One of the options for achieving a social order in which human rights are respected, property is protected, and there is the maximum possible absence of violence is proposed by the concept of open access order, described in the work of Douglass North, John Wallis, and Barry Weingast titled “Violence and Social Orders.” Those seeking a solution to various social problems, including the problem of violence, while remaining within the framework of the institution of statehood, are increasingly turning to this concept. But is it truly workable, and can it solve these problems?
To begin, let us briefly familiarize ourselves with what is meant by open access order. We will do this in comparison with another concept – limited access order. In limited access, state power is held by a coalition of elites who mutually recognize and share rent-seeking income (income from monopolized economic spheres and natural resources, as well as the issuance of licenses to conduct activities). In contrast, open access means the impersonality of political management mechanisms, the influence over which is available to all citizens of the state.
Some conclusions can already be drawn from this definition. Political management mechanisms cannot, in principle, be made impersonal, since in any case they require managers and executors. Even if one imagines some kind of absolute direct democracy (the reality of which does not exist on a large scale), an infrastructure for executing decisions is still necessary, which, again, contains these groups of people. In this case, the managers are indeed the elites of the established system. Why? To explain this, we must point to another fact – rent from monopolies does not disappear upon the achievement of open access order. Economic spheres, natural resources, and types of activities that no one has the right to manage without appropriate state permission still generate income directed into the centralized budget of political management bodies, meaning directly into the hands of those same managers. I believe that corruption, lobbying of interests, and the embezzlement of budget funds, which currently exist in any state, should indisputably explain that these managers are merely another elite redistributing these funds for their own benefit, thus deriving income from them.
Another thing that clearly does not align with the reduction of violence in society is the fact that a mandatory prerequisite for achieving open access order is the consolidation of all security structures in the hands of a single organization. In effect, we have the complete elimination of the balance of violence potential in favor of a monopoly on violence, which, by the way, is an inherent property of the current state. And what reduction in the level of violence can be discussed if the monopolist of violence, due to the defenselessness of other subjects, has greater opportunities to commit acts of violence?
This can be particularly confirmed by examples of open access orders in the form of states that have reached this condition. The work “Violence and Social Orders” lists 20 such states. This list includes the USA, Great Britain and its former dominions, Scandinavia, Benelux, France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Portugal, as well as some other states with certain reservations. And really, has violence been defeated in these countries? Does the monopolist of violence there never abuse its position?
And finally, I will give you a general fact – any state that has a monopoly on power, regardless of its structure, is an organ that commits violence. Even if one imagines the same absolute direct democracy, it is inevitably linked to the forceful coercion of the minority to the will of the majority. Furthermore, the very fact of the existence of a state, in which you are required to be a member by compulsory order, points us to the impossibility of eradicating violence with its help.
The topic of non-violent tools for implementing measures against those who violate agreements has been raised by us several times before. Usually, in such cases, the conversation revolves around reputational institutions and ostracism, but besides this, the case of financial instruments providing the possibility of predetermining mechanisms to cover damages caused by a breach of agreement is particularly interesting. Transaction insurance can be called a fairly universal tool of this kind.
To demonstrate what is meant by transaction insurance, let us look at a case of an existing implementation of this practice. It is actively used in lending, especially when it comes to large loans or mortgages. The essence is that the person borrowing the funds also signs an insurance contract, under which they undertake to additionally pay an insurance premium, usually in the amount of a certain percentage of the remaining debt. This percentage is small; its value rarely exceeds 1%, and in the case of a mortgage, one can find an insurance premium rate as low as 0.25% of the remaining debt.
Why is this necessary? If a person finds themselves unable to repay the loan, or if they took it solely for the purpose of stealing the credit funds with no intention of returning them, then these funds are covered by insurance. Given that, in reality, not such a large percentage of people actually violate the terms of the transaction, the funds collected through insurance premiums are quite sufficient to cover the damage caused by a small percentage of deceivers.
As for me, transaction insurance has very great potential. This concept could be applied to a wide spectrum of transactions in principle. During any transaction, the parties could register the contract with an insurance company and contribute a certain small percentage of the transaction amount to an insurance fund. If one of the parties violates the terms of the transaction, the insurance company where the insurance was registered compensates the damaged party.
This method can also be combined with other types of non-violent sanctions, such as the aforementioned ostracism. A violator of a transaction will, of course, end up on blacklists; the insurance company, which had to spend funds from its fund to compensate for the damage, is especially interested in this. The violator’s life will be very difficult; many will refuse to conduct transactions with them or offer less favorable terms that account for the risk that this person might cheat. But, of course, they can get out of this situation if they eventually agree to cooperate and make concessions to those who suffered from their violation. Of course, they may not have the opportunity to compensate for the damage caused at the moment, however, in such a situation, the parties usually agree on more accessible terms for fulfilling obligations. In the credit sphere, a good example is the debt restructuring procedure, when payments are shifted to the future, stretched over time—which reduces the payment amount—or when a part of the interest rate or the debt itself is written off. In the end, all parties prefer some solution to the problem over the absence of one.
