Privatising the Army (2 Viewers)

[Serius]

nice argument...only problem is Australia isnt a democracy. Its a representative democracy. In all of history the only truly successful democracy was Athens.

Representative democracy works because people are stupid. They dont necessarily know the inns and outs of every decission, and they are too lazy to research them. So one man, chosen because his morals reflect the morals of his country works, because his job is to be educated full time, the experts give him the choices and he choses.

Anyways, sidetracked. Nothing would get done if the defence force was privatised because no1 would want to fork out money to do what is right, e.g peacekeeping in east temor or backing up our allies in Iraq[ who happen to have very big guns capable of defending our puny selves in the event of a serious attack on australia]

p.s i dont care if this thread was initially satire, lets work with it and see what we can do.

 

[The Brucemaster]

Good idea Serius, its certainly an interesting question to ponder.

I can see a few major flaws here, seeing as the pros have already been mentioned ill focus on them:

1) You mention that privatising the Defence Force will increase competition but there is already significant private competition for defence contracts. Most of the equipment used by the Defence Force is manufactured by private companies sub-contracted by the Government.
If Defence were to be privatised it would have to be run by an amalgamation of all the various companies who currently supply materiel as they all have a shared interest.

2) If the police are an essential service then i daresay the Defence Force is also. As has been said the Defence Force serves the national interest and thus should be governed by the nation ie the Government.

3) Corporate interests would be placed above national interests. What may be seen as necessary/vital/beneficial to the nation may be viewed as extremely costly to the corporation/s in charge of Defence and thus action would not be taken in order to look after profit margins.


As an example look at the CCT. The Government handed responsibility for a public service to a private firm and things went to the shit and the Government is powerless to fix the problem without the agreement of the CCT operators.

 

[withoutaface]

Individual interests of every member of the population determine long term corporate interests.

 

[transcendent]

Why stop at the Defense Force? Why not privatise the government?

 

[The Brucemaster]

Individual interests of every member of the population determine long term corporate interests.

So what happens if:

A) Individual interests vary significantly or

B) Individual interests differ from the national interest?


Also another point to consider if the Defence Force were to be privatised i would imagine that the corporation in charge would have to have a source of income. This would mean that recruits would probably have to pay to enlist and also cover the costs of their training/study.
At the moment a significant part of the attraction to the Defence Force is that the Government pays for your study (if done at ADFA or RMC) and training and also, once you have successfully enlisted, subsidises medical costs.

Should the Defence Force be privatised one would imagine that most of these benefits would disappear and lead to a significant drop in recruitment numbers.

 

[transcendent]

Privatisation cooperation did wonders for the Cross City Tunnel.

I was serious about becoming a mercenary. I wish they'd pay me to kill.

 

[Captain Gh3y]

1) You mention that privatising the Defence Force will increase competition but there is already significant private competition for defence contracts. Most of the equipment used by the Defence Force is manufactured by private companies sub-contracted by the Government.
If Defence were to be privatised it would have to be run by an amalgamation of all the various companies who currently supply materiel as they all have a shared interest.

Most of the equipment used by mining companies is manufactured and maintained by other private companies. These private companies have an interest in the mining sector but do not run it. Defense would be no different.

2) If the police are an essential service then i daresay the Defence Force is also. As has been said the Defence Force serves the national interest and thus should be governed by the nation ie the Government.

The purpose of the police, along with the justice system is to uphold the Law. This cannot be done by a private organisation as they could simply choose to enforce or not enforce various laws to suit their own interests, and the interests of other companies that have dealings with them.

3) Corporate interests would be placed above national interests. What may be seen as necessary/vital/beneficial to the nation may be viewed as extremely costly to the corporation/s in charge of Defence and thus action would not be taken in order to look after profit margins.

But what IS necessary to the nation? Is the war in Iraq? Many Australians do not think so. We have to recognise that all military action is extremely costly; there aren't any cheap wars, except maybe invading Tokelau or Kiribati. If something was, undisputably, vital to the nation, there would be plentiful private support for action.

Privatisation cooperation did wonders for the Cross City Tunnel.

I was serious about becoming a mercenary. I wish they'd pay me to kill.

Join the French Foreign Legion.

 

[The Brucemaster]

Most of the equipment used by mining companies is manufactured and maintained by other private companies. These private companies have an interest in the mining sector but do not run it. Defense would be no different.

What you are describing is exactly what i said: currently Defence is supplied for the most part by private companies, thus there is adequate competition. What is being proposed is that a private company/companies run Defence.

The purpose of the police, along with the justice system is to uphold the Law. This cannot be done by a private organisation as they could simply choose to enforce or not enforce various laws to suit their own interests, and the interests of other companies that have dealings with them.

That is exactly my point with privatising Defence: the corporation could choose how and where to deploy resources and also how those resources are managed at home. Private companies lack the knowledge and experience to do such things adequately.

But what IS necessary to the nation? ... If something was, undisputably, vital to the nation, there would be plentiful private support for action.

Not necessarily. National interest and corporate interest tend to differ in my experience. Even if it were to have private support there would still be numerous problems within Defence, particularly recruiting a la my previous post.

Join the French Foreign Legion.

I concur.

 

[withoutaface]

So what happens if:

A) Individual interests vary significantly or

B) Individual interests differ from the national interest?


Also another point to consider if the Defence Force were to be privatised i would imagine that the corporation in charge would have to have a source of income. This would mean that recruits would probably have to pay to enlist and also cover the costs of their training/study.
At the moment a significant part of the attraction to the Defence Force is that the Government pays for your study (if done at ADFA or RMC) and training and also, once you have successfully enlisted, subsidises medical costs.

Should the Defence Force be privatised one would imagine that most of these benefits would disappear and lead to a significant drop in recruitment numbers.

In case A you have different corporations for different interests, and case B is ridiculous because a nation is just the sum of the individuals who are inside its borders.

 

[The Brucemaster]

But in case A how do those different corporations manage to work together if they have different interests?

Case B, brilliant definition of the nation but not very useful, what you're saying is that national interest and the people's interest are always one and the same, a laughable idea.
Even if the nation is the 'sum of its parts' then that still fails to deal with variation amongst the 'parts' ie the people.

Also, no one has proposed a way of funding Defence under a private corporation. Suggestions?

 

[withoutaface]

So you're saying democracy (the sum of a nation's voting parts) is better than corporations (the sum of a nation's purchasing power) when they're essentially the same thing?

 

[Silver Persian]

some people have more money than others, so you can't argue that allowing corporations to carry out australia's defense function is 'like democracy'.

 

[withoutaface]

Some interest groups have more money than others and can thus lobby our representative democracy more effectively, same deal.