The translation of the new chapter of Balaji Srinivasan’s book The Network State is complete. In it, he develops the theme touched upon in the previous chapter, showing how Leviathans interact using the example of modern society in the USA. To be honest, it wasn’t the most interesting chapter. In short, the author points out that while conflicts in American society were previously mainly between the right and the left, now, from the perspective of the well-known two-dimensional political compass metaphor, the conflict is between the top and the bottom, authoritarians and libertarians.
In principle, we observe roughly the same thing in our own community. Both right-wing and left-wing anarchists integrate easily into the people of Montellibero, but statists have a much harder time.
I was recently sitting in a cafe with one of my subscribers, and the standard conversation came up about how tiresome Bitarch’s monotonous posts have become—about the violence inhibitor, psychopaths, and the urge to bet a million on human behavior during a face-to-face meeting without revealing one’s incognito. It seems I managed to construct a certain line of reasoning as to why all this is necessary; I will present it here in an expanded form.
The first thesis will essentially be an off-topic, concerning the fact that Bitarch is willing to pay 5,000 rubles a month in Bitcoin equivalent for the right to post in my channel, yet not a single one of his critics is willing to outbid this price to ensure his posts do not appear in the channel. Although, it would seem, it would be easy and inexpensive for a cooperative of Bitarch-haters to do so. This refers us back to David Friedman and his economic analysis of law.
However, this thesis says nothing in substance, so let us leave it and move on to Bitarch’s concepts.
In Pozharsky’s recent post, where he discusses how democracies deftly crush indigenous Hitlers, it is mentioned at the end that intra-human war is ultimately some kind of garbage, and that to unite humanity, it would be a good idea to acquire a cosmic beetle to fight against. In a recent conversation between Latynina and Arestovich, a similar thesis arises that humanity needs an external unifying factor; and while Latynina echoes Pozharsky by stating the desirability of an attack on Earth by cosmic beetles, Arestovich expands the thesis, arguing that hypothetical beetles, being intelligent creatures, are still our brothers, and fighting them is undignified—our mission is the transformation of nature.
Libertarianism, in the version presented in my book, prescribes peaceful cooperation—and entering conflicts on the side of justice. Without this moral norm, a libertarian society is unstable in the face of that very external threat, because it provides no way to cooperate in self-defense.
For a libertarian to enter a conflict, it is important to understand why they care about it. But a sufficiently developed sense of justice tells a person to intervene in practically any conflict, as long as it is clear which side justice is on. What is it to them? Indeed, they might, like some Arestovich, consider fights between intelligent beings a waste of scarce resources needed for the transformation of nature and the exploration of Space. And therefore, they should suppress them with the full power of their nature-transformation technologies. Including—the transformation of human nature.
I should note, however, that any statist construction can be derived from libertarian premises. This is very evident in the example of Karl Franco, who, calling himself an Orthodox libertarian, justifies taxes and similar state interventions in the economy, as well as other forms of coercion. Indeed, all left-libertarians to varying degrees sin of something similar. The secret is simple: it is enough to forget for a minute that values are subjective. Then you declare your own values to be of the utmost importance for everyone, meaning that to impose them, it is permissible to trample over others’ values. (This is why it is very useful to supplement knowledge of libertarian doctrine with knowledge of economic theory, rather than trying to replace it with some kind of analytical philosophy)
Bitarch sometimes sins of this as well, but fortunately, not as uncompromisingly. Therefore, although he might be glad to rid all of humanity at once of the harmful brain-virus that destroys the violence inhibitor, he mostly works quite consistently on a new type of self-defense weapon—one designed not to kill the aggressor, but merely to strengthen the violence inhibitor within them.
I am also glad that lately he has left alone his hypothesis about the possibility of solving the problem through genetic correction and has switched to the hormonal level. I look forward to the time when he moves from mice to humans in his experiments. Especially since there are currently enough psychos with PTSD roaming around the RF. On one hand, some of them might agree to participate in the trial of an experimental drug voluntarily. On the other hand, many such guys will easily provide a reason to test violence inhibitor enhancement means on them, already in the form-factor of a self-defense weapon.
