When I originally heard about First Contact, a trip offered by Woolford’s trekking company, Papua Adventures, I couldn’t believe he was really doing what he claimed to be doing. An easygoing American expat from Springfield, Missouri, who jokingly describes himself as a "hillbilly," Woolford marches into the jungle in search of uncontacted native tribes who have never seen outsiders–and who aren’t supposed to mind tourists barging into their lives. I had trouble buying the idea that, in the 21st century, there were still nomadic hunter-gatherers out there using stone tools and rubbing sticks together to start a fire. But there are, Woolford assured me. From his home in Ubud, Bali, he explained the strategy behind his First Contact trips.

"There are a handful of places in West Papua that are untouched–still Stone Age tribes, still cannibals," he said. "It’s just that a lot of people are too scared to go look for them."

Making contact with tribal people is a risky business–a simple flu could wipe them out. But Kelly Woolford insists that he’s mindful of such risks. "We don’t try [sic] to corrupt them," he says. "Five minutes is all we do."

Here is the story.  Here is the company’s website.  Thanks to the ever-useful www.politicaltheory.info for the pointer.

Polygamy makes perfect sense to many rich men in poorer countries but it is bad for the economy overall, according to a report called The Mystery of Monogamy by three economists.

The study, published recently by the Centre for Economic Policy Research, argues that mass polygamy, which still exists in sub-Saharan Africa, Egypt and Thailand, can make it hard for economies "to break out of the poverty trap".

The practice, it says, allows rich men "to spend their money on quantity rather than investing in child quality" and stretches a wealthy man’s resources across a larger number of children.

The authors also argue that the practice has only died out in the west because it no longer makes economic sense for the middle classes, who can no longer afford more than one wife.

Read more here.  Here is the paper in html, I can’t get the pdf versions to open (addendum: try this one).

My take: I am not convinced.  Polygamy does not contradict the idea of quality children, relative to available alternatives: the kids get papa’s good genes and full-time attention from mama.  Keep in mind if this is worse on average than other options, women won’t want the deal.  If there is a social cost from polygamy, it more likely stems from the young men who cannot find wives and resort to violence and risky behavior.  Polygamy ends when children cease to be a net economic asset.  As society progresses and urbanizes, there are cheaper ways of having sex with multiple women, if that is one’s goal. 

Elizabeth Anderson and other commentators misunderstand Hayek and in the process they fail to understand the sense in which market outcomes may be said to be just (Tyler comments also).

Hayek argued that the concept of social or distributive justice was "empty and meaningless."  Anderson tries to use this argument, which she explains well, to suggest that any idea of libertarian or free market justice must also be empty and meaningless.  Hayek, however, did not argue against rules of just conduct, "those end-independent rules which serve the formation of a spontaneous order."  Among such rules may be Nozickian or Lockean rules of voluntary exchange.

It’s quite possible, for example, to be a good Hayekian and also to say that I deserve my income because it was acquired by just conduct, e.g. by production and trade.

True, it is an accidental fact that I live in a time and place where my skills are highly prized.  In this sense, I do not deserve my income (i.e. my income is in part a function of things beyond my control).  But I do deserve my income in the sense that it was acquired justly and to take justly acquired earnings may be an injustice.