More evidence Libertarianism doesn't work in practice: Private Prisons

Great Debates
21

Libertarianism is predicated on entities (persons or groups of persons) being able to enter contracts with each other without outside interference. So if you wanted to hire me for $4/hour, and I was willing to work for that amount, the government shouldn’t force us to set that rate at $8/hour. But in the case we are discussing now, "the government’ is one of the contraction entities, so it should be able to contract with another entity under mutually agreeable terms.

Now, let’s be clear that such contracts cannot involve the coercion of other entities, since Libertarianism is also “all about” non-coercion. It would be illegal for me to contract you to kill the OP, for instance. If you want to call that a “regulation”, then OK. Libertarians are OK with that type of regulation.

22

I want to delve into this bit more because this is a common misunderstanding about Libertarianism. And it might very well be the fault of Libertarians themselves. Although the OP makes the claim about “anything”, which is simply false, Libertarians do often make that claim about “most things”. And they shouldn’t put so much emphasis on that because that’s not “their thing”. Libertarians are all about freedom from coercion.

For example, they might argue that a secondary cause of no MW would be a more efficient market, lower overall costs, and lower unemployment, but that’s not the reason for having no MW. That’s a secondary benefit (assuming it’s true). The reason to not have a MW is for one reason and one reason only: People should be free to enter contracts without government interference as long as no coercion is involved. And if that happens to result in some inefficiencies or higher costs, then so be it. Freedom is all, and that’s the cost of freedom.

Just to be clear, Libertarians would NOT be OK with Person A offering persons B a $4/hour job under the condition that Person A would kill Person B’s wife if he refused. That would be coercion. But as long as Person A (or anyone else) is under no coercion from Person B, then Person A should be able to contract with Person B to work for $4/hour.

That’s why it’s called “Libertarianism” and not “Efficienciarianism”. :wink:

23

The fundamental problem with this, as with most extremist/alternative political systems, is that their “victories” come entirely within the supporting framework of the existing structure. They don’t have to deal with any national issues, not even a stable monetary system or constitutional law. Or a medical infrastructure. Very rarely an educational system. They can just pick and choose what largesse Mummy and Daddums provide and then make up their own rules for their room.

Anybody - even a town in Kansas or whatever - can play Libertarian or socialist or whatever and have it “work” - for very select definitions of “work.” Easy to be an emperor in the kindergarten sandbox.

And, with privatization moves, it’s just amazing how what changes the most is how much money is diverted to the supporter’s pockets. See… government’s problem is that it’s SPENDING ALL THAT MONEY, when it could just PAY AN UPSTANDING AND RELIABLE PROVIDER INSTEAD. See how easy it is?

24

It could have been due to the people who voted in favor of the idea. Were they mostly Libertarians? I don’t think the philosophy has had that level of support to enact such a scheme on their own. Wanting to privatize a prison system isn’t de facto evidence of libertarians enacting their agenda.

And to echo what John said, even though some statist or authoritarian government action may be more efficient or cost less, that’s not controlling in what a libertarian would support.

25

Effectiveness, alone, is also a terrible measure of government action. You don’t have to be a Libertarian to believe that. I’m sure we can all think of things the government could do that would more “effective” in reducing crime, but that would not be worth the infringement on liberty they would entail.

But Libertarians are guilty of often emphasizing how their system will not only offer more freedom, but will be more effective. It’s not too surprising that people zero in on those claims. Libertarians shouldn’t do that, since if push comes to shove, they will chose freedom over effectiveness.

26

Private prisons failing is crony capitalism failing. Some company lobbies the state to be granted the privilege of operating a prison. This is a throwback to when the crown would grant a monopoly to an individual to operate a certain business in a given territory. This is exactly what classical liberalism (or libertarianism) was rebelling against in the 18th-19th century, and succeeded to a large degree.

This is like saying libertarianism failed because the Fed didn’t print enough money in the financial crisis. The Fed, after all, is privatized.

The government whips out a gun Clint Eastwood style and points it at a pot grower and tells him to go to prison, then draws another gun on the taxpayers and gives their loot to the prison company. I’m having trouble seeing where the principle of non-aggression is being followed here.

27

Yes Milton Friedman confused a lot of people about libertarianism and effectiveness. He helped institute income tax withholding, which helped make the government more effective at looting taxpayers.

Of course libertarians also stray when they emphasize “freedom”. Government transfers of wealth can increase freedom for plenty of folks. Unemployment benefits are definitely a freedom enhancer for a lot of people I know.

