Автор: Анкап-тян

The History of Right-Libertarian Feminism

I helped miss Liberty edit an article on the history of right-libertarian feminism for her channel. It’s very pleasant to switch to a related agenda from time to time, especially since my understanding of the technical details here is quite superficial.

Of course, I’m amused by the abundance of feminitives, but I fully admit that from my side it might look like “right, a lady in trousers looks very strange and almost indecent”.

Still, you were wrong to vote so actively against inviting her to my channel as a columnist: content appears quite rarely on her own channel, but for an author’s column, such frequency would have been just right. But since you supported the separation, then subscribe to each channel individually.

Right-libertarian feminism is often confused with individualist feminism, which emerged much earlier and in many ways laid the foundation for right-libertarian feminism. This should be kept in mind when searching for information about the history of feminism.

At the dawn of anarcho-individualism and individualist feminism, the American Ezra Heywood (1829–1893) made a huge contribution to their formation. He published the magazine “The Word,” in which he featured one of the most famous suffragettes of the time, Victoria Woodhull, wrote about the importance of extending voting rights to women, denounced the slave-like oppression of housewives and female social stigmas, and preached free love. It was for the latter that he was locked up, as his attacks on the institution of marriage were seen as obscenity. This caused mass protests, and President Hayes was forced to sign his pardon. By our standards, Heywood was quite the leftist: he spoke against private property and for rent regulation, against class inequality and for the right to seize unused private lands. However, all early feminists were leftists; nevertheless, their core ideas—that a woman is free to choose the conditions in which she lives and works, free to choose her type of family or not to have a family at all, that she, like men, owes nothing to anyone and must be free from state arbitrary power—are fully shared by modern right-libertarian feminism.

1872 caricature: A wife, carrying the heavy burden of children and a drunk husband, says to Victoria Woodhull (Mrs. Satan): “I would rather walk the hard path in marriage than follow you.” Victoria holds a poster that reads: “Save yourself through free love.”

Right-libertarian feminism is a product of the second wave of feminism. Taking much from individualist feminism, it emerged alongside the Libertarian Party of the USA. The party appeared in 1971 as a result of mass indignation over Nixon’s reforms (price and wage freezes, removing the dollar’s link to gold). In 1972, for the first time in US history, the Libertarian Party nominated Theodora B. Nathan, who promoted a libertarian feminist agenda, as a vice-presidential candidate. Tony Nathan was a party activist almost until the end of her life, regularly ran for the Senate and the House of Representatives from the party, and passed away in 2014 at the age of 91. She founded the “Association of Libertarian Feminists,” which began criticizing the third wave of feminism—a leftist and statist movement—earlier than others. Nathan criticized activists for demanding state intervention in private life and labor relations, failing to see the state as a much more serious problem.

Theodora B. Nathan — ideologist of right-libertarian feminism, one of the first female members of the Libertarian Party of the USA

Back then, in the 70s and 80s, no one perceived right-libertarian feminism as something surprising or contradictory. Until the left hijacked the agenda, feminism was a natural and organic part of the general libertarian discourse. Now, however, the word “right” is associated with racism and other conservative beliefs, and therefore feminism is considered by many to be absolutely incompatible with libertarian ideology.

Tony Nathan was not the only founder of libertarian feminism. At least two others can be mentioned: Wendy McElroy (a Canadian Zalina Marshenkulova on steroids, defender of porn and sex freedom, supporter of Rothbardian ancap, founder of “The Voluntaryist” magazine) and Christina Hoff Sommers (who has been fighting against the left so actively since the 80s that she is more often called an anti-feminist, although she simply advocates for full equality and against state regulations, showing how reforms pushed by left-feminists harm women).

It was a great surprise to me to learn how powerful the roots of right-libertarian feminism were half a century ago, and how this movement has almost vanished today. I have the feeling that this is related to the specifics of the political agenda in the USA. On one side, there are Republicans, who combine a desire to reduce the state with fierce conservatism and patriarchal values. On the other side, Democrats, with their reverence for freedom of expression, but simultaneously with blatant statism. Libertarians, who tried to take the best from both sides, found themselves in an unstable position, and as a result, split in two. Today, among American libertarians, there are many complete freaks, as well as a very pronounced paleoconservative wing. And now Professor Hoppe lumps gays, feminists, and communists into one pile, stating that they have a low time preference and therefore have a decivilizing effect on society and should be physically removed.

Thus, in the USA, the feminist discourse was almost entirely left to the leftists, who turned the movement for equality into a caricature of itself. But now, when libertarianism is on the rise, can we make libertarian feminism great again? Yes, we can.

Translation of Practical Anarchy. Chapters 16 and 25.

