[MattyRad]

>Extra-legal violence is often a part of black markets.

Curious turn of phrase. Extra-legal violence meaning "violence outside of the government," which implies that there is intra-legal violence, "violence within the government," which may be referring to how the government coerces its citizens to not transact drugs, by means of violence (that is, the government will arrest/hurt you if you do not comply), and that somehow that is more appropriate or noble.

Also it may be somewhat jokingly implying that the government's violence is "extra legal," meaning "more appropriate with respect to law." I wonder if the author had this is mind when they wrote the article. I don't mean to start a huge libertarian rant about government violence/coercion, only to point out that the sentence could have a clever hidden meaning.

[hvs]

While I'm a libertarian, it doesn't require a big political discussion to debate whether the government generally has a monopoly on the legal use of violence. That also doesn't require that "legal" somehow implies "noble" or "appropriate". I guess my point is that the author almost certainly has a libertarian leaning, so I'm not sure that the phrase's meaning was all that hidden.

[lisper]

> somehow that is more appropriate or noble

Not "somehow". There's actually a theory behind it: when the government does it, it is (nominally) done according to the rule of law. In a democracy, that means that the people have condoned it, at least indirectly, and so it is less subject to the whims of a single individual.

You may not agree with this theory, and the theory may not actually apply in practice. But the distinction between individual violence and government violence is not completely arbitrary.

[diminoten]

Intra-legal violence is violence otherwise captured by the legal system. Your domestic abuse, your bar fights, most muggings - your clear-cut and attributable crimes that happen within the legal framework of society. The "workflow" here is: commit a crime -> crime is reported or discovered -> perp is charged -> due process -> conviction/acquittal.

Extra-legal violence is violence that exists outside of the law's traditional reach. Your mob hits on other mobsters, your drug dealer getting robbed, gang warfare, etc. This stuff almost never goes through the legal system; how would a drug dealer report what was stolen? This workflow is more like: commit a crime -> get away with crime. Or, commit a crime -> beget more crime as retaliation of previous crime, repeat ad nauseam.

So what the writer is saying is that with black markets come a lot of violence that takes place in that second category listed above, mostly because reporting the violence incriminates the victim.

[peterjancelis]

It means that for black markets transactions, which are made illegal by the state and thus impossible to discuss in the open, more peaceful ways of settlement (e.g. arbitration) are not available.

This implies that instead of a doctrine of proportionate response, you end up with a binary system where you either get away with petty theft until you don't, because the guy you steal from has had enough and wants to end you.

In concretu: If Silk Road was legal, the owner would have reacted with a lawsuit in the court system. It's not, so he had to resort to violence.

[harshreality]

The quote meant violence tied to the dealings of groups operating in extra-legal markets.