28

I think I can add a little here.

I am not going to comment on the Libertarian philosophy, mainly because this is a US centric message board and my take on it would be out of the correct context.

But,

What about privately run prisons - Well in the UK, we have a small number of them, we had one run by some outfit called Wackenhut at a prison called HMP Coldingley. It seems they were not making enough money, so they simply walked from a fully populated prison and left the place locked up behind them!!!

Nope, not making that up, the state had to step in on the very same day and take over - not an easy thing to do considering all the daily functions such as feeding that have to be pre-planned.
All prisons in the UK are inspected, they are given a rating of between 1 to 4, 4 being highest, 1 being lowest.

The idea was to ‘drive standards up’ HAH! DON’T MAKE ME LAUGH!

The aim was to give the government a stick to beat the public sector prisons over the head. The idea was supposed to be compare the standards in one prison to another, and of course its obvious which ones would be better.

Except that every single private prison measures worse than every publicly run prison, to the extent that each and every private prison in in the lowest performing quartile of the rating system

What that actually means is that private prisons perform worse in terms of violence, suicide, rehabilitation, even the prisoners themselves don’t feel safe in private prisons.

As to why, well one must suspect the low staffing levels, and the low wages which attract a certain capability of staff are likely the main culprits. Private prisons tend to cost less to run than the public sector, however the true cost is in the reoffending, which is worse, so the full burden of cost should also include the cost of reoffending, and in such a case, I suggest I is highly likely that private prisons cost more to the public than state run prisons.

Its all about where you measure value for money, is it in running the institution or is it in the total cost to society?

29

How are government prisons coercion? Libertarians have a stiffy for private enterprise, even if the government version isn’t stepping on anyone’s toes.

30

More evidence libertarianism doesn’t work in practice: V-22 Osprey

I guess the failure of the Iraq war was another failure of libertarianism, after all the weapon production was outsourced to Lockheed Martin, Northrup Grumman, etc.

That damn Rothbard!

31

Every single politician and pundit and barstool expert who thinks… yep.

“Government should be run like a business.” Which of course includes the L crowd, but is by no means limited to them.

32

Why is it that when there is a perceived problem with the private sector collectivists always think the solution is more government, where as when there is a problem with government the solution is again more government.

33

Because most often, when there’s a problem with government, the problem is “not enough government”.

34

Yeah I think that’s a quote from one of the survivors at Nagasaki.

35

It never occurs to Libs or any other “slash gummint!” types that what we have, minor exceptions noted, is barely enough government… for 340 million people. A gummint that was just dandy for 100 million won’t work for three times as many people. Won’t. The endless budget slashing and calls for government reductions have held government far more in check than most realize, to the point where we definitely DON’T have enough “government” in a lot of our critical regulatory agencies. Or essential human service agencies.

Tanks, on the other hand, seem to have individual standing armies to care for their many needs. Let’s do a little shrinkage there if you think “government” is too expensive.

36

I said every other form of -ism in the post above yours then provided one example that was pretty far from libertarianism as a clear example that poorly run prisons are not unique to the supposed implementation of one ideology. Clearly I’d don’t think there are only two possibilities. Especially since the system we currently have is neither Stalinism or Llibertarianism and fails pretty bad with regards to justice.

37

Government spending per capita has increased over time.

http://mercatus.org/publication/rise-capita-federal-spending

Like the ones that prevented the financial crisis?

transfer payments are increasing as a percentage of GDP.

You won’t hear complaints from libertarians about that.

38

So no comments about my post, where there is a demonstrable failure of the private sector vs state run sector then, is that a bit inconvenient for you libertarians then?

Cost of the institution is far more than the operating bottom line, its about the total costs to society.

39

Of course it has - the need for community organization multiplies by a greater factor than the percentage increase in population. Interactions increase in type and frequency far faster than simple linear percentage. A government structure that served 100 million will not serve 200 million simply by doubling in size.

But as Liberarians seem to be able to only think in very straight, dark lines, I’m never amazed when this stripe of argument is brought up.

Because Libs are just as self-serving and interested in restructuring the system to benefit themselves as any other political stripe.

It’s just that other political factions tend to consider a population as a whole, and don’t divide it into Makers who deserve the very best the system can provide, and Losers no one gives a shit about.

40

They’re not. Did I say somewhere that they were? Libertaria still has laws, still has a justice system, and would still have the need to punish lawbreakers.

I suppose one might argue that, in Libertaria, Private Prisons could not be outlawed, but that’s not the same as saying that the government must use them.