Contra Hobbes- Private Defense in a Free Society

The biggest argument against privatized law and police force is that natural law must come from some higher power. It is the idea that without state there would be no order. The idea is that humans are naturally chaotic without a higher power telling them how to act there would be only chaos.

Applied to any scrutiny, though, this idea is quickly proven to be false. Humans act without the intervention of a higher force all the time. You only have to look as far as the nearest charitable bake sale to see that people can interact without killing each other. In fact you will even see that when an exchange, such as the brownie for a dollar happens both parties involved in the interaction walk away happier people.

On the occasion that something does happen at a function of this sort people actually avoid involving higher authorities unless it becomes absolutely necessary. They attempt to handle the situation themselves. When a function that involves the exchange of highly valued items takes place people will have a tendency to try to protect their property using private, not invasive state forms of security. In the year 2000 $64.5 billion was spent to ensure the safety of private property useing private security. The private security industry is flourishing despite of the government

From this statistic we can infer a few things. The first is that people are not naturally chaotic and in fact value security a great deal and second that people are losing confidence in this higher authority to provide for them a working security force.

In 2002 congress approved a budget of $300 billion dollars to go towards defense. This year homeland security was approved a 7% increase in budget to $46 billion. All of this is being paid for by the people who claim citizenship to the US. It is astounding then that after having spent over $346 billion dollars on security that people would still feel the need to spend another $64.3 billion on security that should already have been paid for. Private security is bought and sold on the market and has good reason to be efficient and conducive to their customers wishes. Coerced security is not bought and sold on the market; it does not have a real price or a reason to be efficient. Government produced “goods,” especially security could easily be relabeled “institutionalized property theft with no real check or balance.”

People know that a good society cannot function without the protection of private property. Realizing this people spend billions to protect the private property the state is unable and incapable of protecting. People are capable of thinking objectively and calculating the cost of security versus the destruction of their private property.

With no confidence in the state police forces and the increasing realization that there is a more than suitable alternative out there, it is only a matter of time before people completely abolish state police forces and turn to a better way of life. A life which security is provided without the security controlling the activities of those it is meant to serve. Private security does exist, and it is better.

--Andrew Edwards

aedwardsone@yahoo.com