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Why Statists Always Get it Wrong
The von Mises Institute ^ | Monday, February 20, 2006 | Per Bylund

Posted on 02/20/2006 6:24:40 AM PST by Shalom Israel

Why Statists Always Get it Wrong


by Per Bylund


[Posted on Monday, February 20, 2006]
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In a recent article, Carl Milsted uses Rothbard to argue it would be permissible to use force to make people pay for a service of which their benefit is at least double its cost. His conclusion is that it is reasonable, and even preferable, to establish a minimalist state if it is to people's advantage.

As has already been argued by N. Stephan Kinsella, he totally misses Rothbard's point. Furthermore, he fails to show why people would not choose to voluntarily pay for services which would benefit them double, as has been pointed out by Bob Kaercher.

Even so, I wish to offer another analysis of Milsted's reasoning. His article is a good example of why statists always seem to get it wrong — and why they always fail to understand what we're talking about. The bottom line is that they fail to realize the costs of force due to their unwillingness to see the state for what it is. I will therefore use Milsted's own example to shed light on his fundamental mistake.

Milsted takes the case of national defense, which is commonly considered an institution that would face the free rider problem if supplied on the market. Argues Milsted: "suppose the majority assesses a tax on everyone to spread the burden of supporting the new defense system. This is theft of the minority. However, suppose that the economies of scale are such that this tax is less than half of what people would have had to pay for defense on their own."

That's the argument, plain and simple. If it is morally permissible to steal when the victim is compensated double, the equation seems to fit. Well, let's look into this in more detail and see if it really does.

First, consider a situation where everybody benefits, say, $10,000 on a yearly basis from being protected by a national defense. That would mean, if the premise is correct, that it would be morally permissible to force costs of no more than $5,000 on everybody.

Were it a company supplying a service worth $10,000 to each of its customers paying only $5,000 for it, this would be easy. Anyone willing to pay the $5,000 would get the service, and the costs associated with administration and so forth would have to be covered by the $5,000 paid. But Milsted argues the $5,000 should be taxed, and that makes it much more difficult.

First of all, we know state-run businesses and authorities (especially if they are monopolies) tend to be much less efficient than private enterprises. That means people in Milstedistan would get less than they would in a free market society. But even so, there is still the cost of coercion totally neglected by Milsted in his article.

Forcing people to pay for a service means there will always be someone who tries to avoid paying or even refuses to pay. So "we" (i.e., the state) need to invest in collection services to get the money. Now, let's say Murray, who is one of the people we're trying to coerce, goes out to buy a rifle and then declares that he's "anti-government, so get the hell off my property." Perhaps he even threatens to kill the collection agents. Dealing with him would take a whole lot more out of the budget, meaning there is even less to provide for the defense (which is the reason we're in business in the first place).

But that's not all. Let's say Murray won't give us the money no matter how much we ask or threaten him. We will simply have to take it by force, so we need to invest in the necessary tools and we go out to hire a dozen brutes to do the forcing. (More money down the drain … ) It is already pretty obvious we're in a very expensive business; there will not be much defense left if there are a lot of Murrays in our society.

Now imagine our hired brutes go down the street to Murray's house and knock on his door. He sticks his rifle out the window and shouts something about having the right to his property and that he will shoot to kill. Anyway, the brutes try to open his door only to find it is locked and barred. They will have to break in to finally get their hands on Murray's cash.

Our small army goes back to their van to get their tools, then returns to break down Murray's door. Going inside, they manage to avoid all the bullets Murray is firing and they tie him up and put him in the closet. They eventually find that he does not have any valuables and that he keeps his cash in a locked safe. So they have to break it to get the money.

Now we have a problem. To make this operation morally permissible, the benefit to Murray, which we know is $10,000, must be at least double the cost forced on him. The cost is now a whole lot more than the cost of the national defense; it includes administration and collection costs, hiring the brutes and their tools, as well as the broken door and safe, and the time and suffering (and perhaps medical expenses) Murray has lost while we were stealing from him. How much do you think is left from the original $5,000 to invest in a national defense? Not much.

