I propose restructuring the causal relationships implicit in the description. If there is a society in which crime pays well, then as a consequence of this people will become rich from crime, and therefore there will be unjustified inequality. But at the same time, since crime pays well, then it will be rational to commit crime. Both of these are effects of the same cause, which is that crime pays well. Because people are rational and keen observers of their immediate environment (but not such keen observers of society in general), I expect these causal relationships to greatly outweigh the supposed causal relationship between observing that there is unjustified inequality and, as a consequence, deciding to commit crime. People respond well to their immediate environment, to the incentives that they are faced with. If crime pays, it pays locally (i.e. if an individual person commits a crime then that pays that individual person), and people will respond well to these (local) incentives. This response has nothing in particular to do with the larger picture (which is that inequality is unjustified).
If you merely make the society-wide observation that inequality appears unjustified, this does not by itself give you any program for profiting from crime yourself. It does not give you a recipe for profiting from breaking the rules. Whereas if you see an opportunity that you can act on, by for example observing that people are profiting from activities which you could participate in (such as burglary, mugging, or what have you), then this gives you an incentive to participate.
I think you’re wrong to focus on the financial incentives for crime. In reality, the only criminals who earn a lot of money are high-ranking bosses of organized crime and white-collar criminals in the business world, with a few very rare exceptions (like e.g. spectacular heists or super-high-skilled cat burglars). Ordinary criminals don’t earn significantly more money than their legally employed peers coming from a similar social class, not even without adjustment for the associated risks—and taking up crime expecting to become a big mafioso is about as realistic as taking up computer programming expecting to become the next Bill Gates (i.e. not impossible, but vanishingly unlikely for a typical entrant into the profession).
The key issue here, in my opinion, is the status one gains by engaging in crime versus legal work. For concrete people, this is primarily an artifact of the status relations in their own social group, rather than the society at large. In this regard, you are correct to observe that if crime pays, it pays locally—but rather than the financial gain, the key issue is whether crime pays locally in terms of status gain in the potential criminal’s community and social network.
I’ll support my case with Paraguay, one of the countries listed as being high inequality/high crime in a list in a recent comment. In Paraguay you can easily buy a stolen car for relatively little (thus participating in a crime). At the same time, your car is likely to get stolen.
So, what do people rationally do in this situation? There is, first of all, an incentive against owning any car at all because of the likelihood that it will be stolen. But this is especially strong as an incentive against paying full price to legally own a car. Because stolen cars are significantly cheaper, this gives you a strong incentive to favor buying a stolen car over a legally owned car.
I do not see any significant status element specifically tied to owning a stolen car in Paraguay. There is of course always a status element tied to owning a car, but it is not tied specifically to the crime. On the contrary, the rich in Paraguay, who are able to afford gated, protected areas to keep their cars, presumably tend to legally own cars (I infer that this is the case from personal observation, because the cars of the rich that I’ve seen look new; the stolen cars that my non-rich acquaintances own look pretty beat up and old). That being the case, it is presumably high status to own a car legally and low status to own a car illegally. I don’t pry, but this is what I gather.
So the widespread corruption of Paraguayan society on this matter has to do with practical realities, not with status, on my analysis. Your argument is that only a tiny minority benefit from engaging in crime. But it seems to me that the ordinary Paraguayan benefits from buying a stolen car, thus participating in the crime. So there seems to be a serious gap in your argument somewhere.
Paraguay is a country in which the government is utterly corrupt. That being the case, the people are not protected—they are essentially on their own. The government is kleptocratic. I was told the sad story of someone whose business was simply seized by a member of the government. In this country, many of the rich are rich because of their connections with the government. And many of the poor are poor because they are completely unprotected from predation and therefore have little incentive to stand out.
In Paraguay, I heard that Korean grocers (who run by far the best small groceries) are filthy because they allegedly sleep in the store. If they do (which, from the one case I know, a Korean grocer who is a friend of a cousin, they do not, though as I recall they sleep in the same building just above the store) it may be because it is the only way to protect their property. Here, by the way, I have an example of a sub-population (Koreans) which is disproportionately successful and which is resented by the larger population.
You’re right—my above comment was too specifically concerned with the U.S. and other developed nations. In places that are poorer and where law enforcement is much less strong and reliable, financial incentives for crime may well be at the forefront even for low-level crooks.
On the other hand, it’s also important to note that when some laws are enforced very weakly or not at all, the very notion of “crime” becomes blurry, and what would clearly be crimes under decent law enforcement may effectively become just regular customary behavior expected from everyone. I find your account of the stolen car market in Paraguay really interesting; from what you say, it appears that since the legal enforcement of property in cars is completely broken, they have been replaced with a peculiar customary system where cars just change hands liberally and randomly. In such a situation, I’m not sure if I would classify buying a stolen car as crime.
