• Dozzi92@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    I feel like I understand but if you can elaborate on the last part I’d appreciate it. And I just mean it seems to extend far beyond just capitalism, although that’s surely a driving factor. It’s hard to remove capitalism from a place that basically was made by people trying to hang on to their money.

    • DandomRude@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      What I mean is that I am not aware of any other country that privatizes state sovereign rights in the way that the US does: If someone is sentenced to prison for any crime, it is a punishment that the state determines and thus usually carries out. In the US, however, it is possible for a private company to enforce the sentence “on behalf of the state”. This is a very US-American procedure which, as far as I know, is not implemented in this way anywhere else. I may be wrong, but where I come from, Europe, this is unthinkable because private companies are not allowed to take on government tasks as important as these - at least not to this extent. Another example is the privatization of the military, as Blackwater, now Academi, and others have been doing for decades in the US (recently also Musk with Starlink). In Europe, this is also a matter for the state and the state alone. Even in Russia under Putin’s regime, private armies are officially illegal, although of course they still exist (not officially tho).