Of drugs and inelastic women

2003 08 30

If I ever get around to writing my epoch-making essay on Strange Nobel Laureates in Economics, University of Chicago professor Gary S. Becker will certainly take pride of place. His Theory of the Family is great fun to read.

In the European Edition of Business Week, August 4-11, Becker wrote a column entitled How to level the playing field for young black men (unfortunately subscribers only). While most of the article very sensibly emphasizes the need to improve schools and education his main conclusion is breathtaking: Since drug trafficking offers much better pay than legal alternatives, drug use and dealing should be decriminalized.  Market forces would then rapidly drive down the price of drugs and make trafficking much less attractive. Becker doesn't say so but presumably drug dealers would then turn to those legal alternatives.

I do not know, really, why this upsets me. It is, of course, only another logical consequence of the leave-everything-to-the-market ideology, now universally embraced by political parties and movements of all colors, and with great consequence championed by Becker and his ilk.  That's also why I was so surprised to see DARPA get such an unfair treatment recently. As the Pentagon agency truthfully, but somewhat naively stated, according to Washington Post (www page no longer available):

From the trading patterns, the Pentagon agency, known as DARPA, hoped to gain clues about possible terrorist attacks. In statements Monday and Tuesday, it said markets are often better than experts in making predictions (emphasis added).

If we are happy to leave our children, sick and elderly to the 'market forces' why not also national security and drug abuse?


Note: Prof.em. Barbara R. Bergmann was kind enough to send me a paper on Becker's  Theory of the Family, Preposterous Conclusions originally published by Rice University but apparently not available on www. I will come back to that paper. Bergman apostrophizes Becker:

Women will offer themselves as wives, provided they have an "income" within the marriage (an income broadly conceived as including nonpecuniary benefits, but not specified further) of at least Z, which is the income they would enjoy as single females. The supply curve becomes completely inelastic where the quantity supplied equals the number of marriageable females, Nf.

Bergmann, a leading feminist economist, would possibly enjoy Becker's statement in Business Week that, unless drugs are decriminalized:

too many black sons will have no dad at home