Автор: Анкап-тян

On literate and illiterate actions

After my previous post, I was criticized for inconsistency: on one hand, I claim that the leaders of the Russian opposition acted quite competently, and on the other, I write that the regime’s response was to ban everything in Russia, and that all roads lead to the disposal of the population.

Here I will simply briefly note that when the RF troops attacked Ukraine, the Ukrainian troops also acted quite competently, which did not prevent them from losing a large territory. The actions of the opposition could have been successful if they hadn’t been constantly lagging. But they couldn’t help lagging: you cannot immediately incite people to burn down administrative buildings and engage in individual terror while people, for the most part, believe in legal methods of struggle. Thus, the few extremists from the time when the regime was slightly more herbivorous turned out to be premature, and their impulse went to waste. Now all they have left is to say, “we warned you.”

Similarly, this is all that remains to be said by those who desperately called all their friends and relatives to leave the country, and now they would be glad to leave, but there are traffic jams at all borders, and departure may be banned entirely any moment now.

We do not know what reserves of strength the regime has. Perhaps it will fall like the Soviet one after Afghanistan or the Russian one after the First World War. Or perhaps it will survive, like the Iranian one after the war with Iraq. It is only in our power to nudge it toward collapse through our action or inaction—and, if possible, avoid getting a retaliation from the regime for it. You can flee the country. You can burn down a recruitment office. You can beat up a recruitment officer. You can end up at the front and destroy your tank or commander there, and then successfully surrender into captivity. Or, if you prefer a positive agenda, you can help an immigrant, hide a deserter, persuade a friend not to go to the recruitment office… Ah, yes, that’s some kind of negativity again. Either way, all of these will be competent actions, strategically bringing you closer to the bright goal of the fall of the Russian dictatorship, even if the tactical effect seems negligible.

And what actions would be incompetent? For example, mocking those who have just this moment opened their eyes and demonstrating to them the shimmering whiteness of your own coat. Thoughtlessly approving and trying to justify every single action of regimes hostile to Russia—many of their actions are no less cannibalistic. Paying the regime fines issued to you for participating in peaceful street protests. Wishing the Russian army victory.

The Russian anti-war invasion of Georgia

Mobilization is about mobility. Mobilize!

So, Putin announced mobilization. Not enough military recruitment offices were burned down in Russia for him to give up on this idea. Before that, not enough Rosgvardiya officers were killed during protests for Putin to give up on the idea of going for who-knows-which term of the presidency. And so on. This is a classic tragedy of the commons, where each protest activist bears personal costs, while the hypothetical result is achievable only collectively, and the contribution of a specific activist is always relatively small and can easily be replaced by the contribution of some other activist. For collective protest to be successful in such a situation, many crutches and fortunately aligned factors are required: political culture, charismatic leaders, a split among elites, and so on.

Of course, everyone understands this. FBK investigations plus lobbying for personal sanctions, as well as smart voting, are measures aimed at splitting the elites. Organizing rallies, training observers, and participating in elections are measures aimed at forming a political culture. Promoting opposition information channels is a measure aimed at the emergence of charismatic leaders. Navalny, Yashin, and Roizman demonstrated by their example that they not only call on others to bear costs but are ready to bear them themselves. The leaders of the Russian opposition have acted and continue to act generally quite competently.

As a countermeasure, the regime acted with maximum audacity, which was aptly described at the time by the formula “Yes, we’ve gone totally off the rails, so what?” The regime made it clear that in response to any criticism, it would destroy the source of that criticism, and this naturally led to a situation where now everything is banned in Russia. And if not long ago the regime’s propagandists were saying, “if you don’t like it, get out,” now even the option of leaving is becoming less accessible and increasingly subject to criminal charges.

Well then. If previously burning down recruitment offices seemed like a perfectly adequate measure that did not entail unnecessary casualties, now it is clearly insufficient. As correctly noted online, if you beat up a recruitment officer, you’ll get a lighter sentence than for draft evasion—provided, of course, that you don’t shout extremist slogans while doing it. But this, of course, is only relevant for those who are already in the first line for mobilization.

