IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/now/jnlrbe/105.00000007.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Human Sacrifice

Author

Listed:
  • Leeson, Peter T.

Abstract

This paper develops a theory of rational human sacrifice: the purchase and ritual slaughter of innocent persons to appease divinities. I argue that human sacrifice is a technology for protecting property rights. It improves property protection by destroying part of sacrificing communities' wealth, which depresses the expected payoff of plundering them. Human sacrifice is a highly effective vehicle for destroying wealth to protect property rights because it is an excellent public meter of wealth destruction. Human sacrifice is spectacular, publicly communicating a sacrificer's destruction far and wide. Further, immolating a live person is nearly impossible to fake, verifying the amount of wealth a sacrificer has destroyed. To incentivize community members to contribute wealth for destruction, human sacrifice is presented as a religious obligation. To test my theory I investigate human sacrifice as practiced by the most significant and well-known society of ritual immolators in the modern era: the Konds of Orissa, India. Evidence from the Konds supports my theory's predictions.

Suggested Citation

  • Leeson, Peter T., 2014. "Human Sacrifice," Review of Behavioral Economics, now publishers, vol. 1(1-2), pages 137-165, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:now:jnlrbe:105.00000007
    DOI: 10.1561/105.00000007
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/105.00000007
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1561/105.00000007?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stigler, George J, 1992. "Law or Economics?," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 35(2), pages 455-468, October.
    2. Skarbek, David, 2011. "Governance and Prison Gangs," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 105(4), pages 702-716, November.
    3. Peter T. Leeson, 2007. "An-arrgh-chy: The Law and Economics of Pirate Organization," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(6), pages 1049-1094, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jennifer Murtazashvili & Ilia Murtazashvili, 2020. "Wealth-destroying states," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 182(3), pages 353-371, March.
    2. Douglas W. Allen & Peter T. Leeson, 2015. "Institutionally Constrained Technology Adoption: Resolving the Longbow Puzzle," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 58(3).
    3. Edwards, Griffin & Robinson, Joshua J., 2019. "You gotta fight for your right? Publicly assigned but privately enforced property rights," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 31-39.
    4. Gershman, Boris, 2015. "The economic origins of the evil eye belief," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 119-144.
    5. Colin Harris & Adam Kaiser, 2020. "Burying the Hatchet," Revue d'économie politique, Dalloz, vol. 130(6), pages 1025-1044.
    6. Leeson, Peter T., 2020. "Logic is a harsh mistress: welfare economics for economists," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 16(2), pages 145-150, April.
    7. Manvir Singh & Pascal Boyer & Leeson, Peter T & Mckay Ryan & Bentall, Richard P & Sarah Peacey & Ruth Mace & Schimmelpfennig, Robin & Muthukrishna, Michael, 2021. "Magic, explanations, and evil: the origins and design of witches and sorcerers," Post-Print hal-03256601, HAL.
    8. Harris,Colin & Cai,Meina & Murtazashvili,Ilia & Murtazashvili,Jennifer Brick, 2020. "The Origins and Consequences of Property Rights," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781108969055, January.
    9. Bustamante, Pedro & Gomez, Marcela & Murtazashvili, Ilia & Weiss, Martin, 2020. "Spectrum anarchy: why self-governance of the radio spectrum works better than we think," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 16(6), pages 863-882, December.
    10. Ennio E Piano & Byron B Carson, 2020. "Scalp-taking," Rationality and Society, , vol. 32(1), pages 40-66, February.
    11. Paola A. Suarez, 2018. "Child-bride marriage and female welfare," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 45(1), pages 1-28, February.
    12. Jean-Paul Carvalho & Mark Koyama & Michael Sacks, 2017. "Education, identity, and community: lessons from Jewish emancipation," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 171(1), pages 119-143, April.
    13. Peter T. Leeson & Paola A. Suarez, 2015. "Superstition and Self-Governance," Advances in Austrian Economics, in: New Thinking in Austrian Political Economy, volume 19, pages 47-66, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    14. Peter T. Leeson & Jacob W. Russ, 2018. "Witch Trials," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(613), pages 2066-2105, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Palagashvili,Liya & Piano,Ennio & Skarbek,David, 2017. "The Decline and Rise of Institutions," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781316649176, January.
    2. Peter T Leeson, 2014. "Oracles," Rationality and Society, , vol. 26(2), pages 141-169, May.
    3. Peter Leeson, 2014. "Pirates, prisoners, and preliterates: anarchic context and the private enforcement of law," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 37(3), pages 365-379, June.
    4. Mark Koyama, 2014. "The law & economics of private prosecutions in industrial revolution England," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 159(1), pages 277-298, April.
    5. Golz, Michael & D'Amico, Daniel J., 2018. "Market concentration in the international drug trade," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 28-42.
    6. Roth, M. Garrett & Skarbek, David, 2014. "Prison Gangs and the Community Responsibility System," Review of Behavioral Economics, now publishers, vol. 1(3), pages 223-243, May.
    7. Ennio E. Piano, 2018. "Outlaw and economics: Biker gangs and club goods," Rationality and Society, , vol. 30(3), pages 350-376, August.
    8. Skarbek, David, 2016. "Covenants without the Sword? Comparing Prison Self-Governance Globally," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 110(4), pages 845-862, November.
    9. T. Randolph Beard & Richard Alan Seals Jr. & Michael L. Stern, 2014. "Security and Government Credibility," Auburn Economics Working Paper Series auwp2014-07, Department of Economics, Auburn University.
    10. David Skarbek & Peng Wang, 2015. "Criminal rituals," Global Crime, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(4), pages 288-305, October.
    11. Lucas, David S. & Fuller, Caleb S. & Piano, Ennio E., 2018. "Rooking the state," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 12-20.
    12. Andrew Young, 2015. "From Caesar to Tacitus: changes in early Germanic governance circa 50 BC-50 AD," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 164(3), pages 357-378, September.
    13. Skarbek, David, 2012. "Prison gangs, norms, and organizations," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 82(1), pages 96-109.
    14. David Skarbek, 2024. "The political economy of criminal governance," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 200(1), pages 1-24, July.
    15. Freire, Danilo, 2017. "Prison Gangs," SocArXiv kuqqx, Center for Open Science.
    16. Darcy W E Allen, 2020. "When Entrepreneurs Meet:The Collective Governance of New Ideas," World Scientific Books, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., number q0269, September.
    17. William Luther, 2015. "The monetary mechanism of stateless Somalia," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 165(1), pages 45-58, October.
    18. Alexander Fink, 2015. "Governance without a state? Policies and politics in areas of limited statehood meets positive political economy of anarchy: A review essay," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 28(1), pages 93-105, March.
    19. Blattman, Christopher & Lessing, Benjamin & Tobon, Santiago & Duncan, Gustavo, 2024. "Gang rule: Understanding and Countering Criminal Governance," SocArXiv 5nyqs_v1, Center for Open Science.
    20. Harris,Colin & Cai,Meina & Murtazashvili,Ilia & Murtazashvili,Jennifer Brick, 2020. "The Origins and Consequences of Property Rights," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781108969055, January.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:now:jnlrbe:105.00000007. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Lucy Wiseman (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nowpublishers.com/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.