Great. More legislation, problem solved. Nobody will set any more meth labs now. On the basis of experience, however, I think we can safely predict that some people will set them up, no matter how draconian the new penalties are.
Why might that be? Well, this is the environment in which these, er, entrepreneurs work, and, as individuals, some of them will think the profit worth the risk. Some of them will imagine that they, at least, will not run afoul of an even more hostile legal climate.
I think there is an analogy here with a criticism often brought to bear against the Austrian business cycle theory. How, sundry Chicagoites and the like, ask, How could it be that businessmen will go on being misled in their calculations by repeated bouts of monetary expansion? Won’t they, having grasped the gist of the Austrian explanation, refrain from investing money-out-of-nothing, thereby preventing anticipated depressions?
Apparently, not. Like his cousin the meth entrepreneur, the legitimate businessman has to work within the given set of circumstances. Like this cousin, he may suppose that he can outwit the unfavorable conditions with which he is confronted. If he is to stay in business at all, he is not likely to shun all easy money, even if he tries to allow for the downside and factor monetary expansions into his calculations.
