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Bill_7154
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As far as I am concerned private companies competing for those contracts would only lower prices and raise the quality of service. I can see no other outcome.
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Mickey_Finn
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Privatization has had questionable success in many traditionally public services.
- Private, fire departments have been a dismal failure.
- Private prisons the same. Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) was sued by the ACLU for permitting a culture of violence. In their facility in Idaho. They, CCA lost. They have been the subject of intense scrutiny in Arizona as well. Arizona has found that the contracted prisons are actually more expensive to operate than the public facilities.
- Private police forces. Apparently a darling theory of the Anarcho-capitalists movement. Raise serious concerns about accountability. It’s hard to highlight incidents of abuse. As, our own police are the subject of complaints, and law suits (whether well founded or not) on a regular basis.
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SuperLuigi
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I like that idea!
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manualman
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Bill,
You’re not facing the reality of human nature. Fallen humans tend towards freeloading on matters of the common good. Take roads: they theoretically are already self funding via the gas tax (no tangents!). That’s fee for services. But if there is no police to require the gas station owners to turn over that portion of your gas money, almost all of them will simply pocket it. Fallen human nature inherently is tempted to let others pay and attempt to skate out of contributing one’s fair share.
Take garbage collection. We KNOW that urban human health requires good waste disposal. But if getting that done is left to individuals, an awful lot of them will simply dump their trash on the street at night to save a buck. It’s just the way too many people are - and we just can’t let you shoot them all!
Safe water supply, sewage disposal and treatment, and dozens of more communal human endeavors simply wouldn’t work if people could opt out of paying for it, but find sneaky ways to gain the benefit anyways.
Face it, you’re a utopian. Just the opposite kidn of utopian one normally encounters these days. The usual kind is that which expects the state to establish programs that will solve all problems (absurd). You’re the kind who things individuals are all capable and virtuous enough to solve all problems WITHOUT a state. Just as absurd, but on the opposite pole.
You’re not facing the reality of human nature. Fallen humans tend towards freeloading on matters of the common good. Take roads: they theoretically are already self funding via the gas tax (no tangents!). That’s fee for services. But if there is no police to require the gas station owners to turn over that portion of your gas money, almost all of them will simply pocket it. Fallen human nature inherently is tempted to let others pay and attempt to skate out of contributing one’s fair share.
Take garbage collection. We KNOW that urban human health requires good waste disposal. But if getting that done is left to individuals, an awful lot of them will simply dump their trash on the street at night to save a buck. It’s just the way too many people are - and we just can’t let you shoot them all!
Safe water supply, sewage disposal and treatment, and dozens of more communal human endeavors simply wouldn’t work if people could opt out of paying for it, but find sneaky ways to gain the benefit anyways.
Face it, you’re a utopian. Just the opposite kidn of utopian one normally encounters these days. The usual kind is that which expects the state to establish programs that will solve all problems (absurd). You’re the kind who things individuals are all capable and virtuous enough to solve all problems WITHOUT a state. Just as absurd, but on the opposite pole.
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Bill_7154
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The gov’t is BROKE. Out of every nation in the entire world, we are at the very top of the list of countries in DEBT.
And we have private banks that print money and then ‘lend’ it to us, with interest. So not only are we responsible for that interest…every dollar that is printed (and trillions are printed) cause inflation…and this is a bigger tax than the federal or state income taxes you pay. It’s more than you pay in sales tax, etc…it takes a huge chunk of of the average person’s wealth every year.
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Bill_7154
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What your talking about is the concept of ‘freeriding’. Since gov’t has been our mommy and daddy for so long no one feels accountable to their neighbors. I submit, that if gov’t were lessened and communities strengthened, more people would feel an obligation to their neighbors.Bill,
You’re not facing the reality of human nature. Fallen humans tend towards freeloading on matters of the common good. Take roads: they theoretically are already self funding via the gas tax (no tangents!). That’s fee for services. But if there is no police to require the gas station owners to turn over that portion of your gas money, almost all of them will simply pocket it. Fallen human nature inherently is tempted to let others pay and attempt to skate out of contributing one’s fair share.
Take garbage collection. We KNOW that urban human health requires good waste disposal. But if getting that done is left to individuals, an awful lot of them will simply dump their trash on the street at night to save a buck. It’s just the way too many people are - and we just can’t let you shoot them all!