If I previously recommended the tactic of “committing a terror act and immediately fleeing abroad,” now everything has changed; there are traffic jams at the borders, plane tickets are sold out, and there is a high probability you’ll have to hide within the country, which is much harder. Therefore, active actions will need to be planned much more carefully to avoid being caught, and you certainly must not waste yourself on suicidal actions that have purely symbolic significance with negligible destructive effect. I’m talking about rallies, pickets, and similar non-working crap.

As for us in Montellibero, we are still ready to welcome those who managed to evacuate from the sinking ship and help them settle in. Even if your husband has been mobilized, that is no reason for you to remain a hostage of the regime, waiting for him in Russia—it is much more pleasant when a husband knows that you are safe. You won’t be lost here.

Find out where the recruitment office employees live, and don’t let them reach the main road

How does ancap answer the question of unemployment that will arise as a result of the soon-to-be automation of intellectual labor by machines?

Not only will there be no need for ordinary taxi drivers and construction workers, but lawyers, doctors, artists, and others will also lose their jobs en masse.

Yes, some people will be social workers, jesters, and prostitutes, but why are all the others needed? And what will they live on? People who have a sufficient cushion of assets are the exception, even in developed countries. And why wouldn’t the state be able to use this crisis to build a totalitarian hell?

Vietnamese

I’ll start from the end. The state doesn’t need any special reasons to try and build a totalitarian hell; it tries to do so permanently, and is limited in this pursuit only by the willingness of its subjects to live in a totalitarian hell. All that remains is to understand whether the situation under consideration will create any preconditions for a huge number of people to willingly agree to a totalitarian hell.

So, a vast amount of intellectual labor, which is currently considered an exclusively human prerogative, has been automated. Let’s assume it’s an ancap world. This means a free market. After automation, productivity increases sharply—consequently, the supply of the produced good or service increases sharply. Therefore, with demand remaining unchanged, its price will inevitably fall. The technological revolution leads to a situation where maintaining a standard of living that was quite wealthy by the standards of the previous technological era requires mere pennies.

Those lucky few whose labor within the new technological order turns out to be necessary on a regular basis will earn an obscene amount of money. Those whom the new economy does not need as much will be able to provide themselves with an acceptable standard of living even with rare, sporadic earnings. Want to update the furniture in your house? Donate blood, participate as an extra in a movie, train a neural network. Don’t need any serious expenses? Well, check a box on the websites of a couple of charitable foundations, stating you wish to receive a basic income—and that will be enough.

Again, after every previous technological revolution, those who were no longer required in the former numbers eventually retrained themselves more or less, and for their children, the new reality was completely organic, and they no longer had problems finding an occupation in it. Peasants’ children became workers, and workers’ children became clerks. Clerks’ children will become, for example, motivators for those titans of thought whose labor proved impossible to automate, or enter other spheres that are difficult for us to even imagine now, just as it was once difficult to imagine professional esports.

And what changes if we encounter this new reality while still having modern-type states? It will be more regulated. Those who receive an obscene amount of money will not be those whose labor is necessary to maintain the new technological order, but those who rob them and redistribute the funds. A large class of government employees will remain. Many will consider the state of affairs, if not the best, then the only possible one. Will this be a totalitarian hell? Unlikely; rather a kingdom of apathy, not of artificial totalitarian enthusiasm—but that doesn’t make the picture any more pleasant.

What could allow such a scenario to be realized? Mass stupification and conformism. Do we see tendencies toward this? We certainly do! And what could make such a scenario stable? A high level of professionalism among managers, allowing them to maintain a high-tech society while leading a mass of fools and conformists. The scenario proves to be fundamentally unstable: current trends will inevitably force a transition to some other future. This could, of course, be new Dark Ages. Or it could turn out to be ancap. So let’s work toward making it ancap!

The new Dark Ages look something like this

Not only with a gun, but also with a kind word

My voice is currently forming a funny polyphony with the voice of the Bitarch: he continues to develop the theme that the only justified reason for violence should be self-defense at the immediate moment of the act, while I am rooting for guerrilla warfare, and specifically, I tossed out the idea of intensifying it during election periods, when the enemy’s forces are distracted by this boring show.

