Автор: Анкап-тян

Buying up looted goods

If I illegally appropriate someone else’s property, it is aggressive violence and a violation of the NAP. But if I buy someone else’s property that was illegally appropriated by another person, will that be considered a violation of the NAP? And what if I place an order for certain goods with a person who deals in such things?

Emmanuel Goldstein

This question echoes the question of whether ordering a hit violates the NAP. And similarly, the answer to it is a definitive “no.” It is completely irrelevant whether someone created a positive material motivation for the thief, robber, or killer — the decision to commit aggressive violence was made by the perpetrator themselves. However, if someone threatened the executor with certain sanctions in case the theft/robbery/murder was not carried out, then, of course, both the client and the executor bear responsibility: one for the threat of action, and the second for the actions they took to avoid the threat.

Does this mean that a fence acquires legal rights to what they buy? No, they do not. That is precisely why they buy things at a massive discount: they obtain the item only in factual possession and factor into the price the risk that the previous owner will be found, to whom the item must be returned without any compensation.

So, if a service station owner buys a stolen car and dismantles it for parts to make it harder to find, will nothing happen to him? Something will. He will still be obligated to return the car to the owner, but due to the technical impossibility of doing so, he will have to negotiate compensation, which will clearly include a significant premium over the market price of the car.

Finally, I want to note that property claims are not always linked to a violation of the non-aggression principle. If you become a victim of fraud, the NAP has not been violated, but you still have a claim, and a court, given the evidence, has every reason to side with you. In effect, a fence, in relation to the legal owner, is precisely a fraudster: they deceive you by claiming they were unaware of the item’s status, and that they just desperately needed parts, so why not buy a practically new car for scrap.

So, while there is no violation of the NAP in this activity, it does not mean impunity.

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If the term “capitalism” was invented by the left, isn’t the attempt to rehabilitate this word and use it in a positive context playing by their rules?

(as far as I know, this term was first used by Louis Blanc, a French socialist, in a negative context, contrasting it with socialism)

анонимный вопрос

The ways of memes are unfathomable… The opposition of “capitalism-socialism” seemingly reflects quite accurately the opposition of big money to big battalions, which is why it took hold.

I personally try not to use the word capitalism in its pure form, because if you add the tomato juice of anarchism to this vodka, it becomes much tastier, and the name of the cocktail sounds less vulgar. But it just so happens that phrases like market anarchism or free-market anarchism turn out to be longer and clumsier than a simple ancap.

In principle, this is not the only term that started as a derogatory label and later acquired a certain academicism and moral neutrality (for example, minarchism), and conversely, many words started as something bright and beautiful, but are now used as nothing other than insults, and decent people try to distance themselves from such associations (I am referring primarily to liberals, who in the US are currently synonymous with the word socialists, and in Russia synonymous with the word social Darwinists).

The best thing one can do, wishing to treat language as carefully as possible, is to use fewer value judgments. For instance, Svetov is currently actively trying to revive the half-forgotten word nomenklatura, which for me, a representative of the first non-Soviet generation, is a term more from warehouse accounting. Why spoil words? There is the wonderful word official, which is far clearer than some nomenklatura, and means exactly the same thing. Fine, this is already nitpicking and a matter of taste; I am giving it simply as an illustration of the fact that you cannot please everyone.

So overall, I agree with your thesis that established connotations must be taken into account, but it is not absolutely necessary to follow them in everything, or even more so to break them on principle solely on the grounds that opponents once invented this rule.

There is a certain reckless cynicism in portraying the monster that others see in you…

Why does the state constantly grow? Why is minarchism unstable?

Answered by Bitarch

History shows that over a long period of time, the “size of the state” (the volume of resources it controls and the degree of influence over the lives of its subjects) constantly grows. This applies to all forms of government—liberal democracies, republics with census-based democracy, ideocracies, theocracies, and even monarchies. Some states were initially created on the idea of minarchism (“limited government”), such as the USA, where the founding fathers understood the possibility of the state’s growth and tried to prescribe mechanisms to restrain this process in the constitution. In all cases, this did not work, and even the “smallest” governments grew to gigantic proportions.