Reputational institutions can also be combined with transaction insurance in a different way. If someone is known for their honesty, with many transactions behind them that they did not violate, they may be offered lower insurance premiums, or even their complete absence. If, however, someone is a known violator or an unreliable agent, transactions with them can be concluded only on the condition of paying higher insurance premiums. Thus, it becomes profitable for people not to violate agreements, since the replenishment of the insurance fund will be shifted specifically onto the violators.
There are various ways to explain why forceful coercion is an ineffective, useless, or even harmful approach to achieving certain goals. We will examine one of them now. I was inspired to write this material by an article about an alternative, more effective method of fighting the coronavirus pandemic than the total ban on certain types of human interaction. You can read the full version of it via this link. I will provide a brief overview of it here.
In the fight against the pandemic, it is important to avoid social contacts. However, humans are beings who, in most cases, cannot fully do without them. Research shows that humans are strongly psychologically dependent on social contacts. And attempting to ban them will only lead to the fact that they will still occur, they will simply go underground.
The concept of “harm reduction” comes to our aid. Based on this concept, a much better result is achieved not through prohibition and blame, but through awareness and an attempt to encourage a person to make decisions that, while not completely eradicating risky behavior, will allow the associated harm to be reduced. This concept emerged during the AIDS crisis in the 1980s; it was implemented as a needle exchange program for drug addicts so that they would not risk contracting various infectious diseases by using one syringe for several people. Naturally, drug addicts were far more willing to engage in harm reduction than to submit to bans. Furthermore, the opportunity to choose harm reduction as opposed to harsh measures often encourages people to abandon risky behavior. This is confirmed even by statistical data in the case of drug addiction—the health of participants in needle exchange programs only improved; they were less likely to start taking drugs and more likely to seek treatment for addiction.
Another important concept called the “abstinence violation effect” tells us that harsh measures fundamentally do not work when getting rid of risky behavior, because a person stops perceiving failures adequately. For example, when a person tries to quit smoking by abruptly giving up cigarettes, a relapse will most likely lead them to think, “since I’ve already ruined everything, there’s no point in trying anymore,” and they will cease any further attempts to do so. A more effective strategy is a gradual withdrawal without the use of harsh measures and treating relapses as a normal phenomenon in the process of getting rid of a bad habit.
In the case of the coronavirus pandemic, governments decided to fight it specifically by introducing harsh measures and blaming people who do not comply with them. However, as we can already see, this does not solve the problem in any way. People see no point in submitting to such measures and giving up social contacts; on the contrary, they only hide their behavior and resist the measures being introduced. A more reasonable strategy in this case would have been harm reduction—that is, informing people about the risks of certain types of social contacts and promoting a competent approach to assessing these risks in various situations, rather than attempting to establish total bans. Then they would have been more inclined to follow measures that are useful in the fight against the pandemic.
In conclusion, by familiarizing ourselves with psychological concepts such as “harm reduction” and the “abstinence violation effect,” and by observing them in practice in cases such as drug addiction and the pandemic, we can conclude that forceful coercion—that is, harsh measures to implement certain types of behavior—cannot be an effective approach to achieving any goals; people will simply evade or resist. It would be far more effective not to pressure people, not to blame them for anything, and to give them the opportunity to freely choose less risky behavior as opposed to submitting to harsh measures.
The development of biotechnology is bringing us closer to a moment when it will be possible to create gene therapy capable of activating the violence-inhibiting mechanism in humans that Konrad Lorenz wrote about. However, along with this comes the risk of the emergence of a completely opposite gene therapy aimed specifically at eliminating any inhibitors of violence in a person. Therefore, some may consider the idea of creating gene therapy against violence to be useless, since if it can be made, then gene therapy to unleash violent potential can also be made. Demand for it may be found among some psychopaths, maniacs, and people who overly value their violent nature, consider it the meaning of their life, and are unwilling to part with it because of some dart with a drug fired at them during another attack. Additionally, some groups of people (supporters of authoritarian power) may consider it important to achieve certain goals by force, meaning that the security personnel executing these orders must be protected from the risk of losing their capacity for violence.
Of course, the vast majority of scientists are against violence, and it is unlikely that any of them would engage in such developments. But what will happen if there is someone among them who decides to help violent degenerates? Let’s go through it step by step:
1) There is a possibility of the uncontrolled spread of a drug that disables the Lorenz mechanism, and if this happens, the entire world will sink into violence and wars, and the survival of humanity will become impossible (practically repeating a typical scenario from a zombie movie).
2) This risk will lead to the necessity of creating updated gene therapy against violence. It may be capable of preventing the disabling of the Lorenz mechanism by any means; however, if this cannot be guaranteed, the only remaining option will be to ensure that a person dies from an attempt to remove their own restrictions on violent behavior. Allowing the survival of people striving for violence in such a situation is simply impossible; otherwise, the previously mentioned scenario will occur.
