Автор: Анкап-тян

The main mistake of ancaps

Bitarch’s Column

In her recent post, Ancap-chan wrote that she is not convinced by my arguments regarding the necessity of an absolute NAP. Unfortunately, such a misunderstanding of facts and inconsistency of positions is constantly encountered among many libertarians. Since Ancap-chan was not convinced by the real threat of a global catastrophe (the example with the virus), she should be convinced by a stronger threat in the understanding of any libertarian — the impossibility of realizing a free society (panarchy and ancap) without the adoption of an absolute NAP. Without it, ancap is indeed a utopia. Here is why:

1) The study by Jack Hirschleifer on the stability of anarchy, recognized in the scientific community, mentions, among other things, the scenario of the emergence of a “military hegemon” (which is nothing other than the appearance of a stationary bandit — the state) when the uniform balance of violence potential (BVP) in society is disrupted. And where a uniform BVP exists, coercion through physical violence is impossible by definition.

2) If someone in society can be forced through violence to pay compensation, then similarly, they can be forced to pay taxes — technically, there is no difference at all! And where there are taxes, welcome back to estatism! Mikhail Svetov understands this perfectly, which is why he repeats on every stream: we must get rid of bad tools, destroy the “One Ring” (which is nothing other than the ability to apply aggressive physical violence for one’s own benefit regardless of the goals — it is simply a tool, moral categories play no role here).

3) Everyone’s understanding of justice is different. For a member of the “Socialist” ECU, organizing a strike is a heroic act; for the “Classlib” ECU, it is a crime. Suppose a worker — a citizen of the “Classlib” ECU — organized a strike, the employer sued, and he was sentenced to pay an unaffordable compensation, which essentially means being sent into slavery. He asks the “Socialist” ECU for protection, and they agree. What are your actions?

(a) If you recognize the absolute NAP, then all is well — at most, businesses from the “Classlib” ECU will no longer deal with him.

(b) If you do not recognize it — you are a corpse yourself, even if you have nothing to do with this case. “Classlib” sends security forces to the defector, “Socialist” security forces counterattack, “Classlib” launches missiles at military targets and the main office of “Socialist,” and they respond using WMDs. You will be very lucky if it is only tactical nuclear weapons. But nuclear weapons are complex and expensive, so most likely, a global pandemic of a truly serious virus with 30-50% mortality breaks out, and the virus tests the immune system already inside your body.

4) Before the appearance of WMDs and the doctrine of deterrence (John von Neumann’s M.A.D.), such a conflict between ECUs (“protection agencies,” tribes, phratries) always led to the formation of the state familiar to us, with giant extensive borders like those of Russia. Although I dislike many of Robert Nozick’s arguments, he was right here. You don’t recognize the absolute NAP — welcome back to the state!

5) Suppose we admit that violence cannot be used against an ECU, but why can it be used against one person? And why not against 10? Where is the line?! In panarchy, the ability to create your own ECU and leave the jurisdiction of the previous one is the basis of the model’s existence; without this, panarchy is impossible. Just as in ancap, there is “individual sovereignty”: one person equals one state in the modern sense. And sovereign states, as we well know, do not use violence against each other, otherwise they are not sovereign at all.

6) The world of “John Wick” will not appeal to the majority of the population. Whatever you say, even to me, a moderate state like Sweden seems a more attractive option than living in such a hell under the mafia. For most people, even more so; accordingly, the attractiveness of such an “ancap” is zero!

7) Finally — the proof of history itself. Thus, the examples of ancap in the past loved by many libertarians — medieval Ireland and Iceland — did not end their journey because of some typical ancap problems that are constantly discussed (roads, courts). But for a banal reason — they were conquered. But this did not happen by chance and was quite expected. If these societies had been ideologically voluntarist, they would have purposefully fought against aggressive violence, created cultural works, methodologies, and technologies for this purpose, and most importantly — carried these values to the whole world. In that case, the English themselves would have expelled Cromwell from society at the first attempt to initiate aggressive violence in his youth, and Ireland would still be ancap today.

