The Case for Conspiracy
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The
conspiracy theorists
have a new one: they believe that workers in Americas
airports and seaports are now helping smuggle drugs into this country. Law-
enforcement officials call these alleged operations internal
conspiracies.
Can you believe it? This story actually made the front page of The New York Times, which usually derides conspiracy theories, but told this one with a straight face. Next well be told that high government officials in Latin America have been involved in these conspiracies. Then well be told that our own government is involved, with the aid of UFOs. OK, enough cheap ridicule. These conspiracies are real enough. For example, according to the Times, some employees of Delta Airlines actually did use their positions and access to security checkpoints to help get drugs from Puerto Rico past airport customs. Since last October [October 1996], 148 airport and seaport workers have been arrested nationwide for their participation in drug-smuggling operations. Whats the solution to this problem? Well, as the late political analyst James Burnham used to say, Where theres no solution, theres no problem. Illegal drugs are a hugely lucrative business, and the chief effect of the federal war on drugs has been to drive the prices up. It has also had other effects, though, such as generating conspiracies. Its impossible to calculate how many conspirators there are, or how high in our own government they reach. All we know is that the money is awfully tempting to an awful lot of people. If you were a Colombian drug kingpin, would you worry about the war on drugs? Sure. Just as Al Capone worried about Prohibition. Like most government regulation, the war on drugs makes the costs of entry into the drug market too high for small fry, but for that very reason its great for the big operators. And its turning much of the world into the equivalent of Chicago in the Roaring 20s. The global drug trade illustrates the volcanic power of the free market. Like it or not, its beyond any possibility of suppression. That trade involves two fungible commodities: drugs and cash. Both of these are far easier to conceal than liquor, and liquor defeated all efforts to ban it by law. Unlike liquor, illegal drugs cant even be kept out of prisons. How are they going to be banished from a continent? All we can be sure of is that the attempt to eliminate drugs will involve more and more people in criminal conspiracies, including many of the people who are responsible for enforcing the laws. The war on drugs is a formula for corruption. Governments like to set themselves impossible tasks, such as eliminating things that cant be eliminated. Why not? Government officials dont have to worry about costs. Its not their money thats being wasted; they receive their salaries even when they fail. So the war on drugs pits drug moguls who make huge profits against governments that dont mind absorbing huge losses. The costs of selling drugs including the arrests of low-level employees are more than covered by the profits, while, on the other side, the costs of the futile pursuit of drugs are passed on to the taxpayer. In other words, this is a war neither side can lose, because the government cant win and, as long as it can make taxpayers subsidize its efforts, has no incentive to admit defeat. Its only incentive is to go on spending other peoples money, regardless of results. The drug dealers side is at least economically rational. The government, whose agents arent risking their own resources, doesnt have to think in rational terms. What beautiful symmetry! What exquisite ecological balance! No wonder both sides in this war want it to continue indefinitely. And no wonder some people, including workers at airports and seaports, want a piece of the action. They know perfectly well that theres no light at the end of the tunnel in this war. And they dont feel that the governments side is their side. As taxpayers, they merely cover the governments losses. As conspirators, they can at least exploit their own market value. Joseph Sobran |
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Copyright © 2006 by the
Griffin Internet Syndicate, a division of Griffin Communications This column may not be reprinted in print or Internet publications without express permission of Griffin Internet Syndicate |
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