The new chapter of The Machinery of Freedom, Default Rules, Economies of Scale, and the Stability Problem, is a more in-depth analysis of the possibility of a stateless society’s collapse compared to the first edition of the book. Forty years ago, the author’s mood was more overconfident, but later serious objections were raised against the proposed model, and he had to make a number of clarifications.
The key clarification was the idea that regardless of whether a state exists or not, the social contract is simply a peaceful agreement on which distribution of rights will not provoke people’s desire to violently change the status quo. This echoes, in some ways, my formulation that rights are claims that are tolerated. Then, Friedman adds the apparatus of Schelling points used in several previous chapters and shows that a stateless society is indeed susceptible to the danger of collapse during its formative stage, but if the rules become more or less settled, the resulting inertia will then provide the necessary stability.
Briefly about the problem for those who are too lazy to read the wall of text on LiveJournal:
Journalism is dying; it is a global trend related to the fact that the media have lost their monopoly on the distribution of information. On one hand, bloggers and search engines have killed news agencies. On the other hand, quality investigations and fact-checking have ceased to be profitable. There is less and less money from readers in the industry; as a result, the media are becoming servants of sponsors, and this completely undermines trust in them, especially if the media hide their sponsors from readers. How to solve this problem in a society where there are states regulating the industry is unknown. The question is, can the problem be solved in a stateless society, or will the abolition of regulations no longer help here.
For some reason, it seems to me that in a stateless society, the intensity of the problem itself will decrease. Modern media are losing trust because they write about politics, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to write about it impartially: the reader is politicized, the sponsor is politicized, and if you write ambivalently, you’ll be torn apart from both sides. But in the absence of a state, there is also no hysteria about who is in power, how the looted resources are shared, who is stealing from the common fund, and all that.
Of course, in the absence of a political agenda, there will still be issues of business reputation, disputes about the ethics of certain marketing moves, and so on. You can’t unring the bell, and the world will not return to old models of journalism, so after some time we will consume information in ways and in forms that we couldn’t have imagined recently. And then a new method will come into fashion, and so on indefinitely. Nevertheless, the essence will remain the same: the struggle for attention. Some will convert attention into money, some into fame. Some will work for their own money as a hobby, and some will slog along on sponsorships.
Will old-fashioned quality news content with fact-checking remain in commercial quantities? No, fact-checking is the reader’s personal business, and usually, they just don’t care whether the news is real or from the “Panorama” news agency — they read it, laugh, and switch to something else.
Will journalistic investigations remain? It’s unlikely they will be journalistic. Rather, it will be something like “a company found (or invented) compromising material on a competitor and leaks it through influencers” or “read reviews of new market products.”
Is it a good thing when everyone can receive information from many different sources, and you cannot be sure of any of them? This is much better than receiving information from a single source, believing it, and finding out ten years later that you were lied to.
Yesterday I took part in mini-debates on the subject, where in my opening statement I expressed an interesting thought that I hadn’t encountered in other sources before, so I’ll post it here, unedited.
The state exists in people’s minds: exactly where all ideas exist. Similarly, all ideas about how society should be organized exist in people’s minds. Therefore, the only way to overcome the state is to instill in people a complete conviction that this crap is not needed.
It is far more interesting what ideas can replace the idea of the necessity of the state. In small communities where everyone is more or less acquainted, relationships are more often built on various collectivist values—it’s more convenient. In families, communist relations usually dominate. Similarly, communist relations prove quite natural for anarchic communities as long as they remain modest in size—even if that society shares ancap ideas. Ancaps give free public lectures, donate to each other for various projects, and volunteer so much it’s mind-boggling. Where, one might ask, is the cold world of pure profit, the maximization of profit, and other purely theoretical constructs? It’s all cooperation and the joy of joint creativity. Therefore, paradoxically, ancaps develop a strange doublethink in themselves, where the market is supposed to settle things, but for some reason, mutual aid does.
As a community grows, ancaps naturally need to mature, learn how to make money by satisfying market demand, and establish coordination between specialized organizations—but, of course, bypassing state restrictions. The world of ancom, warm and cozy, falters when scaling in the face of complex division of labor, competition, and other things unpleasant to a child’s mind. Ancom is already felt within small communities today, and therefore seems utterly real. Ancap can be traced in individual phenomena, such as the world of cryptocurrencies, black markets, and the like. A certain level of abstract thinking is required to see in this the engine of the future world order.
So I see nothing particularly terrible in the fact that people begin their acquaintance with anarchy specifically with anarcho-communism. The wider the movement becomes, the further it will move away from its original ideals and approach ancap. Many ideological ancaps started as communists. The most famous example is, of course, Hoppe. Examples of the reverse transition are hardly observed. Therefore, I wish for this community, without losing harmony with the real world, to eventually master the entire aesthetic of capitalist relations as truly just.