By the way, in some societies, women’s rights sometimes appeared spontaneously, but then disappeared when conquerors or a new cruel leader arrived. Globally, however, women’s rights became a new normality, a given for all, only in the 20th century after the directed activity of suffragettes. It is the same with ancap — for it to become a reality and not disappear in a second, directed activity to combat aggressive violence is needed; i.e., the absolute NAP must become the new normality of life.

Scylla and Charybdis of the discourse on nonviolence

Several articles by Bitarch on “absolute NAP” have already appeared in this channel, by which he understands a ban not only on aggressive violence, but also on delayed retribution or the enforcement of sentences. I am not yet convinced by his arguments, but I consider the topic itself important enough to continue introducing you to it.

Briefly, the idea is as follows. Technical progress increases the scale of violence available to humans and reduces the relative cost of violent impact. Tomorrow, any biology student could launch a pandemic like the current one, so we need a society where people have as few reasons as possible to threaten such things and as many moral constraints as possible that prevent them from even thinking about it. As one option for action, Bitarch considers a non-violent state. To provide a hypothetical Greta Thunberg with arguments, he published an article on the externalities of violence, where he lists how violence harms society. I will briefly go through the theses of this article and several others on similar topics.

1. Referring to Konrad Lorenz, it is stated that humans have no natural morality of non-aggression toward members of their own species embedded in their genes, since human natural weaponry is small. Therefore, one alternative to violent punishments for violent crimes could be voluntary genetic correction of behavior, if it can be developed.

Humans have almost no genetically determined patterns of behavior; there are only some inclinations, while all the specifics are set through social mechanisms. Thus, references to biological evolution serve more as illustrations than as a literal guide to action. Social evolution also exists; it is better to look for examples there.

2. Examples are given of how humanity introduced a ban on certain activities and successfully enforced it (the use of leaded gasoline, DDT, CFCs). It is pointed out that in the same way, humanity successfully enforces restrictions on morally unacceptable actions (for example, cruelty to animals, children, and prisoners). Therefore, a campaign of political pressure would also help in establishing the absolute NAP.

The state is always happy to ban something; the justification is not that important. For instance, the arguments for banning CFCs, which supposedly eat the ozone in the stratosphere, and DDT, which supposedly can cause cancer, mainly boiled down to so-called scientific consensus. The same applies to the arguments for banning carbon dioxide emissions, which are supposedly responsible for global warming, which supposedly poses a threat to humanity.

So, for political pressure on a global level, serious arguments are not even needed; one only needs to seize a spot on the agenda. To do this, climate change will have to be pushed aside, but first, its younger brothers like the Rothschilds, microchipping, and GMOs must be overcome. This is a solvable task, but the methods of such campaigns require more screaming than thinking, and that is personally difficult for me, despite the fact that I am screaming in my avatar.

3. Arguments are presented regarding the long-term negative consequences of high social tolerance for violence. At the very least, widespread violence becomes a factor hindering the economy—too large a share of resources goes toward ensuring security, including the security of transactions. Conversely, the long-term positive consequences of low tolerance for violence are shown. For example, in a recent note, a study is mentioned on how a culture of hugging and freedom of teenage sex leads to a decrease in hierarchy within society.

Now, arguments are a different matter; there is something to discuss here.

To summarize. Anyone wishing to ensure the success of non-violence ideas will have to pass between the Charybdis of the sleaziness of moral hysteria and the Scylla of the limited impact of scientific discussion. I would advise Bitarch to stick closer to Scylla, as Homer enjoined us, but here let everyone who sails the waters of public discourse choose their own path.

That leftist whirlpool over there is more dangerous

P.S. We, of course, did not agree with Bitarch on the content of the article. I reworked some takes, but not all. So, most likely, a continuation of the discussion awaits us.

Practical Anarchy, Stephan Molynieux. Chapters 1-3.

