Автор: Анкап-тян

Oil, economy, limbo

No sooner had armchair political scientists managed to properly dive into virology than they already had to master the intricacies of the oil industry. I decided not to fall behind and watched an MBX Media story yesterday about what exactly happened and what to expect now.

First, Mikhail Krutikhin spoke about how May WTI futures hit rock bottom and started digging deeper. This joke has already been retold many times, and in Krutikhin’s specific case, it was so-so, because from his words, it seemed as if it wasn’t a triviality not worth noticing. However, I see no reason why the same story couldn’t repeat itself toward the end of May, because to prevent it, either oil demand needs to rise or supply needs to fall; otherwise, it will be even worse than now, because there will be even less free storage capacity in a month.

Next, Grigory Bazhenov spoke and repeated what he had already explained on his channel in a separate video—how taxes are structured in the Russian oil and refining industry. In short: oil prices could drop to zero, but gasoline prices won’t budge—the budget will take all the winnings. Thus, Russian refining faces downtime, and the weakest players in the industry—the private companies without integration with oil-producing companies—face bankruptcy. Gas stations will somehow survive, but in conditions of reduced throughput, they will lead a rather miserable existence.

Finally, Mikhail Khodorkovsky took the floor and spoke about the situation in oil production. According to the agreements signed by Russia, it must reduce production by a quarter. If production is reduced carefully, trying not to ruin the wells in the process, a maximum reduction of ten percent can be achieved. Moreover, free storage capacity is running out and exports have collapsed, so production will have to be scaled back sharply, which means irreversibly. A shut-in well will become unusable after a couple of months, and to restore production, it will need to be drilled again. But in old, heavily watered-out fields, such drilling will simply not pay off at reasonable prices. So Russia faces a choice: either pump oil regardless of the agreements and then pay those who kindly agree to take it, or irreversibly lose up to a third of production. At the same time, it is quite likely that the decision will be made not by the market, but purely administratively, and some will be allowed to work while others are put to the knife.

In connection with this, I want to make a prediction. Quite quickly, an obvious consideration will arise before the Russian leadership. If it wants its oil industry not to die, Russian oil must be bought. There is no hope for exports, which means the Russian economy must consume the oil. But it cannot do this while sitting in quarantine. Therefore, to hell with the quarantine. Of course, some other official reason will be given. For example, “at the request of the workers of North Ossetia.” Or “after studying the successful Swedish and Belarusian experience.”

Why are people put in quarantine in other states? To save human lives. Forgive me, I can believe many things, but not that human lives are important to Putin. So he will hesitate for a bit and then wind up all this self-isolation. Well, maybe except for Moscow—they’ve become too spoiled, let them shrink a little. So prepare for the fact that the heroic sitting at home was completely in vain: we will all get sick until we achieve herd immunity. Some will not survive. With our economy and medicine, the Swedish path was an alternative-less option from the start. What is this “flattening the curve” of yours? It’s like the game of limbo, where you have to pass under the bar. The lower the bar, the harder the task. The height of the bar is determined by the level of medicine. With Russian medicine, don’t even try—there’s no point in embarrassing yourself.

Germany is flattening the curve

What to do? I have already dedicated a separate post to crisis strategies, and I adhere to the previous recommendations: going into the shadows, building horizontal connections, mastering cryptocurrency payments, and reducing all interaction with the state to demanding direct payments, tax reductions, the cancellation of regulations, the reduction of security forces, and so on.

Can you throw together some arguments against the position of supporters (mostly fanboys of Ezhi Sarmat) of effective autocracy (Singapore), as well as supporters of a “scientific” approach to politics (Lombroso, etc.)?

Daniil (question accompanied by a donation of 149.25 rubles)

What is so good about an effective autocracy? An autocrat can very quickly place people who will strictly follow his instructions in all managerial positions, and then very quickly carry out the necessary reforms. Where a team of reformers using democratic methods manages to cope poorly during the first year and then gets bogged down in endless delays, an autocrat’s team simply goes and does everything in a matter of months.

The second argument in favor of autocracy is that a democratic government leaves after a few years, the opposition takes its place, and begins to pleasurably destroy what was newly built. An autocrat sits on the throne longer, and during this time, the reality he has built has time to take root.

