Автор: Анкап-тян

A couple of new social networks and a poll

In the spring, at the suggestion of Alex Kotov (channel Causa Arcana), I started a mastodon account. Then, due to moving, I didn’t have time for it, but now I’ve decided to start using it again. With a limit of 500 characters per post, this network only allows writing in the format of extended tweets, which suits me very poorly. I cannot promise that I will maintain it regularly—at least tweets post themselves and don’t ask for much. Anyway, we’ll see.

I also had to set up an Instagram. The thing is, I help with supplying materials for the Montelibero Instagram, and in this nightmare of a social network, you can’t even look at what someone has posted without your own account. To keep the account from being completely dead, I will post photos with brief remarks there—consider it a free demo version of my channel on Boosty; in that paid channel, posts about my adventures here are much more detailed and comprehensive.

The full list of social networks where my materials are presented is consolidated on the corresponding page.

I am not a great entrepreneur, and I am poor at selling myself. Psychologically, I feel most comfortable doing the work first and then giving those who wish the opportunity to say thanks via a donation. But this model only brings in any money if you regularly remind people of this opportunity, and I interpret that as being pushy. As a result, the project doesn’t bring nearly enough money to live on, which means I must either devote more time and attention to finding other sources of income or more actively monetize my own project. To start, I want to gather feedback on what content you are actually willing to pay for. The survey is open; you can add your own options. A promise is not a marriage contract Participating in the survey does not entail financial obligations. Nevertheless, I would be glad if the answers were sufficiently serious. I would also welcome detailed comments with advice and suggestions.

Нужны деньги. За какой контент вы готовы платить?
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How do you feel about being forced to participate in a market economy?

Input data: the team of Barcelona Mayor Ada Colau sent letters to 14 large property owners, threatening to forcibly buy out 194 vacant residential units owned by them if they do not put the apartments on the market.

Anonymous question

Of course, the provided input data is incomplete. Here, for example, is a little more information about rental market regulations in Barcelona, gathered from a quick Google search:

So, look at what is happening. First, the Olympic Games are held in the city; for this occasion, the state pours serious money into increasing the city’s tourist appeal. Tourists flood the city. Demand for short-term rentals spikes. Residents who rent housing themselves begin to grumble: rental prices have risen for them. Locals who are not tied to the tourism market also grumble: noisy tourists are wandering everywhere, and there is no room to move. The government listens to the voters’ opinion and begins to tighten the screws. Time and again, it demotivates property owners from renting to tourists—at high prices and for short terms—and instead demands they rent to locals—cheaply and for the long term.

What do property owners do when they realize that renting to anyone under the current rules is unprofitable? They freeze the business and wait for favorable conditions. Or they rent completely “under the table,” so that officially the housing stands empty. What does the government do? It begins to “force” them to the market, demanding that the housing be listed for long-term rental at regulated rates, threatening otherwise to forcibly buy out their property at prices set by the government itself.

With exactly the same success, one could talk about forcing peasants to the market who, for example, are forbidden from selling what they grew personally at the city market and are instead required to hand it over for pennies to wholesalers appointed from above.

How can I feel about this? Naturally, strongly negative. There is no need to call a state plan a “market”; it only introduces unnecessary confusion.

The Barcelona case shows very well how even a seemingly single benevolent government intervention (investments in infrastructure for the Olympic Games) leads to a market distortion, which causes public discontent and provokes further strengthening of government regulations. So, the best answer to the question of how the state can help you still remains the eternally relevant answer: Laissez faire et laissez passer.

Why does the forest burn every year in Russia and particularly in the Republic of Karelia? The number of fires per day amounts to several dozen, and this year it is already over 250, while in neighboring Finland, Sweden, or Switzerland, these are isolated cases.

OpenKoder

Taking this opportunity, I want to say thank you for the regular reposts of my materials on Twitter)))

As for the question, I believe the reason is roughly the same as why far fewer people die in earthquakes in California than in Haiti. It is because of poverty, which in turn stems from the poor organization of society.

And I am not even talking about the size of the state, because it is difficult to say offhand in which country the state interferes more in people’s lives—Sweden or Russia, California or Haiti. Any society has as much state as it resisted poorly, and mainly in those areas where the resistance was particularly ineffective.

In Russia, the main strategy for resisting the state has always been flight; therefore, people here are effective at gathering something and using it quickly—be it mushrooms from a state forest or machinery from a state factory for scrap metal—while owning real estate is always a zone of vulnerability, so they don’t get attached to it and don’t take care of it. Who would take care of state forests, and why? Who would put out the fires, and why?

In Sweden, for example, you cannot flee from the state, and people had to cling to the land. As a result, the state there is more effective at collecting taxes, since everyone sits neatly in their places, everyone is counted, and everyone is accounted for. Life costs a pretty penny and is entirely scheduled, but the forests do not burn.

