“Blackmail” in Commercial Transactions?Draft versionDO NOT CITE WITHOUT THE AUTHORIZATION OF THE AUTHORSergio A. MuroBlackmail has attracted a lot of attention from law professors, judges, legislators, philosophers and the like. Blackmail’s charm appears to arise from the stark contrast most people face between how clear their intuitions are towards blackmail and how difficult it is to support those intuitions with sound arguments within a liberal moral theory. As Smith puts it, in the case of blackmai l “is far more difficult to explain why the act is criminal than to identify what is illegal”.1In itself, the fact that it is far easier to identify something as illegal than to explain why it should be illegal may only hinge on biological reasons: our brains are specialists in recognizing things and not in defining things. For example, it is extremely easy to recognize the color yellow but not quite as easy to define what yellow is.2If blackmail’s attraction sprouted merely out our relative inability to define things, then psychologists would head the blackmail puzzle fan group. But blackmail presents other problems more readily apparent to morally inclined people. It criminalizes a string of behavior where each tranche in itself is legal (not prohibited) and therefore it is usually referred to as a paradoxical crime.3At a general level, blackmail can be defined as the crime consisting in a threat to perform a legally permissible action which can potentially harm the victim unless the victim gives the blackmailer some sort of consideration (which also is a legally permissible action) in1See Henry E. Smith “The Harm in Blackmail”, 92 Nw. U. L. Rev. 861, 862 (1998).2See Daniel Gilbert, Stumbling on Hapiness……P. 34………………………………………………………………………………3 Lindgren cites Murphy an author who recognized before him the paradoxical characteristic of blackmail. See James Lindgren “Unraveling the Paradox of Blackmail” 84 Columbia Law Review 670, 671 (1984), citing “Murphy, Blackmail: A Preliminary Inquiry, 63 Monist 156, 156-7 (1980)”exchange for the blackmailers’s promise to refrain from doing something. 4 Some authors prefer to limit the scope of blackmail to threats related to revealing potentially harmful information, but for reasons that will soon be apparent, in this paper I will stick to the first definition.5Other threats to engage in legally permissible acts do not stir as much controversy up. Legal systems,6 as well as most economics scholars,7 remain mostly silent about threats within the process of exchange (making them permissible), even though this process appears to be filled with threats to do permissible things unless another permissible thing is done. Indeed, as Richard Epstein su ggests “In the ordinary commercial negotiation individuals are allowed, indeed encouraged, to make explicit threats to their trading partners.”8It is believed that in order to achieve better economic outcomes a clearly different treatment must be provided for threats akin to blackmail made within the realm of commercial transactions.9Usually, those commercial threats are believed to merely be instances of “hard bargaining”.10This paper will question this classification and will attempt to show that there is at least one category of commercial threats, particularly those which can arise within a long-term lopsided commercial relationship, i.e. distressed lending, that are in no meaningful way different from the ones that have warranted support for blackmail criminalization. As a result, this paper suggests that analogical solutions should be prescribed in both cases as a way to maintain coherence within the legal system. It should be noted that I’m not stressing a criminalization of commercial practices (i.e. I’m not stressing that the blackmail paradox is a veridical paradox). Rather, I want to express that coherence is a desirable trait of a legal system4For example, Walter Block refers to blackmail as “the request for money or other valuable consideration, coupled with an offer, tipically, to refrain from exposing a secret which is embarrassing to the blackmailee”. See Walter Block “Toward a Libertarian Theory of Blackmail”, 15 Journal of Libertarian Studies 55, 55 (2001).5This expansive definition of blackmail is shared by other authors. See, for example, James Lindgren “Unraveling the Paradox of Blackmail” 84 Columbia Law Review 670, 674 (1984) (“Blackmail more commonly refers to a threat seeking hush money, while extortion usually refers to a threat of physical harm to persons or property or to a threat made by a public official.”); Leo Katz, ILL GOTTEN GAINS. EVASION, BLACKMAIL, FRAUD, AND KINDRED PUZZLES OF THE LAW, The University Of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois (1996), pp. 133-4.6 Meter cita de Luhmann (2004) sobre que es un sistema legal7 See Ronald Cosae “Blackmail”, 74 Virginia Law Review 655, 671 (1988)8 See Richard A. Epstein “Blackmail, Inc.”, 50 U. Chi. L. Rev. 553, 557 (1983) (emphasis added)9See Scott Altman “A