So what kind of madman would actually speak out against an effective autocracy?

The biggest difficulty is that far from every autocracy is effective. I can point as an example to a chapter from The Machinery of Freedom about libertarian foreign policy.

The problem with an interventionist foreign policy is that doing it poorly is much worse than not doing it at all. But that which is worthwhile only if done well is done by the very same people who run the state postal service, and with roughly the same chances of success.

David Friedman, The Machinery of Freedom

Is it possible to estimate in advance whether a candidate for autocrat will be good, and whether his reign will be marked by minarchist reforms? Alas, all of history is full of examples showing that this is difficult to do. Lee Kuan Yew came to power under left-wing slogans and then began to suppress the communists. Deng Xiaoping was one of the leaders of the CPC even under Mao, and generally, nothing foreshadowed the sharp turnaround he would eventually make. Liberal reforms in New Zealand, one of the freest economies in the modern world, were also carried out by a government elected under left-wing slogans. Thus, if a future decisive reformer wishes to come to power democratically, he will most likely broadcast a left-wing agenda until the election, and his real plans will surface only afterward. Those who initially position themselves as right-wing are left only with coming to power through a military coup, which means they will have difficulties implementing reforms at the grassroots level — illegitimate orders are often sabotaged by those executing them.

So what, are autocracies not needed, and should we humble our pride and limp along in the mainstream current of democracy with universal suffrage? No, this is a disgusting form of social organization, which is only capable of delaying important decisions and squandering huge budgets, but is incapable of carrying out sustainable reforms to reduce the state.

The main problem with autocracy is the monopoly on power, and the solution lies, naturally, in launching competitive mechanisms. Under panarchy, where citizenship is determined by signing a contract, autocracy reveals all its strengths: it is a compact, fast management mechanism that does not procrastinate, but acts. But panarchy allows for the mitigation of autocracy’s weaknesses because a very powerful feedback loop operates within it: citizens support only effective autocrats with their wallets.

Exactly the same arguments can be made regarding a scientific approach to politics. Scientific theories must evolve, while implementing them in practice on an exclusive basis freezes the theory. A different matter is the competition of approaches. Evolutionary development mechanisms work there, and instead of simply trusting a great teacher, be he Mises three times over, we get the opportunity to test theories in action and improve them.

Truly I tell you: for every Lee Kuan Yew, there are a hundred Pol Pots!

Donations in rubles

I have added the ability to make donations in rubles. The forms for sending rubles differ slightly on different pages so that I can understand whether the donation is for a question, for Eric Mac’s translation, or simply for the project’s development. Unfortunately, I cannot trust you to write the payment purpose yourselves—the state does not react well to joking payment purposes such as “to overthrow Putin” or “4.20” (congrats, by the way!).

It looks something like this:

From time to time, I write reviews of various articles or videos, and it occurred to me that you could also suggest materials for reviews to me, if you are interested. Naturally, preference will be given to requests accompanied by donations. This option could be especially interesting for Telegram channel owners, because it is certainly more interesting to readers than a standard promo post.

The downsides of agorism

I have promoted agorism quite a bit here, and you may have gotten the impression that it is the only worthy way to fight the state: minarchism quickly stalls, panarchism also bogs down in the very first stages of implementation, and only agorism is indestructible, actually helps many people live, and forms useful qualities in them, meaning it strengthens itself. Nevertheless, it has its downsides. Today I will try to bring them together, but, of course, I will provide a counter-thesis for every thesis, because the goal of the post is not to induce gloom.

As a reminder, by agorism I mean any non-violent entrepreneurship that is either directly prohibited by the state or, at the very least, not regulated by it in any way.

Thesis 1. Due to state opposition, the agorist must spend effort on disguising their activities or other ways to stay out of harm’s way. The costs for this are not zero even for micro-businesses, and they grow rapidly as the scale of the enterprise increases.

Counter-thesis. Russians, as well as subjects of other natural states, might object that for white businesses in their jurisdictions, the costs of opposing state raiding also grow rapidly with the success of the enterprise; therefore, it is important to hide turnover and profit not only to avoid taxes, but also so that the security forces do not seize the enterprise itself.

