4 ms·

As people have pointed out to me repeatedly, there's generally a world of difference between the government (with the monopoly on violence) deciding you can / c

As people have pointed out to me repeatedly, there's generally a world of difference between the government (with the monopoly on violence) deciding you can / cannot do an activity and individual businesses or consumers deciding not to form a relationship of mutual trust and profit. Indeed, in the situations where the difference really is too minimal (such as there being no alternatives to do business with in a town because of rampant racism), we pass laws (such as the Civil Rights Act) to compel private actors to cease to bar business based on signal that has been deemed invalid.

hrktb 8y ago
The difference can get very thin and yet no law gets passes though. For instance there is a no-banking list in most countries: you won’t be able to use any banking service in that country if a single bank puts you on it. That’s usually a default of payment of a cheque, but it’s not limited to, and banks can trigger conditions where the customer will hit a provable offense. In that instance the private entities coordinate to enforce a ban on an individual and no law will pass against that. I’d assume the same would happen for insurances, where there must be a ban on people commiting insurance fraud, and I’d assume it’s not limited to only provable offenses, or charges can be just provoked. Passing a law against these practices requires buy-in from the public and people not just assuming “they have done something very wrong on paper, why should we care ?”
- fixermark 8y ago
  The US recently did pass a law banning one type of this practice in insurance companies (though not for behavior purposes; due to the US's general disdain for punishing a person for that which they have no control over, they made it illegal to deny health insurance for a wide swath of preexisting conditions).

4 ms·

As people have pointed out to me repeatedly, there's generally a world of difference between the government (with the monopoly on violence) deciding you can / c

by fixermark 8y ago

hrktb 8y ago
The difference can get very thin and yet no law gets passes though. For instance there is a no-banking list in most countries: you won’t be able to use any banking service in that country if a single bank puts you on it. That’s usually a default of payment of a cheque, but it’s not limited to, and banks can trigger conditions where the customer will hit a provable offense. In that instance the private entities coordinate to enforce a ban on an individual and no law will pass against that. I’d assume the same would happen for insurances, where there must be a ban on people commiting insurance fraud, and I’d assume it’s not limited to only provable offenses, or charges can be just provoked. Passing a law against these practices requires buy-in from the public and people not just assuming “they have done something very wrong on paper, why should we care ?”
- fixermark 8y ago
  The US recently did pass a law banning one type of this practice in insurance companies (though not for behavior purposes; due to the US's general disdain for punishing a person for that which they have no control over, they made it illegal to deny health insurance for a wide swath of preexisting conditions).