Is hostile fire pay coercive?
I'm in the middle of eavesdropping on a Twitter conversation. The relevant tweets are from a non-follower, so I'm disinclined to reprint them here, but the gist is this: sex work is different from ordinary market labor because penetration is categorically different from, say, clerical work. Paying women to perform such degrading acts is exploitative due to both the sacred-violating nature of the work and the lack of decent alternative options.
Bullets penetrate. The bodily effects of combat are visible and often gruesome. The mental health effects can be devastating. Yet, Soldiers earn wage premiums for being stationed in combat theaters. Is hostile fire pay similarly exploitative? Why or why not?
Showing posts with label consent. Show all posts
Showing posts with label consent. Show all posts
Monday, December 7, 2015
Monday, August 3, 2015
Consent in Captivity
If you don't already subscribe to Simple Justice, consider adding it to your list. Greenfield is usually entertaining, always prodigious (at least 2 word-packed posts a day), and unfailingly filled to the brim with righteous indignation. It's also good to see what law looks like from the trenches if, like me, you're either a punter or an academic.
Today's AM post was of particular interest to me in my capacity as a fan of prison drama. From the old WIP exploitation films of the 70s to the mostly well-executed premium TV shows of today (Oz, OITNB), I've been a fan of the genre as far back as I can remember. And always and everywhere, one of the enduring literary tropes of the Caged Heat variety is sex in prison. Is it lewd? Is it rude? Is it always in the nude?
More importantly for EE purposes, can it ever be consensual? I don't mean just guard-and-inmate relations, which obviously contain coercion, but prisoner-prisoner relations. Excluding forcible rape, can a prisoner tryst be euvoluntary? In prison, indeed in any extended-stay, isolated community, outside options are limited. You aren't really free to choose with such limited choices, right? It would be a bit like being locked in a restaurant and then being asked what your favorite food is. Sure, you might choose something off the available menu, but are you being sincere or merely convenient?
Then again, even people with the relative liberty afforded by all our modern conveniences hardly consider anything more than the tiniest sliver of the entire world population. Even with the assistance of computers, we generally limit ourselves to the people available in our communities, our workplaces, our schools, our churches, our online forums, &c. Folks in the regular world are presumed to give free and clear consent even with all those limitations.
How good a BATNA is good enough? Can a prisoner give enthusiastic consent? Can anyone in a cloistered community give enthusiastic consent? How cloistered is cloistered?
Today's AM post was of particular interest to me in my capacity as a fan of prison drama. From the old WIP exploitation films of the 70s to the mostly well-executed premium TV shows of today (Oz, OITNB), I've been a fan of the genre as far back as I can remember. And always and everywhere, one of the enduring literary tropes of the Caged Heat variety is sex in prison. Is it lewd? Is it rude? Is it always in the nude?
More importantly for EE purposes, can it ever be consensual? I don't mean just guard-and-inmate relations, which obviously contain coercion, but prisoner-prisoner relations. Excluding forcible rape, can a prisoner tryst be euvoluntary? In prison, indeed in any extended-stay, isolated community, outside options are limited. You aren't really free to choose with such limited choices, right? It would be a bit like being locked in a restaurant and then being asked what your favorite food is. Sure, you might choose something off the available menu, but are you being sincere or merely convenient?
Then again, even people with the relative liberty afforded by all our modern conveniences hardly consider anything more than the tiniest sliver of the entire world population. Even with the assistance of computers, we generally limit ourselves to the people available in our communities, our workplaces, our schools, our churches, our online forums, &c. Folks in the regular world are presumed to give free and clear consent even with all those limitations.
How good a BATNA is good enough? Can a prisoner give enthusiastic consent? Can anyone in a cloistered community give enthusiastic consent? How cloistered is cloistered?
Wednesday, February 25, 2015
Ticket Prices Pay For The Whole Seat, But You'll Just Need The EDGE
The chamber is sparsely, yet tastefully appointed. The lone orchid is in bloom, shrouded from the glassy-eyed gaze of the man in the chair, partly obscured by the shadow cast by the naked bulb incongruously dangling from a plain black wire and partly obscured by the thick rawhide strap fastening his head to the sturdy oaken top rail.
The silence is broken by the sharp, staccato click of steel-shrouded heels on blood-red tile. The woman is carrying a cage that John Hurt or George Orwell fans will immediately recognize. At one end is a military-grade OBA facemask with the window removed. Secured to that is a wire mesh tunnel, perhaps eighteen inches long with deadfall gates at each end. At the other end is a tiny tin shack, roof rusted, housing a hillbilly rat famished from a sparse diet of millet crumbs.