What if Murray suffers from paranoia and therefore had invested $1,500 in an advanced special security door and $2,000 in an extra security safe? Then the total cost of simply getting into Murray's safe would probably exceed the $5,000 we are "allowed" to steal. What then? Should we break in anyway since it is a mandatory tax, only to give him a check to cover what's above the $5,000 mark? That doesn't sound right.

But on the other hand, if we just let him be, more people would do the same as Murray only to get off, and we would have a huge problem on our hands. This is a typical state dilemma: it costs too much to force money from some people, but it would probably be much more "expensive" in the long run not to. It's a lose-lose situation.

Now, what if Murray is very poor and doesn't have the $5,000? Then we would have to take whatever he's got and make him work off the rest. We need to get the $5,000 to cover our expenses of the national defense, and we have the right to take that amount from him. It could, of course, be argued he couldn't possibly benefit $10,000 from a national defense if he has no money and no property. If we trust Austrian economics, that might very well be correct; the benefit of national defense would, like any other product or service, be valued subjectively and thus the benefit would be different for each and every individual.

If this is true, it means we have an even greater problem: the state can rightfully levy costs of a maximum of half the subjective benefit enjoyed. Well, that's a task that would keep an army of Nobel Prize winners busy for a while. If possible, I wonder how much that would cost in the end.

This is the problem statists face on an everyday basis when discussing philosophy and politics. It is easy to make nice equations and formulas, and theorize on great systems and cheap solutions neatly enforced by the state. But when consistently failing to realize the costs of coercion it makes their reasoning fundamentally flawed. Just scratching the surface reveals they really have no clue whatsoever.


Per Bylund works as a business consultant in Sweden, in preparation for PhD studies. He is the founder of Anarchism.net. Send him mail. Visit his website. Comment on the blog.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Government; Miscellaneous; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: anarchism; libertarian; statism; statist
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To: r9etb

"I'm reminded of the story from last week, about the volunteer FD in Missouri(?) that refused to put out a fire because the property owner hadn't paid his fire dues."

I saw that thread but I didn't spend much time there since I was fairly certain of the content and arguments.

The concept of privitized fire companies is another libertarian dream and I'm sure that thread drew it's share of the libertarian contingent on free republic. It also serves some problematic examples.

Suppose there is a fire in a densely packed area. Does the privitized fire company have an obligation to any other property owner not a subscriber?

Consider a fire in one of three interconnected buildings. Company A services building 1&3. The fire in building 1 has spread to 2 and perhaps endangering 3. Can this company use demolitions on building 2 to preserve building 3? Are they serving their clients if they do not? What liability to the owner of building 2?


101 posted on 02/20/2006 10:35:15 AM PST by DugwayDuke (Stupidity can be a self-correcting problem.)
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To: r9etb; Admin Moderator
...idiocies being propounded by our good friend on this thread who...

I don't mind having my opnions being called stupid, nor even my person, so I don't CC the moderator lightly. However, it's quite conspicuous that you are engaging in ad hominem, not as part of a rational discussion, but instead of it. If my position is idiotic, feel free to say so--but only if you offer a rational argument why it is in fact idiotic.

102 posted on 02/20/2006 10:35:22 AM PST by Shalom Israel (Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.)
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To: DugwayDuke
They do seem to have the attitude that excessive government is a threat to liberty, and that any expansion of government authority should be viewed skeptically and examined critically. I can't say I disagree with that assesment.

I don't always agree with their arguments, and the conclusions they draw from them. I do agree that debate needs to take place, and I am suspicious of any arguments that look like an attempt to short circuit such debate with generalizations and absolutes.

