Litterbug

When I was in elementary school, Earth Day went largely ignored. Sure, we had a goofball peanut farmer in the White House who put his clodhoppers up Detroit's tailpipe to build us this glorious embarrassment:

Remember that? Good times, man.

Note something amiss in the photograph: There isn't any rubbish on the ground. That's how you know it wasn't taken in 1976. Even in the eco-chummy Oregon college town I spent my first few years, it was impossible to leave the house without seeing damnable litter everywhere. And it seemed like it was always fast food wrappers. Or cigarette butts. 'Twas truly a nasty time to be an American.

So I have to hand it to environmentalists. They accomplished something that should be downright impossible according to ordinary textbook treatments of collective action problems: they not only got nearly every single American to stop littering, they turned nearly every single American into an anti-littering scold. Can you even imagine what would happen if you were to attempt to throw your trash on the ground in any major metropolitan area in 2015? You wouldn't hear the end of it. We now enjoy (relatively) clean streets through the force of collective will backed by the threat of public shaming. Pause for a moment today to appreciate that triumph.

And then tremble at the power. Anti-littering efforts were low-hanging fruit compared to the many other social ills that busybodies catalog. It might be worth it to clean up the streets that everyone enjoys jointly and severally, but that shame mechanism is a powerful weapon. Neo-anti-littering activists have been deploying it against folks who make off-color jokes or who have poor sartorial judgement when appearing on TV or who have the audacity to follow the bylaws of the Hugo Award nomination process.

Cleaning up the environment is a step in the euvoluntary direction: it internalizes some of the negative externalities of littering. But we need a little filth. Perfectly sanitized, sterile environments breed allergen sensitivity and weaken the immune system. Eat a handful of dirt before you die.

Meta-EE and the Constitution Part 6: Eighth Amendment

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

There's a puzzle confronting anyone set with the task of crafting ex ante rules: how much discretion ought we grant? Credible rules bind capricious elites, allowing constituents to better plan. Rules civilize. In the language of the New Institutional Economics, rules provide expropriable quasi-rents: people can be more productive thanks to constraints on the tendencies of the political class to meddle. Discretion in the hands of the wise, the temperate can lend itself to a tolerable administration of justice. Discretion in the hands of fools is the fountain of tyranny. Which of these ought rules restrain?

"Excessive" is a weasel word. Is it "excessive" to condemn a man to twenty years in prison for possession thanks to minimum sentencing legislation? Is it "excessive" to throw a man into jail for close to half a year for the "crime" of notifying potential jurors of their right of jury nullification? Is it cruel or unusual for police to shoot family pets while conducting drug raids?

It's fair to interpret Amendment VIII as a check against a runaway judiciary, but the moral and legal sentiments behind it are meant to lash the whole of the state to the mast. The power to punish, to confiscate, to run amok is seductive. Employed recklessly, discretion scorches the forest of euvoluntary exchange. Only you can prevent forest fires.

I suppose the question centers on the sort of person we'd expect to take the reins of political power. Does political service attract the wisest, most judicious among us? Should a constitutional convention enshackle a bevvy of philosopher kings? Or do we live in a second-best world, where knaves seek authority over men? In a world where the moral authority is not necessarily vested in the offices of the state, will encalming the sword hand of Lady Justice increase the scope of euvoluntary exchange?

Speaking of USFS mascots, I haven't seen feather nor beak of Woodsy the Owl for ages. I wonder if that campaign is still alive.

Belly of the Beholder

What if I told you cannibalism wasn't really all that awful? What if I told you that cannibalism was socially optimal? What if I told you that banning cannibalism could harm localized social welfare?