Paternalists cause a lot of harm.
For example, US anti-drug laws have caused millions of people to be imprisoned, lose their homes, lose their jobs, and so on. Taxpayers have paid billions of direct costs, and trillions in indirect costs over the years as a result of anti-drug laws.
For example, Bin Laden and Al Queda have used the sales of heroin to finance their terrorist attacks, attacks which in turn launched the Afghanistan/Iraq wars, which have cost the US 6 trillion dollars and counting. If heroin were legal, heroin users would've bought it from mainstream companies like Bayer, and the Bin Laden/Al Queda would've had much less had the funds to launch their attacks. Similarly, black market drug sales finance criminal cartels who murder tens of thousands of people every year.
But maybe the drug laws have reduce recreational drug addiction enough to warrant the losses to terrorists/criminals financed by black markets? Unfortunately, there's little evidence that anti-drug laws have reduced the availability of recreational drugs (drug prices have remained flat for decades), nor reduced the harm caused by recreational drug abuse. In fact, studies of the D.A.R.E program, for example, suggest that kids exposed to the program used drugs at a higher rate than those that didn't. And countries that have relaxed their drug laws somewhat, such as Portugal, have experienced a decline in drug abuse.
Yet these laws persist. And the War on Drugs is just one example of the harm caused by paternalists--there are many other paternalistic laws and regulations that have caused damage at a similar scale.
IMO, paternalists are willing to impose their schemes on the rest of us, because they suffer little or no consequence for the harm they cause.
Therefore, it seems to me that we need to implement better institutional incentives so that paternalists pay more for the harm they cause. For example, in an ideal world, paternalists would make restitution to the people who lost income as a result of being imprisoned under drug laws.
Is anyone aware of good books or articles on how such incentives might be implemented?
For example, US anti-drug laws have caused millions of people to be imprisoned, lose their homes, lose their jobs, and so on. Taxpayers have paid billions of direct costs, and trillions in indirect costs over the years as a result of anti-drug laws.
For example, Bin Laden and Al Queda have used the sales of heroin to finance their terrorist attacks, attacks which in turn launched the Afghanistan/Iraq wars, which have cost the US 6 trillion dollars and counting. If heroin were legal, heroin users would've bought it from mainstream companies like Bayer, and the Bin Laden/Al Queda would've had much less had the funds to launch their attacks. Similarly, black market drug sales finance criminal cartels who murder tens of thousands of people every year.
But maybe the drug laws have reduce recreational drug addiction enough to warrant the losses to terrorists/criminals financed by black markets? Unfortunately, there's little evidence that anti-drug laws have reduced the availability of recreational drugs (drug prices have remained flat for decades), nor reduced the harm caused by recreational drug abuse. In fact, studies of the D.A.R.E program, for example, suggest that kids exposed to the program used drugs at a higher rate than those that didn't. And countries that have relaxed their drug laws somewhat, such as Portugal, have experienced a decline in drug abuse.
Yet these laws persist. And the War on Drugs is just one example of the harm caused by paternalists--there are many other paternalistic laws and regulations that have caused damage at a similar scale.
IMO, paternalists are willing to impose their schemes on the rest of us, because they suffer little or no consequence for the harm they cause.
Therefore, it seems to me that we need to implement better institutional incentives so that paternalists pay more for the harm they cause. For example, in an ideal world, paternalists would make restitution to the people who lost income as a result of being imprisoned under drug laws.
Is anyone aware of good books or articles on how such incentives might be implemented?