The woman quickly, professionally, and wordlessly attaches the contraption first to the dedicated bracket emerging from the top of the chair, then with a fluid motion that suggests a journeyman's familiarity with shipboard firefighting gear, strapped the repurposed breathing mask to the man's sweat-soaked face. The involuntary whine that escaped his lips did precisely nothing to deter either her resolve or her efficiency of motion.
The comically large gold-plated key in his right hand was leaving an impression in his flesh, even as he strained vainly against his restraints. He didn't notice as she glided out of view behind him and began releasing the first safety catch on the deadfall nearest the snaggletoothed rodent snuffling at the far end of the cage. He did notice as the deadfall fell and the rat cautiously advanced down the tunnel, its claws raking against the wire mesh in the most awful symphony he could imagine.
As her elegantly manicured fingernail stretches toward the next catch, his whine escalates rapidly through a keen, then a wail, finally landing on an eardrum-shattering shriek. His hand flies open and before the prop key can even clatter to the floor, the device is whisked from his trembling head and is being spirited away by a dedicated assistant. The leather bonds on his head, arms, and legs are released, and he slumps to the floor, weeping in the sort of ecstatic bliss that only a brush with the deepest of fears can evoke.
I invite you to draw your attention to the woman. If she were in possession of a psychiatry degree and the room were part of her professional offices, this would be called "aversion therapy" and would be perfectly legal. If, contrarily, her job were unlicensed and she used the professional title of "dominatrix," the session described above would be called "edgeplay" and would be illegal, at least if money changed hands.
Consider the possibility that emotional therapy is a vocation, and that the wisdom embedded in the heuristics employed by seasoned professional doms is as good (if not better in some cases) than the classroom education obtained in graduate school. If paid licensed therapy is euvoluntary, why isn't paid BDSM?
End prohibition now. Therapy is not a crime.
The silence is broken by the sharp, staccato click of steel-shrouded heels on blood-red tile. The woman is carrying a cage that John Hurt or George Orwell fans will immediately recognize. At one end is a military-grade OBA facemask with the window removed. Secured to that is a wire mesh tunnel, perhaps eighteen inches long with deadfall gates at each end. At the other end is a tiny tin shack, roof rusted, housing a hillbilly rat famished from a sparse diet of millet crumbs.
The woman quickly, professionally, and wordlessly attaches the contraption first to the dedicated bracket emerging from the top of the chair, then with a fluid motion that suggests a journeyman's familiarity with shipboard firefighting gear, strapped the repurposed breathing mask to the man's sweat-soaked face. The involuntary whine that escaped his lips did precisely nothing to deter either her resolve or her efficiency of motion.
The comically large gold-plated key in his right hand was leaving an impression in his flesh, even as he strained vainly against his restraints. He didn't notice as she glided out of view behind him and began releasing the first safety catch on the deadfall nearest the snaggletoothed rodent snuffling at the far end of the cage. He did notice as the deadfall fell and the rat cautiously advanced down the tunnel, its claws raking against the wire mesh in the most awful symphony he could imagine.
As her elegantly manicured fingernail stretches toward the next catch, his whine escalates rapidly through a keen, then a wail, finally landing on an eardrum-shattering shriek. His hand flies open and before the prop key can even clatter to the floor, the device is whisked from his trembling head and is being spirited away by a dedicated assistant. The leather bonds on his head, arms, and legs are released, and he slumps to the floor, weeping in the sort of ecstatic bliss that only a brush with the deepest of fears can evoke.
I invite you to draw your attention to the woman. If she were in possession of a psychiatry degree and the room were part of her professional offices, this would be called "aversion therapy" and would be perfectly legal. If, contrarily, her job were unlicensed and she used the professional title of "dominatrix," the session described above would be called "edgeplay" and would be illegal, at least if money changed hands.
Consider the possibility that emotional therapy is a vocation, and that the wisdom embedded in the heuristics employed by seasoned professional doms is as good (if not better in some cases) than the classroom education obtained in graduate school. If paid licensed therapy is euvoluntary, why isn't paid BDSM?
End prohibition now. Therapy is not a crime.
