The ethics of countering the private counterfeiter: rejoinder to block

Counterfeiting is, and should be, a crime. It involves theft by deception, and the stealing of goods or other valuables using false claims to money. But what about counterfeiting money that is already counterfeit? In Block's interpretation, such an action amounts to seizing stolen goods from a thief. Counterfeiting simply relieves the original counterfeiter of his ill gotten gains and is therefore not theft itself. The present article offers a critique of this thesis of Block's on the basis that counterfeiting money involves the theft of property from innocent people.