Dear Experts,

Thanks for your time.

I have a theory I'm developing for a chapter in a book I've written. The protagonist rationalizes a murder he is about to commit though cost benefit analysis. Mainly crime and human fault create jobs to a certain degree. Too much crime is never good for a community/neighborhood, but isolated instances provide jobs for journalists/newsstands/security agencies/lawyers/police etc... I argue, for instance, that computer viruses in small doses keep IT professionals employed. Obviously, a major attack could damage a company, but a few extra salaries needed to counteract minor virus attacks are easily absorbed.

What can the detractors say? What arguments would you have against this theory? My devil's advocate says a company increases efficiency if it doesn't have to carry a large IT department. Where would this money go? The stock value increases, making shareholders richer, however these people are the wealthiest of society who don't need the money. This would call upon the principals of trickle down economics where the shareholder upon selling shares might use this money to go on vacation for instance. However this only contributes to the service economy rather than government and white-collar industries where labor is more fully employed.

What are your thoughts?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Best,

Marc

The first question that springs to mind for me is whether the resources are being deployed in the most efficient manner and towards the greatest need. Yes it is good to have high employment, but suppose we blew up a city with a nuclear bomb and the cleanup effort required thousands of people to perform manual labor. Would that be a good use of our resources? Let's not even measure the destruciton that the bomb would bring but only consider how worthwhile the employment of those involved in the cleanup would be?

Perhaps, we are at the peak of the learning curve in IT and the returns are minimal. Perhaps we can create jobs through productive instead of destructive (computer viruses) means?

The economic principle you are missing is the production curve. Theoretically, if we did not have to police ourselves as a community, we good put our efforts towards more productive good. Think what you could do with a computer if no viruses or hackers existed. The computer would run a bit faster, for one, if it didn't have to scan for viruses. The production curve of the computer would be that much faster. And this is only a simple instance. Demand would be higher if no crime existed. Things would be cheaper if security wasn't part of the price of a good.

Interesting argument, though.