Allows people with two kidneys and little money to convert that to one kidney and lots of money
Creates a market for kidneys, thus making the monetary value of having two kidneys legible
That means that, in the case of blackmail / threats / extortion / addiction / anything else that systematically acts as a resource sink that swallows resources until the victim has nothing left, the victim’s kidneys are now part of “everything they have”.
It might still be worthwhile to have a market for kidneys, even taking that into account. But it’s not a one-sided tradeoff.
Indeed, in India especially it’s not uncommon for people to be dragged off the streets and have their organs removed and sold by human traffickers, and killed after that. Making selling kidneys illegal at least ensures that this isn’t an easy and straightforward thing to do. In Pakistan for example, an estimated 2500 kidneys were sourced in 2007.
That’s not necessarily bad in the case of blackmail, since the reason blackmail works is because the person getting blackmailed has violated a norm. By making blackmail more profitable, that increases the chance of uncovering norm-violations, and by making getting blackmailed more devastating, that increases the disincentives against norm-violations.
It’s possible to blackmail people with a lot of things besides revealing information about them violating norms.
It also feels really strange that you think blackmailing landlords who have sex with their tenants would be fine while forbidding that norm violation by law wouldn’t.
Blackmail was intended to be a member of the “things where the demands scale with the value of the victim’s legible resources” category.
For a different example, let’s take “kidnapping the victim’s kid for ransom”. In the absence of a market for kidneys, the kidnapper will demand “approximately all of your money”, and will not bother with kidnapping the children of people who have no money.
In the presence of a market for kidneys, the kidnapper can now demand “approximately all of your money, plus the fire-sale price on a kidney”. People with no assets besides their kidneys are now viable targets.
I am aware that the “ideal” solution from a decision theory point of view is for everyone to adopt the policy of “never give in to threats”. However, as long as there exist people who do give in to threats, threatening those people is incentivized and creating a market for body parts increases that incentive.
Allowing people to sell their kidneys
Allows people with two kidneys and little money to convert that to one kidney and lots of money
Creates a market for kidneys, thus making the monetary value of having two kidneys legible
That means that, in the case of blackmail / threats / extortion / addiction / anything else that systematically acts as a resource sink that swallows resources until the victim has nothing left, the victim’s kidneys are now part of “everything they have”.
It might still be worthwhile to have a market for kidneys, even taking that into account. But it’s not a one-sided tradeoff.
Indeed, in India especially it’s not uncommon for people to be dragged off the streets and have their organs removed and sold by human traffickers, and killed after that. Making selling kidneys illegal at least ensures that this isn’t an easy and straightforward thing to do. In Pakistan for example, an estimated 2500 kidneys were sourced in 2007.
That’s not necessarily bad in the case of blackmail, since the reason blackmail works is because the person getting blackmailed has violated a norm. By making blackmail more profitable, that increases the chance of uncovering norm-violations, and by making getting blackmailed more devastating, that increases the disincentives against norm-violations.
It’s possible to blackmail people with a lot of things besides revealing information about them violating norms.
It also feels really strange that you think blackmailing landlords who have sex with their tenants would be fine while forbidding that norm violation by law wouldn’t.
Blackmail was intended to be a member of the “things where the demands scale with the value of the victim’s legible resources” category.
For a different example, let’s take “kidnapping the victim’s kid for ransom”. In the absence of a market for kidneys, the kidnapper will demand “approximately all of your money”, and will not bother with kidnapping the children of people who have no money.
In the presence of a market for kidneys, the kidnapper can now demand “approximately all of your money, plus the fire-sale price on a kidney”. People with no assets besides their kidneys are now viable targets.
I am aware that the “ideal” solution from a decision theory point of view is for everyone to adopt the policy of “never give in to threats”. However, as long as there exist people who do give in to threats, threatening those people is incentivized and creating a market for body parts increases that incentive.