I have edited the first three previously posted chapters of Practical Anarchy by Stephan Molinari. However, these are only formally three chapters; in terms of meaning, it is first a foreword, then an introduction, and finally some boundary conditions. I suspect that Molinari must be a very skilled lover, given such an approach to foreplay.

The style of the book is very lively and emotional, but somewhat overloaded. I tried to make it readable enough, and I hope I succeeded.

In the foreword, the author apologizes to the reader for daring to publish the book in open access, and for having the audacity to assume that the reader, having paid zero money, will devote more than zero time to reading it.

From the introduction to the first part, dedicated to methodology, the reader finds out that they are actually dealing with the second book of a trilogy, and also receives a new portion of authorial apologies—this time for the fact that the book will most likely cause some “butthurt.”

In the chapter on limitations, the author explains that he does not intend to describe in detail what color robes judges will wear under ancap, and generally would prefer the book to be perceived as a textbook rather than a handbook. Let us immediately apply this knowledge to the previously published chapters on dispute resolution organizations and stateless prisons.

There is still work to do on the previously translated chapters, but the completion of the draft translation is still far off, and your financial support could encourage the process. All details are before the table of contents.

Tokenomics problems and contract jurisdictions

Regarding the conclusions about the unsuitability of blockchain for real estate registration, I partially agree. In its pure form—yes. I have been working on this issue at the University of Bologna for four years. Last year, when I visited Kyiv, I gave a presentation on how to apply blockchain as a real estate registry. So, if you are interested in learning more: theory, protocols, system architecture, regulation. I presented it quite simply in my presentation at the blockchain hub.

Alexey Konashevich

https://youtu.be/F9IYLtXrn78

Thank you, I watched the presentation with great interest. My concept of property rights registration was approached slightly from a different angle and sketched out in much broader strokes. Not being a programmer, I was answering not the question of “how,” but rather the question of “who would handle this without the state, why would they do it, and why would they do it well.”

Your presentation implicitly suggests that the state, as a monopoly territorial jurisdiction in the validation system for the transfer of property rights, is a resource-intensive atavism that does not increase system efficiency but complicates its optimization.

In order to formally describe the functioning system of decentralized legal mechanisms, you build “smart laws” on top of smart contracts—an additional abstraction that validates smart contracts, separating legal ones from illegal ones. Then you raise the question of who creates the smart laws and introduce a new abstraction, e-voting:

But in the world of decentralized ledgers, it doesn’t work that way. E-voting for a law is, essentially, its validation by a group of independent validators. What happens if a certain minority votes against a law in current legal reality? They are forced to obey the law passed by the majority. What happens under decentralized law? The minority has the opportunity to create a fork. Two alternative smart laws emerge, each describing its own set of permissible smart contracts, and different voluntary transactions can take place in different legal fields.

Essentially, these are the same good old contractual jurisdictions that I’ve already talked the audience’s ears off about here.

Arguments about the shortcomings of bitcoin. What do you think?

I feel that this article pointed them out as accurately as possible.

Anal Magician

The article was written on 17.03.18 shortly after the crash from historical highs. Let’s review the arguments from the perspective of the years passed.

1. So far, this is pure theory, not proven by practice

Bitcoin is believed in by adepts of ancap and AES, others don’t need it. For most, the state is fine, and anarchy is not fine.

True. There is no point in trying to persuade. They will come themselves when life forces them.

2. “Solvable problems” are made up

Blockchain is inconvenient as a real estate registry, etc.

True. The bottleneck is the mechanism for confirming the truth of the information stored in the blockchain. The maximum amount of information about the non-digital world that can be entrusted to a blockchain is a certification that an event took place no later than the addition of such-and-such a block to the blockchain. It’s like photographing a person with a newspaper to certify that they were alive at the time the newspaper was published—it’s possible, but it’s using a newspaper for something other than its intended purpose.

3. Irreversibility of transactions

Examples are given of handing over bitcoins under duress without the possibility of return.