Patchwork Theory of Balackmail”, 141 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1639, 1657 (1993).10See Mitchell N. Berman “Blackmail”, working paper available at , pp. 64-5.and it should be sought after whenever possible. Therefore, whatever the appropriate solution for blackmail should be, criminalization or non- criminalization, it should apply in both scenarios. In addition, the analysis presented in this paper shows that if current justifications of blackmail criminalization are correct about leaving all commercial transactions outside the scope of blackmail, then the current justificatory theories are over-inclusive.This paper will proceed as follows. In part I, I will summarily discuss blackmail’s history and its relation to other crimes, as well as the main ideas justif ying blackmail’s criminalization. The section will end with a discussion on the reasons to distinguish blackmail from similar threats which occur in a commercial context. In part II, I will depict the basic ideas behind analogical reasoning and coherence, as well as describe the basics of contemporary distressed lending. In part III, I will demonstrate that the characteristics that are used to distinguish commercial threats from blackmail are not persuasive and indeed wrong and therefore, to preserve coherence, the same solution, i.e. criminalization or legalization, should be applied in those commercial settings where the situations are similar. Finally, I part IV I will succinctly conclude.I.Blackmail and Attempted Solutions to the ParadoxBlackmail’s paradoxical nature in criminal law routinely generates perplexity. Many theoretical explanations have been offered through the years to justify the criminal nature of blackmail within liberal ideals. These explanations contrast libertarian moral accounts, based on the principle of non-aggression against non-aggressors, which consider blackmail a sub case of hard bargaining and that as a result it should not be criminalized.11 In this section, I will start by explaining blackmail’s origins and problematic nature and then I will pan out the different theories which have attempted to resolve the paradox. The last subsection will discuss why the11 See, for example, Eric Mack “In Defense of Blackmail”, 41 Philosophical Studies 273, 283 (1982) (“[cases of blackmail] also are instances of hard economic transactions – as, all along, the Libertarian and the Marxist have maintained. If we combine this conclusion with the premise with the premise shared by the Libertarian and Murphy that hard economic transactions are to be permitted, we arrive to the conclusion that blackmail, at least of the conceptually central sort, is permissible.”). See, also, Walter Block & Gary M. Anderson “Blackmail, Extortion, and Exchange”, 44 N.Y.L.Sch.L.Rev. 541, 561 (2001) (“Blackmail is blamed… [because] there is an insufficient appreciation for the virtue of laissez faire capitalism and individual sovereignty”)authors of those theories believe that commercial transactions should be distinguished from blackmail.I. A. Paradox’s definit ion and blackmail historyThe origins of blackmail in England appeared at the beginning of the seventeenth century when it was made a felony “to pay or to receive "any money, corn, cattle or other consideration, commonly called black-mail, for the protecting or defending" of one's person or property.”12The term blackmail itself seems to have been a construction deriving from the definition of the word mail which at the time was used to refer to a wallet or travelling bag13 and a historical event. According to Guinsburg and Shechtman, the term blackmail arose from the Waltham Black Act of 1722, which describes that"several ill-designing and disorderly persons [had] of late associated themselves under the name of Blacks" to commit various armed offenses, "several of them with their faces blacked."14This 1722 statute went on to punish anyone who "knowingly send a letter, without any name subscribed thereto, or signed with a fictitious name, demanding money, venison, or other valuable thing."15But it was not until mid nineteenth century that blackmail was extended to cover threats to expose evidence of embarrassing but noncriminal behavior and the paradox clearly appeared.16From that moment on, justifying the criminalization of threats to do permissible things has been, to say the least, a problematic endeavor.As it can be seen characterizations of blackmail were since its inception tagged to extortion. The later concept is often linked to or defined by the use of threats to cause physical harm to the victim not in the immediate future (otherwise it would be robbery).17 Naturally, the12 See Douglas H. Guinsburg & Paul Shechtman “Blackmail: An Economic Analysis of the Law”, 141 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1849, 1851 (1993), citing 43 Eliz., ch. 13, ? 