In colonial India, the British government faced a major problem. The city of Delhi was getting overrun by venomous cobras which were a menace on the streets.
The British decided to resolve the situation by announcing a bounty on the severed heads of cobras. Initially, the scheme worked with cobra numbers falling. However that created another problem.
With a fall in the cobra population, Indians were running out of new avenues to make money. Mind you, in those days majority of the population had been kept impoverished by the British Raj. They would take any opportunity to make money.
Within months of the bounty, several illegal cobra breeding dens popped up all over the city. People would breed cobras, cut off their heads, collect the bounty, and then breed cobras, cut off their heads….and the cycle continued.
The British noticed the cobra menace wasn’t reducing and launched an investigation. Upon realizing that the populace had made fools out of them, the government discontinued the bounty. This created another problem. With the Indians having lost their incentive to breed cobras, they released the snakes into the streets…predictably causing more havoc than earlier.
The “Cobra Effect” is a term used by policy makers and economists to refer to how schemes launched with good intentions can often backfire with unintended consequences. A bounty to kill cobras eventually caused the population to more than double.
A similar event happened during the French rule of Vietnam when the French announced a bounty for the severed tails of rats. The locals cut off the tails of rats and the released the rats to go and breed like….well rats.
Mao Zedong decided to do one better and ordered his subjects to kill all sparrows because….he felt they “public animals of capitalism.” The near extinction of sparrows led to an uncontrolled increase of the locust population. This eventually led to the great famine (one of the reasons anyways) and China spent the next decade reversing the damage by importing Soviet sparrows.
The city of Delhi seems to be a champion at reminding us of this effect. In 2016, in order to reduce pollution levels, the Delhi government launched the odd-even scheme to curb the number of cars on the road. While noble, it impeded people who needed to travel for various reasons. So households purchased an additional car to circumvent the law. Its been eight years and the government has still not learnt its lesson.
Whenever governments try to end homelessness, they grant money to NGO’s who are dedicated to the mission. The NGO’s then end up worsening the problem to keep the money train running.
Mercenary and private militias are hired to end conflict. They then create wars to get more business. Western governments commit this mistake on a yearly basis. The Pakistanis are another group who are being forced to deal with the monsters they have raised in their backyard.
The cobra effect is aptly named. When you raise snakes, expect to get bitten.
So how do you avoid the cobra effect?
I will answer that with another example. When trying to get rid of weeds in your garden, reward the gardener on how many weeds they have removed from the garden, not from other gardens. If there is even a single weed remaining, you ensure it is removed without any extra cost. Have him overturn the garden if thats what it takes.
In short, simplify the incentive. Get to the root of the problem rather than try to cure the symptoms.