With the same success, one could shake out a PIN code and cash out a bank card. Large sums in bitcoin are not hard to protect, for example, via multisig. It works no worse than additional confirmation of bank transactions. The problem is contrived, unlike the problem of blocking bank accounts.

4. Cryptocurrency payments: expensive and slow

Fast and cheap on-chain payments are a vanishing luxury, the infancy of the technology. Those wishing to stay in the game need to master second-layer protocols.

5. Unsuitability as a medium of exchange

The exchange rate is unstable.

Those for whom it is critical can use stablecoins, and convert small amounts into fiat immediately. There are plenty of tools.

6. Unsuitability as a means of long-term investment

The author is not talking about what one might think based on the headline, but about the fact that bitcoin’s capitalization is small, and if one invests a large sum, it will be impossible to withdraw it within a reasonable timeframe without crashing the rate. That is, it is about low liquidity, not long-term price trends.

True. With the current capitalization, medium capitals are entering bitcoin—large ones still cannot.

7. Blockchain as a noose for the economy

Deflation is harmful.

For hard money, this problem does not exist.

8. Blockchain democracy is worse than existing systems of separation of powers

A Belarusian explains to Russians that the state system of checks and balances works perfectly, while bitcoin’s mechanisms for ensuring decentralization are somehow dubious.

Incorrect. Bitcoin’s decentralization is stable because it is beneficial to everyone. Every participant has something at stake: funds invested in miners, in the bitcoins themselves, in maintaining a node, or in software development—an attempt at dishonest play leads to losing those funds. This is how the creators of bitcoin cash manipulated the price and suffered losses.

9. Inequality and market manipulation

There are whales in the crypto market who control serious amounts; they are capable of playing with prices.

I can offer my old posts on this as an answer: one, two, three.

10. Technology does not save from collusion

For various small cryptos, things like a 51% attack are relevant.

All the worse for small cryptos. Bitcoin has already passed the stage where it could be attacked for a reasonable amount of money.

What is the result?

Cryptocurrencies lost the first round; work on mistakes is necessary. The demand for crypto-anarchy ideas will fall; the “straight guys” choose centralized solutions.

From the height of the past two years, no loss is visible. Bubbles burst, the viable strengthened. Centralized solutions may be useful for small payments, but decentralized ones do not tolerate haste, and solid gentlemen prefer them.

The Origin of the State: Carneiro’s Ecological Hypothesis

In the series of essays on the state, Vladimir Zolotorev describes the origin of this institution from the perspective of a theory that differs slightly from the well-known stationary bandit theory, although it is certainly based on it. The difference lies in the point that stability is given to early state formations by the characteristics of the landscape: only where there is nowhere to run are the enslaved forced to stay put and submit to the conqueror.

This is the so-called ecological hypothesis, first formulated in the work of Robert L. Carneiro, a staff member of the American Museum of Natural History, A Theory of the Origin of the State, published in the journal Science in 1970. A Russian translation was made for the collection The Early State, Its Alternatives and Analogues, published in 2006. I have uploaded the collection to my website, and Carneiro’s specific article can be read from Bitarch on VK or where he dug it up.

I have reviewed it and confirmed that there are no serious discrepancies with our video about the stationary bandit, which is gratifying, as no patches will be necessary. Nevertheless, it is always pleasant to understand which sources the things you popularize are based on, and what additional examples can be used to illustrate your posts.

Robert L. Carneiro

Epitaph for TON

When I was asked a year ago whether TON had any prospects, I, as “smart Masha,” reasoned about the network effect and other technical and economic challenges the project needed to overcome to stand a chance—and generally demonstrated my skepticism. The reality turned out to be much simpler and more hopeless: the project was simply banned.

