The Reversion of Seattle and Los Angeles to the Middle Ages
The Condottieri and the Private Fire Brigades Ride Again
It's surreal.
The Seattle neighborhood just to the south of me has introduced a neighborhood subscription service for armed private security services. The program might eventually expand to 24/7 private policing. Laurelhurst, a community comprised of about 1,700 households, offers residents a for-hire company of armed guards. The cost is about $650 per year per subscribing household. My neighborhood employs the same private security firm for roughly the same service.
The company deploys off-duty and retired police officers who provide the security that the City no longer can or will provide.
Centuries ago in Medieval and Renaissance Italy - long before there was an actual unified entity known as "Italy" - city-states hired the Condottiere - experienced soldiers-of-fortune who would recruit, train and deploy mercenary armies on their behalf.
For several years, Seattle neighborhoods have been plagued with car prowls, home burglary, vandalism, auto and mail theft. Crime at the Washington State and local level sometimes suggests a Mad Max movie. Among the more common manifestations of lawlessness are widespread and open drug use; "street takeovers" for car racing, stunts and burn outs; bricks and rocks randomly thrown off overpasses into freeway traffic; gang wars; ubiquitous graffiti; and cars stolen to smash through shop windows in armed robberies. A lot of the violent perpetrators are young. They include all demographics. They talk and act like the thugs they see glorified on television, in the movies, on social media, in professional athletics, in video games, on Wall Street, and in politicians' and Pentagon press conferences.
Based on reported statistics, local leaders deny that there is more crime than before. The statistics are misleading. Many people no longer report incidents. The response time is slow, few are arrested and reporting a crime can adversely affect one's insurance premiums. Just recently, I learned that my homeowner's insurance premium increased 15% in just one year. I have not filed any claims against my policy. Rather, the rate increase is due to the worsened actuarial risk taking into account all of the incidents of theft, vandalism, hooliganism and violence that have occurred throughout the area. My automobile insurance premiums are also rising at the same pace for the same reasons.
According to Washington State law, juveniles caught carrying firearms cannot be incarcerated for more than a month until their fifth weapons related arrest. That's right: a juvenile arrested for illegally carrying a gun cannot be incarcerated for more than a month until after the minor's fifth arrest. The kids and the adult criminals know this. Therefore, "adult criminals" delegate mugging and armed robbery to kids who won't suffer the consequences.
The legislators, in response to this criminal behavior, want to impose more restrictions on... ordinary citizens who legally own guns. Proposed legislation would make the victims of theft criminally liable if the thief commits a crime with a stolen weapon. Whether you do or do not "like" guns, this is stupid. It's like making you criminally responsible if someone else steals your car and uses it to smash into a convenience store to rob it.
While Rome burns, the Washington political class (which perceives itself as a subsidiary of California channeling Scandinavia) diddles and fiddles with micro-issues such as:
Changing the state flag to make it look more "inclusive" (This is exactly as harebrained as Mr. Trump renaming the Gulf of Mexico!);
Making it lawful for the homeless and the drug addled to camp on sidewalks, in derelict RVs, in playgrounds and on sidewalks (Rather than address the root educational/economic causes of homelessness and drug abuse);
Suing the Trump Administration to protect "gender-affirming care" (A mushy turn of phrase that seems to include federal financial support for sex-change surgery for children);
Making it more difficult to get direct citizen initiatives on the ballot (As if it weren't hard enough already);
Lowering the threshold for approving school bond levies on real estate (Rather than fully funding schools through the state general fund and making wars funded solely by annual levies on real property);
Proposing to conduct "re-sentencing hearings" for all criminals who have previously been convicted and sentenced... just in case they have rehabilitated themselves (Notwithstanding a parole board's opposition to a reduction in sentence); and
Promulgating new restrictions on the installation of wood-burning stoves and fireplaces because, apparently, they want everyone to go electric (Thus supporting the nuclear power industry and allowing more fracked gas to be liquefied and sold at a higher profit to Europe because Europe has cut off its nose by helping to sabotage the importation of cheaper Russian gas).
Not a word out of our state capitol, of course, about... the predations of Wall Street real estate investment funds, the shrinking of the middle and working classes, the overwhelming political clout of certain über-wealthy Washingtonians and their corporate monopolies, or the subsidization of giant, low wage and marginally desirable mega-projects like sports stadiums, tourism, convention centers and airports.
Are the courts and the local politicians insensitive to the victims, more concerned with the rehabilitation of the perpetrator and (superficial) changes to society at large? Are 'they' intentionally creating an environment of social anxiety that makes it easier to control the general population?
The answer to question #1 appears to be damned if I know, but neither do they; and the answer to question #2 appears to be yes... although the 'they' who are intentionally creating an environment of social anxiety is a bit murky. As intended.
