Violence and Its Importance

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The iron rule of autocracy is very simple. It's this message, if you challenge me, you will lose, and i will win. And the successful autocrat can be the leader of a drug gang in your neighborhood or could be an political party. But if you're the leader, what you want to convey is, if you challenged me, you'll lose, and I will win. Economists should be able to account for that pretty simply.

Economist and author Gary Shiffman of Georgetown University talks about his book, The Economics of Violence, with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Shiffman argues that we should view terrorism, insurgency, and crime as being less about ideology and more about personal expression and entrepreneurship. He argues that approaching these problems as economists gives us better tools for fighting them.