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Walter Block to go after the Left



Walter Block is one of my favorite free-market oriented scholars.

He is the author, most notably, of a sparklingly iconoclastic book called Defending the Undefendable, the various  chapters of which say positive things about: pimps, drug pushers, drug addicts, blackmailers, ticket scalpers, and dishonest cops!

The argument in favor of legalizing blackmail has been especially influential: not because there has been any groundswell of support for such a policy change but because the academic reception of that chapter has shown that Block hit a nerve, among free market advocates.

Block's case for legalizing blackmail drew responses in particular from Robert Nozick, Richard Posner, Richard Epstein,  and James Lindgren, an honor role of libertarian theorists. Each gave his reasons why he was unpersuaded. Block has responded.

Note that blackmail (for purposes of this debate) is different from extortion. Blackmail is the threat to do something you would otherwise have a right to do, generally to tell the truth about somebody's dirty secret. It becomes blackmail when you demand money to refrain from doing it. Extortion is the threat to do something you have no right to do, for example to punch someone in the mouth,  unless you are paid.

Suppose John knows that George has been cheating on his wife. It isn't criminal on anyone's view for John simply to tattle on George to Jane. Nor is it criminal for John to keep this knowledge to himself. Why should it be criminal for John to make the choice between those two courses of action depend on whether George gives him money?

That is the question, and Block's willingness to play provocateur set off a healthy debate.

But it also revealed something about Block. He has always been more comfortable arguing in-house. He hasn't been noted for arguing against the critics of free markets. Rather, he typically takes the view that its friends (like Nozick, Posner, etc.) are false friends, or at best are inadequately consistent friends.

And that is what he now proposes to change.

The results might be fun.

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