Subject:
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Re: Fan Thank You Letter
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Fri, 21 Jun 2002 17:04:25 GMT
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Viewed:
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1398 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Larry Pieniazek writes:
> Take a look at this link for some more thoughts on the economics of crime
> (including, particularly, theft)
> http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academic/Hidden_Order/Hidden_Order_Chapter_20.html
>
> Friedman's analysis does not quite square with yours.
Feh! What does an economist know about cost/benefit analysis?
Interesting article overall, though some of his assumptions seem to depend
too much on ideal models rather than real-world situations. The problem, as
I see it, is that Thief A doesn't articulate to himself the long-term
financial risks of any particular act of theft, just as the lion doesn't
articulate to himself the costs of eating a leopard. I also don't know that
we can divorce the lion's behavior from ingrained instinct (or our own, for
that matter, but let's assume for now that we have greater self-control than
the lion), since the lion may be helplessly obeying its drives. With that
in mind it's hard for me to equate the lion's fundamental "no leopard"
policy with a thief's rationally-considered "no armed old ladies" policy.
Obviously, people given the choice will take the path of least resistance,
but only if that path is discernable. Further, chronic gamblers demonstrate
clearly that failure rate of 9,999 in 10,000 is acceptable if the payoff is
big enough. By Friedman's reasoning, no gambler would ever place a bet,
since the chance of dismal failure so sharply outweighs the chance of
success. Contrast that with Friedman's thief, whose chance of success
greatly outweighs the likelihood of failure (to rob Little-Old-Lady-X who
may or may not have a gun).
As a tangent, but one I'd be curious to hear about, does anyone know much
about those experiments in which a rat pushes a lever continuously even when
pushing the lever only occasionally results in a food pellet? It would be
interesting to see how the results would be affected if every so often the
lever caused some deterrent effect, like a startling air horn, to offset the
possible food pellet payoff. Has such an experiment been performed? That
would seem at least broadly analogous to the cost/benefit of theft. Hmm...
Friedman keeps referring to "the rational thief," which is something of a
disclaimer and assumes that all theft (well, all theft that's based on his
model) is rationally motivated, conceived, and executed, but I can't accept
that without further evidence. Even Friedman's example of the everyman
thief operating at a net gain of $50 per job depends entirely on models not
likely to exist in reality, and the further from his models we stray the
less useful his models become. I can almost accept portions of his thief
model, but even there he depends to strongly on the pure dollar
cost/benefit, and he utterly ignores any theft not painstakingly planned and
executed.
I don't know that Friedman's model accounts for incidental theft, either.
If the thief in Dave K's example spots a $300 stereo sitting unattended, he
might steal it, but he didn't devote Friedman's $100 of effort to plan or
commit the theft. The thief might even be otherwise gainfully employeed
full-time, so the afterthought stereo theft faces a direct cost to him of
almost zero.
But...
As hard to believe as it may be, I'm not actually a formally trained
economist, so I'm very comfortable with the possibility of huge error in my
arguments above and would be happy to be enlightened!
By the way, here's a great quote that I believe is Friedman's, but I'm not
sure where it originated:
"There may be two libertarians somewhere who agree with one another, but I
am not one of them."
Dave!
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Fan Thank You Letter
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| In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler writes: snip (...) snippage (...) I believe you are referring to the Skinner box, in which the rats are 'trained' to perform certain tasks by a cost/reward method. When the rat presses lever, he gets food. (...) (22 years ago, 21-Jun-02, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Fan Thank You Letter
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| (...) Take a look at this link for some more thoughts on the economics of crime (including, particularly, theft) (URL) analysis does not quite square with yours. (22 years ago, 21-Jun-02, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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