Perspective: Privatization: Two Perils

Consider first the idea of “contracting out government services.” This idea rests on the belief that the services provided or the goods produced constitute a necessary and proper governmental function, with the only quibble relating to the most effective means of carrying out this presumably appropriate “public service.” Such a tenet violates the principles of minimal government and unrestrained individual action: the proper State exists solely to repel and deter the initiation of force and the application of fraud, and to afford a system of common justice capable of adjudicating otherwise insoluble disputes between citizens.

Sovereignty cannot tolerate the delegation of these destructive, outside-the-market powers to private citizens. The cloaking of private individuals with the compulsive powers of the State in the arena of creativity outside the narrow fences of proper governmental action cannot disguise the immorality and foolishness of the act. The State cannot delegate the monopoly of force needed to police criminal and fraudulent conduct, nor can it “contract” for a system of justice. These are the sole responsibility of government. “Contracting out” creates a confusion of terms.

By the same token, if an activity undertaken by the State penetrates the arena of creative human conduct, liberty lessens and slavery abides. The condition does not change for the better by endowing private citizens with the powers of government.

Indeed, the “contracting out” thesis concedes the greater efficiency of the market, although it remains to be seen if contract employees retain any semblance of efficiency in non-competitive bureaucratic enterprises. And even if we assume that contract employees are more efficient, this fails to answer the pertinent inquiry: why help a tyrant become more efficient and hence prolong the agony he inflicts? Why would any honest and accountable individual strike such a bargain with the traducers of freedom, and why would any defender of the voluntary way praise such nonsense?

The “contracting out” concept assumes a number of slim disguises. It permeates the charade of “public corporations” such as the Postal Service. It appears in the euphemistic phrase, “proprietary functions of government should be operated like a business,” which lies behind socialistic ventures such as the Tennessee Valley Authority. It supports the extortive process designed to buy off the beneficiaries of legal plunder. Whatever the protective garb, the theory is blatant and dangerous.

Let us now turn to the second peril of privatization: use of “privatization” to retain the State as both ultimate authority over the necessity and wisdom of a good or service and final arbitrator of the sufficiency of the good or service.

By nature, a market consists of all willing and interested participants. Each such individual “votes” in a massive “dollar democracy” for those goods, services, or ideas which most appeal to him or her. A market exists without coercion and without inflexible presuppositions of ultimate desirability; it caters to the wants of every one of us who buys and sells therein. A market flourishes precisely because of the lack of prior restraint and pre- defined limits.

This simple description lays bare the inconsistency of those “privatizers” who see the marketplace as a handy smorgasbord for purveyors of predetermined fare. If the State decides that certain goods and services must be offered, and that the police power must pass upon the quality and quantity of those goods and services, the supposed transfer from the public coercive apparatus to the private creative process is a sham. The result—a coerced economy—does not constitute a market at all; rather, the clumsy claw of government has tinkered with the system and obliterated any semblance of true liberty.

Those who prize freedom must not waver in their devotion to principle. We ought to praise the abatement of governmental power whenever it recedes from the creative sector. And, importantly, we must not be gulled by those who contend that the enemy is capitulating when, in fact, the State and its operatives are merely employing fifth column tactics to lessen their natural bumbling and to continue fooling the foolish.