And since we are talking about elections, I would like to rely on the opinion of a key Russian opposition political strategist, Leonid Volkov. Who, if not him, should understand how relevant all this guerrilla activity is at the current moment?

So, let’s read his recent interview with Novaya Gazeta, which was recently shut down in the RF. What theses does he convey regarding the issue of interest:

  1. Guerrilla warfare against the Russian regime is cool, right, and patriotic; and if no Stauffenberg is found near the Führer, then it is possible and necessary to hit the regime at least at those levels where it cannot reliably protect potential targets of attack.
  2. Donating to the AFU is like bailing out the ocean with spoons; big predators operate at this level, so let the states dispose of their weapon stockpiles; for private individuals, it only makes sense to plug occasional holes in this area.
  3. Creating organizations for conducting guerrilla warfare in the RF is either stupidity or provocation; one must absolutely not act this way.
  4. Why doesn’t Volkov try to organize guerrilla actions? Because he doesn’t know how, and doesn’t even have a clue how to go about such things. He advocates for the division of labor, where everyone realizes their comparative advantages, just as economic theory suggests to us.

So, the maestro is ready to support the guerrillas informationally, but abstains from more direct participation. In this regard, first I want to speculate on how it actually makes sense to act in order to inflict regular damage on the regime in the rear while maintaining an acceptable level of security.

There are, of course, old known mechanisms like the assassination market, which are designed flawlessly in terms of security, but have a significant drawback: for some reason, they never worked in real life. Why? Primarily because ideas do not exist without carriers. It is not enough to provide a mechanism; you also need to attract people who would start using it.

Therefore, when choosing between security and effectiveness, one always has to sacrifice security in some way. Hence custodial crypto wallets, Telegram instead of encrypted mail, and the creation of firms instead of a total realm of freelancing.

Therefore, as a decent compromise, I want to recommend the article Entry Point. Creating a Cell from the Telegram channel Black Journal — slightly leftist, but that has little effect on the quality of the practical material.

The recent AFU offensive seems to have become a turning point in the Ukrainian military campaign, and while previously I was inclined to recommend the operational scheme “lone wolf commits sabotage – immediately leaves the country,” now optimists can afford schemes like “created a cell – we work in different directions – those who are exposed leave the country, the others continue the work.” A political future may largely lie within such cells of grassroots self-organization, because all the old mechanisms of political participation, such as parties, have long been bankrupt.

The goal of sabotage and terror attacks is not so much the immediate weakening of the enemy, but rather to sow and strengthen defeatist sentiments among the ranks of poorly motivated supporters and hostages of the regime. Essentially: look what the current leadership has brought the country to: its army is being beaten to a pulp at the front, Ukrainian saboteurs roam the rear like they are at home, orders are sabotaged, budgets are plundered; grab a piece of the country for yourself at the end, however much you can, the inevitable collapse will write everything off anyway.

Accordingly, if you absolutely cannot imagine how you would organize any destructive activity, but you know how to whine talentedly, then rejoice: your hour has come! It is precisely talented whining that the country needs most right now. If you don’t sow defeatist sentiments, then who will, other than you? Well, Strelkov is trying too, of course, but you should be able to do no worse. Rebrand yourselves as victims of television propaganda and start spreading gloom: the whole West is against us, everyone is deceiving Putin, everything is lost, the front is collapsing, what the hell is this Donbass for, it’s nothing but problems, and all those refugees — and so on and so forth, depending on who your interlocutor is.

You can do it.

Outdo this whiner!

Optimal tactics for the Russian opposition during the upcoming elections

Elections are coming soon in Russia. Last time, voting at polling stations lasted for three whole days, and I hope this practice continues now. The FBK, as usual, is calling for smart voting, and of course, the Russian opposition (those who haven’t left yet) should publicly support this initiative. Be sure to post on social media that it is now more important than ever to act within the legal framework, support democratic institutions, and so on and so forth. And even go and vote for someone; it might prove useful.

