A detailed question from Vasily, to which a donation of 0.00008257 btc was kindly attached for urgency.

I do not believe that panarchy is libertarianism

Yes, a panarchist structure of power will most likely be freer than a centralized one. But the ideas of panarchy resemble a tool for state or social organization more. There is nothing in them about traditional libertarian self-ownership, and nothing is clear even regarding the freedom to exit a jurisdiction. Most academic articles acknowledge the need for an additional jurisdiction that ensures the legal capacity of people and their freedom from the oppression of panarchist jurisdictions. Panarchism as a tool could well be used by a quasi-statist regime: transforming the power of oligarchs into actual serfdom jurisdictions where corporate slaves have no right to exit. This results in the classic cyberpunk scenario that sci-fi writers warned about. For real freedom, we still need classic libertarian works: the concept of self-ownership, the NAP, and their political implementation, whether it be ancap or minarchism. And only then, if people need FOCJs, the market will decide. In short, there is no guarantee that panarchy leads to libertarianism, and I see no libertarian value in the idea of FOCJs itself.

Proof from your own translation of FOCJ:

One condition is fundamental for the correct functioning of FOCJs: the guarantee of political and economic competition. This means the openness and freedom of markets, specified in the “four freedoms”—the free movement of people, goods, services, and capital—all of which must be protected. At the same time, the political markets of FOCJs must be competitive, meaning that human rights and basic democratic rights must be guaranteed. This includes the right of people to use direct democracy as a tool.
Like states, FOCJs will by nature strive to undermine any competition, following their commercial interests by attempting to build cartels or monopolies. This requires the existence of a “competition oversight board” responsible for ensuring compliance with the rules. This body will also regulate the limits of fees for entry contributions and exit penalties.

In other words, this article explicitly acknowledges that what they call “jurisdictions” must exist within a single legal regime. What the authors call “jurisdictions” looks less like jurisdictions in a political-legal sense and more like providers of certain services; their jurisdictional nature lies only in the fact that they obtain the right to “collect taxes.” A libertarian minimal state does not solve the problems the authors propose handing over to FOCJs, but rather the problems that allow FOCJs to exist and function.

Restricting trade is locally beneficial, which is why historically, people who gained power over a jurisdiction began introducing various fees, penalties, fines, and so on. One could say this was only possible because there was no exit from jurisdictions (and there wasn’t). The thing is, every jurisdiction will be interested in restricting exit, which is exactly what is discussed in the area of the FOCJ article excerpt I quoted above. That is why the authors themselves introduce some minarchist or ancap—it doesn’t matter which—body that stands above and before the FOCJ. And this is exactly what libertarians propose to implement. As for the FOCJs—let the free market decide.

Answer from Ancap-chan

You correctly noted the main shortcomings of the idea of functional overlapping competing jurisdictions proposed by Eichenberger and Frey: it is a certain optimization of existing government functionality without eliminating the key flaws of the state and without guarantees that a management system reformed in this way will not revert over time to a level of oppression as high as it is now. The internal protection against abuse in the FOCJ system is not much higher than in modern states.

The advantage of the FOCJ system is not that it offers the best solution, but that it offers a solution implementable within the specific framework of the European Union. In conditions where, due to flaws inherent in this political Frankenstein, one of the largest European economies is already separating from it, a political force that raises FOCJs on its banners has some chance of success. Moreover, FOCJs can be implemented locally first, and only then can the experience be extended to wider territories.

FOCJ is not panarchy. “Competing,” although it starts with the same letter as “contractual,” is not necessarily contractual, meaning there is no talk of voluntary entry into one jurisdiction or another. As a control mechanism, the authors propose good old representative democracy, which forms the corresponding bodies, as well as direct democracy, allowing local decisions to be made at the level of a particular FOCJ. I have written about the flaws of democracy, so I will not repeat myself.

You suggest the option: “first pure ancap, and then let the market decide if FOCJs are needed.” This brings us closer to Nozick’s speculations: let’s imagine we have pure ancap, and now I will demonstrate to you how it will over time transform into an ultra-minimal state without contradicting libertarian principles. Similarly, based on certain assumptions about human nature and what is just, one could probably derive that pure ancap will inevitably mutate over time into panarchy, i.e., a system of FOCJs.

Either way, for such reasoning to become relevant, one must first achieve pure ancap. Meanwhile, both minarchism and panarchy are ways of reducing state oppression that may or may not lead to pure ancap, and putting the cart before the horse here makes sense only as a thought experiment to determine how stable pure ancap is.

The remaining question is whether the FOCJ system can turn into panarchy over time, and whether that would then turn into ancap. If yes, then it makes sense to support it. If not, then it is a dead end, and FOCJ is as much an obstacle for a true ancap as a regular big state.

Here, as with any forecasts, I step onto the shaky ground of conjecture. My conjecture is that it is easier to bring sparkling cleanliness where it isn’t already heavily soiled, than where the initial cleaning requires bringing the waters of Alpheus and Peneus to the Augean stables. Switzerland, Singapore, North Korea, and Somalia are all far from ancap. For pure ancap to appear there, one must, first, abolish the state, and, second, ensure non-state institutions for the protection of private property. Of course, in Somalia it is easier to abolish the state, and in Switzerland it is easier to ensure the protection of private property, so choosing which of these countries is easier to establish ancap in may prove difficult. But comparing North Korea and Singapore, it is quite obvious that building ancap is easier in Singapore: the state is slightly weaker there, and property is much better protected. Likewise, it is sufficiently obvious that building ancap is easier in a Europe built on the basis of FOCJs than in the current European Union.

So I would wish the esteemed authors of the article on FOCJs a swift adoption of their ideas by European politicians. Even if FOCJ is not libertarianism, with FOCJ, libertarianism has a better chance.