2 (1601) (Eng.).13See Russell Hardin “Blackmail for Mutual Good”, U. Pa. L. Rev. 1787, 1787 (1993).14 See Douglas H. Guinsburg & Paul Shechtman “Blackmail: An Economic Analysis of the Law”, 141 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1849, 1851 (1993), citing Geo., ch. 22 (1723) (Eng.).15See Douglas H. Guinsburg & Paul Shechtman “Blackmail: An Economic Analysis of the Law”, 141 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1849, 1851 (1993), citing Geo., ch. 22 (1723) (Eng.)16See James Lindgren “Unraveling the Paradox of Blackmail” 84 Columbia Law Review 670, 675-6 (1984). Lindgren considers that the first such encompassing statute appeared in the US in 1827 and in England in 1843.17See Walter Block & Gary M. Anderson “Blackmail, Extortion, and Exchange”, 44 N. Y. L Sch. L. Rev. 541, 544-5 (2001); See also Steven Shavell “An Economic Analysis of Threats and Their Illegality: Blackmail, Extortion, andexplanation for criminalizing extortion (and robbery) is quite simple as the harm is easily identifiable. As Russell Christopher suggests “The difficulty in justifying blackmail as criminal and the ease of justifying robbery's criminalization is thus a function of the absence and presence, respectively, of a threatened act that is unlawful.”18 Thence, what enables blackmail criminalization remains as an open question.I. B. Theories justifying blackmail criminalizationEven though blackmail “sounds menacing and nefarious”, it involves voluntary acts between consenting adults.19Our intuitions strongly suggest that there’s something wrong with blackmail.20But that something has proven difficult to pin point, leading some authors to believe that there’s nothing criminal in blackmail.21Several theories have been proposed to identify what makes blackmail criminalizable while at the same time keeping criminalization consistent with a liberal political order.22 In what follows, I will attempt to summarily discuss those justifications.23A first group of blackmail criminalization justifications hinges on economic analysis of the law.24 The founding father of this approach to law, Ronald Coase, suggests that if “blackmailRobbery”, 141 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1877, 1877 (1993). Other ways to differentiate blackmail from extortion exist. For example, Gorr uses blackmail only for “conditional threats to disclose information that would be damaging in some way to the victim's reputation”. See Michael Gorr “Liberalism and the Paradox of Blackmail”, 21 Philosophy and Public Affairs 43, 46 (1992).15See Russell L. Christopher “Meta-Blackmail”, 94 Geo. L. J. 739, 745 (2006) (“The difficulty in justifying blackmail as criminal and the ease of justifying robbery's criminalization is thus a function of the absence and presence, respectively, of a threatened act that is unlawful.”).19See Walter Block & Gary M. Anderson “Blackmail, Extortion, and Exchange”, 44 N. Y. L Sch. L. Rev. 541, 541 (2001)20 Perhaps, though, our shared intuitions are merely a product of a historical acculturation process.21See Walter Block “Toward a Libertarian Theory of Blackmail”, 15 Journal of Libertarian Studies 55 (2001); Russell L. Christopher “Meta-Blackmail”, 94 Geo. L. J. 739 (2006).22Feinberg defines liberalism as “the view that the harm and offense principles, duly clarified and qualified, exhaust the class of morally relevant reasons for criminal prohibitions.” See Joel Feinberg, HARMLESS WRONGDOING, Oxford University Press, New York, 1990, p. x, cited by Michael Gorr “Liberalism and the Paradox of Blackmail”, 21 Phil osophy and Public Affairs 43, 44 (1992)23 In this paper I will focus on theories that support blackmail criminalization because I believe that consistent solutions should be applied for cases of blackmail and similar conditional threats within commercial transactions.24 A notable exception to the idea that economic analysis of the law supports a criminal ban on blackmail comes from Joseph Isenbergh“Blackmail from A to C”,141 U. PA. L. REV. 1905 (1993), as Isenbergh believes that a ban on blackmail may increase its incidence as it provides a commitment tool to the blackmailer who, by incurringis made illegal, transactions costs are reduced, factors of production are released for other purposes and the value of production is increased.”25 Coase claims to understand why people tend to think of blackmail as the foulest of crimes as the threatener uses the threatened fear by emphasizing the unpleasant consequences in order to extract as much as possible from the victim.26Then, what’s bad about blackmail is the waste of resources in activities that do not create value.27It comes to no surprise then that Richard Posner believes that blackmail functions in a way equivalent to a tax on the blackmailed and that criminalization has the positive property of eliminating the tax.28Steven Shavell has extended the justification advanced above by looking at the social costs and benefits from blackmail which arises with the preparatory behavior undertaken by both victims and threateners, the anxiety and worry suffered by the victims and the results which