3) After this, a fairly rapid equalization of the balance of violent potential will occur, and absolute universal armament will be achieved (it will become clear to every average person that weapons in such a world are the only guarantee of survival). The new status quo will be maintained by the fact that a minority of sadists will be afraid to deactivate the Lorenz mechanism to attack the majority of non-violent people, who are capable of destroying them at the first attempt to initiate violence.
4) The stationary bandit (the state) will survive neither the appearance of gene therapy against violence, as it would then lose the ability to impose its order by force, nor the appearance of a blocker for the violence-inhibiting mechanism, because in that case, the security forces working for it would receive Molotov cocktails, bottles of sulfuric acid, infectious agents, bursts of automatic gunfire, etc., instead of peaceful protests, from the very people who removed their restrictions on violence and will manifest it toward everyone, including them. Zombie movies, although pure fiction, nevertheless quite accurately convey what would happen to the state in such a scenario.
As a result, it turns out that creating a drug to disable violence-inhibiting mechanisms will also lead to the elimination of the stationary bandit, whom supporters of authoritarian power and force-based measures love so much and consider the best mechanism for achieving any goals. They do not understand this, but even worse, they do not understand the catastrophic scenario that the creation of such a drug would lead to if gene therapy against violence is not updated in time according to the parameters in the second point, or at least if the balance of violent potential is not equalized so that all resulting rapists/violent offenders can be liquidated during their attack.
As you know, proponents of voluntarism and ideas of non-violence actively advocate for non-violent measures for damage compensation, as well as punishments for those who violate agreements and criminals, such as ostracism, financial sanctions, deposits, transaction insurance, etc. The use of force is permissible only for the purpose of self-defense against a direct attack; in other cases, violence is absolutely unacceptable. There are many reasons why such a behavioral model is most optimal, which I have already discussed extensively in my previous materials. Now, we will examine one very common argument aimed at discrediting non-violent measures.
So, I am talking about reputational institutions and ostracism, about how a person who violates agreements or has committed an act of violence in the past can be blacklisted and denied future transactions. And do you know what argument often follows? “This looks like the social credit system in China, you are actually inhuman totalitarians! This is the ‘cancel culture’ currently practiced in the West; you just want to cruelly torture people and deprive them of the right to a normal life!”
Now I want to ask a question to those who express such criticism. What alternative do you propose? Let me guess: should everyone who has erred be beaten with clubs, dragged through courts in handcuffs, or perhaps locked behind bars for many years? Nothing else can be proposed; there is only one alternative to our non-violent measures—violent measures. So, how does it work: we, with our ostracism and financial sanctions, are inhuman totalitarians, but your clubs and prisons are humane and extremely civil tools? If anyone believes this, they are simply a complete idiot!
And, by the way, we do not propose a lifelong “cancellation” of the offending person, which some also mention. In fact, it can be avoided entirely: if a person immediately admits their guilt and willingness to compensate for the damage, no ostracism or blacklists threaten them. In the end, everyone benefits if the perpetrator works off the damage they caused at their own pace and in conditions where they can work with maximum productivity. Also, to put a person behind bars, you will need to forcibly take a portion of peaceful people’s funds (i.e., forcibly tax them) to maintain the prison infrastructure and the prisoner himself. Of course, if someone doesn’t mind paying for this—let them pay, and let them offer criminals their own measure for lifting ostracism in the form of voluntary imprisonment. But I do not want to pay for this. What will you do, beat me with a club too? Then you are a violent aggressor, absolutely no better than any other!
Furthermore, one should not say that non-violent measures won’t work because a criminal can bypass them simply by committing further acts of violence and stealing for their own sustenance. Even in such a case, their life would be extremely unpleasant, since a whole range of goods and services cannot simply be taken and stolen, and if a criminal decides to attack, they can be stopped by means of self-defense. Do not forget that we advocate for general armament and have nothing against self-defense during a direct attack!
There is one very effective method for eradicating violence that few people usually think about. It is quite obvious — violence can be eliminated by preventing people with violent tendencies from procreating. The violent tendencies of some people may be genetically determined, so it is obvious that their children are also most likely to inherit this violence. Furthermore, abusers provide very poor upbringing for their children and raise them in an unstable environment, which pushes them to become abusers themselves in the future.
But how can this be achieved? We cannot use force to compel such people not to reproduce, as we would then be no better than them, and by applying violence, we would be introducing negative externalities of our own. However, this can be done by resorting to a series of non-violent measures.
First and foremost, reputational institutions must be used. People who have committed acts of violence should be exposed and ostracized, thereby lowering their well-being. It is also very important to discredit them among their close circle, such as relatives, friends, and neighbors. It is entirely acceptable to exert pressure on people in this circle, for example, by threatening to ostracize those who cooperate with the abuser. In principle, this is logical, as ostracism is not an effective tool if the people cooperating with the criminal are not also declared criminals to whom corresponding sanctions can be applied, because otherwise these people will have fewer incentives not to cooperate with him, meaning ostracism will not be applied sufficiently.