Thesis 2. Speaking of raiders. Besides state ones, there are also private ones. Black businesses cannot use state protection from such raiding and are forced to defend themselves with their own resources, and the costs for this also grow rapidly as the scale of activity increases.

Counter-thesis. Russians or subjects of other natural states will pat you, you naive soul, on the head upon hearing the words “state protection,” and then tell you many grim tales. De facto, the forceful seizure of business in such jurisdictions is a public-private partnership, where the state seizes and a private person buys for pennies, or where a private person seizes and the state confirms their right through its court, or, finally, where the state pressures lawlessly until the business is rewritten to a private individual.

Thesis 3. It is difficult for an agorist to maintain their libertarian purity—on the black market, they will quite quickly be forced to engage in forceful entrepreneurship themselves, or cooperate with forceful entrepreneurs, or fall into a vassal dependency on them. Legal activity will not make the question of deals with conscience so acute.

Counter-thesis. Yes, this is not ruled out; much depends on the situation. In some places, every street vendor is forced to pay off the mafia, while in others, every government employee may be sent to a pro-government rally or forced to vote according to their boss’s instructions. So legality or illegality itself guarantees nothing, and one will still have to defend their principles, simply out of self-respect.

Thesis 4. The idea of starving the state through agorism could work in the USA, where small business constitutes a significant share of the economy, but in Russia, it languishes on the brink of extinction, and its share of taxes in the state budget is small. Therefore, in Russia, with its gigantomania, agorism will not be able to fulfill its declared task.

Counter-thesis. It is precisely the small business operating “in the white” that languishes on the brink of extinction, which only increases the attractiveness of agorist practices. Nevertheless, I am forced to agree: as long as agorists fundamentally fly below the radar, they will not have a significant influence on the state; for the failure to pay money to the state from scattered individual secret practices to turn into a powerful campaign of civil disobedience, the legitimacy of the state must be seriously undermined by its own failures. The Russian state is currently handling this task confidently; we must seize the moment.

And in conclusion, I will reinforce the message given at the beginning of the article. The main task of agorism in today’s Russia is educational. Nothing rid one of paternalism in their own consciousness better than crude practice. And without eradicating paternalism, you cannot abolish the state.

The condition for the success of agorism

State drug policy

When Alexander Litreev was swept up for substances at the end of February, I published a post where I urged people to focus not so much on the specific case, but on the repeal of Article 228 itself. The suggestion was to hurry with pressuring the state through mass actions before the news cycle was replaced by something else. Alas, the news cycle was indeed replaced, and mass actions now can only occur as a result of state sabotage, as happened in the Moscow metro on the day the access system premiered.

So, while the country was gradually settling into home self-arrest, Litreev’s support group worked quietly for his release and succeeded: Alexander has been freed. But the direction of undermining state drug policy has not been forgotten, and today the Tea Club movement released a very good, detailed longread about how the state fights drugs and how it should be done.

I am aware that the Libertarian Party is on strained terms with the Tea Club, but in this particular case, I would consider it a major oversight on the part of the LP not to promote this article—even if it requires pulling it onto their own site and removing mentions of the TC and the signatures of all authors who are not party members. As Ekaterina Schulmann likes to repeat, for political success, one must unite around common interests, not common sympathies. So please, help your editorial board make the right decision.

It would also be great if Egor Zhukov forwarded the article to his recent interlocutor, Evgeny Roizman. In my February post, I naively stated that even within his cannibalistic logic, a drug user is not a criminal. Not by a long shot. On the air of Zhukov’s program “Conditionally Yours”, Roizman claimed exactly the opposite. He also indicated that he was completely unaware of the Portuguese experience—which the article describes.

Thanks to the coronavirus, another promising direction for pressuring the state has emerged. One can demand the full or partial repeal of Article 228, and one can also demand amnesty for everyone imprisoned under this article due to the threatening epidemic situation. When officials have “yes” and “no” options, it is easier for them to refuse. When there is a choice between repealing the article and granting amnesty to those imprisoned under it, the chance of amnesty increases sharply. Immediately following amnesty, one can insist on a moratorium—what is the point of releasing a bunch of people from prisons only to start filling the vacant spots under the same article. And from a moratorium, it is a short step to repeal. But even if repeal doesn’t happen, it’s not that scary—we have already lived for many years in a regime of moratorium on the application of the death penalty.

