Of Rats and Mongoose

Late in the  19th century, the sugarcane farmers of Maui, Hawaii had a rat problem.  Their solution to this problem was to introduce the Indian Mongoose, a small, weasel-like little critter renowned for its rodent-killing prowess.

The mongoose took to the climate of Hawaii and spread like wildfire around six of the eight Hawaiian islands.  There were several unforeseen problems with this plan: the nocturnal rat conducts most of its business at night, while the mongoose is a diurnal hunter, feeding almost exclusively during the day.  The mongoose therefore did not have the desired effect on the rat population.  It did, however, do a number on the native bird and insect species.  This is an example of the phenomenon of unintended consequences.

Government intervention in both markets and foreign affairs nearly always result in unintended consequences.

Think of the 9/11 terror attacks.  The United States' perpetual military involvement in the Middle East for the last half-century resulted in the murder of 3,000 innocent American civilians.

Though the intention of minimum wage laws was a benevolent one, countless domestic jobs have been lost to cheap labor overseas.  Minimum wage laws have also prevented the employment of workers on the margins by making it much harder to pay market wages to disabled or young, under-experienced workers.

In this essay commemorating Ludwig Von Mises's 90th birthday, my personal favorite Austrian Economist, Murray N. Rothbard, draws a nice parallel between the invasive spread of species and government:

A notable feature of Mises's analysis of "interventionism" — of government intervention in the economy — is that it is fundamentally what could now be called "ecological"; for it shows that an act of intervention generates unintended consequences and difficulties, which then present the government with an alternative: either more intervention to "solve" these problems, or repeal of the whole interventionist structure.

In short, Mises shows that the market economy is a finely constructed, interrelated web; and coercive intervention at various points of the structure will create unforeseen troubles elsewhere. The logic of intervention, then, is cumulative; and so a mixed economy is unstable — always tending either toward full-scale socialism or back to a free-market economy. The American farm-price support program, as well as the New York City rent-control program, are almost textbook cases of the consequences and pitfalls of intervention.

The cane toad epidemic in Australia is still another example of counter-productive tinkering. Here is a great (and kind of comical) article that chronicles the battle against this invasive species.   

 Biological, military, and economic intervention inevitably results in unforeseen and unintended consequences.  The intricacies of our world make predicting outcomes based on our actions all but impossible. This leads to and ever-expanding paradox in which "solutions" invariably need more "solutions" and ultimately bleed out a natural system or interventionist government.

Pirates and Emperors

Who do you prefer?

Drug War

The other day I was listening to National Public Radio talk about the horrible situation along the northern Mexico border with the U.S.  The story was about the horrendous violence associated with the battles between law enforcement and powerful drug cartels, and all the thousands of lives that have been lost, both innocent and not.  

The interviewer posed questions to members of the law enforcement community as well as some of the civilians who have been affected by this drug war.  When it came to possible solutions, everyone was scratching their head.  They said perhaps more police; maybe the army can get involved; more "help" from the U.S. (like we haven't "helped" enough).

There was no mention of what I see as the obvious solution: legalize absolutely all drugs.
Where are the cartels getting their income from?  The highly profitable trafficking of drugs and other contra-band into the U.S.  Why is there so much money in this?  Its is very simple economics.  There is an incredibly high demand for drugs here in America, as well as everywhere else in the world.  The drugs that are illegal are incredibly expensive due to this very high demand for them and the laws that make them illegal to posses.  It is obvious that there is a market for drugs, and to make it a criminal offense to purchase them makes them dangerous for more than just the user.  There are a couple reasons this is so.

First, it is puerile to think that drug use can be stopped with legislation.  Billions of dollars and countless lives have been spent on this idiotic experiment that is the "war on drugs".  Humans have always and will always ingest substances to alter their state of consciousness.  This is a fact.

Secondly, when something is made illegal that there is a high demand for, the price inevitably rises, as well as the danger to the consumer.  Think alcohol during Prohibition, prostitution, gambling, and drugs.  When the price of something that someone "needs" to function goes up, they become desperate and will do anything to get their fix.  A good example of this is cancer patients homes being broken into by ordinary people gripped by addiction needing some Oxycontin (a heroin substitute).  Peoples homes are being robbed, cars broken into, purses and wallets stolen, to fund the high cost addiction.

