Автор: Анкап-тян

What is the guarantee of freedom of speech under libertarianism?

Fyodor Svetlov

In short: the guarantees of freedom of speech under libertarianism are the same as under liberalism.

Now, in more detail.

Originally, the concept of “freedom of speech” is a liberal doctrine implying that citizens deny the state the right to prosecute its citizens for their utterances. Usually, freedom of speech is promoted in conjunction with freedom of religion, the press, and so on, because citizens, understanding that the state will inevitably find loopholes in a general prohibition, separately specify spheres where the state is not just forbidden, but completely prohibited from prosecuting citizens. What guarantees freedom of speech according to liberal doctrines? Of course, the separation of powers. The executive branch encroaches on freedom of speech, the legislative branch describes exactly what limitations the executive has, and the judicial branch interprets what the legislative branch has dreamt up; as a result, the branches of power trip over each other, and if they suddenly start marching in step, citizens have the right to rebellion, interpreted as the right to reconstitute the government if the previous one, through a long series of abuses, has completely discredited itself as a bearer of liberal values.

Libertarianism implies that the only permissible function of government is the protection of private property rights (since not everyone believes that private property rights can also be effectively protected in a decentralized manner without any government at all).

Can a libertarian government prosecute its citizens for their utterances? Yes, easily. For example, a certain citizen slanders another citizen, and the latter suffers losses because of it. There is a loss—there is a reason to sue. The court may award compensation to the victim of slander at the expense of the slanderer, and this, certainly, can be interpreted as a violation of freedom of speech. Another example is fraud. No slander here; on the contrary, the product is praised so much that it makes your mouth water, but the real qualities of the product fall far short of the description. Could a court consider this statement a violation of private property rights if the transaction took place and is subsequently contested? It could.

Finally, there are countless examples where freedom of speech is not entirely correctly understood by people as the right to make any statements without punishment on any private platform, provided that the platform is fundamentally intended for making statements. Can the owner of the platform ban someone who prevents them from developing their business? Of course, it is their private property. Will a libertarian government support such an encroachment on freedom of speech? It is obliged to support it. But what if the platform belongs to a member of the government? Here we have a clear legal conflict.

What follows from all these arguments? Yes, a libertarian government has fewer powers than a liberal one. But it does have the power to encroach on freedom of speech. Could it begin to abuse these powers? It could. What is left for citizens as a last resort? The same sacred right to rebellion.

Don’t forget to water the garden bed with oil.

The tomatoes, grandson, might wither, but the machine gun won’t rust

A question from Georgy Nemov regarding non-accession to contract jurisdictions

Let’s simulate a situation:

Territorial and extraterritorial contractual jurisdictions are formed, as well as a decentralized cross-arbitration mechanism linking them. Natural law continues to be supported only by religious or ethical organizations, in whose understanding the guarantor of rights is God/karma. Thus, these organizations remain the only ones who guarantee the life and freedom of a person in territories with a population that has not entered into contract law. These people may be marginal, fragmented, poor, or simply very far from the ideas of ancap. And these people flock under the protection of such religious organizations.

1. Do you think such a situation is possible?
2. If so, is this process natural, and is it a legal objectification of the human being?
3. If this happened, how should our union of contractual jurisdictions proceed? Should it be perceived as a threat, and how should it be fought? Or, conversely, supported?

Ancap-chan’s Answer

1. In fact, this describes a fairly ordinary case of tribalism. While some people, in the event of legal conflicts, rely on those organizations that are obliged to provide assistance by contract, others simply rely on the help of coreligionists/like-minded people. There is nothing surprising about this; there are currently many extremely decentralized communities of interest in the world, from hitchhikers and fencers to libertarians and Krishnaites. They already generally provide primary legal assistance to their members, especially locals to newcomers. I don’t see why these mechanisms should suddenly look different in our model world with greater decentralization of law.