What Bitarch and Voluntarist lack is a more careful and appealing presentation of their theses to the public. Alas, my help here can only be very limited: we’ve already been through this—when attempting to coordinate the text, we start arguing. It is important for me to remove the cringe; it is important for him to keep the main takes unchanged. Therefore, we have what we have.
I hope I have succeeded in conveying my vision of the situation, and that you will be able to treat his work with a deeper understanding. Any fool can post a clown emoji.
Mikhail Svetov is a well-known blogger from the heyday of LiveJournal and a longtime activist of the Libertarian Party of the Russian Federation. Gradually, he gained more media influence than the party itself, after which he decided to implement reforms according to his own taste, leading to a split of the LPR into two. Subsequently, he attempted to promote an umbrella organization called Civil Society instead of the LPR, but he did not succeed. He then opened the “New Sincerity” club in Moscow, but the Russian authorities closed it fairly quickly, which was damn expected. He now lives in Rio and is primarily engaged in his media project, SVTV.
Throughout the lifetime of Montelibero, our activists periodically reached out to Mikhail during his streams with paid comments and asked about his attitude toward Montelibero. At first, Mikhail replied that he viewed it negatively (I analyzed his take in one of the Montelibero news episodes), but after the start of mobilization, he said that people should leave the RF even if it’s to the middle of nowhere, or even to Montelibero—anything is better than staying. In short, I was somewhat surprised when our guys said that Svetov immediately agreed to come to the fest. True, he wanted to simultaneously organize a large tour of the concentration centers of the anti-war Russian diaspora; however, a criminal case was then opened against him, it became unclear which countries he could safely visit, and his arrival at the fest became questionable.
Only when a targeted donation for Svetov’s ticket to Montenegro occurred did he give final consent. It was necessary to recoup the money as much as possible, so Mikhail was scheduled for two presentations at once, plus a bonus interview in the Montelibero podcast studio. Nevertheless, none of this guaranteed a decent media output: for example, I predicted that following the fest, Svetov would mention on his channel: “gave a cool lecture in Montenegro, definitely listen to it”—and not a word about the fest or Montelibero. Fortunately, the prediction did not come true.
The final version of the presentation is still not posted; I am providing a timestamp for the general broadcast from the point where the sound starts.
The main theses of both of Svetov’s presentations were as follows:
I don’t want to say anything bad about Montelibero, you’ve done well, but generally, trying to run away from the state and build your own little ancap on the fringes is a failing idea; you need to get into politics, not be afraid of populism, and come to power. I recall that the topic of the presentation was “what a Russian libertarian should do in emigration,” so an idea relevant to some Argentines or even Montenegrins was completely irrelevant specifically for Russians.
Libertarians are natural individualists who have no clue what is happening beyond their own fence, and we need a libertarian international. Here, there are essentially no objections—it is needed, so we are doing it. The fest is, among other things, about this very international. Now, within the framework of the international, we will be able to demand that Svetov cover the problems and successes not only of the “busty laborites” but ours as well.
You need to speak to people in the language of love; put away your logic, it gets in the way. And in general, read more leftists; they understand politics, don’t obsess over this economics of yours, the public finds it boring. He said this and then went to give an interview to Rabfak, to the leftists—commendable consistency. Unfortunately, by following leftist recipes, Mikhail managed to alienate quite a few like-minded people during his political career, and this slightly demotivates one from studying what those guys advise. At the same time, one really shouldn’t alienate sane leftists; cooperation with them is established perfectly. The criterion for sanity is that the leftist’s dislike for the state must be stronger than their dislike for inequality, private property, and similar leftist bugbears.
So, my prediction did not come true: Svetov was not just satisfied with the organization of the fest and the project participants he managed to talk to—he changed his opinion about the project as a whole and declared it publicly on several platforms: that he was wrong, they are good people, it’s a good project, and he feared for nothing. Respect. He worked off his ticket by about one hundred and twenty percent.
Of course, we would very much like to have a speaker of such a level in our ranks, but generally, our path is decentralization. Therefore, it makes more sense to strive for the emergence of a dozen speakers of Soz’s level and a hundred of my level than to look for a single champion.
I don’t think there is a clear typology anywhere, but the question is interesting; let’s reason through it.
