Flying Blind

    Few contemporary political issues are more divisive than airport security. There are primarily two conflicting fears running through travelers’ minds: that of being humiliated publically by a TSA agent and that of being caught up in a terrorist attack. Those for whom the former outweighs the latter are demanding less intrusive security despite the possibility that it will increase the likelihood of a terrorist attack. Those on the opposite side of the issue call for more rigorous security measures even if they will cost more tax dollars and infringe on flyers’ privacy. President Obama, for his part, acknowledged that the TSA’s new security measures can be frustrating, but that they are the only type of procedures effective in countering the kind ofthreat seen in the failed Christmas Day Bombing attempt of 2009.

    What if they are all wrong? What if the fundamental problem is not over-zealous security measures that violate the privacy of travelers, nor overly lenient measures that leave flyers at risk of attack? There is a variable here that few in Washington or the media have had the courage to address— namely, the public provision of airport security by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). Pundits argue back and forth over whether existing procedures are too stringent or too lax while ignoring the elephant in the room—the government monopoly of this crucial service—from which so many of the other problems stem. The truth is that no one individual knows what the actual demand for anti-terrorism security services is.

    This last part tends to catch people up. It is true that no sane human being desires to see terrorist attacks take place. The question is thus not whether each life is precious, for this is a given. The matter at hand is instead whether scarce resources are being allocated efficiently. Ensuring adequate provision of defense services requires that a market be allowed to operate. The hyperemotional ―whatever it takes‖ mentality of government when it comes to keeping people safe results in the squandering of precious resource on areas where they do not serve the highest valued ends of consumers—which is, after all, the end goal of all economic production.

    It is quite possible that there is a sub- optimal amount of terrorist attacks in the US. On the other hand, it is also possible that there are too many terrorist attacks occurring. Finally, perhaps we are at equilibrium. Unfortunately, the government monopolization of the provision of airport security means that we cannot know the answer to this question.

     To the non-economist, it might appear as if I am claiming that consumers desire more terrorism. Nothing could be further from the truth. Terrorism is an economic bad, not a good. The question is not one of how much crime we should have, for undoubtedly every upstanding person would respond with a resounding ―none!‖ This is, of course, theideal. But in the real world, every decision has a cost, even if it only the time it takes to make it. This is because resources are scarce. The great question economics must solve is how to allocate scarce resources to satisfy unlimited wants. It is true that security is one of these wants, but there are many other wants as well. Devoting scarce resources to security means diverting them away from areas in which they might be able to satisfy consumers’ other, higher-valued ends. Moreover, increasing security measures often means compromising the privacy of passengers.

    The decentralized, grassroots market process by which prices are formed conveys to producers information regarding what the appropriate level of production is, and what the appropriate tradeoff between security and privacy is. But when the government appropriates to itself the means of production, they are flying blind. For government services are not funded voluntarily through peaceful exchange, but coercively through taxation.

    What this means is that the TSA can spend exorbitant sums of money and egregiously infringe on people’s liberty without being subject to the market weeding- out process. In the event of a terrorist attack, the TSA would not lose billions and potentially go out of business, as a private firm would. They would simply ask for more funding from Congress and argue that they aren’t granted enough leeway in searching travelers. The end result is a massively bloated bureaucracy consuming oodles of resources and doing full body-cavity searches on grandmothers. It is true that there are checks and balances which would, theoretically, prevent us from getting there, but these pale in comparison with the checks and balances provided by the sheer volume of choice present in a free market. The real question is not whether this or that TSA procedure violates individual liberty, but why so many Americans blithely accept government monopolization of this vital industry.

    Different consumers desire different levels of security depending upon their risk- tolerance, wealth, and various other factors. In a free market, certain airlines might have very little security screening or even none at all, but much more expensive tickets due to increased insurance costs. Some might very well perform more invasive searches on every passenger with the advantage of lower insurance costs. Private security agents would no doubt be far more personable than their government counterparts due to the competitive process of the marketplace weeding out impolite agents. Less-expensive airlines could then hire these employees at lower wages, allowing poor passengers the opportunity to fly where they previously were forced to drive. Who knows, there might even be an airline which hires topless strippers as security agents operating under the slogan, "We have nothing to hide, do you?" All of this is meant to point out a fundamental truth: a truly free man does not choose between the governmentally-imposed "options" of the porno scanner and being groped. He chooses from the plethora of options offered by the market and funded through voluntary exchange.

    Homeland security, like all other services currently monopolized by the state, suffers from the one-size-fits-all, top-down system under which governments operate. Neither President Obama nor Secretary Napolitano nor Administrator Pistole, regardless of their personal abilities and intentions, are capable of determining the optimal amount of airport security because there is no price system by which consumers can convey their wants to producers. The end result is expensive, wasteful, and invasive security procedures that leave little room for the diversity of preferences so fully expressed in the market economy. In short, few are satisfied but all must pay.