or a realistic scenario for the transition to a free society
Bitarch’s Column
The text has been substantially revised by me with the author’s permission. The original publication is in Bitarch’s public page.
After reading the headline, you probably can’t immediately tell if it’s a joke. The phrase looks like an oxymoron! A stationary bandit (the state) exercises its power through violent coercion, so how can there even be such a thing as a non-violent state?! In reality, such a form of social organization could very well exist as a transitional stage toward a completely stateless society. To understand the idea, one must separate the state’s tools for physical coercion from everything else (legislation, courts, property registries, infrastructure, roads, medicine, and so on) and remove the former.
How could such a hybrid emerge at all? In short, as a result of society adopting the idea that aggressive physical violence is unacceptable. While non-aggression is a necessary condition for creating a free (libertarian/voluntarist) society, it could very well be achieved by activists who have no connection to libertarianism whatsoever. For example, in the Scandinavian countries, an unambiguous consensus on the ban of violence against children has been reached for half a century, and this was done by non-libertarians. Nothing prevents the launch of a public campaign to promote the universal principle of non-aggression, for example, by motivating it with the threat of strong negative externalities of aggressive violence for society as a whole (this argument has already proven its effectiveness in banning violence against children and even animals, leading to its eradication in most developed countries) or even the self-destruction of humanity. With a fairly high probability, this campaign will be carried out by activists who do not even know the meaning of the word “libertarianism,” although, by doing so, they will open the way to a world where libertarianism can be implemented in practice.
A rough scenario of how events might unfold:
1) A new (or even the same) “Greta Thunberg” actively promotes the idea of the unacceptability and danger of aggressive violence. These ideas gain viral distribution, quickly reaching the masses. Perhaps some of the activists even become “Person of the Year” according to Time magazine.
2) Pressure on officials and security forces increases. Even neighbors begin to tell them, “You’re a new Hitler, get out,” friends stop communicating with them, and they are no longer allowed into bars and clubs. An increasing number of security officers refuse to handle the enforcement of victimless “crimes,” such as speeding, because they fear subsequent shaming. For officials, terrorizing businesses, especially small ones, also begins to mean political death.
3) People who desire firm order and discipline, and who are used to reporting their neighbors to the police, are, of course, outraged. The police no longer throw anyone in the slammer, but instead arrive and gently persuade people to behave decently—this works worse, and it causes moral indignation: why the hell are they pandering to these scoundrels using our taxes, instead of taking decisive measures.
4) Inevitable changes occur at the legislative level—primarily, of course, in parliamentary democracies. Anyone who advocates for maintaining the status quo will simply lose the election, as if they were advocating for the legalization of DDT or leaded gasoline. Responding to the voters’ demand, parliamentarians are forced to invent measures of coercion that do not involve the use of violence. At this stage, deputies likely won’t even consider issues so familiar in libertarian discussions (how to transition to private roads, schools, hospitals, pensions, the legal standing of children, legalization of drugs, etc.).
5) Thus, parliaments begin to pass laws abolishing restrictive measures and punishments such as imprisonment, and banning the use of weapons by the police; at the same time, of course, they make it harder for private individuals to acquire weapons—but the state will not be able to enforce this particular ban effectively, since it has renounced violent coercion itself. Defense funding is reduced, the army stops training in hotspots around the world, and is limited to peaceful exercises.
6) All other functions of the state (except for forceful coercion) continue to operate as before: educational and medical institutions, issuance of documents, courts, traffic regulation, and even the tax service. After all, when many European countries began talking about banning internal combustion engine (ICE) cars, no one suggested getting rid of the habitual “automobile” lifestyle entirely. ICE fuel is much more convenient than a bulky battery, but it becomes a victim of the fight for ecology, even if that fight contains only 10% common sense and 90% hysteria. It is similar with violence—for the state, it is a very convenient tool, but since it is considered unacceptable, an alternative must be found. Nevertheless, the law-abiding majority, who hardly encounter state violence even now, will at first not even notice that something has changed.
7) In international politics, the mechanism of economic sanctions has long been used instead of military coercion. Most likely, this same method will now be applied to citizens instead of direct police violence. This tool, despite its deceptive softness, is quite powerful, especially in a welfare state where all sorts of payments and the acquisition of countless permits for activities depend on the state.
8) People caught in the steamroller of state economic sanctions will be forced to look for ways to survive independently. Informal mutual aid associations will emerge, which will gradually provide their participants—who have de facto exited state jurisdiction—with more or less acceptable living conditions. In fact, these are the contractual jurisdictions we have long studied theoretically.
Thus gradually, thanks to political pressure making the use of violence unacceptable, classic territorial states will turn into panarchies. Only some of the contractual jurisdictions will be libertarian, but converting humanity to libertarianism entirely is a completely redundant task. It is quite enough that the choice of orders under which a person lives occurs voluntarily.
