A significant portion of the population consists of so-called “budgetniki”—employees of government structures and corporations. According to various estimates, about 30% of the working-age population in Russia are budget employees. A very reasonable question may arise: what happens to them in the event of achieving a free society? After all, they are accustomed to working according to state standards, which often lag behind the requirements of the private sector. For example, the professionalism of government teachers or medics is very often inferior to that of private workers. If the state ceases to exist, these people will not be able to realize themselves in a private environment, as it is unlikely that anyone will need them given their relatively low qualifications, and thus their poor ability to attract clients and generate income for an organization. Moreover, undergoing additional qualification is a rather difficult task for people who have been working at the same pace for many years without any changes.
Will all budget employees find themselves on the street in an instant? But that would lead to a catastrophe, as they constitute too large a part of the population. Most likely, they would demand the return of the monopolistic and coercive power they are used to, because under it they at least had no problems with survival; the state provided them with funds even if they brought relatively little benefit to other people. According to Hirschleifer’s criteria, a stable free society requires that there be no people driven beyond the edge of survival, because having nothing to lose, they will do anything, including acts of violence; the more such people there are, the more violence there will be, potentially reaching scales that threaten the preservation of a non-violent social order.
Besides budget employees, we must also remember the people who receive assistance from the state without which they simply cannot survive. The disabled, pensioners, orphans—can they really be deprived of the benefits they receive for survival, thereby condemning them to a short, impoverished life on handouts or death altogether?
However, there are at least two solutions to this issue, which, of course, cannot cover absolutely all the problems of civil servants and social assistance recipients, but should handle the vast majority of them.
The first solution will arise on its own in the process of practicing agorism. The creation of alternative social institutions to the state while the state’s monopolistic power still exists is very important so that people are not left with nothing, but have the opportunity to switch at a pace convenient for them from state work to work in similar independent organizations. This mitigates the problem, as budget employees will not be put in a position where only immediate dismissal and the need to find an alternative right away await them. No, they will be able to seek alternatives while having the ability to continue their accustomed life for some time, without worrying about their own survival.
Also, in the process of practicing agorism, various interest-based communities will emerge, and budget employees can use them to organize mutual aid systems. This same answer applies to socially vulnerable layers of the population; they too can find a place in such systems.
If this answer seems unconvincing to you, then there is another option. Achieving a free society does not consist of eliminating the state as an organization; no, this process is aimed only at destroying its power structure, which allows it to impose a monopolistic order on everyone through the threat of violence, and at equalizing the Balance of Violence Potential among all subjects of society, so that no one can simply recreate power by force. This is also called the non-violent state scenario. In this way, we only achieve the appearance of alternatives to the state organization, which anyone wishing can use, but not its complete destruction.
Naturally, many people accustomed to the state will remain. Even without coercion, they will pay it for the services provided to them. Many people are simply used to state schools, clinics, and other institutions, so they will continue to use them even under conditions of freedom. This means budget employees will not lose their jobs. Likewise, the socially vulnerable layers of the population will not lose their social payments.
Of course, for a non-violent state to survive in conditions of freedom, it will have to become an efficient and competitive organization. It can be expected that the officials managing it will succeed, as they will now have the necessary market tools to evaluate the effectiveness of their activities, since it will make sense to compare income with expenses (currently such a comparison is pointless, as any expenses can be covered by taxation and the use of monopoly privileges). Moreover, they will have to work honestly, without deception, corruption, or theft; otherwise, the state-organization will go bankrupt, and they will find themselves on the street in poverty and debt. It is also quite expected that the leadership of the state, once it becomes a competitive organization, will quickly be replenished by people who know how to work in a market environment, as, again, this is also a very good way to avoid bankruptcy.
But even if the state does not become efficient in conditions of freedom, it will still be able to hold on for some time thanks to the people who are accustomed to it. An analogy can be drawn with the fear of progress. Some people fear that new technologies will lead to crowds of displaced workers who have become obsolete. However, it doesn’t work that way; if, for example, a sufficiently good autopilot is invented that can replace human taxi drivers, it will still take many years, if not decades, for its widespread implementation. The taxi driver profession will disappear gradually, allowing current taxi drivers to work out their careers; there simply won’t be a demand for new taxi drivers, and people currently choosing their professional path will simply look at other, more relevant options.
The same applies here. If the state, having become a private organization, gradually falls apart, then current budget employees and social assistance recipients will be able to live their lives as they planned; it is simply that new employees and needy people will seek work and receive help from alternative organizations. In the non-violent state scenario, that day when everything collapses in an instant is unlikely to occur.