Thus, the abuser’s environment can quite well renounce him or, at the very least, begin to exert pressure on him from their side. And a person with a ruined reputation, a low level of well-being, who poses risks in any relationship, and who is additionally under pressure from those subjects who still cannot give up cooperation with him, has very low chances of finding a partner and starting a family.
In addition to reputational methods, other tools can be used, one of which we will consider now. There are agencies that, for a certain fee, are capable of arranging a series of events that are highly likely to lead to the deterioration of relationships between people, for example, to the divorce of a married couple. In our case, this can be applied against people with violent tendencies who are in relationships or marriages. Funds to pay for the services of such agencies can be collected through donations from concerned people, for example, by announcing a crowdfunding initiative to eradicate violence.
It is especially important to prevent those people from procreating who work for a stationary gangster and carry out his instructions to use force, that is, the security forces. They are most often people with violent tendencies, for who else would go to protect a violent power and, on its instructions, commit acts of violence against innocent people—for example, beating them at rallies or breaking into their homes for a “wrong” post on social networks.
And, which is very important for us, they receive a giant bonus to reproduction. Security forces have many benefits; they can count on free housing, discounted public transport, recreation and treatment in health resorts, they have education benefits, an early retirement age, and large pension payments. Thus, security forces receive very favorable conditions for reproduction, at least more favorable than ordinary people. Unfortunately, I have not found statistics on the number of children among security forces, but I venture to suggest that, on average, the fertility level in their families is much higher than in ordinary families. This only increases the number of people prone to violence. This state of affairs must be destroyed as soon as possible; then the problem of violence will begin to be solved even without the physical removal of aggressors from the population.
In many cases, when discussing the problem of violence, only the use of force by ordinary citizens on their own initiative is taken as an example of this phenomenon. In the same case, if a forceful measure was applied under orders from above and within the framework of state law, it is as if it is not considered violence at all; this measure is already called a form of law enforcement. From such an absurd formulation usually comes the assumption that the problem of violence can be solved simply by pursuing some “correct” state policy. This point of view is actively promoted by supporters of Steven Pinker’s ideas; in the Russian-speaking space, the most active evangelist of these views is Ekaterina Schulmann. But let us look at why this will never work.
Firstly, the very attempt to divide coercive forceful measures into those that can be considered violence and those that cannot encounters a logical contradiction. The difference in when, to whom, and for what reason a coercive forceful measure was applied does not cancel the fact of its application, the involuntary nature of its character, and the intentional physical restriction of a person’s freedom. All of these are constituent factors of such a phenomenon as violence. It cannot be said that the exact same action at one time, for one reason, and toward one person is violence, while at another time, for another reason, and toward another person, it is no longer so. This is merely a subjective assessment of a specific person.
Precisely because of this, all coercive forceful measures entail the same problems and risks, no matter how they are justified. Looking from the point of view of practical results, there is no difference whether violence was applied by a police officer or an ordinary citizen, whether it was applied to a simple passerby or a gangster who has committed many crimes in the past; one can always encounter resistance, especially if the victim of the forceful measure is placed in a hopeless position. And in today’s world with rapidly developing technologies, this threatens the use of very dangerous and destructive means as tools of defense or weapons of revenge, up to weapons of mass destruction, the most accessible of which are viruses. Therefore, from a practical point of view, the use of forceful measures can be justified only in the case of immediate self-defense, since in such a case an act of violence is already being committed and it must be stopped to avoid the subsequent negative externalities. In all other cases, the only optimal strategy of behavior will be the application of methods of influence to the violator that differ from physical violence, such as reputation lowering and ostracism.
Secondly, and this is the most important point—the attempt to get rid of private violence with the help of state violence actually only deters it, but does not eradicate it. A vivid example of this can be the USSR. The intentions regarding private violence among the ideologues of authoritarian communism were very noble; by the method of the “iron fist,” they intended to eradicate interethnic and domestic conflicts. Obviously, parents will not beat a child, and an Azerbaijani will not attack an Armenian, if someone stands over all of them with a club. But no power is eternal. As soon as changes occur within it, all problems come to the surface. The conflict is reborn, and with new strength, given the stressful condition people are in due to years of forceful control over them. We were lucky that after the collapse of the USSR, those same Armenians and Azerbaijanis ended up with only assault rifles and tanks in their hands, rather than nuclear missiles and viruses. However, over time, they, and others as well, may acquire very dangerous means. Then we will face a catastrophic threat endangering the existence of all humanity, due to the problem of violence left unresolved by the “iron fist” method.
People who consider Konrad Lorenz’s conclusions regarding the nature of violence and his concerns about the risks it entails to be unfounded often refer to or use arguments from a piece titled “The Lorenzian Theory of Aggression and Peace Research: A Critique“. To avoid any misconceptions about the phenomenon of violence, let us examine what is wrong with this critique.
