Gypsy Law

Gypsy law 

Peter Leeson 
Public Choice, forthcoming 

 Abstract: How do the members of societies that can’t use government or simple ostracism produce social order? To investigate this question I use economics to analyze Gypsy law. Gypsy law leverages superstition to enforce desirable conduct in Gypsy societies where government is unavailable and simple ostracism is ineffective. According to Gypsy law, unguarded contact with the lower half of the human body is ritually polluting, ritual defilement is physically contagious, and non-Gypsies are in an extreme state of such defilement. These superstitions repair holes in simple ostracism among Gypsies, enabling them to secure social cooperation without government. Gypsies’ belief system is an efficient institutional response to the constraints they face on their choice of mechanisms of social control. 

Nod to Kevin Lewis

Unintended Consequences: Public Choice

One of the great features of Public Choice is its ability to predict outcomes that always shock public interest advocates.  I mean, why would anyone "misunderstand" the good intent of my good intentions?

Zach Weiner found this gem, in Deborah Davis's book, GUEST OF HONOR, and emailed it to me.  Nicely done, Zach!

Can't Help It: Majorities Suck

There, I said it.

Majorities suck. There is no reason to let majorities define morality for the rest of us. Even if I get Kos-trated, I'll still say it.

That's why we have the Bill of Rights. That's why we have the 14th Amendment, to ensure that the state governments, like the Feds, cannot use the tyranny of the majority to abuse individual rights. A key part of the 14th Amendment says: "no state shall ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

That should have been the basis of the court decision blocking Prop 8 in California. Equal protection. The majority wanted Prop 8. The majority can go jump in the lake.

Not sure why the court used that crap about dignity. This is straightforward equal protection. You can't say we allow a contract between two consenting adults, depending on whether the majority happens to approve of those adults and their lifestyle. If the contract is valid and the state is going to insist on enforcing it, then that contract must be available to any couple that qualifies under the conditions for valid contract.

Majorities do not, and cannot be allowed to, define morality. In Prop 8 in California, the majority overstepped. The court did what courts should do (though their reasons were stupid: it's JUST EQUAL PROTECTION!).

Majorities suck. Why would anyone expect to find rectitude in the multitude?

And if we don't trust majorities to choose morality / religion / restrictions on speech for the rest of us, why would anyone trust voters to pick the right candidate? After taking these abuses, I'm warming to the Electoral College. It recognizes the importance of states in the Constitution, it increases motives for participation in battleground states, and it gives voters in small states more of a say. Sure, there are good arguments against the Electoral College, but just saying that "majorities should always get their way" means you need to go back to school.

The US is not a democracy. We don't trust majorities, because of stupid stuff like slavery and the Alien and Sedition Act, and the Patriot Act, and Prop 8. There is nothing special about the majority will, it's just what most people happen to believe.

(Note: This post was edited to remove two typos)

Perfect

A venn diagram. It pretty much says it all.

Nod to James Sinclair, and thanks to Steve Horwitz.

Public Choice Memorial for Mel Hinich

The Public Choice Society meetings are this weekend, in San Antonio, TX.

I can't travel, because of my eye. But I got Neanderbill to read a statement in my stead. Here is that statement. (Also there is the Public Choice memoriam, written by four of us.)

For the Session on Mel Hinich for Public Choice
San Antonio, Texas
March 12, 2011

I first met Melvin at the Public Choice meetings at the Hilton in Pheonix, Arizona, in 1984, in a hallway at the hotel. He was talking to Peter Ordeshook (who was smoking), and the two of them acted as they always did: artlessly impatient. Did you have something interesting to say? If so, take your shot. But the weather or baseball scores didn’t get you far. Mel always wanted to talk about the work, what he had been working on or what he would be working on. Mel talked more than anyone else I ever met in academics.
But he could also listen. After I moved to UT in the fall of 1986, I realized that I had the chance to start a second “graduate school.” My background in public choice and spatial theory was shallow, and Mel set out to improve me. We went for long walks, often at noon or 1 pm, in the Austin heat, and would come back drenched in sweat. Then Mel would scribble on his blackboard for half an hour, with me taking notes, and then I would go try type things up.
I often got back to my office, and realized that Mel had made a mistake. The model didn’t work the way he said it did. So the next morning I would go to show him the mistake.
But often it wasn’t a mistake at all. Mel had simply skipped three or four steps that seemed obvious to him. Once he filled in the argument so I could see what he was doing, I went back to writing.
Sometimes in the last few years people come up to me at conferences and ask, “Has Mel ever written anything, or did you write it all?” Then they snicker, “In fact, has Mel ever READ any of your joint work?!!”
The truth is that Mel did not much like to write. And even less did he like to edit. Sometimes, it was frustrating, because I would give him a finished chapter for comments, and his entire response the next day was, “That was good! Now, let’s talk about submarines…” (Or Russia. Or Shakespeare. Or…)
But what is “writing,” exactly? In many ways, I was Mel’s typist, his Boswell. True, Mel said things and I wrote them down, and later typed them. But the order of our names, Hinich and Munger, on our three books and many articles, accurately reflects the contributions we made. Mel was, and is, first.
If I had not met Mel, I would have missed out on the excitement of discovery, and the sense of eager mental searching. Without his tutelage, I would never have become President of the Public Choice Society or editor of the journal. I wouldn’t be at Duke, and I might never have gotten tenure.
And without his friendship I would have missed out on the grandest times, biggest laughs, and deepest talks in my life. Mel had two great loves, particularly in his 50s before he had a number of illnesses. These loves were talking and eating. If you ever had a meal with him, you know that there was a sense of excitement, since you can’t really eat and talk at the same time. Would the winner be the unstoppable force, or the immovable object?
Well, the premise of the question turned out to be false. Mel could in fact eat and talk at the same time. And he could eat a lot, for hours in fact. He preferred eating at someone’s house, rather than going to a restaurant. This was partly because he didn’t like to waste money. But it was also because he would likely have kept the restaurant open past closing time. His appetites, capacities, and abilities were simply larger than life. I’m not sure we will see his like again.
The Sunday before he died, Mel called me at home to discuss the introductory chapter we were working on for the second edition of Analytical Politics, our Cambridge book. The first edition has been translated into Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and Russian. I have now made very substantial progress on that book, and hope to finish it by May.
On that new edition Mel’s name will still be first, where it belongs, even though once again he didn’t write that much of it. I will always miss him.

Public Choice readings revisited

Recently, LeBron gave his reading list for Public Choice

I'd like to chip in with a Public Choice reading list for people who don't want to be bored to death!!

These three will teach you everything you need to know and keep you entertained and turning the pages. You'll learn PC by accident!

1. "Catch-22", Joseph Heller

2. "Parliament of Whores", P.J. O'Roarke

3. "Misadventures of the Most Favored Nations", Paul Blustein

On a more academic note, Olson's "Rise and Decline" just gets too much wrong to recommend it; I'd pick "Logic of Collective Action" instead, along with "An Economic Theory of Democracy", "An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States", "The Calculus of Consent" (though this book is *very* uneven), and "The Theory of Committees & Elections" (Scots wha hae and all that).

When it comes to textbooks, Mungo and the late Mel Hinich cooked up a great one with "Analytical Politics".

I think the way for people to learn about a subject is to read entertaining works that illustrate the subject in action rather than to bang their heads on encyclopedic reference works.

I learned a lot about the sub-prime crisis from reading "The Big Short" just by accident while being absorbed in a terrific story.