Re: Victimless crime

From: tsoon (tsoon@mail.usyd.edu.au)
Date: Mon Nov 23 1998 - 04:44:47 MST


>On the surface it sounds like a good idea to eliminate the victimless
crimes
>from the law, like drug abuse etc. But what about something like the
traffic
>laws, where there is no wictim at first for driving without a license or in
>other recless ways. Certainly more people will be killed or maimed. Isn't
>this a too high price to pay for the added freedom? I havn't made my mind
up
>yet.

No one is necessarily arguing for the abolition of traffic laws. In a
libertarian society these would be set by private owners under arrangement
with insurers etc. The argument about traffic laws is really about how good
a job the government is doing in setting the most cost-efficient
incentives/disincentives to trade lower accident costs against higher
inconvenience to drivers taking into account the effect on a usually
distorted automobile insurance/health insurance market, and whether private
ownership regimes can tackle these tradeoffs better.

Regards
Jason Soon



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 14:49:50 MST