At the very beginning, an argument is made that Lorenz defines aggression as a combat instinct implemented toward members of one’s own species and is genetically innate, inherited from biological ancestors. However, according to the critics, this definition strips the term aggression of its meaning. In general, when discussing aggression and violence, the question of what we actually mean by “aggression” and “violence” almost always arises. In this context, it is reasonable to reduce these terms specifically to innate tendencies toward intraspecific violence in the form of inflicting physical harm (or the threat of inflicting it), as this is the object of study. Everything else, for example, the fact that aggression is subjectively defined differently by different people (for some, even an impolite greeting would be aggression), we do not take into account.
Based on the critique, such an understanding of aggression does not correlate with activities manifested not directly, but through social institutions developed by humans. Firstly, all institutions that apply coercive measures always work through coercive agents. You might say that if a person becomes a politician, they can sit in an office and issue inhumane orders, thereby committing acts of violence without actually performing any corresponding physical activity. However, these orders are worthless without the coercive agents who execute them directly; therefore, one must look specifically at them and their propensity for violence. Secondly, other social aspects, such as wealth, status, and skills (which were mentioned in the critique), do not provide such an opportunity on their own without methods of directly inflicting physical harm on a person, for example, using the same security forces. We cannot speak of violence where there has been no such direct impact. Of course, a person may attempt to harm another person through indirect influence via a chain of many instances; however, this chain will sooner or later encounter the need to apply a coercive measure. For example, some might say that a monopolist in the market can turn people into slaves using purely economic methods and even drive them to starve to death by unilaterally setting the cost of labor and products. However, to be a monopolist, one must have coercive agents (one’s own, or an agreement with the agents of an existing monopoly, such as the state) ready to destroy all competitors in the market through direct violence, especially those who refuse to make concessions and negotiate peacefully.
After this, Lorenz is criticized for mixing the behavioral models of quite different animal species and humans, arguing that the justification of a common origin of species is insufficient for this. However, it should not be forgotten that the unbreakable basis of the behavioral model of any living creature is always the biological processes occurring in its organism. It would be foolish to believe, for example, that by mere desire, due to some social factors or with the help of some supernatural forces, a highly developed primate, including a human, could ignore the action of hormones and receptors of the nervous system. And biological processes, in turn, are determined by genetics. Of course, one should not forget the gene-environment link—certain genes are activated in a certain environment. But this fact only confirms our correctness, if we consider two factors: humans share a large part of the genome with animals due to the same common origin, and Lorenz observed the same behavioral mechanisms regarding the manifestation of violent behavior in very different animal species. According to the critique, it is wrong to extrapolate observations of animals to humans, even if these observations coincide for a very wide range of species. Of course, I agree that Lorenz’s works may lack observations of specifically human behavior; however, based on the two factors described above (common genetic heritage and the observation of identical behavioral patterns in different species), it can be boldly presumed that his conclusions regarding the nature of violence are very likely true for humans as well. And referring to the social sciences, psychology, etc., which was also mentioned in the critique, makes no sense, as we are considering the biological and genetic component, which is more fundamental—these sciences cannot contradict biology or make changes to it. In the end, if someone still continues to deny these conclusions, it would be better to criticize them with observations of human behavior, corresponding systematization, and comparison with Lorenz’s conclusions, rather than simply pointing to the incorrectness of the fact of extrapolation.
The critique also addresses Lorenz’s instinctive-hydraulic model. It explains the phenomenon of instinctive reactions triggering in the absence of a specific stimulus by the accumulation over time of a certain specific potential, which lowers the threshold necessary to trigger the reaction; this also explains spontaneous acts of aggression. This model is criticized due to the lack of neurophysiological evidence for its correctness. However, firstly, it has not been refuted, and secondly, Lorenz himself acknowledged the limitations of this model and the fact that it possesses a number of flaws; that is, in fact, he did not propose it as an absolutely correct and final solution.
Next, the influence of intraspecific aggression on the survival of species is criticized, especially in the case of humans. Statistics are provided as an example, showing that wars between different groups of people (including modern wars starting from the 19th century) have had a very insignificant effect on the survival of humanity. I will not argue that this conclusion is correct at the moment. However, here, Lorenz’s fears regarding the threat of violence to the survival of humanity should be linked to scientific and technical progress. After all, humans have become the most heavily armed species on the planet; they have already faced nuclear threats more than once, and every day the threats become more serious, as dangerous means become increasingly accessible for acquisition and reproduction by small groups of people and even individual individuals. In fact, the destructive potential of small groups and individual individuals is increasing every day. For example, viruses are a very accessible means of mass destruction, although other things could be devised. It is hard to argue with Lorenz’s fears here!
Another point in the critique caught my attention because it only confirms Lorenz’s theory rather than refuting it. But first, we need to remember something. As we know, Lorenz’s observations show that species with strong innate weaponry do not use it in intraspecific clashes. This primarily concerns hedgehogs, porcupines, venomous snakes, and insects; Lorenz also mentioned wolves, which do not bite their fellows in vulnerable places such as the belly or neck, and ravens, which in fights do not even try to peck out each other’s eyes with their very sharp beaks. The emergence of such mechanisms during evolution is quite logical; otherwise, representatives of these species would simply exterminate each other. As for poorly armed species, this mechanism manifests to a lesser extent, since either their representatives are unable to inflict serious harm on their fellows, or the latter can escape from the attack—meaning violence does not threaten them as much. For example, when Lorenz put two turtle doves—seemingly peaceful birds of the pigeon family—in one cage, the dislike of one bird for the other led to it severely maiming and almost killing the other during Lorenz’s absence. All because there was nowhere to run in this case.
