Автор: Анкап-тян

How am I supposed to live with the knowledge that my father, who served in the KGB and early FSB, will be killed under ancap?

Or at least they will force him to pay giant compensations for numerous NAP violations on his part in connection with his service, and those debts that he doesn’t manage to pay off will be passed to me as inheritance, even though I was born after his retirement and am not to blame for what he did. Bitarch, do you also believe that children should answer for the debts and crimes of their parents?

Semyon Persunov (the question is accompanied by a donation of 0.00000546 BTC)

I think that in the early nineties, he faced a much greater danger of being killed, because it only sounds beautiful—revenge, they say, is a dish best served cold. In fact, old events are soon replaced by more current ones, and those who fervently desired to take revenge on KGB employees, but did not bother to do so immediately after the organization was disbanded, now dream of taking revenge on someone else, but they are also unlikely to ever bother to do so.

Ancap means the decentralization of law. A violation of the NAP will not punish itself. Until a specific subject appears who decides to prosecute your father for that specific damage he caused them, there will be no prosecution.

But.

There is such a thing as a herd reflex. It is enough for someone very persistent, for example, Navalny, to actually achieve a trial against a number of FSB employees and recover damages from them through the court—and then others will want to as well. And if the same Navalny manages to provide a convenient service for this, the matter could proceed much more actively. Instead of Navalny, I would put Svetov, but I have much less faith in the latter: he is exceptionally resentful, but he hasn’t been noticed for litigiousness yet, limiting himself to publicism.

However, even in the case where people, with the help of former political prisoner lawyers, begin to mass-file lawsuits against former security agency employees, your father will most likely still end up somewhere far at the end of the list. I suspect that if he had ill-wishers whom he truly had reason to fear, he killed them back when he still wore the shoulder straps.

As for their descendants, the fact that a ghoul who killed their parents lives somewhere will be more of a matter of curiosity for them. Find him, come, look him in the eyes. Humph and leave. I don’t guarantee such an outcome, but it is also completely unrealistic to expect that under ancap everyone will suddenly become real jigits and practice blood feuds.

How do you feel living with the awareness that your father will most likely come out of this scrape unscathed, even if he was up to his elbows in blood in the late Soviet era? Well, I hope this will bother you, but not to the point of serious neuroses. And if he is caught in some way, libertarianism denies the right to recover for actions to which you were not party, so the maximum you face is the seizure of property that your father tries to hurriedly transfer to you once he smells smoke. In this case, the fact of your cooperation with him in the act of hiding assets that may be subject to seizure will be too obvious to ignore.

Following Svetov, I would also advise the father to seek active repentance, but this step, while morally justified, carries more utilitarian risks than potential benefits, so let him weigh and decide for himself.

As for Bitarch, I hope he will share his opinion on this matter in the comments.

The first precedent that comes to mind: https://karagodin.org

How does left-libertarianism differ from anarcho-communism in essence? And in general, why is it needed if there are ancap and ancom respectively?

Semyon Persunov (question accompanied by a donation of 0.00000546 BTC)

Ancom is an ideology based on the premise that individualism spoils people. A person owes too much to society and therefore must take it into account. It may be necessary to seize public resources for one’s own benefit because without this, the existence of the individual is impossible; however, the prosperity of society is primary, and then it shares with people from the common pot. Therefore, for ancoms, any separation of property from society to a specific individual must be justified.

Usually, they distinguish a category such as personal property and define it as things used for consumption rather than production. Personal property is halal, private property is haram. Clearly, this definition relies more on tradition and suffers from many flaws. I would rather suggest a slightly different criterion. It is appropriate to treat items as personal property if their use by an individual seriously reduces the attractiveness of their use for other individuals. For example, a handkerchief, a toothbrush, or socks are more appropriately personal property after the very first act of use, whereas while they lie untouched in a warehouse, they are, of course, public. A cup, for instance, might be personal property in some places and public in others; this is already a matter of local tradition. I also find it more comfortable to use a personal computer rather than configuring a public one every time as I prefer. Although, to a certain extent, the issue is solved by personal accounts on a public computer.

An anarcho-communist society can afford more personal property the wealthier it is as a whole.