I have now moved to a country where, on the one hand, private property is reasonably well protected—and this is not so much because of the state as because those are the interests of society; it is profitable for people to sell it dearly to foreigners. On the other hand, state intervention is tolerated quite reluctantly, and quite often it puts on a brave face while playing a bad game, simply legalizing over time what people did for themselves at their own risk. Forests here still burn from time to time, but gradually there is less and less ownerless junk.

If we reason specifically about the forest, then to reduce the number of fires, it is very important that it is not just private, but also belongs to owners who are not too large. A large owner, at best, will make quarterly clearings, and if lucky, will also plow firebreaks. If very lucky, they will perform selective logging and remove deadwood. But generally, for them, the concentration of production and square-nest thinking is effective. But a small owner will live in the forest themselves and will build a paved road to their farmstead. Such a road will not only serve as a firebreak but will also allow all necessary equipment to be delivered almost instantaneously anywhere to put out a blaze. And since putting out the fire will be economically effective, it will be put out.

Second month in Montenegro, a brief report

In the first report, I shared my first impressions of the country and made plans for further exploration.

Money. As I expected, the main expense was the purchase of a scooter. While I initially budgeted about 500 euros for this, it turned out that I had to shell out 750 for the vehicle itself, and with registration and intermediary services, it came to 860 euros in total. I paid the required 120 euros for housing, and it also became clear how much electricity costs. It’s not cheap: 22 euros (10 cents per kilowatt-hour). Grocery stores cost 100 euros, while I spent as much as 78 in various establishments, meaning, again, there is room to save. I switched my phone to a cheaper plan; it was 15 euros a month, now it’s 10. 30 euros went toward clothes, about ten for buses, and 32 for gasoline. Gasoline here is insanely expensive, 1.4 euros per liter, but the scooter consumes very little, and the money spent was enough for me to travel half the country, if not more. In total, I had to spend 1360 euros, and I expect that this is definitely the last month where I have to spend so much. Income during this time amounted to only 280 euros(((

Work at Montelibero. During this time, the company was registered, but I am still not officially registered as an employee and have not received my boravak (residency permit). However, the process has started, so at least I no longer have to pay the tourist tax. Road construction has begun, so I drive there from time to time to monitor the process, after which it may be necessary, for example, to encourage the contractor to act a bit less slowly. Several project participants visited, wishing to get acquainted with the country as part of a purely tourist visit. I was required to meet with them, show them the plot, and generally help them form an impression of the country, if they needed it. This worked out best with Valery Utrosin, who, following the tour of the plot, even decided to buy some more land.

Scooter. In principle, the roads in Montenegro are very good, but riding is still exceptionally difficult: mountains, sharp turns, narrow passages, and rocks can fall from the surrounding cliffs. I fell twice. The first time I got away with a broken mirror, but the second time I was quite badly injured myself; I am currently recovering, and the scooter is waiting for me in Herceg Novi. In the future, I will likely limit my activity to relatively simple roads where my driving skills will be sufficient for accident-free riding.

Montenegrin Medicine. This left the most unpleasant impressions. The ambulance will not come; you have to get to the clinic yourself. Doctors first look not at the person’s problem, but at their documents. X-rays are not available in every city; as a result, I still don’t know if I broke something or just bruised it. Since there are also many complaints about how casts are applied in local clinics, I see no point in paying for an X-ray, as no additional treatment other than a cast is expected in case of a fracture.

Trips around Montenegro. After buying the scooter, their geography expanded significantly. I visited Ulcinj, Ada Bojana, Lake Skadar, drove through the Morača valley to the very headwaters, visited Žabljak and Durmitor National Park, saw the beautiful salt lake near Nikšić, the Bay of Kotor, and Herceg Novi. Although the country is small, it took me 7 hours to get to Žabljak, and these 200 km are apparently the limit of my travel distance. I categorically recommend everyone who goes to Montenegro, even for just a week, not to limit themselves to a single coastal town, but to travel around the country; it is very diverse and beautiful. I especially liked old Ulcinj and Durmitor, but almost every town and corner has its own special charm.

I post detailed trip reports on my paid personal channel — they have little to do with ancap, but they create a nice bonus for those who find it appropriate to fund me.

In a month, I may post a third monthly report, and then I will definitely stop doing this to avoid becoming monotonous.

What does the AES offer as a replacement for the Central Bank and the dollar?

Anonymous question

There is no consensus on this issue.

