Law, Economics, and Superstition: Human Sacrifice

The most recent paper in my continuing project on the law
and economics of superstition: ?Human Sacrifice.?
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's an excellent public meter of wealth destruction. Human sacrifice
is spectacular, publicly communicating a sacrificer's destruction far and wide.
And 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.
Enjoy.
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