Today in MTL-City, the development of the business accelerator under the Monteliberro investment fund was discussed. The head has changed there; the new one is currently taking over, trying to understand what he has gotten himself into, and estimating what to do about it.
Based on the results of the discussion, it seems to have become clear that the focus should not be on attracting new businesses, but on auditing those already invested in, either to ensure everything is fine there or to guess how to steer things out of trouble.
But that is just a side note. I simply want to share a thought that I voiced at this meeting.
When the Monteliberro project was just starting, a study was conducted on why Montenegro was the best place for its launch. It pointed to many favorable factors. The country is small, multinational, has sea access, and has democracy—it has everything so that Russians could come and carry out political transformations toward freedom and, to start with, achieve a powerful economic rise. In fact, it turned out that a small country means a tiny consumer market. That the absence of unconditional dominance by the Montenegrin national majority means the impossibility of obtaining citizenship. That sea access helps nothing in terms of the economy, because the country is effectively walled off by high tariffs on almost everything. And that no one will let Russians carry out any political transformations here; the citizens fight among themselves and change governments every two years, and to step into the line of fire under such conditions is an extremely foolish decision.
Therefore, essentially, the only reason for Rus to go to Montenegro now is that Montelibero is here. Yes, the location might not have been the most ideal choice, but we have already invested here, have already achieved significant success, and now other places are definitely worse. It turned out just like with Israel: the location there isn’t great, and the neighbors are aggressive, but once the Jews had already arrived and built so much, it truly made sense for those for whom it was all being built to go specifically there.
As for the motto of the updated Montelibero business accelerator, it has become “economy without politics.” A sort of return to libertarian classics.
The irony is quite understandable; however, we have the example of Argentina before our eyes: Milei also created a structure in charge of deregulation, and the reduction of the state apparatus there is indeed in full swing. And he doesn’t even have a parliamentary majority yet, whereas in the USA, the problem of passing necessary laws is theoretically much easier to solve.
Of course, we don’t even have an approximate idea of what pitfalls the American deep state hides—that’s why it’s called “deep.” However, it seems to me a good sign that the new department has been allocated very little time for everything, only until 2026, which means they will act quickly. The state machinery of sabotage is quite cumbersome, and there is indeed some chance to overcome its resistance while riding the momentum. Especially if acting in many directions at once, cutting through everything that can be reduced right now from what was planned, and letting what cannot be reduced wait for another convenient opportunity.
Many also snicker at the Ramaswamy/Musk duumvirate, but here there seems to be a fairly logical division of labor, where the former provides analytics, media support, and, if necessary, money, while the latter knows which bureaucrats to talk to and about what to ensure that orders stall less. Will they undermine each other? I doubt it. Musk was born outside the USA and therefore cannot have presidential ambitions; he doesn’t need political points at all. Viveck Ramaswamy, on the other hand, if he decides to run for president in three-plus years, will desperately need a story of maximum constructive cooperation with Musk, so he will lick his boots if necessary.
That’s how I see it. Forgive me for my perhaps excessive naivety and optimism; after all, political analysis is not my field, I am more used to writing fan fiction regarding politics.
Politics is how collective actions are customarily carried out in a given community. Political thinking is a complex of ideas and evaluations concerning politics. Libertarian political thinking is political thinking determined by libertarianprinciples. The culture of libertarian political thinking is how it is reproduced and promoted.
Now the full definition: the culture of libertarian political thinking is how the complex of ideas and evaluations regarding how collective actions are customarily carried out in society, determined by libertarian principles, is reproduced and promoted. How is this culture structured?
In modern society, politics very rarely corresponds to libertarian principles, so a libertarian usually involuntarily shuns politics. In what cases will they not shun it?
First, the collective action must be voluntary for its participants. Rallies by quota, mandatory elections, and the like will be sabotaged by a libertarian whenever possible.
Second, the collective action must pursue an obvious benefit for its participants. A libertarian is unlikely to be inclined to pull chestnuts out of the fire for others.
Third, collective action may involve causing harm only if it is intended to restore justice. Lynching or street clashes with police committing illegal acts may well fit into libertarian political thinking. Pogroms—unlikely.
How are all these values reproduced and promoted? Like many other cultural ideas: through personal example, references to successful political actions, and campaigning.
First, I want to inform you that the epub of the Network State has been re-uploaded — there was a dynamic gif that e-readers didn’t recognize, so it had to be replaced with a static png.
