The author quickly sketches his own set of basic libertarian principles, then declares that advanced state redistribution and regulation can be perfectly derived from these principles, and if a typical libertarian for some reason refuses to follow these conclusions, then something is clearly wrong with them.
Next, it is demonstrated that if libertarians threw away their silly ideals of freedom and instead adopted the far more popular ideals of order, purity, reverence for authority, care, and other wonderful things, they would, of course, manage to make this new reshaped doctrine more popular than the current loser sect of freedom-worshippers.
There is a lot of quite valid criticism in the article; I won’t recount it all. I can only recommend rereading the chapter Anarchist Politics: On the Libertarian Party from Friedman’s The Machinery of Freedom. I see no point in adding anything more to the grandfather’s words; he showed the direction of the evolution of libertarian politicians’ views and how to relate to it long ago.
The sweaty, burning rage of compassionate libertarians
I’m not sure if I chose the most suitable chapter structure, but the one that I finished writing today relates to the resolution of the problems outlined in the chapter before last. The chapter was quite difficult to write because I don’t like all these quasi-psychological matters, but there was no way to avoid this topic. As usual, I hope that it didn’t turn out too banal, is concise enough, and perhaps even convincing.
The translation of David Friedman’s book The Machinery of Freedom has finally been fully narrated. Now you can finally pump iron at some gym while simultaneously pumping your brain with libertarian theory.
On this occasion, I want to promote the new channel of Oleg, the volunteer who narrated the book. In the channel, he posts his narrations of various literary works. And, obviously, the higher the interest in the channel, the more incentives there will be for new audio to appear.
As a reminder, I have translations of three more books in progress: Libertarianism by Eric Mack, Practical Anarchy by Stephan Mol liqueur, and Legal Systems Very Different from Our Own by our own David Friedman. Translations move much faster when donations are made, so don’t be shy. The same considerations apply to my own book on ancap; it’s long overdue for completion, but I’m always short on time. However, when a fresh donation is hanging over my soul, whining about not being “worked off,” there’s no choice but to get to the keyboard.
In the previous issue, I talked about how we recovered from the initial shocks of the start of the war and continued a quite steady development. Since then, this trend has continued without any new shocks.
Traditionally, I’ll start with the MTLCity settlement. Two months ago, I posted a photo of the pouring of the first two foundations. Now, the residential building already has one and a half floors, and the adjacent administrative building has one.
ApartmaniPoslovni prostor
These buildings are planned to be completed by the end of the year, and the fund is already looking for a person to manage them.
In this regard, I want to immediately mention the recent speech by Mikhail Svetov on Radio Vera, where he was asked about our project, and he stated that he does not like the idea because libertarians should not live together; on the contrary, they should have the opportunity to live separately, drawing boundaries between themselves, while remaining libertarians and political allies.
I am far from gloating over how poorly and biasedly Mikhail works with sources, given that even now, after more than a year of the Montelibero project’s existence, he is convinced that it is exclusively about creating a small settlement of libertarians. A small settlement is for those who want to have libertarians as neighbors. For those who prefer to have other people as neighbors—there is the rest of the country. Mikhail’s speech talks about what is visible (libertarians may not agree on lifestyle preferences and therefore will not get along side by side), but it does not mention what is not visible (it is just as easy to disagree on lifestyle views and have mutual friction with other people—except if your neighbors are statists, then you face the additional danger of the state getting involved in your neighborly disputes). This is a classic mistake of a bad economist.
In any case, Montelibero is by no means only about the MTLCity settlement, and in the future, I will try to mostly talk about our other projects and activities.
A much greater influence on the project today is exerted not by some construction in Dobry Vody, but by a club on the outskirts of Bar, which has already become a point of attraction not only for the libertarian active core, but also for a broad core of those sympathetic to this ideology. To make it clearer for Mikhail—this is our New Sincerity, just without Rospotrebnadzor and in a less pretentious building.
On June 25, a small IT conference was held at the club with about three dozen listeners, featuring an introductory speech on the history of money and a detailed account of how Bitcoin Lightning works.
On July 15, project participant Valery Utrosin held a meeting at the club to discuss his startup for receiving cashback in cryptocurrency during fiat payments with bank cards. He received a lot of feedback, which he hopes will greatly help him in developing the company.
The club has a mini-coworking space for two to three people, a decent kitchen, a cinema room, and many board games, but for Mikhail, I will highlight the main feature: freedom of association. To enter the club, you literally need to sign a non-aggression pact. New members fall only under the responsibility of those who brought them. If a person is uncomfortable to be around, they may be denied access to the club, and such a precedent has already happened once. In short, there is no need to worry: libertarians know how to handle private boundaries and set them where it is convenient for them.
