[quote]Dabba wrote:
Why would any private business that is trying to make a profit try to get consumers in a way like this? You really think they’re going to get many customers by giving special privileges to high ranking members of their company? I certainly wouldn’t pay for a defense company that used a court that acted this way.
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Because high ranking members are obviously very profitable to the company. If that high level member goes to jail the defense corp stands to lose far more than if a mere 100-200 customers change service providers.
Now you can state that you wouldn’t pay for a defense company that used a court that acted in this manner but to even know that this happened would require you to know me, or to exercise constant diligence. People in general do not exert constant diligence; it is the main reason the state manages to misuse power in the first place.
Secondly you are assuming that you have a choice. If the closet competing defense firm is 100km away, and this is likely due to the turf issue you failed to resolve, then you don’t have any other choice.
[quote]Dabba wrote:
Your recourse is market competition and the fact that it is suicidal for any company to attempt this.
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You have yet to explain why it is suicidal and to explain away the “turf” factor.
[quote]Dabba wrote:
All of the other private defense companies would cease doing business with this one in order to avoid war.
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Au contraire, all the other private defense companies would continue doing business with this one in order to avoid war.
[quote]Dabba wrote:
Not only that, but again, it would be seemingly so difficult for them to arrange the funds for it, that it seems unrealistic.
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Why?
[quote]Dabba wrote:
Wouldn’t banks cease doing business with a defense agency that intends to enslave the population?
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Why? Banks only care about profit margins. As long as you could reasonably maintain those profit margins then the bank couldn’t care about people being slaughtered.
[quote]Dabba wrote:
If the company doesn’t let the consumers leave, then they are likely going to be shut off to any sort of help from anyone else who fears for their property as well.
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And assisted by those who want a piece of the pie.
[quote]Dabba wrote:
And, why would people fund a business that appears to be building an army which could be used against them?
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Because they would need to to protect themselves from other defense corporations. If one defense agency has a couple of fighter bombers and all the neighboring ones have only “police” level equipment, well the one with the fighter bombers will soon be the monopoly unless others participate in the arms race.
Every private army must have the firepower to compete against a nation state. I.e. they need an army. Otherwise there is the desire for a group of people to create a nation state and experience huge rewards.
[quote]Dabba wrote:
Again, war is an extremely expensive endeavor that has no guarantee of success.
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You are correct. And it has always been the case that war is not certain and is extremely expensive. That being said war has existed since the “invention” of humans. To expect no war simply because it is expensive is incredibly naive.
[quote]Dabba wrote:
They don’t have “turf”. What don’t you get about the idea that people can hire ANY company they want?
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Sloth explains this issue so I won’t bother to repeat him.
[quote]Dabba wrote:
Completely unfounded. Voluntary transactions between individuals require a medium of exchange. Hence, money. And I hate to break it to you, bud, but almost everything in this world costs something. Ain’t no free lunch.
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Again everything you have said is true. And once again you miss the point. The point is humans don’t really give a toss about money. They care about power. Money is one avenue to power. Coercion another.
Money only holds value as an avenue to power. A corporation doesn’t give a shit about money if it can gain power in a more efficient way (Coercion). My only point is that an action can be unprofitable in the monetary sense and profitable in the power sense. And that action will be taken time and time again.
Another way of putting it is Money != Utility. Humans act to increase utility. Personally I would trade all of my future earnings simply to make a mark on history. If I could have Bill Gates money or I could be dictator of Mauritania (a country in Africa) I know I would pick the latter.