Historically speaking, those who have owned everything have run everything; and those who own and run everything, naturally, want to preserve the status quo. It's not an ethnic or a racial or a religious thing. It's a matter of economic class.
For the most part, many so-called Washington "activists," judges and politicians are not talking about substantive socio-economic changes, but the relatively trite, mostly meaningless and cosmetic paint-brushes of "conservative" versus "progressive" policies. Were they engaged in fundamental changes to the educational, policing, economic, health care, justice and social safety nets essential for a proper society, then I would be less annoyed. But what passes for state and local government "taking action" is just so much performative theater, like MacBeth's lament about the meaninglessness of life, strutting and fretting upon the stage, telling idiotic tales, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. It is entertaining. People applaud. And it accomplishes little.
In the five years between 2020-2024, approximately 700 cops have quit the Seattle Police Department. As of 2025, the pace of recruitment - due, in part, to large cash incentives - now barely exceeds the number of officers retiring or moving to other cities.
The Seattle Police Department has been plagued by personal and ethical scandals, including lawsuits alleging discrimination and sexual harassment at the highest level of administration. There have been random acts of police violence perpetuated at street level. As for actual policing, Seattle has implemented a policy to not treat emergency calls as a true emergency without "verifiable evidence of a crime."
Verifiable evidence of a crime? Seriously? Your 911 call will not be deemed an "emergency" unless you have already been knifed or burglarized?
In 2025, three more local stores have closed: the original Burger Master that has operated since 1952; the University Village Bartell drug store; and, most recently, the City People's Mercantile about a block away from me. The Burger Master and City People's Mercantile were Seattle icons and family owned. Bartell Drugs had been locally owned until it was bought out by Rite Aid... which then went bankrupt.
These three businesses closed due to increased operating expenses, higher insurance premiums (assuming that they could have bought insurance at all), higher employment costs, increased taxes, the increasing difficulty of importing inventory from China, rising tariffs that have forced prices higher, frequent burglaries, repeated shoplifting and recreational vandalism.
Inevitably, the structures that leased to these local retailers will be razed and replaced by the tax-subsidized construction of even more apartment buildings in the name of affordable housing. The apartment buildings will be quickly, and poorly constructed and, for the most part, purchased by investors. The units will not be affordable because inflation will always drive up the rent beyond renters' means. No one will want to live in these cramped, cookie-cutter, urban deserts. They might be forced to live in them, however, because all of the old unaffordable dwellings will have been bulldozed to make room for the new unaffordable dwellings.
Meanwhile, in Los Angeles...
... whole neighborhoods have gone up in smoke. Parts of Pacific Palisades almost resemble Gaza after more than a year of Israeli bombardment.
Conservatives and liberals natter about who is to blame for the LA conflagration and what to do about it. That's a partisan debate I will not join. What struck me, however, was the rise of private fire fighters in Southern California, similar to the private police now employed in Seattle.
Some property insurers hire private fire fighters. It can be much less expensive to deploy a private fire brigade to protect a valuable real estate asset than to pay the claim for its destruction. There are also subscription fire fighting companies in California that can be retained on a standby basis.
In some parts of California, you cannot buy home-owners insurance at all. Additionally, the cost of new and refurbished fire-fighting equipment has skyrocketed. Fire trucks have been priced beyond the budgets of American cities, just like new cars have been priced beyond the budgets of middle class families. The price distortion is due to the monopolistic consolidation of the fire truck industry. As the fire-fighting equipment industry contracted into one company, the cost of fire-fighting equipment went through the roof. Consequently, taxpayers got "soaked"... or their cities gave up on buying fire trucks, just as happened in Los Angeles.
Medieval European and early North American cities were mostly made of wood and they frequently burned. Rome, Paris and London burned down many times, always with great loss of life and property. So did Chicago and San Francisco. Not long ago, the ocean-side town of Lahaina on the Hawaiian island of Maui also burned.
Private fire brigades were common through the late 19th Century in the United States. For a price, a property owner could buy a "fire mark" that attached to the wall. In case of a fire, competing troops of fire fighters would rush to the conflagration. Depending on which "fire mark" you displayed, they would either work to extinguish the blaze... or walk away.
Benjamin Franklin recognized that as cities grew larger and more compact, they would have to create, train and fund public fire fighters. Urban fires are not isolated events. If one house catches fire, then the flames can quickly spread to every other house. Private subscription fire companies thus eventually evolved into modern fire departments supported by taxpayers.
As the examples of Seattle and Los Angeles demonstrate, however, the taxpayer funded police and fire models aren't working as intended. Nor is much else.
Something is rotten in the State of Denmark says the character Marcellus in Shakespeare's Hamlet.
