Collective Punishment: The Economic Case Mike Rappaport

Richard Posner and Gary Becker weigh in on when it makes economic sense to impose collective punishment.  Becker writes:

“it would be . . . far-fetched to hold the German peopleresponsible for the election of Hitler since he took steps to preventthe German people from voting him out of office. Moreover, people whovoted for Hitler in the first place could not have easily anticipatedthe full dimensions of the horrors he would inflict on the world.”

But this analysis may suggest it makes sense to impose collective punishment on the Palestinians who voted Hamas into office.  They knew that were getting a group who would make war and committ terrorism against Israel and presumably they can vote Hamas out of office.