Автор: Анкап-тян

How will things stand with documents under ancap?

For example, a passport, a death certificate, and so on. Will they be issued, and if so, by which organization, and if not, what will replace them?

анонимный вопрос

Probably, if an IT specialist were to tell the history of mankind, the whole thing would boil down to who issued certificates to whom and how…

Any communications in a more or less complex society inevitably run into the problem of trust. Information is transferred from node to node via unsecured channels using an unknown number of intermediaries. Natasha Rostova, tripping while stepping out of a carriage, turns into Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol sitting on a branch after a chain of retellings. Lieutenant Kizhe appears out of nowhere. Orwell writes from Spain about how war reports are composed without any link to real events. Chinese generals use the corpses of their own peasants for reporting purposes because it is easier than winning battles against a real enemy. Russian FSB agents repeat the feats of Chinese generals. And all of this is called the Byzantine Generals’ Problem—which, as is not hard to guess, tells us that the Eastern Roman Empire also had some difficulties with data reliability.

The state solves the Byzantine Generals’ Problem by creating cross-verification procedures, duplicating communication channels, and similar measures. Nevertheless, we frequently encounter episodes where a migrant in the EU had fourteen identity documents and received benefits for each, or conversely, a Russian pensioner spent several months proving to the state that he had not died, as written in the documents, and was still entitled to his pension, or Petrov and Boshirov turn out to be Chepiga and Mishkin.

Fortunately, all the technical means to solve this problem under ancap are already available. In 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto described a mechanism for solving the Byzantine Generals’ Problem through blockchain. A distributed public ledger stores unfalsifiable and indelible records thanks to the greed of miners and the suspicion of network node owners. And even earlier, asymmetric encryption made it possible to solve the specific problem of abandoning trusted intermediaries in data transmission, and now we communicate in secret chats, knowing that even Durov does not have the encryption keys, let alone Comrade Major.

With a competent approach, it is possible to ensure almost complete certainty that digital data will be preserved without distortion and will fall only into the hands of those to whom it is intended, while for everyone else, it will be nothing more than information junk. The trusted intermediary problem arises only at the stage of digitization. Yes, we can be sure that a document is certified by Alice’s signature, but we have no idea whether the signature has been compromised, whether Alice was under duress, and what kickback she received for her signature. So the problem of offline reputation will not go away even under ancap, but at least you will always know for sure that if Alice has certified a document with her signature, you can trust the document to the same extent that you trust Alice in general—both her competence and her ability not to fuck up her private key.

Perhaps the most well-known example of implementing passports and other documents associated by statists with the state, but without the state, is bitnation. States that look benevolently toward minarchism, such as Estonia, are already cooperating with the project, but any private company could do this with equal success.

In the photo: the most famous of the Byzantine generals and the most famous of the Byzantine emperors (the second one is just tagging along)

Which movies should you recommend to friends after an improvised lecture on the benefits of libertarianism?

…And Justice For All

The purpose of an improvised lecture on the benefits of libertarianism is to change a person’s perspective. After that, they can rewatch any films—whether from the beginning or from scratch—that touch upon the relationship between power and the individual in any way, and see everything in a new light.

Unfortunately, I don’t know of any films that provide a sufficiently accurate representation of a society under ancap. One would have to search thoughtfully to see if there is anything interesting about the stateless period of the Wild West, or the gold rush in Alaska, or if the mischievous Japanese have created some anime about ancap that is more plausible than Cowboy Bebop, and so on.

Sometimes libertarians tend to recommend something moralizing about how vile the state is, and how it particularly unpleasanty stepped on someone’s toes in a specific case. I don’t know, I’m not a big fan of direct propaganda; I find it more interesting to root for the Trade Federation in its entirely justified pursuit of secession from the Galactic Republic than to listen to pompous monologues from the adaptation of “The Fountainhead” (though Gary Cooper is a handsome man, of course!). And in general, it’s more pleasant to notice small details in passing than to be attacked directly; the latter is more likely to cause rejection.

Can a libertarian be a grammar Nazi? Specifically, dictate to others how to write, even if they write with mistakes?

anonymous question (paid in the amount of 0.00005btc)

Language is one of the most vivid examples of what Hayek called spontaneous orders. There is no reptilian from the Austro-Hungarian General Staff who could invent a language from scratch for a vast number of people, irradiate them with invisible radiation so that they would acquire this language, and then confidently assert which word forms are true and which are a vile deviation from the norm associated with the shielding properties of a tin foil hat.

