When we get stuck in hours-long queues at airports waiting for our turn to be thoroughly molested by strangers, we put it down to necessity - anything to stop the likes of Bin Laden and his goons. After all, who would trade a slow boarding time for a higher probability that the plane ends up in a building?
The same thinking applies to the people at the top: confronted with the choice of devoting more of the budget to anti-terrorism and the chance that some train or bus explodes at peak hour, governments rationally choose to spend the money.
But is that the reason why we are spending so much on anti-terrorism? Or are there other factors at play?
I was running along the countryside near campus, ruminating on M.Friedman’s “Capitalism and Freedom” and admiring the greenery at the same time, when the thought struck me about how trees were capitalist as well, and how it has enabled forests like the Amazon to become so majestic. 