Safe water supply, sewage disposal and treatment, and dozens of more communal human endeavors simply wouldn’t work if people could opt out of paying for it, but find sneaky ways to gain the benefit anyways.
Face it, you’re a utopian. Just the opposite kidn of utopian one normally encounters these days. The usual kind is that which expects the state to establish programs that will solve all problems (absurd). You’re the kind who things individuals are all capable and virtuous enough to solve all problems WITHOUT a state. Just as absurd, but on the opposite pole.
Are YOU going to be the only one on your block that doesn’t pay for garbage collection? I’m not.
And complaining about freeriding, taking it to the extreme, an example would be that I should not plant rose bushes in my front yard because then you would be able to ‘free ride’ off of the beauty of their look and the sweetness of their smell.
People a lot smarter than me have written about the things you are raising. I have not read their books but know they exist. Another poster mentionedd Murray Rothbard. There are very intelligent people who have done a lot of thinking and a lot of reasoning in relation to the issues you raise. If interested you can reasearch the works of those who would be considered at the forfront of the concept of Anarcho-Capitalism.
I believe there may even be one or more websites devoted to the topic. Just make sure you stay away from the wingnuts and are at sites that are recognized as respected overall by anarcho-capitalists.
mises.org/
murrayrothbard.com/
lewrockwell.com/
There are a few if your interested.
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Mickey_Finn
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Maxirad
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Bill_7154
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Hi Mickey Finn,ATB
- Private prisons the same. Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) was sued by the ACLU for permitting a culture of violence. In their facility in Idaho. They, CCA lost. They have been the subject of intense scrutiny in Arizona as well. Arizona has found that the contracted prisons are actually more expensive to operate than the public facilities.
- Private police forces. Apparently a darling theory of the Anarcho-capitalists movement. Raise serious concerns about accountability. It’s hard to highlight incidents of abuse. As, our own police are the subject of complaints, and law suits (whether well founded or not) on a regular basis.
Private prisons are discraceful. It’s in their interests to have repeat business so lobby for mandatory minimum sentences (so a judge is forced, under every individual situation to impose a mandatory minimum prison sentence for certain offenses). I think this is bad because the judge can NEVER use his own discretion. Certain cases, such as drug possession and/or sale cases I think the judge should be able to use his discretion as there are career people in this catagory and then there may be someone, a family man who is and has been an upright standing citizen who made a bad choice out of desperation in order to provide food for his kids. So mitigating circumstances I think, SHOULD be able to be taken into consideration when imposing sentences as there can be two VERY different situations where 2 different people are charge with the same crime and the judge is FORCED to impose a mandatory minimum where it might be in the best interests of everyone to have a certain person put on probation and paying a probation fee and going to a program where they pay for the program themselves…rather than taxpayers being forced to pay to put every person in prison for the mandatory minimum.
And private prisons under government are different that private prisons if there was no formal government. As it is now taxpayers are the ones who pay, and private prisons lobby for things like mandatory min sentences and are obviously motivated to have more customers, and repeat customers…so private prisons are going to be anti-rehabiliation as this is how they will make the most profit. I also think this benefits no one but the stockhoders of the private prisons (and taxpayers get to pay for any increase in people being charged with crimesand going through the court systems, in particular if they can’t pay for their own lawyer). I think this is bad.
Private police: As it stands now they get away with a ton of bad behavior where in other jobs they would be FIRED. Their unions don’t help citizens. Their behavior even toward good upright citizens can be very bad and is accepted as OK, whereas if customer cervice employees at companies like walmart or whatever would be FIRED for talking to customers the way police often talk to citizens. I also question the level of abuse they put on those they arrest. With private police forces, police agencies competing for contracts with citizens, their behavior could do nothing but improve. As it stands now they do bad behavior over and over and get to keep their jobs. Jobs as critical as police should be held to a high standard. Heck, we don’t even have citizen review boards to look at police who get charged with misconduct over and over again. This I think is bad and hurts society. If police forces were private, like private security companies, bad employees would be fired more easily for misconduct and companies that did a bad job overall would not get contracts with citizens. It’s another no brainer for me (although extremely unlikely to happen since we have gov’t, and therefore no competition.