103 posted on 02/20/2006 10:36:02 AM PST by tacticalogic ("Oh bother!" said Pooh, as he chambered his last round.)
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To: Shalom Israel

You are the goods!!!

Social Contract indeed.

Govt can NOT give what it first does not take.

Again, the ONLY reason for a state at all is to compell imperfect men to do what they will not do voluntarily, period.

Our "State" was fine for a hundred years or so - it was when men learned they could use it to feather their own nests with it at the expense of taxpayers in the late 1800's, even under Grant's cronyism, that we veered strongly away from the original intent of making the State as limited as possible, letting the self interests of men via free choice do what they all have historically done best, innovate and make better the standards of living for all, which the state is merely a disincentive to.


104 posted on 02/20/2006 10:38:22 AM PST by Marxbites (Freedom is the negation of Govt to the maximum extent possible)
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To: Marxbites
Statism is not ill defined - it is the accumulation and concentration of Govt power outside founding and limiting constitutional boundaries

"Statism" is ill-defined, especially as used in this article. You'll note, for example, that the argument against a standing army is a complaint against something that's actually in the Constitution (e.g., Article II, Section 2):

The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States;

And thus we see that the Army (the national, standing Army, as distinct from the Militia of the several States) is not "statist" according to your definition, but is being used as an example of "statism" by some on this thread.

As typically used, "statism" means merely this: more government than you, personally, think is warranted. This is not to say that "statism" doesn't exist -- clearly the excess of government we have today is evidence that it's possible (even inevitable?) that power can be unduly concentrated within the government.

But one must be careful in making such charges: who, precisely, is responsible for that concentration of power?

105 posted on 02/20/2006 10:40:51 AM PST by r9etb
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To: Shalom Israel
However, it's quite conspicuous that you are engaging in ad hominem, not as part of a rational discussion, but instead of it.

(rolls eyes)

I wasn't thinking ad hominem thoughts before now. But I'm beginning to see that you and your ideas may not be separable.

106 posted on 02/20/2006 10:44:44 AM PST by r9etb
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To: DugwayDuke
The concept of privitized fire companies is another libertarian dream...

Curious: what do you mean by "dream"? After all, private fire companies actually exist on planet earth. In my dictionary, they qualify as "real".

Suppose there is a fire in a densely packed area. Does the privitized fire company have an obligation to any other property owner not a subscriber?

You appear to be implying that the fire company has a positive obligation in this regard. I believe I can make a solid argument that it does not. However, their practice seems generally to be to do what is necessary to save life, but do nothing extra to save non-subscribers' property. For example, a couple months ago such a case came up. The company answered the call, and suppressed the fire until everyone was out of the building. Then they let it burn.

Consider a fire in one of three interconnected buildings. Company A services building 1&3. The fire in building 1 has spread to 2 and perhaps endangering 3. Can this company use demolitions on building 2 to preserve building 3? Are they serving their clients if they do not? What liability to the owner of building 2?

Very good question. There are answers to it, though. Private property is paramount. Destroying someone else's property is not an option, so demolishing the property-owner's home without consent is not acceptable. However, there are multiple available options:

  1. The fire company might decide that it's cost-effective to put out the fire in the middle structure. For example, the fire company might be paid by the insurance company, and the cost of putting out the non-subscriber's fire might be less than the cost to them if the subscribers' property is extensively damaged.

  2. The fire company might decide it's cheaper to buy the milddle house and demolish it. Under the circumstances, the owner is likely to give them a pretty good deal.

  3. The fire company almost certainly has a non-subscriber price at which they will put out the fire--namely, a full reimbursement for all firefighting costs, plus whatever premium they deem appropriate. They can point this out to the owner of the middle structure.

  4. They can fight the fire as best they can, trying to minimize damage to the covered buildings, but not worrying about the amount of damage to the covered building.