The most important thing for the Russian opposition in the coming voting days is that a vast number of polling stations are open across the country, and at each one, there is one or even two cops on duty. This, in turn, means a sharp increase in the police response time to various truly important political actions, such as burning down certain government institutions—like the already familiar military recruitment offices—or even something more tasty. It would be a sin not to take advantage of this!

Remember: the only thing that justifies a Russian oppositionist remaining in Russia right now is participation in sabotage, diversions, and terrorist attacks. Your sitting in prison weakens the regime far less, and participating in some pickets actually strengthens it, because you will inevitably pay the regime a hefty fine afterwards. So, for those of you remaining behind enemy lines, it is far more useful to promote some theory of small deeds, write that the special operation is “not that straightforward,” and generally behave in a moderately unacceptable manner—while steadily unscrewing the nuts from the rails.

Firstly, it’s beautiful…

Well, the time has come for terror too

In the post What to do with Russia from July 1, I wrote:

I am currently reflecting on how justified it would be at this stage to move from sabotage against war-sustaining infrastructure to individual terror. This is a topic full of subtle psychological nuances; it is important that, as a result, the executors of the sovereign’s will end up demotivated, rather than receiving, on the contrary, an impulse to unite against internal enemies. Nevertheless, individual terror is practically an inevitable stage in the gradual escalation of efforts to dismantle the regime; there is no escaping it, and it is advisable to come to terms with it in advance, acquire the necessary competencies in a timely manner, and identify a list of targets. I will try to formulate my thoughts on this topic more concretely in a while; they have not yet fully crystallized.

After that, I had somewhat forgotten the topic, but just the other day, deep in the enemy’s rear, somewhere near Moscow, Fascism-chan was blown up as a result of a terrorist attack. Exactly who blew her up does not matter, just as it does not matter which of the socialist-revolutionaries in the early 20th century collaborated with the Okhrana. Much more important is exactly who was blown up. Perhaps I should still reflect on the optimal choice of targets for individual terror.

Judging by the hype caused by this attack, the target was chosen very successfully. It was demonstrated that the war is not happening somewhere far away, but can knock on the door of any “sofa-front” fighter at any moment, even a very glamorous one. Perhaps future terrorists should designate such a category of rear rats as “charming cannibals” as a priority target. For example, someone like Girkin and the like; I am not very well-versed in them. The category of “loathsome cannibals”—like a conditional Margarita Simonyan—are second-tier targets. The category of “useful idiots,” like a conditional Yuneman, is the third tier.

Compiling lists is also useful. For instance, a liquidation list, provided with links to the figures’ creative works and justifications as to why the elimination of a particular figure will contribute to demotivation in the pro-war camp and a drain of people from it. Plus, criteria for exiting the list: leaving the Russian Federation, public condemnation of the war, or transferring a significant sum to pro-Ukrainian funds (specifically those dealing with troop supply, not humanitarian aid). The benefit of the list is obvious. Someone on it discovers one fine day that two figures have already died in two weeks, there are ninety figures in total, and if the trend continues, they have a year and a half to live at best, so isn’t it time to run and repent?

And, of course, it would be especially effective to carry out attacks in locations where farewell rites for the bodies of previous victims of terrorist attacks are taking place. The goal is to ensure that not only the people on the lists, but their entire circle of acquaintances, begin to live in the mode of a special operation being conducted right around them.

It would be very useful to focus the terror primarily on Muscovites: it is beneficial to increase the rift between Moscow and the surrounding territories. Let the provincials, on one hand, gloat, and on the other, be wary of drawing fire upon themselves and prefer to distance themselves from the capital and its absurd war.

P.S. Why do I write only about attacks targeting propagandists, those collecting donations for the SVO, and the like? Because the destruction of military personnel during a war, even in the deep rear, is not a terrorist attack, but sabotage. Military personnel are legitimate targets. Propagandists are illegitimate.

P.P.S. And what about the NAP and all that? That’s just how it is. Not armies, but states fight. Combatants are merely the most obvious targets, who are also usually within the reach of the combatants of the second warring party. Non-combatants of a warring state who support the war are exactly the same targets of war. Moreover, non-combatants who do not support the war can also be quite justifiably destroyed by the second warring party if they failed to escape the jurisdiction of their state abroad or into captivity. It is simply that it is most useful to show maximum humanity toward them, but that is a question of tactics, not of law.

