From: Robin Hanson (hanson@hss.caltech.edu)
Date: Wed Feb 26 1997 - 11:39:23 MST
I wrote:
>TOO MUCH COORDINATION -- In some times and places, such small local
>monopolies of force seem to have agreed to leave each other alone to
>prey on their "citizens". Coordination may allow them to punish
>deviant entities which treat their people nicely and take in refugees.
CurtAdams@aol.com responded:
>This is why I think democratic city government plus an armed populace is a
>good way to handle basic personal security. When the community provides its
>own protection, predatory government is rare. Modern police forces are both
>accountable to their communites and lack the force to control the entire
>population; this is an ideal situation for watching the watchmen. You could
>probably figure out ways for commercial security organization to be
>well-controlled, but why bother?
What do you mean by "city"? My impression is that in large urban U.S.
inner cities, the police is not very accountable to the local
citizens, who are in fact largely armed. Here there does seem to be
scope for substantial improvement by having a more local "subcity"
police with laws and enforcement chosen by locals to be tuned to local
circumstances.
Robin D. Hanson hanson@hss.caltech.edu http://hss.caltech.edu/~hanson/
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