Capitalism Rules, Socialism and Communism Suck Thread

[wufwugy]

Is it possible for the public to trust a collection of private entities to keep our secrets safe? Isn't it hugely important that the government's oversight of security carries the force of law?

This is only as possible in each of the private sector or government to the degree by which the consumers or constituents can make poor judgment and behavior on the part of those with the secrecy costly. As far as I can tell from the evidence, it is much easier to make firms in a free market account for the costs they cause than it is to do the same for government.

[BananaStand]

This is only as possible in each of the private sector or government to the degree by which the consumers or constituents can make poor judgment and behavior on the part of those with the secrecy costly. As far as I can tell from the evidence, it is much easier to make firms in a free market account for the costs they cause than it is to do the same for government.

I recognize all of those words. I know what they all mean. I can't for the life of me figure out why you arranged them that way.

Let me re-ask the question.

Effective military spending includes significant expenditures into research/development of new and better technologies. A significant part of this recipe is knowing the enemies capabilities, and then developing technologies to counter, outmatch, or defend against them.

If national security is outsourced to private institutions.....who is checking up on the enemy?

Could private institutions spy as well as the government?

Even if they can.....aren't they motivated to keep their findings private and not share that information with the rest of the market??

It's not hard to figure out how that would diminish national security. Furthermore, you would just end up with whichever company has the best spies dominating the market, and making all of the other companies obsolete pretty quickly.

Which just kinda gets us back where we started.

[wufwugy]

I recognize all of those words. I know what they all mean. I can't for the life of me figure out why you arranged them that way.

Let me re-ask the question.

Effective military spending includes significant expenditures into research/development of new and better technologies. A significant part of this recipe is knowing the enemies capabilities, and then developing technologies to counter, outmatch, or defend against them.

If national security is outsourced to private institutions.....who is checking up on the enemy?

Could private institutions spy as well as the government?

Even if they can.....aren't they motivated to keep their findings private and not share that information with the rest of the market??

It's not hard to figure out how that would diminish national security. Furthermore, you would just end up with whichever company has the best spies dominating the market, and making all of the other companies obsolete pretty quickly.

Which just kinda gets us back where we started.

We'd be back where we started IF the revenues of the security firms came by mandate instead of by choice of the buyer (and also choice of the seller).

A system in which the revenues come by choice instead of mandates has all the same concerns that the current system has (one by mandate). It addresses your listed concerns to varying degrees of success, like the current system has varying degrees of success. When the revenues come by choice, market factors that reduce cost, increase quantity, and increase quality are more powerful than if revenues are mandated.

I don't think that getting into details about "what would happen in this circumstances if..." is useful if the above premise is not accepted as a distinction between the two.