Unintended consequences of action

Most of my readers will have heard of the pork cycle, also called hog cycle or cattle cycle. In short, it’s this: You are a pig farmer and the prices of pigs are high, so you decide to breed more pigs. However, you are not the only farmer that gets the idea and most pig farmers in your region decide to breed more pigs. As a result, by the time that the pigs must be sold the supply of pigs is that high that the price has become low. But that’s not what the farmers intended when they decided to breed more pigs and it’s not what they had foreseen.
The case just described is an instance of a so-called unintended consequence of action, in this case in the version of Adam Smith: an “invisible hand” guides the pig market in a way that is not foreseen and not intended by the individual pig farmers who invested in their farms hoping to get high prices for their product.
Here is an individual example: You use your car to go to work. However, your car pollutes the environment. It’s not what you want, but you know no other means to go to your work place. It’s too far to go by bike, and no bus or train goes there. So, polluting the environment is an unintended consequence of your drive to work.
The idea of unintended consequences of what we do has first been discussed by John Locke, more than 400 years ago, but it has become a much-discussed theme in sociology and philosophy since, in 1936, the American sociologist Robert K. Merton published his article “The unanticipated consequences of purposeful social action”. He discussed several types of, what he called, “unanticipated consequences” of action. Moreover, he analysed five causes why they may happen:
- ignorance
- errors in analysis of the problem
- short-term interests which are seen as more important than long-term interests
- basic values which may make that one avoids tackling long-term consequences of the action
- self-defeating prophecy: people try to stop expected negative consequences of an action before they happen. Or, to say it in another way, the expected and planned consequence of an action doesn’t happen because people hit by the action react in an unexpected way.
Especially the first three factors are important. Once you are aware of the idea that unintended consequences of what you do may happen, it is to be expected that most of them can be avoided (if you don’t want them) by a thorough analysis before you act. Nevertheless many situations are so complicated that it is hardly possible to analyse the consequences of acting in detail. Anyway, unintended consequences of action are that common that there seems to be a “law of unintended consequences”: Any action has results that are not part of the agent’s purpose.
Are you responsible for the unintended consequence of your actions? I think that it depends on the action and its consequences. Some unintended consequences are that important compared with the action itself that they must be taken into account before you act. Many people have been sentenced in court because they didn’t! In this context, the next case is important, which I have discussed before: A establishes a company, which has detrimental side effects for the environment. Another person, B, establishes also a company, but this company has positive side effects for the environment. Both A and B are only interested in the profitability of their companies, though they know about the side effects. Then usually people say that A hurts the environment intentionally, while they do not say that B helps the environment intentionally. Apparently, people think that you are responsible for the negative unintended consequences of what you do, while you aren’t for the positive consequences. It’s a thing you should take into account when you assess the consequences of an action.
That the problem of unintended action consequences is not to be ignored and is important to consider can be seen from the present rising oil and gas prices on the world energy market. As a way to stop the Russian attack on Ukraine the western countries have imposed a boycott of gas and oil against Russia. The idea is that it will deprive Russia of an important source of income. However, an unintended consequence of the boycott is that world market gas and oil prices have become so high that, despite the boycott, Russia earns more on energy than before the boycott was imposed. A thorough analysis of the problem might have prevented this unanticipated and unwanted effect resulting in a better thought-out plan of action.

Reference
Robert K. Merton, “The unanticipated consequences of purposeful social action” in American Sociological Review, Vol. 1, No. 6 (Dec. 1936), pp. 894-904.