2. I realize that you and I interpret the model situation somewhat differently. You likely view “jurisdictions” as organizations to which a person is legally attached, and those who are not attached are as if outside the law. I view jurisdictions more as “areas of norm imposition,” into which a person may fall both according to contracts and outside of them. And since in the model situation states, as organizations of general jurisdiction on their territory, exit the stage, a huge number of situations arise in which the jurisdiction is unknown in advance. If I’m having sex in a car parked opposite a church, whose jurisdiction is it? The parking owner’s? The church’s? The wife of the person I’m having sex with? It all depends on the context. If the car is parked incorrectly, the parking owner deals with us. If the parking owner is a church, its employee may suggest we have sex elsewhere and not distract the parishioners from pious thoughts. If my partner’s wife has an agreement with him that such things are not accepted between them, then demanding information from me about how aware I was of his availability is entirely within her jurisdiction. But some universal jurisdiction, which cares about everything and can dictate its norms in any sphere—that is already the dark etatist past; in our model situation, these dinosaurs died out long ago and ignominiously.

3. Let’s consider the situation where, say, in some locality, some people call their insurance company during a conflict, while others write in a thematic chat “alarm, ours are being beaten!”, and people from the surroundings start gathering, ready to defend the interests of a member of their community. Should such a thing be perceived as a threat? That depends on what interests the community defends in the conflict. If it is determined to protect its own at any cost in any conflict, then it is a clear threat, and a conditional insurance company must be ready for war with this gang in such cases. But if it is determined to extinguish the conflict, then there are no problems; this is one of the most important functions of communities. A person feels comfortable in them, but in order to belong to them, they accept that other members of the community care about their behavior. In this situation, from the insurance company’s point of view, the community acts as an “insurance cooperative” and can be viewed as an equal counterparty.

A sudden portion of news from Montelibero

Yesterday, Montelibero Space, also known as the First Montelibero Club, ceased its operations, which its creator announced on his blog. Why did the landlord terminate the contract? Because the police came to him. Why did the police come to him? Because he had a legal connection to MTL-City. Why did he have this connection? Because it is much cheaper to register real estate in Montenegro through Montenegrins. Why is Montelibero having difficulties with real estate registration? Because it is a zone of total corruption: no one can do it according to the law, but everyone can do it informally. Why did the police target Montelibero specifically? Because they needed to work a news story. Why did this specific news story arise, even though Montenegro is literally packed with Russians who have far more pronounced ties to the Russian authorities than those who were managed to be linked to Montelibero in the article? Because one of Montelibero’s original concepts involved open interaction with Montenegrin media and political forces for the purpose of advocating libertarian values. The journalist asking the questions was perceived as an ideologically close supporter of liberal values until the article was published. However, as recent world events have taught us, one should not confuse liberal values with USAID grants.

To summarize the first paragraph figuratively, Montelibero went to war, but dressed up as if for a parade. The same mistake was made as by Putin in February 2022, when he somehow assumed that the population would greet his army of liberators with flowers. The fact that Montelibero was indeed preparing for the role of liberators is irrelevant from a tactical standpoint. It was foolish to disregard the fact that the state is our enemy, and its compliant population and media servants mostly side with the Montenegrin state.

What conclusions should be drawn and what actions should be taken?

First, we should become more modest. We are not the vanguard of freedom forces, but refugees from a dictatorship far more terrifying than Montenegro’s. We have refugees here from such totalitarian state entities as Russia, Ukraine, Israel, Norway, and Germany. And we are here because it is a little easier to breathe here, and because we are less likely to be kicked out from here to somewhere else.

Secondly, “breathing easier” and “breathing freely” are not synonyms. There are obvious dangers here that should not be neglected. We have vulnerabilities, and they should be covered. What are these vulnerabilities? First and foremost, everything that the state can grab hold of. Yes, the state can grab hold of anything, just as some HIMARS can reach any target within the radius of its missiles. But missiles are expensive, so the best countermeasures are dispersal and stealth. Each of us must look like a cheap target that is not worth the effort. Just some random small business owners and freelancers, only vaguely acquainted with one another. And no formations on the parade ground, like MTL-Fest. This is no longer a beautiful, inspiring picture, but an enticing target that the enemy will not hesitate to expend effort to destroy.

