From: Rafal Smigrodzki (rafal@smigrodzki.org)
Date: Mon Mar 24 2003 - 06:55:12 MST
On Sun, 2003-03-23 at 16:42, Randall Randall wrote:
> 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.
### Sorry, I meant " PPOs without war defense clauses". A partial
defense, not including nuclear weapons, no assured nuclear deterrence,
no defense against armored attacks, etc.
Andrew Clough made a good suggestion, that PPOs might include
requirement for war defense in their general mutual defense agreements,
which might indeed result in the elimination (peaceful) of unworthy
competitors, as long as the majority of customers wanted war defense to
begin with. Only after the majority of customers became totally
unwilling to pay for nukes, would this situation change.
-----------------------------
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?
### Yes, you are right, although if criminals were willing to pay for
help with compiling lists of non-covered persons, the PPO could
cooperate there. A criminal considering an attack would first ask all
major PPOs whether a particular individual is covered (maybe not all
PPOs would answer, depending on their customer's attitudes toward
free-riders and criminals), then approach the individual to confirm lack
of coverage, and proceed to shoot and pillage according to his
assessment of relative firepower.
Actually, I am starting to believe this could work.
Rafal
Rafal
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