The Nature Of Humans Dictates The Necessity Of Laws
David Grace (www.DavidGraceAuthor.com)
Before we can talk about how governments should be organized and economies should be run we have to have a fundamental understanding of how people act.
If we don’t understand people, nothing we build will work.
Different People React Differently To The Same Situation
People are wildly different. For each emotion, proclivity, motivation, inclination, and event different individuals will react in different ways. You can never accurately say: “All people do this” or “Nobody does that.”
The most you can correctly say is, “If given the opportunity, many people will do this and a majority of people won’t do that.”
Some People Are Capable Of Anything
If given the chance some people will
- Kill their own children
- Eat other people
- Kill millions of strangers
In any group of five million people, you will have at least
- one serial killer,
- dozens of rapists,
- hundreds of armed robbers,
- thousands of thieves.
You will have pedophiles, cheats, crooks, wife beaters, drunks, liars, psychopaths, and frauds.
You will have people who will do anything for money, for ego, for power, for celebrity, for attention, for sex, or for no reason at all.
When asked why they killed all those people, it’s common for serial killers to say, “I don’t know.”
The history of wars, pogroms, massacres, inquisitions, and slaughters demonstrates that humans are a dangerous and vicious species.
Only Laws Keep Many People From Behaving Badly
One of the lessons of Nazi Germany was the extreme conduct people were capable of once they were turned loose to do whatever they wanted.
People who might never have raped a woman became rapists when they were told that it was OK to rape Jewish women. People who might never have stolen anything became thieves when they were told that it wasn’t a crime to take property belonging to a Jew.
If today it became legal to create and possess child pornography I would guess that the number of people who acquired sexual pictures of young children would increase between 10X and 100X.
People are constrained by cultural values and by criminal laws. Take away either of those and many people will engage in all kinds of dangerous, harmful, and despicable conduct.
Many people’s decision whether or not to commit “wrongful acts” will depend on whether that conduct is legal or illegal, the type of punishment prescribed, and the likelihood of getting caught.
That’s why we have laws.
Diffused Responsibility Results In Even Worse Behavior
You also have to consider the higher potential for reprehensible conduct by people in groups. A mob will do things that most of its individual members would not do on their own.
A gang will do things that many of its individual members would not do on their own.
A board of directors will do things that many of the individual board members would not do on their own.
While Bill Jones, the majority shareholder and CEO of Mammoth Insurance, might not put up with a scheme to underpay hurricane casualty claims, Bill Jones, one of eleven directors of publically-traded Mammoth Insurance, will meekly vote to table an investigation into a rumored scheme to systematically underpay hurricane-casualty claims.
The group insulates individuals from feelings of personal responsibility, and increases the likelihood bad conduct. One man might not decide to plant a bomb when a group of four or five would.
Communities Enact Laws To Deter Harmful Behavior
Because some people are capable of anything and collections of people in the person of gangs and boards of directors are capable of even more, communities enact laws that strive to strike a balance between the freedom of the individual and the safety of everyone else.
Legislation is always a balancing test between the conflicting goals of My Freedom and Others’ Safety. Deciding whether or not something should be illegal is really about setting a slider control.
— — — — — Laws Regulating How Fast People Can Drive — — — — —
No Speed Limits……………………………………Strict Speed Limits
My Freedom — — — — — — — <|> — — —— — — — Others’ Safety
A law that takes away my freedom to do something simultaneously protects others from my doing that same something to them.
People’s willingness to do something or be deterred from doing something falls along a curve with the number of people who will engage in that conduct on the vertical axis and the severity and likelihood of punishment on the horizontal axis.
The lower the product of the amount of punishment times the possibility of being caught the more people will engage in that conduct. The higher the product of the amount of punishment times the possibility of being caught, the fewer people will engage in that conduct.
No matter how low the potential punishment, some people will never engage in the prohibited conduct. No matter how harsh the punishment some people will always engage in that conduct. The bulk of the population falls someplace in between.
You can increase or decrease the percentage of the population who will engage in prohibited conduct by moving the slider to the left or the right.
