Note : This article is the 4th in a series on over-legislating a a path that more and more nation-states are taking in an attempt to emasculate the disruptions that threaten them. Here is the first 3 articles in the series : Death by regulation When Regulations are So Stupid...
The story shouldn't be misunderstood to say we know seatbelt mandates are on net bad, but to notice there are "offsetting effects" against the benefit of the regulation, e.g people drive more recklessly, at greater harm to themselves AND others.
The problem isn't the good or bad of any individual regulation (even though most individual regulations are bad), it's the incentives that create 1) more bad than good regulations, 2) bad regulations don't get updated in light of insights on cost-benefit. You're stuck with bad ones.
Government/legislators have poor incentives to be good regulators - there can be good regulation delivered by through market incentives, for the same reasons that market incentives perform better in any other area like cars, food, entertainment etc.
Hey Niklas, while writing this passage, I studied the Peltzman effect, but it is very controversial, and many studies has rebuked it in the domain of seatbelts, as the article you shared points out.
Reading the scientific literature, I found that the consensus was largely in favor of the effectiveness of wearing a seatbelt, and the positive effects of making it compulsory.
What's more, it's a light regulation (after all, it takes about 3 seconds to put on a seatbelt, and it doesn't stop anyone from driving), so I put it in the "few regulations that are light and effective" category.
- The Peltzman effect is not about the effect net negative or positive, it is about the countervailing effect itself that hardly anyone looked at before Peltzman
- It is ethically not by default permissable to use compulsion to reduce net harm. Example: the volunteered organ donor. Can you kill one healthy person to harvest their organs to save 5 people's lives? Probably not. The benefits would have to be in the least a) very large, and b) very certain.
- It is ethically not by default permissable to use compulsion for someone's own benefit (paternalism). We don't have regulations against sitting on your couch all day and eat potato chips & get obese - even though you are acting against your own benefit.
- Even if we think this qualifies for seatbelts, we may not want to do these regulations for rule-utilitarian reasons: if we allow governments to regulate these things, they do on net very large harm - I expect you don't disagree with me there
So in principle we should just say "no" to government regulation and question the whole logic of it, instead do regulations through market incentives.
Of course it would be totally stupid for libertarians to campaign against these individual regulations, as they did in New Hampshire. There is a halo effect around such regulations, including e.g. environmental regulations. You'd harm the cause by campaigning against them.
Even seatbelt mandates may not work, see the famed Peltzman Effect: https://thedecisionlab.com/reference-guide/psychology/the-peltzman-effect
The story shouldn't be misunderstood to say we know seatbelt mandates are on net bad, but to notice there are "offsetting effects" against the benefit of the regulation, e.g people drive more recklessly, at greater harm to themselves AND others.
The problem isn't the good or bad of any individual regulation (even though most individual regulations are bad), it's the incentives that create 1) more bad than good regulations, 2) bad regulations don't get updated in light of insights on cost-benefit. You're stuck with bad ones.
Government/legislators have poor incentives to be good regulators - there can be good regulation delivered by through market incentives, for the same reasons that market incentives perform better in any other area like cars, food, entertainment etc.
Hey Niklas, while writing this passage, I studied the Peltzman effect, but it is very controversial, and many studies has rebuked it in the domain of seatbelts, as the article you shared points out.
Reading the scientific literature, I found that the consensus was largely in favor of the effectiveness of wearing a seatbelt, and the positive effects of making it compulsory.
What's more, it's a light regulation (after all, it takes about 3 seconds to put on a seatbelt, and it doesn't stop anyone from driving), so I put it in the "few regulations that are light and effective" category.
Yes, and to add:
- The Peltzman effect is not about the effect net negative or positive, it is about the countervailing effect itself that hardly anyone looked at before Peltzman
- It is ethically not by default permissable to use compulsion to reduce net harm. Example: the volunteered organ donor. Can you kill one healthy person to harvest their organs to save 5 people's lives? Probably not. The benefits would have to be in the least a) very large, and b) very certain.
- It is ethically not by default permissable to use compulsion for someone's own benefit (paternalism). We don't have regulations against sitting on your couch all day and eat potato chips & get obese - even though you are acting against your own benefit.
- Even if we think this qualifies for seatbelts, we may not want to do these regulations for rule-utilitarian reasons: if we allow governments to regulate these things, they do on net very large harm - I expect you don't disagree with me there
So in principle we should just say "no" to government regulation and question the whole logic of it, instead do regulations through market incentives.
Of course it would be totally stupid for libertarians to campaign against these individual regulations, as they did in New Hampshire. There is a halo effect around such regulations, including e.g. environmental regulations. You'd harm the cause by campaigning against them.