accompany the carrying on of threats.29 In addition, Gomez and Ganuza have formally shown that, given certain assumptions, criminalizing blackmail is socially superior, from an efficiency standpoint, to legalizing it.30The main criticism brought against this type of justifications for blackmail criminalization is that even admitting that blackmail was wealth reducing, it doesn’t immediately support criminalization of the conduct.31Closely related to the justification of blackmail criminalization advanced by the Law and Economics field are three other accounts, one advanced by Richard Epstein, another by Henry potential criminal liability, can sell the blackmailee a higher likelihood of silence, and therefore increasing likelihood of acceptance.25 See Ronald Coase “Blackmail”, 74 Virginia Law Review 655, 673 (1988). See, relatedly, Douglas H. Guinsburg & Paul Shechtman “Blackmail: An Economic Analysis of the Law”, 141 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1849, 1860 (1993) (“Without a blackmail law, $200 of real resources would have been invested in order to produce nil output. No rational economic planner would tolerate the existence of an industry dedicated to digging up dirt, at real resource cost, and th en reburying it.”)26 See Ronald Coase “Blackmail”, 74 Virginia Law Review 655, 674-5 (1988)27 A very similar point was raised by Nozick who suggested that blackmail entails an unproductive exchange which is its “distinguishing and damning characteristic.” See Eric Mack “In Defense of Blackmail”, 41 Philosophical Studies 273, 279 (1982), citing Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia, Basic Books, New York, 1974, pp. 84-7.28 See Richard A. Posner, Economic Analysis of the Law, 6th Edition, Aspen Publishers, New York, New York, p. 635 29See Steven Shavell “An Economic Analysis of Threats and Their Illegality: Blackmail, Extortion, and Robbery”, 141 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1877, 1878 (1993).30 See Fernando Gomez & Juan-Jose Ganuza “Civil and Criminal Sanctions against Blackmail: An Economic Analysis”, 21 Int’l Rev. L. & Econ. 475, 487 (2002)31 As Altman puts it “Inefficiency is grounds neither for condemnation nor for punishment.”See Scott Altman “A Patchwork Theory of Blackmail”, 141 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1639, 1639 (1993)Smith and the last one by Benjamin Rosenberg.32 Epstein considers that blackmail might not be bad per se, but that it is clearly wrong when we consider the consequences that permitting blackmail would bring about. According to Epstein, Blackmail Inc., an example of a firm whose only purpose would be to blackmail individuals, would generate greater incidences of theft and fraud (as victims desperately try to obtain funds to fend off the blackmailers) and would unnecessarily keep information away from the third party interested in it.33Epstein’s justification assumes and therefore fails to explain why an increase in corruption will result were blackmail to be made legal. Even if corruption would be increased by the legalization, Epstein’s justification does not account for the many practices which increase corruption but are not themselves criminalized (i.e. government purchase contracts).Smith’s justification of blackmail criminalization sha res the consequentialist overtone of the previous ones, but focuses on a different problem: society’s fear of the blackmail victim’s reaction.34Smith believes that the blackmail victim’s temptation towards incurring in self help behavior, triggered by his extremely high valuation of secrecy, is the harm that criminalization attempts to prevent.35Indeed, Smith believes that it is wrong to understand the victim as helpless and that her true range of options is usually overlooked.36 Smith’s proposal shares with Epstein’s Blackmail, Inc. the same type of criticism, i.e. why should victim’s self-help justify criminalizing blackmail.The last variation of the non Law and Economics consequentialist analysis is provided by Rosenberg and his behavior assessment theory of blackmail.37Rosenberg believes that blackmail imposes a hidden reason for the victim’s actions. As the evaluation of those actions is critically important to any society, blackmail criminalization provides a benefit by limiting the32See Richard A. Epstein “Blackmail, Inc.”, 50 U. Chi. L. Rev. 553 (1983); Henry E. Smith “The Harm in Blackmail”, 92 Nw. U. L. Rev. 861(1998); Benjamin E, Rosenberg “Debate: Another Reason for Criminalizing Blackmail”, 16 The Journal of Political Philosophy 356 (2008).33See Richard A. Epstein “Blackmail, Inc.”, 50 U. Chi. L. Rev. 553, 564-6 (1983)34See Henry E. Smith “The Harm in Blackmail”, 92 Nw. U. L. Rev. 861, 862 (1998)35See Henry E. Smith “The Harm in Blackmail”, 92 Nw. U. L. Rev. 861, 866 (1998).36See Henry E. Smith “The Harm in Blackmail”, 92 Nw. U. L. Rev. 861, 867-8 (1998).37See Benjamin E, Rosenberg “Debate: Another Reason for Criminalizing Blackmail”, 16 The Journal of Political Philosophy 356, 