What you are describing about banks is outright theft, which under any system would be punished.
Even if courts did not exist, very few business would be that dumb to steal from their customers, because once details of it were known to the public, all rational customers would take their money out of the bank and it would eventually go out of business.
There's lots of ways to steal a little bit from people in ways they don't realize or can't do anything about. Stealing $5 bucks outright is of course the obvious thing; disproportionate overdraft fees or ordering transactions to maximize overdrafts is another; selling something with apparent X% risk and real X+Y% risk is more subtle still.
Information asymmetry isn't a theoretical construct--it's the basis of a lot of different ways to steal from people without their knowing.
Comments
What you are describing about banks is outright theft, which under any system would be punished.
Even if courts did not exist, very few business would be that dumb to steal from their customers, because once details of it were known to the public, all rational customers would take their money out of the bank and it would eventually go out of business.
There's lots of ways to steal a little bit from people in ways they don't realize or can't do anything about. Stealing $5 bucks outright is of course the obvious thing; disproportionate overdraft fees or ordering transactions to maximize overdrafts is another; selling something with apparent X% risk and real X+Y% risk is more subtle still.
Information asymmetry isn't a theoretical construct--it's the basis of a lot of different ways to steal from people without their knowing.