Police Forces and Courts of Law ...

This is what happens when governments run police departments:
Police suspended for alleged beating arrest
TV news producer beaten while recording
Sunday, October 9, 2005; Posted: 5:23 p.m. EDT (21:23 GMT)
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AP) -- Two New Orleans police officers repeatedly punched a 64-year-old man accused of public intoxication, and another city officer assaulted an Associated Press Television News producer as a cameraman taped the confrontations.
There will be a criminal investigation, and ...

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/10/09/taped.beatings.ap/index.html

You can claim that this is an exception. However, you cannot fail to get a hit when you enter "POLICE CORRUPTION <INSERT CITY>" into an internet search engine. Some cities have fewer problems than others. Minneapolis is about the same size as New Orleans but has half the police -- and few corruption problems. It might be the cold weather, the Lutheran religion, or something else entirely. The fact remains that government police in every city face charges of corruption and brutality -- and ineffectiveness.

When a private entity fails to meet customer expectations, the customers find another provider. When the police fail, they get more tax dollars.

Objectivist philosopher David Kelley has written and spoken on "the problem of induction." Well, induct this. How many examples does it take to form a concept? Government police departments do not work any better than collectivized farms worked -- and for the same reasons.

Post 1

Saturday, October 22, 2005 - 9:03pm

William Dwyer wrote: "Insofar as anarchism sanctions the enforcement of competing and therefore mutually incompatible views of justice, it necessarily sanctions the initiation of force, because if two legal systems are in competition with each other, at least one of them must be unjust and therefore coercive."

If two restaurants are in competition with each other, at least one of them must serve poison.
If two computer manufacturers are in competition with each other, at least one model must not work at all.
If two doctors are in competition, at least one of them must be a quack.
If two philosophers invent two different systems, at least one of them must be a subjectivist.
If two of anything exist, at least one of them must be something I do not want.

(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 10/22, 9:15pm)

Post 2

Saturday, October 22, 2005 - 9:08pm

Michael E. Marotta

CJT 120 Criminal Justice Ethics

Homework Lesson Week 5 September 26, 2005: �An Examined Life�

Assignment: Using Rawls� theory of distributive justice, list and describe the rules you would want in your own ideal society.

[snip]

The strictest Constitutionalists in the American political tradition say that government is necessary. Governments protect lives and property, and they adjudicate disputes between individuals.³ The fact is that today, public police represent only one-third of all protective services, measured either by dollar volume or manpower.⁴ Similarly, in real estate as well as many other sectors, contracts include clauses requiring arbitration in preference to suits in public courts. The American Arbitration Association is the largest such firm in the world.⁵ Organized as a non-profit corporation, the AAA is 80 years old, employees 775 people in 35 offices, and relies on a network of over 8,000 arbitrators and mediators worldwide. In 2004, they handled over 2 million cases. The AAA has assets (and liabilities) of about $117 million and income (and expenses) of about $75 million. Simple arithmetic shows that they garner about $30 per decision, far less than the cost of settling a traffic ticket.

In my perfect world, there would be no government. Like shoes and bread, protection and adjudication would be privately produced and consumed.

---------------

3. See the Wikipedia entry for Libertarianism and Objectivism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism_and_Objectivism

4. William C. Cunningham, John J. Strauchs, and Clifford W. Van Meter, �Private Security: Patterns and Trends,� National Institute of Justice: Research in Brief (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, 1991). Cited in Why Crime Declines January 1, 2000 from Bruce L. Benson in The Freeman http://www.independent.org/publications/article.asp?id=210

5. For basic facts, annual report, etc., see http://www.adr.org/ the website of the American Arbitration Association.

Post 3

Monday, October 24, 2005 - 5:44pm

Reply to William Dwyer from "Objectivism versus Libertarianism" posts 20, 28, and 32

p = Anarchists advocate competing views of justice
q= Anarchists advocate the initiation of force
% = "insofar as"

p   q   p%q
T   T     T
F T     F
T   F     F
F   F    T

John Edwards will be elected vice president insofar as John Kerry is elected president. The statement is True when both conditions are true and also when both conditions are false.