So why does this always happen? There are many versions, but the most plausible seems to be the idea expressed by Pavel Usanov in his recent lecture “Spontaneous Orders as an Alternative to the State”. Growth occurs because every official is interested in redistributing rent (resources taken from the population through taxes) in their own favor. If they do not do it themselves, one of their colleagues will. A constant temptation arises to engage in populism and invent new functions for state intervention in areas related to the interest group that put this specific official in power. For example, officials from a state social insurance agency are interested in INCREASING the number of unemployed and poor people, as they can then “secure” more funding for themselves and, accordingly, increase their salaries, hire their friends, or award themselves bonuses.

Если вы пришли сюда по ссылке из других соцсетей, напоминаю, что на мой канал можно подписаться в телеграме, а для обсуждения деятельности канала там же, в телеграме, создан уютный чатик.

Oh, what noble intentions they had!

What objective disadvantages does capitalism have?

анонимный вопрос

I don’t remember if I have provided definitions before, but they are indispensable.

Capitalism is a social system in which the dominant relations between people are commodity-money relations.

And, while I’m at it, I’ll define a few more imaginary entities.

Feudalism is a social system in which the dominant relations between people are personal mutual obligations.

Despotism is a social system in which the dominant relations between people are relations of direct violent coercion.

And, of course, we can’t forget: communism is a social system in which the dominant relations between people are relations of gifting.

Accordingly, criticisms of one system or another are based on its essence. Capitalism is criticized because under it everything is for sale and everything can be bought. Feudalism — because loyalty is more important than competence. Despotism — for terribly low labor productivity and enormous management costs. Communism — for the free-rider problem.

Therefore, to eliminate the objective shortcomings of capitalism, where it is more convenient for people, they easily borrow elements of other human formations. Do we have a closed economy and an unfriendly external environment? We borrow elements of feudalism. My property has been damaged, the responsible party has been identified, but they refuse to pay? Despotism is just what the doctor ordered. Do we have a family? Welcome to communism.

The main thing to remember is that all these social formations are simply conceptual constructs, while in reality there are many unique individual contacts between people, in each of which every participant pursues their own goals and uses their own means.

Uncle Scrooge is not only Scrooge, but also “uncle”

What are the shortcomings of the Austrian School of economics, [and its] internal problems?

анонимный вопрос

To make the answer to this question more authoritative, I turned to the most well-known popularizer of the Austrian School in Russia, Pavel Usanov (be sure to subscribe to his YouTube channel if you haven’t already). By the way, I will soon release a review of his new book, “Retrospective of Economic Thought.”

So, in Pavel’s opinion, the main difficulties for the Austrian School are as follows:

1. It is unclear how to reconcile Mises’s praxeology and Hayek’s market process

What is the difficulty? Praxeology is the logic of human action, derived deductively from general basic principles. The market process is the emergence of spontaneous orders from a multitude of individual acts of choice made by people. The study of these spontaneous orders is conducted using the method of induction. For physicists, perhaps the clearest analogy would be to liken praxeology to molecular-kinetic theory and the market process to thermodynamics. In other words, we are dealing with the problem of at which grain of sand a pile begins, or in the language of dialectics, the transition from quantity to quality.

In principle, game theory lies somewhere at the intersection of the two, but it still does not completely fill the gap.

2. Cryptocurrencies and the regression theorem

When I was asked a question about Bitcoin, I fell into this trap myself, referring to an article stating that Bitcoin satisfies the regression theorem, and later received criticism that it was unconvincing. I very much hope that Pavel will be able to bring some clarity to this issue in his book “The Future of Money,” the release of which he has already announced. Apparently, it should be expected in 2019.

3. Theory of the state: origin and evolution into democracy

Representatives of the Austrian School indeed express themselves in various ways regarding the origin of the state.

Hoppe derives the state from natural aristocracy, that is, the institution of turning to more competent persons when facing difficulties. Indeed, this is a common human practice reproduced in any community, from primitive tribes and mafia clans to modern leaders of non-systemic opposition and professional gurus.

