The timeline doesn't support this novel historical theory. Wild was executed in 1725, and the McDaniels were convicted in 1756. Metropolitan police forces weren't set up until the 1820s and 1830s. Did the theory you heard have any explanation for the 100-year gap between the scourge of "private security" (pretending for the sake of discussion that the thief-takers were in any sense similar to that) and creation of the police?

One might be tempted to comment on the irony of your chiding "Libertarians" [NB: TFA is of unionist if not Marxist perspective] for their poor history, if one were not distracted by the implication that "entrenched corruption" is a rarity in the current regime.

Actually, the timeline does support the theory. The historical nucleus of the Metropolitan Police is the force organized by Henry Fielding, in the 1750s, when the Wild scandal was still on everyone's minds. That provided a template, and the growth of London in the late 18th/early 19th century meant that local forces were unable to keep up. In 1830 or thereabouts the local constabularies were amalgamated into the Met.

As for the corruption bit, with private security forces we know the weakness from the historical example already. With public police, public oversight puts a limit on corruption, at least in theory. Certainly London saw an improvement with the government providing police service.

I know nothing about this particular topic, but my first reaction was to find this statement highly suspect and at best full of exaggeration: "The historical nucleus of the Metropolitan Police is the force organized by Henry Fielding, in the 1750s, when the Wild scandal was still on everyone's minds"

30 years is a long time. Is Iran-Contra still on everyone's minds when it comes to discussions over geopolitics? I suppose it's still a factor.

Iran-Contra was a damp squib. What happens if you replace it with e.g. "Nixon"?

Seriously? These days, the public consciousness routinely loses track of major issues within days or weeks. We're already forgetting the major lessons of the last decade (re: renewed war fervor and attacks on civil rights over ISIS). 40+ years ago is ancient history politically.

I don't think the timescale was the same in 18th century England, but we're still talking about a generation-level gap here--I don't think you could just automatically assume a connection without some evidence.

Public consciousness routinely loses track of major issues within days or weeks, as a result of mass media and entertainment. Once the television and radio were invented, people's focus started shifting to the here and now, be it the news or their favourite programme on TV. One can't really say the same for the late 1700's! That's my take on it, at least

That theory seems to be rather sketchy in practice.

Government police forces are policed by the government.

Private police forces are also policed by the government, but since they're different organizations, perhaps in reality it would be better.

We already have private police forces. (security guards, police in private communities, etc.) On a different note, we also have privatized prisons. With re prisons people tend to not like them because of the incentive to keep people locked up. I don't see how privatized police forces would escape the same kind of criticism.

All types of prison systems have that incentive. Just because government prisons are non-profit entities doesn't mean the people running them don't make out like bandits. I've read that the California prison guard union is politically very powerful.

Private police, though ... in an era where early death is relatively uncommon vs. omnipresent, what's their incentive to take risks beyond what they're paid for? That what can be problematic, there's many reasons self-help is outlawed, but in the examples you give there's no immediately obvious problem.

I think the issue with regard to privatized prisons (and perhaps would-be privatized police) is that there's a profit motive. A need to keep profits up. Whereas public prisons can take the hit --ie. the losses are incurred by state coffers. A private corp can't take that economic hit as well.

The customer of privatized police forces is you, the end user, which is why there is healthy competition and relatively few "incidents."

The customer of the privatized prison is not you but the state. As a result, they compete with each other to do the best "prisoning" (ie punishing bs rehabilitation, using them as almost-slave labor) for thirst cost. If you were the customer, (as in you directly picked your prison provider), the incentives would be much different: http://youtube.com/watch?v=SzYJYSm-MfI

I think the reason there are fewer 'incidents' as you put it, is that private forces are wont to escalate issues to state police forces. Some private security have severe restrictions on when they may or may not fire their firearms --due to not having the same immunity (indemnification) as state police forces.

The video presenter presumes people will follow rules --even violent people will follow rules --what force is going to enforce those rules 'not being on someone's property', for example. And unless all communities are run similarly, this will create 'outcasts'. Bad actors would just find another place to lay low.

The etymology of the word "police" supports your British security forces notion (with the addition of the Marine aspect):

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?&search=police police (n.) c.1530, at first essentially the same word as policy (n.1); from Middle French police (late 15c.), from Latin politia "civil administration," from Greek polis "city" (see polis). Until mid-19c. used in England for "civil administration;" application to "administration of public order" (1716) is from French (late 17c.), and originally in English referred to France or other foreign nations. The first force so-named in England was the Marine Police, set up 1798 to protect merchandise at the Port of London.

Jonathan Wild: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Wild

Thanks for the pointer. The Wikipedia text seems way more of a movie script (daring escape after daring escape (if I had to guess, most of them involving bribes), tickets sold to a hanging, etc) than the very loose adaptation at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065209/, but I guess the movie makers wanted a happy ending.

Maybe the director of Game of Thrones should have a go at this story?

To defend the privatization on consequentialist grounds, one doesn't have to believe it won't lead to entrenched corruption; just that it'll lead to less corruption that the public system.