But, of course, we are not cocooning ourselves among our own in a single location, but continuing our expansion. For example, on Wednesdays in Bar, breakfasts are held in various establishments in the city, where participants of the Montelibero project are guaranteed to be present, and where anyone interested can join—to ask their questions and resolve their doubts about us. At first, these were just informal conversations at the table, but recently, pre-selected topics for table discussions were added.
Project participants have already managed to create several businesses in the service sector, mainly oriented toward the Russian-speaking diaspora, but not only. These include car and yacht rentals, currency exchange, and organizational and legal assistance in obtaining Montenegro residence permits.
Although the main vector of our efforts to promote the project has shifted offline, people who discovered Montelibero on the internet continue to visit us. Recently, we posted an English translation of a Libertarian Band video about Montelibero. It’s not that we expected an immediate influx of English speakers; it’s more about accumulating a certain amount of English-language information about ourselves for the future, which will be periodically needed by those for whom perceiving Russian-language information is not very comfortable.
Of course, the right to property is precisely a limitation on the freedoms of others. The right to property is a claim to dispose of a certain object and to prevent others from disposing of it. Their freedom to dispose of a privatized object will logically decrease.
At the same time, of course, completely different procedures for exercising such claims may be practiced in different societies, including in relation to different classes of objects. These could be procedures such as “if you want to use it — take it, use it, then put it back so that others can take it.” There could be procedures like “if you want to use it — take it, but provide others with a replacement that they will not object to.” Or “you may take it as long as there are enough objects of the same quality left for others.”
But still, we speak of property when the order of using objects is determined by more exclusive rules, such as those outlined in my book in the corresponding chapter. Of course, even in this case, it is not at all necessary that any object acquired as property ends up in the full and undivided disposal of the acquirer. Practices such as using one’s property to the detriment of others will still encounter quite natural resistance.
The question arises: if property rights are nothing but limitations on freedoms, then why do we suddenly claim that a society where they are observed is a free one? Free from what? First and foremost, of course, from the war of all against all. Knowing that you have the right to this item, and others respect it, you will not spend a vast amount of resources on second-by-second readiness to defend your power over the item in a struggle with other claimants; this frees up resources for more pleasant activities, thus increasing freedom. Knowing that you do not have the right to this item because it belongs to another, you will not seek ways to seize it directly, but will focus on increasing your opportunities for market exchange. This increases the wealth of possibilities, which, again, means freedom.
A more convoluted but detailed explanation of how property rights ensure freedom in society can always be read in David Friedman’s The Machinery of Freedom, in the chapter In Defense of Property.
ISIS holds territories in various (not only adjacent) countries of the world, successfully defends them against global armies thanks to mass armament, couldn’t care less about non-recognition, does not hinder the sale of drugs, and has many supporters worldwide. Of course, its internal structure is far from progressive ideas (especially for women), but on the other hand, joining it is relatively voluntary. Can ISIS be considered a successful simple example of an ETJ? Could something similar arise with more acceptable ideas, but just as strong in terms of self-defense and readiness for expansion?
Nezaputka
The Islamic State, of course, is not entirely an ETJ. People join the ranks of its army voluntarily, but the civilian population can easily come under this jurisdiction through direct territorial seizures or mechanisms like racketeering. It is more like a lucky nomadic bandit who attempted to become stationary.
The Islamic State has two main factors for success: a passionary ideology and a huge support base. Libertarians can boast only the first, but not the second. Moreover, an ideology glorifying market success is unlikely to demonstrate greater ruthlessness among its adepts than an ideology glorifying war with all infidels.
A radical ideology on its own, without broad support, is inherently unable to provide success; therefore, the fact of wide acceptance of the idea around which an extraterritorial contractual jurisdiction is built is precisely what is important. Libertarians still have a long way to go to popularize their ideas to the level of Islam, of course.
On the other hand, the whole point of the ETJ idea is not to impose one’s ideology on everyone and anyone, but simply to push for freedom of association: Islamists do their Islamist thing, feminists do their feminist thing, and at most they scoff at each other, but do not engage in armed clashes. How realistic is it to ensure mass public support for the very idea of peaceful demarcation? In principle, there is currently a global trend toward the collapse of empires, an increase in the number of recognized states, a multiplication of unrecognized states, the appearance of various strange gray zones, and so on.
The idea of successful self-defense of a community of like-minded people is very attractive, and in conditions where empires demonstrate serious military inefficiency, it practically begs to be implemented. So I really do not rule out that in the muddy waters of current wars, numerous groups will appear ready to defend the right to live by their own rules. But they will have to act very unobtrusively, without loud political declarations, by demonstrating to state representatives that it is better not to notice such guys—it is more beneficial for both health and prosperity.
