Surveys in Economics, Vol. 2 Book

I really enjoyed "Economics of Prohibition". It is a short book (under 200 pages), but it is long on information and short on speculation. Some knowledge of economics would help one to understand some of Thornton's points more clearly, but the terminology and concepts can easily be looked up by complete economics novices.

Thornton lays out this book by discussing the history of prohibition, the effects of prohibition, the theory of prohibition, and the future of prohibition. He tends to focus primarily on the prohibition of alcohol in the early 20th century and narcotics and marijuana prohibitions throughout the rest of the 20th century. He looks at prohibitions from an economic and free market perspective, illustrating how prohibition rises the prices of drugs and decreases users' real incomes. This necessarily reduces their standards of living, as they have less to spend on food, clothing, shelter, and other products and services. This reduction in real incomes makes crime more attractive; the risks to one's job and future income are now less valuable and less stark. The opportunity costs of crime are now lower, so more crime will be committed all else being equal.

Also, Thornton explains that more law enforcement resources are diverted to the enforcement of drug laws under prohibition than under other forms of government intervention. These resources are diverted from enforcement of crimes like theft and rape. These crimes all the sudden become less costly to the criminal under prohibition because the chances of being caught are lower. This two-pronged effect increases crime from both ends. The interaction between those two factors was something I hadn't thought of before reading this book.

Another important thing I took away from this book was Thornton's history of prohibitions. They have tended to be formed due to some combination of racism/anti-immigrant sentiment, coalition building by major political parties to garner support of interest groups, and the direct support of large corporate interests. Not surprisingly, the progressives of the early 20th century, with their brand of racism and belief in big government, absorbed prohibition into its platform. I believe that if more people understood the original sources of prohibition laws, there would be more public outcry against them.

I'd recommend this to anyone that is interested in drug and alcohol prohibition and a free-market perspective on those topics. Though it seems as if everyone is in favor of marijuana legalization now, I was happy that Thornton strays from marijuana legalization and talks about the legalization of heroin and other narcotics. This is a much more controversial topic, but I believe he handles it with aplomb. Heroin prohibition has the same effects as marijuana prohibition, so if one embraces one, he should embrace the other. This is a thought-provoking book with a lot of quality information from disparate sources. Best part about it: it's available for free from the Mises Institute website in PDF form!