Leaving my job finally happened, and now I want to devote more time to my channel. However, it turned out that in its current form, it burdens me more than anything, which is why posts appear rarely and without much enthusiasm. Therefore, the main thing I want to achieve now is to start enjoying it again. In this regard, I plan to run it differently. Instead of rare articles that barely fit into the format of a standard Telegram post, there will be frequent notes, usually without images — just certain thoughts that I want to share with readers. In the coming days, I will try to return to daily posts, just to establish the habit, and we’ll see where it goes from there.
I don’t intend to descend entirely into a blog format; I have Instagram for that. It is also possible that not every post will now be duplicated across all social networks, we’ll see.
Let me know in the comments which topics of notes would be most interesting to you.
This summer, I finished translating Balaji Srinivasan’s book The Network State. Not everyone finds it convenient to read from a browser screen, and the automatically generated PDF suffered from some layout issues and occasional missing chunks of text. So, slowly and for fun after work, I laid out a version in EPUB format for e-readers (while also proofreading several more bugs in the translation). Given how many links are scattered throughout the text, the task turned out to be quite meditative and kept me busy for several months. And you’ve just had a few months to save up enough money to donate to me.
Also, I am finally leaving my full-time job, which has taken a considerable amount of my time and energy over the last three years. So, in a couple of weeks, I will have far more opportunities to maintain the channel. I think some reformatting awaits it.
I wasn’t able to watch the Starship flight live, as I was on a business trip involving socializing and alcohol tastings. However, at the very first opportunity, I inquired about how things went and was overjoyed by the success.
In this regard, I want to reflect on a trend that has become particularly pronounced lately and is becoming a complete commonplace: in almost any state, an entrepreneur can face numerous problems related to their political stance, and the more of an innovator that entrepreneur is, the more likely it is that their political position will run counter to the mainstream — it is difficult to imagine a completely systemic innovator. Jack Ma in China, Pavel Durov in France, and Elon Musk in the USA are not even close to an exhaustive list, but merely a cross-section showing that this trend is quite global, and these entrepreneurs, for the most part, have nowhere to run.
A quite obvious question arises. Within libertarian circles, the idea of a Libertarian International wanders—an awareness of common interests among holders of libertarian values and the joint defense of these very interests, despite the individualistic nature of the libertarian ideology itself. One wonders: among entrepreneurs, who encounter systemic state opposition to the values that fuel their businesses, is there no demand for an Entrepreneurial International? What could the joint defense of common interests by entrepreneurs consist of, and are they capable of realizing them, despite the individualistic nature of any entrepreneurial activity, and especially innovative activity?
In a speculative free-market society, a person is wealthier and more respected the more benefit they bring to others. In a real society, where politics is mixed with the free market, such a person receives, in addition to wealth and respect, envy, which quickly turns into hatred—and a very active kind of hatred at that.
Of course, the most obvious move for entrepreneurs is to relocate their business to the freest possible jurisdiction. That is, to seek shelter under a politician who shares their values—someone like a hypothetical Milei. However, how many political systems can boast long-term continuity of political course? The alternation of power is a well-known democratic fetish. Therefore, an entrepreneur cannot trust a politician who lures them into their jurisdiction with promises of economic freedom. They know that in a few years, the politician will exit the stage, a leftist will crawl into their place, and will begin to demolish everything built by their predecessor. And relocating a business is a loss of time and money.
In response to all this, a libertarian will dig through a manual and provide a quite decent, well-theorized recipe: extraterritorial contractual jurisdictions. But that is also a business. And this service can only develop if there is stable, solvent demand. That is, conditional Durovs and Musks must at least signal their readiness to enter into a contract with someone who can and will agree to provide protection for their businesses from the appetites of territorial states and their greedy, envious voters. And then, perhaps, a couple of outlaws will be found who will dare to launch this honorable, yet extremely dangerous and responsible business.
Of course, variations are possible. For example, such a forceful entrepreneur might first launch their own service and only then offer their services to those in need. Or entrepreneurs might organize extraterritorial protection on their own.
For now, however, there is a feeling that entrepreneurs continue to rely on traditional political protection, funding one politician or another despite the obvious unreliability of this method. I don’t have a recipe for how to change their mindset. I am simply admiring the filigree landing of the fifth Starship booster on the launch pad and continue to marvel at how much harder social innovation is to implement than engineering…
From October 4 to 6, MTL-Fest will take place in Bar, Montenegro, and its surroundings. Libertarians from various corners of the world are expected, including representatives of related libertarian projects. However, the description of a given libertarian community is usually made with rather broad strokes. Something like “Monteliberro is a movement to build a free society in Europe, starting with Montenegro”. It’s not even a lie, but there are no guarantees that the picture in the reader’s head after such a description will be even remotely similar to what exists in reality.