Thirdly, any Montenegrin must be perceived as an agent of the state. Both the policeman and the one who helps solve problems with the police are beneficiaries of the current system, and both will hand us over to the state as soon as it becomes profitable for them, or as soon as they are simply asked to, or simply to avoid trouble, as happened with the club’s landlord. They will not refuse the state on ideological grounds, because ideologically they are on its side, not ours.

And what, not even make personal contacts with the locals? Of course, make them. Engage in small talk, congratulate them on holidays, treat them to strange Russian treats. But. The sympathy a specific Montenegrin has for you will in no way extend to your friends. If you ask a specific friend for help, there is a chance. But God forbid you try to preemptively buy your way into a Montenegrin “roof” instead—you immediately move from the category of acquaintances to the category of suckers. As soon as you actually need a roof, you will be screwed.

So. To the outside world, we must appear to be harmless loners: pleasant, sociable, with plenty of friends, and trouble-free. Among ourselves, it is important to continue feeling a sense of community. Appeal to it less, manifest it more. Should we record relationships on the blockchain? For now, the dangers outweigh the potential benefits. Blockchain is good specifically for tokenomics, when your obligations are countable and transferable. But whether two accounts are related—that is more likely fertile ground for a Major’s investigations. Our own know anyway, and perhaps outsiders shouldn’t know either.

In general, harsh conditions stimulate dividing the world into ours and theirs. And it is time for us to learn to draw such boundaries clearly, despite all the universalism of our libertarian ideology.

Stefan Molynieux, The Practical Anarchy, translation of chapter 20

The translation of the new chapter of Practical Anarchy is ready. This chapter, with the long title Stateless Dictatorship: How a Free Society Prevents the Re-creation of the State, seemed a bit weak to me. It provides counterarguments to the well-known claim that in the course of free market competition, one protection agency will inevitably begin to dominate over others and form a new state—only this time without any checks and balances like the separation of powers, but simply as a business enterprise for robbing the natives, similar to one East India Company or another.

The weakness of Molynieu’s argumentation is that he exaggerates the inevitability of using centralized services—in an anarchic world, no less—and the possibility of horizontal coordination between multiple agencies in the pursuit of a single goal. Imagine threatening people in a world of bitcoin, drones, and 3D printing with such laughable measures as bank freezes, control over the distribution of weapons, and similar totalitarianism. It is clear that all these technologies, at the time the book was written, were either nonexistent or in their infancy, but if your forecasts collapse with just one decade of technical progress, how much are those forecasts worth? As for his hypothesis about the flawless coordination of independent economic entities around a strategic goal despite the prospect of immediate market gain (someone banned in one place will be willing to overpay in another)—that is the well-known problem of cartel agreements. They are unstable.

Molynieu should have focused on explaining specifically the decentralized mechanisms for countering attempts to re-create systems of organized robbery. In my book, they are mentioned quite briefly, because the book is not exactly about that. In general, it can be put this way: if anarchy is imposed from above, and a sign saying “Ust-Perduy District Court” is simply painted over with “Ust-Perduy PRA,” then nothing much may change under the sign compared to the dark times of etatism. However, if ancap evolved from below and the state truly withered away from obsolescence, then the very human qualities that killed the state will not allow a new one to grow. Ancap is not just a society without a state. It is a society with immunity to the state.

Nomads project

The Nomads project channel was created a month after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by the RF to provide digital nomads with up-to-date information on where to flee. Initially, it mainly focused on Armenia and Georgia, but the authors’ horizons gradually expanded, and later they moved from simple informing to more proactive actions.

On March 26, a post was published in the channel stating that the project intends to open a visa center in Albania. The idea is to lobby the Albanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for a program to receive digital nomads on conditions that are as humane as possible. Then it gets a bit funny: for this purpose, they plan to hold a conference in Tirana with the participation of Albanian bureaucrats and those who hope to use their bureaucratic services. What’s funny is that the conference is being held on Albanian territory, to enter which a visa is precisely what is needed. It’s as if people are willing to make a one-time effort to enter the country in the hope of convincing the hosts to let expensive guests in under more lenient conditions in the future. The idea is noble; perhaps something will come of it.

