A drug dealer on economists' theories about drug dealing | Hacker News Reader

A drug dealer on economists' theories about drug dealing

npr.org

43 pointstrustfundbaby13 comments

As a student of international relations, this seems familiar to me. Liberal international relations theorists focus on economic variables as causal to a far greater degree than realists or constructivists, and have also imported a bunch of their methodologies from economics/econometrics. Realists tend to deny the primary importance of economics, going on about power and the animus dominandi like old saws.

It's funny that in this NPR piece economists focus on all the monetary and financial risk aspects, while seemingly blind to the central motivation of the people on the streets:

What's more, he really liked being a drug kingpin.

I loved it. ... I felt like I was powerful. ... It was every man's dream to be free. ... I'd rather be doing that than anything else, almost.

Power and independence, not money, were the ultimate goal. Very realist.

I think if you dig a bit deeper into most people's motivations for wanting to be rich, you will find out that independence is the really reason. Without any evidence I think that people want to be rich, so they don't have to worry about money.

I think Aristotle Onassis' theory is a bit more accurate:

“If women didn't exist, all the money in the world would have no meaning.”

Furthermore, the best approximation to human behaviour I know is that human beings will do whatever it takes to maximise ... not their wealth, not their freedom, but... their status.

For nice middle-class me, going to prison for drug dealing would be a huge step down in my status. For some kid in the ghetto, though, it could easily be the opposite.

My grandfather worked at a state prison in NH. He was friends with an inmate who made the prison his home. Whenever his sentence ended, he would break into a house and wait for the owner to find him and call the police to take him back to prison. He was a pretty nice guy, and fairly smart - he even helped critique the first electronic security system at the prison. (He picked the lock with a ballpoint pen and walked into the warden's office to tell him exactly what was wrong with the system!)

>"Furthermore, the best approximation to human behaviour I know is that human beings will do whatever it takes to maximise ... not their wealth, not their freedom, but... their status."

// Many people choose to take on a lower "status" though.

Chasing "the good life" or "down-sizing" for example.

This is, to my mind at least, a hankering for something more meaningful than financial acumen or societal position.

Well of course the great part and the worst flaw of my status-maximization theory is that it can't be disproved. The guy who gives up a high-paying job in finance to go become a starving artist is arguably maximising his status ("Oooh look at that guy following his dream and not caring about money") and so is the guy who makes the reverse decision ("Being an artist is for try-hard suckers, look at my money!").

It's hard to find an example of someone unambiguously lowering their own status, since voluntarily lowering your status in order to achieve some other aim can be, in itself, a status-raising activity.

It appears you're messing with your definition of status in order to make such statements. Could you give a succinct definition of what you mean by "status"?

Status is defined by the general populus, others define your status, your place in the "pecking order". People regarding your actions as positive ('following his dream, blah blah') doesn't mean your status is increased.

"a starving artist is arguably maximising his status"

Yes, it depends on your definition of status .. so ...

Yeah, it all comes down to what you consider "status." Independence and high economic/societal position are not the same thing.

"If I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes."

I wonder if you could frame this as an expression of basic economic principles. The very most valuable thing is that which cannot be bought for any price: time.

Yeah there was a TED Talk that touched on money and happiness. Apparently $60,000/year was the cognitive (or material) line necessary so that the average person could stop worrying about money.

http://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_kahneman_the_riddle_of_exper...

“Below 60,000 dollars a year, people are unhappy, and they get progressively unhappier the poorer they get. Above that, we get an absolutely flat line. I mean I’ve rarely seen lines so flat.”

Not just a drug dealer, but Freeway Ricky Ross, who arguably helped invent crack whose cocaine supplier was the Nicarguan Contras, the CIA-funded army of Iran-Contra fame. I love Planet Money, but I wish they'd gone a little deeper into his involvement with the contras. If you want to know more look into Gary Webb's series, Dark Alliance. The restored site is here: http://www.narconews.com/darkalliance/drugs/start.htm

I'm sure it's great to be a kingpin, but I'd be interested to hear the perspective of the low level dealers and other rank-and-file.

That's true, the best stories come from the middle or the bottom. The top guy says he'd make less, but would the bottom guys wind up making more? It's a potentially interesting business dynamic. Would you have more horizontal than vertical management structure?

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