Law, Economics, and Superstition: Human Sacrifice

The most recent paper in my continuing project on the law and economics of superstition: “Human Sacrifice.”

Abstract:

This paper develops a theory of rational human sacrifice: the purchase and ritual slaughter of innocent persons to appease divinities. I argue that human sacrifice is a technology for protecting property rights. It improves property protection by destroying part of sacrificing communities' wealth, which depresses the expected payoff of plundering them. Human sacrifice is a highly effective vehicle for destroying wealth to protect property rights because it's an excellent public meter of wealth destruction. Human sacrifice is spectacular, publicly communicating a sacrificer's destruction far and wide. And immolating a live person is nearly impossible to fake, verifying the amount of wealth a sacrificer has destroyed. To incentivize community members to contribute wealth for destruction, human sacrifice is presented as a religious obligation. To test my theory I investigate human sacrifice as practiced by the most significant and well-known society of ritual immolators in the modern era: the Konds of Orissa, India. Evidence from the Konds supports my theory's predictions.

Enjoy.

 

Comments

[International Marketing Research]

This is really a fascinating blog, lots of stuff that I can get into.
One thing I just want to say is that your blog is so perfect!

[Barkley Rosser]

Two points, Pete, one trivial, one substantial. The trivial one is why do you spell their name as "Kond" when all (or most of) the published references to them seem to as "Khond"?

The other is that while the historical evidence that the imposition of British rule and protection from each other coincided with the ending of the sacrifices, it strikes me that a more convincing piece of data to support the argument would be to show that the the tribes doing better were also the ones that sacrificed more frequently. As it is, it appears that nearly all tribes did at least one sacrifice per year. If this is what most did most of the time, and there was no link between doing well and sacrificing more, that somewhat weakens the arguument.

In any case, certainly an interesting case.

[Barkley Rosser]

Just to be really anally trivial, I note that "Kh" and "K" are not pronounced similarly. The former is generally pronounced like the "ch" at the beginning of "chutzpah." I note that Victorian Brits tended to be very precise and fussy about such matters.

[Best Stock Analysis]

I just want to thank you for sharing your information and your site or blog this is simple but nice article I've ever seen I like it I learn something today.

[Best Stock Analysis]

Hi,
this one is great and is really a good post. I think it will help me a lot in the related stuff and is very much useful for me. Very well written I appreciate & must say good job.

[AC]

Install psychotherapist.

[John]

This argument can certainly be extended to a rational theory for war (mass human sacrifice).

[Xerographica]

Here's my review...

http://pragmatarianism.blogspot.com/2012/12/can-economics-explain-human-sacrifice.html

It's mostly just a collection of passages...

"Practically everywhere it is understood that communication with the divine should be through exchange, through mutual giving, which is reflected in the circulation of gifts within the community or hierarchy of Creation of the Sacred." - Walter Burkert, Creation of the Sacred: Tracks of Biology in Early Religions

[interior decorator]

It's awesome to visit this website and reading the views of all mates on the topic of this post, while I am also zealous of getting know-how.|