358 (2008)instances of erroneous assessments of victims’ actions.38This theory is said to supplement others by identifying another cost to reduce: that of credibility assessment. One problem with this account is that it doesn’t explain why reducing that cost is sufficient to criminali ze otherwise legal behavior.A different class of justifications focuses on reasons closely related to coercion and, to a lesser extent, exploitation.39Within this group, Fletcher considers that blackmail attacks the personal autonomy and equality of the blackmailed relative to the blackmailer, therefore placing the former in a position of subordination.40 This relationship of dominance, highlighted by the repetitive nature of the blackmail criminalization threat, is what Fletcher believes to be the wrong prevented by blackmail’s criminalization. The main problem with this justification of blackmail criminalization is that it does not appear sufficient as many other relationships have a dominance structure but are not criminal (i.e. father and son).41In a similar vein to Fletcher’s account, Altman presents what he calls a patchwork theory of blackmail. Altman believes that not a single explanation exists for every case of blackmail but a hoist of reasons best justify blackmail’s criminalization.42 Two things strike Altman as wrong with blackmail: that many blackmailers would not have revealed the information if not for the monetary incentive, and that blackmailers profit from blackmailees’vulnerability.43Altman’s intuition is based on the idea that blackmailers wrong the blackmailed by using threats to38See Benjamin E, Rosenberg “Debate: Another Reason for Criminalizing Blackmail”, 16 The Journal of Political Philosophy 356, 359 (2008) (“The prohibition of blackmail improves the accuracy of society’s assessment of every person’s behavior by removing one reason that blackmail victims might have to be insincere and by limiting hidden incentives that such victims may have for taking actions”) (italics in original)39 See Geo rge P. Fletcher “Blackmail: The Paradigmatic Crime”, 141 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1617, 1637 (1993) (“Blackmail represents coerc ion of the victim, exploitation of the victim‘s weakness, and trading unfairly in assets or chips that belong to others. It represents an undesirable and abusive form of private law enforcement. It leads to the waste of resources so far as blackmailers are induced to collect information that they are willing to suppress for a fee.”) 40See George P. Fletcher “Blackmail: The Paradigmatic Crime”, 141 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1617, 1626-9 (1993) (“This is the essence of the blackmail-not the transaction itself, but the relationship of dominance implicit in taking the first step of inducing the victim to pay money for her own protection”).41See Mitchell N. Berman “Blackmail”, working paper available at/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1394472, pp. 33-4.42See Scott Altman “A Patchwork Theory of Blackmail”, 141 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1639, 1640 (1993).43See Scott Altman “A Patchwork Theory of Blackmail”, 141 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1639, 1640-1 (1993).coerce44and exploit45him by removing an important option otherwise available.46Non-coercive blackmail is still criminalized based on both their rare occurrence and the practical difficulties involved in identifying those instances.47Altman’s theory doesn’t explain why it is considered that non-coercive blackmail is rare and therefore lumped together with the coercive type.Yet another justification of blackmail criminalization using coercion comes from Mitchell Berman, who has advanced the evidentiary theory of blackmail to support its criminalization.48 Berman believes that not only objective accounts of an act or its consequences can determine its moral value, but that a person’s beliefs and motives may also do the trick. Additionally, he believes that the threat incurred by a blackmailer can “have significant evidential bearing on the threatener’s motives or beliefs”.49 As a result, Berman’s evidentiary theory deems morally wrongful a conditional threat when this threat allows the inference that the threatener (or offeror) has the wrong sort of beliefs or motives.50One problem with this solution to the paradox is that we cannot know whether there’s anything wrong without inferring what the44See Scott Altman “A Patchwork Theory of Blackmail”, 141 U. Pa. L. Re v. 1639, 1641-2 (1993). Altman believes that coercive threats deprive the recipient of an important option otherwise available. The prima facie moral wrong of coercion answers to the following question “If the proposer could not have imposed the condition, would the proposer have given the benefit or withheld the harm anyway? If the answer is yes, and if the option was important to the recipient, then the proposer removes otherwise av ailable important options.”45See Scott