Would you switch?

How did that work? Did the government choose who got the contract? That’s not opening up a market and competition that’s granting a monopoly to a favoured company.

The scenario I described wasn’t that the government chooses a company to provide security and pays them in taxes but that the people pay and choose directly.

@MrMonnyPenny But that's the problem of paying for public services. Think about it, what public services are actually paid for by individuals directly? None, really. Nobody wants to foot the bill on something they don't think they'll need or use

@TinyViolins that’s the tragedy of the commons, if all public land was under private ownership than there’d always be someone with a financial stake over the Security of what they own.

@MrMonnyPenny But always people willing to push the burden onto someone else

@TinyViolins I think the government is more the mechanism that is used to push the burden onto other people not than the market.

Under the market you either pay your own way or you don’t receive the good/service

@MrMonnyPenny The market is designed to only pursue profit. It doesn't necessarily concern itself with public welfare. That's why private prisons keep people incarcerated over BS. They wouldn't make a profit otherwise

@TinyViolins Private Prisons aren’t part of a holistic free market law and order system. Free market provision of law and order may not even have wide use for prisons. The law may be to pay restitutions for crimes rather than serve a prison sentence.

@MrMonnyPenny Free markets don't exist though. I am a huge fan of restorative justice and for keeping as many people out of prison as is necessary for relatively minor crimes, but I don't see how a private police force can do any better a job of that than a public one that is properly trained