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Are We Ready For Free Policing?
Yes, defunding police forces might sound crazy. But to some economists the idea is neither new nor radical. Plus, it might even work.
“Everything Begins With An Idea.” — Earl Nightingale
London, December, 1996. A meeting of the Institute of Economic Affairs — a think tank of academics and policymakers that had come to prominence as the rational libertarian conscience of the British Conservative party. Many of its crazier notions (like allowing stores to open when they want to and council tenants to buy their homes) had already become real under Margaret Thatcher.
The IEA is also known for advancing even woolier ideas like “free banking” — the idea that if countries didn’t have central banks (like Scotland in the 1800s) they would have even lower inflation and more stable money supplies. Why? Because private banks issuing their own currencies have no incentive to devalue them — this would effectively exclude them from doing business with others — the way central banks do.
So this is the setting. A place that sees radical ideas as neither left nor right wing — just as more or less workable.
All are measured by one standard: do they promote or harm freedom? This is the…