As for the materiality of the claim, you never proved your case. You merely stated it. You cited an example (about abortion) that shows where you are coming from, generally -- and there was not much of a surprise in it, really. This is old ground. However, I challenge you to actually demonstrate what you claim. You are the one making the assertion that "Anarchists advocate competing views of justice insofar as anarchists advocate the initiation of force."

Post 4

Monday, October 24, 2005 - 9:04pm

Michael, I've already addressed the "logical" part of your reply on the "Objectivism versus Libertarianism" thread.

As for the substantive part, you wrote, "As for the materiality of the claim, you never proved your case. You merely stated it. You cited an example (about abortion) that shows where you are coming from, generally -- and there was not much of a surprise in it, really. This is old ground. However, I challenge you to actually demonstrate what you claim. You are the one making the assertion that "Anarchists advocate competing views of justice insofar as anarchists advocate the initiation of force."

Well, I gave what I thought was a valid argument. If you disagree, then it is up to you to address what I said, not simply declare arbitrarily that I haven't proven my case. That gets us nowhere. What specifically is wrong with my argument? If you want me to spell it out, what I am saying is this. Suppose the government has a just legal system. According to anarchism, the government has no right to prohibit the enforcement of competing (i.e., unjust) legal systems. But in allowing the enforcement of unjust laws, the government will be sanctioning the initiation of force, because an unjust law, by definition, constitutes the initiation of force. Insofar as anarchists are demanding that the government do this, they are demanding that it tolerate the initiation of force as something that people have a right to engage in.

If you disagree with this argument, then make a counter-argument. Don't just declare arbitrarily that I haven't proven my case. Unless I get SOME kind of an argument from you, I'm going to abandon this thread to your own musings, which apparently is all that it consisted of before I arrived.

- Bill

Post 5

Tuesday, October 25, 2005 - 8:02am

Bill,

Why do you assume that if there are competing legal systems at least one of them will be unjust? Perhaps some people prefer their judges to wear white powdered wigs. That doesn't affect the justice of the system.

Post 6

Tuesday, October 25, 2005 - 9:05am

William Dwyer shows a lack of imagination typical of a member of a cult when he writes:

Suppose the government has a just legal system. According to anarchism, the government has no right to prohibit the enforcement of competing (i.e., unjust) legal systems. But in allowing the enforcement of unjust laws, the government will be sanctioning the initiation of force, because an unjust law, by definition, constitutes the initiation of force. Insofar as anarchists are demanding that the government do this, they are demanding that it tolerate the initiation of force as something that people have a right to engage in.

1. If "the" government had "a" just legal system, there would be no discussion. There would be no anarchists.
2. You assume that "the" government has a "just" legal system without defining what that means.
It is true that if there were a just legal system opposition to it would be equivalent to advocating injustice. However, that is a big "if." It is also a big "a."

I point out that the United States has 2 million people in prison, 0.75% of its total population, primarily as a result of a federal war against certain markets for medicinal and recreational consumables. The recent conviction of Martha Stuart must not be swept under the rug, either. For those and a million other reasons, I contend that we need a different justice system... in fact, considering how markets work, generally, I assert that we problably need several. The idea that there is a system of justice is as wrong as claiming that there is a style of shoes for everyone to wear.

Furthermore, unlike utopian Objectivists who posit some (undefined) "perfect" legal sytem which meets all needs for all times -- but which, curiously, has never been invented, I offer this REAL WORLD CITATION OF COMPETING JUSTICE SYSTEMS.