For this very reason, in a recent post about Bitcoin’s rise, I pointed out that Bitcoin’s dominance among cryptocurrencies seems to me to be the only viable scenario. Not because “helicopter money” flowed into Bitcoin, as Grigory Bazhenov tried to present my position, but specifically because Bitcoin is invulnerable to regulators. They can curb its penetration, they can pressure the exchange of Bitcoin for fiat—but they are unable to destroy it. Even if the NSA manages to find and imprison the real Nakamoto—what would that affect? At most, a heap of Bitcoins would be dumped onto the market, but the market would swallow them without choking. However, sanctions against Durov, Zuckerberg, or Buterin are indeed capable of seriously affecting the projects they lead. This link turned out to be the weakest. This is the Achilles’ heel of any potential “Bitcoin killer.”

Of course, all the software developed as part of Durov’s project is open source, and it has already been launched under the name free TON, but it lacks the very network effect that was the main bet and the killer feature of TON—Durov officially stated that he would not support such projects, which means the new free crypto has no hope of being integrated into Telegram.

But every cloud has a silver lining. It was precisely thanks to my review of TON’s capabilities that I became acquainted with Lightning—and I continue to recommend everyone use it. Over the past year, it has become much easier to use, and while the Lightning manual used to take up a separate page on my site, now it is a short paragraph on the donations page.

Durov created a great achievement—VK. It was taken away. He created an even greater one—Telegram. It took off, but it didn’t seem like enough to Pavel. He reached for the greatest of all, and it is not his fault that it didn’t work out. But what is truly bad is that now Durov will have to cover the losses at the expense of Telegram. I hope he has learned lessons from the VK case and will try not to ruin the project.

Left-libertarianism

Russia is considered a fairly left-wing country; however, for some reason, the phenomenon of left-libertarianism has not taken root there very well.

What makes it interesting? For a classical libertarian, the values of freedom and, consequently, voluntary interaction with other members of society have absolute priority, and if someone chooses social Darwinism, that is their right. For left-libertarians, the desire to ensure that other people do not end up in a desperate situation is a powerful moral imperative. Yes, it contradicts the values of total freedom, but there is no problem with having moral imperatives that occasionally conflict with one another (by the way, I will mention this in passing in my new video—stay tuned for announcements). Realizing that their legitimate pursuit of self-actualization might significantly hinder someone else, a left-libertarian will limit their own freedom and will not even consider it some extraordinary feat. After all, when healthy young people voluntarily self-isolate for the safety of the elderly, that is precisely an example of the behavior of a normal left-libertarian.

So why is this school of thought doing so poorly in Russia? Quite simply, we are a very poor and over-regulated country, and in order to sacrifice something, you first need to have that something. Russians mostly suffer from a critical shortage of both money and freedom.

Mikhail Pozharsky began introducing us to the doctrines of left-libertarianism in Russian, but for him, this is a side activity, as it is for me. Therefore, I would like to recommend several specialized Russian-language resources for those wishing to explore this topic more closely.

  1. Alliance of Left-Libertarians. A tiny Telegram channel (40 subscribers at the time of my publication) with a grand description listing the movements it unites—and the list is so long that it feels as though there is only one person from each movement. Nevertheless, they have developed a very productive activity and translated a vast number of articles on the subject, so you should not only subscribe to the channel but also thoroughly scour its history; there is a lot of interesting material there.
  2. Libertarian Social Justice. These are the most poignant leftists among all libertarians, supporters of UBI and other redistributive extravaganzas. Consume with caution. Knowledge of this discourse is especially useful in debates with communists—determined communists will find migrating here quite comfortable. The channel has 41 subscribers at the time of my publication.
  3. The Agorist’s Cookbook. A slightly less tiny channel (68 subscribers at the time of my publication) dedicated to agorism—a branch of libertarianism that, for some mysterious reason, is classified as left-wing but stands completely on its own. I intend to dig deep into agorism myself—the next cycle of Libertarian Band videos will be dedicated specifically to it. So, I wholeheartedly recommend subscribing.

All three channels partially overlap in content and possibly in editorial staff, but they prefer to maintain autonomy, which is completely natural and convenient for libertarians.

Rules for Success for Libertarian Organizations. An Overview.

The host of the channel Right Argument for 14.88 rubles asked to criticize 12 points published on his channel: Part 1. Part 2.

