For those uninitiated individuals who may not know what is meant by "the NAP," it very simply means "Non-Agression Principle." The NAP is based on the axiomatic, objective reality of self-ownership, and concludes that:
It is always illegitimate to initiate force/aggression against another individual.
(SOURCE.)
Fraud.
I want to talk about fraudulent behavior normally frowned upon by Voluntaryists/Market Anarchists.
For example, if I claim to be an insurance agent, and agree to insure a client, only to reveal later (after receiving several payments) that I will not be providing insurance coverage, and never was a real insurance agent in the first place, this is clearly fraud. However, can fraud, as such, be viewed as aggression, or is aggression limited to the physical realm?
Obviously, informed consent for the defrauded party in this case was not made available by me, the phony insurance agent. Market anarchism/voluntaryism hold that all human interactions should be consensual. Is this related to the NAP?
Marriage.
How is the above instance different in principle from two individuals entering into a voluntary contract to be monagamous, and in such context to share certain resources and utilize exclusive sexual access to one another, and one individual defaulting on this agreement secretly? While the other individual continues to believe the monagamy is being upheld ("I am insured"), the fraudulent party continues receiving resources from this person, financial and otherwise, perhaps, and continues to make use of sexual access to the defrauded individual, all the while breaking the contract. There is thus NO WAY the defrauded individual can be said to be offering informed consent in regard to the marriage agreement.
Conclusion (sort of).
If viewed in the strictest sense, ultimately, the individual choosing to trust the fraudulent individual must bear the consequences of his or her choice. The NAP really does not cover non-physical aggression or non-physical threats for individuals fully capable of conscious discretion. But wait, that's just it. Something about this remains incomplete.
No physical aggression has occurred in the case of the "insurance agent" and his client, and married individual and the unfaithful spouse. The defrauded individual was, in fact, free to refuse to enter into contract and say "no," the whole time. But what about other cases? Couldn't it be argued that sometimes the defrauded party is not capable of discretion?
I'll provide one final example.
Let's say I tell an old, almost senile woman here in Japan that her nephew overseas in America is starving. I ask her to please send money to "his bank account" to help him, giving her instead the information for my account. While this may, in the strictest sense not be viewed as physical "aggression," it is an aggression of sorts that takes advantage of another, weaker human being, and harms them.
How is this different than lying to an innocent child in order to coerce them into sexual behavior? Is not that aggression!? Of course it is.
Those saying libertarians should have nothing to say about the matters of marital infidelity and fraud fail to understand that the issue is not a petty, gossip-based, moralized one, but a very practical assessment of who would and would not be ideal to associate with, in voluntary interaction. Association with individuals with a history of fraudulent behavior carries inherent socioeconomic risks, and risks of NAP violation.
As far as the NAP is concerned, I do not think this issue is cut and dried, and believe it is up to individual property owners and their communities to decide how best to approach these situations.
~KafkA
Graham Smith is a Voluntaryist activist, creator, and peaceful parent residing in Niigata City, Japan. Graham runs the "Voluntary Japan" online initiative with a presence here on Steem, as well as Facebook and Twitter. (Hit me up so I can stop talking about myself in the third person!)