Government Forces: Quis Custodiet?

According to Ayn Rand, conservatives, liberals, fascists, and socialists, the state holds a monopoly on the use of force. The proper functions of government are police and armed forces to protect citizens and courts of law to settle disputes. This topic looks specifically at the police and armed forces.

In our world today, in the real world outside your window, not the imaginary world of medieval Iceland, governments hire private protection agencies to guard government facilities. One example is Carpenter's Hall (Independence Hall) which is guarded by Wackenhut.

Obviously, the basic premise is that governments have the right to provide protective services, but not the duty to provide them with government employees. It would be rationally valid and empirically effective for the government to have zero forces on the public payroll and to have all forces contracted.

This goes beyond the National Parks. Who guards the legislature, executive and courts? Do they have to be government police? In fact, Akal Security of New Mexico has the primary contract for providing armed plainclothes security officers for federal courts. Akal (and other firms) also guard US military bases. Why would the military not guard its own bases? In other words, the US military relies on civilians to guard the US military. Shouldn't they (the army) be protecting us (the civilians)? Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

At the city level, your local police probably no longer provide school crossing guards. They probably no longer have their own tow trucks. They probably rely on "auxilaries" for large crowd public events. I recently attended a Michgian GOP state convention held at the publicly-owned Lansing Civic Center. The patrollers were from Securitas and the convention contracted another firm, Gallagher, to check IDs at the doors. So, the city-owned convention hall is guarded not by cops, but by private security.

Again, it is easy to stipulate that the city has the right to have police there. That would be a basic government function in standard terms. But the fact is that they do not.

Therefore, I must ask: Is it really necessary to have government employees as police and armed forces? ... As long as you have a "government" (so-called) does it have to operate its own businesses? Does there have to be a govenrment Mint, a government Pencil Factory, a government Arsenal? Could these not all be contract facilities, operated by other entities different from the government? If we have private police (private pencil factories, etc.), then why should the government be in that business -- especially as in the real world governments do contract for police and armed forces, just as they buy pencils and aircraft carriers?

(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 5/21, 7:44am)

Post 1

Wednesday, May 21, 2008 - 7:58am

The logical follow on question is: why have a government in the first place if all it does is parcel out the services to private providers.

Bob Kolker

Post 2

Wednesday, May 21, 2008 - 9:52am

Gee whiz, Bob, you don't have to hold up cue cards for the panel. You're supposed to let them play the game.

There are several ways to solve this.

As you say, the government would exist in name only. Perhaps it would not even own its own buildings. Government officials would buy their own office supplies from their salaries.

Another way is to say that no forces should be contracted. The government to be lawful must directly employ its forces as it does its own officials. (Could Congress be made up of contractors? What sense would that make? Yet, are not judges, contracted? They are offered a nice package, but federal appointments are political and they come and go as judges find other work.) So, by this theory, there would be no private guards guarding Army bases or Independence Hall or the Courts.

Another way is for the government to be totally self-contained. I mentioned arsenals. We got away from them in the 19th century and went over to contractors. Now, we have the military-industrial complex. There is no reason why the government cannot build its own weapons. In fact, I have worked on DoD projects that include just such line items. In other words, a Navy base can have Navy people doing civil engineering work -- that's what military engineers do -- or the commanding officer can hire a contractor. The point is, the basic assumption is that the military will do its own work. The government could have its own factories for making coins and paper, pencils, warships, helicopters, etc.

The present mixed-economy model could continue, of course. That is what it is, of course, a mix of enterprise and socialism with the government doing somethings and contractors doing others and with the government competing against businesses, just they do with electric power, space exploration, parks and recreation, etc., parcel package delivery, etc. (Should the government deliver its own mail?)

So, yes, those are the big picture questions.

The narrow problem, the one here, is just the police and military.

Should they all be government employees?

If not, then where does that lead?

If not to be led to anarchy, who decides -- and by what standard -- which forces should be publicly paid and which should be privately contracted? In other words, if the government hires me to guard Independence Hall, don't I deserve a government salary and benefits?

Post 3

Saturday, May 31, 2008 - 4:45pm

I used to think in terms of the model of replacing the state in similar terms.

Now I'm more inclined to think it will happen through tech like cell phones with internet capabilities.

Envision a future in which you always know to whom you are speaking, because your cell/PDA can call up that info in a flash, including how many reward points other people have voted this checkout clerk in the past for her good service (or debit points for this professional con artist). All contractual agreements are sealed via the net, under a general social contract. Anyone who enters an area from which they are legally excluded, such as a convicted thief trying to get into a mall, or a parent trying to steal a child from a condo complex, is immediately ID'd, and proper security personnel as well as others notified on a need-to-know basis. Dangerous criminals find that they are locked out of everywhere except the special communities that have found ways to gainfully employ them, while everyone always has the chance to improve their social score by being productive, rational and benevolent, all of which goes into what you see on your HUD from your cellphone when you glance at someone.

Post 4

Sunday, June 1, 2008 - 3:59am

Why not go all the way? The Harry Bates solution (-The Day the Earth Stood Still). We build a race of robots that enforce rational behavior principles and can be neither corrupted nor turned off. Anyone who breaks the rules is dealt with swiftly and efficiently by the enforcement-bots. God in a box. Totally just and implacable.

Gort! Klaatu bardada nicto!

The problem with your approach is that the system you proposed can be corrupted from the inside and perverted to enforce someone's favorite ideology.

It is bad enough dealing with idiotic burocrats and overt grafters and looters. But mechanized burocrats. Lord save us! Any system than can be computerized to do good can be computerized to do evil.

Bob Kolker

Post 5

Sunday, June 1, 2008 - 1:45pm

In theory, I suppose that perhaps any system as such is corruptible. If everyone decides to become a criminal, too bad.

However, that argument is inherently invalid as such. Similar to the "the market will decide" response, a favorite of libertarian sf author Neil Shulman, implicit in a rejection based on the possibility of failure, is the failure to recognize that that possibility of failure is always present, and thus it could be used to dismiss any claim whatsoever if it were a valid objection. Ceteris paribus, please.

You have failed to provide any specifics to substantiate why your objection to my "system" (which actually was only hinted at - so you're jumping the gun, as well) is more susceptible to corruption than whatever else is available.

In the case of "the market will decide," it is assumed that markets rule, and so the glorious agorist anarchist or limited govco is historically predetermined. But in that case, since markets have always been around, how come we aren't already there?

Possibly because the cretins who use that phrase to stop any discussion which doesn't give the impression that they are the Masters of the Universe succeed all to often in preventing discussion of real options, strategies, tactics, etc., which might expose them as useless sycophants. At any point, should anyone be proposing something that might possibly require actual thought or action, they can chant the magic phrase "the market will decide." End of conversation.

I suggest that you might want to purchase the excellent primer on logic entitled "Fallacy, the Counterfeit of Argument." I read it in high-school in the '60's.

Post 6

Monday, June 9, 2008 - 4:22am