Friday, November 22, 2013
Tacit Consent
Long-time friend of EE Pamela J Stubbart writes a brief love letter to lascivious libertarians:
This is an important challenge, particularly since the moral intuitions she pries open are likely to raise hackles.
Since you're reading this here at EE, I assume you're already sensitive to BATNA disparity. If you've got a libertarian bent, you're likely to believe that there's an ENORMOUS disparity between the state and the individual. Yes, that's precisely the point of the state: to retain a monopoly on the use of violence.
But here's the thing the libertarian might be slightly less willing to subscribe to: if you're a woman, you're likely to believe that there's a BATNA disparity between men and women, particularly when she's decommissioned by drink or drugs.
Having your way with someone who is three sheets to the wind is not euvoluntary, even if it's nominally voluntary, even if there's no expression of ex post regret. That doesn't automatically make it wrong necessarily, but if you want to understand where these moral sentiments come from, pay attention to your Adam Smith: sympathy is the first plank in building a civil society.
Dear Libertarians Who Are Squabbling About Rape,Bob Murphy picked this post up here.
N.b., if "tacit consent" isn't a satisfactory standard for the state's moral legitimacy, then maybe it's not good enough for the moral legitimacy of a sexual encounter, either?
kisses, pjs
This is an important challenge, particularly since the moral intuitions she pries open are likely to raise hackles.
Since you're reading this here at EE, I assume you're already sensitive to BATNA disparity. If you've got a libertarian bent, you're likely to believe that there's an ENORMOUS disparity between the state and the individual. Yes, that's precisely the point of the state: to retain a monopoly on the use of violence.
But here's the thing the libertarian might be slightly less willing to subscribe to: if you're a woman, you're likely to believe that there's a BATNA disparity between men and women, particularly when she's decommissioned by drink or drugs.
Having your way with someone who is three sheets to the wind is not euvoluntary, even if it's nominally voluntary, even if there's no expression of ex post regret. That doesn't automatically make it wrong necessarily, but if you want to understand where these moral sentiments come from, pay attention to your Adam Smith: sympathy is the first plank in building a civil society.
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
Euvoluntary PUA?
By request, the euvoluntarity of pick-up artistry.
Here's the story from The Peej [link]. Evidently, the welfare state in Denmark travels well with women's self-esteem. They're not prone to the predations of self-styled Casanovas. It's beyond the scope of this piece to mull the arrow of causality here, so zip up your quiver, Mr. Tell. Instead, consider whether the behavioral arts applied to obtaining strange constitutes a euvoluntary transaction.
Does moral suasion constitute coercion? In the eyes of the law, nope. To count as forcible rape, law enforcement... well, here's the FBI's definition. Judge for yourself.
Anyway, the pick-up artist uses psychological tricks, flim-flammery, patter if you will to flounder and woo. His skill is reminiscent of adept carnival barkers. But it's all talk, all body language, all communication. There are clear lines not to be crossed: no roofies, no physical force, no intimidation. Most importantly perhaps, no exchange of money for a night between the sheets. Just sexual kayfabe.
And even without any regrets, the endeavor will still strike many people as sordid. It's not classical exploitation, but it does explicitly endeavor to exploit psychological weaknesses. Contrast this with prostitution. In that case, there's a mutually beneficial business transaction with no deception, no trickery, no emotional fraud. It seems to me that but for an accident of history, prostitution is probably more euvoluntary than pick-up artistry. Yet one is illegal, the other is not. And I suspect it's a matter of cash changing hands.
So to answer Adam's question, I don't know for sure. For PUAs to be firmly euvoluntary, I suppose you'd have to assume strict rationality, no cognitive biases, no psychological weak spots. But that's wishing for a perfect egg. No such thing. Humans are beautifully flawed and as such are prone to illusion. Still, even if the practice is just off the shore of the land of euvoluntarity, the most reasonable response is to do as the Danes do: help your daughters and your sisters to be psychologically tough. Counter kayfabe with Truth. And then if she wants to have some fun while the getting is good, it'll be less likely to retain coercive overtones.
The same is basically true for any sort of contract. It's all in the offer and acceptance. You can't fault a guy for making an offer, but neither ought you fault a girl for her (informed, rational) response.
@amelapay has @Spivonomist told us whether or not PUAs are euvoluntary or not yet?And before you ask, yes. I did indeed have to look up the acronym. It's probably not so much that I'm too old to know what's going on in the world around me, it's more that the language adjusted while I wasn't looking. Much like yesterday's stewardess is today's flight attendant, yesterday's sleazeball is today's pick-up artist. It appears to be a term of political correctness. I for one appreciate the gentler, more civil tone of the new term.
