From: Randall Randall (wolfkin@freedomspace.net)
Date: Sun Mar 23 2003 - 14:42:47 MST
Rafal Smigrodzki wrote:
> ### Yes, this is correct, although you would still have the free-rider
> problem - people who would sign up with PPO's which had no mutual
> defense contracts, and therefore would be cheaper. The other PPO's would
> need to maintain extra forces, verify to each other and to their
> customers that the forces really exist and are battle-worthy, and this
> would impose additional direct and transaction costs. Making sure that
> your combined PPO army is any good would be pretty tricky without an
> occasional war, too.
PPOs without mutual defense contracts would likely be more expensive, not
cheaper. After all, mutual defense contracts will make active defense less
commonly needed, thus saving money. Further, the more PPOs joined such
agreements, the more criminals would tend to prey on those who used PPOs
without such agreements. I'm actually not sure why you believe PPOs with
mutual defense contracts would be more expensive, anyway?
> pass the names of individuals without PPO contracts to criminals (who
> would gleefully prey on them, discouraging from free-riding). As a
> result you would still have the competition that makes capitalism work,
Wouldn't it make more sense for them to publish a list of those who had
contracts with them, instead (subject to the customer's willingness to be
on such a list, of course)? After all, how could they be sure that some
individual doesn't have a PPO contract with someone, somewhere?
In fact, they already do this, to some degree; one often sees "Protected by
ADT" stickers on houses, etc. Someone whose auto or house doesn't
have such a sticker (perhaps with a difficult-to-counterfeit RFID chip) might
be assumed not to have a PPO, and thus be a free rider (or eager for a fight).
-- Randall Randall <randall@randallsquared.com> 'Institute regime change everywhere... to "None of the above."' -- Alex Future Bokov
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