And today the project put out a post about the issuance of NMPR tokens as part of the Montelibero tokenomics. The tokens were created back in mid-March, and half a month before the start of official sales, Montelibero insiders managed to buy up about a thousand. Well, now they are trying to promote them to the wider market. I hope the target audience of the project, namely digital nomads, will be digitally savvy enough to get some of these tokens and thereby get entangled in the Montelibero tokenomics, which is exactly what we need.

I want to wish these enthusiasts, unknown to me, luck and patience. I don’t know how to say polako in Albanian, but they will definitely need to learn this word. And if they truly manage to make Albania easier for Russian expats to live in, then they will have my heartfelt faleminderit.

Stephan Molynieux, translation of “Practical Anarchy”, chapter 19

As previously indicated, my last remaining long-term translation project can no longer escape, and presented for your attention is the translation of Chapter 19 from Stephan Molneux’s book Practical Anarchy. The chapter is titled These Cages Are Only for Beasts. Previously, while describing his proposed system in which dispute resolution organizations (DROs) operate instead of modern law enforcement systems, Molneux emphasized how powerful an effect a coordinated active boycott can have on an individual. In this chapter, realizing that he went too far and created so much dread that totalitarian anarchy might seem to many a less preferable solution than existing state models, Molneux, conversely, explains that multiple checks and balances are also provided against DROs, and therefore they will not be able to act lawlessly and become a new edition of the state.

Discussion on whether to pay for security

A subscriber sent me the text of their article with a suggestion to refine and publish it. This seemed like a bad idea to me, as I find AI-generated creations uncomfortable to read, and editing them is not enjoyable at all. So I simply posted the article on Teletype so that those interested could read it, and I will reflect on the topic addressed in it.

Briefly, the article explains why someone in need of security should not buy this security, but should ensure it for themselves. As justifications, fairly standard protectionist arguments are provided, stating that the division of labor is not always a benefit because the provider of necessary services will inevitably want to dominate the market, which in the case of security services will inevitably place the consumer of these services under the complete control of the provider.

Firstly, it seems to me not entirely correct to suggest that the reader act on the assumption as if there are currently no enforcers claiming a monopoly, but rather a free market, and one only needs to try not to spoil the current blissful ancap. In fact, we already have a situation of forced collection of arbitrary sums from everyone the state can reach under fraudulent pretexts, including the argument that the state supposedly provides protection. In other words, the article essentially suggests to people who have already fallen into the crocodile’s teeth to be more careful and not walk around Africa.

Secondly, the same arguments used against the division of labor in the sphere of security can be transferred unchanged to other spheres. Wouldn’t a food supplier want to be a monopoly supplier, with complete power over your death by starvation? Let’s engage in subsistence farming to avoid this terrible danger.

In fact, in the case of state security, we have not an excessive, but an insufficient division of labor. The state tends to involve itself in any aspect of security that occurs to a bureaucrat drafting new regulations. Meanwhile, it is precisely the practice of turning to various narrow specialists for every specific issue that counteracts the potential forced merger of these specialists into a single center for providing everything. As soon as the state gets a market competitor in any sphere, the state’s position in it becomes more shaky. Of course, many initially prefer the option already paid for by taxes and therefore requiring no additional expense, rather than paying a private provider for a higher-quality solution. However, private solutions still gradually carve out their way, first in the premium segment, and then in the mass market.

Therefore, I will instead formulate the opposite call: pay for security. Buy all goods and services that are sold to you cheaper and/or of higher quality than if you were to tinker with it yourself. And only if the market choice does not satisfy you, does it make sense to combine efforts with partners and produce the missing product yourself.

Svetov

There is something humiliating about reacting to an information agenda set by other people whose influence far outweighs their usefulness, so this post appears somewhat late, after everyone who wanted to has already spoken out. The formal reason for this text was a question from a subscriber who introduced himself as Tidvik’s dad:

Please share your opinion on Svetov’s latest text about abandoning idealism and merciful rule. Is this a departure from libertarian ideals and a transition into cynical realpolitik? Or is it simply disillusionment and an admission of the opposition’s impotence? And what does Hoppe have to do with it?

