Shannon Larratt is Zentastic

When public institutions have been privatized and deregulated, especially those that are either monopolistic or singularly government-contracted (healthcare, energy, education, and so on), quality of service has gone down, costs have gone up, fraud has greatly increased, and the system becomes fundamentally unstable and beyond the control of the public that it works for. There are things that we all need — the basic necessities of life and society — and logically it makes sense that the entities that provide them should “work for us” in order to provide universally good and inexpensive service, rather than working for a corporation seeking to figure out how to have the highest profit for the lowest expenditure (that is, how to make the most money for the least product, rather than how to charge the least money for the most product). There are exceptions, but as a general statement I believe this is true.

That's why this MeFi thread about the privatization of police in America should worry you. Not only should people be scared that megacorporations are starting to become the beginning and end of the law and its enforcement, and that these private paramilitary contractors are tied deeply to the wealthiest end of the Republican party, but realize that by placing a corporate barrier between police action and the state you make it wholly unaccountable. Let me give you an example from environmental issues.

Let's say a factory is making paint, and that paint has dangerous byproducts. The company can either dump those byproducts into the river and pollute the water system, killing and making ill both wildlife and humans and pay a fine for breaking the law, or it can use expensive systems to safely recycle these byproducts. If the cost of paying the fines is lower than the cost of the recycling systems, it not only will choose to murder, but it is legally required to do so. Car safety is similar — if the price of fixing a problem is more expensive than the price of paying the lawsuit damages from people who'll be killed and injured from the problem, the corporation will choose to murder. Remember Fight Club?

Take the number of vehicles in the field, (A), and multiply it by the probable rate of failure, (B), then multiply the result by the average out-of-court settlement, (C). A times B times C equals X... If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.

Extend that into police and security, and realize that it moves to a dangerous model of shoot-first-never-ask-questions, deception and non-accountability, results over morality, and optimizing the profitability of the police state rather than optimizing the justice and liberty it protects.