In short, I believe more in mafia methods in the service of market interests than in direct war and more than in peaceful lobbying of laws, as in some Honduras. Strictly speaking, I have no certainty that market ETJs do not already exist today. They quite possibly could, and even be quite numerous, but those not involved in the process do not need to know about it.
I held back for a very long time, and now, finally, as late as the third part of the book, I mention that there is, you know, such a thing as the state.
If last time I analyzed the main problem within us hindering the transition to ancap, then now it has come down to the primary problem around us.
Next, the plan is to cover the main approaches to overcoming these problems. Libertarian Band has a video series on this, created based on my script, but let’s see if these topics can be presented more clearly in the book.
A small IT conference took place at the Montelibero club on June 25. I suggest those interested watch the recording of the most interesting presentation – Anton Gusha talked about how the Lightning Network works and what interesting tools can be built on its basis.
Specifically, he created a startup called StandardSats, which allows anyone to download a specialized Lightning wallet application where the balance in satoshis is floating and pegged to the exchange rate of a particular asset. For example, here in Montenegro, we use the Euro rate as a peg, and thus we can settle payments between each other in fiat without having to convert Bitcoin to Euros first.
I wanted to write about this in the third part of the series on Montelibero tokenomics, but while I was pondering how to present it, the project author came to Montenegro himself and gave a presentation, making my task easier.
From what can be gathered from the news, the situation with Russia is roughly as follows. External political actors want it to suffer a military defeat, but not an overly crushing one, and they certainly want a single statehood to be preserved on the territory of the RF. This is understandable; the status quo always has the advantage of not having to worry about interacting with new entities.
I do not rule out that, given such a touching coincidence of interests, Western politicians may indeed succeed in preventing Russia from collapsing. If, of course, the residents of Russia themselves do not resist this terrible scenario in which Moscow’s power, however criminal it may be, remains legitimate in the eyes of other political sovereigns, which means a carte blanche for any internal repression and squeezing every last drop out of the citizens.
It is clear that a scenario in which the entire population simply leaves Russia is extremely unlikely, and the departure of even ten percent doesn’t really change the overall situation, as the examples of Venezuela or, for instance, Ukraine show us. The state continues to stumble along despite general hopelessness and degradation.
Those remaining in the RF now have to actively work themselves to ensure the country loses the war as quickly as possible. It is difficult to say which specific sabotages are currently being carried out by locals and which by Ukrainian saboteurs, but one hopes that the local share is quite large.
I primarily draw information about what is happening on this strange front and what sentiments are gradually forming in this environment from the Telegram channel Anarchy+. The channel is occupied with attempts to theoretically conceptualize what is happening; reflections on the most appropriate tactics are constantly presented, and while peaceful protest was discussed there before, the channel is now rapidly radicalizing.
I would like some more serious involvement of my own in the process of the RF’s collapse, but it is hard to understand where I would fit in. Sabotage is a maximally secretive and decentralized process, and for me, the most obvious role is providing communication and coverage of what has happened. So, for example, I could receive reports of certain actions unilaterally and promote them on my platform, so that the actions would gain publicity, but this would not help in reaching the organizers.
I am currently reflecting on how justified it would be at this stage to move from sabotaging war-support infrastructure to individual terror. This is a topic full of subtle psychological points; it is important that, as a result, the executors of the sovereign’s will are demotivated, rather than receiving, conversely, an impulse to unite against internal enemies. Nevertheless, individual terror is an almost inevitable stage in the gradual increase of efforts to bring down the regime; there is no escaping it, and it is advisable to come to terms with this in advance, acquire the necessary competencies ahead of time, and look over a list of targets. I will try to formulate my thoughts on this topic more concretely after some time; they are not yet fully formed.
I am posting the edits of three more chapters of The Practical Anarchist by Stephan Molneux.
Anarchy, Violence, and the State – this section analyzes the economic incentives for violence (which in some ways echoes a chapter from Friedman’s The Machinery of Freedom about the economics of vice and virtue) and shows that the best way to exponentially increase the amount of violence is to establish a state, because it is precisely the state that most successfully combats the economic factors that prevent the widespread use of violence in private life.
War, Profit, and the State – here the thesis is further sharpened, and explanations are provided as to why involving the state is the only way to make modern warfare profitable; a private individual has no chance of waging war effectively and remaining in the black.
Successful Operation (Dead Patient) – here the author discusses the tragedy of the commons and how, in most cases, it is perfectly resolved through privatization rather than the regulation of public goods. But even if one assumes that in some cases the tragedy of the commons cannot be cured by privatization, the state in any event cannot be the remedy, since it is itself the clearest example of that very tragedy.
