Posted on 02/24/2017 10:09:27 AM PST by GonzoII
Those other situations are voluntary.
Couldn’t agree more. Creating a profit motive would make it to where a dropping crime rate is undesirable for the bottom line.
“Those other situations are voluntary.”
So is committing a crime.
“Creating a profit motive would make it to where a dropping crime rate is undesirable for the bottom line.”
The same is true for Colt Fire Arms, General Dynamics, Lockheed-Martin, and any other corporation that supplies goods and services to our military. A lack of conflict (and thus a low military budget) is arguably detrimental to their bottom line...yet we contract with these businesses.
The sad part here is that it is very possible your moral void is also among the set of things that are voluntary.
“The sad part here is that it is very possible your moral void is also among the set of things that are voluntary.”
...as is your ability to provide rationale.
OK so this is what happens in the real world:
Government says “OK we’re going to have private prisons”.
Private prison corps spring up to make money off the policy.
Then they use the profits to lobby for legislation that would put more people in jail, which provides more profits.
This necessarily results in a situation where people are in jail not because it is justice, and not because it protects society, but because someone made an extra buck that way. (This is where a whole person would recoil in moral horror from the idea.)
In the real world, prison-for-profit leads to this:
https://nypost.com/2014/02/23/film-details-teens-struggles-in-state-detention-in-payoff-scandal/
And that is why civilized people don’t mix profit-seeking with the pursuit of justice.
Ok, this is better. At least you’ve stated the argument clearly. You believe that the profit-motive creates a perverse incentive in this sector of the economy. You may be -at least partially- right.
But my point is “Why does it not create perverse incentives in all sectors”? Do not all private businesses have an incentive to push for legislation that promotes their product? Finally, why wouldn’t big-government statists benefit from a larger prison system as it would justify more taxes and spending? The same incentives that are provided by profit-motive are also provided by those who love making “public goods” out of virtually everything. It seems to me that making prisons tax-payer funded institutions does not rid us of the incentive to punish for reasons other than Justice.
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