Faithful Underbelly readers will not be surprised at this. But what I want to know: what if it had been the neighbors rather than poor hapless Gene, who had been entreating the fire laddies to put out the blaze?* I suppose the disciplined libertarian response would have been: look if you had wanted to pay this guys' $75 you could have done so. Or, they could just do a Crassus and buy the neighbor's hous
*Wups, I wasn't reading carefully enough. Evidently a neighbor did pay the fee.
Showing posts with label Fire Department. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fire Department. Show all posts
Monday, October 04, 2010
Saturday, August 01, 2009
Markets in Everything: Fire Fighters
They say that Cicero's Roman friend Crassus accumulated some of his legendary wealth through his management of a private fire department. Evidently if your house caught fire, he'd show up, but not necessarily to fight the fire: rather he would buy up the neighbor's houses (at attractive prices, one can infer)--and then put up the fire.
I'm surprised Tina Dupuy didn't think to mention Crassus in her jolly send-up of the concept of a free market in fire services. It's a good joke, but she better watch out or reality will bite her in the ankle. If no libertarian has thought of it yet, then some will now (though I admit tht a web search for "Cato Insitute" and"Fire Department" turns up mostly stuff about the New Haven Supreme Court case*). Short of that, there surely are private fire services, just as there are private security guards, and I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that there are cities which have already contracted out their fire-fighting services to a private operator ("Blackwater saves your baby!"). And the idea may not even be crazy: most of fire safety over the past 100 years or so has come at the initiative of private fire insurers; I wonder whether they shouldn't be in the business of the actual fire fightinng.
From another perspective--forgetting about big cities like Washington, my impression is that in many communities, the volunteer fire department is really not a lot more than a good ol' boys' social club. My college back in the Pleistocene prided itself on having no fraternities; but it had a fire department, and they had beer parties and dirty songs.
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*Cato. Crassus. Is there a pattern here?
I'm surprised Tina Dupuy didn't think to mention Crassus in her jolly send-up of the concept of a free market in fire services. It's a good joke, but she better watch out or reality will bite her in the ankle. If no libertarian has thought of it yet, then some will now (though I admit tht a web search for "Cato Insitute" and"Fire Department" turns up mostly stuff about the New Haven Supreme Court case*). Short of that, there surely are private fire services, just as there are private security guards, and I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that there are cities which have already contracted out their fire-fighting services to a private operator ("Blackwater saves your baby!"). And the idea may not even be crazy: most of fire safety over the past 100 years or so has come at the initiative of private fire insurers; I wonder whether they shouldn't be in the business of the actual fire fightinng.
From another perspective--forgetting about big cities like Washington, my impression is that in many communities, the volunteer fire department is really not a lot more than a good ol' boys' social club. My college back in the Pleistocene prided itself on having no fraternities; but it had a fire department, and they had beer parties and dirty songs.
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*Cato. Crassus. Is there a pattern here?
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