Point No. 1: An idea needs only 10% convinced supporters to convert the remaining 90% of society to its side.

According to Taleb, 4% will be enough; there are studies suggesting even less is needed. If there is an active radical minority, its ideas begin to be taken into account. However, a society may end up with two such radical minorities. This is fraught with civil war. Is this a reason to abandon one’s idea? No, but it is worth considering this point.

Point No. 2: Ideology must intersect with the mainstream.

It is suggested to broadcast simple and clear slogans outwardly, leaving the sophisticated studies for the inner circle; otherwise, agitation will be easily countered by stupid memes about courts under ancap.

Point No. 3: If a movement consists of more intellectuals, then the ideology and culture within the movement will be more developed and attractive.

This is an antithesis to point 2. Without intellectuals, a movement to transform the world degenerates into a gathering of rowdy schoolkids, rejecting anyone remotely adequate. Upon receiving a complex question, an agitator must answer at the appropriate level, or admit that it is better to consult so-and-so.

Point No. 4: Arguments over axioms and cornerstones of theory between libertarians and leftists/etatists are a waste of time.

Unless it is a public dispute to win over the public’s sympathy or training debates to hone rhetorical skills.

Point No. 5: Internal enemies are a thousand times more dangerous than external ones.

When an organization begins to fight internal enemies, it means that the external ones have won without a fight. In general, one should not confuse the competition of ideas with the machinations of enemies.

Point No. 6: Watch your appearance.

One should not fall into the opposite extreme, or it will turn into a Putin-style lineup of technocrat governors.

Point No. 7: Stay away from people who are too old.

The largest audience is forty-year-old women; without their approval, you won’t get far. Thus, you need mature people who have a track record of success, and they are the ones who should be put in the storefront, while the task of the youth is active movement.

Point No. 8: Stay away from Russian social networks, but actively use foreign ones.

Every social network has its own pitfalls. Facebook and YouTube have censorship. VK has arrests. It is important to understand where the target audience is, how to speak with them, and what precautions to take.

Point No. 9: Convince people of other political views and inexperienced newcomers of the consistency and viability of libertarianism.

There is no need to obsess over trying to absolutely convert opponents to your teaching. It is more important to create a reputation for libertarians by your own example as people who are capable of agreement and consistent, with whom one can cooperate on specific issues. Then, an ideological drift in your direction becomes inevitable.

Point No. 10: We do not have good media resources, and those that exist are terrible in terms of effectively promoting ideas to the masses (this applies to this channel as well).

It is unclear what this point is doing in the list; it does not form a positive assertion.

Point No. 11: Track progress.

In the authors’ understanding, this refers to progress in metrics: number of subscribers, views, likes, and so on. I would suggest understanding this point in a more general way.

Point No. 12: We do not have very much time to realize our ambitions.

This is a demonstration of the authors’ high time preference. An ordinary young activist quickly burns out if they do not achieve significant success, after which they switch to what does bring success—usually a business career and family life. But social change is a longer process than the evolution of a specific activist’s priorities. A movement that does not take this into account can only win by chance.

Nonviolent State

or a realistic scenario for the transition to a free society

Bitarch’s Column

The text has been substantially revised by me with the author’s permission. The original publication is in Bitarch’s public page.

After reading the headline, you probably can’t immediately tell if it’s a joke. The phrase looks like an oxymoron! A stationary bandit (the state) exercises its power through violent coercion, so how can there even be such a thing as a non-violent state?! In reality, such a form of social organization could very well exist as a transitional stage toward a completely stateless society. To understand the idea, one must separate the state’s tools for physical coercion from everything else (legislation, courts, property registries, infrastructure, roads, medicine, and so on) and remove the former.

