Alex Rozov, author of the Meganesian cycle, began in his LiveJournal preliminary inquiries into how he might best write a capitalist transutopia—that is, a realistic positive picture of pure capitalism, the processes that led to it, and the processes that make it sustainable. I have serious doubts that he will succeed, because his understanding of the market does not seem entirely adequate to me. Roughly speaking, he will be inclined to think about the market more according to Marx than according to Mises. The crowd grazing in his comments is more likely to exacerbate his problems, because, as usual, it is full of choice Hobbesians who believe humanity to be thoroughly depraved and in need of a strong regulator, without which people would, of course, devour each other.

Also interesting is a certain passage set forth by one of his commenters, with which the author generally agreed:

“Professional” supporters of capitalism (writing in popular analytical media) gloss over real capitalism.

“Unprofessional” ones (participating in online flame wars) imagine a picture-book capitalism—or rather, not capitalism at all, but some phantom feudalism interspersed with farmers, artisans, and shopkeepers with primitively structured family businesses.

Real capitalism, however (in which the main players are large companies with pyramids of bureaucracy, complex ownership relations, unspoken deals between top managers and majority shareholders, and even more complex relations with financial-banking and state systems) is unacceptable to the “unprofessionals.” Such capitalism seems (suddenly) to them to be a “leftist distortion of capitalism.”

In short, the state is considered by them to be an indispensable, inevitable, and inherent attribute of capitalism, which accordingly makes all ancap ideas, for them, mere picture-book images that cannot have any relation to reality.

Mikhail Svetov once promised to write a book about libertarianism and flaked. I had to take it upon myself and write my own. Vladimir Zolotorev complained about the lack of a libertarian theory of war; I had to start thinking in that direction as well. Now, it seems, I will also have to compose some sort of fictional text about what one of the many possible embodiments of ancap looks like. I am currently in the bargaining stage: well, maybe I should wait a bit, and perhaps Alex will write something passable after all—he is a prolific author, he even wrote about a cesspit cleaner under communism, so why shouldn’t he solve this new problem, and I won’t have to take up something I’m not good at.

But just in case Rozov doesn’t deliver, or the result matches my current low expectations, I am starting to think about how to do something of my own. My strengths are a sense of style, conciseness, and analytical abilities. My weaknesses are difficulty keeping a broad vision in mind and a poor imagination; that is why my creative work consists of short posts on specific topics assigned by others. However, what is required here is a fairly voluminous fictional text.

Most likely, a passable solution would be a cycle of stories. A sort of Montelliberian cycle as a counterpoint to the Meganesian one. I don’t know. I don’t want to think about it yet. It’s scary to dive into these waters.