In the case of humans, this mechanism also does not manifest very strongly, as their natural weaponry is quite weak. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that humans have inherited this mechanism to a certain extent; moreover, we can confirm this with observations regarding war, which the critique itself refers to, again, to prove the insignificance of the influence of violence on the survival of humanity. In many armies, more than half of the soldiers who were supposed to shoot simply could not pull the trigger. There is also mention of a refusal by one of the US army brigades to obey orders during the Vietnam War. Cases such as the mass killing in My Lai are a great exception and an abnormality for modern wars. In general, most soldiers considered the Vietnam War meaningless, and throughout its duration, a typical soldier spent only a few hours in combat. Also, a social study conducted by the information and education department of the US Department of Defense shows that during World War II, most soldiers actually tried to pretend they were busy with something rather than actually engaging in military affairs.
Based on this, it can be concluded that humans possess Lorenz’s violence-inhibiting mechanism. Although it is expressed in a weaker form than in heavily armed species, it nonetheless provides the prerequisites for solving the problem of violence, which concerned Lorenz so deeply and, in principle, is a cause for concern for any sane person. And, by the way, in the material we are considering, an attempt to criticize this specific theory is not even undertaken.
The main problem for any socio-political movement opposing state power is the threat of repression against its participants. This applies first and foremost to libertarians, as from the authorities’ point of view, we are nothing other than the most “non-systemic” opposition (i.e., those who refuse to adjust their positions according to the state’s directives). The risk of repression severely limits movement participants in conducting effective actions, and this is quite explainable: if one can receive a heavy fine just for distributing leaflets, then engaging in more serious activism is fraught with the risk of “sitting on a bottle.” There are very few passionate libertarians ready to create new ideas and promote them to the masses; therefore, the arrest of even one of them can significantly weaken the entire movement. Understanding the situation, they are forced to severely restrain themselves in their words, avoid participating in actions, and generally live in constant fear.
It is entirely realistic to get rid of this problem — all real-world activity must be outsourced, while remaining 100% online, beyond the reach of the stationary bandit (“the state”). Libertarian activists should ideally not show their faces in the real world at all and perhaps not even disclose their views, but upon opening a virtual machine with a VPN, they should not hesitate in anything, for the FSB is absolutely powerless in the fight against the virtual! You can boldly post any calls on social networks, publish the personal data of convinced etatists, and organize the most radical actions — from distributing leaflets and hanging banners on houses and bridges, to the open harassment of active etatists (for example, writing “A maniac lives here” on an etatist’s front door and posting flyers in their residential area with a photo and information about their tendency toward aggressive violence).
All real-world actions must be carried out by people who are in no way connected to libertarianism. We receive donations from anonymous sponsors in cryptocurrency and pay “Vasya-types” from the darknet in bitcoins—people who normally place drug stashes and paint asphalt and house walls with advertisements for “pharmacies.” They are skilled at hiding from the police and know what to do in case of arrest. That is why they take their money for this risk, which, to be honest, isn’t even that much. Even if one of the executors is caught by the cops, he will only give up an anonymous online contact, where the FSB will be met with a VPN service’s refusal to provide a real IP address (or TOR, if you are a complete paranoid). Thus, the true passionaries, whose arrest could weaken the movement, become absolutely invulnerable to repression, while the arrest of depoliticized executors in the real world does no harm to the movement — in place of one arrested graffiti artist, ten new ones wishing to make some extra money will appear.
Skeptics will probably say now that online anonymity is a myth and the FSB will deanonymize you in a minute. I have already written why this is not the case and will never be: since the very emergence of states, according to the theory of the stationary bandit, every state is in constant confrontation with others. Of course, there are temporary alliances, but in the long run, one state is always a competitor and enemy to another! The authorities of any given state are usually always interested in helping the opposition weaken their competitor; therefore, they will not only refrain from disclosing the personal data of oppositionists but will even help in the development of anonymization tools (for example, the TOR network was created with the support of the US federal government). Do you think it is accidental that the laws of most countries in the world contain clauses prohibiting the disclosure of personal data and the extradition of people accused in their homeland for political reasons?! It is not accidental at all, and this must be utilized; as Mikhail Svetov says — maneuver between different states to carve out your own freedom. Given the current geopolitical layout, by living in Russia and using a VPN in Switzerland, the USA, Great Britain, Sweden, and Norway, you are completely safe. Provided, of course, that you do not personally carry out any actions in the real world.
