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> all social services, including police and fire safety, were privatized I think enforcing the law has been a government function from the times the first laws
by thegrimmest 5y ago
> all social services, including police and fire safety, were privatized
I think enforcing the law has been a government function from the times the first laws were laid down. Fire services were a private function, and this actually works fine in sparsely populated areas where fires are not likely to spread in temperate climates. The only reason fire services are public is because of the inherent risk to everyone that a fire poses in a dense, substantially flammable, city.
If a fire affects you and only you, then why not cover it under normal, optional, property insurance like every other disaster?
This is generally the model of government intervention I support - intervene when the actions of one group of people directly affect others. This covers regulation around rights of way, fire services, environmental protection, waste management, water supply, pandemic/disease control, police, and the military. It however does not cover supplying the personal necessities of life like food, shelter, clothing, medical care, entertainment, companionship, sex, fulfillment, etc.
These are fundamentally individual needs, and I therefore hold that meeting them should be an individual responsibility. Any cooperation to meet these needs should be strictly voluntary and consensual, not compulsory. I think this is where, to greatly simplify, "the left" and "the right" fundamentally disagree. For instance, in spite of the now well-studied and crushing effects of loneliness, it would be absolutely tyrannical for the government to mandate friendship. Similarly it is tyrannical for the government to mandate participation in public health care/insurance. Let people figure out how to meet their needs for themselves, and let them figure out how to cooperate voluntarily. Charity is exactly the virtue of helping those in need, but mandatory charity is indistinguishable from slavery.
- replygirl 5y agocovid vaccines?
- thegrimmest 5y ago> pandemic/disease control Edit: also a much more significant factor only in densely populated areas
- replygirl 5y agosure, just pointing out that the _funding and availability_ of a social service wasn't a point of contention there. unintuitive as it is, the discourse around public health and health care aren't really related. anyway i was just giving people some background, not opining. if i was feeling saucy i might say something incoherent about people feeling entitled to a service they previously resented as soon as it's useful to them
- thegrimmest 5y agoWell, you made the case that police were previously privatized. I'm not sure that's true exactly. You also compare healthcare to police and fire services. I was just elaborating as to why that comparison may not be apt. Public health, insofar as controlling the spread of communicable disease, has always been a function requiring government authority. The idea that people who set bones and cure cancer should be included in this category is a more modern take, one that requires much more careful discussion of what should and should not be a "public service". > people feeling entitled to a service they previously resented as soon as it's useful to them I think we should expect people to prefer suffering and death with dignity, rather than greedily and desperately peering into the pockets of strangers, but that's just my take.
- drewcoo 5y agoWe're talking US, right? There were only private police until 1838 in Boston: https://time.com/4779112/police-history-origins/ https://time.com/4779112/police-history-origins/ And only private firefighters until 1853 in Cincinnati: http://www.fireserviceinfo.com/history.html http://www.fireserviceinfo.com/history.html Ben Franklin offered America's first fire insurance. Privatized insurance and firefighters in Phili in those days: https://www.investopedia.com/articles/financial-theory/08/american-insurance.asp https://www.investopedia.com/articles/financial-theory/08/am...
- thegrimmest 5y agoI'm not sure what you mean "private police" - the Boston night watch, which predated the 1838 professional police force, were given powers by the town government[1]. I can't find any references to how the night watch was funded, but surely the town government was involved. Edit: > The duties of the Watch, as appears by the order, were to be performed in turn by the inhabitants; they were not "citizen soldiers," but citizen Watchmen, and having an interest in their work, no doubt did it well. - A chronological history of the Boston watch and police by Savage, Edward H.[2] Savage seems to indicate that the night watch was performed in turn by the inhabitants of the community, by order of the government, and there is no mention they were paid. This doesn't seem like a private service to me. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Watch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Watch 2. https://archive.org/details/achronologicalh01savagoog/page/n22/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/achronologicalh01savagoog/page/n...