Darth Econolaw

I haven’t met one yet, but I’ve sensed its presence: somewhere in my first year, I know I must meet Professor Econolaw. I hope I don’t punch him in the teeth. Mixing law and economics too closely isn’t particularly unusual, but it can be awfully distasteful. I haven’t quite yet figured out why. Nothing in the past century (besides perennial favorites penicillin and the toothbrush) has done more to improve living standards around the world as much as well applied economic policy. I believe it too, but then I wonder if I’m on the right side when I read something as simplistic as this:

Unlike an air- or waterborne disease, HIV-AIDS is easily avoidable by an inexpensive change of behavior, namely using condoms in sex, or by a more costly but still feasible change, namely by avoiding promiscuous sex.

Which is, of course, absolutely true, if it weren’t also true that much of the infected population can honestly claim to live in the kind of place

[w]idely acknowledged as [the] world's ‘rape capital,’ a rape happens every 26 seconds in South Africa. It is alleged that a woman born in this country has a greater chance of being raped than learning how to read. One in four girls faces the prospect of being raped before the age of 16, according to child support group, Childline. -PeaceWomen

Somehow providing cheap condoms doesn’t seem like it’s going to cut it for the masses of teenage rape victims. No doubt Posner is right in the aggregate; he’s thrown out coffee smarter than I am. There’s certainly evidence that the more treatable a disease is, the less cost expended by individuals in avoiding that disease. But I can’t shake the suspicion that something besides economic pragmatism underlies this kind of reasoning. Who tells the rape victim that providing her with subsidized treatment would “make matters worse by reducing the incentive to avoid contracting the disease in the first place?”

Maybe that’s it: economics is essentially rational, and I’ve always liked to think that law--and the policies it supports--are moral at their heart.