Market Competition for Security Measures

Meyer Wolfsheim wolf at priori.net
Wed Oct 24 11:33:42 PDT 2001


On Wed, 24 Oct 2001, Tim May wrote:

I don't have time to respond in depth to the points Tim makes here, so I
have snipped a lot of them. I intend to come back and comment in more
detail later.

Largely, I am in agreement. However, in the paragraphs I've quoted below,
Tim touches on a counter-argument and dismisses it. I'll like to expand
upon that a bit.

> * one size does _not_ fit all. Not all passengers are equally likely to
> be security risks. This is common sense, but the civil libertarians call
> it "racial profiling." True civil libertarians know that owners of
> property (e.g. United Airlines) are free to implement security
> procedures as they see fit. If ABX Airlines wants to implement full body
> searches of passengers and XYZ Airlines wants to implement no security
> at all, to first order this should be a market decision.
>
> (There are interesting issues of "danger to others." Friedman the
> Younger covers this in his recent book on economics. "Law's Order." To
> wit, XYZ Airlines, with no security procedures, might be denied use of
> various airports, etc. A standard tort issue. The outcome is not
> precisely known, but a move toward "market competition for security
> measures" would flesh out many of these issues and outcomes.)

I think that this "danger to others" issue will lead us right back where
we started. It would not simply be an issue of various airports denying
use, but also communities denying airspace rights. And you can bet that,
in a world where airlines were permitted to have no security procedures,
XYZ Airlines would also have to abide by "no-fly zones" set up by the
larger, more security-conscious cities, enforceable by SAMs.

There would probably be places in the mid-west that permitted such
airlines to operate their services. But the market would surely kill them
swiftly if they were denied the ability to fly or land in any popular
area. Customers would go elsewhere, not because of the lax security, but
because of the limited service offerings.

If planes didn't bring down office buildings, if there were no issue of
airline policies posing a danger to others, perhaps this would be
different.


-MW-





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