Why is it forbidden to sell children into slavery? And how will private police maintain order if it is more profitable to steal?

Anonymous question

The second question is quite simple, so I will answer it first. For a private security guard, it is also more profitable to steal products from the store than to ensure others do not steal. But only in the short term; afterwards, he is fired, with more or less of a scandal. It is important not to give him powers beyond those strictly required to perform his job duties; otherwise, he will not only steal but also intimidate other staff to cover up the theft by creating fictitious reports for the owners. I do not exclude that such schemes do arise in some places due to the negligence of store owners, but usually, there is a system of incentives that makes such behavior unlikely and prevents it from going too far.

Now let’s talk about children.

To begin with, I will note that even now, under the state, children are quite readily sold into slavery. And I am not even talking about state slavery, such as the forced labor of Uzbek schoolchildren collecting cotton, but about private slavery, which is forbidden by that very same state. Nevertheless, it is precisely under the state that the incentive system for the police, as highlighted in the answer to the first question, is such that it may be more profitable for the police to sell children into slavery themselves or to protect such trade. Private child labor slavery is more characteristic of some part of Sub-Saharan Africa with its rather primitive mining industry. In wealthier countries, sexual slavery is more prevalent.

The question is, why does all this hardly concern the authors of questions about child slavery under ancap? It is easy to answer. Under the state, private child slavery is considered marginal; it takes place somewhere far away and does not catch the eye. The authors of the questions are concerned specifically about a potential situation where such slavery is respectable. When you encounter it on the street and in the information space at every step, and therefore have to put up with the existence of this phenomenon, and if you try to fight it with means of moral pressure, you yourself find yourself in the skin of a marginal who prevents decent people from behaving in their usual way.

Could child slavery become a respectable practice in the ancap community? Of course, it could. According to the principles of libertarianism, restitution is a perfectly legitimate way of acquiring property, and if, for example, a child damaged some expensive property (which children sometimes do), then it is perfectly permissible to demand compensation from the child and even collect it by force, since the child possesses self-ownership, and at what age full legal capacity is assigned is a matter of convention. Restitution is perfectly permissible not only in monetary but also in-kind form; there you have the prerequisite for slavery.

Thus, practices where a child works off a broken neighbor’s window by mowing the neighbor’s lawn are more than likely under ancap, as they do not cause moral repulsion. What could prevent the development of harsher practices, where, for example, something is demanded from a child as restitution that an adult would find humiliating for themselves, such as filming in a BDSM video? It is that very moral repulsion that will prevent it. Too many people would be found who, applying the situation to themselves, would state that they would not agree to this for any amount of money, and therefore, to them personally, such restitution seems unfair (the subject of the conflict is valued as disproportionately less significant than the damage caused during restitution). Libertarian morality requires intervening in conflicts on the just side, so a child in such a situation would easily find defenders.

Well, if that is the case, then the authors of questions about child slavery under ancap can breathe a sigh of relief: it will certainly not get worse than under the state. They can continue to boycott manufacturers of clothing made using forced child labor and leave the ancaps alone.

How will the problem of a “federal fleet” be solved under minarchism and even more so under full ancap?

This problem is clearly visible in the US Civil War, where the Southerners had a larger army, a more powerful economy, and more money, but they lacked one thing: naval supremacy.

In other words, the essence of the problem is simple: maintaining ships is hellishly expensive, more so than any other weaponry, and there are great doubts that a single firm could maintain a nuclear aircraft carrier. If it were maintained by several firms, there is a high chance it would turn into a “federal” aircraft carrier.

Without a fleet, self-defense is impossible. With a fleet, controlling counter-revolution is impossible.

How is it proposed to deal with such a problem?

P.S. This is, of course, referring to minarchism or ancap in a specific country.

Anonymous question

In many ways, this question resembles the problem of cities being buried under layers of horse manure as the population grew in the late 19th century. In other words, the problem belongs to one technological era, while the circumstances for which a solution is being sought already belong to another.

