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Blackmail as a Victimless Crime: Reply to Altman (1998)

papers.ssrn.com

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Re: Blackmail as a Victimless Crime: Reply to Altman (1998)

#41

Post by mannykannot »

OscarCunningham wrote: post #14
camel-cdr wrote: post #6

Doesn't the same thing apply to bribery? I can gift you something, and I can ask you to do something. But if I do the first conditioned on the second it's bribery.

The illegal thing about bribery is that you give money to an individual for them to do something on behalf of an organisation. Paying someone to do something isn't illegal, but you're harming the organisation by encouraging the individual to act differently than in the best interests of the organisation.

In this analogy, it is the official demanding the bribe who corresponds to a blackmailer, and that is generally a crime. In many cases, a bribe is demanded in order to have done what should be done anyway.

More generally, one cannot, in practice, blackmail someone over a harmless fact. This is so even if no one but the victim regards the fact as having any importance.

Re: Blackmail as a Victimless Crime: Reply to Altman (1998)

#42

Post by OscarCunningham »

trabant00 wrote: post #28
OscarCunningham wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is that in other cases you are allowed to threaten with legal actions. For example if I have permission to build on some land that would block your view, then I can ask you to pay to prevent me from doing this.

You missed the entire part about context. Threatening with legal action does not make a victim, while threatening with something illegal like blackmail does. In your example you aren't asking for money not to hurt them, like with blackmail. You are asking for money to give up your legal right to do something. Intent also counts in law.

Blackmail isn't threatening with something illegal. You have a legal right to reveal embarrassing information about someone.

Re: Blackmail as a Victimless Crime: Reply to Altman (1998)

#43

Post by OscarCunningham »

hsbauauvhabzb wrote: post #32
OscarCunningham wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The illegal thing about bribery is that you give money to an individual for them to do something on behalf of an organisation. Paying someone to do something isn't illegal, but you're harming the organisation by encouraging the individual to act differently than in the best interests of the organisation.

Is bribery legal when the two parties are entirely private entities (not law enforcement, not publicly listed, etc)? Is it still illegal if you own the entity? Presumably it would often be tax fraud, but an intangible assets maybe not so much? Aren’t intangible assets and ‘horse trading’ the fundamental underpinnings of politics?

As far as I know, the word 'bribery' is defined by the fact that the person you're paying has some duty to someone else. Otherwise it's just normal paying someone for something.

Re: Blackmail as a Victimless Crime: Reply to Altman (1998)

#45

Post by amadeuspagel »

clnq wrote: post #39
seanhunter wrote: post #9

What a pathetic straw man of a paper. It’s transparently obvious that blackmail is not a victimless crime given it’s not hard to identify who the victim is in a case of blackmail. Secondly their argument (blackmail comprises two parts each of which is legal on its own and therefore should be legal when done together) is both untrue on its face and fails given there are lots of things which are legal in isolation that…

Blackmail is one of the classic examples used to illustrate the composition fallacy. Bribery, insider trading, cartel price fixing, and many other fraud schemes are others.

The analogy between blackmail and many other things including insider trading is noted in the paper.

Re: Blackmail as a Victimless Crime: Reply to Altman (1998)

#46

Post by porsager »

seanhunter wrote: post #9

What a pathetic straw man of a paper. It’s transparently obvious that blackmail is not a victimless crime given it’s not hard to identify who the victim is in a case of blackmail. Secondly their argument (blackmail comprises two parts each of which is legal on its own and therefore should be legal when done together) is both untrue on its face and fails given there are lots of things which are legal in isolation that…

If it's not that hard, would you then mind setting up a case where you show who the victim is and why?

Re: Blackmail as a Victimless Crime: Reply to Altman (1998)

#47

Post by lolc »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #7

Blackmail is a stupid crime, because you could basically always do it in a way that doesn’t fit the definition of the crime. The threat never has to be directly made, and the offer never has to be directly associated with it. Only the clumsiest blackmail practitioner would ever find themselves creating evidence of a blackmail crime.

Basic evidence is that the victim makes a connection between the threat and the offer. It is illegal to cause this connection. One can try plausible deniability but it's a gamble. Very smart people get convicted on circumstational evidence.

Re: Blackmail as a Victimless Crime: Reply to Altman (1998)

#48

Post by phkahler »

Closi wrote: post #25

This paper seems to have too much 'whataboutism'. Sam says that we shouldn't exploit poisoned people by charging lots of money for an antitode, and the paper literally responds by calling him in favour of a 'fascist model' of society rather than being for free-enterprise. Talk about being a straw man!

>> calling him in favour of a 'fascist model' of society rather than being for free-enterprise.

So they think free enterprise includes unchecked exploitation of vulnerable people. That sounds like a lot of tech companies, from raising drug prices 20x, to Uber and DoorDash, data collection, right to repair issues, most SaaS, centralized "pricing software", DRM, heated seats as a service, etc...

They should keep writing this stuff and get the message out to the public. People will start voting in favor of "free enterprise" for sure.

Freedom to exploit others is a perversion of the word freedom.

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