— — — — — — — Speeding Enforcement/Punishment Slider — — — — —
No Penalty— — — — — — — — — — — — — — <|>— — Harsh Penalty
No Enforcement — — — — — — — — — — —<|> — — Strong Enforcement
Few Speeders —<|> — — — — — — — — — — — — — Many Speeders
Laws and punishments matter.
The Cost Of Enforcement Vs. The Benefits Of Enforcement
The question is whether the cost of enforcement is greater than or less than the benefits gained from the decrease in the targeted conduct.
For every type of conduct there is a corresponding societal cost.
For every type of enforcement there is a societal cost.
Prohibition taught us that the cost of prohibiting certain conduct can exceed the cost of allowing that conduct.
The question then becomes:
Are the benefits gained by setting the enforcement/punishment slider at point X greater or less than the costs incurred by setting the enforcement/punishment slider at point X?
Rules are always a question of how beneficial the conduct is to the actor and society versus how dangerous and costly the conduct is to others; how much the conduct will be deterred by any given level of punishment, and how much imposing that level of punishment will cost the society.
Anarchists
Anarchists hate laws. Anarchists don’t care about the harm their conduct causes others. They are only concerned with themselves. Anarchists think they should be free to do whatever they want, and if what they do hurts other people, so what? If you don’t want to be hurt, protect yourself, and if you can’t, I don’t care.
But anarchists have a problem. Most people don’t want to be victims. Most people want to be protected from the beasts in the jungle. So, the anarchists’ challenge is to find a way to convince others that they really don’t need any rules after all.
If the anarchists can con people into believing that rules are unnecessary then maybe they can get them abolished. It they could get rid of the rules then they would be free to do whatever they want no matter who they hurt.
But how do they convince the sheep to get rid of the shepherd?
They make up phony arguments that claim that there aren’t any wolves and even if there were, that wolves don’t eat sheep anymore, and even if they do, the sheep should be able to protect themselves.
The anarchists tell people that laws are unnecessary because everyone will do the right thing without the need for any laws.
Of course, that’s a lie. We know that everyone doesn’t act the same way, and we know that very many people aren’t caring, generous, fair, honest, trustworthy, or decent.
We know that many people will lie, cheat, steal and kill to get what they want. We also know that lying, cheating, fraud, and theft drastically increase when there are no laws against them.
On its face, the anarchist’s claim that everyone will act fairly, honestly, and responsibly without there being any need for rules is ridiculous.
Libertarianism Is A Variety Of Anarchism
Libertarians will tell you that anti-trust laws are unnecessary, that anti-discrimination laws are unnecessary, that minimum-wage laws are unnecessary, that product-safety laws are unnecessary, that anti-pollution laws are unnecessary, and that consumer-protection laws are unnecessary.
Libertarians will tell you that
- all businesses are motivated by the desire to increase long-term sales,
- businesses don’t care about increasing short-term profits at the expense of long-term sales,
- therefore businesses’ universal desire for higher long-term sales will motivate all businesses to always do the right thing with no consumer laws being needed.
Let’s look at this argument in a slightly different context.
Car Geeks Want To Abolish Traffic Laws
Suppose you have bunch of people, let’s call them Speed People, who love driving fast. They’re crazy about hot cars and speed. They all either have fast cars or hope to have fast cars or think they’ll eventually get a fast car or are obsessed with fast cars.
They hate traffic laws. They hate speed limits. They think they have (or will have) the talent and the equipment to go fast. They think they deserve to be able to go fast. They have nothing but contempt for the guy in the Prius and the woman putting along in her Corolla. Those slow, boring, sheep are in their way and are thwarting their need for speed.
They want to scream at those people in their slow, sensible cars: “Get out of my way! Stop slowing me down!” But, they’ve got a problem. Those slow people don’t want the Speed People racing around, doing four-wheel slides, making u-turns in the middle of the block, blasting down the street at seventy or eighty miles an hour.
That’s why those slow people have voted in a whole bunch of traffic laws. The Speed People desperately want to get rid of all the traffic laws that they think are interfering with their fun.
So what can the Speed People do? They come up with the Big Lie — Traffic laws are both unnecessary and a Bad Thing.
