What prevents a particular private law enforcement agency from engaging in mob-style "protection"? For example, in Friedman's "Anarchy and Efficient Law", he states that, "The most obvious and least likely is direct violence-a mini-war between my agency, attempting to arrest the burglar, and his agency attempting to defend him from arrest. A somewhat more plausible scenario is negotiation. Since warfare is expensive, agencies might include in the contracts they offer their customers a provision under which they are not obliged to defend customers against legitimate punishment for their actual crimes." (http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academic/Anarchy_and_Eff_Law/Anarchy_and_Eff_Law.html) First, if war were so expensive relative to peace why does it exist? Maybe peace is more expensive, in terms of risk for example, than open warfare. Second, I might say that going to war isn't expensive, going to war against ME is expensive, because I'm going to recruit the demons who walk the earth. I won't put Charles Manson in jail, I'll put him on the payroll.
This is an honest question, one that has been vexing me. __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com
