I visited Baltimore once, about 10 years ago, for an academic conference. While I remember its colonial-era architecture, the historic cathedral that once housed the great Cardinal Gibbons, and fun, chowder-laden conversations with local and visiting economists in brew pubs—the image that remains in my mind is that of the rats. These mangy pack animals seemed to populate every garbage dumpster that I passed at night heading to and from my hotel, and it made me think about the many millions of renovation monies that flowed into Baltimore in the post-Great Society years, much of it coerced, and how such spending is all for naught if the city weakens property rights institutions in the process.
People tend to take care of property when property rights are strong, and when they’re not, well, we see graffiti, litter, broken windows, and often, rats. If you disagree, then ask yourself: How many of these problems afflict your own house or business? I left Baltimore not terribly optimistic about its future and wondered how famous I might become if I was able to construct a “rat index” that gauged rat populations of inner cities that would serve as a proxy for property rights (or their lack).
Needless to say, this is not a project I pursued.
But now that Baltimore has become synonymous with police barricades, pepper spray, curfews, and looting—a sort of Ferguson East—I am reminded again of H.L. Mencken’s hometown. The course of events there have all been predictable and increasingly common. An outrageous and unnecessary death to a man in police custody followed by the descent of professional race-baiters, protests leading to riots and more confrontations with the police, looting of businesses that had nothing to do with the actual events spurring the protests, and calls for increased consciousness of problems in America dealing with race, as if this is a root of the problem.
Few people, mostly the economists, will note the role of deteriorating property rights institutions in Baltimore, even though the evidence is omnipresent. Consider (continue reading)