I enjoy dramatic weather, such as a good thunderstorm, but yesterday afternoon things got a little too dramatic for comfort.
I arrived home around 4:15 to find my street full of fire trucks and police cars and people standing around watching the action. The house of one of my neighbors had been hit by lightning.
According to KTVZ’s account, the home of Deak and Barbara Preble was a total loss because of fire and smoke damage. Fortunately nobody was injured and the fire didn’t spread to any nearby houses (including mine).
“We’re just pleased the authorities were able to get here fairly quickly,” Deak Preble told KTVZ’s reporter.
The experience got me thinking about what might have happened if we had privatized firefighting in Bend instead of having a municipal fire department.
Before you dismiss that as a ridiculous idea, remember that the private-enterprise approach to firefighting has been tried in many places throughout history. The results generally haven’t been very good.
In ancient Rome, Marcus Licinius Crassus – described by one website as “ambitious and an entrepreneur – the kind of man Ayn Rand might have appreciated” – made a fortune with his free-enterprise firefighting business. When a fire started in the city he’d rush to the scene, buy up the adjacent properties at bargain prices and then have his crew put the fire out.
In the late 17th century, London insurance companies started their own firefighting brigades. They wouldn’t put out a fire unless the owner of the blazing house had bought insurance, as indicated by a plaque mounted on the property.
In New York and other colonial American cities, insurance companies paid fire brigades to fight fires. Rival brigades would race each other to get to the scene first, and sometimes the building would burn down while the brigades fought over who would get to put out the fire.
What’s the point of all this? Simply that private enterprise doesn’t always do a better job than those much-despised (by conservatives and libertarians) public employees, and that privatizing public services isn’t always the best idea. Private enterprise, by definition, looks out for private interests, and those don’t always coincide with the public interest.
Arguments over political philosophy aside, I’m glad Bend has a well-paid professional city fire department – and I’m also glad we’re protected by professional city police instead of a crew of private sector rent-a-cops.
This article appears in Jul 29 – Aug 4, 2010.
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If you want to see the kind of men Ayn Rand REALLY would have appreciated, read Atlas Shrugged. (Hint: there are no profiteering firemen in the book)
Bruce,
Your point about first-responder public employees is fine. I don’t believe most people that you make your comments against would call for a private-enterprise approach to police, fire, 911 and EMS service. You must also note that the men and women in these fields consider their positions to be a calling and not just a job. Therefore, most of them will work above and beyond what is listed on their job description. This is not true of other government employees.
But I believe you shouldn’t dismiss the notion of moving some current government functions to the private sector. Should the state run liquor stores? Why? Do people honestly believe that if we have private sector liquor stores it will result in countless drunks passed out in the streets with out the strong hand of government protecting us? We do have private trash companies in Bend that have to compete. Do we have piles of trash everywhere due to the fact that government workers are not performing this function? Hardly.
Just as some on the right should not believe in the notion that all government jobs should be eliminated, perhaps it wouldn’t hurt you to reexamine the notion that the government can perform all functions with more efficiency and less waste that the private sector.
We have a Federal Fire Department? Of course not, because localities, individuals looking after their own interests in a given area, are rightly the people to make the decisions for their community. No one on the right or anywhere else is saying that a community couldn’t, or shouldn’t make decisions about that community, in fact that is exactly the point they are trying to make. That decisions outside the scope of what the federal government is supposed to do, should be left to individuals to make. My parents live in an area that has no local fire department, by choice, and if their house catches fire, they will likely pay for that choice one way or the other, but it is THEIR choice. I live in an area that does have a fire department, by choice. I choose to pay those extra taxes for that service. The federal government wades into peoples lives treating them as a collective, whether they choose to be or not. This is the fundemental point of being alive, and being human, is freedom to choose. Something of which the Federal Government is and has been under many administrations, antithetical.
Thank God only about 23% of Americans share this guys views
“If you want to see the kind of men Ayn Rand REALLY would have appreciated, read Atlas Shrugged.”
I tried once, but the prose was so turgid and unreadable I gave up. Ayn Rand was a crackpot — and a lousy writer.
“perhaps it wouldn’t hurt you to reexamine the notion that the government can perform all functions with more efficiency and less waste [than] the private sector.”
I never held that notion.
“We have a Federal Fire Department?”
The post was not about the role of the federal government vs. local governments but about the issue of privatization vs. government services on all levels.
Although we do not have a federal fire department, the federal government performs police functions through a variety of agencies (FBI, INS, ATF etc.). Should those functions all be handed over to the private sector?
“The federal government wades into peoples lives treating them as a collective, whether they choose to be or not.”
Pardon me, but when people like you start ranting about how the eeeeee-vil federal government is plotting to take away all your freedoms you remind me of little children afraid of monsters hiding in the closet. What is the eeeee-vil federal government making you do that you don’t want to do (other than paying taxes)? What is it preventing you from doing that you want to do? Are we talking about actual, existing infringements of liberty, or ones that theoretically could happen?
Such drool. No one has suggested in this area that police or fire be privatized. There is a great proposal to merge the city fire department into the rural which removes the city politics and provides for uniform services in the district. However, then you have areas like Las Vegas where fire Captains make over $200,000 a year and have far exceeded the goal of public service.
Clark: “Such drool. No one has suggested in this area that police or fire be privatized.”
Of course not. Again, here is the point of the post: “[P]rivatizing public services isn't always the best idea. Private enterprise, by definition, looks out for private interests, and those don't always coincide with the public interest.”
Conservatives, especially those of the libertarian persuasion, seem to believe that everything the government does the private sector could do better. It isn’t true. That’s all I’m saying.
HBM: Twice in your response to Larry DI you used the word “evil” but drawn out as “eeeeevil.” You’ve used that several times before. The only other time I hear that is when listening to Rush Limbaugh.
C’mon HBM, admit it. You’re a ditto-head and you enjoy it.
you think rush invented that and is the only one that uses it?
you really should get out more
Ben Sala: “Thank God only about 23% of Americans share this guys views”
By “this guy” I assume you mean me.
So how many Americans share the Tea Party Movement’s views? Pew Research has just come out with a poll asking respondents whether they would be more likely to vote for a candidate who “is a supporter of the Tea Party Movement.” Only 22% said yes. 31% said it would make them LESS likely to vote for the candidate.
When asked about Sarah Palin, the queen of the Tea Partiers, only 18% said they would be more likely to vote for a candidate if she campaigned on his/her behalf, as opposed to 38% who said they would be less likely.
The Tea Partiers have an inflated notion of their own numbers and influence.