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All these blogs are quick to question the compulsion for petrol pump owner to adulterate or even kill and too happy to point it to economics behind it. Why dont they kind of take same effort in studying the compulsions of accomplice (helpers of pump owner) in this case or even compulsions of politicians in forming the policies they write (subsidies or otherwise). It is all to do with inequalities (social and economical). We urbanites dont know the ground realities, we keep blogging away to glory on imaginary policy changes, which will never happen. I do agree that policies need to be changed in timely manner, but things have to change slowly giving due considerations to those who are unable to compete either because of their location (ruralites who lack exposure to quality education or other things) or social structure.

Someone immediate and obvious has to take the blame. We cannot scapegoat the subsidies for all that is wrong in us.

Your analogy about the lone woman on the road does not correctly portray the argument put forward. Here is a better version. What if the government imposed high tarrifs on most busy streets to reduce crowding, leaving only a few desolated streets tarrif-free. Lets say the woman in your example, being of limited means chose to use the desolate street and was attacked by a man waiting to take advantage of the situation. In this case the flawed tarrif law is the root cause of the attack on the woman.

No one here is condoning adulteration or murder. What is being pointed out is how the “unintended consequences” of seemingly benign laws can have fatal results.

For example, liquor prohibhition creates a thriving black market in liquor. As Ila Patnaik points in the article, high import duties make smuggling economically worthwhile. Laws like the rent control act have made theives out of many otherwise honest people.

There are incentives to rape a lone woman standing on the road in the middle of the night but generally men won’t do it because the disencentives are far stronger — fear of going to jail, fear of getting kicked in the groin by the girl, fear of that painful feeling that comes after you have done something wrong (pangs of conscience) etc etc. For rapists obviously, these disencentives are not strong enough.

It actually helps when you view human beings as rational agents responding to incentives rather than some fictional creatures responding to some higher spiritual stimulus!

As good as saying a beautyfull women was on the road unprotected at the middle of the night and some one raped her, because she was standing on the road.

I just can’t belive this argument..

What we need is a set of legal disencentives so that this behaviour can be moulded. I know the inspector raj that we had didn’t work very well but the original intent was the same. We need to find out a better way for regulating these things and putting a more rational incentive struture through regulation of petrol pumps, you cann call it the “new inspector raj”! I am not sure what kind of regulations we already have though!

I know many of you libertarians will say…but in the longer term consumers will drive the shady dealers away from the market (that’s assuming we have an efficient way of dispersing information, which again calls for more regulation)…but in the longer term perhaps some more people like that guy will have to die.