Private U.S. Guards Take Big Risks for Right Price

[R. A. Hettinga]

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At 8:59 AM -0800 4/2/04, Major Variola (ret) wrote:
>The govt has a monopoly on certain tools of the trade.

Of course, that always hasn't worked right in other industries.

The peculiar institution of geographic force monopoly will be an
interesting test case.

One could imagine how it would devolve, starting with licenses, like
say, letters of marque... :-).


Nozick argues force-monopoly naturally emerges from *any* force
market, that, IIRC, associations will collude and eventually merge
under peaceful circumstances, and, of course, if one fights the
other, it takes the other's turf.

Personally, I wonder if that's an artifact of human switched
networks, though, but I'm supposed to say that. :-).

>And crypto-wise, reputation will clearly be important here.

Ayup. See Pierpont Morgan, an old chestnut from my .sig file, below.

>But yes, obviously, easy communication leads to more optimal
>markets, for both goods and services.

Indeed. Ronald Coase is your friend.

Cheers,
RAH


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-- 
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R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"...Character. I wouldn't buy anything from a man with no character if he
offered me all the bonds in Christendom." -J. Pierpont Morgan