Church-State Hinterlands: I
Two recent church-state events are in the news. (One of them, in fact, was the news.) Both got me thinking about this invariably complex class of problems.
One involves the refusal of some Muslim cab drivers at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport to transport passengers who are carrying alcohol. This is apparently a completely misplaced interpretation of Islamic law, but in recounting the episode the anti-Islamist campaigner (and son of the Harvard historian, whom I quoted in this article, Richard Pipes) Daniel Pipes argues that it is another sign of creeping sharia, a refusal of Muslims to accommodate themselves to the beliefs and practices of the larger non-Muslim society around them. The normally sensible Dennis Prager somewhat more hysterically takes the same tack.
Critics of the behavior of the cabdrivers argued that passengerswill with alcohol were being discriminated against. This is misplaced; there is no right to ride in a particular cab in a free society. People of all religious beliefs, even very unusual ones, have a right to try to solicit business at a publicly operated cab stand. But the operative word is "try." The question is the terms under which the cab driver should be required to solicit for business.
The airport authority proposed that there be two lines – one for passengers with no alcohol and one for passengers with. This was acceptable to the drivers, but is unacceptable from an economic point of view. Presumably the line for drivers with alcohol will be shorter, and so they are being subsidized. Some drivers might even choose to buy alcohol when they otherwise would not do so to take advantage of the shorter line, which is an inefficient outcome resulting from a price distortion. If in fact the alcohol-free line will be shorter, the same effect occurs, only from the opposite direction; now people forgo buying wine or Jack Daniels at the duty-free shop when otherwise they would wish to.
Each cab driver with an unusual taste is imposing a negative externality by not only refusing to pick up a particular passenger, but by making everybody else in line wait longer while he disposes of the passenger. Suppose there are n people in line, k of whom are carrying alcohol. Each one waits whether he is carrying alcohol or not because of the cabdriver’s refusal. If each exchange between a customer and a passenger costs t in time expenses to both driver and every passenger in line, the cost of this decision when an alcohol-toting passengers at the front of the line is turned down is nt. Since we cannot set up separate lines so as not to subsidize particular tastes, either the driver’s or the passenger's (each driver carrying alcohol would pay kt instead of nt in economic costs for reasons having nothing to do with the social costs of that choice), another possibility is that the driver be sent to the back of the line. If he does so, there are n people in line and t in costs he faces for each driver in front of him in line, and so his total costs for indulging his preference are nt, which is exactly the cost we wish him to internalize. And so the efficient solution is probably the just solution – having all drivers compete on the same terms – as well. He is allowed to compete for business just like a driver without such preferences, but the costs of that preference are borne by him, as they should be.
I leave the second recent church-state dispute for another post.
One involves the refusal of some Muslim cab drivers at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport to transport passengers who are carrying alcohol. This is apparently a completely misplaced interpretation of Islamic law, but in recounting the episode the anti-Islamist campaigner (and son of the Harvard historian, whom I quoted in this article, Richard Pipes) Daniel Pipes argues that it is another sign of creeping sharia, a refusal of Muslims to accommodate themselves to the beliefs and practices of the larger non-Muslim society around them. The normally sensible Dennis Prager somewhat more hysterically takes the same tack.
Critics of the behavior of the cabdrivers argued that passengerswill with alcohol were being discriminated against. This is misplaced; there is no right to ride in a particular cab in a free society. People of all religious beliefs, even very unusual ones, have a right to try to solicit business at a publicly operated cab stand. But the operative word is "try." The question is the terms under which the cab driver should be required to solicit for business.
The airport authority proposed that there be two lines – one for passengers with no alcohol and one for passengers with. This was acceptable to the drivers, but is unacceptable from an economic point of view. Presumably the line for drivers with alcohol will be shorter, and so they are being subsidized. Some drivers might even choose to buy alcohol when they otherwise would not do so to take advantage of the shorter line, which is an inefficient outcome resulting from a price distortion. If in fact the alcohol-free line will be shorter, the same effect occurs, only from the opposite direction; now people forgo buying wine or Jack Daniels at the duty-free shop when otherwise they would wish to.
Each cab driver with an unusual taste is imposing a negative externality by not only refusing to pick up a particular passenger, but by making everybody else in line wait longer while he disposes of the passenger. Suppose there are n people in line, k of whom are carrying alcohol. Each one waits whether he is carrying alcohol or not because of the cabdriver’s refusal. If each exchange between a customer and a passenger costs t in time expenses to both driver and every passenger in line, the cost of this decision when an alcohol-toting passengers at the front of the line is turned down is nt. Since we cannot set up separate lines so as not to subsidize particular tastes, either the driver’s or the passenger's (each driver carrying alcohol would pay kt instead of nt in economic costs for reasons having nothing to do with the social costs of that choice), another possibility is that the driver be sent to the back of the line. If he does so, there are n people in line and t in costs he faces for each driver in front of him in line, and so his total costs for indulging his preference are nt, which is exactly the cost we wish him to internalize. And so the efficient solution is probably the just solution – having all drivers compete on the same terms – as well. He is allowed to compete for business just like a driver without such preferences, but the costs of that preference are borne by him, as they should be.
I leave the second recent church-state dispute for another post.
posted by Evan at 6:52 PM
1 Comments:
When a driver determines that "lawful" is decided by the Koran they are altering the legal terms of their license to those of sharia.
That could be; the argument is not that they are not violating some contract, but that the contract itself is invalid. It seems to me that prohibiting the excessively devout Muslim from even trying to solicit business is unfair; but of course he should bear the consequences of his religious beliefs.
The passenger with a bottle will be picked up, probably very soon. (Indeed, it wouldn't surprise me at all if many of these drivers found their beliefs are not so compelling once they become a little more costly.) But he does not have a right to be picked up within a certain time period, nor do I think he has the (moral, not contractual) right to choose his cab, which is someone else's property. I might be amenable to requiring that all such cabs post signs on their roofs expressing their hostility to alcohol-laden passengers, speeding up the process. But I'm not sure.
They'll simply purchase one boxed bottle (or retrieve a box from their liquor cabinet) and keep the unfolded box in their briefcase for refolding at the appropriate moment.
I have to concede this point, although it simply means that the distortion is smaller, not that it doesn't exist.
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