On October 5, many interesting talks about different approaches to building libertarian communities are expected. On October 6—many no less interesting talks about the tools we use. But this is all a bird’s-eye view; it will allow you to grasp trends, but it won’t let you fully feel who the people gathered in this very Monteliberro are and how they live. And that is exactly where one should start.
Therefore, on October 4, the first day of the festival, we invite everyone interested to Tikhiy Omut(this is a small agorist club of Monteliberro). There, you will be met by real people who will tell you a little about themselves: how they joined the movement, what they found on the ground, how they settled in, what they do, and how they interact with the community. Talks about structures and institutions will await you in the following days, but for a start—the purely human dimension.
There will be no presentations or other attributes of public lectures. We will sit around the table in an informal setting, enjoy some refreshments, and gradually move from storytelling to discussion, and perhaps we will even arrive at some interesting ideas.
We are gathering at 19:00, and we will head out whenever we decide to. For those who find it difficult to return home at night, we will offer an apartment in the center of Bar to stay overnight.
On October 6, the final day of the festival will take place at MTL-City, and most of the performances on this day will involve exchanging practical experience, though that is just my own arbitrary generalization.
1. Ivan Gavrilov
Ivan runs the Telegram channel Ogurism, positions himself as a professional amateur, and, I suspect, his talk will be an apology for the Non-Aligned Movement (in Yugoslavia, or where?). The informal center of this movement has turned out to be Tikhiy Omut—an unmarked club that shares a roof with a private kindergarten and brings together those who feel constrained by the organizational activities accompanying the Monteliberio project.
2. Valery Utroshin
Valery runs Mabiz, a division of the Monteliberio investment fund designed to help develop the businesses of project participants. In my view, this business accelerator performs its task at a mediocre level, but perhaps Valery will present data that will make me revise this assessment upward.
3. Igor Tolstov
Igor is our Sondre. Most of Monteliberio’s tokenomics are his developments. I would like to hear not only an introductory talk about tokenomics, but also what new features he plans to implement in his software in the foreseeable future.
4. Soz Nov
Primarily known as the founder of Montelibero Space—a club that has hosted many participants and guests of the Montelibero project—Soz, having been forced to move to Bulgaria, has shifted his focus to developing blockchain tooling, and has achieved some success in that capacity as well. I think twenty minutes of speaking time will barely be enough for him to give an introductory talk on what a Blockchain Social Network is, but perhaps there might even be time to answer the short question, “where is the decent frontend?”
5. Ilya Kopychina
At the start, MTL-City was being developed as “God wills,” which is completely natural for an ancap. Now, thanks to Ilya, it is being developed in the same manner, but with preliminary renders that provide some idea of what the developers intend to depict. He also has a peculiar writing style with many Capital Letters, so for me, attending his report on MTL-City will primarily serve the purpose of determining the balance between pathos and self-irony.
6. Vladimir Baidálov
He is set to talk about the M-City internet radio project. I have a very simple relationship with classic radio: it is not present in my life at all. On the other hand, I quite enjoyed listening to something like Morning Mail, so who knows, the project might turn out to be quite interesting.
7. Dmitry Epikhin
He is a key developer for MTL-City and a defendant in several lawsuits related to conflicts between him and his employees. He will talk about his experience with business tokenization and answer questions about where the water in the tap comes from.
8. Vladislav Ketov
The most experienced of the Montelibero cyclists, he has ridden his bicycle around the world. He might even be able to explain why my front sprocket is squeaking, but I won’t embarrass myself by pestering him with such amateurish questions. He plans to hold his own personal art exhibition at the festival. Let’s set our artist on him, and let them see whose exhibition is longer.
That is all I have for now regarding the announcements for MTL-Fest 2024.
Alexey has some experience in political and political technology activities, and he attempts to realize his libertarian values specifically through this framework. He is the author of the book “After the State,” in which he rediscovered the concept of panarchy, which was unknown to the Russian-speaking community at the time. A heavily revised second edition of the book, “After the State 2.030,” was recently released. Alexey asserts that, on one hand, any bureaucratic face is a living human being with their own values and interests who is available for dialogue and persuasion—and on the other hand, that the state represented by that face only knows how to speak the language of structures and organizations, but never of individuals or amorphous communities. Therefore, he insists on the necessity of creating such structures (among Russian-speaking panarchists, the term “extraterritorial contractual jurisdictions” is commonly used) followed by establishing a dialogue with representatives of states.
