October 16, 2003. ת: PRIVATE POLICE.

I must remember to write on this subject. It is closely tied to the question of what conduct ought to be illegal. Let us start, though, with a system in which, like the present system, an elected government decides what conduct is illegal. There are different ways to enforce the law.

  1. In most countries, I think, there are two sets of enforcement agents, the army (and navy, etc.) and the police, both made up of government employees, but administered separately.

  2. In the United States, we split the police up into city, county, state, and federal police. In addition, we have lots of kinds of private and quasi-governmental police--campus cops, subway cops, security guards, subdivision patrols, and so forth.

  3. In the United States, we split the police up into city, county, state, and federal police. In addition, we have lots of kinds of private and quasi-governmental police--campus cops, subway cops, security guards, subdivision patrols, and so forth.

  4. While still having the government pay for it, we could privatize the government police, just as we privatize prison guarding. Every few years, companies would bid for the right to police Bloomington, Indiana.

  5. We could entirely privatize the police, with individual people paying for it just as they pay for their own haircuts. A person could choose which police company would protect him, and pay their fee. Companies could, if they wished, share enforcement responsibilities. There are several variants on this:
    1. If someone did not want police protection, they would not have to pay for it.
    2. Everybody would be required to buy police protection, just as they must get car insurance.
    3. Each person would get a voucher for $4000 per year worth of police protection, a voucher which could not be redeemed for cash.
    4. Each person could get a voucher for complete police protection by one company of their choice. The government and the company would negotiate as to how much the company would be paid for protecting that particular person.
I'm not sure which system is best. That will take more thought. And beyond this, there remains the question of what would happen if people were also allowed to make their own laws-- e.g., I could hire a policeman to bust up a saloon if I thought liquor would be illegal, but the saloon could hire a policeman to defend itself. David Friedman's old book, The Machinery of Freedom, must talk about this at length--I'll have to look at it again.

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