The "State" exists to provide the collective framework within which we can live. In his book Leviathan, first published in 1651, Thomas Hobbes observed that the people yield to the State a monopoly of violence - that is to say, the final and absolute authority in matters of life and death - in return for security. It's a quid pro quo between the governed and those who govern them.
However, when the State cannot or will not provide basic security - police services; an expeditious, fair, and credible legal system; a reliable and affordable telecommunications network; fire protection; a non-mythologized, production-based economy based on a money supply that isn't infinitely inflatable - if these security essentials are not provided, then the State loses its legitimacy.
As the State loses its legitimacy, so also does it lose its monopoly of violence.
That's what we see on the streets and in our neighborhoods.
There are few alternatives to the loss of state legitimacy other than brigandage, vigilantism, or secession from society altogether - either as a community (like the Amish) or as an individual (as in the Wild West of the 19th Century). As illustrated in countless dystopian novels and movies, notwithstanding the fables of the tough individualists, these options are not necessarily desirable, especially in atomized modern societies such as our own. As shown by recent DOGE revelations about the current rot of the "State of Denmark," it is also not easy to distinguish between ordinary criminal gangsterism and the corrupt cancers metastasizing deep within the organs of government.
Washington State (and California) could probably do with a mini-Musk roto-rootering of governmental institutions, too.
How did we get to this dysfunctional state of affairs?
The decay of the Hobbesian Leviathan and the loss of its monopoly of violence - including its inability to provide basic police and fire fighting security - is due, in large measure, to our neglect.
And it is due also to the state's bankruptcy - both fiscal and institutional.
The State of Washington, for one, has no money. In fact, it has a budget shortfall of somewhere between $6 and $16 billion, depending on the day of the week and who you talk to. That's small potatoes compared to the federal budget deficit. But whereas the U.S. Treasury can, any day, any time, gin up unlimited billions and billions of dollar-digits with the click of a mouse, the State of Washington, by law, cannot. This state is supposed to follow simple arithmetic: it can spend what it takes in, and no more. Just like you and me... unless you want to take on piles of debt.
Within the past decade, median household income in Washington State (supposedly!) increased 55%. State tax revenue increased 99%. But state spending increased 114%. State tax revenue in 2023 was $35.4 billion. But the state budget proposed to spend $72 billion in 2025.
Where was the missing money supposed to come from?
In part, the State of Washington was living off the fat of federal subsidies, particularly billions in "Covid money" that issued roughly from 2020 - 2024 from the Biden Treasury Department in Washington D.C. to this Washington on the blue West Coast. The Treasury Department (in conjunction with the Federal Reserve Board) can thus easily inflate the money supply of dollars (which the State of Washington cannot do) and fire-hose it out to states that must balance their budgets. It was a cup and ball game; accounting sleight of hand. Easy shmeezy.
Once the Biden regime disappeared, however, so, too, did the federal fire hydrant to which the hose was connected. Ergo, the giant hole in the Washington State budget.
Now, this is not to say that the current Republican regime is any less slippery in its financial shenanigans than the previous Democratic one. The fire-hose continues to spray but different folks get the money and different folks get hosed. One example is President Trump talking up the "Stargate AI Initiative" that will support investment of up to half a trillion dollars in Larry Ellison, Masayoshi Son and Sam Altman data centers. The money for the data centers, along with new electricity generation to power them, will be spent in... the reliably "red" state of Texas!
Remember: this is how politics work. Washington State bet on the wrong political horse in the last national election cycle and now it is about to get financially punished. Consequently - as this state continues to react hysterically to the Trump re-election - its economic cold shower will continue for at least another two to four years. Maybe longer.
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Los Angeles - whether due to global warming or due to political mismanagement… or both - has glimpsed the fires of the Inferno.
On the mean streets of Seattle, everything continues to go to Hell in the proverbial handbasket.
Politicians continue to bloviate and posture while addressing issues other than what their constituents want and need them to address. Citizens continue to move toward privatized security options as the politicians continue to dwiddle and fiddle.
Centuries ago in Medieval and Renaissance Italy - long before there was an actual unified entity known as "Italy" - city-states hired the Condottiere - experienced soldiers-of-fortune who would recruit, train and deploy mercenary armies on their behalf. Long ago, in Europe and in the United States, private fire companies provided the only security against your house burning down.
The State continues to lose legitimacy and, with the loss of legitimacy, it loses its monopoly of violence. The social contract between the governed and those who govern has been ripped. The Condottiere and the private fire companies are back again.
We are reverting to the Middle Ages.
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Agh. You may be right and I won’t play ostrich, but perhaps instead I’ll concentrate on areas where I might help. You know, things like environmental and habitat preservation, stewardship, voting for folks who have similar ideals … and keeping them on topic.