I have already spoken about language in quite some detail while answering a question about Esperanto, so I will end the introductory part here and move on to a short answer to the actual question asked.

Of course, a libertarian can be a grammar Nazi. Within their sphere of influence, they can insist on as strict communication standards as they wish, as long as this does not involve the use of violence. you wll udnerstnd me evn if i am strnogly deviatng fr om th stndard, but you will need to exert some additional effort to understand this, therefore the market dictates that I orient myself toward current linguistic norms, which in most cases correspond to dictionary norms. Again, the language in which I write is largely the same language in which I read. Were I fascinated by the poetry of the Tang dynasty, you would certainly feel that influence in the language of my posts. Thus, a grammar Nazi can be understood: he wishes to read in a language that is pleasant to him and provides feedback to his circle of communication. If he does this tactfully enough, and the influence of his authority is great, many will even be grateful to him for this activity in implementing the linguistic norm.

Let us praise the tireless fighters against entropy, for their cause is as noble as it is hopeless, while we ourselves shall speak as we find convenient, ramin!

How are international crimes handled in the case of ancap? For example, carding.

royal_hacker

First, I want to say that the word “ancap” does not go well with the word “international” or the word “crimes,” because “international” is used today as a synonym for “interstate,” and “crime” means a violation of the law, which, again, does not exist under ancap; instead, there are many private rules and preferences that form spontaneous orders. So I will have to translate the question from statist to ancap before I begin to answer.

So, how are property rights violations handled in an anarcho-capitalist society when using global market tools? Let’s take carding as an example.

One of the popular carding business chains today looks roughly like this:
1. Using holes in the security systems of banks and online stores, hackers steal databases of credit card data.
2. Carders buy these databases in parts for further use.
3. A carder uses the stolen credit card data to buy goods from an online store.
4. The goods sent by the store are received by a drop.
5. The drop shares part of the cost of the goods with the carder and sells the product.
6. The carder launders the money received and gets a clean profit.

Don’t think anything strange—all these materials can be Googled in five seconds, and in half an hour you’ll have more knowledge about carding than I managed to acquire 😉

So, the peculiarity of this high-tech criminal business is the developed division of labor, the use of advanced anonymization technologies at every stage, and, accordingly, a rather high cost of catching even one of the chain participants, let alone unraveling the whole thing.

Another feature related to carding is that the cardholder is insured against such fraud through a bank chargeback procedure, and the bank, in turn, passes the costs onto the online store. Thus, the final victims and the main parties interested in the destruction of this criminal industry are the online retailers, and their primary tool is by no means the search for fraudsters, but the improvement of protection, which they can perfectly well do whether a state exists or not, since it seems to have no role here, as it apparently does not affect anything.

In reality, it does. State regulations make it difficult for stores to switch to cryptocurrency payments—which, unlike centralized banking systems, knows no such concept as reversing an operation, meaning it completely removes the store from the line of fire in such situations and makes the final victim the one who lost the private key to their crypto wallet.

In the absence of a state, it will be harder for banks to pass costs onto retailers because they will have to compete honestly in a free market with crypto and offer stores the most favorable acquiring terms possible. So they will at least have to obsess over data protection, implement two-factor authentication for online purchases across the board, and so on, and if a refund request does occur, they will mostly have to bear the losses themselves. Which is great; let them stay sharp.

So, can carders feel safe under ancap? This will depend on the strategy banks use. If they focus on passive defense, carders will be drawn into a technological race, which will increase the cost and intellectual threshold for engaging in the carding business. But defense can also be active. The market can be flooded with fake drops who will scam the carders, fake database sellers who will sell non-existent credit card details and try to report their buyers to the customer, moles can be planted in themed communities—in short, this criminal industry can be made significantly more costly and risky than it is now, and this could also lead to most criminal entrepreneurs retraining for something more innocent.

White cardboard is about another powerful branch of carding, but that is a completely different story

How would you react?

Today I was walking with my son, who is almost 4 years old; we weren’t bothering anyone. My son started messing with the ice on the road. A boy about 7-10 years old was passing by with his parents. They walked past, but the boy suddenly turned around, approached my son, and pushed him (not very hard—my son stayed on his feet).

анонимный вопрос

I cannot guarantee that in a real-life situation I would react the way I now conceptually consider to be correct; too much would depend on various insignificant factors. How repulsive the boy would be to me personally, how adequate his parents seemed to me, how much of a hurry they were in, and, most importantly, how shocking this episode was for my son.