     "In responding to and resolving the criminal behavior of employees, organizations routinely choose options other than criminal prosecution, for example, suspension without pay, transfer, job reassignment, job redesign (eliminating some job duties), civil restitution, and dismissal...
     While on the surface, it appears that organizations opt for less severe sanctions than would be imposed by the criminal justice system, in reality, the organizational sanctions may have greater impact... In addition, the private systems of criminal justice are not always subject to principles of exclusionary evidence, fairness, and defendant rights which characterize the public criminal justice systems. The level of position, the amount of power, and socio-economic standing of the employee in the company may greatly influence the formality and type of company sanctions. In general, private justice systems are characterized by informal negotiations and outcomes, and nonuniform standards and procedures among organizations and crime types."
(Hillcrest Report cited in Introduction to Private Security, Hess and Wrobleski, West Publishing, St.Paul, 1982, 1988.)

It goes on every day. People solve their problems without resorting to the government. The demand that there be a single one-size-fits-all system of justice is only an example of "govern-mentality."

When you speak of "the" government, you show both your ignorance and your inability to integrate knowledge. Have you never heard the phrase "make a federal case out of it"? Very often, you can negotiate -- or be trapped -- by the opportunity to be prosecuted under either state or federal law. You can also wrangle for which state or which jurisdiction, or which federal court. In America, we do have competing governments.  Widen the scope, and you understand why some people prefer to be tried in France or Italy than in the USA. The world has competing governments. Seldom do they go to war for the right to prosecute individuals. The last time they did that was 1914 and no one has been very keen on it since.

(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 10/25, 9:08am)

Post 7

Wednesday, October 26, 2005 - 12:40am

Rick asked, "Why do you assume that if there are competing legal systems at least one of them will be unjust? Perhaps some people prefer their judges to wear white powdered wigs. That doesn't affect the justice of the system."

By "competing legal systems" I meant competing attempts to enforce mutually exclusive laws within the same geographical area. This kind of competition is necessarily coercive, because if two different agencies attempt to enforce incompatible laws, the result will involve someone's attempt to initiate force. The reason is that either the first law is a legitimate use of force, in which case, the second is not; or the second is, in which case, the first is not.

It is easy to see that the whole notion of anarchism is philosophically incoherent. What, according to anarchists, would constitute a violation of their theory? The existence of a government? I don't think so, for an anarchist defense agency would have a right to do exactly what a libertarian government does, if it happened to acquire the same degree of power and could get away with exercising it. There is nothing in libertarianism that would forbid an anarchist defense agency from attempting to monopolize the administration of justice, if doing so were at all feasible. Why should such an agency allow a competing government to operate if the latter has a legal system at odds with its own? Clearly, it should not, for it should make an effort to prohibit its operation.

After all, the purpose of a defense agency is to defend its clients against a violation of their rights. If another agency had laws whose enforcement the first agency viewed as violating people's rights, why should the first agency permit it to operate? Of course, it should not. But by prohibiting its operation, the first agency would be attempting to "monopolize" the enforcement of justice; it would be acting like the very government to which anarchists say they are opposed.

Alternatively, for a government to "permit" an anarchist society to exist, the government would have to abstain from enforcing its own laws against a competing government that was committed to enforcing a different set of laws. But to do that would be to abdicate its function as an agency that is devoted to the defense of people's rights. And if it should not defend its own laws against other agencies - against any scofflaw agency that would violate them - then why should an anarchist defense agency do so? It too should abstain from enforcing its own laws, in which case, what you have is a society in which no legal agency should enforce its own laws. But then why have a defense or law-enforcement agency in the first place?

In fact, I don't see how one could ever get from here to the kind of society anarchists envision, for to do so, the government would have to allow other agencies with a different set of laws the right to compete with it, which means that it would have to abstain from enforcing its own laws.

It is naive to think that defense agencies with conflicting laws would invariably compromise on their differences in order to avoid a violent conflict. If violence were the bete noir of a law-enforcement agency, it would never attempt to enforce its own laws to begin with, because to do so, it would have to engage in violence.

Besides, if we assume that these competing agencies would be willing to compromise on their differences, as anarchists typically claim they would, then to that extent the agencies would be in agreement on a uniform set of laws, and insofar as they were willing to enforce those laws against dissenters, would be acting as a de facto government.

