Buried deep in this article is Nicholas D. Kristof implicit theory on how the state came into being. According to Kristof, “Until the mid-19th century, firefighting was left mostly to a mishmash of volunteer crews and private fire insurance companies. In New York City, according to accounts in The New York Times in the 1850s and 1860s, firefighting often descended into chaos, with drunkenness and looting.”
So we replaced firefighters who loot at the scene with those who loot at the ballot box. And this is an improvement? Hmmm.
Note: I do not challenge the theory that the state came into being when the various looting mobs (or the other forms of muscle) morphed into a looting bureacracy.
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This is maybe a theory of the emergence of the welfare state, but it isn’t a theory of the genesis of the state as such.
Tina Dupuy had an article run on HuffPo in July on “Corrupt, Bloated, Private For-Profit” Firefighting in the 1800′s.
The piece uses the “clubs” and “gangs” of NY and MD, and especially the infamous “Boss Tweed” as the reason to condemn private efforts, and therefore, as an obvious and necessary basis for glorifying nationalism.
Oh! What a great example Ms. Dupuy! I couldn’t have discredited your argument better myself. Gang up on private industry by focusing on corruption and conveniently leave out Boss Tweeds corrupt political career!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_M._Tweed
I’m not a historian, but I would add that it is obviously well worth asking the question of whether or not state and federal gov’ts were involved, and/or, most importantly, in what way were failing to uphold the law thereby allowing the corrupt practices to continue!
nowadays, drunkedness is not tolerated when looting.
i meant to implicate state and local gov’ts, not state and federal, as i am sure federal involvement was limited at the time, let alone existent.
I assume you all remember the story of Benjamin Franklin and the fire department he helped create in Philadelphia.
http://www.ushistory.org/franklin/philadelphia/fire.htm
ShedPlant,
Without the welfare state, there’s always the WARfare state, which diminishes the economic liberty of the people in much similar fashion (see the article from yesterday here on Mises about the economic fall of the Roman Empire).
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