The more vile the kid seems to me, the more unpleasant this episode was for my son, the less his parents are rushing, and the more sane they look, the greater the likelihood that I would develop the situation toward preventing such crap in the future. That is, I would draw their attention to this crap and ask them to hold the boy’s hand, since walking aggressive children on a leash is not common practice.

If, hypothetically, the interaction is likely to be very short, then I would probably limit myself to making a scary face and making some kind of sharp, threatening gesture toward the kid. Ideally, the kid should quickly bolt or recoil and fall on his backside. The goal is for the aggressor to be humiliated without the use of direct physical force, and then I can focus on figuring out how my son is doing.

If he is indignant and wants to fight back, then the conversation will be along the lines of “we really scared him!”. If he is more surprised and trying to understand what that was, then I’ll discuss with him what that was (imagine a dog barked at you on the street; you don’t need to kill the dog, it’s enough to chase it away). If he didn’t pay much attention, then let him continue with his business; it’s good when a person has a strong psyche.

If, for example, people were given the opportunity to take revenge for one night, as in “The Purge” — it would be a very useful practice for reducing crime. How does ancap view this?

анонимный вопрос

As a reminder, the purge night is a concept from the movie of the same name, according to which the state designates one night a year during which it refuses to prevent any violence of citizens toward one another, but at the same time does not remove itself from the scene, and even reserves the right to apply completely arbitrary violence against citizens on this night, for which no claims are accepted.  

Let’s agree right away that the non-violent implementation of the specified institute under ancap in this particular form is impossible, simply due to the absence of a state. So, I would rather reason through how I would act to implement a purge night under ancap.

  1. The “Founding Fathers” corporation buys a large plot of cheap land somewhere in Nevada.
  2. A Purge-city amusement park is built there.
  3. Throughout the year, the amusement park makes money by renting out sets for film shoots, paintball, airsoft, hardball, and other innocent shootouts.
  4. One night a year, volunteers from all over the world gather in the city to shoot at each other with live weapons. Before purchasing a tour, they sign a detailed contract, including a waiver of claims against the company in the event of death or injury at the hands of other players, as well as a waiver of claims against other players for any of their actions that do not violate the rules of the “Purge Night” attraction. The contract also provides for the company’s obligation to pay participants an agreed-upon bonus for the fact of survival, and a bonus of the same amount for each frag obtained. In addition, of course, the company undertakes not to kill players themselves, including by entering into any special agreements with any players. The rules also specify the permitted classes of weapons, as well as a number of other nuances that I will omit here for brevity.
  5. The costs of conducting the purge night are perfectly offset by income from advertising placed on the sets, from the sale of broadcasting rights, from merchandise, and so on.

What is the circle of primary potential participants?

  1. Adrenaline junkies. Meet John Watson, a former paramedic and three-time Purge Night individual champion!
  2. Teams from poor warring states. Meet Team Congo, a two-time Purge Night team champion!
  3. Betting enthusiasts. Meet David Loser, who is participating in the Purge Night because he lost a bet to Carol Winner, having predicted that the bitcoin rate would fall to ten ounces of gold in August!
  4. Duelists. Meet Najib Gasan-ogly and Samvel Budumyan, who decided to fight in a duel on Purge Night and defend the honor of their people!
  5. And various random party-goers who decided that this is cool. Meet Fyodor Konyukhov, who decided to cross Purge-city on Purge Night without a weapon from west to east and meet the sunrise at the edge of the desert with a cup of Nescafe!

What social consequences will such a business lead to? None in particular. What social consequences does the existence of the no-rules fighting industry in today’s reality lead to? Well, there are fights, and that’s fine. Some people go, pay money; others fight, get money; others make fun movies about it. It’s the same in our case.

Will the level of violent crime in the world decrease in the intervals between purge nights? Unlikely; most likely, it will continue to gradually decrease as people’s wealth grows. Will my business take off? Maybe it will. Will I remain a monopolist in this market? Only if it is very narrow; otherwise, competitors will likely join in and take some market share.

The market will decide!

That’s not how it’ll be, not at all!

Is abortion justifiable from a libertarian perspective?

анонимный вопрос

The topic of abortion is the subject of heated debates that flare up from time to time within the libertarian community, and I get the feeling that the cause is not the acuity of the problem, but rather that it is a convenient scholastic exercise allowing one to examine the phenomenon from various positions while continuing to be considered a libertarian.

