Private Fire & Police Services - A Good Thing???

[BuddyRey]

I've been hearing a lot about Rothbard and many of the Anarcho-Capitalists' endorsement of privatized firefighter and police forces and, though I find the idea very interesting, I have to say it scares me to death; especially after reading this article from Rawstory...

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/As_public_firefighting_decays_billion_dollar_1210_ af.html

What would prevent the same scenario from reoccuring time and time again if protection services, which have traditionally been the strict domain of state and local government, were turned over fully to the private sector? Wouldn't it lead to Fascism?

[TheIndependent]

Volunteer fire departments work quite well, actually. It puts more self-ownership of the city in the residents' hands, and after the proper training, they do very well. As far as local privatized police, I think as long as the governmental structure isn't built to favor one provider over another and the locality remains objective in their assessments, it would work well. In a machine like Chicago, though, it could never work. Too corrupt.

[noxagol]

Well, the idea is that the government force steals your money and the private force is given your money, and cannot force you to pay them except through contract.

And if they do force you to pay them for crappy service, well, go hire another private police force to prosecute the corrupt one and if this can't be done, then well, it's not so different from what the government does.

And there is a private fire department in a city near where I live and they fucking kick ass at what they do.