The No Treason Podcast Ep. 52: Natural Law, Becomes Due & Bankruptcy Laws

This week the show finishes Lysander Spooner's Proposition 6, the idea that all credit should be based on what a man has and not on what he has not. First up, a recap of Spooner's view of the legal and moral obligation of debt: a debtor owes only what he is able to pay when the debt becomes due, as long as he acted in good faith. Framing a loan as a transaction, with ownership and possession separated by time, makes the radical idea easier to grasp. Then the episode walks through Spooner's six reasons his rule carries no greater risk for creditors than the present system, from shorter loans and the 30-year mortgage that funnels people into wage labor to trial by jury as the check on dishonest debtors. From there, it's on to the history of debtors' prison, insolvency laws and modern bankruptcy, and how they reward reckless borrowing and moral hazard. The close ties it all together: government creating problems and then "solving" them with new ones. Proposition 7 is up next week.