  5. Something else I haven't thought of.


107 posted on 02/20/2006 10:47:09 AM PST by Shalom Israel (Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.)
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To: Shalom Israel
However, when the neighbors travel, they are entitled to intelligence updates on safe routes, and an escort for "important" trips (as defind by contract), which the free-rider is not.

Personally, my sense is that "travel" through war zones is somewhat less rational than avoiding them altogether, escort or no, so I think that's one "benefit" I'm willing to forego.

The free-rider isn't allowed into bomb shelters when there's shelling, and he isn't allowed in evacuation vehicles if the battle is going badly.

Which is likely to be a problem if I don't substitute the one-time cost of my own personal shelter for the ongoing cost of someone else's shelter. Or if I don't own my own "evacuation vehicle" (read: car), since, once again, the defense forces can hardly leave my vehicle selectively undefended while protecting all the paying customers in the same traffic jam on the same road.

And, of course, the rather more elementary problem with that scenario is that, if you and I and our neighborhood come under serious shelling or aerial attack or some such, then all our houses are likely destroyed anyway, which leads one to ask what exactly you were paying for in the first place. A ticket to the private shelter?

108 posted on 02/20/2006 10:49:08 AM PST by Senator Bedfellow
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To: Shalom Israel

Washington had no choice but conscription since the percentage of folks willing to voluntarily fight for their freedom seems to remain static until this day. 10-15% serve, the rest don't. Your problem is human nature and until you find a way to modify it, your brand of libertarianism is a pipe dream.


109 posted on 02/20/2006 10:49:17 AM PST by jwalsh07
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To: r9etb
But one must be careful in making such charges: who, precisely, is responsible for that concentration of power?

Assesing responsibility accurately is going to be problematic. I think people who try to reduce the question of whether government control is desirable to a simple cost/benefit anaylsis, with government being the arbiter of both the final cost and value of benefit need some serious consideration.

110 posted on 02/20/2006 10:57:25 AM PST by tacticalogic ("Oh bother!" said Pooh, as he chambered his last round.)
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To: Senator Bedfellow
Personally, my sense is that "travel" through war zones is somewhat less rational than avoiding them altogether, escort or no, so I think that's one "benefit" I'm willing to forego.

Your call. During the war between the states, there was extensive travel between the North and South, for all sorts of reasons. A member of my church, who was a conscientious objector, regularly made the trip for pastoral reasons. He was often escorted by Union soldiers to the front, and was then escorted by Confederate soldiers on his way south.

But "safe travel" doesn't necessarily mean you're traveling near enemy lines. For that matter, enemy lines keep moving. The smart subscriber bounces his travel plans off the agency before making any sort of long trip.

And, of course, the rather more elementary problem with that scenario is that, if you and I and our neighborhood come under serious shelling or aerial attack or some such, then all our houses are likely destroyed anyway, which leads one to ask what exactly you were paying for in the first place. A ticket to the private shelter?

What are you paying for now? The possibility exists, however remote, that the Eastern Seaboard may someday be occupied by Hottentots. Many refugees would then flee west. Some will have vehicles, escorts and good maps. Some will make it on pure luck. Some won't make it.

As I said, you are correct that the free-rider problem exists, and it can't be solved perfectly. But, as I also said, it's nowhere near as difficult as the public-choicers like to pretend. "Security" means much more than "someone over in Iraq is dying for you," though that's part of it. It also means civil defense against terrorist emergencies, against invasion, against natural disasters, etc., and it includes many more services than simply sending infantry to fight and die.

Event he US military, inefficient as it is, does far more stuff than you'd imagine. They ship a lot of supplies to a lot of places. And with those great-big nuclear wessels of theirs, they can supply a surprising amount of distilled water in emergency areas. Private defenses, similarly, would involve much more than a bunch of guys with rifles.

111 posted on 02/20/2006 10:57:36 AM PST by Shalom Israel (Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.)
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To: freepatriot32

Thanks for the ping..............i've been reading this, but not totally clear on exactly what is being dicussed.


