Awkward Utopia

Let me start by saying our discussion yesterday went a whole lot faster than did last week’s, so please correct the mistakes I’ve undoubtedly made.

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5:05 p.m. The officially-renamed PATRIOT Committee meets. In the absence of Acting President Masten, President Emeritus Bob Lotfinia presides.
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I asked to be reminded of what exactly PATRIOT stands for. The answer, it turns out, is People Acting To Re-Invent Outstanding Teaching. Ingenious!

Bob reviewed the suggestions that had been made at last week’s post-meeting trip to Chipotle:

• a point economy in which students are awarded points for academic achievement (among other things), which may then be banked, traded, “invested” in their Houses, and used to purchase Pop-Quiz Insurance
• Houses a la Harry Potter, into which students would be randomly assigned — randomly, because of the regrettable absence of a sorting hat, of course
• an “unconventional admissions test” involving a hedge maze

A few other prior decisions:

• teachers will be afforded freedom and flexibility with their curricula; however, the administration will reserve oversight privileges
• examinations will be administered orally by a committee that does not include the teacher

The first order of business was to discuss the more immediate location of the school within the Orlando (or, secondarily, Miami) area:

• a downtown business district
• the city’s rural outskirts
• a suburban community

Bob and Josh noted the advantages of the business district: parents would be able to drop off and pick up children on their way to and from work each day; corporate sponsors might donate office space; the boarding school would be better located in the country, but that would be unnecessary for the primary grades. Several others noted the problems of cost, zoning, student drop-off, and athletics in a downtown facility. Christian moved to table the issue.

The second order of business was to discuss the hours and days of operation:

• we voted against either a longer or a shorter school week
• we voted in favor of an extended school day
• we voted in favor of expanding the school year (perhaps using a trimester schedule) but did not discuss exactly how long the year would be

And the third order of business was to discuss our mission or vision statement; exactly what sort of students are we hoping to produce? Josh suggested that we should place equal emphasis on academics, athletic ability, and virtue. There was some discussion about whether athletic ability should really be weighted equally to the others, but we ultimately decided it should, since our goal is for our students to be healthy and well-rounded. We also agreed to incorporate “traditional, Western values” into the mission.

Frank questioned the point-system. If students do community service or play sports because they are receiving points for doing so, will they stop once the points are no longer there to act as an incentive? We mostly agreed that would not be a problem.

Luis suggested we should censor students trying to form clubs or write articles for the school newspaper that support values or causes we oppose. We mostly agreed a free exchange of ideas would be important and welcome in our school.

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5:46 p.m. Awkward Intros.
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5:56 p.m. Regular meeting commences.

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The topic is privatization of roads and/or the police force.

ZM: If you privatize the police force you have a credibility problem. People don’t respect rent-a-cops.

AV: Under anarcho-capitalism, I see no reason the government should be involved with roads and I think there should be less regulation of the police.

CW: Privatizing navigable waterways is a good example. There are problems like pollution and because nobody owns the waterways, nobody fights back. The government tries but does it poorly. If they were owned by private firms, it would be a matter of upholding property rights in the courts. Things would get done if there was a demand for them, and the cost would be properly allocated.

Frank B: If there are multiple competing police forces, and none are city-wide, there is no incentive for whichever is closest to respond to an emergency, unless they have been contracted to do so.

Luis G: We (contractors) do better than the police. We get paid for that reason.

JN: It would be like cell phone coverage. Company A can pay to use Company B’s towers. Co. A can pay Co. B to respond to an emergency if Co. A is unavailable.

AV agrees: The PR Co. B would get would also help.

SS: Can you clarify what privatizing roads would mean and why it would work?

CW: Roads should have tolls. It would raise the cost of using them which would reduce traffic. The East-West toll in Orlando is too low. They said they were going to get rid of the toll but they didn’t and shouldn’t.

AV: The price of driving on roads is way off. Private companies would be more responsive and better able to set the price where it should be.

CW agrees.

KR: There wouldn’t be enough competition to have police coverage in rural or poor urban areas. The privatization of Medicare is an example.

AV: If the demand in those areas isn’t high enough, then it would be a waste of resources anyway.

LG: According to public choice, we aren’t paid for what we do but what we might have to do. It’s a matter of probabilities.

