What would replace shows such as Law & Order, CSI, and the reality cop shows?
I figure they could be replaced with shows such as ADT: Life on the Beat, a non-statist Dog the Bounty Hunter. Also, a bunch of dramas where PDAs solve crimes, protect private property, and so on.
For example:
A statist border patrol show could be replaced with a show about security at Disneyland protecting the parks border from intruders.
Law & Order could be replaced by a show about private detectives solving crimes and private courts.
Beach Patrol would be about private lifeguards saving customers and kicking out people who violate the property right of the owner of the private beach.
Also, Rescue Me could be replaced with a show about private fire departments.
I imagine that show would mostly involve the firefighters standing around in front of burning buildings, negotiating with the owner to give them the deed for cheap or else they’l let it just let it burn to the ground.
The rest of Crassus’ wealth was acquired more conventionally, through traffic in slaves, the working of silver mines, and judicious purchases of land and houses, especially those of proscribed citizens. Most notorious was his acquisition of burning houses: when Crassus received word that a house was on fire, he would arrive and purchase the doomed property along with surrounding buildings for a modest sum, and then employ his army of 500 clients to put the fire out before much damage had been done. Crassus’ clients employed the Roman method of firefighting—destroying the burning building to curtail the spread of the flames.
An entrepreneur? Becoming wealthy? Anyone could have made a deal with the victims of the house… If literally everyone except Crassus is too stupid to get in on it, that’s a shame, but its still an improvement over the alternative of people losing their home equity altogether.
Another idea for the show could be about the cast getting into brawls with other private fire departments, to ensure they get the loot for extinguishing a particular fire;
from ‘The History of Firefighting’
In many western countries, fire brigades were originally created by insurance companies to safeguard the property of their policyholders. Those who bought policies were given a plaque that would be mounted in a prominent position on the structure to denote its protected status. These plaques can still be seen on some historic buildings, particularly in the United Kingdom. Firemen summoned to burning buildings were expected to look for these plaques before fighting the fire. If the fire was in a building covered by a rival insurer, some brigades would deliberately obstruct that company’s fire brigade in an attempt to give rise to greater property damage (and subsequent expense to the insurer).[ah, nothing like unobstructed market competition!]
Upon receiving a call to a fire, hose companies would race to the scene in an effort to lay claim to bragging rights of the fire. On more than one occasion a brawl broke out between competing hose companies to see who could draw first water. In one instance Ticonic’s suction hose was cut just as she was beginning to draw water to extinguish a blaze…
or it can be about whole parts of cities burning down because some people would rather see their place burn down than pay the fire department - just like people today would rather get sick rather than go to private doctors (because they can’t afford to pay), from (A Little Fire Service History):
The French word for pumper, “pompier” became the name for French firefighters to this day. On March 11, 1733 the French government proclaimed that the service of the fire brigades would be free of charge. Prior to this there was a fee and people often avoid calling in order to avoid being charged…
or it could be about them getting kicked out of towns for cutting corners on staffing to increase profit margins:
Another idea for the show could be about the cast getting into brawls with other private fire departments, to ensure they get the loot for extinguishing a particular fire;
Most homeowners could just have contracts specifying what firefighting firm protects their house. In contrast to the statist system, where politicians have no incentive to protect a certain individual’s house, home insurance companies would have links to firefigting firms, both with an incentive to put out fires.
The point is you don’t have to attack him or empower the state to fight fire. The most efficient process is still the market, where the high profits of Crassusians encourage other firms to get in on the lucrative contracts, bidding down prices and avoiding shortages.
The examples of private firefighters brawling with eachother may have been very uncommon or irrelevant. He’s not providing you with statistics about the whole system, which makes it pretty intellectually dishonest to condemn the whole system. I don’t want to speculate too much, but he speaks positively of price controls (zero charge service) without mentioning shortages… I’m sure the French Government was entirely altruistic and uninvolved with the Crassusians too. But it wouldn’t surprise if it were found out that government patronized politically connected firms profiting above the market rate :I
Regardless, firefighters attacking eachother is case of property rights being violated, not enforced. We already know anarcho communism won’t work.
This is from your Westchester Village link: “In what Mayor Cresenzi said was an effort to sabotage the experiment here, Port Chester said it would not to respond to calls for help from the private Rye Brook firefighters.”
Market competition does not call for violating the property of your competition. This is no indictment of markets as a system, but rather is an indictment of those individuals participating in the sabotage. Similarly, what happened between Port Chester and Rye Brook is not an indictment of state provided fire protection as a system, though it speaks volumes about the individuals involved.
Both systems suffer from the fallible nature of humans. In contrasting stateless markets and states, pointing out that humans can act foolishly or maliciously is no argument at all. One must show instead that there is an unavoidable systemic encouragement of these negatives in one that does not exist in the other.
In contrast to the evil free market firefighters assaulting each other “in search of profits”, the scorned union firefighters watched the million-dollar house burn.
Kurt M. Krumperman, Rural Metro’s regional president for the Northeast, said one effect of the debate was that the company had difficulty keeping the on-call reserve firefighters that it relied on to supplement the nine full-time firefighters.
He said people who took the $5.50-an-hour reserve jobs were subjected to pressure from opponents. ‘‘The fact is that we are a for-profit company,’’ Mr. Krumperman said, ‘‘and that was just not well-received in the communities surrounding Rye Brook.’’
The reserve firefighters living near Rye Brook kept resigning because of the pressure, Mr. Krumperman said, and the company was forced to look farther and farther away to maintain adequate staffing.
Mayor Cresenzi said Rural Metro had promised that at least 25 reserve firefighters would respond to emergencies.
These nagging problems turned into a crisis during the fire at the $1 million house on Rocking Horse Trail last December. Six full-time firefighters responded. But instead of the 25 reserve firefighters, there were only three. Port Chester did not respond to calls for help.
Mayor Cresenzi said that a crowd gathered at the fire, and that its members seemed to include firefighters from neighboring communities who were willing to let the fire burn to prove a point. He said he heard someone in the crowd say, ‘‘Let the Jews burn,’’ which he took to be a sign of the generalized animosities between the village and some of its neighbors. The residents of the house were not Jewish.
No people were injured, but the contract with Rural Metro was fatally injured.
The owner of the house filed papers indicating an intention to sue Rye Brook, Rural Metro and Port Chester, accusing them of inadequate fire protection. The company and village officials say that even a fully staffed department could not have prevented the damage because the 911 call was made when the fire was already well under way.
But with anxieties here rising, the village trustees quickly gave the company 60 days to provide adequate reserve staffing. Last Monday, the company notified the board that it could no longer promise to supply the required firefighters and recommended that the village return to a municipal department.
On Tuesday, Rye Brook announced that it would move toward a village fire department over the next six months.
Mr. Krumperman of Rural Metro said the experience had taught his company a lesson about private fire protection in this area of the country, where hostility to privatization is high. ‘‘You have to pay attention to those kinds of acceptance issues,’’ he said, ‘‘and how surrounding [statist and union-infested] communities will relate.’’
