If a monopoly on legitimate force (government) is set up to prevent private predation, then what constrains government predation?

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Thursday, December 20. 2012

If a monopoly on legitimate force (government) is set up to prevent private predation, then what constrains government predation?

At Marginal Rev:

Previous findings suggest that informal, cultural rules underlie constraints on government predation. Following this logic, this study asks how contract enforcement is achieved – through formal or informal mechanisms?

I am not sure I understand their answer to this important question.

Posted by The Barrister in Politics at 14:27 | Comments (3) | Trackbacks (0)

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Seems to me they left out an examination of what happens when one participant decides not to follow the informal, cultural rules. And is powerful enough or critical enough not to be shunned. Then you fall back on formal rules which can force compliance.

Or to put it simpler, most people try to avoid going to court but if the court wasn't out there, they'd have little incentive to find a solution that avoided the conditions that most would go to court over.

Boundary conditions - they're the knife edge that shreds your perfect conclusions.

#1 JKB on 2012-12-20 16:13 (Reply)

I think of the long prelude to the fall of the Roman Republic. Competition among elites was vicious but circumscribed by tradition and informal rules, until one too many lines were crossed and precedents set that enabled Caesar's seizure of power. Rome's expansion into the Eastern Mediterranean was the globalization of their time in the sense that it increased the economic stakes of political power and led to a winner-take-all mentality.

Monkey see, monkey do.

#2 gpc31 on 2012-12-20 18:14 (Reply)

I've read the article. the author is a naive academic, the text is academic BS and has no bearing on real world commercial activities. just one example, on pg. 24 there's a protracted discussion on the impact on contract enforcement resulting from whether a culture uses pronouns --"I" or You", vs. whether the culture drops them...

... yet how can anyone write an article about contract enforcement by formal or informal institutions and not be aware of the increasingly important role of commercial arbitration such as CIETAC or AAA, institutions that don't fit into her dense yet superficial analysis. who cares about whether Nigerian dirt farmers are culturally acclimated to cooperation or think generally that people can be trusted? its more important to know that if you're going to deal with a foreign company, you'll want to avoid the courts completely and you'd better make sure you've got an arbitration clause enforceable under the UN convention.

and she can't write her way out of a paper bag.

#3 wirraway on 2012-12-20 18:42 (Reply)

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Thursday, December 20. 2012

If a monopoly on legitimate force (government) is set up to prevent private predation, then what constrains government predation?