Why Blackmail Is Still Illegal

2009.12.20   prev     next

Many activities that were once illegal (extramarital sex, gay sex, charging interest on loans) are now perfectly legal. But blackmail, which is essentially a voluntary transaction (renting silence, basically) is still illegal. And it doesn’t matter whether the thing the blackmailer is offering to be silent about is perfectly legal, nor does it matter whether the blackmailer’s silence is perfectly legal. Offering to rent your silence about anything is illegal. Why, in this modern era of letting people engage in whatever private interactions they both find beneficial, would “blackmail” still be a crime?

The simple answer is that the great majority of eligible voters would rather live in a society where you can’t be blackmailed than in a society where you can legally attempt to blackmail others. Whatever the majority of voters wants is, sooner or later, the law.

The majority of voters would rather be able to get a loan (albeit with interest) than have the satisfaction of knowing that no one is making money by lending that way. And though they rarely admit it openly, the majority of voters would rather be able to have a fling with someone to whom they have no intention of ever being married, than to live in a society in which they can have the satisfaction of knowing that no one else is getting to have flings (or if they are, they’re going to jail for it).

But the great majority of voters do want blackmailers to go to jail. The typical voter does not think of the opportunity to blackmail someone else as a positive thing that they might actually do some day.

And that’s all there is to it. The voters weigh the opportunity to do this, or live in a world without that — and laws born.