| | What an amazing coincidence! I was just reading a similar fantasy in the movie thread! Maybe such people should become Manga artists or something useful with such a talent for inventing perjoratives out of thin air.
Anyway, in response to the last sane post, here in America today we have some jurisdictions in which a single attorney handles all the hundreds of cases of people too poor to afford an attorney on their own. And, in at least on case shown on Larry King Live, such attorney has no trouble handling all the cases simultaneously since he has arrived at a simple solution: plead GUILTY! In every case. Without exception. Hey, you don't trust your cops to make a good arrest? Maybe you're one of them thar "Enemy Combatants," huh?
In other jurisdictions, thousands of dollars of Public Defender time are spent on individual Defendants. There is no logic behind the relative choices made by whatever combination of bureaucrats and politicians are involved. It's precedent, TRADITION!!!, and whatever the subjective inclinations of the person in charge for the moment dictate, or what they can get away with.
States respond to the threat of public animousity. The squeeky wheel syndrome means that money is poured, not into what succeeds, but whatever fails. Bureaucracies in private businesses behave similarly, but at least they have a market to compare their decisions against, and, if they screw up royalty, then the competition eats their lunch. Not a problem. But when the state finally runs out of resources, as the German state did under Hitler, then there are BIG problems. The real reason for WWII was simply that the NAZI state had bankrupted the country, taking out loans basically to pay for all the wonderful welfare and wage programs that bought them the votes.
Steve wrote: "So let's say that the CEO of Acme protective agency has that proposal in front of him. I guess you are going to say that for him there is no morality - only the bottom line. If it is profitable to go kill thousands (not in defense since his clients haven't been attacked) off he will go - maybe the idea is to open a new market in this country...."
Obviously the CEO of ACME has to take into consideration the costs of his decisions. If he decides to intervene, then any innocent civilians injured or killed will likely result in major claims against ACME. He'd either better have a rock solid trail of evidence to support every decision - showing that the net result was clearly better for the general population, for example, or have a large contingency fund or really solid insurance policy.
This is why the Norman invaders got rid of the Good and Ancient Common Law and replaced it with a bastardized version with judges appointed by them, and limits on what juries could consider. Under the Common Law, the Anglo Saxons could have sued the Norman soldiers individually or in class action for every murder, rape and pillage. So the Normans didn't eliminate the Common Law, as that would have let to general chaos. Instead, they corrupted and perverted it to serve their interests as needed.
Steve wrote: "Or, maybe he runs the numbers and decides that even if had clients in that country it is better to lose them and take a temporary hit in Acme's reputation and lose a little bit of market share rather than take on such a large conflict. (Then he can take the money saved by not protecting a few Nastronia clients and set up a new ad campaign and get new customers)."
True enough. There's no perfect protection. You might get mugged or murdered for petty cash in the Congo, too. Don't expect the U.S. to press charges or send in the cavalry. Clearly ACME will weigh those kind of alternatives and I can't see anything wrong with it, although heroic rescues also make for really good publicity.
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