BL: If residents don’t want the service enough to pay for it and they’re willing to bear the risk, what’s the problem?

JN: Plus people in those areas have a higher tendency to own firearms; maybe they’d rather defend themselves.

FB: There’s always a high demand for security. Take Wild West Clint Eastwood movies. Miltias/posses arose because of the possibility of terrorizing the citizens. It’s the same in the cities with the rise of gangs and organized crime.

LG disagrees.

FB: These things happens when the government can’t provide security.

LG: Look at Miami. It was a slum built with drug money. They couldn’t do anything about it.

CW disagrees.

ZM: Again, what about legitimacy? It would be different if we were revolutionizing the entire system, but to just privatize the police force and nothing else is problematic. We accept the rule of law. To privatize would lead to a lack of legitimacy.

AV: What’s wrong privatizing the courts, then the police, then…

ZM: It’s not an overnight change, so it’s problematic.

LG: It’s already happening. With corruption comes a loss of legitimacy and a move to privatization.

CW asks ZM to clarify gradual versus overnight changes.

ZM: Total privatization is the end-goal of a libertarian society, but what about the mean-time?

CW: I don’t know that a gradual change is more problematic than an immediate one. As for legitimacy, the Supreme Court is the branch with the highest legitimacy according to polls, at 60-75%. Is that good? I’m not saying the polls are accurate, but they indicate that there is a question of legitimacy already. Who is more legitimate than someone with a contract? There is no greater legitimacy than that. The old Westerns are a good example of how the government can terrorize the people too. The police goes where the money is! There are lots of examples of power gone awry.

JN: Plus the only reason rent-a-cops are not respected is that they work at malls disciplining 14-year-olds. If they have lethal authority, they will have legitimacy.

ZM: They would derive their power from the government. When can they shoot someone? Why isn’t it murdering?

LG: Corruption and a lack of trust lead to private contracting of security.

SS: Going with what ZM said, doesn’t there need to be oversight of the firms? Or will the market and the courts really take care of who can, say, enter private property in the event of an emergency (as opposed to now, when only the police force has that authority)?

CW: Why is it good for there to be a monopoly on violence? A competitive market is a good thing. Maybe a state monopoly emerges from a competitive market; maybe that’s just what happens. But why assume that’s better? There’s still very little oversight under the current system.

BL: There are potentially high positive profits to be had. Competition is only better where there are zero profits.

ZM: As more money is spent policing poor areas, the crime in those areas declines while it’s on the rise elsewhere. It seems like a matter of economies of scale.

BL: The other areas could raise taxes, or the people could relocate. There are options.

AV: If a monopoly emerges, that’s good. It’s more efficient.

CW: Yours is a moral issue. It still might cost more.

LG: The state must provide security to be legitimate.

JN: If crime is increasing in suburbs and decreasing in cities the government isn’t allocating resources efficiently. I would pay for protection.

AV says that’s a legitimate point.

BL says it’s a conditionally legitimate point: If the police are funded by local taxes, it’s less valid to blame the government the way you would if they were funded by federal taxes. Local government is much more responsive. If they’re not policing somewhere, maybe it’s because the consumers aren’t demanding policing there.

AV: Taxes are not a price. Maybe the consumers would be willing to pay for things like this if they weren’t already being taxed. With no or minimal taxes, if there’s crime, it’s because people don’t want to pay for security. But currently government is too mixed up in the process to make that assertion.

BL half-grants AV’s point.

AV: I have become a moral but not a practical anarcho-capitalist because I’ve arrived at the conclusion that human interactions, and therefore all political systems, are unstable. Anarchy probably wouldn’t work. A libertarian republic might be better because people’s rights would at least be secure, but it still probably wouldn’t work.

LG: The world is dangerous. If the state can’t protect the people, the market for security-providers is not going away.

AV: Again, no system will work because of human instabilities.

CW says AV has just summarized Frank Herbert’s Chapterhouse Dune.

BL asks the PATRIOT committee to consider the curriculum for next week, and the meeting is adjourned.

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I think it only fair to note that pretty much nothing was accomplished at this week’s post-meeting trip to Chipotle. I’m glad we had a chance to talk about what some of you guys believe, though. Thanks, everyone, for humoring me!