Well, just as I relaxed and decided that there wouldn’t be a question again today, a question was asked after all. But it’s too late—I’ve already relaxed. So I’ll answer a bit later, but for now, I’ll share a silly joke I overheard today:
— Who built this road?
— Oh, it’s a mystery shrouded in an asphalt-cap!
The main problem with this type of campaign is that it usually doesn’t articulate what goal is intended to be achieved, what means should be used, what means must under no circumstances be used, and how the available means can be used to achieve the stated goal.
What follows are purely theoretical reflections on what kind of long-term campaign could be effective.
Today you have given me a day off again, so I will reflect a bit on the indefinite protest that was announced by the participants of the rallies on September 9 in Moscow, and then in several other cities.
What surprises the protesters most is that all opposition organizations are shyly avoiding it; not only do they fail to join, but they prefer not to mention it at all, and in some places, they even ban mentions of it on their resources. How can this be? I will try to figure it out.
This indefinite protest is not the first, and all previous ones ended ingloriously. There was the Occupy Abay, there was the siege of the Christmas tree ornament in New Year’s Moscow, there was Manezhka in October of last year. Each time, the police dispersed these indefinite actions without much effort as soon as they felt their time had come. Therefore, the leaders of the organized non-systemic opposition, who themselves actively participated in previous actions in their time, are now in no hurry to repeat this disgrace and are discouraging others.
In other words, the general opinion today is that a protest action should be populous rather than prolonged, and space over time does not convert. It would seem that populous actions also do not lead to the government resigning or canceling its unpopular decisions, so on what basis should rallies be more preferable than occupations? I can perhaps name two arguments.
Thus, at the stage of accumulating strength, rallies are a more effective means of maintaining morale and replenishing the ranks, while at the stage immediately preceding the fall of a regime, rallies are certainly insufficient — this stage is precisely accompanied in the modern practice of peaceful revolutions by multi-day protests.
At the same time, one can never know for sure in advance whether the time has come for an occupation, or whether it is more profitable for now to keep a low profile and only occasionally remind people of one’s existence through rallies. For the start of the Maidan, one small, harshly dispersed rally was enough. In Yerevan, the indefinite protest began immediately, without any rallies; it was initially very small but continued to grow until the change of the prime minister. So, it can turn out in different ways.
That is exactly why one should not discourage people from participating in any peaceful protest, even if you are sure that right now, and in exactly this form, it is a complete profanation. What if it turns out that you were wrong, and the time has actually come.
It is far more important to constantly consider for yourself how the existing protest could be supplemented to make it more effective. This supplement does not have to be expressed in joining the action, as one can work on other fronts, as long as the desired result becomes closer.
Well, I will talk about that next time, provided, of course, that you don’t pelt me right now with questions on other topics.
Last Sunday was marked not only by nationwide protests, but also, imagine that, by elections. I would like to talk a bit about why ancaps should pay any attention to elections at all.
Of course, the idea that someone who has defeated their opponents as a result of a complex, multi-stage electoral procedure now has the power to dispose of all the inhabitants of the mandated territory within the powers specified by the office, plus bonuses for audacity, and that this is as indisputable as the requirements of a voluntarily signed contract—does not withstand criticism. Volumes have been written about this; let us not dwell on this banality.
But do you really think that under ancap there is no place for the very phenomenon of procedural legitimation when determining who will exercise leadership?
Democracy is a set of tools for making compromise decisions in collectives. Under ancap, only a fundamental requirement is added: that decisions concern only issues of the management of collective property, but not the private property of the collective’s members. Given this limitation, democratic procedures are quite acceptable, and they indeed contribute to the minimization of conflicts.
Therefore, participation in the state-organized master class on conducting electoral procedures is quite useful. For now, for educational purposes, it does not matter exactly how hypothetical candidates Ivanov and Petrov got onto the ballot, how Sidorov was barred from the elections, or how Popov was removed on the last day. What matters is that the precinct commission properly crossed candidate Popov off the ballot, that every ballot bore a stamp and the signatures of two precinct commission members, that no campaigning was conducted near the precinct, that no pressure was put on the voter at the precinct, that the secrecy of the vote was maintained, that the counting of votes was carried out strictly according to procedure, that the control totals matched, and that the copies of the protocols issued to observers matched the official results for the precinct—all this boring “kitchen” work, where every single point matters.
Can you solve such simple educational problems? Then it will be easier to handle the organization of voting at a shareholders’ meeting, or a homeowners’ association, or the programming of consensus algorithms when creating a new cryptocurrency. Or you can try to make the problems more complex—and strive for the purity of electoral procedures not only on election day, but throughout the entire election campaign. And then, perhaps, it will lead to the practical implementation of a democratic model within the state—meaning not only an electoral model, but the entire system of checks and balances that ensures the adoption and implementation of compromise decisions in large collectives while minimizing violent coercion.
So do not neglect elections, even if there is no practical benefit from the results of the voting at the moment. This is the development of skills as useful as the ability to handle a weapon. Just come to the precincts to, so to speak, practice.
anonymous question
It’s even more interesting. Not only will it be impossible to ban it, but the institution of reputation will also fail to work.
