Abstract
Property right includes the right to transfer things (sell, give or abandon them). To transfer property to another person, the owner needs to manifest his consent to doing so. Communication allows people to re-allocate property rights in scarce resources and form enforceable obligations about property by entering contracts. Contracts are another type of communicative acts which entail legal consequences. Speech act theory offers a novel approach to the theory of contract, reconciling the consent theory and the title-transfer theory of contract, offering a framework of analysis for unconditional and conditional title transfers. Such title-transfer theory of contract based on the speech act theory is more consistent than the promise theory—it explains how and why communication can create enforceable obligations and why the use of force is justified in the case of failure to fulfil the contract, including non-performance of a service.
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Slutskiy, P. (2021). Communication Theory of Contracts. In: Communication and Libertarianism. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-6664-0_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-6664-0_12
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