On March 5, Mikhail Svetov posted the text Farewell to Idealism (on the mercy of power), which he characterized as “my best text since the state is anarchy” (I also did not want to react to that video, and I also managed to hide behind answering a subscriber’s question).

In the video “The state is anarchy,” Svetov attacks the idea of natural rights and explains its emergence by stating that people had only just killed God and were fascinated by materialism. In the new article, Svetov, on the contrary, repents for having been an idealist (though he says “we” instead of speaking for himself, and his former party colleague goes hard on this topic).

Actually, I rather admire it when a person states: “previously I said this or that, such and such facts forced me to change my position, now I believe this or that.” All Svetov lacks is to add, “because of my mistake, I caused harm to such and such people, I apologize, and I am ready to compensate somehow, if possible.” However, even Navalny never managed to reach such heights of self-awareness. But even this is already better than the classic mid-air flip-flopping, where a change in discourse goes uncommented, and reminders of former views are met with bewilderment, in the spirit of “Did I say that? I can’t believe it. Next question.”

As usual, Svetov introduces strange definitions of terms. If he previously defined anarchy as a state of war of all against all (meaning that since 2019, he can no longer call himself an ancap), he has now defined power as the ability to induce desired behavior from people. Thus, power belongs to a good advertiser whose product is bought, to a good orator whose agenda catches on with the masses, to a rapist dragging a victim into the bushes, and to an official issuing a demolition order for a house. And, of course, to a tyrant deciding what to smear on his political opponent’s underwear. Such a definition does not allow a libertarian to distinguish which power is worth striving for and which is not, but now Mikhail can confidently assert that “there is no scenario in which principles can rely on anything other than power.” Of course it would be, if we expand the definition of power so disgracefully that it includes absolutely any influence.

Svetov’s post was quite warmly received by the Center for Republican Research. It was dedicated two whole reviews from different authors — Daria Kormanovskaya and Andrey Bystrov. Mikhail was congratulated on his position approaching the republican one, recommended literature, and noted minor flaws — in short, they effectively welcomed him into their ranks.

It is also said that his post was warmly received by official Russian propaganda, but fortunately, I am not obliged to familiarize myself with it, so I am completely unaware of the details.

Among Svetov’s sharp critics, I would mention Michael Naki, who emphasized the most important thing lacking in Mikhail’s activities: for quite a long time now, they have been far from any practical application. Mikhail Svetov’s last practical project was the late Moscow club Novaya Iskrennost. But since emigrating, he has focused entirely on maintaining his information resource, which, nowadays, amounts to nothing; bloggers have become as common as dirt, and the activity itself has significantly devalued, unless, of course, a blogger directs their earnings toward something practical, such as Michael Naki organizing fundraisers for the AFU. So it turns out that in this Farewell to Idealism, Svetov simply stated that you, supposedly, are doing everything wrong, but did not outline new landmarks for his potential supporters. It is not surprising that quite many readers concluded: Svetov is suggesting you throw up your hands and surrender to the mercy of the authorities, claiming they are more merciful than how you write about them.

I think Svetov doesn’t engage in practical activities simply because he is bad at it. All the public organizations he belonged to were dismantled by him. His offline business was opened flagrantly late and, quite predictably, was killed by the merciful authorities. So he devotes himself to those pursuits he still feels an affinity for: following the news, commenting on it, and occasionally reflecting on the vanity of existence. Maybe just let the old man rest in retirement instead of demanding action?

And finally, some positivity so as not to resemble Mikhail Svetov. If you want action, in conditions where the merciful authorities are diligently weeding out any public organizations, then the action must be partisan. If you believe it is more important to weaken Putin—your path leads to Rospartizan. If you believe it is more important to empower yourself and gain that very strength without which there is no right—your path leads to agorism. Implementing various agoristic practices is exactly what I am doing.