Judge for yourself: you have two businesses, both bring in money, but those who find out that you have one business refuse to do business with you in your second business for some of their own ethical reasons. For example, you have a vegan restaurant and a steakhouse, and the vegans have stopped liking you, accusing you of hypocrisy. The meat-eaters generally don’t care what you sell to the vegans. What do you do? You simply hide the existence of the steakhouse and remain a respectable owner of a vegan restaurant in the eyes of society. And the steakhouse is owned by a “front man.”
The exact same thing happens with selling drugs to children and adults. If one business interferes with another, it is simply separated so that you are not associated with it. Moreover, if it turns out that parents forbid children from buying your heroin with their pocket money, you can always switch to the “dead drop” scheme, which works perfectly today under conditions of a total government ban on the circulation of psychoactive substances.
In other words: the stick method does not work, no matter how you try to optimize it.
We cannot predict in detail what the structure of supply and demand will be in a free market, but if a certain product, despite all its positive qualities, has a lot of various unpleasant side effects, then a demand arises for the same thing, but without the side effects. Once the desired substance can be obtained at a comparable price, the old one will have to leave the market. I think this is precisely the fate that awaits heroin in the end, and after that, it will no longer matter whether what replaces it is sold to children or adults — it will be something as socially acceptable as, for example, ice cream.
But for market forces to work successfully in the desired direction, they must not be hindered by various absurd bans. Because right now, in the field of psychoactive substances, not only distribution but also research is illegal.
And finally, I would like to note that with full deregulation of the industry, the problem of the spread of harmful habits among vulnerable categories of the population will be completely insignificant, even without any significant innovations. I suggest looking at Portugal’s experience with the decriminalization of drugs. It had many positive consequences, including a sharp decline in adolescent drug addiction that continues to this day. So, I appreciate your concern for children, but really, there would be nothing to worry about in this case.
anonymous question
I currently remind me a bit of Yulia Latynina, because I want to respond in the spirit of “you know, it’s like in that joke: first of all, there were no bullets…”.
Terrorist attacks such as 9/11, Beslan, Nord-Ost, the Boston Marathon, and so on, are directed against state policy. No state – no policy – no political terrorist attacks. Voila, the free market prevented them. Now let’s dig a little deeper.
Who ensures the safety of people in a free market? The people themselves. For the most part – directly. But the least troublesome and most obvious way, given that the market always tends to settle things through the division of labor, is to use market offers.
What does the market offer in terms of security? First, one can purchase a security service, for example, by installing an alarm system in the house and signing a contract with a security firm. Second, one can buy an insurance policy and simply know that, should something happen to you, either you or a designated circle of heirs will receive an insurance payout, so now it is the insurance company’s headache to figure out how to ensure people’s safety regarding insurance events.
Aha. So, if a terrorist attack occurs, the insurance company will suffer huge losses. There you have your potential beneficiary of terrorist attacks – competing insurance companies. The plan of action: blow up a plane, the company that insured the flight goes bankrupt, and we enter the vacated flight insurance market. There is, however, a problem: the plane is insured by one company, but each passenger is insured by any other; after all, they choose whose policy to take when insuring themselves against an accident or attack during a flight. Thus, decentralization makes commercial terrorist attacks aimed at seizing the insurance market ineffective. This applies not only to flights, but to all spheres of life in general.
But what about ideological terrorist attacks? For example, conservative fanatics might carry out mass shootings in gay clubs, exactly as they do now. To a certain extent, decentralization rules here too: when even the last gay man has a gun, a mass shooting becomes a problem. But a gun doesn’t save you from an explosion.
How does the free market prevent the spread of destructive ideologies? In the only way available to it: by making people richer and happier. This works slowly and does not provide a hundred percent effect, but it completely outperforms any state alternatives.
The only thing the market hasn’t learned to prevent yet is the appearance of insane maniacs. Economic incentives work poorly on someone who has lost their mind, just as they do on meteorites and tsunamis.
But once the market settles the raiders and Islamists, it will be the turn of the maniacs and natural disasters. Just laissez faire, laissez passer.
You have run out of questions for now, so I will just talk about yesterday’s protests.
It is clear that pensions, in particular, concern very few people. Those who are about to retire suffer from the increase in the retirement age to a minimal extent, because the age is increasing gradually. And for those who won’t retire for a long time, it is such a distant future that in our fast-paced and unstable world, it is completely pointless to make plans for such a period.
But it is the youth who are protesting. What is their motive?
They are simply tired of this state, and here it has set itself up perfectly. You can go out to protest against the government as such, but in the eyes of parents and grandmothers, have an ironclad justification: we were robbed, you were robbed, the state has gone crazy, it needs to be reined in, otherwise it won’t stop.
Right now is such a wonderful period when there is absolutely no point in promoting any legal constructive politicians at the federal level. Duma elections in 2021. Presidential elections in 2024. So, it will be a very long time before people are receptive to the thesis that “the opposition only brings negativity, why not participate in elections with a constructive agenda,” and for now, questions about what the hell is going on with the government’s agenda will land much better. Now is the time to obstruct it, force it to make mistakes, shake its authority, and make any attempts to negotiate with it about anything other than surrender look ridiculous. Time for the thesis “you present us with a fait accompli, and we present you with a fait accompli.” A time when the state can not only be called a bandit, but one can behave toward it exactly as such: place it outside the law and organize a defense. A time when, in response to the words “I am against the state,” people stop pointing to their temples and start wondering what can be done.
