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February 26, 2005
Gustave de Molinari. The Production of Security. 1849.
http://praxeology.net/GM-Ps.htm
Molinari was the first thinker to describe how market institutions could supply all legitimate legal and protective services.
Men combine into society as following their individual self interest. From here division of labor takes over. The object of society is the most complete satisfaction of man's needs. One such important and prevalent need is security.
If all men were perfectly moral and wouldn't steel then security would exist.
-I'm not too sure about this. Isn't he talking about justice here? If a man were to build a basketball hoop in his driveway, and use a long pole as the base. He may use too little cement and the pole by no intent of his own destroy his neighbors car as it comes crashing down. Surely this is not a scenario of moral question and yet security did not exist for the neighbor. This is not even a question of justice yet. The question of justice only exists when the neighbor requests the man who put up the basketball hoop to compensate him for his wrecked car. If the man refuses then we have a problem.
-Thus the question of security would persist nonetheless in a morally pristine existence. The only way to avoid security and justice all together is to eliminate conflict which is impossible. Conflict is paramount as part of existence and a responsibility of property ownership.
-When you analyze security in Molinari's fashion the development of the state is geared towards providing security but by instilling morality? If the only means of completely obliterating the need for security is for everyone to be consistently moral than the state is almost justified because no productive function will ever achieve a secure existence.
Molinari still comes to the accurate conclusion that the production of security is best accomplished by means of a market resulting in the lowest price to the consumer. No government should inhibit another government from competing or force people to use its services.
-This is how the state uses prisons.
Every monopoly rests upon force.
When the consumer base becomes more powerful then the coercive authority they seize the industry. The do not open it up to free competition but they bureaucratize it for their own interests. This is communism.
6. What indeed is the situation of the men who need security? Weakness. What is the situation of those who undertake to provide them with this necessary security? Strength.
Communistic security spawns universal communism.
Molinari talks about the the possibility for a Free Market in Security to arise out of a new society with the assumed morality of no one aggressing against someone else's property.
-This is not our scenario so is it useful? What we need is people to hold the state responsible for its aggressive nature and to initially compete and maintain competition.
Posted by djdamico at February 26, 2005 8:45 AM