Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: $Revision: 1.6.2.16 $; site inmet.UUCP Path: utzoo!lsuc!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ukma!psuvm.bitnet!psuvax1!burdvax!sdcrdcf!sdcsvax!dcdwest!ittatc!decvax!cca!inmet!nrh From: nrh@inmet.UUCP Newsgroups: net.politics.theory Subject: Re: Rent-a-Cop Message-ID: <28200537@inmet.UUCP> Date: Wed, 8-Jan-86 02:10:00 EST Article-I.D.: inmet.28200537 Posted: Wed Jan 8 02:10:00 1986 Date-Received: Sun, 12-Jan-86 14:44:30 EST References: <883@mmintl.UUCP> Lines: 195 Nf-ID: #R:mmintl:-88300:inmet:28200537:000:9402 Nf-From: inmet!nrh Jan 8 02:10:00 1986 Okay, folks -- if you want to know a major libertarian's view on private police, find, somewhere, a copy of "The Machinery of Freedom", by David Friedman, and read the chapter titled something like "Law, Police, and Courts -- on the Market". >/* Written 4:44 pm Dec 18, 1985 by friesen@psivax in inmet:net.politics.t */ >In article <28200391@inmet.UUCP> nrh@inmet.UUCP writes: >> >>> In short, it would be an ideal target for organized crime. >>> >>>I am quite sure that organized crime would take over the private police >>>business in many areas. I suspect it would come to dominate it overall, >>>although some areas might manage to remain free of it. >> >>The Mob has two choices then, if it wants to succeed in the rent-a-cop >>business: it can become honest and dependable enough that people are >>willing to deal with it (that's sort of the scenario in The Syndic) >>or it can become vicious and tough enough that it kills all the competitors, > > Or it could use a third policy. It could run a No-Holds-Barred, >results gaurenteed enforcement agency for a very high price. It would >be "reliable" in that if you paid for results you would get them, and >people would buy this service just like they often try to now, but >there would be no public police force to get in thier way. In fact >such enforcement agencies would form *without* Mob intervention, as >has been suggested. A very high priced agency would have trouble (given that "results guaranteed" doesn't really work in law enforcement) keeping all the low-priced agencies from defending their clients. The low-priced agencies would include volunteer organizations, coops, and other presumably non-Mob agencies -- and COMBINATIONS of these. I suggest you read David Friedman on the business choices faced by the Mob agency and the others. >>The Mob would certainly have other troubles in a Libertarian society though: >>it would be in danger of starving to death. >> >>Consider what I understand to be the three main money sources of the >>Mob: >> o Drugs >> o Prostitution >> o Gambling >> >>My understanding is that the rest (leg-breaking, protection, fraud) >>are really minor adjuncts to these. > > In Libertaria the Protection Racket becomes *much* more >important, since there is no regular, independent police force to >provide the protection function. Thus they, and thier competetitors, >would simply change specialties. Is the Mob in business to advance its members, or just to be a blight? If the former, it would probably give up on the extortion racket -- very dangerous indeed in an environment where anyone might be armed, where a shakedown prospect might have just changed from the "Weak and Corrupt Law Enforcement Police Agency" to the "Utterly Fanatic and Incorruptible Avengers Police Agency". If the Mob has both in its pocket, the Mob wins, but if it uses the power to win, soon nobody will hire either agency. >>The "American Express Casino", to defend itself, would of course hire or >>form a security force emphatically NOT connected with the Mob. As would >>7-11 and the bordello. > > Actually, many of these places *would* hire hte Mob or an >agency like them, since that would give them powerful protection, and >allow them to control thier income more effectively. Oh, sure! Just as they'd PROUDLY display the Black Hand, to drum up business, right? Forget it! Would YOU do business with someone who CHOSE to work with people on such terms? Of course not -- not given any choice. Do you get a choice? Ah, there's the question! If the Mob has already dominated society, we're not talking about a libertarian society, so the question (while important) is not about a libertarian society. If the society STARTS OUT libertarian, then people DO have a choice, and will exercise it. >>To answer one or two of your points directly: >> >>The same argument applies to banks and barbershops. The problem with >>the argument is that part of what you'd like to buy from a police >>force is trustworthiness. If "Don Carleone Protections, Inc" refuses >>to allow open review of its actions, it will find that folks are a >>little queasy about hiring it to protect them. > > Naw, if they say "you pay - you get" and then deliver a lot of >people with a large investment to protect aren't going to care >tiddly-winks for *how* they do it, this is the basis for the "mob" >"takeover" and it would not be limited to the current Mob. People with a large investment are going to care PLENTY how it's protected -- the more unreasonable a protection company's tactics, the less good things will look in court, and yes, there will be court suits when the nasty folks get out of hand. The more firmly a given court is under Mob domination, the less likely it is that it will be an acceptable adjudication choice for a coalition of uncorrupted agencies vs. the Mob agency. And yes, if there's no mutually acceptable court, there will be fighting, and if even one of the people killed by the Mob belonged to the "Selective Assassination Vengeance Society" (or some such) then you can bet your booties that the officers of the company are going to feel pretty green around the gills at being unable to demonstrate their good intent to the stockholders, the board, and worst of all, the SAVS. Hiring the "you pay - you get" bunch is not liable to help out, and remember, the Mob is not good at protection per se, despite all the "protection" racketeering. You don't like fighting? Bless you, neither do I! But the fighting remains EVEN IF the government is closing down a Mob stronghold in OUR society. >>If it is exposed in the >>press, and takes military action against the press, it will find itself >>in a small war (the critical press is no more likely to hire >>Mob-connected protection than is American Express). The Mafia is not >>good at war -- they're good at extortion. They'd lose. > > Yeah, it would be a small war, and the people hired by the >newspapers and such would not really be that much different than the >Mob itself, just a rival organization. I am not sure I *want* the >newspapers waging a war in *my* neighborhood! Dead straight! One reason why, for example, you wouldn't buy products or deal with folks who hired their protection from indiscriminate types. >And the Mob is better at >war than you might think, they just limit it to *within* the >organization because they know that the *public* police forces and the >military could wipe them up if they were really gaoded into action by >that kind of violence. With a whole bunch of competing, relatively >small "police" forces they might just *win*. And the boogy man will drop by too? Document the first sentence of your paragraph. >> All it would >>take would be one large, well-trusted organization, such as >>Pinkerton's, to offer competing protection in the neighborhood to make >>folks able to choose trustworthy service over the untrustworthy. >> > I am not sure I really trust Pinkerton's all that much, back >when they *were* the law in some places in the West they had quite a >reputation for heavy-handed tactics, again not much different than Mob >tactics. So give them competition! If you're so queasy about the Pinks, wouldn't you pay a few dollars extra for (pardon me, Laura) the "Toad Terrific Absolutely Moral Protection Agency", all other things being equal? (The TTAMPA would offer almost certain freedom from countersuits, and superior access to folks who'd refuse to talk to the (as you've painted them) grim, nasty Pinks. Similar (in kind) decisions are made nowadays -- people refuse to invest in South Africa, they decline to buy non-union lettuce, they buy certain mutual funds, the theme of which is avoidance of morally questionable enterprises. >Remember, Pinkerton's was and would be paid for *results* not >methods! But results in what sense? Would you hire an agency that simply grabbed some wino off the street, said "Here's the guy that killed your daughter", and shoots him? Would you pay for an agency that (acting in your name) wounded a bunch of bystanders trying to get to the correct killer (remember -- you're going to be named in a suit as co-defendant)? >>Of course, it is possible that the Mob would conduct this aspect of >>its business scrupulously, in which case it would suffer from a >>PR problem, nothing more. >> > Considering that they conduct much of thier current business >"scrupiously", I don't see anything particularly unlikely about this. >You see it is largely a matter of your definition of "scrupulous", >they generally deliver what they promise, they just don't let anything >stand in thier way - that is they let the ends justify the means. I think the meaning of the word as I used it was clear: "characterized by careful attention to what is right or proper; conscientiously honest". To make the point even clearer, I was saying that if people now in the Mob were to open a protection agency on day 1 After Libertaria, and if they were to conduct their business scrupulously (in the sense above), gave good value, avoided entangling their clients in suits, and had no trouble negotiating with other such agencies (again, read Friedman on the importance of this point) then they'd suffer from some bad history, but no worse than (say) certain members of the Philadelphia Police Department in the same situation.