There are hardcore supporters of returning to the gold standard with 100% reserves. The arguments of this camp were well articulated by Javier Vernón Cortés (de Soto) in the book “Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles”. In short: there are time deposits, where a person deposits money for a specific term, and the bank has the right to invest it wherever it deems necessary, paying interest for this; and then there are demand deposits, where a person deposits money for safekeeping, retaining the right to withdraw it at any moment—in this case, the person should pay for the convenient service, and the bank has no right to do anything with such deposits other than store them. If demand deposits are lent by the bank to someone as a loan, then this is fraud, and divine wrath shall descend upon the bank owners. Thus, based on this strictly legal approach, supporters of the gold standard demand the return of monetary gold circulation, as well as gold-backed banknotes and gold-backed settlement accounts—then the credit expansion carried out by central banks will end, and humanity will have a single deflationary currency, as it did for a relatively short time in the 19th century, and developed quite well.

There are supporters of free banking. They argue that the main thing is to abolish central banks and overall regulation of the banking sector; let the banks decide for themselves what money to emit and how to back it, and then let the market decide which currencies are actually more convenient for people. This idea was defended in slightly different forms by Friedrich Hayek in the book “The Denationalization of Money,” and David Friedman also touched upon this theme in “The Machinery of Freedom” (although he does not belong to the AES). The forecasts of free banking supporters also differ slightly. Some argue that everything will eventually come back to the same gold standard with 100% reserves, because those who want to defraud will quickly find that their reserves begin to melt as trust in their currency is lost. Others say that 100% reserves are not needed by anyone, and if a currency offers convenience of settlement and reasonable emission rates, then no one will worry about bank runs.

Finally, there are the prophets of hyper-bitcoinization, among whom I mention Saifedean Ammous and his book “The Bitcoin Standard.” He argues that due to the gradual growth of the network effect, as well as the stock-to-flow ratio, Bitcoin will become the global measure of value. Further, again, there are options. The first—there will be nothing but Bitcoin, the great and luminous, except that it will operate in different protocol layers according to several different rules. The second option—alternative means of payment will persist, but the basis of their value will be backing by Bitcoin reserves. The reserves might be 100%, or they might not. The main argument in favor of this particular scenario is that here, no one is abolishing central banks by any decrees; they will supposedly wither away on their own.

Power

I spent a very long time preparing to write another section of my book about ancap, and finally put together two short chapters on power. Their main virtue is that they are stunningly short; I consider this a great achievement of mine. If only I could always express myself so concisely…

I hope that in the next pass I will close the topic of power, or perhaps even finish the first part of the book, which, in essence, should briefly encompass the entire theory of ancap. After that, I will gather a collection of the main interesting practical cases and talk about the ways to implement all this magnificence.

Montelibero News, Issue 4

In the previous issue, I frightened you with photos of thickets—saying that we were buying the plot for a libertarian condominium, and that not only was there no road, you couldn’t even get through on foot. Much has changed since then.

At first, it was complete improvisation: learning on the fly how to use a chainsaw and a trimmer, we cleared a pedestrian path to our plots, as well as passages along their boundaries. After that, a hired surveyor marked the cadastral plan points on the terrain and handed us an elaborat—an official, legally binding scheme of the plots, as well as the municipal land reserved for the road.

Next, a contractor was hired for the first stage of road construction. It is planned that a four-meter-wide strip 900m long will be leveled using an excavator—thus, the road passing through our plots will connect the lower highway from Bar to Ulcinj with the upper highway from Bar to Škodar. However, the width of the municipal land strip is not sufficient everywhere to lay a four-meter road. In one place, an agreement was reached with the plot owner, and the road has already been laid there. In another, negotiations are still ongoing. If we are not successful, there will be a small section of road two and a half meters wide, which is generally not fatal.

This is what the future road looks like after the initial clearing of thickets and leveling of the route

The neighbors, realizing that laying a road past their territories means an increase in price, are happy and are even starting to help. Near the lower end of the road, they are paying for improvements, including concreting the road section and a parking area. Another neighbor offered crushed stone for filling via self-pickup—we will most likely take him up on this offer. In short, this autumn, it is quite likely that construction can already be launched on the plots themselves.

And this means that it is the perfect time to buy a piece of land in the future condominium. For now, most of the territory belongs to the Montelibero fund, and the fund is ready to reduce its share in the land by selling land tokens to those wishing to settle in the future village. After the final clearing of the plot, it will be divided into shares, which can then be officially registered as private property; however, the sooner you enter MTLCITY tokens, the cheaper the square meter will eventually be for you—which is logical, as early investors want a premium for the risk. Instructions on the project’s tokenomics and on how to become a co-owner are available on its website.

By the way, about the fund. Recently, a personnel section appeared on the project website. It lists those co-investors of the project who are already ready to state this openly. Several investors remain anonymous for now.