Left-libertarianism is an ideology that does not encroach upon individualism as seriously. The interests of the individual are primary. But a person still owes too much to society and must take it into account. Nevertheless, due to the primacy of individual interests, for left-libertarians, any separation of property from the individual to society must be justified.

Usually, they distinguish a category such as public goods and define them as positive effects of human activity for which it is extremely difficult to ensure exclusive access. Due to this characteristic, public goods are difficult to monetize; therefore, they are presumably underproduced relative to easily monetizable market private goods. Thus, for left-libertarians, the production of public goods is a fairly strong justification for forcibly separating private property in favor of society.

Unfortunately, as soon as the production of a public good begins to be provided forcibly, it triggers a positive feedback loop, since the producer of the public good is now interested in producing as much of it as possible and demanding as large a budget as possible for it. And suddenly, the impoverished Soviet Union finds itself ahead of the entire planet in the field of ballet.

I do not know how left-libertarianism solves the problem of “when to stop forced redistribution in favor of society.” In my view, the absence of a clear boundary criterion is precisely what makes this ideology stillborn.

I will note that an ancap has such a boundary condition. When does an ancap decide that he has shared enough with society and no longer intends to? When he wants to. He treated passers-by to rakia, received enough respect, and then went home, happy, to finish the leftovers.

A book about ancap: a second attempt to start the second part

How I love diagrams! Making my first attempt at describing society under ancap, I tried to outline two approaches to how it is done, and then fell into a long stupor facing the question “and so what?”

The thing is, those were two bad approaches; ancap should not be described either by adding capitalism to real anarchy, or by adding anarchy to real capitalism. Ancap must be described based on theory.

So I tossed out the two previously published chapters and composed another one instead, where I briefly described the ideal ancap, how it looks based on theoretical ideas of how it should look. And next, I face a fascinating task: to detail what mechanisms push imperfect people, living in an imperfect world and forming an imperfect society, toward making society more or less correspond to the described ideal after all.

I hope things will move along more briskly now.

Since that’s the case, the picture can be more brisk too

New video from Libertarian Band – about education

The Libertarian Band team has released another video — about private education.

The video is well-made, even a bit pedantic: featuring a historical overview, a demonstration of the state’s lack of involvement in the emergence of most educational practices, and a list of key ideas for removing the state from this sphere.

I’ll throw in a few more links regarding ideas on how to organize this very education. David Friedman on the reform of schools, universities, and on unschooling.

And tomorrow, we move from theoretical reflections on private education to practice. The readings of Adam Smith are a bit late this year, and they didn’t surprise us with anything on Guy Fawkes Day, but they will take place tomorrow after all (without Shulmann, as you might imagine!). I’m really counting on a proper broadcast on YouTube; in that case, I will likely provide prompt commentary on what’s happening on my Twitter, and then post my summary impressions to my other channels.

QR codes

I have now distanced myself quite a bit from the current Russian agenda, which is why I hardly ever speak on this topic. However, the Global civil war between supporters of the unlimited expansion of the state and supporters of its limitation affects even little Montenegro, so it is worth dedicating at least one post to this.

Statists use a specific vulnerability of economic theory to political pressure—externalities—to attack personal freedom. Anyone can become a carrier of a virus and infect others, meaning that by their very presence, they potentially represent a significant negative externality for those around them. And while attempts to restrict human freedom under the pretext that people breathe and emit terrible carbon dioxide, which will soon boil the Earth, meet with serious misunderstanding, it turned out to be noticeably easier to frighten people with a deadly and immediate danger, rather than one decades away.

In Montenegro, society is holding its defense quite steadfastly. It is helped by serious disagreements between the president and the prime minister, which prevent truly unpopular decisions from being made. But it is hindered by pressure from the European Union, on which loans and the flow of tourists bringing money into the country depend. Therefore, the state advances very cautiously and immediately takes a step back upon encountering serious resistance. This provides the EU with the necessary image: that we tried, but these obscurantists started blocking roads, and we had to find a compromise. For example, in the autumn there was an attempt to gradually make entry to large supermarkets available only by certificate, but after a couple of weeks, all restrictions were cancelled. Closer to winter, they promised to require certificates for entry to Christmas markets, but a couple of weeks later, they conversely announced relaxations: practically all restrictions are lifted during the Christmas holidays, celebrate to your heart’s content. Naturally, society has to fight for every relaxation through street actions.

