Rules, religion, and black-market candy

In my post on George Washington's farewell speech I suggested that in the absence of a strong belief in God, an official (or any person for that matter) no longer has an internal moral governor that serves to restrain improper behavior. For such a person, restraint comes mainly as a result of an increasing number of rules/laws specifying penalties for specific infractions. The trouble is, many people will misbehave anyway, because (among other things): (1) they remain unconvinced that a specific behavior is improper; (2) they have found (or believe they have found) loopholes in the rules that allow them to escape the penalties; (3) they believe that the potential rewards of their misbehavior outweigh the potential penalties. The common thread is this: all the rules in the world are useless against someone who does not accept the premises that gave rise to the rules.

A story in the Austin American-Statesman's February 19th edition (registration required) is in my opinion a good illustration of this principle.

When Austin High School administrators removed candy from campus vending machines last year, the move was hailed as a step toward fighting obesity. What happened next shows how hard it can be for schools to control what students eat on campus.

The candy removal plan, according to students at Austin High, was thwarted by classmates who created an underground candy market, turning the hallways of the high school into Willy-Wonka-meets-Casablanca.

Soon after candy was removed from vending machines, enterprising students armed with gym bags full of M&M's, Skittles, Snickers and Twix became roving vendors, serving classmates in need of an in-school sugar fix. Regular-size candy bars like the ones sold in vending machines routinely sold in the halls for $1.50.

"There was no sugar in the vending machines, so (student vendors) could make a lot of money," said Hayden Starkey, an Austin High junior who said he was not one of the candy sellers. "I heard kids were making $200 a week just selling candy."

School administrators decided that it would be good to manage students' vending machine choices in the interest of promoting better nutrition. Regardless of the wisdom of this idea, what is certain is that they made no attempt to first persuade the students that proper nutrition was A Good Thing; instead, from the students' perspective, an announcement was made, and the candy disappeared.

The students' craving for candy didn't disappear with the implementation of the rule. Instead, they started to scheme on ways to get around the rule. They discovered that there was no rule specifically barring freelance sales, so many of them went into business for themselves. This completely neutralized the intent of the rule, so school administrators, instead of enacting even more rules to close the loopholes, simply threw in the towel.

In case I've meandered too much in this post, let me get back to my point: I think that we are much better off as a society when our leaders (at every level) have a healthy belief in God, when they subject their behavior to the moral code their religion impresses on them. When we simply rely on laws that are ever-growing in number and complexity to govern our leaders' behavior, we end up with people continually seeking new and unusual ways to misuse their position.