There is something to shit about here. The proposed method would be perfectly valid if we weren’t libertarians.
2. Mikhail Pozharsky
In my own work, I am gradually shifting from theory to practice, whereas Mikhail, conversely, being more of a practitioner in his youth, has now shifted into the realm of theory. His posts and videos usually represent a creative reflection on various smart books and articles. If we believe Pozharsky’s recent post, he intends to tell the emigrant community why emigration is pigsty behavior. I hope the presentation does not boil down to a retelling of his same-named and rather famous video. Especially since Mikhail himself later released a video of contrary content, about how migration is cool.
Pozharsky is often viewed in opposition to Svetov, and the festival organizers have followed this well-trodden path: Svetov’s report also concerned emigration and was formulated as “what Russian libertarians should do in emigration.” Mikhail Svetov’s answer boiled down to the idea that one must build a libertarian international. So, what will Mikhail Temnov tell us about this?
3. Sondre Bjellas
Sondre regularly shows up at our Bar, but my level of conversational English didn’t allow me to get to know him better. In principle, he was quite well introduced on the festival channel.
He represents Liberstadt, a project that is closest in spirit to our Montelibero. Liberstadt is slightly older and has achieved results quite comparable to ours: it is a small settlement that serves as the project’s flagship, where a couple of dozen activists live, plus an online community that the project supports and participates in. Similarly, blockchain technologies play a huge role in the development of Liberstadt, but while we use the third-party Stellar blockchain, Liberstadt has developed its own POS blockchain and toolkit for it, which is completely open-source, and they offer anyone interested to make forks to use the product for the needs of their own communities.
Sondre, as far as I can tell, is one of the developers of all this tooling. A quick look at his GitHub account showed that he also helped in the development of one of the Montelibero wallets for Stellar. Personally, I was more interested to see that he also works on Nostr developments, including having code for his own relay. We definitely need one like that for Montelibero!
4. Stanislav Karkavin
Stas will be representing Montelibero itself at the festival. Like Sondre, he is an IT professional, a good speaker, very active in the project, and has only one flaw: he lives in Serbia. Therefore, although he has lived closely in Montenegro for a while and has a good idea of the local situation, he is still perceived by the die-hard Montelibero natives as a bit of an outsider.
On the other hand, to the extent that his report concerns the project’s blockchain internals, his status as a remote participant will not hinder him at all.
Ideally, of course, our developers should somehow ideologically cross-pollinate with those from Liberstadt. Perhaps some progress in this direction will even happen at the fest.
5. Bojo Popovic
Bozo is invited as a Montenegrin bitcoin enthusiast. Cryptocurrencies in Montenegro are in a gray zone: the Prime Minister promotes their widespread adoption, but at the same time is obliged to declare an aspiration toward the European Union, and in the EU, they mostly try to keep cryptocurrencies out.
I hope the organizers briefly conveyed to Bozo that the audience will not consist entirely of random people, and that he will be required not to give an introductory lecture on Bitcoin, but rather some kind of inside information regarding the specific Montenegrin context.
Bozo’s Twitter consists exclusively of reposts; no other social media accounts could be found. So I have to state that I don’t even have a rough idea of the agenda he broadcasts. Judging by the reposts, the values seem similar, which is something.
6. Yuri Polozov
Yuri is a veteran of the Libertarian Party of Russia, who joined the Free State Project long ago and has managed not only to obtain US citizenship but even to be elected to the state congress.
In principle, from open sources, we have a fairly good idea of the main concept of the free state project, and also have a fleeting understanding of their successes: they elected so many Freestaters to representative bodies, abolished such and such regulations. What causes me the greatest bewilderment is that in a country of three hundred million with a powerful tradition of social mobility and deeply rooted libertarianism (millions of people vote for a presidential candidate from the Libertarian Party), only six thousand participants have joined the free state project in twenty years. What is wrong with FSP? This is the question I want to ask Yuri.
