Reason Magazine: Matt Welch Interviewing Edward Stringham- 'Policing is Too Important To Be Left For Government'

Source:Reason Magazine- Edward Stringham, at Freedom Fest in 2011.

"Because police are so important, I think that we should abandon the idea that government needs to provide it." says economics professor Edward Stringham.

"Wherever we see government it's not helpful, it's bureaucratic, it's not serving its customers and I would say that especially applies in the area of police."

At FreedomFest 2011, Reason's Matt Welch sat down with Stringham to talk about privatizing security, real world examples in the United States and why this won't lead to police protection only for the rich."

From Reason Magazine

I'm just about to lay out why I'm not a Libertarian, even though I've been classified as a Libertarian over and over. 

Here's an example of where libertarianism can go too far: if you look at what government is supposed to do, defend, protect and to serve, and look after the general welfare of its people, which is very general. And generally speaking government does a pretty good job of this, except for the Welfare part. Where they've made their job even harder and the people who are dependent lives even worse. Just look at our poverty rates.

But then look at what's the role of the private sector: be profitable, make as much money as they can, beat the competition, etc. That doesn't fit in very well with defend and protect. Because protecting and defending and serving costs a lot of money, that means investing resources. Resources that a private law enforcement Agency aren't going to want to invest. Because it's going to hurt their bottom line the thing they concentrate on most. Which means as a result the security of their customers get hurt as a result.