— Adam Gurri (@adamgurri) November 5, 2013
Here's the story from The Peej [link]. Evidently, the welfare state in Denmark travels well with women's self-esteem. They're not prone to the predations of self-styled Casanovas. It's beyond the scope of this piece to mull the arrow of causality here, so zip up your quiver, Mr. Tell. Instead, consider whether the behavioral arts applied to obtaining strange constitutes a euvoluntary transaction.
Does moral suasion constitute coercion? In the eyes of the law, nope. To count as forcible rape, law enforcement... well, here's the FBI's definition. Judge for yourself.
Forcible rape, as defined in the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, is the carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will. Attempts or assaults to commit rape by force or threat of force are also included; however, statutory rape (without force) and other sex offenses are excluded.Does something about that strike you as odd? Leave a note in the comments section.
Anyway, the pick-up artist uses psychological tricks, flim-flammery, patter if you will to flounder and woo. His skill is reminiscent of adept carnival barkers. But it's all talk, all body language, all communication. There are clear lines not to be crossed: no roofies, no physical force, no intimidation. Most importantly perhaps, no exchange of money for a night between the sheets. Just sexual kayfabe.
And even without any regrets, the endeavor will still strike many people as sordid. It's not classical exploitation, but it does explicitly endeavor to exploit psychological weaknesses. Contrast this with prostitution. In that case, there's a mutually beneficial business transaction with no deception, no trickery, no emotional fraud. It seems to me that but for an accident of history, prostitution is probably more euvoluntary than pick-up artistry. Yet one is illegal, the other is not. And I suspect it's a matter of cash changing hands.
So to answer Adam's question, I don't know for sure. For PUAs to be firmly euvoluntary, I suppose you'd have to assume strict rationality, no cognitive biases, no psychological weak spots. But that's wishing for a perfect egg. No such thing. Humans are beautifully flawed and as such are prone to illusion. Still, even if the practice is just off the shore of the land of euvoluntarity, the most reasonable response is to do as the Danes do: help your daughters and your sisters to be psychologically tough. Counter kayfabe with Truth. And then if she wants to have some fun while the getting is good, it'll be less likely to retain coercive overtones.
The same is basically true for any sort of contract. It's all in the offer and acceptance. You can't fault a guy for making an offer, but neither ought you fault a girl for her (informed, rational) response.
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
Abortion is not Euvoluntary
Few topics generate as much heat and as little light as abortion. I've found it interesting that it seems to come up relatively infrequently among those libertarians whose company I frequent. Something tells me that there's not a salience problem. Indeed, I imagine that almost every liberty-minded person out there has spent time mulling this thorny issue, wrestling with its complexity, weighing implicit, stochasic agency against predictable regret, noting likely BATNA scenarios. Giving the topic its due, as it were.
So it's particularly interesting for me to see a libertarian heavyweight tangle with arguably one of the most deservedly important living economists in the world. Bryan Caplan engages Richard Thaler.
Apart from Mario Rizzo's ongoing campaign against the camel's nose in the tent, the idea of soft or "libertarian" paternalism flared up again right here on EE with a post I wrote about the British Parliament's efforts to make salacious materials on the Web available to homes on an opt-in basis. Way off down under in the Land of the Kiwi, crazy Canuck Eric Crampton had similar thoughts at Offsetting Behavio[u]r. Professor Thaler emphatically denied the Nudge link on Twitter, even though "choice architecture" and his work was directly referenced by the politicians designing the scheme.
That's the funny thing about ideas. They're a common pool resource. It'd be nice if there were a lifeguard on duty, making sure nobody's running and that the splashing and horseplay is kept to a minimum, but sure as the day is long, that old burrito is bound to catch up with Smalls and he'll crap right in that pool. That's the nature of politics: it encourages, nay, demands that someone take a dump in the ol' swimmin' hole sooner or later. Virginia Political Economy details this mechanism with sufficient clarity and detail that James Buchanan won a Nobel Memorial Prize for it. I don't think he ever used any pool-pooping metaphors though. That undignified nonsense is 100% Sam. Point is, the originator loses control of an idea once ceded to a legislative authority. Perhaps this is obvious to me only because I'm a public choice student, and expecting others to share my esoteric knowledge is excessive. I should temper my expectations.