In a chibi version, ancap inevitably looks like a gift economy, i.e., ancom
Free trade leads to a wide variety of goods appearing on the domestic market, and they are cheap. This is not surprising, because free competition reaches an ideal state. Everyone has equal access to the market. There are no hints of anyone’s monopoly.
Free trade has a strong negative consequence. Many local producers cannot withstand competition from foreigners, go bankrupt, and leave the market. In critical cases, this phenomenon can become mass. Entire industries perish, and the population becomes impoverished. Goods are sold cheaply, but this pleases no one. There is no money to buy them. The second negative consequence is that the money of local residents ends up in the hands of foreign sellers and flows abroad.
How to solve this problem without the state?
Anal Magician
I tried for a long time to imagine a situation in which this internally contradictory set of statements could be observed, and I succeeded!
I take a boat, a tent, a laptop, a solar panel, a shotgun, cartridges, a net, fishing rods, and a couple more dozen kilograms of gear—and I head to a small island a kilometer from the nearest shore, where a village stands on the coast. The island is uninhabited, and I declare it mine, although fishermen and vacationers often hang out here, but it hasn’t occurred to anyone to settle here yet.
Then I begin to manage the household.
I can catch fish; it will be enough for fish soup, and if I build a smokehouse, I can preserve some. But in the village, they smoke fish in the same way, and my goods brought from the island are not in particularly high demand. I could plant a garden, but the soil is mediocre, manual non-mechanized labor is unproductive, and everyone in the village has plenty of such produce.
I could go to the shore with a shotgun and demand money from vacationers for the right to hang out on my shore, but they don’t take the threat seriously and are only willing to pay if I provide some service in return. In response to my warning shot in the air, they tell me that I’ve gone crazy and that they will, of course, sail away, but tomorrow they will return with weapons, because they are willing to tolerate my presence in a place where they are used to vacationing only as long as I don’t interfere with them. I reply that I was joking, bring out some smoked fish to go with their beer, we hang out together, and the incident is resolved.
Eventually, I arrive at the following business model: I catch fish for personal use, continue running this channel, occasionally write articles for hire, and begin to play the role of a hospitable hostess of the island, who entertains vacationers with conversation, and in return receives donations, primarily food, and occasionally, depending on the mood, sex. From time to time, I swim to the village to buy everything I need. The goods there are inexpensive; I cannot compete with their producers in any category, and my money gradually runs out. Eventually, I realize that I have begun to spend too much effort and time on activities that bring me a disproportionately small income, and too little remains for writing texts for money, and the internet here is half-dead. So, I end this prolonged vacation, pack my things, and return to where there is internet, a hot shower, and other blessings of civilization that allow me to focus on what I am more competitive in.
Yes, under ancap, any business model can well turn out to be unprofitable. Free trade is precisely what allows one to quickly realize such things and switch to more profitable activities. And if profitable activity with existing competencies is fundamentally impossible in a certain area, then one must change locations and go where those competencies are more in demand.
At the same time, I will note that in the same example with the island, having capital and knowledge, I could have opened a yacht club, or a hotel, or a diving school, or organized a larger-scale fishing and processing operation—and turned a profit. Singapore itself was dirty and poor until it attracted investments, so the same place under different conditions can turn out to be either completely prospectless or a gold mine.
And in conclusion, I will finally answer the question posed in one phrase. How to solve the problem of market inefficiency without the state? Entrepreneurial initiative.
There is a well-known assertion that monopolies do not form in a free market. This, of course, is not true: in a free market, everyone has the opportunity to secure a monopoly for themselves. All it takes is very little: simply invent something that others haven’t thought of, implement it, and start selling. That’s it, you have a monopoly. If your product is in demand by the market, this monopoly will also bring you superprofits. Then competitors will catch up, and for a while, you can maintain your superprofits if you enter into a cartel agreement with them. Then someone will start to break it, hoping to seize a larger share of the market, and after some time, nothing will remain of your cartel.
But why suspect people of bad intentions? Let your cartel agreement remain sacred and inviolable, because each of its participants has learned the prisoner’s dilemma by heart and knows how to think a couple of steps ahead. Let’s raise our glasses to the cloudless future of your business!
Alas, the weather is fickle. Tomorrow, someone will appear who dreams of a monopoly. They will invent something that no one has thought of before, implement it, and start selling. After that, it will suddenly turn out that this was a substitute product for your cartel’s goods, and now you have competitiveness problems. You will urgently have to agree to increase production and lower prices to maintain market share, but still, your horse-drawn carriage, which was so progressive until recently, will gradually begin to lose to that wretched tram.