Proto-ancap existed in Iceland for three hundred years and then surrendered to the state. Proto-minarchism existed in the USA, conventionally speaking, until that very Civil War—meaning less than a hundred years—and was then crushed with great bloodshed by the federal center. So, of course, the problem of power centralization itself is not imagined, but at its core lies a pronounced positive effect of scale when increasing armament. If this effect disappears, the problem of power centralization also disappears.

Today, naval supremacy is a thing of questionable effectiveness. Let’s say there is some mega-bandit who has robbed his subjects of such an astronomical sum that he can afford a mega-fleet superior in strength to all other fleets. What is the profit from this? The ability to ensure an effective naval blockade of any chosen coastal territory? The ability to control the sky over any territory within the reach of carrier-based aviation? And how do these capabilities convert into money? For the mega-bandit as some unified entity—almost not at all. These expenses will never pay off, and naval muscles serve the bandit almost exclusively as decoration.

On the other hand, the mega-bandit is a conceptual entity; in fact, decisions are made by specific people, and for them, what matters is not what income the mega-bandit receives, but what income they personally receive—by reducing the overall efficiency of the mega-bandit. Again, if instead of increasing one’s own efficiency, one reduces the efficiency of others, then this is also a quite effective strategy for remaining the coolest, even at the cost of reducing one’s capabilities in absolute terms; and the mega-bandit can indeed act quite rationally based on this extremely “smart” strategy of “you die today, and I tomorrow.”

How could a conditional ancap community prevent such moronic attacks from these atavistic predators? First, as the episode with the cruiser Moskva showed us, anti-ship missiles are quite effective against a fleet at a significantly lower price. Second, the elimination of individual regime functionaries is usually even cheaper than the destruction of thousand-ton tubs. Third, the idea of the nation-state is becoming less popular, and with it, the popularity of patriotism falls, which is expressed, in particular, in the unwillingness to serve in the army. As a result, today even countries with huge military budgets have serious manpower shortages. It is already difficult to man a fleet, and when the situation develops to the point where the first significant territorial ancap communities appear on Earth, the situation will become even more depressing for etatists.

Yes, horses will not give way to cars overnight, but cities will no longer be buried under manure; the trend has changed. Conflicts will become increasingly market-justified, which means minimum costs for maximum efficiency. Not the time for aircraft carriers.

Eric Mac. Libertarianism. The chapter in which the author first brushes against ancap.

In the chapter Anarchy, the minimal state without taxation and the minimal state with taxation, Eric Mack first touches upon the topic of ancap, which he had previously disdainfully neglected. It is amusing that the section where this topic arises is the final one in the book, concerning not even the exposition of libertarian doctrines, but rather the critique thereof. Well, what can you expect from academic philosophers.

Thanks to Alex Dvoretsky for the donation that motivated me to translate. In full accordance with the economic mainstream, the funding of public goods such as publishing things in open access should be underfunded, and yet your donations consistently feed me, although not to satiety.

There are only three chapters left to translate in the book. Usually, this means the process should speed up, because everyone is curious whether there will be a happy ending and if the main characters will get married. We shall see.

Network State

The friendly channel Russian Crypto Frontier has begun translating the recently published book by Balaji Srinivasan, Network State. So far, only the preamble has been posted, but feel free to encourage Yuri in the comments and shake him down for donations to make his work more enjoyable.

I read a brief list of the book’s concepts. The author develops panarchic ideas floating in the air and proposes the idea of a network state as a startup combining elements of the cryptocurrency community, role-playing games, and a national diaspora. This is not at all like the other trendy idea of creating charter cities, but in some places, it strongly resembles the Montellibero project — we also have developed tokenomics, a real population on the ground, an extensive diaspora outside Montenegro, and our own set of traditions, self-governance practices, and dispute resolution.

In short, I will follow the translation process with interest and occasionally announce the appearance of new translated chapters.

As for tomorrow, I want to post the translation of a new chapter from Eric Mack — Alex Dvoretsky donated for it on Boosty a couple of days ago, so there you go, I’m almost finished.