BLACKMAIL FROM A TO C person is revealed by the rarity of exchanges in which someone consents to being killed for a payment from another who would enjoy doing it. That people value their bodies more than batterers can similarly be inferred from the infrequency of their consenting to being beaten for a fee. If homicide and accidental killing were legal, people would have to take far greater pains to protect their lives through individual force, bargaining, and other transactions aimed at regaining control over survival. Relations between people in such a world would have the character of blackmail. People would abstain from killing each other in consideration of some advantage implicitly or explicitly bargained for. At issue in blackmail is the right to control the disclosure of information. The starting point of any blackmail is B's possession of information, usually about A, that A does not want communicat- ed to C. Specifically, A will suffer a cost from the disclosure of this private information to C. Almost always, C will gain something from learning the information. One way for B to derive a benefit from the information, absent the prohibition of blackmail, is to offer not to disclose the information to C in exchange for payment from A. The most B can get from A with the threat of disclosure is what disclosure would cost A. This cost may involve money (an income tax deficiency and fraud penalties, for example), jail time, embarrassment, loss of a marriage, loss of ajob or a coveted elective position such as the Presidency, and much more. I call the full cost to A of disclosure the "value" of the information to A. B will bargain for something like the monetary equivalent of this value, but in practice, given the uncertainties of measurement and A's likely limited means, B is bound to settle for less.15 The value of the information to C is what C stands to gain from learning the information. Depending on who C is, this value may be the collection of a tax deficiency and penalties, a larger divorce settlement, a tort recovery, the satisfaction of intellectual curiosity, the titillation of prurient curiosity, the vindication of an ideological concern, or simply the requital of animosity against A. The value of the information to C may even be negative. That is, it may concern something that would compel some sort of change in C's actions or attitude toward A and that C would accordingly rather not know. 15 This lesser value can be measured in money, utility, or some com Beloud