It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out that if a company is immune to having to face any competition with other companies and are guarenteed to be, and remain, employed…their services are always going to be inferior to companies that are private and forced to compete with other companies that provide the same services. They HAVE to in order to remain in business, or at least compete to try to stay in business and get whatever share of the market they can based on the quality of their services and the fee’s they charge.
God Bless,
Bill
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VeritasLuxMea
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Catholic (Christian) morality is all about the ends not justifying the means. Jesus did not say, “hey, it’s cool to murder someone, so long as that helps you create a stable society.”
No. You do not murder. Period.
Yet when it comes to government, suddenly the ends almost always justify the means? It doesn’t make sense.
How can we build roads without taxes? Well, if taxation is theft then it doesn’t matter how we’re going to build roads. What matters is that we don’t build roads by stealing from others.
If that means a road-less world (hint: it doesn’t), then that’s what we have to live with. Sin doesn’t become acceptable just because it’s convenient.
No. You do not murder. Period.
Yet when it comes to government, suddenly the ends almost always justify the means? It doesn’t make sense.
How can we build roads without taxes? Well, if taxation is theft then it doesn’t matter how we’re going to build roads. What matters is that we don’t build roads by stealing from others.
If that means a road-less world (hint: it doesn’t), then that’s what we have to live with. Sin doesn’t become acceptable just because it’s convenient.
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Reep
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Well said, VeritasLuxMea. This issue is so little considered or understood. And very difficult to get enough distance from the world to see it.
Two hundred years ago, most Americans–including Catholics–had little sense of how evil slavery really was. There is something that blinds us from the evil we’ve tolerated for millennia. So it is with long-accustomed evils that we still approve today.
No matter how saintly a government behaves in other matters, none (save one: the Vatican) forsake the use of force as a means of accomplishing the “good.” So the “good” government—which never initiates violence except to finance its good-deed-doing—finds itself making the moral choice condemned by St. Paul in Romans 3:8: that of doing evil that good may come of it.
Blessed Pope John Paul II set out the criteria for making right moral decisions. While it is important to consider good intentions and good results, neither of those criteria justify an evil action:
Let us say that someone robs in order to feed the poor: in this case, even though the intention is good, the uprightness of the will is lacking. Consequently, no evil done with a good intention can be excused.
~John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor (1993) 78
If government aggression is evil, might it be a necessary evil? If good intentions or results do not justify wrongful actions, then there can be no necessary evil. Even the good ends of government cannot justify it. Never mind the massive evils–even mass murders–that governments routinely engage in.
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MarcusAndreas
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Sorry for bailing on this thread, but thanks for the help. Paying for services that you’re benefiting from isn’t theft and anarcho-capitalism is silly.
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smndtupidisaftr
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So if a robber gives you 5 cents back after taking $500 that’s okay?
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Reep
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As long as the robber is the government and calls the $500 taxation. Oh yeah, the nickel you get back is called pork barrel spending.
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MarcusAndreas
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Get over yourselves, you exist as a social animal and are expected to contribute to the society you live in and pay for the services you use. Are the Popes promoting theft in encyclicals when they writes in favor of redistribution? Maybe Murray Rothbard does not have a charism to protect himself from error but the Pope does?
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Reep
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This thread has gone on too long. Sigh . . .
http://www.freeisbeautiful.net/wp-content/uploads/Debating statists.jpg
http://www.freeisbeautiful.net/wp-content/uploads/Debating statists.jpg
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MarcusAndreas
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Thanks for that brilliant response to my argument.
I’ll say it again:
Either libertarianism is wrong, or the papal encyclicals promote theft on a massive scale. You cannot be an anarchist nor a libertarian and be an orthodox Catholic.
I’ll say it again:
Either libertarianism is wrong, or the papal encyclicals promote theft on a massive scale. You cannot be an anarchist nor a libertarian and be an orthodox Catholic.
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smndtupidisaftr
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Those papal statements are not binding in their policy recommendations.
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smndtupidisaftr
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Libertarians admit that we are social animals. Libertarians study human nature and decide what system works best given the facts of human nature. States, on the other hand, exist merely to perpetuate their existence and enrich themselves.
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MarcusAndreas
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Then neither is any other encyclical.
I take it, then, that every philosopher and saint prior to Proudhon was mistaken? Why does the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church declare that the state has role to regulate private property?
Read the Old Catholic Encyclopedia for an orthodox perspective on anarchism. newadvent.org/cathen/01452a.htm
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