We’ve all suspected that the market economy has a civilizing effect on people, but I’ve rarely seen such a poignant example.
Here I was returning a rental car to the dealer, and some confusion set in about the keys. The attendant asked for them back, and I handed them over even as I was pulling bags and things out of the car. The attendant hopped in the driver’s seat to check the mileage, and left the keys in the car. He shut the door, I shut another, even as one more bag remained insider. But there was a hitch: the car was now locked.
We all looked at each other with a sense of: what were we thinking? Now the car was locked, and it was the only set of keys. This isn’t one of those old fashioned cars that were easy to crack open. No sir, this was a new car with all the security features we’ve come to expect. It surely couldn’t be broken into. FULL ARTICLE
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I can see why they might have had the other things around, but the wire coat hanger? Call me a cynic, but I suspect that they might have been holding themselves in readiness for whichever opportunities might have been more convenient, the same old raid or trade approach of the Vikings and the European East India companies.
Jeff, your piece reminds me that even as our society is better than most at privatizing or otherwise managing commons and thus creating wealth, the task is never done.
Opportunists lurk everywhere, testing defenses and weighing the benefits of cooperation versus open or surrepticious unauthorized use/theft, and calling forth constant vigilance. Even where property rights are clear, they are only as good as they are observed and enforceable without undue cost, thus leading to continued evolution of technical and institutional means to protect assets.
The stickiest problems of course are those that relate to either manipulations of our property defense mechanisms for larger-scale theft (via the state) and battles over how to end tragedy of the commons types of problems relating to open but unowned resources.
Regards,
Tom
Even where property rights are clear, they are only as good as they are observed and enforceable without undue cost, thus leading to continued evolution of technical and institutional means to protect assets
Unfortunately with higher technical advances in stopping crime the villains also have access to the same technology and will always find a way.
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