In Russia, everything is much worse. Society was almost completely paved over last winter; no one is surprised by imprisonments for single-person pickets, social media posts, and other arbitrariness, about which most of my readers have a much more direct understanding, so I will not dwell on it. However, it seems that the attempt, at the end of the second year of the war for public health, to introduce a permit system for movement has nonetheless encountered fairly widespread grassroots resistance.

The Libertarian Party of Russia (the one of the two that the state seemingly hasn’t completely crushed) has announced the launch of a public campaign against QR-codification. I have read the list of proposals, and they look reasonably sound. As is usual in the RF, the level of support for an initiative is determined primarily by the number of signatures on change.org, so the first thing to do is go there and sign, and then figure out how else the campaign can be helped.

And, of course, we welcome everyone who cannot bear this entire frontline atmosphere to cozy, damp, and rainy Montenegro. At least the borders are still open.

Critique of the Libertarian Movement from the Right

Instead of a regular question, I received a rather detailed discourse, apparently with a suggestion to comment on it in some way.

If you are truly a libertarian or an anarcho-capitalist, then you must abandon the progressive “Overton window,” after which anarcho-capitalism becomes feudalism, and you become a reactionary. If we truly had anarcho-capitalism, we would have the death penalty for most crimes typical of the lower class, as well as serfdom or slavery for vagrants and the able-bodied poor, the death penalty for everything, the abolition of voting, at least for the poor and the stupid, serfdom or some similar way to disable people who are not inclined to work.

Most “libertarians,” since libertarianism is close to being illegal, have abandoned libertarianism. Now it is a completely dead doctrine. The great flaw of progressive “libertarianism” is egalitarianism. People are not equal, groups are not equal, reproductive roles are not equal.

Higher people should rule lower people; otherwise, lower people will create problems for each other and for their betters. The best people need to be freer. Lower people cannot handle freedom; they need supervision, discipline, and control. Lower people should be significantly less free. In order for people to have a reason for savings and investments, those who save and invest must possess greater political power compared to those who do not. Children need fathers. For children to have fathers, fathers must have power over their families. For the economy to function, property must be secure. For property to be secure, those who have it must have political power over those who do not.

The Enemy

I would say that some of the theses in this pamphlet coincide with the theses of Moscow republicanism according to Belkovich: people are not equal, the best people should have political power, and so on. But here the position is presented even more exaggeratedly.

I cannot say that the described society is unviable. What is described here is a very ordinary urban aristocratic republic, which existed in various forms from antiquity to the modern era. Such a society is sufficiently stable and historically died, if not from external conquest, then from the degeneration of the aristocracy. What can be done; political power is a poisoned fruit—you may pluck it to preserve your property, but you quickly discover that power is perfectly suited for preventing your competitors from getting rich, and even better, for plundering those under your control. The aristocratic little world closes in on itself, and in the best case, after a few generations, it finds itself tedious to everyone and needed by no one.

Is it possible in the modern world to maintain a society culturally similar to the one described, but without political power? This seems doubtful to me. At the very least, families relying on the dominance of the father of the house are struggling to survive in a world where there are many well-paid labor vacancies for women. On the other hand, if no one has political power (that is, the right to seize someone else’s property under the pretext of implementing socially important projects), then property ends up being relatively secure, and that is exactly what you need.

And what about the numerous rabble—lazy, unable to handle responsibility, living for the day? Let them hang out. At the current level of labor productivity, they will be quite able to afford working to a minimum, without straining themselves much, and it will be enough for them to live. Why worry about these downshifters? They won’t be able to cheat anyone or overthrow anyone. Well, they’ll quietly die from an overdose at fifty—why should you care? For a person without savings, it won’t be such a bad way out.

In short, in order to recreate the society you dream of for yourselves, you no longer need to harshly pressure the mindless mass, and they won’t pressure you either. You can breathe a sigh of relief.

So why on earth do you need these guys as serfs?

Eric Mack. Libertarianism. Translation of the chapter on Loren Lomasky.

