Different River

”You can never step in the same river twice.” –Heraclitus

Don Boudreaux of Cafe Hayek is normally an excellent economist, but he makes a fundamental economic error when thinking about terrorism. I suspect he made this error because when thinking about terrorism, he forgot to take economics — that is, the science of incentives — into account:

[T]hese people terrorize western nations not because we are free, rich, or morally degenerate. They terrorize us because of our foreign policies.

The best way to prevent these people from terrorizing us is for Uncle Sam to pull his troops out of the middle east.

Even though I disagree with the premise, let’s assume for the sake of the argument that terrorism really is a response only to our foreign policies. In that case, if we change our policies in response to terrorism in a way that the terrorists like, we are — to put it in economic jargon — increasing the payoff to terrorism. We are doing something that increases the realized value of the terrorists’ utility function. Assuming the cost of terrorism is constant (which Prof. Boudreaux asserts a few paragraphs before the above claim), then we would be increasing the payoff of terrorism while keeping its cost constant — in effect subsidizing terrorism.

Boudreaux is, like me, precisely the kind of economist — that is, a market-oriented, libertarian-leaning economist — who knows that when you subsidize something, you will get more of it. And terrorism is, in this respect, no different from anything else. If you subsidize terrorism, you get more of it — and getting our troops out of the Middle East in response to terrorism would be subsidizing terrorism, and asking for more.

One might ask, if terrorists want us to change our foreign policies, how it is possible that changing our foreign policy could not end terrorism? I mean, it might be a high price to pay if you agree with our current foreign policies, but shouldn’t we weigh that against the price of continuing to suffer from terrorism?

The problem is, behind that question is the unspoken assumption that changes in foreign policies are the only things the terrorists want — and not only that, but that those terrorists are the only potential terrorists anywhere in the world. However, once it is established that one particular American and British foreign policy (troops in the Middle East) can be changed by terrorism, why stop there? Every economist knows that insatiability is part of human nature, and it won’t take long before the terrorists think of some other policy they want changed, or something else they want. And even if they don’t, someone else will decide they want something else, and realize that terrorism is the way to get it. Want more foreign aid money? A price floor for oil? How about a U.S. or British ban on importing some product from any country but yours? Well, blow up a couple of airplanes or buses or restaurants, and it’s yours!

I leave, at least for now, to others to debate if such a move would be ‘giving in to terrorists.’

No, Don, you can’t take that dodge — by claiming that terrorism is a response to our foreign policies and therefore we should change precisely those policies, you are advocating such a move precisely because it is ‘giving in to terrorists.’ By your own logic, if such a move were not actually ‘giving in to terrorists,’ then it wouldn’t work.

I content myself here merely to point out that if a government has any legitimate functions, surely the most central of these is to protect its people from violence inflicted by foreign invaders. If Uncle Sam’s current foreign policies promote such invasions of terrorists (as Pape’s evidence suggests), then Uncle Sam’s first duty – if it truly puts the welfare of Americans first – is to have its garrisons and guns scram from the middle east ASAP.

I agree completely, 100%, with the statement that “if a government has any legitimate functions, surely the most central of these is to protect its people from violence inflicted by foreign invaders.” However, changing policies to satisfy the desires of terrorists does not protect the people — it rather promotes more of the same invasions, by subsidizing them.

Furthermore, there is every indication that that the Iraqi people suffered greatly under Saddam, and polls show the vast marjority to believe Iraqi is better off now than it was under Saddam. Now, if we pull out of Iraq — in response to Arab terrorism of course — and Saddam or someone else like him takes power, who’s to say that Iraqis angry at us for pulling out don’t embark on terrorism to get us to come back? Imagine a large public bombing, followed by statements sent to the media claiming the attacks were punishment for “betraying the Iraqi people” by withdrawing and allowing a totalitarian dictatorship to take power. After all, if terrorism is the way to change American policies, why not?

Would the U.S. be obligated to intervene in every foreign conflict, as soon as one side says they will commit terrorist attacks if we don’t? That sounds insane, and it is — but it’s exactly what we’ll get if we decide that avoiding terrorism is a valid reason to do what terrorists want us to do. And once you start, there is no end to it.

Imagine, if you will, a smaller-scale version of Don’s argument — Imagine someone from another country comes to Don’s home town, murders a few children, and demands the mayor pay him a million dollars, otherwise he will murder more. Well, Mayor Boudreaux reasons, the murder did it for money. If a government has any legitimate functions, the Mayor’s first duty is to protect his people from violence inflicted by foreign invaders. The murderer is interested only in money — he doesn’t care how people in the town live their lives or anything like that. And surely, the safety of the town’s children is worth way more than a million dollars — no one can argue with that! Not to mention that starting a small military to fight off this guy would cost a lot more! So, to protect the children of his town, the Mayor gives the murderer a million dollars from the town’s treasury. They murderer goes on his merry way and never bothers anyone again, right? No, the murderer pretty soon decides that, what with the price of real estate, HDTV, and Learjets, he’d really rather have $10 million than $1 million. And meanwhile, some other people hear the news, and conclude that you can get whatever you want by shooting children in Mayor’s town. Pretty soon, he has not only the first guy wanting more money, but dozens of others coming into town, shooting people, and demanding money. Far from fulfilling his most central governmental duty of protecting his citizens, the Mayor has actually put them in far greater danger than they were in before — and certainly more danger than if he had sent in a team of snipers to get rid of the first muderer, notwithstanding the risks and expense involved.

(Pejman has a different, but compatible argument here.)