What is to be done? The market is free, entry is open to anyone who wishes, and this is an unavoidable obstacle for anyone who wishes to rest on their laurels from past achievements. One should invent some kind of thing that would allow limiting free entry into the market; then the old, respectable business will certainly be threatened by nothing. What should it be called? There, let’s call it the state! Great, all that’s left is to implement this product and start selling it.
Ah, what? Did I answer the wrong question? Well, sorry…
Oh, youth! They promised to bury the cities in manure knee-deep! What went wrong?
Let’s imagine anarcho-capitalism. A developed capitalist economy with a deep division of labor and the dominance of commodity-money relations, plus the absence of state power—meaning, no monopoly on rule-making or the enforcement of those very rules. Are gender prejudices regarding which lifestyle generally suits which sex possible in such a society? Of course, they are. This means there is ground for feminism; in other words, the question is at least not meaningless.
Theoretically, one can easily imagine a situation where the collapse of the institution of the state leads to the triumph of hardcore paleolibertarians building their own contractual jurisdictions, where women are denied agency entirely and are considered a type of family property. A woman wants to found her own contractual jurisdiction with different rules? A woman wasn’t given the floor.
However, any attempts to force a conceptual model to work that differs significantly from the real needs of active subjects will face more or less active opposition. First, individual deviants occasionally express doubt that the existing order is the best; then, such cases accumulate, giving birth to a sufficiently formed ideological movement, and then, as the classics of Marxism assure us, the idea takes hold of the masses and becomes a material force.
Of course, bare ideas are not enough; they preferably need economic backing. Slavery is not only immoral but also economically inefficient. Oh, in this specific case it is efficient? Perhaps, but it is still immoral. Similarly, a woman’s opinion should be considered not only because she is an equal human being, but also because it may prove useful. But even if she is a shrew, she is still a human being.
What methods are permissible for promoting feminism under ancap? The same as for any other social movement: PR campaigns, private discrimination, shaming, and similar methods of moral pressure.
To what degree of obsession can feminism go under ancap? Theoretically, to a degree as serious as it is now. But here, again, not only rhetoric but economics are important. Yes, men are potential rapists, but specifically Vasya is a valuable employee. You want him fired? Do his job for the same money. Yes, diversity on the board of directors increases a corporation’s income on average. But if diversity becomes an end in itself, it becomes a cargo cult, and income drops. In short, rhetoric is verified by common sense and is accepted without much discussion if it does not particularly contradict it.
In addition to everything said above, I suggest rereading the chapter Bargaining in the Absence of Government from Friedman’s The Machinery of Freedom. Equality turns out to be the Schelling point in the issue of gender rights, and discussions on this topic will inevitably revolve around equality. Therefore, imbalances in gender privileges in one direction or another will always generate serious opposition, while equality itself is quite easy to sell to the public.
I often hear an objection like this addressed to me: “You are proposing rather radical methods of struggle; it would cost the authorities nothing to tighten the screws even further and put you on a bottle.” Such a position is not only mistaken but extremely harmful to libertarians, as it limits our methods of fighting against the state.
“Tightening the screws” (expanding the powers of security services and the definitions of “crimes” for repression) will very quickly lead to an autoimmune failure of the regime. This is what happened to most countries under the rule of the authoritarian right, who maximized the machinery of repression against their ideological opponents. These regimes collapsed, and now judicial proceedings for past repressions threaten their former leaders and accomplices. Since libertarian ideas were not widespread in these societies, the machinery of repression itself has not been completely destroyed, but it has been severely weakened.
Terrorists can make a bomb from fertilizer? Let’s monitor every farmer, just in case he is supplying them with fertilizer! Someone plans to use viruses as a deterrent weapon? Let’s send a security agent to every school laboratory, just in case a recruited teacher is helping grow viruses there! Someone is actively spreading the theory of the stationary bandit online? Let’s ensure that only theories approved from above are taught in universities!
Each such form of control slows down scientific and technical progress, creates an atmosphere of fear in society and, most importantly, guaranteed to carry a certain percentage of “false positives,” where an innocent person is condemned by mistake. The more spheres the state attempts to control, the higher the percentage of false accusations will be. This leads to hatred of the authorities by the entire society, even by its loyal supporters. The current government is brutally overthrown, and in such a way that for several generations to come, any authoritarian movements in the country will have no further chance. With a sufficient prevalence of libertarian ideas in society, nothing may appear in place of the overthrown government, which is precisely what we strive for!
The post about dangerous psychos sparked a surprisingly lively discussion, as well as a comparable number of likes and dislikes; therefore, there is something to discuss.