I propose restructuring the causal relationships implicit in the description. If there is a society in which crime pays well, then as a consequence of this people will become rich from crime, and therefore there will be unjustified inequality. But at the same time, since crime pays well, then it will be rational to commit crime. Both of these are effects of the same cause, which is that crime pays well. Because people are rational and keen observers of their immediate environment (but not such keen observers of society in general), I expect these causal relationships to greatly outweigh the supposed causal relationship between observing that there is unjustified inequality and, as a consequence, deciding to commit crime. People respond well to their immediate environment, to the incentives that they are faced with. If crime pays, it pays locally (i.e. if an individual person commits a crime then that pays that individual person), and people will respond well to these (local) incentives. This response has nothing in particular to do with the larger picture (which is that inequality is unjustified).
If you merely make the society-wide observation that inequality appears unjustified, this does not by itself give you any program for profiting from crime yourself. It does not give you a recipe for profiting from breaking the rules. Whereas if you see an opportunity that you can act on, by for example observing that people are profiting from activities which you could participate in (such as burglary, mugging, or what have you), then this gives you an incentive to participate.
I think you’re wrong to focus on the financial incentives for crime. In reality, the only criminals who earn a lot of money are high-ranking bosses of organized crime and white-collar criminals in the business world, with a few very rare exceptions (like e.g. spectacular heists or super-high-skilled cat burglars). Ordinary criminals don’t earn significantly more money than their legally employed peers coming from a similar social class, not even without adjustment for the associated risks—and taking up crime expecting to become a big mafioso is about as realistic as taking up computer programming expecting to become the next Bill Gates (i.e. not impossible, but vanishingly unlikely for a typical entrant into the profession).
The key issue here, in my opinion, is the status one gains by engaging in crime versus legal work. For concrete people, this is primarily an artifact of the status relations in their own social group, rather than the society at large. In this regard, you are correct to observe that if crime pays, it pays locally—but rather than the financial gain, the key issue is whether crime pays locally in terms of status gain in the potential criminal’s community and social network.
I’ll support my case with Paraguay, one of the countries listed as being high inequality/high crime in a list in a recent comment. In Paraguay you can easily buy a stolen car for relatively little (thus participating in a crime). At the same time, your car is likely to get stolen.
So, what do people rationally do in this situation? There is, first of all, an incentive against owning any car at all because of the likelihood that it will be stolen. But this is especially strong as an incentive against paying full price to legally own a car. Because stolen cars are significantly cheaper, this gives you a strong incentive to favor buying a stolen car over a legally owned car.
I do not see any significant status element specifically tied to owning a stolen car in Paraguay. There is of course always a status element tied to owning a car, but it is not tied specifically to the crime. On the contrary, the rich in Paraguay, who are able to afford gated, protected areas to keep their cars, presumably tend to legally own cars (I infer that this is the case from personal observation, because the cars of the rich that I’ve seen look new; the stolen cars that my non-rich acquaintances own look pretty beat up and old). That being the case, it is presumably high status to own a car legally and low status to own a car illegally. I don’t pry, but this is what I gather.
So the widespread corruption of Paraguayan society on this matter has to do with practical realities, not with status, on my analysis. Your argument is that only a tiny minority benefit from engaging in crime. But it seems to me that the ordinary Paraguayan benefits from buying a stolen car, thus participating in the crime. So there seems to be a serious gap in your argument somewhere.
Paraguay is a country in which the government is utterly corrupt. That being the case, the people are not protected—they are essentially on their own. The government is kleptocratic. I was told the sad story of someone whose business was simply seized by a member of the government. In this country, many of the rich are rich because of their connections with the government. And many of the poor are poor because they are completely unprotected from predation and therefore have little incentive to stand out.
In Paraguay, I heard that Korean grocers (who run by far the best small groceries) are filthy because they allegedly sleep in the store. If they do (which, from the one case I know, a Korean grocer who is a friend of a cousin, they do not, though as I recall they sleep in the same building just above the store) it may be because it is the only way to protect their property. Here, by the way, I have an example of a sub-population (Koreans) which is disproportionately successful and which is resented by the larger population.
You’re right—my above comment was too specifically concerned with the U.S. and other developed nations. In places that are poorer and where law enforcement is much less strong and reliable, financial incentives for crime may well be at the forefront even for low-level crooks.
On the other hand, it’s also important to note that when some laws are enforced very weakly or not at all, the very notion of “crime” becomes blurry, and what would clearly be crimes under decent law enforcement may effectively become just regular customary behavior expected from everyone. I find your account of the stolen car market in Paraguay really interesting; from what you say, it appears that since the legal enforcement of property in cars is completely broken, they have been replaced with a peculiar customary system where cars just change hands liberally and randomly. In such a situation, I’m not sure if I would classify buying a stolen car as crime.