I am continuing to translate the bonus section of Eric Mack’s book Libertarianism. It contains a selection of views from relatively obscure contemporary theorists who are developing libertarian ideology in directions they find most convenient. The second bonus chapter refers to Loren Lomski’s essay People, Rights, and the Moral Community, and primarily describes exactly which rights and for exactly what reason people would find it appropriate to waive in the interests of others.

In his reasoning, Lomski introduces the curious concept of personal projects—essentially, certain strategic goals that largely define each person’s personality and that somehow connect people with one another. Everyone knows that another person also has a personal project, and this means that they can be given a small amount of respect for it, expressed at minimum as non-interference, and at best, as unburdening assistance.

I would say that these arguments are far more appealing than those of Steiner in the previous chapter, and I am glad that something useful can actually be gleaned from the book being translated, although, of course, the concentration of useful ideas is incomparable to that of Friedman in The Machinery of Freedom, it seems to me.

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The 2008 Crisis: Now a Direct Answer to Yesterday’s Question

Yesterday, responding to a question about the libertarian interpretation of the 2008 crisis, I used the question more as an opportunity to talk about my own topic. This left some commenters bewildered, especially given that the corresponding disclaimer did not fit within the limits of the Telegram post and is only found in the full version of the post on the website.

Fortunately, in the Facebook comments, Valery Kizilov provided a link to his own article from 2008, written in the immediate aftermath of that crisis, where he explains the Austrian theory of the business cycle very clearly and concisely. He also recommends a book for a more extensive study of the topic, where everything is explained in much more detail: Jeffrey Friedman, Vladimir Kraus. Man-Made Financial Crisis: Systemic Risk and the Failure of Regulation. M., IRISEN, 2012.

I haven’t found a detailed libertarian analysis of the origin of the 2008 crisis. The answer that state regulation is to blame for everything is clear, but insufficient.

Anonymous question

I will use this question to reflect on something abstract.

Humans have a natural abyss of empathy. Not surprisingly, since we are social animals. Thus, a person usually enjoys doing what they consider to be good, especially if others also agree that it is good. But it is usually sporadic acts of kindness that are pleasant. Out of generosity, a person performs a one-time good deed and departs, pleased with themselves—after all, it is wonderful when it costs you absolutely nothing to make someone else feel good. If the recipient expresses gratitude, it may increase their chances of receiving another good deed in the future, but one should not rely on this too heavily. Once good deeds become a routine, they begin to be perceived as work. And for work, one wants payment.

So, we pulled a person out of a destitute anarcho-commune and were quite satisfied with how wonderfully we organized the expedition. But then it turned out that the person is completely lacking in independence, very capricious, doesn’t know how to work, and dreams only of living on a generous social benefit. We fell into a trap, because we have no desire to continue carrying this burden, yet we can’t exactly throw them out onto the street. They live like a pet, yearning and whining. It’s unpleasant.

Now let’s imagine that we have a large external source of funding for charity. In this case, of course, it would be no problem for us to rent an apartment for the person that satisfies their demanding tastes, give them an undemanding job that they can actually perform—and if they can’t, who cares—or simply provide them with an annuity, and let them live for their own pleasure; why not? And why should we personally bother? We’ll hire a separate social worker to sit on a salary and wipe their nose, while we will only rejoice in how kind we are and how much benefit we have brought. It’s pleasant.

That is how the social state works: you take money from the budget and do good at someone else’s expense, because you are a kind person. And taxpayers are kind people, so why would they refuse to pay social taxes, since they go toward good deeds! And if taxpayers’ money is not enough for all our ambitious social programs, it’s no problem—we can issue government debt bonds, or simply print new money; this is far more humane toward taxpayers than taking more from them than they are used to paying.

Kind government men desperately wanted even a poor person to be able to afford a good home. Therefore, special organizations were created to finance these expenses. And banks were ordered to generously issue mortgage loans to poor people so they could afford a house. The trouble with the social state, however, is that someone else’s money eventually runs out.

How did it happen that the mortgage crisis turned into a global financial one? What can you do, humans are social animals. Papers that were considered ultra-reliable turned out to be junk, and everyone collectively began to look suspiciously at their own portfolios of securities, wondering if it was time to dump the junk before others did it first. The global financial market deflated significantly, meaning those who lost their capital outnumbered those who profited from the crisis.

