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Originally Posted by JKDS
Regardless of how many "options" there are, you will have some members of the community that refuse to pay for a military.
Absolutely.
Trying to force them to do so results in the same "tax = theft" argument we've been dancing with.
The person in the community signed an agreement voluntarily. If they don't like it, it is reasonable to expect that they will be evicted, like is normal.
The key is that there is voluntary transaction at the root. Governments and taxation are different because there is little voluntary about them.
Imagine how powerful it would be for security to be funded this way. When you're looking at places to move, you would be assessing costs, and maybe you see that one development would charge you $200 for its security while another similar development only charges $50. You don't wanna waste $150/mo, but you also don't want to be insecure, so you investigate what the different charges are for. You discover that both of them cover the gamut of security you want: 24 hour patrol (it's a big development), video surveillance, swift response time for domestic disturbances, SWAT level access (the company is tiered or contracts this service to bigger companies that cover more land), and a global defense system (the company is contracted with a military that is one of the handful that cover the region you're in). But you find out that the $150 extra goes to "foreign intervention," where the company funds anti-terrorism efforts aggressively and tries to kill terrorists in foreign territory. Let's say you believe this is wrong and you don't want to pay for it; you just want the "global defense system" top level security instead. So you move to the neighborhood where that's what you pay for, while people who believe in intervention move to the more expensive one.
People constantly complain about governments blowing people up that they don't want blown up and they wish they didn't have to pay for it. A free market in security is how they could choose to not pay for it.
It's like this. I benefit by not paying for a military. My community pays for me, and I abstain. That's a sunk cost for each and every one of my competitors, a cost which I don't have. Therefore, any goods I produce can be made more cheaply, because I'm not hit with paying for a military. Others see that, and they stop paying too...the military goes under.
This is why the cost would likely be baked into the price of the residency or added fees. Not paying results in eviction.
As for the specific idea that somebody can "game the system" by refusing to pay for one thing, then others follow suit and it crashes the entire system: keep in mind that the cost of "gaming the system" increases as more people do it and the cost of those who follow the system to let it collapse is very high.
If you're breaking the rules and your neighbors are subsidizing you, and you think this allows you to produce good more cheaply, think again. You're going to find that your costs actually increase because of things like the people you're cheating are actually your main market and now they don't buy your stuff, the company whose service you're not paying for provides other things that you like but now you don't have them, or maybe your neighbors just treat you like you're a cunt and not paying for the service becomes a greater cost than paying for it. On the flip side, if you're in a situation where there is a great enough perceived benefit for others to follow suit with your choice to not pay and the company takes on too much cost by providing for you all, it will withdraw and you all now have vastly increased risks than otherwise. If your entire community was made up of dimwits who didn't stop this from happening, housing values start plummeting as people move away and as crime increases. It becomes a lesson for others to not do what you guys did, and it becomes commonplace to install more rigorous eviction protocols for those who refuse to pay contracted fees.
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