Noem’s Razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which is adequately explained by malice.

This is an unfortunately all-too-appropriate story for Martin Luther King holiday.

Following up on this news item:

Economist Colin Camerer writes:

I suspected this. Sad case of poor incentive design (ICErs create expensive externalities bc of legal, reputation. etc costs of processing bad detentions and arrests.

Textbook amateur mistake.

But was it a mistake? Based on various government statements and actions, I have the impression that arresting, assaulting, and even shooting people in violation of the law is what they want to be doing, perhaps out of some mixture of belief that everyone targeted is guilty (otherwise why would they be getting in the way of the cops in the first place), partly out of a terror campaign (if nonviolent protesters fear for their safety, that can dissuade people from protesting, and if the assaults and shootings are arbitrary, this just increases the deterrence factor), and partly from an ideology by which anything they do is righteous and legal.

I’m not quite saying that the government did this on purpose, making incentives to encourage illegal and dangerous behavior; it’s more that they didn’t really care, and, if anything, illegal and dangerous behavior is a plus for them. And politically this could be hurting them. Setting the incentives how they did may have been a political mistake, but I suspect that Camerer is naive in framing the situation as if the government is trying to avoid the bad detentions and arrests.

To paraphrase the famous saying: It was worse than a blunder; it was a crime.

Camerer should see this by . . . thinking like an economist! When there’s a policy that seems like it doesn’t make sense, think more carefully about the incentives. And of course this policy applies much more generally, as in the literature on regulatory capture.