International Law

Confidence In The Con

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In a historically inaccurate and misleading manner, the NPR has a radio interview with A and B on confidence schemes, or cons.

"The confidence scheme certainly seems like an American obesession -- the golden age of grift came courtesy of the Jazz Age -- and boy does Hollywood love a huckster.

I suppose then, it's no surprise that the latest con to hit the papers is a guy proclaiming himself American Royalty: the peculiar case of Clark Rockefeller, nee Christopher Chichester, nee -- I'm not kidding -- Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter...

These days, the confidence game is less an art, than a science; a race to see how many people will be trapped by a mass mailing signed by a "Nigerian Prince." It makes me nostalgic for the days of Harold Hill -- at least back then, a con cared about the trouble in River City."

This romantic version of con criminals is unfortunate, inaccurate and troublesome.

Confidence games started in the mid 1800's, named for a particular fraud which required the victim to place confidence in the criminal.

Some of the early tricks relied upon no more than simple reciprocity and asking for favours.

The early response of the law was to treat the victims as simpletons in need of protection: the early confidence laws protected only those who could show that they were the "deserving" marks. 

Sophistication or business skill removed the protection of the law - an odd result since many sophisticated business men were targeted by the con criminals.

The romantic view is also troublesome because it prevents us from seeing fraud as the rational response to social planning by those individuals who primarily see others as mere means to ends.

And there are many more of these "anti-Kantians" than the ordinary person believes; they run from the merely amoral to the sociopath.

Full post as published by Misleading Advertising Law on August 29, 2008 (boomark / email).