Why enemies so often want the same law

12 October 2026 · The Law of the Useful Enemy

In parts of the American South, a county could vote to ban the sale of alcohol. Some of those bans lasted for generations. The people who argued for them in public were churchgoers who saw drink as a sin. The people who gained most from them were the men who sold drink anyway, at higher prices, with no legal shop down the road.

The two groups did not like each other. They did not need to. Each wanted the shops closed, for opposite reasons, and that was enough.

Who is really playing

The economist Bruce Yandle gave this pattern a name in 1983: Baptists and bootleggers. Strip out the names and there are five players.

The moralists. They want the rule because they believe it is right. They supply the public argument, the meetings, the votes. They ask for nothing in return except the rule itself.

The quiet profiteers. They want the rule because it removes their competition. A ban on legal sales is a gift to illegal sellers. A licence that is hard to get is a gift to whoever already holds one. They supply money and patience, and they stay out of sight.

The lawmakers. They need two things to pass a rule: a reason they can say out loud, and support they can count on at the next election. The moralists give them the first. The profiteers often give them the second.

The legal competitors. The shop that would open if the rule fell. They are the real target of the profiteers, but they are rarely the loudest voice in the room.

The buyers. They pay more and travel further. They are affected by the outcome, but they are not players. They have no organised stake and no lever, so the game is played over their heads.

What each player is rewarded for

The moralists are rewarded by the rule existing. Their horizon is long, often a lifetime, and they do not count costs in money. That makes them stubborn and hard to buy off.

The profiteers are rewarded by the rule continuing. Their horizon is the life of their business. Every year the rule stands is a year of fat margins, so they will spend steadily to keep it.

The lawmakers are rewarded by being re-elected. Their horizon is the next vote. A rule backed by a sincere moral case and a well-funded interest is close to costless to support, and dangerous to oppose.

Notice what the moralists bring that the profiteers cannot: a reason that sounds like principle. A smuggler who asked openly for a ban on legal drink would be laughed at. A congregation asking for the same ban is listened to. The profiteers need the moralists as cover. The moralists do not even know they are providing it.

This is the Law of the Useful Enemy at its smallest scale. Two sides that despise each other clear the same ground. The test is not what either says, but who is left standing when the rule has done its work.

The equilibrium

Put the pieces together and the rule is very stable.

No single player can remove it. The moralists will not drop a rule they believe in. The profiteers will not drop a rule that pays them. The lawmakers will not spend their own support to fight both groups at once. The buyers are too scattered to organise.

Each player is doing what is sensible from where they stand, and the result holds. It does not matter whether the rule still achieves its stated goal. A ban that no longer reduces drinking, and only moves it into back rooms, keeps both of its supporters. In fact the moralists may push harder when the rule fails, because failure looks like proof that the problem is still out there. The Law of Stated Purpose applies: judge the rule by what it produces, not by what it was said to be for.

The coalition also explains why such rules end suddenly rather than slowly. They fall when one of the two legs goes: the moral case loses its public, or the profiteers find a better business. Then a rule that stood for decades can disappear in a single vote.

What would change the game

1. A sunset date. A rule that ends unless it is renewed forces its supporters to make the case again, in public, at a known time. The quiet partner then has to appear or lose. 2. Visible funding. When the money behind a campaign must be disclosed, the cover stops working. A moral case that turns out to be paid for by the rule's main beneficiary loses much of its force. 3. Measuring the stated aim. If the rule's goal is written down with a number and a date, the rule can fail by its own standard. That gives the lawmakers a reason to vote against it that does not mean attacking either group. 4. Organising the buyers. The players who pay the cost have no seat at the table. Any body that speaks for them, a consumer group or a business that would enter the market, changes the count.

None of these requires anyone to change their mind. They change who has to show up, and when.

The general shape

The pattern is not about alcohol. It appears wherever a rule restricts supply. Look for it in licences, permits, import limits, safety standards and bans of every kind.

A simple test: take any rule that has outlived its arguments. Ask who is loudly for it, and why. Then ask who earns money every year that it stands. If the second group is quieter than the first and larger in money, you are probably looking at a pair of useful enemies.

Here is the claim this post makes, and it can be wrong: almost every restrictive rule that survives more than twenty years has at least one organised group that profits directly from it, alongside the group that defends it on principle. If you find a long-lived ban with only sincere supporters and no one making money from it, this reading fails for that case.

Common questions

What is the Baptists and bootleggers theory?

It is the idea that a rule often survives because two very different groups support it. One group backs it for moral reasons and makes the public case. The other profits from it and stays quiet. The economist Bruce Yandle named it in 1983, after alcohol bans that were supported by both churchgoers and illegal sellers.

Do the two groups coordinate in secret?

Usually not, and they do not need to. Each acts on its own reasons and the effects add up. That is what makes the coalition hard to see and hard to break. There is no meeting to expose, only two sets of incentives that point the same way. The Law of the Useful Enemy describes the same mechanism at the scale of whole ideologies.

How can you spot a useful-enemy coalition?

List everyone who supports the rule. Split them into those who give reasons and those who gain money or position. Then check which of the second group would lose most if the rule ended tomorrow. If that group is well funded and rarely speaks in public, the pattern is likely present.

Why are these rules so hard to remove?

Because removing them means fighting two opponents at once, and the cheap moves are all on the other side. Supporting the rule costs a lawmaker nothing. Opposing it costs support from both the sincere and the paid. Such rules tend to end only when one of the two groups loses interest.