Title: The Economics of Prohibition | Mises Institute
Headings: The Economics of Prohibition
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The Economics of Prohibition
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Content: Economists now suspect that any net losses to society produced by government policies are the result of rent seeking rather than ignorance or irrationality on the part of policymakers. Rent seeking is a search for privilege and personal gain through the political process. Rent seeking is distinguished from corruption in that rent seeking is legal and corruption is not. History reveals that prohibitions are indeed classic examples of the co-opting of public-spirited intentions by rent seekers within the political process, thereby explaining the existence of what at first appears to be irrational policies. This rationality-based method for the study of human action was labeled praxeology by the Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises. His student F. A. Hayek, a Nobel laureate, called it the logic of choice. Contemporary economists will recognize this approach as developed by Gary Becker. Other social scientists, notably political scientists, criminologists, and psychologists, will no doubt recognize this rationality-based approach as one which has become part of their own disciplines. Although such an outcome is unintentional on my part, this book will prove threatening to many. Some will label the theory in it doctrinaire, apologetic, capitalistic, or liberal.