One thing I don't really get about AnCaps, is why isn't a lot of the agencies that they envision up and running today? I understand that government is quite the inhibitor; but like the typical argument against monopolies, it's not like there eyes are smart enough to act everywhere.
To that end...
1) Does anyone know of some currently running relatively cheap PDAs to support?
2) Does anyone know any good places to start a PDA?
-In terms of the U.S. government not caring (or, if some of you want to discuss places in your locale where the government wouldn't care, that's fine)
and
-In terms of there being enough demand.
3) Anyone know any ways to start it up any current legal framework?
Also, I might as well open this up to any plausible business that we could give advice to each other to start to supercede the government in. After all, the benefits are twofold:
1) Less government
2) Profit!
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"Even when leftists talk about discrimination and sexism, they're damn well talking about the results of the economic system" ~Neodoxy
What does PDA stand for?
Fephisto:One thing I don't really get about AnCaps, is why isn't a lot of the agencies that they envision up and running today? I understand that government is quite the inhibitor; but like the typical argument against monopolies, it's not like there eyes are smart enough to act everywhere.
Aside from the state prohibiting any serious competitors there is the problem of pro-state ideology that encourages people to turn to the state for solutoins and this also sometimes leads even to an-caps envisioning PDAs along quasi-statist lines. That said, the private security industry is a booming one in America. As is the private arbitration and mediation industry.
Check out Gil Guillory's research into the viability of subscription-based patrol and restitution services.
Yours in liberty,Geoffrey Allan Plauché, Ph.D.Adjunct Instructor, Buena Vista UniversityWebmaster, LibertarianStandard.comFounder / Executive Editor, Prometheusreview.com
It depends on what you mean by PDA. Sure private security agencies exist today. Just think of the rent-a-cops from companies like Allied Barton that you see around places and events. However, if you want to talk about actual police force and justice system, you're going to have another problem.
You can't create a company and go out with the intention of fighting crime. You can't just go over the government's head and enforce your own version of justice. They have a monopoly on "the law." In fact, they are "the law." I can't say for certain, but I'm pretty sure that at least in the US, there is nowhere that you could go where the government wouldn't care.
The closest thing that I've ever seen to a legitimate private defense agency is where I go to school at the U of Pennsylvania. The school pays for its own "private" police force. However, all of the officers have legal authority granted to them by Pennsylvania and must enfore all of their laws. My guess is that this kind of thing is pretty hard to get worked out with the state, although it does serve to illustrate the private sector being superior to the government. From pretty much everybody's point of view, the police that we have on campus are far better than the average cop in Philadelphia.
The mafia can often sell you protection from government, but even their power to resist is strictly limited.
The fallacies of intellectual communism, a compilation - On the nature of power
I think you guys are giving the government way too much credit. If you treat it like an omnipotent beast, it will continue to be so.
In all the hundreds of millions of people and thousands of square miles the government lords over, you're telling me there isn't even one square mile where a PDA would not be fansible? If this is the case, you guys seriously have no hopes in hell, despite whatever 'education' mantra you may preach, to be able to achieve some sensible promise of liberty.
I find it a very sensible approach to get together even possibly on this very forum to start a business to oust the government in whatever small manners possible. Even if for the moment it requires slight cooperation with the state, at least we will have a little bit more freedom, and thus have a greater foothold.
Fephisto:I think you guys are giving the government way too much credit. If you treat it like an omnipotent beast, it will continue to be so.
Who are "you guys"? All of us? Because I don't think your claims apply to me. In fact, you seem to be making very strong and sweeping claims based on little evidence.
gplauche: Fephisto:I think you guys are giving the government way too much credit. If you treat it like an omnipotent beast, it will continue to be so. Who are "you guys"? All of us? Because I don't think your claims apply to me. In fact, you seem to be making very strong and sweeping claims based on little evidence.
Alright, I apologize. I am just a little bit frustated at the way freedom is being achieved currently, you might say, when it seems that soceity is going backwards? It appears logical to me if Capitalism is supposed to be the way that an AnCap functions, then it should follow that Capitalism should whole-heartedly be the item that brings it up. Or, what I am trying to suggest here, should be a plausible suggestion for its transition.
Fephisto:Alright, I apologize. I am just a little bit frustated at the way freedom is being achieved currently, you might say, when it seems that soceity is going backwards? It appears logical to me if Capitalism is supposed to be the way that an AnCap functions, then it should follow that Capitalism should whole-heartedly be the item that brings it up. Or, what I am trying to suggest here, should be a plausible suggestion for its transition.
No problem. Check out the work that Gil Guillory is doing. It's along the lines of what you are looking for. And I agree that libertarians need to stop trying to achieve their victories through the state; more of us should be doing what Gil is trying to do, which is develop alternative institutions.