The Rothbardian version: it is derived from natural rights, and therefore presupposes a certain unified ethical-legal system described in “The Ethics of Liberty,” or derived in some other way on the same methodological basis (for example, Molliqneux expresses his views in this same vein in his Practical Anarchy). Consequently, questions arise regarding it: who will force everyone to be guided by a single legal system?
The Friedmanite version is based on the economic analysis of law, specifically on the basis of the Chicago School of Economics, which implies the possibility of engaging in interpersonal utility comparisons to a certain extent. Accordingly, in the Friedmanite version of anarcho-capitalism, different legal systems are traded on the market, capturing those segments where they prove to be the most efficient.
Nevertheless, both versions of social organization imply, as a kind of successor to the key state function of enforcing its own decisions, certain law enforcement agencies, as in the case of Friedman and the Tannahills, or strictly non-violent dispute resolution agencies, as with Molliqneux, which nevertheless possess truly totalitarian regulatory power—in short, some “larvae” of the state, about which one must somehow explain what reasons will prevent these larvae from growing into full-fledged states.
Following Vladimir Zolotorev, I adhere to a praxeological approach to the analysis of law and, quite independently of him, predict that in an anarchic society with developed market relations, the effect of the division of labor will push cumbersome monsters—those attempting to gather completely diverse functions, which are currently appropriated by the state, under one roof—out of the market. There are no grounds to believe that the services of detectives, forensic experts, or blockchain analysts must necessarily be provided by the same firms that offer security services, debt collection, resolve economic disputes, maintain cadasters, insure life and property, or issue certificates stating that a person knows how to drive a car or, for instance, shoot a pistol.
The practice of living in the libertarian community of MonteLibero further strengthens me in my originally purely theoretical views that people do not need detailed, written-out legal institutions all that much. On the contrary, in an anarchic society, people tend to resolve conflicts on the spot, forming situational coalitions if necessary. The need for complex specialized services in the field of legal protection arises quite rarely; therefore, in a free market, this need will likely be met by relatively small companies that nevertheless have a wide geographical reach—otherwise, a sufficient client base cannot be gathered.
Returning to the question, we see that different descriptions of ancap mainly boil down to how conflicts will be resolved in such a society—because regarding issues such as the functioning of a free market, libertarian theorists have no particular disagreements. Accordingly, if some previously undeveloped idea occurs to you about how law could otherwise function—congratulations, you will add another version of ancap to the collection of existing ones.
War is war, but the book won’t translate itself. I am posting the next chapter of The Network State: God, State, Network. In it, the author develops Hobbes’ definition of the Leviathan as an artificial subject standing above the human community, and points out that this metaphor actually fits not only the State, but also the artificial subject that preceded it, namely God, as well as the artificial subject that succeeds it, namely the Network.
The metaphor turned out to be concise, and the author develops this theme in quite some detail, describing in the tone of a naturalist how little leviathans crossbreed. In my opinion, the chapter turned out to be quite fresh and interesting; I love a skillful packaging of meanings.
Pavel Usanov is an economist from St. Petersburg, a proponent of the Austrian School, who teaches at the European University and runs his own Hayek Institute. He posts many of his lecture courses on his YouTube channel. He came to the fest in the following way. Initially, they wanted to invite Grigory Bazhenov—also an economist, but a mainstream one, and also a teacher, I don’t remember exactly where, I think at HSE, plus he works for the Union of Independent Fuel Producers. Grigory also has a video blog that is roughly four times more popular than Pavel’s, which makes the fest organizers’ priorities quite clear. However, at some point, Bazhenov backed out, citing a department meeting, and so he was replaced by Usanov.
The proposed topic for Bazhenov’s lecture was: “Monetary Policy under Libertarianism: Between the Gold Standard and Crypto.” When the speaker was changed, the question of a new topic arose. Knowing that Pavel is primarily an economic historian, I suggested a modified version: “Non-Governmental Monetary Systems: Theory and History.” That is what they agreed upon. I wanted to get a good introduction to our Montelibero tokenomics, from which it would become clear why our current financial system has the specific shape it does.
On the Montelibero channel, the lecture is currently available only as a fragment of a stream, but Pavel has already posted it on his own channel.