From the thesis “the state cannot be trusted with our pension savings,” it is not far to the thesis “the state cannot be trusted with anything at all.” And that means people are ripening for ancap.
anonymous question
I dislike lapsing into academicism, which is why I try to attract experts who aren’t prone to it. Regarding contract slavery, I recommend reading LJ-user Artyom Zheleznov under the tags slavery, slave ownership, and slave trade.
The guy positions himself not only as a theorist but also as a practitioner in this industry, which gives his delivery an additional freshness.
I’ll provide a mix of his points and my own thoughts.
Let’s define a slave as a subject coerced into a particular activity, and a slave owner as the person or organization that is the ultimate beneficiary of the slave’s forced activity. I should note that coercion to labor specifically is not the defining characteristic of slavery—it is enough, for example, that a slave is forced to live where specified, eat what is given, and follow a routine imposed by the slave owner. Similarly, whether the slave owner derives profit from the slave is not fundamental. A slave can be loss-making and yet still be in slavery.
In the modern world, private slave ownership seems to be permitted only in Morocco, while state slavery, conversely, is legalized everywhere. A person becomes a slave by entering prison, a conscript army, or an orphanage. Whether an Australian citizen, obliged to come and vote in elections, is considered a slave is a debatable question. I would rather define this as a labor obligation that can be bought off.
What is the difference between slavery and wage labor? A slave, by default, has no right to negotiate the amount of their remuneration with the slave owner, nor do they have the right to unilaterally terminate the relationship.
Now, let’s move on to contract slavery. This is a type of slavery that arises as a result of concluding a contract, that is, voluntarily. Thus, at the moment the deal is struck, each party believes they are gaining more than they are losing.
For example, Irish people fleeing famine to the United States in the 19th century could not afford the trip, so they sold themselves into slavery. In the States, they were bought by some private individual, and under the contract, the slaves were obliged to work for them for an agreed term. You will agree that such a model was beneficial for all participants of the deal. The emigrant bought their life and a ticket at the cost of a temporary limitation of freedom. The captain received money only if he delivered the indentured slave to the other shore. The slave owner received cheap labor, which would pay off only if the slave remained capable of working for the entire term specified in the contract.
I will note that voluntary slavery does not mean the sale of the body, mind, and will, even if the contract is lifelong rather than term-limited; this is precisely why it does not contradict libertarian principles. Contract slavery simply means coercion to perform activities at the request of the slave owner, in accordance with the contract. Retaining freedom of will, a slave can always deem further existence in slavery unacceptable and begin to sabotage the master’s instructions and take actions toward their own liberation. If they can convince the master to enter into a new deal—where, on one hand, the condition is liberation, and on the other, some benefit unattainable under the current slave contract—then obtaining freedom is entirely realistic.
The most innocent variety of slavery is erotic games between a dominant and a submissive. By contract, the submissive may be coerced by the dominant into anything, but the contract can be terminated or suspended at the will of either party.
The most disgusting variety of slavery is, of course, state slavery. Slaves come to the state for free; the state does not care about profit and is not interested in the preservation of the slaves—and therefore there is no cruelty that it could not easily exhibit toward them while remaining completely unpunished.
I would say that even the phrase “under ancap” is not entirely correct. Rather, one should say “by ancap,” just as people say, for example, “by conscience” or “by the rules,” although it sounds a bit clumsy.
The further we go, the more opportunities people have to live by ancap in a wide variety of things. Just ten years ago, people had practically no opportunity to conduct international trade without contacting the state. Now—no problem at all: there are bitcoins, there is the internet, trade away; the only issue is that problems may arise at customs. But once inexpensive long-range drones go into mass production, the issue of cross-border delivery of small parcels will cease to be acute.
And it will be this way everywhere there is solvent demand for bypassing state barriers. And the more positive examples of living by ancap there are, the greater the demand for such a life, and the less the demand for the state as such.
I have just drunk an elixir of optimism and predict that among the current generation of Russians around twenty years old, significantly more will live to see a life fully by ancap than will live to see retirement)))
This is a completely baseless prediction based on blind faith in the “market.” Mind you, economic theory does deny the possibility of precise quantitative predictions.
Recently, I answered questions regarding weapons: about the consequences of legalization and about psychos. In those answers, I consistently pointed to the logical premises for why arming citizens would reduce crime, and also noted that this is confirmed by practice in the post-Soviet space.
Right now in St. Petersburg, there is a lecture by the well-known libertarian weapons expert Vladimir Popov, host of the channel Don’t tread on me. There, he warns against engaging in propaganda games with statistics, because crime is influenced by many far more significant factors, and no correlation between the murder rate and the level of citizen armament is observed worldwide.
Not that this is a direct refutation of my thesis, but the addition is quite substantial.
Anyway, I won’t distract you; just watch the broadcast with me.
