, not the transactions.

     It is not a "crime" for a person to grow and sell marijuana.  It is a
crime for the government to say "thou shalt not." For growing and
smoking marijuana does not prevent or inhibit anyone from survival. It
is irrelevant that you don't like smoking or growing pot. Just as it does
not matter if someone grows cotton, to use for clothes, but you are
opposed to cotton. You are not materially affected by the cotton or its
use, unless you are compelled to pay for the cotton you don't want, in
any form, even if it is subsidies to the cotton farmer and not being
dragged down to the store to buy a cotton shirt. If pot is smoked
somewhere you are not harmed, you are merely upset. And being upset
is not a basis of real law. For being upset to be the basis of the law is
to allow royalism, theology and statism to commit the crime of
"because I said so." And that is not a reason, not rational. Mere emotion
for a way to run policy means that when emotions change, ebb and
flow, then so does the policy, and that means that no one can ever be
sure of what to expect. And that is not a good way to organize society,
as proven by the 'good' king and 'bad' king theory that permeated the
world until only recently. "Oh, if only we had a good king, then we
would be a better country." But, if only the laws stayed the same and
were applicable to everyone equally, and it was accepted and
recognize that anyone can do what they want short of crime, then we
would not have to worry about whether the king is good or bad, a
drunk or a teetotaler, in fact, the point of the king would nearly be
obviated out of existence. And that is far better for society than to
worry about what the next king will do.