A friend tipped me off on this and I find this fascinating.
In Israel, the [democratic] government has attempted to “privatize” some of its functions as managing prisons and its State supreme court has declared it to be unlawful (Despite the fact that Israel has no Constitution).
Apparently, the “separation” of powers of government and the “checks and balances” that it is suppose to render is, in this instance, effectively used to actually limit the government’s alleged attempt to surrender power instead of to gain power.
Of course, such alleged privatizations are nothing but a sham, for they simply transfer the bureaucracy to private hands, perhaps saving the State some money in the short run. Nevertheless, the Court, (and the majority of the public) views such privatizations as a threat to the sovereignty of the State.
I think this clearly exposes the inherent conflict of interests that result from a State monopoly on law and courts. The judicial branch itself may feel threatened by such “privatizations” trends, for there is no guarantee that the day would come and their own monopoly on judicial matters would also be challenged.
What is a sham privatization? Isn’t that called the government - they make people think they are involved in the process of how their lives are being lived when that’s only a sham. Like the Federal Reserve. It’s an Act of Congress dressed up like a private firm.
I’m happy they exist. No draft in the USA, because people sign up for that kind of paycheck. Furthermore, the fact that PMC are firms means they are responsible for their employees. So they will buy the $2,000,000 transports wheres the army will make do with standard troop carriers. They cannot not buy these transports, else casualties = lawsuit. Does this happen in the military if unpreparedness = casualties? No.
PMCs look at each situation economically, because they neither have access to the printing press of money of government nor immunity in what happens to the troops.
Better private than public.
As for the topic, the petition against private prisons was brought by a former prison warden. Conflict of interests of public officials vs free people, once again, rather than any sham.
90% of all Blackwater funding comes from Dept. of Defense. They are a government arm that avoids government oversight. They can be blamed as private entities when it’s obvious most, almost all, of their operational funding comes from D of D. Same as Federal Reserve. It is an Act of Congress and Fed. Chair appointed by President yet they say they are private but when the Freedom of Information Act (by Bloomberg recently) tried to bring them to court to open their files, they refused saying they are not governmental and thus that Act doesn’t pertain to them. Yet when other questions are raised they point the finger at Congress and say they outlined their duties in the Federal Reserve Act and therefore it’s Congress that has directed them to do what they do. Central banks do this run around and thus in the end have no jurisdiction private nor government. The Icelandic Central Bank has been doing the same thing. The say they are private and public when it suits their interests.
edit: I came across that number some time ago in wikipedia I believe. you can search yahoo and find lots of info. now pertaining to Congressional and other private efforts to stop the government from funding their operations.
I never heard of tax farming. Are they farms that demand a tax? Is it like the Federal Reserve or Blackwater (thought to be private but really not)? Thus no step closer to complete privatization, more like the government going with the flow and reestablishing itself deceptively under a false garb of privatization.
Tax farming more narrowly understood is how pre-modern states compensated for not having a professional buerocracy. The same way an absentee landlord would rent out his holdings to an arendator, the central government would rent out all sorts of buerocratic positions such as judges, tax collectors, provincial administrators for a sum paid in advance. Ottoman Empire in particular was built on tax farming, the timariots for example were in essence tax farmers, but they paid for their privilege to extract from villages allocated to them, with military service rather than cash.
It was a lot worse than buerocracies. You do not want highly motivated tax collectors, with very short-term outlooks and without any even pretended accountability to you whatsover, but who are stil at the end of the day fully backed up by the iron fist of the central government.
I remember reading something from Lew Rockwell I think where it was in passing mentioned that even a sham privatisation is preferable to the government running things in as much as we are talking about things like utilities, things which we actually desire. But where we talk about institutions the produce of which we actually do not want, like prisons to be filled with drug users and combatants to be sent into military adventures, a “privatisation” is a bad thing. It rings reasonable, but I would need to think about it more.
In any case in a lot of what the government provides utility and disutility are inseparable. Take the traffic police, in one small way they provide some service, but in almost every other way they are just there to prey on your wallet.
Concerning PMCs: sure, most funds come from D of D, however, government does not treat private companies as their own in the sense of Federal Reserve.
There used to be great distrust–and there still is–of private military companies. Today, they get a contract, but this is usually fixed and less than a government agency will get (couple 100 million vs couple billion). They use the money much more efficiently than a government agency, at least.
Not close to full private provision of security, as you mention, of course, since they are funded mostly by governments.
they are mainly funded by the government. they are getting contracts to fulfill government needs in other countries and waters. most, if not all, of all their direction and path is paved by the government.