As far as I can see, anarchism is a hopelessly muddled, self-contradictory theory that cannot withstand even the most cursory examination. Yet, surprisingly, it continues to garner support among certain "libertarians." I put the term "libertarians" in quotes, because I do not regard anarchists as bona fide libertarians, since they don't actually believe in liberty. They may claim they do, but the theory they advocate is incompatible with it.

- Bill

Post 8

Wednesday, October 26, 2005 - 7:00am

Bill Dwyer,

Bravo! Your post #7 cuts to the heart of the contradiction in anarchism -- one that I've also explored, at considerably greater length, in a series of articles. (Go to the table of contents on my blog, scroll down to the subsection titled "Anarchism vs. Limited Government," and then check out the articles listed there in chronological order -- that is, from the bottom to the top of the listings).

However, based on my long experience arguing with prominent anarchists, I conclude that you should save your fingers the bother of further fruitless typing exercises. In my experience, trying to get anarchists to confront the contradictions inherent in their "theory" is like trying to pin Jell-o to a wall. Every time you painstakingly point out the contradictions, they simply evade and switch the subject.

For example, suppose you point out (as you did) that any "private agency" must either ENFORCE its rules, or FAIL to enforce its rules; that if it does the former, it becomes a de facto GOVERNMENT, a "monopoly on force"; but that if it does not, it becomes a toothless joke that will lose all its paying customers.

How do anarchists respond? Here's what I have gotten from very prominent anarchists:

1. "Well, you assume that a monopoly government avoids the same moral dilemma that you're attributing to anarchism" -- conveniently evading the fact that their original argument is that anarchism completely avoids the moral contradictions supposedly inherent in limited government.

2. Or they make historical excursions off to the alleged anarcho-capitalist paradise of medieval Iceland -- a religious-based system of enforced social conformity, which dispensed with justice (i.e., proportionate punishment for crimes against individuals) for the sake of maintaining social order, by forcing crime victims to comply with imposed verdicts whether they agreed or not.

3. Or they simply fantasize that, in the absence of a final arbiter with enforcement power, their "competing agencies" would all naturally, peacefully cooperate with each other in order to avoid the costs of forcible confrontations, simply because it would be in their rational self-interest to do so -- conveniently forgetting the fact that if everyone were motivated by the same view of rational self-interest, we wouldn't have crimes (or wars) in the first place, let alone the need for agencies that enforced rules.

4. Or they proclaim that each individual has an inalienable "right of secession" from the system -- conveniently ignoring the fact that thugs and social predators would be the first to do so, declaring themselves immune from the rules of all these toothless, "voluntary" agencies.

Bill, in addition to the glaring logical flaws in anarchist arguments, I've found another problem. For most anarchists, their theory has become an article of faith -- a faith which has become inextricably tied up with their own self-images as rebellious moral crusaders in an immoral world. Challenging that faith is too often tantamount to questioning the basis for their self-esteem -- those images of themselves as lone moral rebels fighting the Evil that is government. (For example, check out the excruciatingly pompous bravado of these anarchists, and ask yourself: Are these people in touch with reality, or indulging in a self-gratifying game of fantasy role-playing?) Arguing with such anarchists is thus like arguing with theologians -- for the same reason, and with the same results.

My unsolicited advice to you: Save your time and energy for more productive pursuits, and for engaging more open minds.

Post 9

Wednesday, October 26, 2005 - 3:47pm

Robert Bidinotto and William Dwyer both fail to address the significant challenges to their theory that justice can only be obtained by government monopoly.

Post 0: Government police departments do not work any better than collectivized farms worked -- and for the same reasons.

Post 2: I cited the American Arbitration Association which operates globally with contracted adjudicators at a price lower than that of settling a traffic ticket. Arbitration is the preferred method of conflict resolution in business.

