If we privatised the fire service…
(by privatise I mean privatise in the Rothbardian sense - abandon it to those who use it, ie the firemen, not selling it off to the highest bidder to boost the state’s coffers and benefit their friends).
I know people will hand-wring about universal coverage, something I’m mildly concerned about but generally think communities would provide coverage (if they havn’t been totally destroyed by the state that is), but that’s not what I’m thinking abour right now.
My key thought was prompted by the fire brigade being in the local Sainsbury’s trying to get people to be aware of the dangers in their home and smoke alarms etc.
I wonder how effective this is? I think most people will not do anything off the back of this, or of those TV adverts you see. Far more effective is to hit them in the wallet.
Private fire insurance would be based upon risk, risk which can be lowered through cheap actions. So to save money on your premium you install a smoke alarm and test it. Perhaps your insurer might provide inspection (more likely in a local service, especially if its community based).
We are a sufficiently wealthy society that people are very unlikely to fall through the cracks if it wasn’t for the wealth concentraiting and destroying policies of governments. I also think that given the outcry when you suggest something like this, people do care about the poor and would help them get coverage, the hurdle is to get people to realise that you don’t need the state to ensure that.
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October 6th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
In brief - that’s completely barmy.
But here are just a few points off the top of my head for completeness:
1 Promotional work by local Fire Services to encourage people to prevent fires certainly seems to work. the work of fire services has steadily shifted towards prevention work over the past few years and as a result of this (along with the steady introduction of fireproof materials) has been a steady decrease in the number of fires.
2 Any form of private insurance is likely to be more costly to the individual than paying via tax. The actual cost currently is low as the Fire Service is a fairly small proportion of the tax we pay. If we each had to pay individually to an insurance company the transactional costs and profit margins would be fairly large in comparison to the basic costs.
3 We don’t just have a stake in our own property being covered by the Fire service but in neighbouring and nearby properties too. Fires spread once they start and i don’t want to have to rely on each of my neighbours taking out their won insurance for me to be safe.
4 We may well live in a wealthy country but there are thousands who are not wealthy. At present thousands of households are struggling to pay the mortgage. They certainly won’t fire service insurance, and they will be the ones who don’t pay so much tax anyway and will therefore not get much back.
5 The fire service doesn’t just do fires. A large proprtion of the work is to do with road accidents and supporting the police and other emergency services. This is typically work that helps the community as a whole and would not be covered by an individual’s fire service insurance.
6 It is probably for these reasons and others that even the most free market countries like the US have a Fire service which is paid for collectively.
October 6th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
1. Seems to work. Evidence?
2. Really? Not likely.
3. Which is why private fire services actually protect neighbours property - look at the California fires - the private companies saved several houses which weren’t insured with them/
4. Read what I wrote - if the government’s actions in concentrating wealth in the hands of the few weren’t in place then people would not be in such a position.
5. Which could be provided by other services. Or road owners could contract support. Or the AA/RAC could expand into that. You lack imagination.
6. If you think the US is even vaguely free market you don’t understand the meaning of the term. So called developed countries have brought things under state ownership to protect the interests of the few.
And I did not exclude collective payment, I just object to using theft to pay for it, but that’s a distinction lost on most people who seem to think that the state is the only way to provide collective action.
You have given no reason why the state must provide services, except that the state does and the state impoverishes people…
October 6th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
1 http://www.communities.gov.uk/news/corporate/coolheadscontribute
2 The Fire & Rescue Service here in Oxfordshire costs about £35 per head pa. The transactional costs are low because it is paid for partly via government grant and partly via Council Tax. How much do you think the transaction costs plus profit margin would be via an insurance company?
3 So I have to pay for those of my neighbours who don’t pay themselves? Don’t fancy that much, I’d rather i paid less and they paid too.
4 So it’s an untested theory based on another untested theory? When it comes to fires I’d rather have security thanks.
5 Yes - you could split off fire services from the fire & rescue services and individuals could pay for the former while the latter are porovided some other way. That would further strengthen my argument in point 2 and still leave you providing the rescue services. Of course the ‘road owners’ is the state. I may well lack imagination but i’d rather have one accountable state organisation responsible for dealing with road accidents, flooding, terror threats etc. rather than a myriad of private companies thanks.
6 ‘Theft’? By which I assume you mean taxation that we have consented to via the democratic process? No doubt you believe we would have got clean water, public transport, policing, defence, universal health care and primary education via the free market rather than colelctive action through the state too?
There are several reasons why I am in favour of some services being delivered via the state: when it works, is cost effective, has public support and is fairer, to name a few.
October 6th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
1. Okay, I’ll accept it has some positive effect (not sure I denied that). Whether its cost effective or not though is a question - and whether people having to pay for the risks through premiums would be more effective is not answered - and you have not attempted to answer (and that was the whole thrust of my post).
2. Is that all the money from all sources? Is all funded locally? If its not funded entirely locally then are you sure Oxfordshire residencts aren’t being subsidised from elsewhere? If £35 a head per annum is how much it costs, then it would probably be cheaper on a free market. Competition does wonders for prices, which is why business does not like it. It also does wonders for service. I’d doubt there’d be any more strikes in a truly free market, for example (and there’s also be far more incentive to seek out new fire fighting and prevention technologies).
3. Doesn’t need the state to enforce it though. If someone’s house is protected to save yours, the insurer may well claim from the uninsured person the costs (as they’d claim from their insurer if it were a different one). The risk of being saddled with the full costs would be incentive to get insurance.
Anyway, you already subsidise many other people for other services you laud, that doesn’t worry you though, why is this any different?
4. Security you can have without the state.
5. I’d privatise the roads (again along Rothbardian lines), but that’s a different argument.
I do not presume to say how things will be organised in a free market, this is just a suggestion, it may be different in completely unexpected ways (just as predicictions about computers in the 50s were wrong, we all have many small computers, not one massive one as many thought - the relatively freeish market in technology produced radically different outcomes to the expected).
6. I’ve never been asked if I’m willing to pay tax. If I wish not to I am threatened with violence and force. I’ve hardly consented.
I’d argue that yes, we’d have all those things without the state. Some may be communally organised, others individually provided.
As it stands, the state destroys education by using it as a tool for indoctrination (not that wild an accusation - JS Mill warned against it after all and school hardly teaches people to think for themselves). The Health Service kill people who might otherwise survive through its bureaucracy. The NHS was also a major tool used to destroy mutual societies which provided care on a voluntary basis, and replaced cooperation with the gun. Defense - state sanctioned murder in Iraq and Afghanistan? There were reasons our forebears in politics opposed a standing army.
I oppose the use of force. I do not think it fair that a few can decide to take the product of my labour from me through force, whether they are masked by the charade of democracy or not. I find it repulsive that we are told its for our own good and the good of our fellow man, especially as it is usually for the benefit of the powerful.
I disagree with your definition of fair. It is not fair to take money by force, to steal and to lie.
Lastly, I don’t care if its popular. Hanging is a popular policy, it does not make it right.
Please bear in mind, these aren’t firm proposals, but I really do see no need for the state in this case.
October 6th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
OK - are you arguing that we should privatise the Fire & Rescue Service in the context of how things are now, or are you arguing that in your ideal world we wouldn’t need the state to provide Fire & Rescue Services?
I was arguing on the basis of the former but you seem to jump between that and the latter.