First, many expressed doubt about the idea that insurance companies would face customer demand for the treatment of insane offenders, instead of shooting them, harvesting their organs, feeding them to pigs, or exiling them (where to?)
Indeed, this is merely an assumption, an extrapolation of the current trend toward humanization, as well as the current trend toward a more complete understanding of the principles of consciousness and the causes of mental failures. Therefore, I assume that this treatment will become cheaper and more reliable. Thus, dangerous psychos will, in most cases, receive their treatment before it leads to a tragedy, and only in the rarest situations—when a clouding of the mind went unnoticed and led to murder—will the conversation turn to post-factum treatment; and only after successful treatment can the conversation about financial compensation begin. In the long term, such an approach remains quite profitable for insurance companies.
Secondly, of course, I count on the fact that if anyone, including a psycho, attacks anyone, they will be stopped by the power of weapons, and then both the holes in their body and their brain will be treated, after which a bill will be presented. So, the general alertness of the ancap community, where people are ready to personally defend their freedom and property, should also work to reduce the significance of the raised problem of violence by the insane.
Thirdly, the question of who guarantees that insurance companies will not begin preemptively treating healthy people for mental disorders caused disputes. It is clear that the roots of this question grow from the practice of punitive psychiatry by the state. Why does the state do this? To ensure that the subjects do not have any “little thoughts” about the forced termination of the social contract with the ruling regime. Why would insurance companies do this? Who the hell knows. Applying forced treatment to one’s own clients is fraught with lawsuits if the client was healthy. Applying forced treatment to other people’s clients is a very strange form of altruism, and even more fraught with lawsuits if the person was healthy. Forcibly treating the uninsured might prove to be a useful preventative measure to avoid waiting until they start attacking clients. Here, one must calculate the benefits/costs. But even here, the forced treatment of healthy people brings no benefit.
However, the theme will live on in cinema for some time
We have psychiatric hospitals and maximum-security prisons.
Their “clients” remind us that there are very real psychopaths, maniacs, serial killers, and other problematic characters. Most of them are not Dexters or Hannibal Lecters, and they do not act in accordance with the public good. Due to the peculiarity of the processes occurring in their brains, there is no clear way to convince them using reasons or arguments.
How can ostracism help against them?
What would a system for searching and destroying or isolating such “Jack the Rippers” look like? If it is isolation rather than destruction, then with whose money and by whose efforts?
анонимный вопрос
People value security and are willing to pay for it. Inadequate aggressors are not just dangerous, but because of their apparent irrationality, this danger seems even more serious than if people applied the cold reason of an insurance agent. The same considerations apply here as to why people fear terrorist attacks more than car accidents, even though mortality from the latter is much higher.
The most obvious market agent that could provide such a service is, of course, insurance companies. They collect premiums while the client is safe and pay out a benefit in insured cases. Therefore, assuming that insurance companies act in good faith and do not cheat their clients, it is in their interest to promote the maximum safety of their clients.
But security from maniacs can be provided in different ways, and this is determined by social mores. Clients may desire security from packs of stray dogs but categorically protest against their wholesale extermination, so those who undertake to satisfy this whim will have to account for the corresponding restriction in means.
Similarly, simple empathy no longer allows our wealthy and prosperous society (and under ancap it is presumably expected to be even wealthier and more prosperous) to demand security from violent psychotics through their extermination; rather, it is a matter of treatment. Again, a mental disorder may be acquired rather than innate, for example, as a result of trauma, and before that, the person could well have been a respected client of an insurance company. Thus, the obvious line of thought in our case would be the search for methods of treatment.
Will this be expensive? Pennies. I did not mention the comparison between terrorist attacks and car accidents for nothing. A disproportionate amount is spent on preventing terrorist attacks. In the same way, violent psychotics will receive a disproportionate amount of attention, although their number is completely negligible. Of course, if a person with mental problems had an insurance policy, they would receive higher quality and more expensive treatment, but even if there was no policy, they would still be attempted to be returned to normalcy, and by quite humane methods.
I present the translation of another chapter of The Machinery of Freedom, Anarchy and Effective Law. Here, Friedman recalls his description of the legal system in a free market and applies a standard economic efficiency analysis to it. The conclusion is that in the market for law, the benefit of law providers and its enforcers is not always precisely linked to the benefit of the clients of the respective agencies. In other words, ancap does not lead to one hundred percent justice for all, and the field of private law is also subject to market failures (which Friedman analyzes in detail in the previous chapter). Nevertheless, attempts to establish legal norms through political mechanisms are subject to similar failures to a much greater extent, so overall, the market still decides.
