• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 712 0

harm, and found that only harms are eligible for criminalization under a governmental scheme that protects natural rights. However, there is an additional requirement which must be satisfied before harm can be criminalized: It must be a harm against the general public, and not just a private individual. Thus, although it should be a crime to steal a car, it is not a crime if your dog urinates on a neighbor’s bush, thus killing it. We can therefore say that being a harm is a necessary prerequisite for criminalization, but it is not sufficient. But how can we distinguish between these public and private harms?

Before delving into what constitutes harm against the public, it is helpful to review briefly the difference between crimes and torts. Our legal system can be divided into two principal parts: The civil law and the criminal law. The civil law addresses torts and contractual relations: Breaches of a duty owed by one individual to another individual. By duty owed to an individual, it is meant that someone is obligated not to act in a certain way as to a particular person or entity, such as a business. Thus, I owe a duty to you not to ruin your bush by letting my dog urinate on it. When that duty is breached, the harmed individual has what is called a cause of action, or the ability to pursue a remedy for that wrong in a court of law. In the particular case of the dog and the bush, the remedy would be monetary compensation equal to the value of the bush that was destroyed, no more and no less.

By contrast, the criminal law involves breaches of duties owed not just to an individual, but to all individuals; we all owe a duty to society not to attack innocent civilians wantonly, for example. When this duty to the general public has been breached, then the general public, in the form of the government, can bring those alleged to have perpetrated the breach to court and pursue not compensation, but actual punishment. This is, if you have ever wondered, why criminal cases have names such as State v. Rockwell or United States v. Rothbard. By contrast, civil cases have names such as Chodorov v. Von Mises or Napolitano v. Beck.

In order to understand this difference better, think of a child who recklessly throws a baseball into a neighbor’s window, thus causing $200 worth of damage. The neighbor should, of course, be able to recover the $200 to replace the window, and thus be “made whole.” The neighbor has an interest in recovering $200 to undo the harm that has been committed against him, no more and no less. This can be considered the civil component of the child’s harm. However, because the action was so reckless, the “authority figures” in the child’s life (i.e., his parents) may be justified in punishing the child by requiring him to mow the lawn every Saturday for the next four months. Why? Because the entire neighborhood benefits from, and has a legitimate interest in, having the child taught a lesson about responsibility and respect for others’ property. This represents the criminal component of the child’s harm.

Note in particular that this punishment, although arising from the same action of breaking a window, can be considered entirely different from the $200 compensation to the neighbor, as can the reasons for imposing those separate remedial measures upon the child. It would make no sense to require the child, in addition to paying the neighbor $200, also to mow the neighbor’s lawn; mowing the lawn is intended to teach the child a lesson, rather than compensate the neighbor for his wrong. If the neighbor could have his lawn mowed in addition to receiving $200, then in effect, he is receiving something he is not entitled to, and would actually become enriched by the whole ordeal. Moreover, it would be equally nonsensical to give the $200 to the child’s parents, but not the neighbor; then the parents (i.e., the government) are receiving something they are not entitled to—the value of the window—and the neighbor is left $200 in the hole. Thus, there is a compelling reason to have two separate systems, a civil and a