How could such a hybrid emerge at all? In short, as a result of society adopting the idea that aggressive physical violence is unacceptable. While non-aggression is a necessary condition for creating a free (libertarian/voluntarist) society, it could very well be achieved by activists who have no connection to libertarianism whatsoever. For example, in the Scandinavian countries, an unambiguous consensus on the ban of violence against children has been reached for half a century, and this was done by non-libertarians. Nothing prevents the launch of a public campaign to promote the universal principle of non-aggression, for example, by motivating it with the threat of strong negative externalities of aggressive violence for society as a whole (this argument has already proven its effectiveness in banning violence against children and even animals, leading to its eradication in most developed countries) or even the self-destruction of humanity. With a fairly high probability, this campaign will be carried out by activists who do not even know the meaning of the word “libertarianism,” although, by doing so, they will open the way to a world where libertarianism can be implemented in practice.

A rough scenario of how events might unfold:

1) A new (or even the same) “Greta Thunberg” actively promotes the idea of the unacceptability and danger of aggressive violence. These ideas gain viral distribution, quickly reaching the masses. Perhaps some of the activists even become “Person of the Year” according to Time magazine.

2) Pressure on officials and security forces increases. Even neighbors begin to tell them, “You’re a new Hitler, get out,” friends stop communicating with them, and they are no longer allowed into bars and clubs. An increasing number of security officers refuse to handle the enforcement of victimless “crimes,” such as speeding, because they fear subsequent shaming. For officials, terrorizing businesses, especially small ones, also begins to mean political death.

3) People who desire firm order and discipline, and who are used to reporting their neighbors to the police, are, of course, outraged. The police no longer throw anyone in the slammer, but instead arrive and gently persuade people to behave decently—this works worse, and it causes moral indignation: why the hell are they pandering to these scoundrels using our taxes, instead of taking decisive measures.

4) Inevitable changes occur at the legislative level—primarily, of course, in parliamentary democracies. Anyone who advocates for maintaining the status quo will simply lose the election, as if they were advocating for the legalization of DDT or leaded gasoline. Responding to the voters’ demand, parliamentarians are forced to invent measures of coercion that do not involve the use of violence. At this stage, deputies likely won’t even consider issues so familiar in libertarian discussions (how to transition to private roads, schools, hospitals, pensions, the legal standing of children, legalization of drugs, etc.).

5) Thus, parliaments begin to pass laws abolishing restrictive measures and punishments such as imprisonment, and banning the use of weapons by the police; at the same time, of course, they make it harder for private individuals to acquire weapons—but the state will not be able to enforce this particular ban effectively, since it has renounced violent coercion itself. Defense funding is reduced, the army stops training in hotspots around the world, and is limited to peaceful exercises.

6) All other functions of the state (except for forceful coercion) continue to operate as before: educational and medical institutions, issuance of documents, courts, traffic regulation, and even the tax service. After all, when many European countries began talking about banning internal combustion engine (ICE) cars, no one suggested getting rid of the habitual “automobile” lifestyle entirely. ICE fuel is much more convenient than a bulky battery, but it becomes a victim of the fight for ecology, even if that fight contains only 10% common sense and 90% hysteria. It is similar with violence—for the state, it is a very convenient tool, but since it is considered unacceptable, an alternative must be found. Nevertheless, the law-abiding majority, who hardly encounter state violence even now, will at first not even notice that something has changed.

7) In international politics, the mechanism of economic sanctions has long been used instead of military coercion. Most likely, this same method will now be applied to citizens instead of direct police violence. This tool, despite its deceptive softness, is quite powerful, especially in a welfare state where all sorts of payments and the acquisition of countless permits for activities depend on the state.

8) People caught in the steamroller of state economic sanctions will be forced to look for ways to survive independently. Informal mutual aid associations will emerge, which will gradually provide their participants—who have de facto exited state jurisdiction—with more or less acceptable living conditions. In fact, these are the contractual jurisdictions we have long studied theoretically.

Thus gradually, thanks to political pressure making the use of violence unacceptable, classic territorial states will turn into panarchies. Only some of the contractual jurisdictions will be libertarian, but converting humanity to libertarianism entirely is a completely redundant task. It is quite enough that the choice of orders under which a person lives occurs voluntarily.