So, some bought MTLCITY land tokens immediately, while others invested in the fund, which bought up the remainder of these tokens to close the land purchase deal on time. Now the fund is selling the land tokens held on its balance sheet. What will it do with the proceeds? Naturally, invest them in other businesses. So far, a relatively small amount has been invested in a trading project owned by one of the fund’s founders. As a result, the fund has begun paying weekly dividends to all MTL token holders, generated from the profits of this investment. Trading investments are high-risk, so the fund is unlikely to significantly increase its contribution, and as money from land sales comes in, it will start investing in a land development company. However, if you have other interesting proposals, please contact the main project chat, and you will then be redirected to the specialized one for business ideas.

Also, in the time since the project started, quite a few libertarians have visited Montenegro on tourist trips, wanting to look closer at the country and our project, and they continue to arrive from time to time—but haphazardly and with their own cultural programs: some for the beach, some for the mountains, some for parties. We very much hope that they all liked the country and will soon move here permanently. And for those who liked the country but are not ready to move for some important reasons, we plan to create a regular festival so that we no longer gather haphazardly. Ideas and offers of help for the festival should also be written in the main chat, and then we will move to a closed thematic one.

The Mechanics of Freedom in Audio

The translation of Friedman’s “Mechanics of Freedom” into audiobook format continues. The first and second parts have already been fully narrated; only a tiny bit remains — four more parts. The current version of the audiobook is available as a playlist, and the corresponding tracks are also attached to the text of each chapter.

In addition, with a slight delay, Oleg is also uploading the recorded material to his YouTube channel. There is more than just Friedman there, so he hopes the channel might interest you.

Soberly on Agorism. A new video from Libertarian Band

The Libertarian Band team continues to discuss agorism.

I liked the analysis: the pros, cons, pitfalls, limitations, prospects, and so on are listed. I will separately note the point that not everyone practicing counter-economics methods is an agorist. For example, North Korea earns from counter-economics, but they are not our bros.

It seems to me that for agorism to succeed, two factors must coincide. First, there must be an anocracy in the country (I would even say a failed state, but this term has many negative connotations because that state is mainly associated with contempt for private property). Second, agorism must be fashionable. Ideally—on the level of the movie Alongside Night. And if we can do little in terms of weakening the state, then as for the second condition, the cards are in our hands.

Ancap-chan, explain why you don’t share the views of Bitarch, Voluntarist and Agoristic, and why you recognize aggressive violence outside the framework of self-defense?

If it is unclear where exactly you are admitting it – here is the chat dialogue:

Purple Dragon: @ancapsan, I wonder, if Bitarch actually invents his libertarian vaccine, tests it, and gets approval from independent doctors, would you get vaccinated?

Ancap-chan: It’s important to understand exactly what changes will occur in the body and decide based on the specifics. If the effect is exactly as Bitarch dreams—which I don’t believe in, because genetics doesn’t seem to work that way—then why not? It wouldn’t affect self-defense capabilities, and if I needed to take violent revenge, I would still prefer to hire a specialist rather than act myself.

Lio Bertes (question accompanied by a donation of 0.0000427btc)

At first I thought about joking it off, but I think I’ll answer seriously.

The subject of my main disagreement with Bitarch is my dislike of operating with holistic constructs. I prefer to consider not violence as a phenomenon, but violence that one specific subject manifests toward another specific subject. And only then do I view this specific violence in the context of libertarian ideology, which proclaims freedom as its value. And this very freedom means that I reserve the right, among other things, to revenge, if I so wish. Naturally, I also leave others the right to try to stop me and hold me accountable.

My own moral views, which may prompt me to enter into a conflict, including a violent one, are higher for me than an abstract desire to have a world completely devoid of aggressive violence. Attempts to manipulate me in the spirit of “as long as violence remains in the world, humanity is in danger” might lead only to a shrug: “then let it remain in danger.” I would perhaps even sharpen the thesis. If we assume there is a button that, when pressed, destroys humanity, I would want to have it. Not to press it, but to know that I can do it. This is a very important incentive for a person—the expansion of possibilities, that is, degrees of freedom. Freedom.

And it is all the more important for me to have the ability to respond to violence against me, both directly at the moment of attack and ex post facto, if that is more convenient for me. I will not voluntarily destroy in myself the capacity for such a thing. So please forgive me, in the dialogue quoted above, I lied.

At the same time, I deeply appreciate Bitarch’s research with the Voluntarist regarding the investigation of mechanisms that influence people’s attitudes toward the manifestation of violence. Moreover, I respect Bitarch’s striving to obtain a button that eradicates the inclination toward aggressive violence in humanity. After all, how is this worse than the desire to have a button to destroy humanity? True, he craves this button in order to press it, and that changes the situation slightly: perhaps I will still have to stop him, as they stop mad scientists in classic action movies. Well, that would be interesting.

The rat demands another dose of gene therapy