Everyone has already heard of such a thing as cryptocurrencies, and specifically about Bitcoin. However, many wonder why cryptocurrencies are so expensive and what their purpose is in general. Often, cryptocurrencies are mistaken for assets created and owned by some group of scammers who decided to profit from another racket and financial pyramid, while the high cost is explained by market manipulations and the inflating of a bubble that is about to burst. Consequently, for the average person, crypto can theoretically offer no benefit at all.
Let us debunk such misconceptions and convince ourselves that cryptocurrencies are not a fraudulent scheme and are even extremely necessary for us. If you already know how cryptocurrencies work, or if at some point you tire of reading the technical part but manage to understand why crypto is a reliable medium, you can skip directly to the section of the article titled “What is the Benefit of Cryptocurrencies.”
Decentralization of Management
Let’s start by explaining why cryptocurrencies are not a financial pyramid. To do this, although in a rather crude form, we will describe their structure to demonstrate the general concept. The essence is that a significant portion of cryptocurrencies has no central governing body. Their network is completely decentralized; every person, including you, can run a Bitcoin node on their own computer.
You might say that Bitcoin has specific developers who implement their updates, which indicates that they have power over the crypto network. Yes, there are developers, but they are not the owners of the network. Any changes and updates they propose are implemented only with the permission of the number of miners working on the network who possess more than 50% of the network’s computing power. In effect, we have democratic management (but it should not be compared with state democracy, which is nonetheless imposed by force; in this democracy, no one forces you to participate), and this democracy is quite direct, since although it has representatives in the form of developers, no decision can pass without the explicit consent of more than half of the network.
A question may arise: why create and maintain cryptocurrencies at all, if one cannot earn from them without having power over them? However, this is not the case; crypto developers usually perform a so-called “pre-mine,” meaning that before the public release, they create a certain number of coins for themselves, calculating that in the future their crypto will become popular and these coins will increase significantly in value. Additionally, crypto developers can earn money through donations from wealthy users who find further development beneficial.
New cryptocurrencies, which currently have a small network, are often subject to the risk of concentration of more than half of the power in one set of hands, which allows for network manipulation. However, the larger the network becomes, the more rapidly this possibility diminishes. Bitcoin, for instance, has involved such gigantic computing power worldwide that perhaps even large corporations and governments would not find the means (at least without causing significant harm to their own economy) to unilaterally subordinate it and disrupt the network’s operation.
Furthermore, the largest crypto miners are usually mining pools, which are also decentralized organizations. Mining pools are created so that people and organizations with insignificant computing power individually can unite and thus mine coins collectively. The mined coins are then typically divided among participants depending on their contribution to the total computing power. There have been times (for example, in the case of Bitcoin) when some mining pools approached the 50% threshold in power at different periods. However, thousands and millions of pool participants, naturally, cannot agree among themselves simply because of their number; in such a situation, they preferred to leave that pool and join others to prevent the centralization of the network and the loss of value of the coins they had already mined and could mine in the future.
Strict System Operation and Stable Emission
The algorithms by which the networks of many cryptocurrencies operate are fixed and based on unsolvable mathematical problems. The mining process—the creation of new coins—is usually based on finding a hash of appropriate complexity to add a new block of transactions to the network. Hashing, especially in the case of the SHA-256 algorithm used in Bitcoin, is an irreversible function; the only way to obtain a hash that fits a certain condition is to sequentially iterate through a special block parameter. The condition itself, i.e., the mining difficulty, becomes stricter over time; additionally, the mining reward regularly decreases. All of this is also strictly programmed with the calculation that more computing power will connect to the network as needed to maintain a stable currency emission.
Regarding the emission itself, the number of Bitcoins is limited to 21 million coins (currently about 18.5 million coins have been mined). It is simply impossible to just print new Bitcoins; inflation based on the standard paper currency model is simply impossible in the case of cryptocurrencies.
It is also impossible to interfere with the operation of cryptocurrencies via hacking (although there were hacks of Bitcoin, these occurred in the early stages of its development when its software code was not sufficiently perfect). Suppose a hacker wants to submit a false transaction with fake coins into the Bitcoin network. However, every block of transactions in the network contains the hash of the previous block. Other nodes will simply not accept a node that attempts to introduce an invalid chain of blocks into the network. It is also impossible to pick the right block parameters to produce the exact same hash as the original block. Hashing, again, is an irreversible function; it can only be broken by brute force. The SHA-256 hashing algorithm can produce 2^256 unique hash variants—finding a parameter that gives a specific hash would take more than the lifetime of the Universe, even with all the computing power on the planet. Mathematics of large numbers stands guard over the stability and inviolability of cryptocurrency operations!
What is the Benefit of Cryptocurrencies
Fine, cryptocurrencies truly lack centralized management and are absolutely reliable. But why do we need them in practice? After all, ordinary currencies are more popular and easier to use. What is the benefit of your Bitcoin, especially considering that supporting its network and mining new coins consumes an unbelievable amount of computing power and electricity?
