Chapter ǴǷ: Mises and His Critics on Ethics, Rights, and Law ȃȂȂmade of my body and also, if I so choose, of the property he has taken.
Because these were mine to give away, the situation becomes the same as
if no crime had occurred. No authority has any right to prosecute him,
on Rothbard’s view—not if I object (and if the mugger happened to kill
me, it is my heirs who have the option of forgiving him, subject to any
applicable provisions of my will).
But let’s face reality. In all probability the mugger did not intend to
make his “transaction” with me in particular. It just happened to be I who
was in the wrong place at the wrong time. By his actions and attitudes, the
mugger is a threat to society, to people in general; he contributes to under-
mining the peace and security and social cooperation on which practically
everyone’s well-being depends. Because of the menace he constitutes, and
for other reasons, he deserves to be restrained and punished. Ļe accident
that I rather than someone else was his victim does not entitle me to for-
give him and thereby contribute to perpetuating the general menace that
he and people like him pose. In fact—though this is not the main point—I
probably do not want the option of forgiving him. Particularly in cases
involving criminal organizations, the option to forgive would expose the
victim to unwanted pressure. (It is not always true that a wider range of
options is preferable to a narrow one. When I was teaching at the Univer-
sity of Virginia, I welcomed the rule that forbade me to change a grade,
once reported, except to correct an actual error. Ļat rule sheltered me
from appeals to my compassion by students “needing” a higher grade.)
Now for extortion.ȆSuppose a scoundrel pressures me to pay him
ȉȀǿǿ,ǿǿǿor to sell him my business firm for a token price; otherwise he
will beat me up—or perhaps he just threatens to kick me in the shins or
trample my tomato plants. In any case, he is violating my rights in my
person or property (for the threat, like the threatened act, is itself a vio-
lation). He is properly subject to restraint or punishment. But suppose
he makes a different threat, which I find more ominous: he will spread
vicious lies to ruin my business and my personal life. He may add, rightly
or wrongly, that his credibility with a wide circle of influential contacts
will make his lies especially effective. Yet in this case he is not properly
subject to legal restraint, for he is violating no property right of mine. I
have no right to an unsullied reputation, no matter how much I may have
in some sense earned it; for it is other people, not I, who have property
ȆOn this and the closely related topic of blackmail, see RothbardȀȈȇȁ, chap.Ȁȅ; here
too I draw on personal correspondence.