My friend Pete Leeson is one of the most original and creative economists I know.? First, he wrote about pirate economics (he was even kind enough to write three guest posts on the Freakonomics blog).
Then he tackled “ordeals” — the medieval method of trial in which one’s guilt was assessed by whether?an arm that was plunged into boiling water got burned.? His conclusion: it was not a miracle when the accused emerged unscathed from the boiling water treatment.? As long as everyone believed that the boiling water would reveal guilt, it made more sense to confess than to have one’s arm get boiled and then be punished for the crime on top of that.? So the only people who were willing to go through the ordeal were those who were falsely accused.? Consequently, it appears that the people who carried out the ordeals didn’t really boil the water (it’s not clear whether they did this on purpose or accidentally — I suspect on purpose).
Now, he has moved on to gypsies.?? Apparently, gypsies believe in all sorts of strange things, like that the lower half of the human body is polluted and non-gypsies are spiritually toxic.? These bizarre beliefs, he argues, substitute for traditional institutions of law and order.? Like all of Leeson’s best work, when I start reading it I don’t really believe it, but by the end I’m not only convinced, I feel like running out and telling everyone I know about it.
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And what about that some gypsies or travelers believe that theft is better than working for a living…
The Gypsy mystery I’d like to learn about is how they can afford to keep a fortune telling business in a relatively expensive locations while having no customers – at least I’ve only seen 2 in 20 years that I’ve passed by such locations.
“Orthodox Judaism effectively espouses nearly the same beliefs”
Similar in the sense that there’s an idea of ritual impurity (“tumah”), but the rules about it are very different and except for the laws of niddah – which Orthodox Jews still follow and basically boil down to not having sex or touching during menstruation – most of it isn’t applicable now.
The main upshot to having tumah is that you couldn’t go into the Temple while you were in a state of tumah (and priests couldn’t eat the food that constituted their wages while in a state of tumah).
If you ever go to Israel and see some of the Temple Era (pre-Vespasian Rome and earlier) excavations, there are multiple ritual baths (mikvahs) in every home for the purpose of purifying items that had contracted tumah (you get rid of tumah by dipping something or yourself completely under running natural water).
Dealing with tumah and the laws of tumah was one of the major day-to-day features of Judaism but that whole set of laws simply hasn’t been applicable for a couple of thousand years now. Nowadays, we all have tumah.
Yosh, David J. may be thinking about taharat hamishpacha, etc., but the parallel is much more striking in terms of social control when you consider segulot, asking certain “tzaddikim” for brachot, the demonization of outside society by most chareidim (we’re not talking Modern Orthodox, here)… think about it. I did.
http://midianitemanna.blogspot.com/2010/07/are-charedim-jewish-gypsies.html
I can’t speak to whether that’s true in, say a more closed chaddish community like Satmar where I don’t have much experience (although I’d argue they have plenty of other forms of social sanction and don’t need to rely on whether or not you get a bracha from the Rebbe) but in my experience segulot aren’t really a vehicle for social control or really even emphasized all that much even in haredi communities.
No one will refuse to socialize with you if don’t get a blessing from a big rabbi or don’t, say, go to the Kotel to pray for a spouse for 40 days.
In more haredi communities, especially in Israel, clothing is definitely a form of social control and in many ways, the laws of kashrus (keeping kosher) are a semi-formal method of social control directly embedded in the Torah.
However, none of that is anywhere near the same level of social control as the gypsies’ system and it’s hard to imagine that even the laws of tumah and tahorah (what I described above) which have certain similarities to the gypsies’ system, was the main method of regulating legal interaction. Halacha has plenty of other ways of doing that which are mostly similar to legal systems in other societies (it formed the basis for modern legal systems).
It’s just interesting that the gypsies’ system parallels some, but definitely not all, aspects of the laws of tumah.
And I have thought about this, I’m a BT (not born to a religious family). Ultimately everyone has the choice on their own however – I’m not any different than any FFB (born in a religious family) in that.
So, can I use any of this to keep the gypsies from pestering me when I go to italy again? I’ve a mind to rip out my menstual pad, wave it at them threateningly, and make them tell all their friends.
I agree with Leeson that these rules may substitute for traditional law and order, but I don’t see any argument in the article that the Gypsy culture is an efficient substitute for law and order, or better in any objective way than, say, abandoning the culture and integrating with wider society. (By objective I mean something that can be measured, eg life expectancy, or income per capita, as opposed to something incomparable like the psychic benefits of group identity).
I’m just going on the abstract, but it seems like he’s using economics to rehash Durkheim. Which is great – I like Durkheim and all – but proving things that have been established among social scientists for a century or so doesn’t seem like a good use of your time.
And I’m not sure what ‘superstitions’ or ‘bizarre beliefs’ are as analytic categories. Being openly contemptuous of your research subjects is at best bad form, and at worst makes for bad analysis.