Arguments for abortion

  1. According to the principle of self-ownership, a woman has property rights over her own body, including the embryo that appeared there, regardless of whether this happened by her will or against it. The embryo is thus viewed as a part of the woman’s body, possessing no legal personality. At the same time, however, the interests of the father or other parties may be taken into account: if they provided the woman with resources from the moment of conception under the promise to carry the child to term, and she has an abortion, they are then entitled to require her to pay the agreed-upon liquidated damages.
  2. Even if the embryo is considered a person and its legal personality is recognized, its presence inside the womb is lawful only with the mother’s permission; otherwise, it must leave the organism upon first request, or else the woman has the right to remove it from the organism by force. As is easy to see, the discussion here is raised to a more abstract level, where the relationship between the woman and the fetus in her womb is interpreted as a relationship between two independent subjects, which may be considered a certain kind of casuistry.

Arguments against abortion

  1. If abortion is prohibited in a community with a free exit, the rules of which the woman accepts by virtue of her presence in it at the moment of conception, then the act of abortion will be a breach of contract on her part, and therefore the agreed-upon sanctions should be applied to her. The legal personality of the embryo is entirely irrelevant in this case. This position, however, is vulnerable to the woman’s claim of her right to freely leave the community and only then have an abortion, and therefore it is mentioned infrequently in disputes.
  2. By the fact of conception, parents commit violence against the child, because, firstly, they change its state from non-existence to existence without its consent, and secondly, they forcibly cast it into a state of helplessness. This entails an obligation for them to compensate the child for the harm caused, that is, to ensure an unobstructed birth, and then to provide resources until the child acquires the ability to exist independently. This position is vulnerable to the thesis that if changing the state from non-existence to existence is violence, then the reverse change of state back to non-existence would be quite adequate compensation; also, if conception is violence, then it is the duty of every responsible citizen to prevent such violence, meaning the very fact of unprotected sex should already be considered an attempt at conception and punished with the full severity of the law for violators of the non-aggression principle. It is not hard to guess that a community consistently practicing this approach would survive for exactly one generation.

An attempt to reconcile the parties

If you consider abortions to be aggressive violence against prenatal children, then you presumably would want children not just to be born, but also to grow up in love and affection. But it is easy to guess that if a woman wanted to have an abortion, and she was stopped only by the fear of your harsh sanctions, it is not a given that she will feel warm emotions toward the child, not to mention the temptation to use various ways to starve the fetus or kill the infant in such a way that the causes of death seem natural. Therefore, it would be very ethical on your part to offer a desperate woman, ready to get rid of an unborn child, financial assistance and your guarantee to take the child into guardianship immediately after birth in exchange for a firm promise to carry the child to term and give birth to it. In this way, you will not only prevent what you consider a crime, but also ensure the child a truly loving and responsible family.

If, however, you prefer to remain in the position that your business is to demand punishment for crimes rather than prevent them, then be prepared for the fact that quite a few will consider this bad faith behavior; for if you know that a helpless prenatal child died, although a shred of your effort could have saved it, then according to the principle of estoppel, you cannot demand punishment for another person who also allowed this death, although a shred of their effort could have saved the child.

You didn’t take the child into guardianship, how could you!

Lustration

Thanks to the activities of Mikhail Svetov, a topic as exotic for libertarian discourse as lustration has become an important component of the public rhetoric of Russian libertarians. Indeed, there is no other libertarian party in the world that pays such attention to this issue. Some advocate for the liberalization of the psychoactive substances market, others for the liberalization of the weapons market, some for tax cuts, and others are even forced to speak in favor of abolishing price regulations on essential goods, but no one demands the mass removal from power of officials of the current regime simply by virtue of holding their current position.

Arguments for lustration

  1. Lustrations are the gentlest way to remove those who have demonstrated their professional incompetence from power. If they were to be tried instead, it would be long, expensive, dirty, and crude; it would be better for them to accept that they will simply be pushed out of the area where they are incompetent and be given the freedom to engage in anything else.
  2. Without lustrations, nothing will work at all. Any number of wonderful laws can be passed, but functionaries of the former regime will sabotage the reforms, distort and discredit them, and this will lead to the liberal government, failing to achieve quick successes, losing public support. Therefore, lustrations are important specifically as a tool for rapid cleansing, in contrast to numerous individual proceedings, so as not to lose the pace of transformation.
  3. Post-Soviet countries that carried out decisive lustrations are now in a much better position than those that did not, and former Soviet leaders there have not returned to power.
  4. Lustrations are populism, and populism means votes in elections; there is no need to fear populism—on the contrary, one should fear remaining marginal.
  5. (point added based on the results of the discussion in the comments) A law on lustrations has a psychotherapeutic effect. Long existence under conditions of a de facto estate society requires compensation, and the restriction of rights of representatives of the old upper estate, thereby transferring them to a conditionally lower one, is a good bloodless recipe that allows people to feel like full-fledged citizens.

Arguments against lustrations

  1. Lustrations are a diversion of forces toward a negative agenda. Instead of implementing the new, a significant portion of those coming to power will be occupied with settling old scores; moreover, any delays in reforms will inevitably be justified by claiming that not enough people are being lustrated and that enemies are conducting sabotage.
  2. It is easy to say now that lustration is a gentle tool, but it is difficult to say how gentle it will prove to be in practice. Formally, a person is deprived of their position, the right to hold government office, and the right to run for representative bodies of power. In fact, they will also receive the stigma of being “lustrated,” and it is impossible to say in advance what other restrictions of rights this stigma will lead to. The freezing of accounts, for example. “Here is your quota of 300 dollars a month for withdrawal, and full unblocking only after the results of a commission’s work to ensure that there are no funds on the account obtained from criminal activity under the previous regime.” Even if such measures are not in Mikhail’s current rhetoric, who can guarantee that they won’t be proposed, for example, by employees of the Anti-Corruption Foundation?
  3. A law on lustrations hits broadly. If a new government is formed as a result of a split among elites, the members of the new government will be interested in formulating the clauses of the law so that they themselves do not fall under it. It will turn out as it did in Ukraine, where many functionaries of the previous regime did not fall under the law, while the scapegoats suffered.
  4. Mass restrictions of citizens’ rights will inevitably create a large group of the population that harbors resentment toward the reformers. The more mass the lustrations are (and Mikhail has not set clear criteria for the end of the process, and intends to lustrate until he is stopped), the larger the group of victims will be. Since the active voting right of the lustrated will remain, candidates promising to roll back reforms and return the “good old days” will receive broad support in the next elections.
  5. Lustrations were popular mainly in countries with a developed national consciousness against the backdrop of Soviet occupation. In the former metropole, this idea will meet fierce resistance because the current government is perceived as one’s own, not as colonial.

Alternative to lustrations

Instead of announcing the mass restriction of rights for officials, one could promote the mass reduction of positions. There is no point in lustrating Medinsky, Kolobkov, or Oreshkin; there is point in abolishing the ministries of culture, sports, and economic development. There is no point in lustrating Zolotov; there is point in abolishing the Rosgvardia. There is no point in purging the gubernatorial corps; there is point in taking away the powers of the regions in favor of municipalities. As for the positions that are decided to be kept, it is not so important to conduct personnel purges manually; it is much more important to improve democratic institutions so that unqualified functionaries simply leave peacefully in the next elections.

If after the mass privatization of state property it turns out that a considerable portion of it was bought up by former government officials? Well, that’s wonderful! If the money was obtained as a result of aggressive violence and specific victims are found, then this can be gradually investigated, a lawsuit filed, and compensation recovered, and whatever remains will belong to them indisputably. If no one makes claims, it means this money was obtained by them from official salaries, bribes for bypassing state regulations, and other relatively harmless ways, so let this money now work in the free market.

It seems to me that libertarians have far more relevant topics in their agenda, for example, the reduction of the state, and a far more effective tool than the mass restriction of people’s rights—for example, the market. So, discussing lustrations purely in an academic vein as one of the possible tools of social transformation—why not. But to obsess over this meme oneself means turning from a sect of witnesses of the market into a sect of witnesses of lustrations, and from there, the label of “dem-shiza” [democratic craziness] is not far off.

What to do about epidemics?

Currently, the state can (forcibly, of course) isolate a region where an outbreak of a particular infectious disease has occurred, while also taking preventive measures such as the culling of livestock. Thanks to this, it is possible to significantly hinder the spread of infection and avoid a large number of human casualties. Could the market possibly handle something like this?

анонимный вопрос

The concept of ancap is often criticized for proposing a multitude of private borders instead of a single intra-state space, which any landowner has the right to close at any moment. This criticism is countered by the fact that such a closure is, first of all, not profitable for anyone, and second, if one person goes crazy and closes their territory to passage, there will always be another who will only benefit from the traffic being diverted through them.

And now we have the opposite situation: many private borders, and those wishing to cross them, moving from the epicenter of an epidemic, pose a clear and unambiguous danger to the owner of the transit territory. Naturally, the owners will be interested in setting up checkpoints. Who will come to their aid? Of course, insurance companies, for whom every epidemic is a heavy financial burden, and if it can be localized in some way, they will make every effort to do so. Finally, meat producers from uninfected territories are, on one hand, interested in ensuring that this epidemic does not affect their herds, and on the other, will be glad if their competitors’ livestock numbers decrease, as this will increase their profits. Therefore, they will also willingly finance quarantine measures, veterinary control, and the slaughter of infected livestock. To ensure that neighbors do not stubbornly resist or cheat, they will likely even agree to establish some kind of mutual aid fund to compensate them for part of the losses from the sanitary slaughter.

So the market, unlike soulless salaried bureaucrats, will react to such cataclysms far more vividly and diligently.

How can the continuity of pension payments be ensured during the transition to a libertarian society?

Now, as you probably know, the majority of the pension budget consists of transfers from the federal budget, where the working generation supports pensioners through taxes. The PFR (Pension Fund of Russia) exists purely on paper; without transfer payments from the budget, it would be exhausted instantly; accordingly, its privatization would achieve nothing. In a stable libertarian society, it is clear how the pension system will work (private insurance, assistance from children, charity, capital income, etc.), but what should be done during the transition period before this has been created?

Bitarch (question paid in the amount of 0.01btc)

The state, by forcibly seizing money from people, does so under the pretext that it assumes certain obligations in return. In the case of pension contributions, this is the obligation of a lifelong annuity, starting from an age determined by the state. After the liquidation of the state, the fate of its obligations may vary depending on exactly how the state was liquidated.

Minarchism

In the event of a minarchist government coming to power, everything is relatively simple and predictable (and for me personally, this is almost the only argument in favor of minarchism as a transition period to ancap). For example, the transition period is described in the LPR (Libertarian Party of Russia) program, and the proposed mechanism generally satisfies me completely:

At the initial stage of reforms, all obligations of the state to pensioners and persons who have begun to pay pension insurance contributions will be fulfilled through the creation of a special State Pension Restitution Fund, to which current profits from the privatization of state enterprises and corporations will be directed. All those who made mandatory pension insurance contributions will have them returned as funds from the sale of state property (including the property of the Pension Fund of Russia itself) enter the State Pension Restitution Fund. 

Program of the Libertarian Party of Russia

Upon completion of the restitution, the LPR program envisions the liquidation of the fund and the transfer of the remnants to charity, which is an unfair and corruption-prone measure; therefore, it would be much simpler and more logical upon the liquidation of the fund to distribute the remainder equally to all citizens as a one-time payment.

Anarcho-capitalism

But no minarchism may happen at all. The moral and financial bankruptcy of the state may lead to its liquidation occurring not from the top, with payment on state obligations, but from below, from the side — yes, from everywhere people can reach, without the formation of any successor structures. In other words, state property will be partially bought up by private individuals and partially stolen by state employees at the pre-bankruptcy stage, and the least liquid assets will be scavenged by anyone and everyone once the state is actually liquidated.

How much will pensioners be able to grab for themselves at the pre-bankruptcy stage? Perhaps some land, since as difficulties with paying pensions grow, the demand for land for personal farming will increase, and the distribution of land to pensioners and “persons of pre-retirement age” during this period is quite likely.

How much will pensioners be able to grab at the stage of scavenging the remains? Working budget employees will scavenge the most because they are closer. Some of these working budget employees will be pensioners; they will get something. Non-working people will get something if they hustle, using old connections and similar tools.

Bleak? I’m sorry, I have no other ancap for you in Russia. But there is also good news. If, as the state gradually goes bankrupt, people manage to prevent a collapse into socialism, then by the time of the final liquidation of this parasite, society will already be ready: it will have developed most of the necessary institutions for ancap, primarily mechanisms for private protection and the establishment of property rights, and then the transition period will pass relatively painlessly.

Now, if the state is socialist at the moment of liquidation, then, I’m sorry, instead of ancap, you get Somalia. This is exactly the process we are seeing now in Venezuela.

Lovers of Meganesia will appreciate this!