The third paper in my 3-part series investigating the "law and economics of superstition" is complete: "Gypsies."
Abstract:
Gypsies believe the lower half of the human body is invisibly polluted, that supernatural defilement is physically contagious, and that non-Gypsies are spiritually toxic. I argue that Gypsies use these beliefs, which on the surface regulate their invisible world, to regulate their visible one. They use superstition to create and enforce law and order. Gypsies do this in three ways. First, they make worldly crimes supernatural ones, leveraging fear of the latter to prevent the former. Second, they marshal the belief that spiritual pollution is contagious to incentivize collective punishment of antisocial behavior. Third, they recruit the belief that non-Gypsies are supernatural cesspools to augment such punishment. Gypsies use superstition to substitute for traditional institutions of law and order. Their bizarre belief system is an efficient institutional response to the constraints they face on their choice of mechanisms of social control.
I wonder if Leeson has made a post on this blog in the last 2 years that wasn't directly aimed at self-promotion.
I was surprised he was still contributing at all because the link to this blog was taken off his website last year.
Well, I guess you don't become the "new hope for Austrian Economics" by hiding your light under a bushel. It just seems a little transparent.
Posted by: D.W. | July 19, 2010 at 11:20 AM
Boo-hoo.
Anyway, I'll wager that paper won't get published without having to change Gypsy to Romany. PC must be upheld.
Posted by: FC | July 19, 2010 at 12:10 PM
Could you state some of the not-totally-off-the wall observations that would be inconsistent with your thesis?
Posted by: Mario Rizzo | July 19, 2010 at 12:29 PM
Very interesting. I recommend two great Eastern European movies on the topic :
Black Cat, White Cat by Emir Kusturica (Serbian production)http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0122082/
and Gadjo Dilo by Tony Gatlif (Franco-Romanian production) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0122082/
Posted by: Bogdan Enache | July 19, 2010 at 08:30 PM
Tenure.
Posted by: FC | July 20, 2010 at 04:10 AM