> In other words, legal blackmail means it's fully legal to "cut in" someone who discovers a shady practice on part of the proceeds.
This isn't true. Cutting someone in is something that the hypothetical corrupt politician does. Blackmail is something the hypothetical journalist does. Either can be criminalized without regard to the legal treatment of the other.
And in fact, blackmail is a crime right now, and paying blackmail isn't a crime right now. There's no reason you couldn't reverse those two statuses.
> I don't see any way in which legal blackmail doesn't keep the public less informed and more in the dark.
Scott Sumner has been writing recently about how the criminalization of blackmail is good because, if blackmail were legal, the public would be kept more informed and less in the dark. (And blackmail usually involves things like homosexual or adulterous behavior that he feels the public shouldn't know about.) I tend to agree with you on this point; blackmail is an act of concealment and legalizing it should produce more, not less, concealment.
What do you mean "instead"? More concealment (via blackmail) obviously means more coercion (in the sense relevant to blackmail), because the concealment only occurs if the coercion is acceded to. They can only go up or down together. But I was commenting on an implicit debate between someone who believes that legal blackmail will lead to more concealment, and someone else who believes blackmail will lead to less concealment.
This isn't true. Cutting someone in is something that the hypothetical corrupt politician does. Blackmail is something the hypothetical journalist does. Either can be criminalized without regard to the legal treatment of the other.
And in fact, blackmail is a crime right now, and paying blackmail isn't a crime right now. There's no reason you couldn't reverse those two statuses.
> I don't see any way in which legal blackmail doesn't keep the public less informed and more in the dark.
Scott Sumner has been writing recently about how the criminalization of blackmail is good because, if blackmail were legal, the public would be kept more informed and less in the dark. (And blackmail usually involves things like homosexual or adulterous behavior that he feels the public shouldn't know about.) I tend to agree with you on this point; blackmail is an act of concealment and legalizing it should produce more, not less, concealment.