In the third post, I want to outline my expectations for the third day of the festival
Alexey has some experience in political and political technology activities and attempts to implement his libertarian values specifically through this framework. He is the author of the book “After the State,” in which he rediscovered the concept of panarchy, which was unknown to the Russian-speaking community at the time. A heavily revised second edition of the book—”After the State 2.030″—was recently released. Alexey asserts that, on one hand, any bureaucratic snout is a perfectly living person with their own values and interests who is available for dialogue and persuasion—and on the other hand, that the state represented by that snout only knows how to speak the language of structures and organizations, but never that of individuals or amorphous communities. Therefore, he insists on the necessity of creating such structures (among Russian-speaking panarchists, the term “extraterritorial contractual jurisdictions” is commonly used) with a subsequent establishment of dialogue with state representatives.
There is plenty here to argue about. The proposed method would be perfectly valid if we weren’t libertarians.
2. Mikhail Pozharsky
In my work, I am gradually shifting from theory to practice, while Mikhail, on the contrary, being more of a practitioner in his youth, has now shifted into the realm of theory. His posts and videos are usually a creative reflection on various smart books and articles. If one believes Pozharsky’s recent post, he intends to tell the emigrant community why emigration is piggishness. I hope the speech does not amount to a retelling of his fairly well-known video of the same name. Especially since Mikhail himself later released a video of the opposite content, about how migration is cool.
Pozharsky is often viewed in opposition to Svetov, and the festival organizers went exactly down this well-trodden path: Svetov’s report also concerned emigration and was formulated as “what should Russian libertarians do in emigration.” Mikhail Svetov’s answer boiled down to the fact that one needs to build a libertarian international. So, what will Mikhail Temnov tell us about this?
3. Sondre Bjellas
Sondre regularly appears at our Bar, but my level of conversational English did not allow me to get to know him better. In principle, he was quite well introduced on the festival’s channel.
He represents Liberstadt, a project that is closest in spirit to our Montelibero. Liberstadt is slightly older and has achieved results quite comparable to ours: it is a small settlement that serves as the project’s flagship, home to a couple of dozen activists, plus an online community that the project supports and participates in. Similarly, blockchain technologies play an enormous role in the development of Liberstadt, but while we use the third-party Stellar blockchain, Liberstadt has developed its own POS blockchain and a toolkit for it, which is completely open-source, and they encourage anyone interested to make forks to use the product for the needs of their own communities.
Sondre, as far as I can tell, is actually one of the developers of all this tooling. A quick glance at his GitHub account showed that he also helped in the development of one of the Montelibero wallets for Stellar. I was, however, more interested to see that he is also involved in Nostr development, including having code for his own relay. We definitely need one of those for Montelibero!
4. Stanislav Karkavin
Stas will be representing Montelibero itself at the festival. Like Sondre, he is an IT professional, a good speaker, very active in the project, and has only one flaw: he lives in Serbia. Therefore, although he has lived quite closely in Montenegro and has a good idea of the situation on the ground, he is still perceived by the very hardened Montelibero natives as a bit of an outsider.
On the other hand, to the extent that his report will concern the blockchain internals of the project, his status as a remote participant will not hinder him in any way.
Ideally, of course, our developers should somehow cross-pollinate ideologically with those from Libertad. Perhaps the festival will even see some progress in this direction.
5. Bojo Popovic
Bojo is invited as a Montenegrin bitcoin enthusiast. Cryptocurrencies in Montenegro are in a gray zone: the Prime Minister promotes their wide adoption, but at the same time is obliged to declare an aspiration toward the European Union, and in the EU, they mostly try to keep cryptocurrencies in and not let them out.
I hope that the organizers briefly conveyed to Bojo that the audience will not consist entirely of random people, and that instead of an introductory lecture on Bitcoin, he will be expected to provide certain insights regarding the specific Montenegrin context.
Bojo’s Twitter consists exclusively of reposts; no other social media could be found. So I have to state that I don’t even have a rough idea of the agenda he broadcasts. Judging by the reposts, the values seem similar, which is something.
6. Yuri Polozov
Yuri is a veteran of the Libertarian Party of Russia, who joined Free State Project a long time ago and has managed not only to obtain US citizenship, but even to be elected to a state congress.
In principle, from open sources, we have a fairly good idea of the main concept of the Free State Project, and we also have a passing understanding of their successes: they elected so-and-so freestaters to representative bodies, abolished such-and-such regulations. My greatest bewilderment stems from the fact that in a country of three hundred million with a powerful tradition of social mobility and deeply rooted libertarianism (millions of people vote for a libertarian party presidential candidate), only six thousand participants have joined the Free State Project in twenty years. What is wrong with FSP? This is the question I want to ask Yuri.
In my third post, I want to outline my expectations for the third day of the festival
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