But who is even interested in that ancient crisis when we are living in the heat of a new one? And this one, too, was caused by kind people who terribly did not want miserable people to die right on the streets from the terrible coronavirus. People were put under house arrest, forcibly stuffed with experimental medicines, had tests shoved in every orifice, streets were sprayed with chemicals, beautiful fluffy minks were destroyed—what wouldn’t one do out of love for humanity at someone else’s expense!

This does not mean that covid does not exist. Poverty also exists. And homeless people exist. But when you try to solve other people’s problems by paying for it out of your own pocket rather than someone else’s, you will have much more balanced priorities regarding how much to spend and on what exactly. And that means that your kindness, at least, will not cause global crises.

Montelibero Project News, Issue 7

In the previous issue, I wrote about the fact that excess forest had been cleared on the plot for our future libertarian village and road construction had begun. As of today, the road to the plot is fully graded, and I can now ride my scooter right under the shade of the native olives.

In the second half of October, I personally took a job working on the road construction and plot clearing, and by yesterday, we already had a full women’s crew working. The work is, of course, not easy, but here in Montenegro, the ladies are quite tough, and one has to keep up. After the first working day, I spent a couple of days recovering, but then I eventually got into the swing of things, and over the past three weeks, I’ve even grown a bit stronger.

The plot has brought in its first small income: several kilograms of olives and some firewood. The highest quality olives were salted, and a tasting is expected in mid-December. The lower quality ones were turned into a liter of oil. I will continue the harvest, but overall the scale will remain modest: without special care, the yield of our olives is small.

As for the firewood, it was sold mainly to neighbors, for self-pickup, and quite cheaply—because long-haul trucks cannot reach the plot, so the logistical costs of hauling the firewood far away would simply eat up all the profit. As of today, 475 euros of this profit has been earned. After this, we will likely stop sales, and the remainder is intended to be kept for the future needs of the village, for which it will be necessary to equip a storage area.

Since the construction of houses will soon begin on the plot, a trailer was delivered there, which is planned to be used as a utility room and a guardhouse. And since the permanent residence of a guard is expected, this will also require the deployment of some minimal domestic infrastructure. The trailer had to be hauled up the hill by a tractor, so we will soon need to concrete the steepest sections of the road; otherwise, it will be difficult to deliver many cargoes. In time, the road will be fully concreted.

Since the construction of houses is about to begin, the issue of privatizing individual plots for building has become urgent. For now, a preliminary plan was drawn up, and mechanisms for mutual agreement on who gets which plot were tested in the chat. For instance, I was chased off a piece of land I liked twice, until I grabbed one for which competition was slightly lower. In addition, a drone was purchased; it is intended to perform aerial photography, tie it to the stakes set in the ground by the surveyor (whose coordinates are precisely known)—and then the preliminary plan can be corrected taking into account the features of the terrain and the remaining trees on the plot. A test flight was conducted yesterday; it didn’t go very well, and it is expected to be repeated soon with slightly corrected parameters. The drone, as is customary in Montelibero, was purchased by a private initiative group through equity participation and using the tokenomics built around the project; its use is regulated by an agreement drawn up between them, and whether they use it for entertainment or monetize it in some way is their business; for me, it is more interesting as a practical solution to various problems related to property rights.

Last week, project volunteers carried out a humanitarian special operation: they rescued one Russian political emigrant from an anarcho-commune at a farmstead near Bijelo Polje. Following her, another communard migrated to us on his own (he is the one we plan to use as a guard living in the trailer). This is how communities work under ancap. Ideologically, they aren’t very close to us yet, but they will do as fellow travelers, and we’ll see from there.

But we are, of course, not so much stealing people from other projects as we are attracting our own settlers. For example, the other day a family of five migrated to Montenegro, which is a record for us so far. Unfortunately, the project website is updated very rarely and sporadically because there is no one to manage it, so the settler counter on it is unlikely to be up to date. As for the freshest information about Montelibero, as before—it’s in the project’s telegram channel.

Finally, I would like to recommend an English-language blog about settling in Montenegro by one of the project participants, which is posted in the English-language Montelibero telegram channel under the hashtag . There are slightly fresher impressions of the country and how local life is organized than what you can find from me.