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Modern anarchists generally envision private defense agencies (PDAs) providing security services on an insurance basis. Besides the advantages of competition over monopoly, there are other reasons why free market defense services would likely be superior to government services.
- Higher customer satisfaction, since everyone could choose the types and levels of service they desire.
- "Victimless crime" laws would be significantly curtailed. Customers make the choices rather than government elites trying to mold society, and customers would pay the costs of prohibition rather than these costs being diverted onto the general public.
- Police would be more courteous and rights-aware. They would become peace officers instead of pigs, as people become customers or potential customers rather than suspects or potential criminals.
- There would be greater emphasis on compensation to the victim of crime. Restitution replaces atonement to the state and punishment by the state.
- Greater incentive to recover stolen property and find criminals. If PDAs, like insurance companies, pay for stolen property soon after it is stolen, there is incentive to find the criminal and recoup losses.
- A greater emphasis on crime prevention. Lower insurance payouts give PDAs an incentive to prevent crime; government police lack this incentive.
One of the most persistent delusions among statists is the assumption that there needs to be a monopoly in police and arbitration services. Most people do not realize that territorially based monopoly law is relatively new in the grand historical scheme of things. Before the rise of the nation-state, prior to 1500, Europe generally had a polycentric legal system. Legal jurisdiction was not soley based on location like most places today, but based on kinship and ethnic association, type of conflict (e.g. religious or commercial or family), and various other factors. Even conquerors like Alexander and the Roman Caesars often left indigenous legal systems in place. Jesus was convicted by a Jewish court, not a Roman court.
After five centuries of statist monopoly law, people have forgotten that the best and most judicious of their legal systems stem from voluntary systems of private law. British and American law is based on Anglo-Saxon common law - a system that saw judges competing in wisdom and fairness for customers, where law was "discovered" rather than legislated. Law Merchant was private law developed by early shippers independent of government oversight. It is the basis for international commercial law to this day.
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