On the way home I heard on NPR some guy expressing something I've been meaning to post for awhile.
He made the not-entirely-new-point that travelling on roads and highways works because most people obey the rules. It doesn't necessarily matter so much what those rules are - we can drive on the left side, the right side, whatever, but unless we all agree on what those rules and most of us obey them, well, just because, the whole system will fall apart.
The cops can provide some incentive for us to behave. But, unless most people follow the rules essentially because they want to, no amount of cops in the world can make it work.
Being that I'm one of those immoral (or is it amoral? can't keep track.) liberals, this isn't going to a Bill Bennett-style lecture on morality.
What I want to bring up is that there are certain notorious Chicago-School Law and Economics types who have argued that corporations (and their managers) have an obligation to their shareholders to break they law if it will increase their return. That is, if the expected cost of disobeying the law is less than the benefit of disobeying it, the managers have an obligation to do break it.
On second thought, maybe Bill Bennett should get on this one after all.
