Without prohibition, there would have been no Al Capone or Bugs Moran. Without federal security laws, no Bernard Madoff. In 1677, Baruch Spinoza wrote on how laws beget lawbreakers, create criminals:
All laws which can be violated without doing anyone any injury are laughed at. Nay, so far are they from doing anything to control the desires and passions of man that, on the contrary, they direct and incite men’s thoughts toward these very objects; for we always strive toward what is forbidden and desire the things we are not allowed to have. And men of leisure are never deficient in the ingenuity needed to enable them to outwit laws framed to regulate things which cannot be entirely forbidden. He who tries to determine everything by law will foment crime rather than lessen it.
(Quoted from page 217 of Cocaine Nation: How the White Trade Took Over the World, by Tom Feiling. Pegasus Books, 2009.)
For a brief biography of Baruch Spinoza, click here. For images of or relating to Baruch Spinoza, click here.
For a brief biography of Tom Feiling, click here. For images of or relating to Tom Feiling, click here.
All laws which can be violated without doing anyone any injury are laughed at. Nay, so far are they from doing anything to control the desires and passions of man that, on the contrary, they direct and incite men’s thoughts toward these very objects; for we always strive toward what is forbidden and desire the things we are not allowed to have. And men of leisure are never deficient in the ingenuity needed to enable them to outwit laws framed to regulate things which cannot be entirely forbidden. He who tries to determine everything by law will foment crime rather than lessen it.
(Quoted from page 217 of Cocaine Nation: How the White Trade Took Over the World, by Tom Feiling. Pegasus Books, 2009.)
For a brief biography of Baruch Spinoza, click here. For images of or relating to Baruch Spinoza, click here.
For a brief biography of Tom Feiling, click here. For images of or relating to Tom Feiling, click here.
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