112 posted on 02/20/2006 10:59:06 AM PST by Gabz (Smoke gnatzies: small minds buzzing in you business........SWAT'EM)
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To: jwalsh07
Your problem is human nature and until you find a way to modify it, your brand of libertarianism is a pipe dream.

I agree completely. At least, I can see things from that point of view, and agree that you are speaking truth.

On the other hand, though, I'll point out that your problem is also human nature. The state you consider indispensible--as it probably is--always becomes the agent of oppression, because it's full of people, and people tend to oppress when they can. That's why I lean libertarian; of the two evils, I'd prefer the one in which I get left alone.

There's a third hand as well. Most anarcho-capitalists don't claim the world would be perfect without government; they only claim that it would be no worse. That's hard to know until you try it, but I must admit I find their arguments in this area persuasive. Except for the one problem you yourself raised: it will never be tried, because enough people aren't willing to try it anyway.

your brand of libertarianism is a pipe dream.

On the fourth hand, it will all be moot when Messiah comes.

113 posted on 02/20/2006 11:01:41 AM PST by Shalom Israel (Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.)
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To: Gabz
Thanks for the ping..............i've been reading this, but not totally clear on exactly what is being dicussed.

It seems to range from "Is Statism really bad?" in general, to "Can national defense be privatized?" in particular.

114 posted on 02/20/2006 11:14:37 AM PST by Shalom Israel (Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.)
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To: Shalom Israel
The smart subscriber bounces his travel plans off the agency before making any sort of long trip.

Alternately, the smarter non-subscriber simply picks up the phone and inquires about local conditions via the people with whom he is planning to visit, who presumably have a vested interest in his safe passage. That and a $0.50 expenditure on the newspaper in order to discover the hot spots between "A" and "B", so that one may avoid them, seems like it should facilitate travel without the necessity of a private army.

What are you paying for now?

Quite so. Of course, you will have given me the ability to opt out, which I don't have now, so in that sense, this plan realizes no additional tangible benefits, but does introduce one currently non-existent problem. Or, if you're like me, the "problem" is, in fact, a benefit in and of itself, insofar as I get to save money on defense, and you don't.

Event he US military, inefficient as it is, does far more stuff than you'd imagine. They ship a lot of supplies to a lot of places. And with those great-big nuclear wessels of theirs, they can supply a surprising amount of distilled water in emergency areas. Private defenses, similarly, would involve much more than a bunch of guys with rifles.

Really? It seems to me that to provide similar benefits, private armies will require similar resources to what the military has now, meaning you'll be paying pretty much what you are now. On the other hand, perhaps privatization will result in greater efficiency and streamlining. Of course, we should keep in mind that those savings will be offset, at least in part, by all the folks like me, who aren't going to pay any more as soon as they don't have to. So you get to pick up your tab, and mine too.

115 posted on 02/20/2006 11:14:40 AM PST by Senator Bedfellow
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To: Shalom Israel

"Those of us who love freedom are in such a tiny minority that we wouldn't stand a chance of survival; Galt's Gulch would be annihilated quickly."

I'd put it differently. I suppose most 'love freedom'. It's just that they're not willing to live under a libertarian philosophy. I do believe that in some sense, the libertarian way is a superior way if society were composed of only libertarians who strongly believed that it was wrong to infringe upon others freedoms. I do believe that 'Galt's Gulch' would be annihilated very quickly.

To be honest, there is a lot in the libertarian philosophy (if you can say there is such a thing) that appeals to me and I'd rather live in such a society, but I have difficulty in believing that it could ever be implemented on any scale due to the frailties of human nature.

"What's distressing is the circularity of the argument: in effect, we (probably) need to be defended by a state, precisely because we need to be defended from states. We need them because we can't get rid of them. If we could get rid of them, we also wouldn't need them. My head hurts."

