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On the limits of price theory as punishment theory

When debating theories of punishment, frequently one hears metaphors rooted in free-market capitalism's classical price theory, where punishment is considered the "price" for certain aberrant behavior and (theoretically) a higher price supposedly deters the unwanted behavior.In financial circles, though, critiques of those very theories have been thrust to the center of national debates over the economic collapse and a road to recovery less reliant on bubbles and unsustainable debt loads. Former Fed Chair Alan Greenspan famously recanted from the laissez-faire worldview that animated and drove his entire career. Even 7th Circuit Judge Richard Posner, the judiciary's most radical free market advocate, has taken to reading and advocating ideas from John Maynard Keynes and frankly discussing the limits of theories of "perfect competition" based on rational action by self-interested consumers...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on February 15, 2010 (boomark / email).