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What is private governance? 
Who's the author of this essay 

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and what points is he trying to 
make? 

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Edward Stringham is a PhD 
economist. 

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He was working at Oxford at the 
time when I came across this 

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article. 
He published it at the Cato 

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Institute. 
So he makes the claim that look 

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whenever the status say that we 
need to look out for the free 

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market, one of the things they 
say. 

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Is that in the free market, 
there could be monopolies. 

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This is where one group has 
almost unlimited power. 

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Under this situation, you'd get 
higher prices and worse quality 

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than you'd otherwise get under 
competition. 

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So he says they're completely 
right about that. 

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And that criticism also applies 
to the state, even when it comes

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to protecting people's person 
and property. 

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Turns out this is just Edward 
Stringham's thesis. 

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Is protecting your person and 
property is just another good or

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service. 
That is met far better through 

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voluntarily funded competition 
than it is through a coercively 

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funded monopoly. 
So just on the face of it, the 

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mass murder campaigns that the 
state has engaged in between the

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world wars, the cold wars, the 
proxy wars that alone should 

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make us suspicious of, are these
the people who are really 

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keeping us safe and stopping us 
from Thomas Hobbs's nasty, 

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brutish and short life? 
Or are they causing far more 

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than they claim to protect us 
from? 

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Second, they cage a lot of 
people for victimless crimes. 

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That is a great violation of 
life. 

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Limb and property have 
completely unjustified fines for

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other victimless crimes, and 
every year they more or less 

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brag. 
They call it a service, the 

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Internal Revenue Service, taking
a significant amount of your 

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money, claiming to cage you if 
you don't chip in. 

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This is yet another violation of
person and property. 

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So is the state. 
A unique protector. 

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Not only is it not a unique 
protector, Stringham says, but 

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it is in fact a unique 
aggressor. 

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Compare all the private theft 
verse all of the theft that the 

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police engage in when it comes 
to civil asset forfeiture. 

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Washington Post kindly I 
appreciate the post on this one.

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They said that civil asset 
forfeiture has actually exceeded

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private burglaries. 
So just on that alone. 

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Forget about the state, the fact
that the state taxes coercively,

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collects trillions of dollars 
through tariffs and and 

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everything else, and then has a 
monopoly printing press for 

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whatever money they can 
confiscate, he goes, These are 

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blatant examples of the 
violation of the things state 

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claims to protect. 
He goes, OK, so we got the 

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principal down. 
Monopoly bad. 

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Competition good, volunteerism 
good, coercion bad. 

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So the first thing that people 
say is, well, how would this 

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work hypothetically? 
And he goes, well, 

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hypothetically, you could have 
organizations that compete 

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against each other and provide 
security in exchange for money. 

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And the reason they wouldn't 
necessarily go to war is when 

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you have to bear the cost of 
violent conflict, you're much 

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less likely to engage in it. 
So you're much more likely to 

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come to some sort of agreement. 
And we do see this with 

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competitors. 
Can competitors cooperate? 

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It sounds like a contradiction 
to the those ignorant of 

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economics. 
However, if you have a phone 

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from T-Mobile and I have one 
from Verizon, we're actually 

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able to cooperate when MV7 sure 
makes this Dell doesn't make the

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same Dell computer. 
Turns out Dell and MV7 sure 

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cooperate with CenturyLink 
Internet. 

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Providers and this Brother 
printer, all of these 

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competitors are actually engaged
in cooperation because it 

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actually helps things out. 
Someone with a Gmail can send an

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e-mail to someone with 
ProtonMail, cause competitors 

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even have an incentive to 
cooperate with each other. 

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Same with insurance companies. 
Discount tire tires go on to 

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both Ford and Hondas and you 
know everything else. 

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So hype, theoretically they can 
cooperate. 

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But Stringham says actually the 
case is far better than that. 

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I can't remember the exact 
example he uses, but he goes 

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back to the Middle Ages and says
here are tons of examples of 

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private governance arising. 
So what I will do instead is try

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to extract the lesson and 
actually give a real world 

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example. 
I work with a small business who

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had experienced ransomware. 
This is where you log into your 

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Business Network, only to find. 
That your computer is completely

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black and all of your files are 
encrypted and up on your screen 

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is a message that says all of 
your files are encrypted. 