Mechanics of Freedom, Chapter 45

After a considerable break, I am posting a single chapter from David Friedman’s The Machinery of Freedom, but I hope to speed up in the near future. As usual, I remind you that you can support the translation project with your donations to the wallet 1AFkD2bazCs5YZBBrSD7HsRMWLmRbg6QBo

Chapter 45, Is There a Libertarian Foreign Policy, is devoted to reflections on the moral dilemma facing a potential libertarian government of the United States. On one hand, significant efforts are needed to protect against such a serious adversary as the Soviet Union, which suggests a network of international alliances. On the other hand, every alliance implies the possibility of having to fight for others’ interests in wars that have nothing to do with libertarian values. Ultimately, Friedman concludes that a policy of non-intervention is still preferable for libertarians.

Since then, the Soviet Union has ended, and thus the arguments in favor of a policy of non-intervention have only strengthened.

Persuading Statists

Vitaly Tizun, whose brochure Theory of a Free Society I recently reviewed, has released a short video in which he discusses how to promote ancap. I am also working in a similar direction and hope to please you soon with a fresh video from Libertarian band, but Vitaly beat me to it.

https://youtu.be/pnpCDuMVaUE

If the video caught your interest, you can download the leaflet for independent distribution — it briefly summarizes the main message of the video. Of course, this is for the future — who needs leaflets now, while people are staying at home. For security reasons, the leaflet should not be ordered from a professional printing house — print in small quantities, on a printer, and pay in cash.

Principles of Agorism

My channel has a VK mirror run by one of the readers. I don’t monitor it myself, so if anything interesting appears in the comments, let me know in private messages. In particular, the description of a business idea for an agorist prompted Alexander Tatarkov, whose YouTube channel I have already recommended here once, to provide a detailed supplement, which I decided to put into a separate post.

I will allow myself to generalize a bit and formulate the main principles of agorism.

1. Work with a private client, not an organization. A private individual doesn’t care whether you paid taxes or not.
2. Work for cash. Only cash can be “black.” (a reminder from Ancap-chan: Bitcoin is cash)
3. Do not underestimate barter. On paper, no money passes through at all, yet each party gets what they wanted.
4. Corruption is not bad, but good. You have an agent in the enemy’s camp (the state). You are not giving money to the enemy (the state). You reduce the official’s dependence on the state by providing them with an alternative income. He is your accomplice. He will cover for you because you are the compromising material on him. And he is more interested than you are in ensuring your scheme is not exposed.
5. Sell things that are impossible to account for or count. For example, portions of lunches, or booklets, or business cards (printing).
6. The purchase of materials should also be in “black” cash.
7. Avoid cashless payments, even to a personal card. Let the client transfer money to someone you owe. My clients even paid for my daughter’s music school! This way, it’s as if you did nothing. Your creditor doesn’t care who paid your debts. And the state only collects taxes from one transaction.
8. A wonderful scheme involving the gifts of nature. No purchasing needed. The money is “clean,” completely black and untraceable. For example, in the 90s, we harvested cedar nuts. Sold them under the table for cash. It’s impossible to prove how much was sold.
9. Working with things that cannot be touched. For example, design. You create a design, you receive money. From whom, for what—try and figure it out. You might not have even seen this person! They sent you the order via WhatsApp, received the sketch by email. They topped up your phone balance for payment.
10. And various on-site or at-home services. Like computer repair, manicures, apartment renovations, dog training/walking. Even if the tax office comes to you via an advertisement, you say that there have been no clients yet. When the first one appears, I’ll get a patent. Proving that half the city is served by you can only be done through an informant. Well, you just have to work properly so that no one informs on you…

Something like that. This is the first thing that came to mind. Much of it is from personal experience in the 90s. I consciously discarded criminal schemes. Perhaps I missed a lot. The main thing here is to outline the direction of thought.

12’th anniversary of LPR

A year ago, I congratulated the LPR on its eleventh anniversary, comparing the party to an awkward teenager who is growing rapidly and trying to appear adult. At age 12, we see this teenager experiencing complete internal turmoil, hysterics, a loss of meaning in life, and suicidal thoughts (forgive me, I won’t get into specifics, the post isn’t about that). This is accompanied by public comments, such as Vitaliy Tizun’s recent post about why political parties are bad as such.

