A Middle Eastern Petition
While the level of violence escapes me, the protests over the publication of the irreverent cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammed with a bomb-shaped turban that appeared in a Danish newspaper are understandable. Muslims consider depicting the face of Muhammed, the most important of all their prophets, as blasphemous and are deeply offended by such portrayals, just as many Christians were deeply offended several years ago by the so-called artist who imagined he was being clever by putting a Crucifix in a jar of urine and calling it “P— Christ.” Free expression and a free press are important values, but intentionally insulting a people’s religion is just being unnecessarily rude. While there are ways of dealing with rudeness, firing guns and setting American and European businesses on fire are far beyond the pale.
According to this Associated Press report by Asif Shazad (http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/w-me/2006/feb/14/021401813.html), in Lahore, Pakistan, there were about 15,000 people in a “protest organized by a little-known religious group and an Islamic school.” Shazad goes on to write, “the demonstration was also supported by associations representing local traders.”
Could it be that at least some of the fuel for these fiery protests against the West, especially those against Western businesses, has to do with making it difficult for Western businesses to provide so much competition for local businesses? Businesses everywhere and always have argued for greater competition for the goods that they buy while attempting to erect bigger and bigger barriers to competition, particularly foreign competition, for the goods they sell. Some economists refer to the employment of otherwise productive resources into erecting barriers to keep out competition as “rent seeking.” Rent seeking behavior is some sort of political (peaceful or violent) activity designed to transfer wealth from other people to one’s own group (for a full explanation of “rent seeking,” check out this Wikipedia entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent_seeking). Another way to think about rent seeking is as activities that produce no good or service but instead redistributes income and wealth away from some and to those who get the special treatment. Burning existing foreign businesses makes it less likely that these and other foreign businesses will do business in Pakistan. In this case, the use of the protestors’ time erects an entry barrier or a barrier to competition by raising the costs of business for others, thus protecting the local merchants. Imagine how far local grocers and local pharmacists would go to keep Wal-Mart out of a community.
The usual path to rent seeking and the erection of entry barriers is through the established political process, as can be seen in Bastiat’s satirical “A Petition” (http://www.econlib.org/library/Bastiat/basSoph3.html — this is a must read!). Trade barriers can be built not only through the peaceful, ordinary political process, but also through illegal and violent political processes, such as demonstrations that involve the vandalism of property and the threat to life. The results are the same: increased profits go to some at the expense of losses for others. The biggest losers, though, are usually the consumers who now have to pay higher prices for goods they buy. While the local merchants are not the only ones bankrolling these mass demonstrations, their support of selective vandalism against foreign competitors should come as no surprise.
I do not mean to suggest that all of the protestors were “rent seeking,” but rather that some local merchants were using the cover of the protests to help cut into their competition.
As an aside, I would like to suggest that if these violent demonstrators find blasphemy so distasteful, perhaps they should protest the ultimate blasphemy, the use of Allah’s name to condone murdering innocent individuals in bombings both across the globe and in the Middle East itself.
Morris Coats
March 26th, 2006 at 7:27 pm
What hypocrisy! Mr. Coats says it perfectly. If religious blasphemy is so distasteful, why are hundreds, probably thousands, being massacred across the world in the name of Allah? Something just doesn’t quite add up. Let’s make the world a more peaceful place by blowing up everyone who does not agree with us. A few thousand years ago Saul, better known as St. Paul, was struck blind by God for 3 days while he was en route to torture and murder countless Christians. (He converted and went on to write much of the bible’s New Testament.) Sound familiar? I certainly believe in religious freedom – a freedom that is practiced peacefully; a freedom that does not infringe itself on the rights and safety of others. I do not wish to sound judgmental, but perhaps God should strike a few Muslims blind . . .