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You can't read a God damn thing.
Pay us $200,000 and then you can

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read your files again. 
We will de encrypt them now you 

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can send the money and it's now 
this was this was not some 

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trivial example. 
This was, hey, everything we've 

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worked for for the last 10-15 
years. 

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It all went away this morning. 
Because someone violated our 

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private property, and none of 
them, they're not a bunch of 

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libertarians either. 
This is a completely different 

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organization. 
None of them said quick call 

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911, Quick call the FBI, call 
the National Security Agency 

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because our property rights have
been violated. 

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And this is what the state does.
First thing they did was they 

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called a private security 
company in Arizona. 

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This is an IT firm. 
What that IT firm did was use. 

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Sentinel One. 
This is a cyber security 

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organization to stop the hacking
and protect everything else that

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was that had survived, they then
used Paypal's security team in 

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order to keep their finances 
adjusted. 

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They contacted their private 
banks to let the banks know hey 

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stop authorizing payments to 
anyone unless I explicitly give 

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them my stamp of approval and 
then they use Google. 

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Drive backup security in order 
to keep their previous files, in

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order to get access to the files
that were encrypted because 

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those were saved. 
Because Google, a private 

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organization for the most part, 
has the incentive to have happy 

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consumers so they can make more 
money for themselves. 

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So when push came to shove, when
it really, really mattered 

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something so vital their entire 
business, they only went to 

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private security. 
One person mentioned going to. 

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The state, he wants the computer
to be, you know, investigated, 

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but but literally the complete 
opposite of what we're always 

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told. 
Well, if you're ever in danger, 

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call the government. 
It's like no one really thought 

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that the state would be the most
effective approach. 

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They don't have the knowledge or
the incentives to create 

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products or services that are 
really desirable. 

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So it turns out protecting your 
person and property is a good or

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service, just like anything 
else. 

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And should be achieved through 
voluntarily funded competition 

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as opposed to a coercively 
funded monopoly. 

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Tons of those real world 
examples all around us. 

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I went to the Slipknot concert, 
very dangerous place, lot of 

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people on bath salts and tons of
stuff there. 

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And there was private security. 
I went to the Scottsdale Mall a 

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week ago, tons of private 
security and there's a lot of 

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high end stores that could get 
robbed there. 

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Private security. 
Made me feel safe every time I 

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go to a Diamondbacks game. 
Private security all around 

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Disneyland has private security.
All these places all around us 

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have the very private governance
governments claim that only they

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can provide. 
That's the great lesson from 

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Edward Stringham's essay. 
Yeah, it just again from the 

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libertarian standpoint, it's 
like any product or service 

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that's provided by a private 
market actor tends to be lower, 

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lower cost and higher quality 
than anything provided by a 

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government agency. 
And it just seems to be a matter

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of incentives, right? 
The state is incentivized just 

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to keep you docile and and 
vulnerable to taxation. 

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They're not not really too 
concerned with protecting your 

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actual life, liberty or 
property. 

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That's a service that's much 
better rendered by a a private 

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contractor of some kind. 
Makes a lot of sense to me. 

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And of course, private markets 
have the incentive to not just 

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cater to the 1%. 
People will say, well, if things

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are privatized and only the rich
can afford them, I just got to 

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steal the Michael Malice line of
yeah, if there was only private 

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security, only the rich would 
have security. 

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And if clothes are privatized, 
the only clothes will be 

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tuxedos. 
If cars are privatized, there 

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will only be limousines. 
And if food is privatized, there

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will only be foie gras and 
caviar available. 

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He goes. 
No, there's actually an 

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incentive for them to not just 
build the yachts. 

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But to meet the mass of consumer
demand, so, and no the company, 

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I'm not going to say their name,
it was not Walmart, Amazon, 

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Apple or Google. 
This was a small company close 

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to to where I live. 
But they use only private 

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security because it was just 
more efficient and they have 

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every incentive to cater to the 
most people for their own profit

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interests and there's nothing 
wrong with that at all. 

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So that was just an important 
thing I should have mentioned 

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originally.