There are many dubious reasons that drugs remain illegal, so who benefits from these laws?  During Prohibition one of the strongest supporters of the prohibition was Al Capone, the famous gangster.  He made truckloads of money smuggling booze to America and meeting the demand of thirsty consumers.  Look at the prisons in the U.S.  How many citizens are in prison for non-violent drug crimes?  Does it cost taxpayers a lot of hard earned money to keep them there?  How about the countless "drug squads" in every municipality around this country.

Let me stress right now that I am not advocating drug use.  I think that drug addiction is horrific and should be treated as medical issue and not a legal one.  Drugs are bad to do.  There should be real drug education starting in kindergarten.

Imagine that all drugs are legal.  A shot of heroin cost's $2.00 at Rite Aid, behind the counter next to the pipe tobacco and small bottles of booze.  It is a lot easier to scrounge up 2 dollars than it is 100 dollars, right?  Sure, I suspect that you would see an increase in drug use at first.  But look at it this way: there would be a massive decrease in crime.  Massive!  Now the only people being effected by drug use are the users and their families.  Not everyone in society.  I'll stress again, drugs are not good.  

I also believe that a person should be able to do whatever they want to their own body, no matter what possible harm that their actions could result in to themselves.  From using drugs to riding a motorcycle with out a helmet, both of which, I personally think are stupid to do.  I'll talk about the helmet thing later on.

There is big money at stake on both sides of this War on Drugs and it is us left to pay for it in our blood and toil through taxation.  END THIS WAR!!!

This Just In!

This is a gripping piece of journalism.

This makes me so thankful for the internet.  It goes to show how incredibly uncreative and cookie cutter network news programs are.  Think inside the specific outline of the box please!

A boring old Tea Party

There is a movement afoot within the republican party that claims to be for constitutionally limited government, fiscal responsibility, and free markets.  They call themselves the "Tea Party" and their de facto leaders are the Neo-Conservatives, Sarah Palin and Glen Beck.  They have picked up a good head of steam and are all the buzz around the media.  I mean, if I'm writing about it, its got to be news.

There are a few issues that I have with all of this.  The term Tea Party has been hijacked by this movement from the more libertarian Ron Paul Revolution campaign for president back in 07' 08'.  "We" held a tea party money bomb where we raised over 6 million dollars for him in in one day.  Evidently, this new movement wants in on the action.


The trouble with this movement is that it seems to be at odds with is very core principals.  It is very easy to claim that you demand limited government and fiscal conservatism, but if in the next breath you espouse the need for "a strong national defense" (read, bombing people with dark skin that don't like our God), then you are just fooling yourself and evidently everyone who is listening.  Civil liberties?  Just so long as they don't interfere with our national defense, it shouldn't be a problem.  Wire tapping?  Airport screening?   Its a joke to watch Sarah Palin reading from her little crib notes on her hand.  She has no idea what the people she is talking to want, but whatever she says is gospel.  Arghh...

It's just frustrating because a lot of what I have been reading and talking about (small government, true free markets, etc.) have been comendeered by this misguided "movement", and I often find myself lumped in with them when I don't necessarily want to be.


There is a pretty good article on the Huffington Post about this.
Also, Rachel Maddow had Ron Paul on her show to talk about it the other night.  Pretty good stuff.

Illustration

This clever cartoon is a simple and great illustration of the term blowback, which I mentioned in an earlier post.

Spontaneous Order

In this clip from one of John Stossel's 20/20 specials, he touches on the union between the spontaneous order constantly on display in the natural world, and the bottom up order of human action and decision making.

I think a timely example of this is when the wave happens at a giant sporting event: 30,000 unrelated strangers act in near perfect unison to send a wave of flailing arms curling around the stadium.  This occurs out of the blue, started by just a few people.

The town I live in has countless four way intersections with stop signs on all four corners.  Even with heavy traffic, cars tend to breeze through, acting in their own self interest when they let the person who arrived a split second before them go.  Though the temptation is to speed on as fast as possible, most motorists will do everything they can to avoid a costly and dangerous accident, and waiting that extra second will often make this possible for them.  

Also, there is a really sweet rope swing at 3:03 in the video.