The entire benefit of cryptocurrencies lies in the fact that they prevent anyone, including governments, from artificially devaluing your savings through inflation, unhindered taking of your cash funds, and restricting your economic freedom. Let’s start with a simple example. In a survey about Bitcoin usage in Nigeria, about a third of respondents stated that they use it or once used it. This is because the Nigerian government set a tax that is too high on transferring funds across borders. Cryptocurrency became the only option for Nigerians working abroad to send money to their families with minimal losses, bypassing idiotic government laws.
Many such examples can be thought of, as the stationary bandit (the state) tries to rob its citizens in every way. And cryptocurrency comes to people’s aid. You don’t want the stationary bandit to levy giant taxes on your transactions and demand an explanation regarding the origin of funds every time? Pay with cryptocurrency! You don’t want the state to be able to sue you at any moment for non-payment of alimony or take half of your assets in favor of a cheating ex-spouse? Keep them in cryptocurrency! Authorities have limited or banned some type of economic activity and control your income? Accept payment in cryptocurrency!
Cryptocurrency will save your savings, income, and economic freedom in these and many other situations. Cryptocurrency coins cannot simply be taken from you (unless you yourself give away the password to your wallet or your device, where the password is stored in unencrypted form, is taken—always keep this point in mind). Your savings in cryptocurrency will not lose their value over time because someone is regularly printing billions of new banknotes. You can use cryptocurrencies completely anonymously. Although, of course, Bitcoin is pseudo-anonymous, as all transactions in the network are visible to everyone; however, this problem is solved by using Bitcoin mixers (intermediary services that mix coins with the coins of other mixer users before sending them to the recipient, thereby making the transaction untraceable), including wallet clients with a built-in mixer (for example, Wasabi Wallet). There are also cryptocurrencies where coins are mixed automatically within their own network (for example, Monero, Dash, ZCash). Additionally, try as much as possible not to link your wallet to your real identity. If it is necessary, use a separate Bitcoin address for each transaction; this will make systematic tracking of your transactions impossible.
We can now confidently conclude that cryptocurrency is an excellent economic tool for avoiding regulations, bans, and the theft of funds by the stationary bandit. Cryptocurrency provides maximum economic freedom. This is precisely what forms its value.
So what, governments will just go ahead and ban cryptocurrencies
The thing is, it is impossible to ban the use of cryptocurrencies. As we remember, they are decentralized; there is no single server that manages everything. Millions of servers worldwide are involved in cryptocurrency networks; any person can run a cryptocurrency node even on their home computer. You cannot simply block a specific IP address, as is usually done with online services, and thereby achieve a ban on using the service. Cryptocurrency can only be blocked through a total shutdown of the internet, which certainly will not happen, as everything now works via the internet; such a step would result in gigantic losses for the governments themselves.
It will also be impossible to ban specific types of transactions using cryptocurrency, such as buying goods with cryptocurrency on gray and black markets, or exchanging cryptocurrency for fiat currency. In the case of exchange, the P2P exchange model comes to our aid. For example, you want to exchange Bitcoins for rubles, but services engaged in such exchanges have been shut down by the force of the stationary bandit. You simply use a P2P exchange to find another person like yourself who wants to exchange rubles for Bitcoins and carry out the exchange. The state will not find out that your deal was related to cryptocurrency, because if anonymity measures are observed, it cannot track cryptocurrency transactions. A ban on cryptocurrency is simply a useless and unrealizable measure.
Cryptocurrency is still useless because it is not popular as a means of payment
Now this is an outdated claim. Current trends regarding the adoption of cryptocurrency say the exact opposite. For example, Tesla recently announced its plans to start accepting payment in cryptocurrency. The Apple Pay payment service has already added the ability to link cryptocurrency accounts to wallets and use them within the USA. Google Pay and Samsung Pay have announced similar plans. At this rate, considering that these services are actively used for making payments for purchases worldwide, including in the CIS (admit that you have seen the icons of these services on store signs regarding the possibility of cashless payment, or even used them yourself), cryptocurrencies could become a popular means of payment. Of course, since these services operate by government permission, using cryptocurrency in this case may only add anonymity to the origin of the funds, but it is not a way to evade tracking of their expenditure and taxation by the stationary bandit. However, this should be enough for the general public to accept cryptocurrencies as a means of payment and begin treating them more tolerantly. People for whom cryptocurrencies are commonplace will gradually begin to actively conduct transactions using them directly, without intermediary services. This will allow all of us to achieve significant economic freedom, regardless of the orders imposed by the stationary bandit.
Cryptocurrency will not become a popular means of payment due to slow transactions and high commissions
This is also an outdated claim at the moment. Of course, pure Bitcoin itself is indeed quite slow (on average, transaction confirmation takes 10 minutes, and sometimes it can stretch to several hours) and expensive (the average Bitcoin network commission per transaction at the time of writing this material is about 24 dollars), so it is only profitable to make large transactions that do not require instant execution. However, solutions already exist for small transactions, such as buying a cup of coffee. One of these is the Lightning Network—a payment protocol that allows instant transactions between participating nodes and is proposed as a solution to Bitcoin’s scalability problem. This problem has also been solved in many alternative cryptocurrencies to Bitcoin.
