Contract Theory, Title Transfer, and Libertarianism

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Abstract

In the present paper we argue that the theory of contracts embraced by many libertarian scholars and relied upon by them in sundry important debates (e.g. over morality of the fractional reserve banking or loan maturity mismatching etc.), that is, the title transfer theory of contracts (TTT) should be rejected as not being able to account for the binding force of future-oriented contracts, including contracts deemed enforceable by those scholars themselves. The TTT claims that the only contracts that should be legally binding are these where the debtor’s failure to abide by them constitutes a violation of the creditor’s private property rights. However, as we argue, no default of the debtor in a future-oriented contract can in itself amount to such a violation.

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This research was funded in whole or in part by the National Science Centre, Poland, grant number 2020/39/B/HS5/00610. For the purpose of Open Access, the author has applied a CC-BY public copyright licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) version arising from this submission.

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title transfer, contract theory, libertarianism, property rights, free market

Citation

Diametros: A Journal of Philosophy, 2022, vol. 19, No. 72, pp.1-25.

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Except where otherwised noted, this item's license is described as Attribution 3.0 Poland