My monopolist, right or wrong/was Re: [extropy-chat] my country, right or wrong

[Technotranscendence]

On Saturday, December 17, 2005 3:54 PM Rik van Riel riel at surriel.com
wrote:
>> Nope.  You move to private militaries and then
>> you can use technologies like nuclear weapons
>> in self-defense.
>
> Private "militaries" have been nothing but trouble
> in countries where they are common, eg. Somalia,
> Colombia, southern Russia.

In the middle case above, the problem is outside funding of them and
also that what's really going on looks more like a civil war.  In fact,
free entry into the security market is not an option in Colombia.
Without that, that means there's some form of statism going on -- and,
in this case, the only meaning to various groups being "private" really
just means they're not recognized as states even if they are.  (Recall,
states have territorial monopolies on the use of force.)

> Having too much power without checks and
> balances is bound to lead to several cases of abuse...

I agree.  What "checks and balances" do you suggest?  Having a monopoly
that answers to no one (since no one can successful challenge it)
control security and law?  I feel the best check and balance on such
power is to have power to rival or check it.  That means not having a
monopolist in security production.  I believe that once one has such a
monopoly in place, it's only a matter of time before it erodes all
checks and balances on its powers.  (This is not to say having a free
market in security production is not without its problems.  It's merely
better than the alternatives.)

Regards,

Dan
http://uweb1.superlink.net/~neptune/

"... governments kill far more people than do terrorist groups.  From
1980 to 2000, international terrorists killed 7,745 people, according to
the U.S. State Department.  Yet, in the same decades, governments killed
more than 10 million people in ethnic-cleansing campaigns, mass
executions, politically caused famines, wars, and other slaughters.  The
9/11 attacks made 2001 probably the only year in decades in which the
number of people killed by international terrorists even approached 1
percent of the number killed by governments. Governments pose a far
greater threat to peace and survival than do terrorist groups." -- James
Bovard at http://www.antiwar.com/orig2/bovard022104.html