[FoRK] Formula for breaking the law

[Stephen Williams]

Jeff Bone wrote:

>     
> My earlier formulation was both imprecise and incorrect.  Here's a  
> second attempt:
>
>     L ~= B / eC + c
>
>   L is likelihood of any given person breaking a particular law
>   B is the benefit *to that person* (in economic terms) of breaking  
> the law
>   e is the likelihood of that person getting caught (enforcement)
>   C is the cost to that person (in economic terms) if caught
>   c is the cost to that person for breaking the law, independent of  
> any enforcement

Cool.  Also in c, or perhaps better as an additional variable s (shame), 
is the likelihood of others in your social circle knowing you broke the 
law, or probably more accurately, broke the law more than they did by 
degree or quality.
Also, you need a factor for the likelihood that the law is invalid 
and/or unconstitutional, say U.  An additional minor term would include 
the degree or circumstance of uninforcement, which I suppose is captured 
in e, but having opposite sign, might be better captured as u.  Non-zero 
values of e and u can coexist, which would not be apparent with a single 
variable.

Interestingly, the results of this could be factored in to an "evilness" 
measure which could have L terms on both sides.  Strictly applying, or 
strictly conforming to laws can be more evil than the alternative, 
especially for high values of U.  This is of course true in the cases 
where there are significant values of greater good, G, involved.

I'll have to dredge out a recent thread about all of the sources of laws 
in the US.

I've half had this thought before, which is now more developed: these 
kinds of equations, particularly with more detail of a couple types, is 
a great statement of personal ethics / position / choices.  In fact, 
that is a great method for models for core exposition for two books I've 
been thinking about (relationships, IT/CompSci/Entrep. career paths).

sdw

>
> I.e., the likelihood of any person breaking any given law is  
> proportional to the ratio between the benefit of breaking the law and  
> all the probable costs.  Note that B, C, and c are all relative to 
> the  individual in question's own value system;  you can map each of 
> those  into economic terms, but mapping those values across people 
> might be  difficult without some market mechanism...  (hmm...)
>
> Luis speculates that some people may place value on obeying laws for  
> their own sake;  well, whatever, that goes into c.  I would argue,  
> though, that there's obviously not some very significant near- 
> universal value placed on obeying laws for their own sake, otherwise  
> everyone would always drive the speed limit --- which, clearly, 
> almost  nobody does all the time.  Different people, obviously, 
> assign  different values to these variables.
>
> I will further speculate that the incidence of law-breaking overall  
> for some law and some population is proportional to, if not exactly  
> equivalent to (which might be possible if you have some kind of  
> normalization of the values of the variables across people, but  
> Arrow's Paradox suggests that might not be possible) the sum of the  
> values of L for each person for their own specific values for the  
> variables in that equation divided by the size of the population.
>
> Not going to bother with the formula for that, though. ;-)  Will 
> leave  that to a Real Economist. (tm)
>
> $0.02,
>
> jb
>
> PS - for a less Saturday Morning treatment of same, consult an  
> economist.  Perhaps David Friedman:
>
>   
> http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academic/Price_Theory/PThy_Chapter_20/PThy_Chapter_20.html 
>
>
>
>
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