8. French Colonial Authorities Repeat British India’s Mistake – With Rats
The British in India were not alone in coming up with poorly thought-out plans that ended up backfiring. The colonial authorities in French Indochina also had a similar, albeit less catastrophic, experience in Hanoi, Vietnam, when they sought to enlist civilians in controlling a rat infestation. Like the British, the French authorities offered bounties for rats, to be paid out upon delivery of their tails. However, colonial officials soon began noticing rats scurrying around the city with no tails.
Unlike the Indians of Delhi, the enterprising Vietnamese of Hanoi did not resort to farming rats. Instead, rat catchers would simply sever their tales, then release them back into the city. That way they could procreate and produce more rats, and thus maintain the rat catchers’ stream of revenue. Both the British in India and the French in Indochina had failed to anticipate that their solution to a problem created a profit motive and a perverse incentive for shrewd actors to worsen the problem.