In the lecture, one can indeed see an introduction to our tokenomics: Pavel states that whether we like it or not, today money as a universal medium of exchange is still the dollar and, to a lesser extent, the euro; Bitcoin is great for its potential, but that potential still needs to be realized. Thus, in Montelibero’s tokenomics, everything is measured using stables in euros, dollars, and bitcoins; we decided not to invent any proprietary exotic currencies like the Liberland merits to serve as money.
The day after the festival, Pavel and I recorded a separate video, this time about my book, and he also posted it on his channel. I hope that after some time, he will also record a short review of it. At least he has a book review section there.
Overall, he turned out to be a very simple and sociable person, and this is clearly not the last episode of his cooperation with Montelibero. I am not certain that Grigory Bazhenov would have done better; however, time will tell.
Yesterday we were sitting in a club, and someone asks me: so, apparently, at the MTL-lunch Svetov was grilled with questions, and he didn’t answer the subject, so what, you wonder, do you think about this?
In Svetov’s defense, I will immediately note that if he is incriminated for communicating via canned responses, then I, as a rule, base my answers on my own previous responses to similar questions, or on more general concepts I have formulated earlier. Therefore, here you go, to start with, the answer to a related question about what a child should do when they are subjected to domestic violence. And then I will expand the thought on what third parties should do when they encounter violence against other people’s children.
Libertarian morality dictates intervening in conflicts on the just side. Justice is the feeling of proportionality between the value of the subject of the conflict and the damage caused during the conflict. Therefore, the first thing to do when seeing a conflict is to quickly determine by eye what the subject of the conflict is, compare it with the damage suffered by the parties involved, and then make a decision for oneself whether to intervene or not.
However, in the case of children, the situation is complicated by the fact that a child is not fully a legal subject and is under the jurisdiction of the parent, and damn strong grounds are required to invade someone else’s jurisdiction. Therefore, the best tactic our hypothetical libertarian can adhere to is to attract a sufficiently substantial support group to their side. These could be other neighbors (a neighbor can most easily justify why this conflict concerns them at all—they hear it, see it, and feel irritation), but one can also attract simply outsiders, as long as they are ready to express their independent opinion about what is happening.
In some ways, this process is similar to bitcoin mining. In conditions of conflicting chains, the one backed by the most accumulated hash rate is considered true. Similarly, in our case—the parent provides justifications for their correctness and attracts supporters of their position—and the neighbor, opposing the violence against the child, provides their own arguments and attracts their own supporters. Each supporter acts as a node in the network with their own hash rate, that is, the ability to impose costs on the opposing side. If those who speak out against domestic violence are able to cause serious problems, this becomes a strong argument to stop the violence or avoid the problems some other way, for example, by moving.
Of course, the clash of positions will not necessarily be so harsh; it is quite likely that the parties will reach a compromise. For example, an agreement may be reached that on payday the child goes to stay overnight with a neighbor, and then the parents can drink to their heart’s content while the child is safe. Or the neighbors might propose a system of non-violent penalties for the child if they are indeed prone to causing serious damage to those around them.
Nevertheless, it is always useful to keep the scenario of possible escalation in mind, so as to intervene in others’ conflicts with a view to one’s own capabilities. And to upgrade those capabilities in advance.
Vít Edlička, the self-proclaimed president of the self-proclaimed republic of Liberland, intended to speak at the MTL-fest on the topic of “how to build the freest state in the world.” Liberland is located on a territory called Gornja Siga, which from Serbia’s perspective should be in Croatia, from Croatia’s perspective should be in Serbia, but in fact, it is on the Croatian side of the Danube, and it is specifically with the Croatian authorities that the Liberlanders experience the most problems.
Shortly before the fest, Edlička and a couple of other Liberlanders were arrested by the Croatian side, followed by deportation to Hungary. And on September 22, one day before the MTL-fest, Croatian security forces went as far as to invade the territory of the settlement, destroying all the buildings there and confiscating all movable property. Thus, Vít’s account of his project was enriched with fresh, hot facts.
Croatia’s position is roughly as follows: yes, the border location is not settled, but we are responsible for the security of the external perimeter of the Schengen area, which we recently joined, and therefore we strive to curb any provocations, including provocations from some quasi-state.
