And the nation that pays it is lost!

From Positive Sanctions versus Imprisonment by Murat C. Mungan. Let's pay people not to commit crimes!

Brings to mind George Orwell's observation:

One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool.

From the Abstract:

This article considers the possibility of simultaneously reducing crime, prison sentences, and the tax burden of …financing the criminal justice system by introducing positive sanctions, which are benefits conferred to individuals who refrain from committing crime. Specifically, it proposes a procedure wherein a part of the imprisonment budget is re-directed towards financing positive sanctions. The feasibility of reducing crime, sentences, and taxes through such reallocations depends on how effectively the marginal imprisonment sentence reduces crime, the crime rate, the effectiveness of positive sanctions, and how accurately the government can direct positive sanctions towards individuals who are most responsive to such policies. The article then highlights an advantage of positive sanctions over imprisonment in deterring criminal behavior: positive sanctions operate by transferring or creating wealth, whereas imprisonment operates by destroying wealth. Thus, the conditions under which positive sanctions are optimal are broader than those under which they can be used to jointly reduce crime, sentences, and taxes. The analysis reveals that when the budget for the criminal justice system is exogenously given, it is optimal to use positive sanctions when the imprisonment elasticity of deterrence is small, which is a condition that is consistent with the empirical literature. When the budget for the criminal justice system is endogenously determined, it is optimal to use positive sanctions as long as the marginal cost of public funds is not high.

To be fair to Mungan, no ideas should be off limits and even patently absurd should be debated. Our epistemic history is rife with stupid things which at one time were considered inconceivable but which, on investigation, turned out to be true.

But this does sail so close to postmodernist foolishness where the productive should subsidize the unproductive and the constructive should subsidize the destructive, that one is tempted to turn away in disgust.

Perhaps the better approach is to recommend that social scientist/philosophers at least read poetry, specifically Kipling's poetry, before they set pen to paper.

Dane-Geld
A.D. 980-1016
by Rudyard Kipling

It is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation
To call upon a neighbour and to say: --
"We invaded you last night--we are quite prepared to fight,
Unless you pay us cash to go away."

And that is called asking for Dane-geld,
And the people who ask it explain
That you've only to pay 'em the Dane-geld
And then you'll get rid of the Dane!

It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say: --
"Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away."

And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we've proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.

It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,
For fear they should succumb and go astray;
So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
You will find it better policy to say: --

"We never pay any-one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost;
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that pays it is lost!"