Post 6: I offered a real world example of competing justice systems. That citation did not come from some libertarian or objectivist but from a very mainstream source in the private protection business.

Post 6: I reminded the monarchists that we actually do have "competing governments."

Post 10

Wednesday, October 26, 2005 - 4:00pm

William Dwyer wrote: By "competing legal systems" I meant competing attempts to enforce mutually exclusive laws within the same geographical area.

You are talking about governments, not businesses. How can there be fastfood, and natural food, and expensive food and gourmet restaurants and still be people cooking for themselves at home? And cooking what? Who controls that? How can it possibly happen that within one geographic area there can be a plethora of competing nutritional theories and applications?

William Dwyer is not alone among the monarchists in failing to show how the production of security and adjudication are impossible except under a government monopoly. What makes them different from shoes or french fries?

Furthermore, Dwyer and the monarchists blank out when offered historical examples and examples from present day life.

The fact is that in about 1980, the number of private guard surpassed the number of public police officers. Today, TWO THIRDS of the patrol officers are privately employed. Some very profitable companies have yet to learn that this system is impossible.

Perhaps William Dwyer wishes to maintain that these are all unjust operations that violate the unstated rights of some undefined other people, but that we all just get away with it because the government is powerless to stop us -- which raises some drastic points about the value in a coercive monopoly.

Post 11

Wednesday, October 26, 2005 - 4:46pm

In Post 8 Robert Bidinotto whacked the stuffing out of a host of strawmen.

1. Unstated moral dilemmas and contradictions may or may not be admitted or resolved by undefined proposals from anonymous others.

2.a. The same sort of "anarchy" also operated in medieval England, which is why Robin Hoode's Merrye Menne could claim to be "honest outlaws." They removed themselves from the protection of the law. Iceland, Greenland, Lapland, ... historical examples across cultures offer interesting insights. Von Mises pointed out that socialists and capitalists usually agree that on such and such a date, the price of some commodity in some place had some level. As interesting as raw data may be, more important is the theory that explains them.

2.b. Limited governmentalists go off into some historical neverland in which the Constitution of the United States actually prevented the government of the United States from doing whatever it wanted.

3.a. Not "would" but "do." Competing protection companies do act rationally, as do other agoric entities. World War II was not caused by Ford getting back at Opel for signing on with General Motors. In point of fact, competing protection companies do just fine, as do competing adjudication systems. This is a fact. It is not theory. Private protection and private adjudiction are multi-billion dollar markets. They are real: not "would" but "do."

3.b. The person with "govern-mentality" wants everyone to agree -- or to be coerced into agreement -- or the system is flawed, unworkable, impractical, or non-existent. The "govern-mentalist" cannot understand how people can get along sometimes in conflict -- and still get along. If one person suffers "injustice" -- however defined; and definitions from monarchists are not consistent on "justice" -- then the entire world must be remade into their image. An imperfect world acts imperfectly, perhaps, but "perfection" (however defined) exists only in the minds of the subjectivist, idealist, syntheticist dreamworshipper who makes up some a priori rules and then demands that the world adhere to them.

4.a. Predators are a fact of life. There are many ways to deal with them. Governmentalist modes have not been successful. Realize that "Draconian" laws are 2500 years old. Government atrocties go back to the development of consciousness. We still have predators. Cutpurses work the crowds watching the hanging of cutpurses. The nazis and communists failed. I cannot imagine how a system of "constitutional rights" for perpetrators was supposed to work any better. In fact, it was not. The fact is that no social system can prevent predation. But, private protection is not a "social system" any more than private shoe stores are. We have a free market in shoes and barefoot people are uncommon. Crime declines when private enterprise operates. When the police operate, crime increases -- and to that is added government crime. No social system can prevent predation -- but some reward it more than others.

