Privatized Warfare: or let's return to the Feudal System
So-called "Feudalism" was simply the extreme privatization of virtually all government services, including justice and defense. It was in the hands of nobles and to an extent not often appreciated, private entrepreneurs. Here's an example:
In 1141 King Stephen of England was facing serious problems maintaining control of the country. One nobleman, Ranulf of Chester, seized the city of Lincoln in a bid to extend his private control, assuming that since the king had no standing army there was nothing he could do about it. King Stephen fooled him by immediately raising what forces he could and marching to the relief of the citizens of Lincoln.
The force Stephen raised shows just how privatized national defense was. It consisted of Stephen's personal household guards, a force of powerful nobles and their household knights (answerable only to their lords, not the king), and a powerful force of mercenaries (the closest thing to professional soldiers in the army). When they arrived at Lincoln the city militia marched out to join them. Note that the militia was the closest thing to what we would understand as a national "army."
In the ensuing battle Stephen's mercenaries, by far the most effective of Stephen's troops, charged forward on one flank and smashed right through the enemy force in front of them. Turning around they saw their king (and employer) in the center battling a huge mass of Ranulf's men. Instantly making the decision that they had earned their pay for the day and it didn't extend to getting themselves killed, the mercenaries kept right on riding, clear out of the battlefield.
Stephen was in so much trouble because the nobles and their private warriors on the other flank had taken one look at Ranulf's men charging straight towards them with blood in their eyes, suddenly remembered they had other priorities and turned their horses and ran.
Poor old Stephen was left stranded with both his flanks gone and the enemy closing in on three sides. The only troops willing to stand firm were the Lincoln militia who, after all, were literally fighting for their homes. Most were slaughtered and Stephen was taken prisoner.
When he was finally released in a prisoner exchange Stephen decided that relying on private forces was not the way to go.
Well, as Seller and Yeatman would say, that's history as I remember it.
Labels: conservatives, medieval history, privatization
posted by Clemens @ 1:20 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
This doesn't sound like privatization at all to me. Reading Wikipedia's page on privatization suggests that it has taken on meanings that I don't associate with it, but that agree with your use of the term. So I'll argue that proper privatization can actually be a good thing.
Privatization should mean that the government stops doing some service, and turns the company involved into a private entity, to sink or swim in the competitive market as best it can. Parcel delivery is probably the most effective example I can think of offhand: once the government stopped seeing parcel service as the exclusive domain of its Post Office and allowed UPS, FedEx, and the rest to crop up, parcel delivery became a lot better and more efficient.
What you're describing is contracting or outsourcing, which even today has all of the same risks that you describe here, but that's not the same as privatization, nor is it the same as feudalism. For an example of how contracting is actually a very good thing in many circumstances, my father has explained to me how things are done at NASA to build satellites, space shuttles, etc. When there are many contractors who can bid, you actually get very good results.
I see two problems with contracting as it is now.
(1) The number of contractors has diminished greatly, especially in the manufacture of airplanes and ships. To build a nuclear aircract carrier the government must contract with Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia. No one else builds those monsters. Since we might need a lot of them one day, and NNS could collapse without the constant influx of government money, the government is constantly ordering the stupid things. NNS has no need to look for other work.
Likewise, we have only two shipyards that can build submarines: NNS and Electric Boat in CT. Because of that we keep building submarines and we have to let each shipyard build one sub for each sub that the other builds. Otherwise jobs will be lost, etc. There really isn't any competition at all.
(2) Too often contracting has become a matter of loyalty and patronage, which is feudalism. The competitive bidding process is removed and there is no incentive for good, low-cost work, because the contractor knows that there will be no competition. In some cases the contractor still does good work (nuclear aircraft carriers) but in other cases not.
I think you are right about the distinction of proper privatization. I was using it in the sense it has acquired from efforts to 'privatize' large chunks of the military duties in Iraq (btw: does anyone know how many contractors have been killed in Iraq to date?). The extraordinary goof ups on procurement, contractors, privatization, etc, in Iraq are what I primarily had in mind, hence my military example.
And, while the so called 'feudal system' did not actually exist, the elements of feudalism most people think about are not viewed by me as necessarily a bad thing. Still, caution is called for here.
Your point 2) is especially important to this discussion. It is the core of what bothers me about some of this. It has become the hallmark of the Bush admin, for good or bad.
I have just put up another post on Republican fund raising that sounds like the scam from "The Producers" that shows, I think, that whatever good ideas the genuine conservatives may have had have been dumbed down by stupid sloganeering and used to provide an ideological basis for looting the public treasury.
430+ contractors have been killed according to icasualties.org.
--Joey
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