That’s a superficial analysis. Police departments and other military and paramilitary organizations need to extract their revenues through the bureaucracy of the state. Your municipal PD officer isn’t showing up at your house, hat in hand, and taking collections to fund his beat. He needs the comptroller to impose taxes and the financial sector to move the money and the administration to divvy it out to employees based on rank and tenure.
What’s more, the police require the consent of the public at large. Which means a friendly media and religious community, willing to legitimize their functions. The US occupation in Afghanistan failed, while the Taliban that replaced them consolidated control, because one set of police was seen as illegitimate and another seen as representative of the public will.
Their union makes them unstoppable.
Their union forms a foundation of mutual support and affords individual officers confidence in their security through collective action. But cops are notoriously lazy, stupid, and trigger-happy. When media turns on a police department and the administrative state peels away from them, these institutions disintegrate rapidly.
The reason you don’t see police chiefs walking into the offices of some Fortune 500 companies and announcing “I’m the billionaire now” is rooted in their vulnerability on these fronts.
The issue is that the purpose of a union is to give power to the powerless, but police already have all the power. Their union makes them unstoppable.
That’s a superficial analysis. Police departments and other military and paramilitary organizations need to extract their revenues through the bureaucracy of the state. Your municipal PD officer isn’t showing up at your house, hat in hand, and taking collections to fund his beat. He needs the comptroller to impose taxes and the financial sector to move the money and the administration to divvy it out to employees based on rank and tenure.
What’s more, the police require the consent of the public at large. Which means a friendly media and religious community, willing to legitimize their functions. The US occupation in Afghanistan failed, while the Taliban that replaced them consolidated control, because one set of police was seen as illegitimate and another seen as representative of the public will.
Their union forms a foundation of mutual support and affords individual officers confidence in their security through collective action. But cops are notoriously lazy, stupid, and trigger-happy. When media turns on a police department and the administrative state peels away from them, these institutions disintegrate rapidly.
The reason you don’t see police chiefs walking into the offices of some Fortune 500 companies and announcing “I’m the billionaire now” is rooted in their vulnerability on these fronts.
Unions are meant to bargain against capital.
Capital is already on the side of police.
This is not nearly at complicated as your making it.