Forbes reports that “an underworld of sex workers, drug dealers and gamblers use Venmo to run their operations, most of which fly under the radar of law enforcement among millions of Venmo users. It is extremely difficult to estimate how much of Venmo’s total transactions are generated from vices, but Forbes estimates the underground economy on Venmo to be between $1 billion and $2 billion annually.”

So what?

There should be nothing illegal about sex work, drug dealing, or gambling. Lysander Spooner had it right many years ago:

Vices are those acts by which a man harms himself or his property. Crimes are those acts by which one man harms the person or property of another. Vices are simply the errors which a man makes in his search after his own happiness. Unlike crimes, they imply no malice toward others, and no interference with their persons or property.

Unless this clear distinction between vices and crimes be made and recognized by the laws, there can be on earth no such thing as individual right, liberty, or property — no such things as the right of one man to the control of his own person and property, and the corresponding and coequal rights of another man to the control of his own person and property.

The Best of Laurence M. Vance