Yesterday I published an article by Bitarch “Minarchism is a Marginal Ideology”. In it, the author criticizes the minarchist approach, arguing that minarchists are unable to come to power through democratic means if they run openly on a minarchist platform.

Indeed, this thesis does not contradict history. The USA was formed as a result of a revolution, Georgian reforms happened after a revolution, Chilean reforms after a coup; in Singapore and New Zealand, minarchist reformers came to power through deception, broadcasting a social-democratic agenda before the elections. Only Margaret Thatcher was honestly elected under the banner of shrinking the state, and indeed honestly pursued it, but she failed to achieve stable success in this matter, and today statist reaction reigns supreme in Great Britain.

Bitarch concludes that minarchists, understanding their marginality, will gravitate toward violent methods of imposing their ideology, which gives him reason to state that from the perspective of the average person, minarchist politicians are liberal fascists. Naturally, such a loud thesis could not fail to provoke a sharp reaction.

Alex Kotov, host of the Crypto-Libertarian channel, published an article with objections today. Due to the somewhat disjointed nature of the article, it is difficult to comment on, so I will touch upon just a couple of theses.

Bitarch writes that a minarchist state assumes the unity of laws throughout the entire territory, meaning that conditional leftists will miss their leftist laws. Thus, they will simply vote against the minarchist party and keep their labor code, minimum wage, veteran benefits, and other achievements of the welfare state. Panarchy, however, assumes a peaceful separation, where each interest club has its own rules, including those regarding the organization of social security and the resolution of labor disputes.

Alex responds that the forced redistribution of income contradicts libertarianism, and therefore panarchy is not a variety of libertarianism, and accordingly, the article criticizes not only minarchism but libertarianism as a whole.

This is a slightly strange thesis, since within the framework of contractual relations, a subscription fee for an agreed package of services can be stipulated. Another matter is that any contract can be terminated at any moment; otherwise, it is already slavery. So it is not surprising that another of Alex’s theses — “minarchists leave only the function of ensuring the fulfillment of contracts to the state, regardless of the content of the contract” — will logically be perceived by any anarchist (and even a supporter of panarchy) as a very bad sign. It happens that people sign oppressive contracts because at that moment they see no other way to make ends meet. When circumstances change, they leave these oppressive relationships with a sense of deep satisfaction, and, of course, a court of a minarchist state that decides to demand compliance with the original terms of the contract at that moment will be perceived as a violation of justice. A well-known ancap like Mikhail Svetov speaks quite extensively and in detail about the importance of the fact that any contract can be refused.

Now, another argument against panarchy seemed quite interesting to me. Supporters of panarchy claim that free competition between contractual jurisdictions will lead to the victory of the most free in the competitive race, so that leftists will gradually dissipate on their own. However, in the real world, the opposite is observed. Free competition between states with different laws leads to the fact that freedoms are curtailed everywhere, and governments are happy to adopt each other’s experience specifically in curtailing freedoms. Thus, competition alone is not enough; a moral compass is needed. Therefore, natural law rules, and contractual law sucks.

Overall, this is a fairly strong argument, but I want to draw attention to a very important difference between territorial and extraterritorial jurisdictions. It is much easier for extraterritorial ones to expand. Take such a wonderful liberal territorial jurisdiction as Hong Kong. People are practically climbing over each other there, so great is the desire of residents of neighboring China to live under liberalism. If this jurisdiction were extraterritorial, there would be no need to go huddle on an island; you simply sign a contract and live under Hong Kong law, pay Hong Kong taxes, and receive Hong Kong social services. And if you want handouts in your old age, you enter into a contract with some leftist jurisdiction where you are entitled to a basic income. What will the competition between such jurisdictions lead to? Either leftist jurisdictions will begin to impose entry restrictions, admitting only the young and healthy, or they will break under the weight of the social burden.

So, progress in social mores occurs not by ethics alone, but also by the competition of economic systems.

In conclusion, I want to announce an article where I intend to bring ancap, minarchism, panarchy, and agorism into a more or less coherent picture. I hope to release it within a week and count on the fact that there will be fewer such disputes after that.