link to original reddit post by /u/mrpenguin_86
Something I've started to wonder: how effective are laws? Are most laws just there to be piled on when someone breaks one obvious law?
Let me preface this: I'm talking about laws that are not victim-ful laws in any way that what anyone but a hardcore statist would consider. I'd also includes laws where victims have civil court paths for compensation (e.g., insurance fraud).
For example, I work in real estate, and god only knows how many contractors are working without a license and probably will never get caught. As another example, if someone wanted to, say, invest other people's money without registering with the SEC, how likely are they to get caught? Why is this illegal if we have a civil court system to sue people who mismanage your money? Third example: my father does tax preparation, and it's well known how many people fraudulently claim children for deductions that aren't theirs, and almost no one gets caught.
So, it made me curious as to how effective these laws are. If a million people break a law and only 100 get caught, why have the laws? Why do people even follow the law? It's kind of like how I will see people stay at a red light at 3am that is stuck for 5 minutes and not run it even though they can see all other directions of traffic for a quarter mile. Not that I run red lights or stop signs, but I'd be over the light in like 30 seconds if I could see that clearly no one is around.