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- This is a pretty tragic topic and in[br]some ways it's tough to talk about, but

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let's give it a try. Let's keep in mind[br]that in the modern world there still

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really is a lot of slavery and many people[br]are rightfully outraged by this. But the

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question is what to do about it? So in the[br]1990's, there were humanitarian reformers

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and they went to Sudan and their plan was[br]to buy slaves and set them free. Now that

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sounds great, what could be better than[br]setting free slaves? That sounds pretty

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noble, but did it actually stamp out[br]slavery or did paying slaveholders to

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release these slaves lead to more people[br]captured? Let's use the economic concept

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of the elasticity of supply to help[br]understand this better. The problem is

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this, the people trying to free the[br]slaves, we'll call them the slave

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redeemers, they're also creating[br]additional demand for slaves. After all,

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they're buying slaves in the market. That[br]additional demand shifts out the demand

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curve for slaves and that leads to a new[br]and higher market price. That higher price

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will bring forth additional supply. So[br]what are the people who round up and

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kidnap the slaves, what are they going to[br]do? Well, they're going to increase their

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operations. They're going to have more[br]raids and they're going to take more

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people into slavery. We can already see[br]there's at least a possibility that buying

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the slaves and setting them free will be[br]counterproductive because we haven't

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managed to stamp out all of slavery, what[br]we've done is set some people free but

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actually give those kidnappers, those[br]people in the middle, we've increased

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their incentives to bring more people into[br]slavery. And therein lies the potential

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for an even greater tragedy. The concept[br]of elasticity in economic terms that

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refers to how responsive is quantity[br]supplied when market price changes.

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It's going to help us understand how much[br]a slave redemption program will increase

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the number of people who end up captured[br]by slave raiders. Inelastic supply means

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that even a much higher price doesn't[br]result in a much larger quantity supplied.

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In that case, even if the price of slaves[br]went up by a lot, not that many additional

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people would be captured. That's the[br]better case scenario. It also means the

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price of slaves will go up and stay high[br]because the off setting supply response is

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weak and it's not pushing that market[br]price back down again. Again that's the

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better case scenario. It means that in the[br]long run the redeemers are doing more to

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limit slavery than to encourage it. But,[br]however, let's say the supply curve is

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more elastic, that means a flatter curve[br]and it means the quantity supplied to the

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market will increase a lot with the higher[br]price. In that case, it's easier to find

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more people to enslave. Then as a result[br]of the boost in demand from the

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humanitarian redeemers, a lot more people[br]will end up captured and enslaved and then

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the total number of people captured as[br]slaves is going up quite a bit. And you

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have to wonder in that case are these[br]slave redemption programs really a good

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idea? So what's the answer? It's genuinely[br]hard to say whether the supply of slaves

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is elastic or inelastic, but we can look[br]at price as a possible indicator of which

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scenario is more likely to hold. We know[br]that in the early years of slave

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redemption there was a noticeable increase[br]in the price of slaves and that could be

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evidenced of a fairly inelastic supply[br]curve. However, over time the price of

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slaves has fallen and that could indicate[br]greater elasticity of supply in the longer

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run. That makes sense but the suppliers[br]are usually more responsive to an increase

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in price as they have more time to adjust.[br]For instance, they can hire more people

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and expand their operations.[br]So this evidence overall suggests that

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perhaps the program has become less[br]effective over time and perhaps today it

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may actually be counterproductive and be[br]increasing the burden of slavery. In other

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words, good intentions aren't always[br]enough. If someone comes along and puts an

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apparently good idea on the table, we[br]still need to think through it's

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unintended consequences.

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