Regarding this, I find David Friedman’s rhetoric closer, which boils down to the assertion that product packaging should be produced even if its ultimate fate is to be thrown away. I can only expand on Friedman’s metaphor and point out that, nonetheless, one should not turn the packaging into a cargo cult; if you are ready to purchase a product without packaging, then there is no need to spend resources on it.

The task of the Libertarian Party is to implement libertarian ideas into the state regulatory framework using specialized state political interfaces. The task of the libertarian movement as a whole is to disseminate libertarian ideas throughout society. The party can also perform this secondary task, but it is not obligated to, as it is designed for something else. For the party, broadcasting ideas to society is simply a way to replenish its ranks. The Libertarian Party could dissolve itself tomorrow, and it would simply be the abandonment of one of the approaches to reducing the state, but by no means the end of libertarianism in Russia.

So, I congratulate everyone who is currently a member of the LPR and those who are preparing to join. You are doing what you believe to be important and useful; just please do not approach it with beastly seriousness, otherwise, it can be a little embarrassing for you.

How would juvenile justice work under libertarianism?

For example, Vasya Pupkin from grade 3 “b”, as a joke, reported a bomb planted in the school, which was later not found during the inspection. Or he beat up a classmate until they ended up in intensive care. Or he stole and then broke someone else’s bicycle.
Suppose he was detained. What happens next? If parents, according to libertarianism, are not responsible for their children’s actions, then how will the young hooligan be punished? Suppose neither he nor his parents have the money to compensate for the damage. Will he be put in prison or forced to work and pay for the damages?

Vopros999 (question accompanied by a donation of 0.00008510 BTC)

The claim that a child possesses self-ownership means that other people recognize their right to dispose of themselves to a greater extent than they could achieve by force. Nevertheless, just as the right of private property over things rarely means the freedom to use them to harm others, a child’s self-ownership does not mean complete freedom to cause harm to those around them.

In addition to the child’s self-ownership, people usually recognize someone’s right of guardianship over them. This right typically includes priority in instilling moral norms, but it is inevitably offset by the right of others to recover damages caused by the child from the guardian. It does not matter who provides the guardianship—parents, the school, just random people contracted for the job—or if all of them distribute these rights among themselves in some way. Either way, the right of guardianship is followed by responsibility for the damage caused to others by the actions of the ward.

Parents take the child for a walk, the child breaks someone else’s toy—the parents are responsible. A grandmother is left with the child—the grandmother is responsible for the broken toy. The child goes to school—the school bears responsibility for the damage they cause to others during school hours. The child goes to school and from there sends an email from a phone reporting a bomb threat—this is the school’s problem, as the child was within its zone of responsibility at that time.

Perhaps the risk of damage from a child’s actions could be insured, similar to how the civil liability of car owners is insured. Now, as we know, car owners are reluctant to insure their liability, which often prompts states to make such contracts mandatory. So I am not sure that in a stateless society, guardianship liability will always be insured. Most likely, schools—especially those in the medium and high price segments—will insure their guardianship liability; firstly, they will have more funds for this, and secondly, it can be assumed that students of expensive schools will, on average, cause damage in smaller amounts (not a fact, I don’t dare to predict exactly).

Another factor that is unlikely to allow guardianship liability insurance to become a panacea for parents is that with every wrongful act committed by the child, the insurance premium will increase; that is, damage from the least socialized children will likely be too expensive to insure.

Further, the imagination of AnCap critics paints all sorts of Dickensian scenarios, with workhouses and the like. I strongly doubt that such things would be in demand in a humane and wealthy society, however, it is obvious that the rights of guardians who find themselves unable to bear responsibility for the actions of their wards will be rejected or, at least, severely restricted. In whose favor? I believe, in favor of charitable organizations whose statutory goal would be precisely the socialization of such children. As an option—in favor of wealthier citizens who agree to cover the debts from lawsuits against the child’s previous guardians, after which they themselves assume further responsibility for this child. I do not dare predict which model will be more in demand in the market, but both are ethically permissible.

Socialization of difficult children two centuries ago—the dark past of AnCap