Their lie goes like this:
- If you drive recklessly you will likely have an accident.
- Accidents are expensive and can cause you to have serious injuries or die.
- No one wants to have their cars damaged.
- No one wants to be injured or killed.
- Knowing this and always acting in their own intelligent, logical, self-interest all people will automatically always drive carefully whether or not there are any traffic laws.
On top of that, the Speed People say, traffic laws are bad because:
- They slow down traffic
- They cost money to enforce
- They take away our individual freedom.
- They prevent skilled drivers with sophisticated cars (like the Speed People) from utilizing their vehicle’s full potential and getting where they want to go quicker.
Therefore, they argue, we should repeal all traffic laws.
The Speed People dismiss drunk drivers and reckless drivers as rare aberrations.
“Yes, there are those rare, crazy people who fail to consider the consequences of bad driving,” the Speed People say, “but they will quickly disappear in perfectly safe one-car wrecks that will take them off the roads, leaving only the good drivers behind.”
Then they tell you that you’ll be able to avoid the occasional reckless driver who is still on the road by just being alert and careful to stay out of their way.
And if you’re too lazy, stupid or inattentive to successfully avoid those very few remaining bad drivers, well, you have only yourself to blame if they crash into you. Next time, be more vigilant about avoiding them and you’ll be fine.
“Now that we’ve explained why we don’t need any traffic laws, please vote for the Speed People candidate so that we can repeal all those pesky traffic laws and get the government off our backs.”
Of course, smart Speed People know that’s all crap. They know that all people don’t always govern their driving by logic, intelligence, perfect concentration, prudence and long term planning.
They know that much of the time a large number of people make driving decisions based on irritation, anger, stress, and ego; that many drivers’ conduct is dependent on time pressure, alcohol, drugs, rage, distraction and multitasking.
They know that many if not most people do not make second-to-second driving decisions based primarily on careful, logical, thoughtful, and enlightened self-interest.
They know that you can’t avoid being crashed into by drunks, speeders and reckless drivers by simply paying more attention.
They know that their whole argument is a huge, big lie. But they don’t care. Their goal is to be able to drive any way they want and they need the big lie to get you to support their campaign to abolish traffic laws.
The only question is: Are you stupid enough to buy what they’re selling?
Applying This Example To Libertarians
Libertarians think that they are the smart people, the clever people, the hard-working people who would be really, really successful if only they could get rid of all those anti-trust laws, anti-discrimination laws, minimum-wage laws, health and safety laws, pollution laws, and consumer-protection laws.
The libertarians have come up with an argument why those laws are not needed.
Their Big Lie is that companies are motivated to make more money. Companies make more money by selling more units. Companies sell more units when they make good products. Therefore, out of enlightened, logical, intelligent self-interest all businesses will only sell good products without the need for any commercial laws, just like from enlightened, logical, intelligent self-interest all drivers will always drive safely without the need for any traffic laws.
But, if a rare company does happen to sell bad products, people will immediately avoid them causing them to quickly go out of business, just like the rare bad driver who will soon have a one-car accident and promptly take himself off the public highways.
And, if by some chance that rare seller of shoddy or dangerous products doesn’t quickly go broke, intelligent and careful consumers can easily protect themselves by avoiding his crappy products in the same way that attentive and careful motorists can always protect themselves by avoiding the rare reckless or drunk driver who hasn’t yet killed himself in a one-car accident.
Libertarians with any common sense know it’s all a big lie, but they don’t care if it’s a lie. They just want you to drink the Kool-Aid.
Why?
Because they think the rules are slowing them down. The fact that rules protect other people is irrelevant to them. They don’t care that the rules are good for other people. Screw the people whom the rules protect. The libertarians are only looking out for Number One, and they think they will get richer if there are no rules holding them back. If the lack of rules hurts others, so what?
The libertarians are like the guy with the Ferrari who wants to get rid of all the traffic laws and doesn’t care what that will mean to the soccer mom with two kids in the back seat of her Corolla.
He just wants to go blazing around town and to hell with everybody else.
And so do they.
— David Grace (www.DavidGraceAuthor.com)
