Gray areas are also where all manner of corruption is born. Officials soliciting bribes, nepotism, exploitative labor practices, these things love gray areas.
They also keep bad rules around and encourage selective enforcement to target the disadvantaged. Lincoln said it best: "The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly."
Sure, but those are symptoms of larger problems. Increasing enforcement is an act of hiding the symptoms and it does not and will never solve the underlying problem.
For example, I encounter far less discrimination and less racism living in where I do now than in other places, and yet the laws are practically the same here as in anywhere else. The reason I experience less discrimination here is due to the encompassing framework that everyone here is subjected to as part of their experience growing up. The strictness of the laws is irrelevant to that issue.
If you want to change how people act, you need to change the entire framework that people are growing within.
I may be missing something, but increased enforcement sounds like a great way to solve the corruption problem?
Eg. Public servants make ends meet by fudging timesheets => Enforcement clamps down on practice => Employees bargain for higher pay to make up for difference => Public gets a more transparent accounting of their labor costs
There's no set of laws that can efficiently govern dishonest people. Or in "low trust" environments, if you prefer think of it amorally.
Enforcement just moves around where the corruption is incentivized to happen. Is it at the bottom -- workers stealing extra pay or higher up where the enforcement happens?
Sure, but those are symptoms of larger problems. Increasing enforcement is an act of hiding the symptoms and it does not and will never solve the underlying problem.
That's sometimes true but I'd just note this has nothing to do with the original argument made praising gray areas.
The drug war is a place where there's an escalating war between dealing and enforcement, yes. But most dealers aren't having a lot of fun in this gray area.
Gray areas are also where all manner of corruption is born. Officials soliciting bribes, nepotism, exploitative labor practices, these things love gray areas.
They also keep bad rules around and encourage selective enforcement to target the disadvantaged. Lincoln said it best: "The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly."