Автор: Анкап-тян
Which is better: a state contract army, or a private one?
anonymous question
As economic theory teaches us, values are subjective. Therefore, the question of “what is better” should always be accompanied by a clarification: better for whom. To avoid writing a long-winded essay, I will proceed from the assumption that “better” should be for the person in whose interests the army fulfills its primary purpose.
In modern international law, private warfare is prohibited, so a private army can primarily operate as a subcontractor for a state army. At least, if we are talking about a classical army using live manpower armed with lethal weapons. Thus, it is clear that a private army is better than a state army for those tasks that the state prefers to outsource. In essence, the only thing a state army would not want to outsource under any circumstances is the embezzlement of budget money. And a state contract army most willingly outsources those tasks that it handles worst: protecting civilians.
Due to the very mechanisms of its funding, a state army acquires quite typical traits, which is why state armies are, to a certain extent, very similar to one another. Private armies perform market tasks in a wide variety of niches, and therefore can differ greatly from each other. In some places, the market needs cheap light infantry capable of dying in droves without stressing the taxpayers, and a conditional Wagner comes to the rescue. In other places, the market needs the protection of communications, and it is helped by slightly more technological guys skilled in communications and logistics. Somewhere, it is necessary to wage cyberwarfare, and a private troll factory is opened for this task. Somewhere, the market needs intelligence data for publication, and a company like Bellingcat appears.
You might ask, what do the last two cases have to do with war? With equal success, one could ask what Shahed explosions have to do with war. By the way, these are also an excellent example of private armies: they are inexpensive and work effectively. It’s just that their task is rather specific: supporting the advertising campaign of a terror sponsor.
Alright, so for which tasks, other than budget embezzlement, are state contract armies actually more effective than private ones? Paradoxically, despite their complete inefficiency in protecting non-combatants, state contract armies are more effective at creating a sense of security for the citizens of the country to which the state contract army belongs. This is precisely what allows them to be so effective at embezzling the budget, since the taxpayer agrees in advance to the high cost of the army, as long as there is no war.
Happy birthday to Grandpa Ludwig!
You have probably already been congratulated from all sides on Ludwig von Mises’ birthday. And although he is that guy it’s useless to ask “how would so-and-so look under ancap?”, since he angrily denied anarchism, nevertheless, his merits in the field of economic theory are indisputable, and my respect for him is boundless.
So I gladly join the swarm of congratulations. Market to everyone!
Looks to the left – speaks of the impossibility of economic calculation under socialism
After a person’s death, whose property does their corpse become?
anonymous question
Thank you for the interesting question. Indeed, a corpse is a rather peculiar object of property.
At first glance, everything is simple. A person has property rights to their own body; therefore, it is up to them to specify into whose ownership their corpse will pass, or to give paid instructions as to who should perform which specific manipulations with the corpse. If a contract for these manipulations is concluded, the contractors are obliged to perform them. If no instructions regarding the ownership of the corpse have been given, the corpse may be claimed by the first person to express such a desire.
However, in practice, procedural difficulties arise. I will simply list a few of them to illustrate why the theoretical model might fail.
First, a corpse may appear in a closed room belonging to the former owner of the corpse. A person fell asleep in their home and did not wake up. In order to understand that the owner of the house has died, one must enter the house, but as long as there is no certainty that the owner of the house has changed due to the death of the previous owner, entering the house will be considered a violation of the owner’s property rights. The more property rights are respected, the lower the probability of discovering the corpse. In an ideal situation, where respect for property rights is infinitely great, the fact of death will never be established, and the corpse will never pass into anyone’s ownership, continuing to be erroneously recognized as the property of the deceased.
Second, claiming an ownerless corpse may be fraught with claims from those who might assume the claimer’s involvement in the fact of death itself. For example, if someone is sitting peacefully on a riverbank and suddenly sees the corpse of their enemy floating by, it may be in their interest not to claim the corpse, but to let it float peacefully away, which, of course, would spoil their pleasure.
Third, even if the person who found the corpse is obviously uninvolved in its appearance, difficulties still arise in determining the current status of the object. The corpse may already be the property of an heir, since the deceased gave a corresponding instruction in advance. This means that before claiming the corpse, a subject who respects property rights will be forced to take steps to determine the identity of the deceased and their instructions in case of death.
Also, upon discovery of a corpse, it is quite reasonable to assume that the deceased’s friends have already begun searching for them, and if the cause of death was violence, they may be interested in finding the culprit; even if they have no rights to the corpse, they may approach the finder with a request to provide the corpse for an autopsy and similar manipulations.
In short, it is not hard to guess that all these subtleties make a corpse as a commodity quite illiquid and needed by few. Therefore, the question of “who owns the corpse” will more likely arise in the context of reflections on “how to get rid of a found corpse,” rather than “how best to use it for household purposes.” Thus, even in a situation where it is god knows whose corpse it is and it’s unclear if anyone will look for it, the decision to bury it and remember the burial site will be entirely justified and, most likely, less risky than feeding it to pigs. Or one could simply hand it over to a morgue, if we are talking about a civilized area (as it is easy to see from the reasoning provided, the demand for morgues under ancap will not disappear).
How would emergency medical care be provided under ancap? After all, checking for the presence of insurance takes some time, and if a person is unconscious and in critical condition, that time is not available. On the other hand, he would not be obliged to pay for the care, since he did not agree to it.
anonymous question
A person who has not left resource-backed instructions on how to act in the event of their sudden incapacity risks that the actions they would have wanted will not be taken, even if the technical possibility to do so exists.
At the same time, in addition to the service delivery model based on the “use the service, then pay the bill” principle, humanity actively practices another approach: “provide the service, then receive gratitude.” I answer your questions, you send me donations. If you stop doing this, I will not stop answering questions. Similarly, there is no reason to believe that emergency aid will not be paid for in one way or another—if not by the rescued person themselves, then at least by grateful city residents, for whom it is always much more pleasant and easier to reward moral acts than to punish immoral ones.
Yes, it may turn out that the person in need of help has a bad reputation, or that providing help is too costly, or a thousand and one other circumstances that ultimately leave them without that very help. But even then, this story will not be in vain: people will feel awkward that such things happen on their territory, which is a serious incentive to prevent a recurrence and to drop a few satoshis into the city emergency fund.
What will happen to the institution of marriage under ancap?
anonymous question
I can answer in one word: deregulation. But that is obvious to everyone, because deregulation awaits all institutions under ancap, so let’s fantasize about where it will lead and what forms the institution of marriage might take.
What functions of marriage do we have today?
- Marriage is a subscription to sex. Since humans are generally inclined to save effort, this function of marriage will be preserved under ancap, regardless of how much ideological polyamorists dream otherwise. But a subscription, of course, will not imply exclusivity by default, just as it already does not. The word “infidelity” will finally become a thing of the past, alongside other archaic terms like “sacrilege” or “vendetta”.
- Marriage is a form of organizing a household. Here, as people become wealthier, this function will increasingly wither away. Roughly speaking, the norm will be an autonomous household, with the possibility of visiting a partner from time to time or organizing a joint tour. Housekeeping itself will become even more automated, and whatever automation does not handle will be perfectly executed by specialized companies, like modern cleaning services.
- Marriage is a form of friendship. The continuing improvement of communication channels will make framing friendship as marriage less and less relevant. People easily meet and grow close without such a status, regardless of gender, age, and increasingly even social standing. Ancap will only exacerbate this trend.
- Marriage is a cooperative for raising children. To the same extent that the model of marriage as a form of friendship blurs under ancap, the model of marriage as an institution for upbringing will also blur. A child will have a much greater degree of freedom, including in the choice of friends, guardians, and teachers.
- Marriage is a form of legal entity. In the absence of a state that provides the right of legal representation without a power of attorney only to family members, this model will also blur. People will formalize situational relationships of mutual trust using simple and cheap mechanisms, for example, based on blockchain. In the absence of such formalization, a counterparty will be forced to act regarding someone’s acquaintances at their own risk. However, the aforementioned development of communication will allow one to easily obtain all necessary confirmations if necessary.
So. It is quite likely that the form of marriage we know today as traditional will be preserved under ancap as a kind of archaism, however, the role of the institution will be noticeably reduced and replaced by clearer and more specific contractual relations between people.
Libertarian Podcasts
I want to recommend a channel that will be useful to anyone interested only in the audio tracks of various near-libertarian videos available on the internet. It’s very convenient: you’re walking down the street, phone in your pocket, listening to some fresh Shulman in your headphones who appeared on YouTube just a couple of hours ago, and she’s already been ported as audio to Telegram.
I promised you that there would be no promotional posts here. So, to clarify: we are agreeing with the owner of the channel that his audio library will also migrate to my website. The Telegram channels will remain separate. I hope that over time, I will be able to build a small, cozy Ancapistan around myself)
Start your acquaintance with the channel with a couple of programs about lustration. You love lustrations, don’t you?
Can a person who jumps on the heads of people adhering to (also) other ideologies, but who do not impose them on anyone and do not violate the NAP, call themselves a libertarian?
anonymous question
I think that if you meant the literal meaning of the expression “jumping on heads,” the answer would be banal: this is violence that is not a response to a violation of the NAP, therefore the person who jumped on the head has no right to remain unpunished, and their behavior certainly does not correspond to libertarian principles at this moment.
Also, I think it’s clear that you aren’t actually asking whether a person can call themselves something. A person can call themselves whatever they want; that’s what freedom of speech is for.
So I will answer the question in the following formulation:
Should one trust a person’s claim that they are a libertarian if it is known that they exhibit non-violent aggression toward those who hold (also) other ideologies, but who do not impose them on anyone and do not violate the NAP?
Alas, however tempting it may be to deny any asshole the proud title of libertarian, it must be admitted: a libertarian can be an asshole. Due to personal dislike, they may non-violently cause you any unpleasant experiences, and even provoke you into violence, but they are within their rights, and this is a completely conventional libertarian way of behaving in a conflict. Applying retaliatory non-violent sanctions to them—be my guest. Spitting in their face—that’s bordering on a foul. Lunging with a knife—be prepared for the fact that both they and everyone present will be able to unpunishedly apply any violence to you to prevent your actions.
And as for which ideology you peacefully adhere to—it doesn’t matter at all—even if it’s socialist.
– No, you do!
Hi! Please tell me more about Balashov and 5.10—it’s not every day that libertarians in Ukraine nominate their own candidate for president.
Vadim Adamov
People come to libertarianism in different ways.
Many come from academic circles. They are attracted by the logic of this economic and legal doctrine. As a rule, they remain theorists.
Some come from systemic politics. At first, they followed the well-trodden paths, joining mainstream parties, then realized their hearts were not in the proposed methods and migrated toward a more liberty-loving current.
But the smartest, most consistent, and unfortunately, most rarely encountered public libertarians are those who are the most obvious beneficiaries of the wide penetration of libertarian ideology. Entrepreneurs.
Balashov joined our ranks precisely from these circles. After studying as an economist in the Soviet Union, in the late eighties he opened a consignment shop in a shopping center in a corner under the stairs, and a few years later he owned several shopping centers in the underground passages of Dnepropetrovsk. Then came the move to Kyiv, entry into public politics, and one term as a deputy in the Rada. Then social networks, radio shows, in general, a certain level of promotion.
For quite a long time, Gennady was engaged in trying to teach his listeners and readers the philosophy of entrepreneurship and was something like a Ukrainian Potapenko. But, unlike the latter, he clearly gravitated toward something more than a career as a guru, so he constantly tried to impose his agenda on society using political methods as well.
Since 2012, he has headed the 5.10 movement. These two numbers contain the core of his economic program: leave only two taxes in Ukraine: 5% on sales, 10% on wages. In 2014, on the wave of the Maidan, at the head of an initiative group, he simply burst into the office responsible for registering parties in Ukraine, and since then the movement has officially become a party—if only we could do that)))
After founding the party, Gennady seemingly began to actively study theory, and after some time discovered libertarianism; at least, this word began to sound in his speeches around 2015 or 2016, and more and more frequently as time went on. He used to call Bitcoin a financial pyramid and the sale of air, then, again, after being confronted with theory, he changed his opinion and became a distinguished Bitcoin evangelist, thereby demonstrating a sanity that other economists from the same Navalny team cannot boast of.
He is quite skeptical of anarcho-capitalists, but considering that he primarily interacted with internet trolls from that crowd, it is hardly surprising. However, at the moment, it is indeed better for him not to be distracted by all those celestial empyreans—since he has run for president, being a minarchist is optimal.
Acknowledgements psto
Three days ago, I received an unexpectedly large donation, which covered all previous expenses and provided a good foundation for the future. I don’t count the time spent, of course, as answering your questions is a pleasure for me.
Thank you, whoever you are! Now I’m sitting here in deep thought: how should I spend the money to achieve the maximum effect.
I really want to do something pleasant for the donor. And also to extend this practice for the future—for example, depending on the size of the donation, offering something as a keepsake. Going back to thinking.
