JANUARY 11, 2008 --

There was a time when the law frowned on "unjust enrichment."  Thinking about that term, recently, and its apparent loss of vigor  in the context of oppressive credit card interest rates, another term came to mind: "unjust impoverishment.".

Prudence, however, cautioned LPR to google "unjust impoverishment" before claiming paternity over the term.  And so, LPR learned, however independently that "unjust impoverishment" came  to mind, LPR did not invent the term: it was used in a 2004  North Dakota case to support a claim for attorney's fees  (that was rejected),  and in the argument for reparations to African-Americans for slavery.

It seems to LPR that "unjust impoverishment" is what happens, with variation on Jeremy Bentham, when the smallest number seek financial happiness causing to others the greatest amount of misery.  

LPR would note that before Jeremy Bentham talked up the greatest happiness,, John Adams, responding to Thomas Paine's "Common Sense," wrote, "the form of government which communicates ease, comfort, security, or, in one word, happiness, to the greatest number of persons, and in the greatest degree, is the best." ("The Portable John Adams," John Patrick Diggins, ed., Penquin Classics, p. 234.)

It might be argued that "unjust impoverishment" represents the "trickle up" theory of economics, with wealth trickling up to the aggrandizing few.  This could result in de facto economic boycotts: retail establishments passed by due to lack of purchasing power among the many caused by the aggrandizing few.

There is, LPR believes, a word describing a number of de facto economic boycotts due to lack of purchasing power: Recession.