Altman “A Patchwork Theory of Blackmail”, 141 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1639, 1643 (1993) (“I define exploitation narrowly as "benefitting at another person's expense from her difficulties." By "benefitting at another person's expense," I mean obtaining a better deal in negotiation than one would have obtained for the same good or service had that person lacked the difficulty. By "difficulty" I mean more than just strong desire for some service or product. I mean something close r to loss of, or choice between, primary goods.”)46The idea of the blackmailer wronging his victim can also be found in Katz’s explanation, as Katz believes that what is wrong with blackmail is that the “wrongdoer puts his victim to the choice between two wrongs” (those wrongs being a taking and some other minor wrong). See Leo Katz, ILL GOTTEN GAINS. EVASION, BLACKMAIL, FRAUD, AND KINDRED PUZZLES OF THE LAW, The University Of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois (1996), p. 16247See Scott Altman “A Patchwork Theory of Blackmail”, 141 U. Pa. L. Re v. 1639, 1646-7 (1993)48See Mitchell N. Berman “Blackmail”, working paper available at/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=139447249See Mitchell N. Berman “Blackmail”, working paper available at/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1394472, pp. 54. Note that, to the extent that Altman’s patchwork theory also requires to inquire into what would the victim have done if conditioning his offer was not feasible, it resembles a lot Berman’s belief theory.50See Mitchell N. Berman “Blackmail”, working paper available at/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1394472, pp. 54threatener actually intended to accomplish. Thence, in general, we cannot answer “how it can be morally wrongful to threaten what it would not be morally wrongful to do.”51Another type of solution has been provided by James Lindgren.52 Lindgren believes that the distinguishing feature of blackmail types of threats is the usage of leverage belonging to someone else.53The use of someone else’s leverage makes the threatener’s conduct parasitic in nature.54 Therefore, as it was the case with Berman’s account, the same threat to refr ain from doing the same act by different persons may be permissible in one case and wrong in the other. Under Lindgren’s theory, the problem is not with the threat but with the threatener.55As a result, Lindgren believes that blackmail is then “the misuse of informal (or formal) power of agency or representation.”56The main criticism of Lindgren’s justification to blackmail criminalization is that his theory doesn’t provide any guidance into why using someone else’s leverage for individual gain should be criminal.57Finally, the last type of justification for blackmail criminalization comes from Gorr.58 Gorr follows Feinberg in considering that the justification for criminalizing blackmail is problematic only in so far as the information was obtained in a legal manner, that whatever is demanded by the threat is legal and that there’s no obligation to act in a certain way.59 Within those cases, the only relevant ones are those where the victim’s action, in spite of being legally51See Mitchell N. Berman “Blackmail”, working paper available at/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1394472, pp. 5952See James Lindgren, "Unraveling the Paradox of Blackmail”, 84 Colum, L. Rev. 670 (1984).53See James Lindgren, "Unraveling the Paradox of Blackmail”, 84 Colum, L. Rev. 670, 702 (1984) (“The blackmailer obtains what he wants by using extra leverage. But that leverage belongs more to a third person than to the blackmailer. The black-mail victim pays the blackmailer to avoid involving third parties; he pays to avoid being harmed by persons other than the blackmailer”).54 See James Lindgren, "Unraveling the Paradox of Blackm ail”, 84 Colum, L. Rev. 670, 673 (1984)55See James Lindgren, "Unraveling the Paradox of Blackmail”, 84 Colum, L. Rev. 670, 717 (1984).56 See James Lindgren, "Unraveling the Paradox of Blackmail”, 84 Colum, L. Rev. 670, 703 (1984). Lindgren believes that the same principle is at work in the case of bribery, as “An official accepting a bribe is using public leverage… to make deals for his personal benefit. See James Lindgren “The Theo ry, History, and Practice of the Bribery-Extortion Distinction”, 141 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1695, 1705 (1993).57See Mitchell N. Berman “Blackmail”, working paper available at/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1394472, pp. 33. Even Lindgren recognizes this problem. See James Lindgren “The Theory, History, and Practice of the Bribery-Extortion Distinction”, 141 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1695, 1707 (1993)58See Michael Gorr “Liberalism and the Paradox of Blackmail”, 21 Phil osophy and Public Affairs 43 (1992)5959See Michael Gorr “Liberalism and the Paradox of Blackmail”, 21 Phil osophy and Public Affairs 43, 47 (1992)。