The conversation continues with Caplan posing a pointed question to Nudge Paternalists: why not nudge expectant parents away from the decision to abort a fetus? Included in the terms is what seems like a reasonable proposal, regardless of your stance on choice architecture: end government subsidies. After all, to get more of something, subsidize it, and I don't think that even the most staunchly pro-choice left liberal actively seeks more abortions, unless perhaps they subscribe to eugenic or NPG philosophies. Which they might. I know such people. Here's how Thaler responds: "what do you think the ban on government money does? Medicaid=poor. yikes!" Bryan follows up here.
I think Thaler's making a claim underpinned by EE conditions! One of the strongest arguments for keeping abortion legal is founded in BATNA considerations: one alternative to safe, legal abortion is dangerous, black market ("back-alley") abortion, which is riskier for the mother. Of course, that's an assumption. Elsewhere, JR has proposed a new logical fallacy: "I proclaim a new rhetological fallacy: the error of assumed opportunity, e.g. pursuit of leisure costs productivity, instead of leisure." It works well here, since the Right assumes that the alternative is childbirth and the Left assumes that the alternative is the medical equivalent of Jesse Pinkman in season 1 with a surgical mask... okay, let's leave the rest of that alone. More sophisticated arguments on both sides acknowledge multiple margins or a continuum, but most of what we hear are simplified platitudes. Hence the "much heat", "little light" above.
As the novelty account based on Dr. Phil lower in the Tweet thread notes, the median price for an abortion is around $470, and I checked about the Medicaid thing. Only 15 states allow Medicaid to help with the out-of-pocket cost of abortions. I can imagine how I would set up the econometric strategy to find out where the substitution margins actually are (it's not an easy specification, in case you were wondering), but something tells me that even carefully conducted empirical studies are unlikely to cause a whole lot of people to change their minds on this particular subject. It's pretty likely that this is based on strong moral considerations, not on dispassionate utilitarian evidence.
Maybe the reason libertarians don't like talking too much about this subject is because of the problem I'm having right now. I can't write a snappy concluding paragraph. I can't even beg you to consider the issue in a new light. You've heard the arguments, you know the positions. I have nothing new to add to the conversation. All I can say from an EE point of view is that in the exchange of services between a pregnant woman and a physician, the potential future human whose life is at stake gets no say in the transaction. That's it. I can make no further positive claims than that. This observation does not imply in any way any sort of policy position one way or the other and principled people can have legitimate disagreement over what to do next. This is a clash of values, not of beliefs. Our deontology here includes consequences, but the actual moral calculus is not ours to solve on your behalf.
Best wishes everyone, and sorry about the poop jokes. I get nervous when I tackle difficult subjects and it sometimes manifests poorly.
Update: another take here from Joe Colucci. I think he makes an excellent point when he notices that the nudge camp wants to quietly alter knife-edge behavior. Abortion is anything but. The decision to abort is fraught with distress, moral panic, and deep consideration. This is another reason why disinterested third parties have a very difficult case to make for interfering.
So it's particularly interesting for me to see a libertarian heavyweight tangle with arguably one of the most deservedly important living economists in the world. Bryan Caplan engages Richard Thaler.
Apart from Mario Rizzo's ongoing campaign against the camel's nose in the tent, the idea of soft or "libertarian" paternalism flared up again right here on EE with a post I wrote about the British Parliament's efforts to make salacious materials on the Web available to homes on an opt-in basis. Way off down under in the Land of the Kiwi, crazy Canuck Eric Crampton had similar thoughts at Offsetting Behavio[u]r. Professor Thaler emphatically denied the Nudge link on Twitter, even though "choice architecture" and his work was directly referenced by the politicians designing the scheme.
That's the funny thing about ideas. They're a common pool resource. It'd be nice if there were a lifeguard on duty, making sure nobody's running and that the splashing and horseplay is kept to a minimum, but sure as the day is long, that old burrito is bound to catch up with Smalls and he'll crap right in that pool. That's the nature of politics: it encourages, nay, demands that someone take a dump in the ol' swimmin' hole sooner or later. Virginia Political Economy details this mechanism with sufficient clarity and detail that James Buchanan won a Nobel Memorial Prize for it. I don't think he ever used any pool-pooping metaphors though. That undignified nonsense is 100% Sam. Point is, the originator loses control of an idea once ceded to a legislative authority. Perhaps this is obvious to me only because I'm a public choice student, and expecting others to share my esoteric knowledge is excessive. I should temper my expectations.