Zolotorev argues that one should not mistake a blessing for a curse; while the “curse” in the form of the institution of informal leadership is widespread everywhere, the “blessing” in the form of the state is a historically recent parasitic formation. The only thing that remains unclear is whether human history could have done without this dubious acquisition.

There are also disagreements regarding the evolution toward democracy. Hoppe writes that this is due to the ruling class’s desire to increase irresponsibility, while Chetvernin points out that the emergence of stable libertarian-legal institutions required a rare combination of climatic factors, where instead of a rigid division into castes of laborers and warriors, a mixing of roles emerged in Hellas in the form of free community members and warrior-farmers; this gave rise to libertarian ethics, law, and polis democracy instead of the usual doctrine of plunder and coercion.

4. Enforcement without a state

Here, it is less about an internal problem of the Austrian School and more about how this problem was gradually solved as libertarian theory developed. Mises did not dispute the necessity of the state at all. Rothbard developed a general theory of anarcho-capitalism but left several statist rudiments, such as arbitrarily chosen patent expiration dates or the presence of forced imprisonment in ancap. Modern theorists, such as Zolotorev or myself, demonstrate the possibility of doing without these rudiments by proposing alternatives.
Nevertheless, the topic of non-state enforcement has not yet stabilized and is more of a doctrine than a theory, so there is room for work.

In the role of Frank Underwood – Pavel Usanov

Why do libertarians ask specific questions, such as “at what age does a person become a subject of law” and the like?

If I understand correctly, all possible rules/laws fall under the competence of the contractual jurisdiction, which can establish any rules on its territory, including the age of majority, and may adopt anything from a Sharia court to any other system, being limited in the adoption of laws only by the NAP regarding other jurisdictions—that is, entities that have not entered into an agreement with them to comply with their rules. Meanwhile, the institution (I don’t know what to call it if not a state) that legally stands above the jurisdictions is not concerned with establishing such specific rules, but only monitors compliance with the NAP. I admit that I may be catastrophically mistaken, as I have only recently become acquainted with libertarianism, and I would be glad if you could clarify these nuances regarding jurisdictions and their right to establish any rules on their territory.

анонимный вопрос

Regarding contractual jurisdictions, I have already had to answer. In short: a jurisdiction is not a territory, but a venue (legal competence), and a contractual jurisdiction differs from any other by its voluntary nature. Specific parties to a specific conflict agreed to have their case heard in a specific court and entered into a contract with that court. But today, for once, we are not talking about the court, but about the rules, so jurisdictions have nothing to do with this at all.

Any owner of a territory can theoretically establish any conditions under which they are willing to tolerate the presence of outsiders on their territory. Outsiders can either follow these rules or sabotage them if they believe that the potential costs of sanctions for sabotage are lower than the costs of following the rules.

The closer the rules established by the owner of the territory are to those that are understandable and familiar to people, the less effort the owner will have to spend to ensure their compliance. Yes, I can establish a ban on weapons, photography, and clothing on my territory, but if potential visitors to my beach are not yet used to the fact that beaches can be nudist, I will initially have to conduct a long explanatory campaign. And even then, it’s not a given that I will manage to convince people about weapons and photography; perhaps they will only agree to undress, and then I myself will give in and change the rules. Thus, from the sum of many private wishes and actions, spontaneous orders emerge, which eventually constitute our understanding of a norm. It is for this very reason that all these endless discussions of the criteria of “normal” exist.

As a result of many private actions, certain criteria of a norm become practically ubiquitous, receive precise formulations, and become generally accepted principles. In fact, this is exactly what the non-aggression principle is—it is a convenient convention, the observance of which reduces friction in society, and therefore societies that adhere to it tend to prosper. Meanwhile, some criteria of a norm remain purely a matter of taste. In one community, it is the norm to consider a person over 16 years old as having legal capacity, while in another, it is any member of the tribe who has passed the initiation rite, regardless of the age at which they passed it.