4.b. It is a fact that businesses tend to predict and operate on the future, while governments attempt to change the past in order to preserve the present. (See Ed Younkins's review of Virginia Postrel's The Future and Its Enemies in the Articles.) Private protection companies work with individuals, companies, and each other, to prevent crime. That is one reason that their effects are not appreciated -- even though private patroller outnumber cops two-to-one. More to the point, alarms, lights, locks, and other devices prevent crimes. Private protection has long been trending toward automatic deterrence. It is true that some people are predators. The question is what are you going to do about it? Are you going to prevent your own victimization, or are you going to turn to a collectivist social entity for redress of your rights -- but not your property -- when you are victimized.

Post 12

Wednesday, October 26, 2005 - 4:56pm

re my Number 6, my citation was flawed by a typo.

THE HALLCREST REPORTS
1. Private Security and Police in America
William C. Cunningham and Todd Taylor
Stoneham, Mass. Butterworth-Heinemann, 1985
2. Private Security Trends 1970 to 2000
William C. Cunningham and John J. Strauchs and Clifford W. Van Meter
Stoneham, Mass. Butterworth-Heinemann, 1990.

See also:
"Can Police Services be Privatized?" by Philip E. Fixler, Jr., and Robert W. Poole, Jr.
in THE ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, Vol. 498, July 1988.
The Private Security Industry: Issues and Trends, special editor, Ira A. Lipman.

Post 13

Thursday, October 27, 2005 - 7:39pm

I wrote, "By 'competing legal systems,' I meant competing attempts to enforce mutually exclusive laws within the same geographical area."

Michael Marotta replied, "You are talking about governments, not businesses."

I am talking about enforcement agencies, whether they are in business to make a profit or not.

He continued, "How can there be fastfood, and natural food, and expensive food and gourmet restaurants and still be people cooking for themselves at home? And cooking what? Who controls that? How can it possibly happen that within one geographic area there can be a plethora of competing nutritional theories and applications?"

Because these are peaceful businesses that do not use force to prevent other businesses from operating, whereas the purpose of an agency that enforces a particular legal system is to arrest and prosecute those who violate its laws, which would include arresting other agencies that attempt to enforce a different set of laws.

Michael continued, "William Dwyer is not alone among the monarchists in failing to show how the production of security and adjudication are impossible except under a government monopoly. What makes them different from shoes or french fries?"

I think you meant to say "minarchists." I am certainly not a monarchist. What makes the production of security and adjudication different from shoes or french fries? The fact that the former are involved in law enforcement, whereas the latter are not.

Michael wrote, "Furthermore, Dwyer and the monarchists [sic] blank out when offered historical examples and examples from present day life.

"The fact is that in about 1980, the number of private guard surpassed the number of public police officers. Today, TWO THIRDS of the patrol officers are privately employed. Some very profitable companies have yet to learn that this system is impossible."

Yes, but these private guards cannot enforce their own laws; they must enforce the government's, which is the difference between private guards under a governmental system and those under an anarchist system. The latter are not bound by a single, uniform set of laws governing a defined geographical area.

- Bill

(Edited by William Dwyer
on 10/27, 7:44pm)

Post 14

Thursday, October 27, 2005 - 10:12pm

William: "Yes, but these private guards cannot enforce their own laws; they must enforce the government's, which is the difference between private guards under a governmental system and those under an anarchist system. The latter are not bound by a single, uniform set of laws governing a defined geographical area."

So, in essence, are your saying that not that any one group (i.e. the police) or person in a society has a monopoly on force, but that the principle of "non-initiation of force" personified has the monopoly on the proper use of force?

I've been on the fence regarding "competing defense agencies," but if this is what you're saying (and I apologize for the poor wording ,still working this out), this may clarify the issue for me.

Post 15

Friday, October 28, 2005 - 11:17am

I argued that "private guards cannot enforce their own laws; they must enforce the government's, which is the difference between private guards under a governmental system and those under an anarchist system. The latter are not bound by a single, uniform set of laws governing a defined geographical area."

Joe Maurone replied, "So, in essence, are you saying that not any one group (i.e. the police) or person in a society has a monopoly on force, but that the principle of 'non-initiation of force' personified has the monopoly on the proper use of force?"