The conversation continues with Caplan posing a pointed question to Nudge Paternalists: why not nudge expectant parents away from the decision to abort a fetus? Included in the terms is what seems like a reasonable proposal, regardless of your stance on choice architecture: end government subsidies. After all, to get more of something, subsidize it, and I don't think that even the most staunchly pro-choice left liberal actively seeks more abortions, unless perhaps they subscribe to eugenic or NPG philosophies. Which they might. I know such people. Here's how Thaler responds: "what do you think the ban on government money does? Medicaid=poor. yikes!" Bryan follows up here.
I think Thaler's making a claim underpinned by EE conditions! One of the strongest arguments for keeping abortion legal is founded in BATNA considerations: one alternative to safe, legal abortion is dangerous, black market ("back-alley") abortion, which is riskier for the mother. Of course, that's an assumption. Elsewhere, JR has proposed a new logical fallacy: "I proclaim a new rhetological fallacy: the error of assumed opportunity, e.g. pursuit of leisure costs productivity, instead of leisure." It works well here, since the Right assumes that the alternative is childbirth and the Left assumes that the alternative is the medical equivalent of Jesse Pinkman in season 1 with a surgical mask... okay, let's leave the rest of that alone. More sophisticated arguments on both sides acknowledge multiple margins or a continuum, but most of what we hear are simplified platitudes. Hence the "much heat", "little light" above.
As the novelty account based on Dr. Phil lower in the Tweet thread notes, the median price for an abortion is around $470, and I checked about the Medicaid thing. Only 15 states allow Medicaid to help with the out-of-pocket cost of abortions. I can imagine how I would set up the econometric strategy to find out where the substitution margins actually are (it's not an easy specification, in case you were wondering), but something tells me that even carefully conducted empirical studies are unlikely to cause a whole lot of people to change their minds on this particular subject. It's pretty likely that this is based on strong moral considerations, not on dispassionate utilitarian evidence.
Maybe the reason libertarians don't like talking too much about this subject is because of the problem I'm having right now. I can't write a snappy concluding paragraph. I can't even beg you to consider the issue in a new light. You've heard the arguments, you know the positions. I have nothing new to add to the conversation. All I can say from an EE point of view is that in the exchange of services between a pregnant woman and a physician, the potential future human whose life is at stake gets no say in the transaction. That's it. I can make no further positive claims than that. This observation does not imply in any way any sort of policy position one way or the other and principled people can have legitimate disagreement over what to do next. This is a clash of values, not of beliefs. Our deontology here includes consequences, but the actual moral calculus is not ours to solve on your behalf.
Best wishes everyone, and sorry about the poop jokes. I get nervous when I tackle difficult subjects and it sometimes manifests poorly.
Update: another take here from Joe Colucci. I think he makes an excellent point when he notices that the nudge camp wants to quietly alter knife-edge behavior. Abortion is anything but. The decision to abort is fraught with distress, moral panic, and deep consideration. This is another reason why disinterested third parties have a very difficult case to make for interfering.
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Time to Serve
This idea, that people in China can pay a "double" to serve time for them in prison, is so odd that I have trouble believing it's true.
The problem is that it is SO inefficient. If you allow this practice, then you should reduce all penalties to huge fines. Then you could pay the state, or serve the time.
The advantage, from the perspective of the state, is that they would get the revenue. It is bizarre to accept a double for jail time, and then pay the costs of incarcerating that double. The only punishment paid by the perpetrator is the payment, in effect a fine. Why dissipate that cash by running jails? Take the cash directly, and make the fines huge. $100 per day, something like that (apparently the "wage" to serve in jail is $31, so $100 is substantial).
But, all that aside, the question posed to me by the LMM (who sent the link): Is the private transaction here euvoluntary? That is, is the poor person / street person / hobo who serves the time as a double acting as a free agent?
I'm thinking the answer is "yes." These are people with a very low opportunity cost of time, and their outside option is pretty bad. But there should be a competitive "labor market" for doubles, and in prison you get fed. A payment of $31 per day for a month is a smidge over $900, in a country where minimum wage is $150-$200 per month.
So: dumb policy. Encourages corruption, wastes resources. But, exploitative of the "double"? Nope.