Dear adult legal-capacity tribesman

What’s going on with Bitcoin?

anonymous question (paid in the amount of 0.0002btc)

In short, everything is fine with Bitcoin. Throughout the year, the price has been gradually falling, as have trading volumes, commission sizes, and the frequency of Bitcoin mentions in the press. In other words, the bubble that burst at the end of last year has been successfully deflating, and now the price is approximately one-fifth of its peak. This drop is comparable in amplitude to the decline that lasted throughout 2014, and is far smaller than the catastrophic crash of summer-autumn 2011, when the dollar price of Bitcoin fell 13-fold.

Of course, the lower the trading volumes, the greater the possibility of causing significant price jumps using relatively modest funds. But high volatility attracts speculators, and volumes begin to grow again, which means the opportunities for price manipulation begin to decrease; thus, these market feedbacks prevent the cryptocurrency from spiraling out of control.

Once again, as in 2014-2015, mining profitability has dropped, which leads to the least efficient miners being sent to the scrap heap. In 2015, during the low exchange rate, bankruptcies of individual pools also occurred. Thus, this market is actively clearing out inefficient players, meaning the end of the crisis is not far off.

Against the backdrop of all this seemingly negative environment, active work continues both on the Bitcoin protocol itself and on the Lightning second-layer protocol, which allows for the creation of direct payment channels outside the blockchain and the movement of money through them with negligible time costs and negligible commissions. Therefore, in the event of a new price surge, the probability that the mempool will become clogged, as it did last autumn, and that the transaction fee will skyrocket, becomes much lower; the community is now far better prepared for such situations.

So, is it time to buy? You know, the Belarusians have a proverb that it is never too late to buy dollars; the same can be said about Bitcoin. It should be acquired whenever there is free fiat that does not need to be spent in the next five years. By doing this, you will not only preserve your purchasing power but also benefit the community.

On a logarithmic scale, it is clearly visible that everything is OK with Bitcoin

What to do if a friend and ally promotes a policy of authoritarianism and political regulations?

Is this a reason not to interact with him in any way other than through formal tools, as Mikhail Svetov enjoined us? Even if it is a friend, even if he is against Putin?

Vasily

I am not such a purist in this regard. Before the Adam Smith readings, I published a selection of my favorite materials from there, and my first item was a report by Dmitry Butrin “Non-cooperative Games”, about how important it is not to make a squeamish face when mentioning minor tactical successes, about how the drive for complete and final dominance over all ideological rivals looms over all Russian politics, and how important it is to know how to build coalitions.

Of course, if you promote hatred of the nomenklatura, then for your reputation as a fervent lustrator, it is very important not to get tainted by any informal relationships, even with the liberal opposition, unless it has passed a strict check for ideological purity. But if you plan, for example, to run for deputy, the ability to negotiate, both formally and informally, will be invaluable. To know where to start dismantling the system in your own small area, you need to study how the system works in that area. For this purpose, it is quite acceptable not only to hang out at the birthday party of a liberal radio station, but even to go and work as an assistant to a Communist deputy.

If people are to be judged by their deeds, then they should be judged by their deeds. Having a drink with someone at a party is not a deed; it is leisure. I had a short romance with a guy from some paramilitary nationalist group—there are countless such groups, I didn’t even remember the name. We constantly argued about political topics, and he honestly stated that if they came to power, it would be at the cost of great bloodshed, and that we liberals would be hanged from lampposts immediately after the government was executed. Did this interfere with our relationship? No, not at all. Did it affect my views? Yes, it did; I came to better understand the worldview of these guys, their concept of justice and national pride. If a minarchist scenario is realized in Russia, the knowledge gained will allow me to avoid hanging them from lampposts, because these cats can be prepared in a different way.

Also, at his insistence, I struggled through B. H. Liddell Hart’s “Strategy of Indirect Approach” (hello to Belisarius from the previous post), but that is a slightly different story.

Sir Basil, as it were, says: Mikhail, do not go head-on

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Меня очень радует монетизация канала, а вот охват аудитории непростительно скромный, и с этим наверняка можно что-то сделать, интересует ваше мнение. Набросала варианты, также можно предлагать свои.