Liberland’s position, in turn, boils down to the fact that since Croatia is part of the Schengen area, it no longer has full sovereignty over the border and cannot act lawlessly according to its own whim. For the destruction of someone else’s property, as well as the baseless detention of people outside its state borders, it will have to answer in court. Liberland also insists that a territory claimed by no current state is terra nullius, and the emergence of a new state upon it does not contradict any international norms; and if that is the case, please respect our state sovereignty as we respect yours, gentlemen Croatians—and in general, why fight, let’s be friends, don’t you want a powerful tourist cluster right next to you?
There is nothing that irritates those in power more than a reminder of legal norms. After all, legal norms place the parties of a conflict on the same level: the democratically elected government of a sovereign state in the EU and some clowns with a couple of wooden sheds and a houseboat. Therefore, naturally, the Croatian side will ignore any legal procedures as much as possible, simply leaving any statements from Liberland unattended. Nevertheless, this entire story is capable of raising a lot of stink, provided, of course, that the public does not forget to throw manure onto this fire.
Here is the contact page of the Croatian Ministry of the Interior, which organized the invasion of the territory of the sovereign Free Republic of Liberland. Here is the same page in English. You can send complaints to various addresses from the list provided there, which will be especially useful if you represent an official media outlet. Also, of course, reposts would help.
Yesterday I had the chance to attend MTL-fest. The festival was held in MTL-City literally on a construction site, and the preparation for it was completely decentralized, based on the principle of “whoever wants it most, takes a piece of the work and does it.” So, naturally, there were some glitches, but as a result of this approach, the festival certainly gained its own eclectic charm.
I ran into Svetov in person; we chatted, although I didn’t manage to hand him the book yet, as everyone was too busy. Usanov, however, did not go empty-handed. We are still thinking about recording a separate video with him. Unfortunately, my level of spoken English didn’t allow me to give enough attention to the English-speaking speakers.
Surprisingly, I managed not to fuck up my own presentation; thanks to Dan Lesnov for forcing me to do two preliminary dry runs. To be honest, speaking immediately after Svetov is a questionable pleasure, because about twenty people immediately swarm him and start throwing questions; he continues to speak, moves further away, and the audience suddenly shrinks.
If you look at which parts of the festival were more crowded and which were less, it’s clear that libertarians have well-honed the skill of organizing conferences and all sorts of small-scale trade: people mostly hung out in the lecture hall, at the food court, and at the fair. However, as it turned out, this theme blends poorly with a music festival. Firstly, the loud music interfered with the lecture hall, and secondly, almost no one came specifically for the DJ program; everyone preferred either to listen to the speakers or to sit further away and chat—to dance in front of the stage, apparently, requires a completely different audience.
As expected, there was a severe lack of shade: a whole day outdoors is not for Montenegro. There was a moment when I felt a heatstroke coming on, so I had to lay out the foam mat I brought with me and lie in the shade for a while. Also, at the food court, there was a certain bias toward alcoholic beverages: beer, cider, and various strong liqueurs were offered, while coffee and mors were only available at one spot, which had the longest queue. The mineral water I brought with me saved the day.
However, all these small rough edges do not negate the main point: the festival went very energetically, about 270 people attended, and the lineup of speakers for a first time was beyond expectations—and at several venues, the fest was described as annual and far from the first. In other words, there was no feeling of a modest debut in the air; the fest was immediately perceived as part of an unshakable tradition, which is cool!
Various pictures and short videos from the fest can be seen in a separate channel. I hope that text reports will also start appearing there soon.
I am posting the translation of another chapter of The Network State. In it, Balaji Srinivasan argues that if you look at history from the top down, it is a narrative dictated by power, allowing the establishment to maintain its power—but if you look from the bottom up, it is simply a dispassionate recording of facts from the past. And while there seems to be a temptation to focus entirely on the bottom-up approach, on the purely technological aspects of history—no, that is a path to political defeat. Anyone wishing to have an acceptable world around them must push their own historical narrative, and they cannot manage without a top-down approach.
Work on the translation, as you can see, has slowed down a bit. I hope this is temporary; once the festival is over, I will continue more briskly. By the way, a tiny print run of my own book on ancap will be sold on paper at the festival, which we decided to print as a trial.