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Obscene Contracts
Armin Meiwes, Der Metzgermeister, wrote a very simple contract in March of 2001 (links omitted for the sake of civility {and I encourage you to refrain from seeking out any details on your own}). The offer was simple: he was "looking for a well-built 18- to 30-year-old to be slaughtered and then consumed." Now, since this contract was offered in Germany, I can't comment on the specifics of Teutonic Law as it relates to how the local court might have upheld the terms, but the main components of a valid contract seem to (arguably, of course) be present: offer and acceptance (by Herr Bernd Jürgen Brandes), consideration (this may be the crux of the argumentablity) and sufficiency. There appeared to be no coercion, and for the purposes of a thought experiment, we might assume that the contract included a cool-down period featured in many other life-or-death contracts, such as a euthanasia agreement. Naturally, we might ask if the respondent was indeed mentally impaired or otherwise incapable of forming a contract, but again, let's assume for the moment that this is not the case. In Anglo-American common law, this contract violates what is known as "unconscionability", a term of art that is as it sounds: the contract is so hideous that no court would consider enforcing it.
It is on these shifting shoals that we pilot the SS Euvoluntary Exchange. It seems reasonable that even if we grant all the other conditions on EE that we might still legitimately seek to bar parties from writing contracts over voluntary murder and cannibalism. We can assume that parties have rights over ownership and exchange, no appreciable probability of ex post regret, there exist no uncompensated externalities and no coercion by agency or circumstance exists and we still would find this kind of contract unacceptable. The curious question I have is what role money? Suppose that instead of Brandes offering his participation for non-pecuniary consideration that the offer included a cash transfer. I propose that if the ad had included the line 200,000DM embedded somewhere, the moral revulsion would increase exponentially.
Now, clearly the case of Meiwes and Brandes is a rather extreme example, but I suspect that similar moral sentiments linger as we relax the monstrosity of the contract. A contract to indulge a street fight between homeless people might be objectionable, but once you offer them $20 to bloody each others' noses, it seems downright criminal. An exchange of explicit cash consideration amplifies extant revulsion. Volunteering to protect a physically weaker friend from attack by bullies is gracious and noble; selling such services as a hired bodyguard is mercenary and ignoble.
At any rate, I think it's quite interesting that this whole "conscionability" concept exists. It seems to imply that even if every other legitimate condition for trade can be met, there remain some things that are just (to misquote Andreoni) some things that are just so icky that it's not in the interests of society to permit enforcement. Perhaps a seventh condition for EE would be something like: (7) trade is not unconscionable under the common law definition.
But seriously, don't look up the details of the Meiwes case. It's pretty gross, people.
It is on these shifting shoals that we pilot the SS Euvoluntary Exchange. It seems reasonable that even if we grant all the other conditions on EE that we might still legitimately seek to bar parties from writing contracts over voluntary murder and cannibalism. We can assume that parties have rights over ownership and exchange, no appreciable probability of ex post regret, there exist no uncompensated externalities and no coercion by agency or circumstance exists and we still would find this kind of contract unacceptable. The curious question I have is what role money? Suppose that instead of Brandes offering his participation for non-pecuniary consideration that the offer included a cash transfer. I propose that if the ad had included the line 200,000DM embedded somewhere, the moral revulsion would increase exponentially.
Now, clearly the case of Meiwes and Brandes is a rather extreme example, but I suspect that similar moral sentiments linger as we relax the monstrosity of the contract. A contract to indulge a street fight between homeless people might be objectionable, but once you offer them $20 to bloody each others' noses, it seems downright criminal. An exchange of explicit cash consideration amplifies extant revulsion. Volunteering to protect a physically weaker friend from attack by bullies is gracious and noble; selling such services as a hired bodyguard is mercenary and ignoble.
At any rate, I think it's quite interesting that this whole "conscionability" concept exists. It seems to imply that even if every other legitimate condition for trade can be met, there remain some things that are just (to misquote Andreoni) some things that are just so icky that it's not in the interests of society to permit enforcement. Perhaps a seventh condition for EE would be something like: (7) trade is not unconscionable under the common law definition.
But seriously, don't look up the details of the Meiwes case. It's pretty gross, people.
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Interesting Book
An interesting book that is more obscure than it should be.
Consent, coercion, and limit: the medieval origins of parliamentary democracy, By Arthur P. Monahan. McGill-Queens Press. 1987.
First page of a review...
(Click to embiggen)
Consent, coercion, and limit: the medieval origins of parliamentary democracy, By Arthur P. Monahan. McGill-Queens Press. 1987.
First page of a review...
(Click to embiggen)
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