Not exactly. It is true that since the NIOF principle is the standard, there is a sense in which it is the "final arbiter" or "personified monopolist," because it is the guide that must be used in arriving at a particular decision. But some agency must necessarily apply the standard or render an interpretation of it, since the standard cannot apply itself. And, of course, whatever agency renders that interpretation and enforces it cannot tolerate those whom it considers in violation of it, even if the violators are well meaning people who believe that they are themselves correctly enforcing the standard.

Therefore, whoever presumes to enforce the standard is implicitly asserting a monopoly on its interpretation and enforcement, which means that the very idea of competition in the application and enforcement of the standard is an oxymoron, since the meaning of "freedom of competition" presupposes an absence of force within the competitive process. Since the only way that freedom of competition can be violated or suppressed is by the use of force, freedom of coercive competition is a contradiction in terms. Yet it is precisely this kind of competition that anarchism endorses. There is simply no way around it. An asserted monopoly on the use of force is logically indispensable to the administration of justice.

The only question is: Will you have a society of warring pretenders to the monopolist throne with all of the chaos and carnage that that implies, or will you have a single designated monopolist whose laws are respected and adhered to by all law enforcement agencies within that society? There is nothing wrong with competing law enforcement agencies, so long as they are competing with each other in the enforcement of a single, uniform set of laws - so long, that is, as they do not resort to force against each other, but adhere to a designated set of rules and procedures mandated by the government, which is to say, by the legal system governing their activities.

- Bill

Post 16

Friday, October 28, 2005 - 3:46pm

Thanks for elaborating, William.

Post 17

Friday, October 28, 2005 - 9:30pm

William Dwyer wrote: "Because these are peaceful businesses that do not use force to prevent other businesses from operating, whereas the purpose of an agency that enforces a particular legal system is to arrest and prosecute those who violate its laws, which would include arresting other agencies that attempt to enforce a different set of laws."

Please take the time to read Post 6 in this thread. In fact there is a lot in this thread. I entered a large body of text in separate posts. Knowledge about private security is extensive, but not known well outside the industry.

Your examples are all mired in governmentalist modes of thinking. You speak of "geographic monopolies" and "mutually exclusive codes of justice."

Journalists, doctors, lawyers, physicists, auto mechanics, baseball players, chess players... All manner of people subscribe to several systems at once. Back in the 1960s, Jim Ryan played for the Cleveland Browns football team -- and earned a Ph.D. in mathematics. He participated in two widely different and yet very, very serious codes of conduct. Do you suppose that when a flag went down on the field, if Jim Ryan disputed the referee's call, that the American Mathematical Society would "arrest" the National Football League for "attempting to enforce a different set of laws"?

We live in a world of coexisting, extra-territorial ethical systems. Many of us subscribe to several of these at the same time. They work by the laws of human action.

Again, consider the examples in Post 6. What happens to someone who is caught stealing? In your world, there is only one answer. However, in the real world, other solutions are possible. Your world is a hypothetical construct. Consistent praxeology ("anarcho-capitalism") describes the world as it is.

Post 18

Sunday, October 30, 2005 - 8:38am

Post 0: Government police departments do not work any better than collectivized farms worked -- and for the same reasons.

How about this. Buisnesses that deal in only production such as farms have no use for force except in defense(and usually rare cases at that). Defense agencies (and police forces) deal primarily in force.

Dealing in force, power corrupts in a police force but at least there are channels to deal with it. Under a system of competing agencies of force the only way the different agencies can be accountable to anyone is if one of their competitors has more or bigger guns. and the better armed competitor may not the morally superior one

That and competing agencies even in the governmental sense can be disasterous in some cases. When disputes of jurisdiction come up it can bring criminal investigations to a near standstill. Imagine this happening when there is incentive to screw the other guy out of profits.

That's my two cents.

---Landon

Post 19

Sunday, October 30, 2005 - 4:34pm