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Posts Tagged ‘Privatize’

Privatize Migratory Birds – Econlib

Posted by M. C. on December 12, 2022

Yet, the privately owned cow never came within a million miles of extinction; in contrast, this was almost the fate of the buffalo, until its privatization was legally allowed.

https://www.econlib.org/privatize-migratory-birds/

By:

 Walter Block

My motto is: if it moves, privatize it; if it doesn’t move, privatize it. Since everything either moves or does not move, the logical implication is, privatize everything.

Why this radical call for privatization? Simple. There are only three ways to deal with property: government ownership, non-ownership, and private ownership. The problem with the first is exemplified by the failure of the USSR, East Germany, and North Korea. Without market prices, which can only emanate on the basis of private property, central planning is flying blind. It cannot grasp scarcities and alternative costs. It has no rational way of determining whether railroad ties should be made of steel or platinum, for example, or whether the new road should go through or around the mountain.

Non-ownership, in turn, is subject to the tragedy of the commons. If no one owns it, the resource is all too quickly dissipated. Perhaps the most dramatic illustration of this debilitation is a comparison of the fate of the cow and the buffalo. Biologists will of course cavil at this, but to the average person (including me) they are all but the same animal. They are both big, smelly, dirty, hairy. If you run into either of them, in the absence of a tank, you’ll come off second best. Yet, the privately owned cow never came within a million miles of extinction; in contrast, this was almost the fate of the buffalo, until its privatization was legally allowed.

Migratory birds are no exception to this general rule in favor of privatization. The challenge arises from the fact that they are a fugitive resource. The buffalo are too, of course, but the benefits of privatizing them clearly and radically outweighs the costs of so doing. It is entirely possible, at least given the present level of technology, that this will prove to also be the case of migratory birds. But it might not be. Would this undermine my motto? Not at all. After all, with present technology, the costs of privatizing land on the Moon or Mars- to say nothing of the other heavenly bodies in our solar system- are obviously vastly greater than any benefits we might possibly derive thereby. If not today, perhaps one day, technology will enable us to economically privatize both birds and planets.

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My Corner by Boyd Cathey-Time to Privatize Our Public Schools

Posted by M. C. on May 21, 2021

That hatred, that fury, that lunacy so apparent in the eyes of those demonstrators in March 2019 and so evident in thousands and thousands like them, begins in our schools with administrators and teachers, and with local school boards, dousing our children with the flammable ingredients which corrupt and pervert, and turn them into what I have termed modern “pod people.”

These “pod people” serve a larger and more fearsome purpose: the ultimate success of the Revolution against God and man. For their fanatical assault against what they perceive as white supremacy and racism is in fact an attack on Creation itself, on the natural laws of that Creation, and the God Who made it.

http://boydcatheyreviewofbooks.blogspot.com/

Friends,

Recently, a good friend related to me some of the experiences his daughter was having in a high school not too far from him. You see, his daughter is a history teacher—or should we say “social studies” teacher, to be politically correct? It seems that the curriculum she must teach and the approved texts her students must use in the classroom are redolent thematically with the idea that from its beginning America was characterized by ingrained racism: indeed, a white racism which infected and colored practically everything, from the social structures in the colonies and later codified by a racist Constitution, to the dealings—both legal and familial—between inhabitants, to the very language they used to communicate their thoughts, beliefs, and ideas.

Like other teachers at her school my friend’s daughter is instructed to impart these insights as part of an overall educational template that suggests that from its earliest settling the America colonies, and then the American republic, were moored historically in a quasi-religious belief in “white supremacy” and the pervasive “racism” which defined it.

While not as forward or fulsome perhaps as the “1619 Project’s” recommendations and its embrace of “Critical Race Theory,” grammar and high school curricula echoing the “Project” now shape students in such a way as to prepare them, if they are college bound, for a fuller indoctrination as they continue their education.

Given that most freshly minted teachers coming out today from the vast majority of our country’s schools of education already possess a well-developed predisposition and vision that comports with the vision projected by the “1619 Project,” and that many local school boards are dominated by the same vision, is it any wonder what students in public schools are being taught?

And for those who go on to college, the ground is well prepared. From a young seven year old boy who is proud that his conservative parents supported Donald Trump, who goes to church with them regularly, whose everyday thoughts turn to games, sports and friends, and are millions of miles away from “wokeness,” we transition to the molded college journalism grad at age twenty-two from the University of North Carolina or from any number of other institutions of higher learning across the nation, who mouths fierce and unrelenting slogans about “systemic racism,” “white privilege,” and “intersectionality,” and demands “equity.”  And “equity” is a weasel word never fully defined, but an essential ingredient in the Critical Race Theory (CRT) lexicon.

As Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, in their volume, Critical Race Theory: An Introduction (2012, 49) describe it, CRT calls for “aggressive, color conscious efforts to change the way things are,” meaning the use of race as the determinant in making decisions as to how property, positions of power, and prestige are allocated in society. And since for the past two millennia the white race has oppressed and abused black and brown peoples around the world, simple equality of opportunity is not enough, in fact is evil, just one more effort of the white man to maintain his privileged position. Indeed, what is entailed in the current talk about “equity” is the requirement for various forms of reparation, a kind of reverse discrimination to satisfy the social injustices and the effects of white colonialism, slavery, and exploitation of black and brown peoples over past centuries.

True, while the curricula in thousands of public schools may not be this explicit, they nevertheless seed impressionable minds and groom students for what is to come. The results are evident…on the downtown streets this past summer of nearly every large or medium-sized American city set ablaze by howling mobs, or as dozens of historical monuments have come down because they honor white people who helped create this nation, or as “woke” corporate executives, media barons, entertainment glitterati, as well as the educational establishment censor and cancel hundreds and thousands of years of Western civilization and culture…because it was created by whites.

For some twenty years I have chaired North Carolina’s Confederate Flag Day, held in early March each year. Sponsored by the North Carolina Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, the event was held in the House of Representatives chamber of the historic 1840 State Capitol building, honoring the historic flags of the Confederacy and the citizen soldiers who fought under those flags. The event was always peaceful. Back in 2019, with heightened racial tensions nearly everywhere after the Charleston shootings, as we ended our observance, a large violent mob of Antifa thugs, Black Lives Matter demonstrators, and others assembled outside the Capitol blocking our exit. I’ve recounted what happened in a column published on March 11, 2019. Nearly 200 armed police and State Troopers had to form a cordon to enable us to exit the building safely and find our way to our cars.

I wrote then: “As I exited with other attendees I looked into the faces of the mob: what I observed was a very real madness, an unleashed fury, eyes filled with uncontrolled hatred…. Those angry faces—those glaring and fierce eyes…betrayed ruptured souls, corrupted and demonized, existing in a kind of counter-reality with their own set of always-advancing rules, but dedicated in a fearsome and unambiguous way to the destruction—salvation through destruction—of Western Christian civilization, of mankind as we have known it.”

That hatred, that fury, that lunacy so apparent in the eyes of those demonstrators in March 2019 and so evident in thousands and thousands like them, begins in our schools with administrators and teachers, and with local school boards, dousing our children with the flammable ingredients which corrupt and pervert, and turn them into what I have termed modern “pod people.”

These “pod people” serve a larger and more fearsome purpose: the ultimate success of the Revolution against God and man. For their fanatical assault against what they perceive as white supremacy and racism is in fact an attack on Creation itself, on the natural laws of that Creation, and the God Who made it.

It is time for our cowardly legislators to begin the process of privatizing the public schools and turning education over once more to the parents where it belongs. 

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Privatize the Government Police Monopoly – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on June 9, 2020

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/06/thomas-clark/privatize-the-government-police-monopoly/

By

Many Americans think that public demonstrations and protests are the solution to ending police brutality and the murder of non-convicted civilians.

I maintain that private municipal security guards, operated for profit, would be a far more effective way to protect lives and property, and a far more effective way to deter police originated racial discrimination.

With that in mind, I propose a more radical approach:  Privatize the government police monopoly.

How would privatization work?

Each local municipality would solicit proposals from private, for profit security firms to patrol neighborhoods and to apprehend criminals as needed.  The current system of criminal and civil courts could be maintained. Private residences and privately-owned businesses would supplement with their own security measures, both in person and surveillance.

Would the current policemen and women be out of work?  Not at all.  The experienced service of the vast majority good ones would remain much in demand. Instead of working for the government, they would instead work for the citizens.  Each local municipality would contract with a private security firm.

Competition is superior to monopoly

The force of competition would increase and ensure the quality of law enforcement and decrease cost, as with all products and services now provided by the free market.

Any private constable who abuses his or her authority, or who is negligent, to the detriment of citizen satisfaction, would face swift disciplinary action and termination.  This would be a much stronger incentive for performance than the current system, where it is often very cumbersome to remove a wayward government police officer.

Would you like a satisfaction guarantee?

As with most free market services, it would soon become the norm for private security firms to offer a satisfaction guarantee.  If they fail to protect a home or a business location from damage, they would be obligated to cover all costs.

The private sector has a built-in motivation to avoid racial discrimination.  Discrimination costs money.  I will go out on a limb here and say…beating up and killing customers of any race is not good business.  Customer satisfaction will prevail and negate bigotry any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

Privatize the government police monopoly and we will all be safer and happier.

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