from: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/07/05/991508/-Mogadishu-in-Texas >What happens when the ideology of "Government must be run as a business" >actually is employed in a small town in Texas, by name of Alto?
> Well, you end up laying off (furlough for 6 months) the entire police force > because the police do not generate enough revenue. And well, you know, crime > is on the rise in Alto, because there is no law enforcement. Residents of > Alto, Texas, must now wait up to 15 minutes for county sheriffs to respond to > crimes (compared to 3 minutes when the police station had funding for 5 > officers). And you know what? Someone has already tried to rob the town's > bank since the police station was padlocked by the city council and the > police cars impounded.< So if I lived in Alto, I'd get together with my fellow thugs to provide "protection" to local citizens and businesses (i.e., consumers) against crime and fires. To pay for this service, I'd collect "protection money" from them (an obvious way to generate revenues). I'd call my gang "the police force" and rename the protection money as "taxes." The difference from a standard police force in the US would be that we could charge whatever the market could bear (including engaging in "price discrimination," i.e., setting prices according to the consumer's ability to pay) and my group's actions would not be subject to any kind of democratic control. (We could thus create demand for our services by going beyond traditional advertising, e.g., by threatening to burn down buildings and/or kill consumers.) Also, no-one could stop us if we diversified our operations, getting into the selling of illegal pharmaceuticals, providing games of chance that people could play, and shepherding sex workers. My government would be run like a business, making offers that consumers can't refuse. A "libertarian" dream! The main problem would to make sure that no other police forces establish themselves on our turf: those Sheriff's deputies would have to be kept out. This would involve making sure that no-one in Alto has guns and similar weapons except our police force. -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