I'm afraid your head will hurt until that 'sweet bye and bye' when the lamb lies down with the lion, etc., etc. As long as there are those who believe that what's theirs is theirs and what's yours is up for grabs, we will need the state to enforce certain rules of behavior or to prevent some one from enforcing their rules.

"True! I'm surprised you're the first person to point out that we lost that battle, after I cited it so many times! If the US fit my earlier description--namely, everyone armed to the teeth and willing to fight to the death--then the Brits would probably have lost eventually, but casualties would have been far higher than they actually were."

Or to point out that the colonists were not at all uniformly behind the revolution. From the numbers I remember, the population was fairly evenly split between those who wanted independence and those who did not. Varied by region of course.

"The flaw in my theory is that humans don't work that way. Kill a few, and the rest will obey like the sheep they are. Privatized defense requires a critical mass willing to take responsibility for, and command of, their own lives."

Another flaw is that Ghandi was lucky in his opposition. He recognized that the British were not barbarians. Some simply wouldn't care how many they killed 'if God (or the 'greater good', etc.) was on their side'.

"How did so many railroads manage to coordinate their use of the rails? Should trains have been colliding all over the place?"

That's a fairly simple problem because a train can only be on one track at a time and there was only one person (centralized system) responsible for that segment of track. That person could tell which train to use which track at what time (deconfliction). That is certainly not the case where airplanes can fly at an almost infinite number of speeds, altitudes, and directions. In addition, there are significant differences in controlling movement and responding to a threat. Railroads didn't overlap, air defenses do. It's just not the same problem.

BTW, one of my favorite stories is how the RR got together to establish time zones.

"That's actually not a very hard problem for a market to solve. People coordinate all the time, because it's in their best interests."

The problem here is that we are talking about the coordination of the use of lethal force, not something most people have much experience with.

"But let me clarify. When you speak of many companies all providing linebackers, you're suggesting that the defense is nothing but a giant linebacker. It isn't."

Agreed. I was careful to state that one company provided a defensive safety and another a linebacker. In fact, I specified that there were eleven different contractors all providing only a single player to the defense. You were talking about different segments of the market and so was I.

"The government does this very inefficiently, on the whole."

Governments can be inefficient but so can companies. Companies are probably more efficient than governments in most cases. The thing is, 'efficiency' is not necessarily an attribute in national defense. As in most life and death situations, living is more important than living efficiently.

"After 9/11, their idea of protecting airports was to fill them with men carrying M16s."

I really don't think that 'protecting airports' was the real purpose of those troops. They were there to reassure people that it was safe to get back in the air. Did they actually contribute to safety? Maybe in rare instances. Was this an efficient use of resources? Maybe depending upon how you define efficiency. Certainly more efficient than shutting down our air transport system.


116 posted on 02/20/2006 11:20:24 AM PST by DugwayDuke (Stupidity can be a self-correcting problem.)
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To: r9etb; Marxbites
Statism is not ill defined - it is the accumulation and concentration of Govt power outside founding and limiting constitutional boundaries ---

The pooh-poohers of libertarianism are intellectual clods who will never see that our Founders were small govt liberals in the classical sense, whose primary purpose was limiting the power of the state to only that which protects our rights that preceeded the state.
88 Marxbites

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

r9etb defends the statist quo:

The problem being that the Founders were not advocates of the idiocies propounded -- [saying] -- that there are no powers that private contracts cannot do better than the government -- including national defense.

The founders indisputably advocated small governments and small "standing armies". You're in effect defending todays virtually unlimited national defense scheme?

While I am definitely a proponent of limited government, I confess that I am, indeed, a pooh-pooher of libertarianism.

You are pooh-pooing your allies because you misunderstand their principles.

The basic tenets of libertarianism are inconsistent with human nature, as demonstrated through all of history.

Not true. -- You can't refute:
"-- our Founders were small govt liberals in the classical sense, whose primary purpose was limiting the power of the state to only that which protects our rights that preceeded the state. --"

You won't even try.

