Some students and I, in a special readings class, were working our way through some chapters of David Friedman’s law and economics book, Law’s Order.
In an interesting section where he makes a persuasive case for allowing a market in babies, he digresses to talk about cats. Here’s the sentence:
Rationing goods in excess supply is not usually a problem.
He goes on to point out that that’s what the humane society does, even though the alternative to finding so-so homes for cats is killing them. The section can be found on p. 185.
Here’s a bonus: another good passage (from page 8):
You live in a state where the most severe criminal punishment is life imprisonment. Someone proposes that since armed robbery is a very serious crime, armed robbers should get a life sentence. A constitutional lawyer asks whether that is consistent with the prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. A legal philosopher asks whether it is just.
An economist points out that if the punishments for armed robbery and for armed robbery plus murder are the same, the additional punishment for the murder is zero–and asks whether you really want to make it in the interest of robbers to murder their victims.
READER COMMENTS
Kurbla
Dec 11 2009 at 11:43pm
Yes, it is good Friedman’s point.
Even mass murderer who left alive witness shouldn’t be maximally punished – following the same logic. (Exceptions are those who have enough power not to be frightened by law. )
Steve Sailer
Dec 11 2009 at 11:48pm
Right. As sentences for lesser crimes of violence became more severe after about 1979, the death penalty would, logically, have become a more important deterrent against witness-murdering.
I don’t know why this almost never comes up in discussions of whether the death penalty is effective as a deterrent.
HH
Dec 12 2009 at 12:19am
On the robbery/murder point, I’m still amazed how little this comes up, even though Thomas More made the point something like 500 years ago in Utopia (theft/murder and the death penalty in then-England).
desert sailor
Dec 12 2009 at 6:04am
…and to think all this time I could have been getting away with murder for the same price at a steal!
alex
Dec 12 2009 at 2:40pm
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mike shupp
Dec 12 2009 at 5:09pm
The young James Boswell argued that robbers and highwaymen ought to be executed without exception; Samuel Johnson refuted him with exactly the same argument. This was in the 1760’s and I doubt that Johnson based his reasoning on economics.
Doc Merlin
Dec 12 2009 at 11:50pm
In the words of a philosopher older than western civilization: “Nothing is new under the sun.”
Friedman’s very good point has been echoed and ignored time and time again. Much like economists have known for many decades that raising the minimum wage increases unemployment, but everyone ignores that too and does it anyway.
Bill K.
Dec 13 2009 at 3:31pm
Couldn’t Friedman’s economist be refuted by the response, “For armed robbery, we execute you. For armed robbery + murder, we torture, then execute you. For armed robbery + murder + leaving no witnesses, we torture, then revive you, then torture you, then revive you, etc. and finally we crucify you.”? Seems to me there are worse things than death, such as: a horrible, prolonged death. What say ye, Kurbla?
CJ Smith
Dec 14 2009 at 10:35am
@Bill K:
I don’t recall the original source, but someone once suggested that the cure for convicted jihadists be smothering in pig fat – thus rendering the soul so unclean that even acts of “martyrdom” could not guarantee a place in heaven….
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