anonymous question

I currently remind me a bit of Yulia Latynina, because I want to respond in the spirit of “you know, it’s like in that joke: first of all, there were no bullets…”.

Terrorist attacks such as 9/11, Beslan, Nord-Ost, the Boston Marathon, and so on, are directed against state policy. No state – no policy – no political terrorist attacks. Voila, the free market prevented them. Now let’s dig a little deeper.
Who ensures the safety of people in a free market? The people themselves. For the most part – directly. But the least troublesome and most obvious way, given that the market always tends to settle things through the division of labor, is to use market offers.

What does the market offer in terms of security? First, one can purchase a security service, for example, by installing an alarm system in the house and signing a contract with a security firm. Second, one can buy an insurance policy and simply know that, should something happen to you, either you or a designated circle of heirs will receive an insurance payout, so now it is the insurance company’s headache to figure out how to ensure people’s safety regarding insurance events.

Aha. So, if a terrorist attack occurs, the insurance company will suffer huge losses. There you have your potential beneficiary of terrorist attacks – competing insurance companies. The plan of action: blow up a plane, the company that insured the flight goes bankrupt, and we enter the vacated flight insurance market. There is, however, a problem: the plane is insured by one company, but each passenger is insured by any other; after all, they choose whose policy to take when insuring themselves against an accident or attack during a flight. Thus, decentralization makes commercial terrorist attacks aimed at seizing the insurance market ineffective. This applies not only to flights, but to all spheres of life in general.

But what about ideological terrorist attacks? For example, conservative fanatics might carry out mass shootings in gay clubs, exactly as they do now. To a certain extent, decentralization rules here too: when even the last gay man has a gun, a mass shooting becomes a problem. But a gun doesn’t save you from an explosion.
How does the free market prevent the spread of destructive ideologies? In the only way available to it: by making people richer and happier. This works slowly and does not provide a hundred percent effect, but it completely outperforms any state alternatives.

The only thing the market hasn’t learned to prevent yet is the appearance of insane maniacs. Economic incentives work poorly on someone who has lost their mind, just as they do on meteorites and tsunamis.

But once the market settles the raiders and Islamists, it will be the turn of the maniacs and natural disasters. Just laissez faire, laissez passer.