117 posted on 02/20/2006 11:22:31 AM PST by tpaine
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To: Senator Bedfellow
Alternately, the smarter non-subscriber simply picks up the phone and inquires about local conditions via the people with whom he is planning to visit, who presumably have a vested interest in his safe passage.

If that's a reliable way to travel, then presumably the service of providing travel advisories would be cheap, or else nobody would bother supplying them at all. However, I'd point out that the folks you're phoning only know the local conditions at their end of your trip. There could be quite a few miles in between, about which you and they know little.

Of course, you will have given me the ability to opt out, which I don't have now, so in that sense, this plan realizes no additional tangible benefits, but does introduce one currently non-existent problem.

...namely, the free-rider problem. That's a powerful rejoinder, but the problem is that you're assuming ceteris paribus when that isn't justified. For example, you're assuming that both plans give comparable protection at comparable cost; it's possible that privatization would give worse protection at higher costs, or better protection at lower cost (as is more likely), or better protection at higher cost, or worse protection but lower cost. If the resulting defense is far superior, a minor free-rider problem might be a small price to pay.

Really? It seems to me that to provide similar benefits, private armies will require similar resources to what the military has now...

On the contrary, if there were such a thing as a "private army," it wouldn't remotely provide the same services as it does now. The market encourages specialization and division of labor; the government prefers vertically-integrated, state-controlled enterprise. Today the army isn't just solders; it's also FedEx, US Air, IBM, Sysco Food Services, Hilton Hotels, GM, AAMCO, tech school, and a host of other things rolled into one.

Under privatization, deliveries would start being done by delivery services, probably ones that already exist. Computers would be built in the computer industry. Accommodations would be provided by other third-party vendors. Food, likewise. Engineering services, ditto. Transportation, the same. Each of those things would be provided, better and cheaper, by its own segment of the market, and competition would apply to all of those factors separately, as well as to defense in the aggregate.

Instead of sending the Abraham Lincoln to provide tsunami relief, Wal*Mart would ship supplies via FedEx, and it would absolutely, positively, be there overnight.

118 posted on 02/20/2006 11:28:13 AM PST by Shalom Israel (Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.)
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To: r9etb

The stupid voters who allowed themselves to be propagandized into thinking that it was capitalism, not Govt's interventions which really caused it, that was responsible for the Great Depression.

The "unholy" confluence of Marxism and Keynsianism that prevailed at the time when Americans, when told so, believed only Govt "experts" could undo the great wrongs of lazze faire capitalism and thereby they bought into the socialist creed of central planning ocurring in Europe at the time and the redistribution of incomes to do it with. Scientific advances had men ATT thinking they could plan people's lives better than the people could themselves.

And so in no uncertain terms, history proves their folly in the examples of the USSR, and all other places liberty, and ergo living standards, take the backseat to Govt's concentration of power.

To say otherwise is directly refuting Lord Acton.

High taxes, tarrifs, and overspending have throughout history been the preludes to war. Is it coincidence that the Fed'l Reserve and Income tax were started just in time to finance WWI? Few scholars disagree that without the oppressions dealt to Germany during & after the war that WWII and Hilter's rise would not have happened.

IMHO it is also without coincidence that two of three assasinated presidents were followed by relatives of the Roosevelt/Delano dynasty's family tree. 11 relatives of which were US presidents FDR claimed he succeeded. Grant, a third cousin his closet. FDR also had British Royalty among his decendants who he and Eleanor referred to as cousin - she being the niece of Teddy. Talk about inbreeding!


119 posted on 02/20/2006 11:31:06 AM PST by Marxbites (Freedom is the negation of Govt to the maximum extent possible)
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To: tpaine
You won't even try.

Not for you, tippy. I gave up on you years ago.

< / yearly reminder to tippy that I ignore his posts.>

120 posted on 02/20/2006 11:31:42 AM PST by r9etb
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