We have begun translating The Practical Anarchist by Stephan Molinieu, and to start, we present to you the core essence — the chapters concerning courts under ancap (everyone loves to ask about courts under ancap, but there are as many views on this topic as there are ancaps) and private prisons.

Chapter 16, Dispute Resolution Organizations. The author shares anecdotes from the IT sphere, showing that the state is used not to help resolve conflicts with unscrupulous counterparties, but to threaten them with the very possibility of proceedings. This can, of course, also be used, but such application of the court institute looks utterly idiotic. Next are reflections on why contracts are needed and how to resolve inevitable disputes over them without the use of centralized violence.

Chapter 25, Stateless Prisons, paints us pictures of bleak existence for anyone who, having committed a violent crime, refuses to compensate for the damage in a situation where everything around is private. Next, a more or less lenient alternative is proposed, which any remotely rational criminal will not fail to use.

As a reminder, money is needed for the translation. We currently have approximately half of the amount on hand, so your donations to the wallet 1AFkD2bazCs5YZBBrSD7HsRMWLmRbg6QBo would be extremely appropriate.

Stationary Bandit

It’s been a while since we’ve delighted you with fresh videos from the Libertarian Band! Today’s video concludes the second part of the cycle on libertarianism. In the first part, we started with the fact that the state has failed, and then discussed how libertarians try to eliminate it through various means. In the second part, we explained various terms and concepts popular among libertarians. And now we have returned to where we began, talking about what the state is, all its pros, cons, and pitfalls.

In the third part of our long cycle, we will proceed to explain how a stateless society is organized and how it works.

Litres. What to do.

The facts. Alexander Litreev (author of the Krasnaya Knopka app, the Connecto-VPN service, the Russian Elephant project, the Cybersecurity & Co channel, and so on) stopped by Yekaterinburg for a day before speaking at a conference in St. Petersburg to meet up with a girl—and was picked up by the cops with two MDMA pills. Subsequently, he was sent to a remand prison for two months, and if the pre-trial detention period is not extended, the trial will be on April 22, where he faces up to three years.

Currently, the Tea Club, of which Alexander was a member, is raising money for a lawyer; Navalny, for some reason and without looking into the details, is blaming the girl for everything, who, according to the assurances of Alexander’s comrades, is indeed not involved—in short, everyone is heatedly discussing what happened, but as if it were a mundane story, like the one that happened to Associate Professor Sokolov. And there are also comments to the effect that he found a terrible place to buy substances—in Roizman’s city (which is characteristic, as no one mentions the current head of Yekaterinburg, who would even be interested in him).

It seems to me that everyone is fighting the wrong battle here. Since everyone is sure that this is political persecution, this should be used, and the public reaction should also be extremely politicized. Not “freedom for Alexander Litreev!”, but “down with Article 228!”

I believe that for the Tea Club, for instance, it would be a matter of honor now to announce a rally in Yekaterinburg for the repeal of Article 228 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and, accordingly, for the complete decriminalization of psychoactive substances. Yes, specifically in Roizman’s stronghold. And if the rally, God forbid, is not approved, then shame the shitty Roizman with everything we’ve got, as if he personally killed the rally and stuffed the pills into Litreev’s sock. Let him use all his influence to get it approved. Let that scoundrel speak at this rally himself and demand that they leave at least the users alone, because a user is not a criminal even in his cannibalistic logic.

Several hundred thousand people are in prison in Russia under this damn article, and it is unknown how many more got off with suspended sentences, fines, or bribed the cops on the spot. The world is moving toward the decriminalization of substances. A state where the same action is completely legal in one jurisdiction and seriously punished in another is normal when jurisdictions are contractual. But until that is the case, we can and must change the status quo toward less cannibalistic norms.

For my part, I am ready to donate to hold the rally and promote this campaign in every way. I urge everyone who believes that Article 228 should be destroyed to distribute this text and join this call. Rallies in other cities will also be useful, but we’ll see how things play out.

It is important now not to waste time before this news hook is replaced by something else. The authorities seriously expose themselves every time they try to apply general criminal articles to political activists. The best way to react is the destruction of the articles themselves.

Online bullying

I was asked to comment on the case of Zalina Marshenkulova.

I will briefly outline the facts. Till Lindemann filmed a music video that apparently contains (I haven’t watched it) sex scenes. Several actresses turned out to be Russian; they were deanonymized, their contacts were posted on 2ch (I don’t read it), and calls for violence were made right there. Zalina asked for the contacts to be removed, after which 2ch began calling for violence against her as well.

I’ll start by saying that calls to remove anything from 2ch are pointless. The main point of this garbage heap is that things are posted there anonymously and without censorship. If 2ch were to introduce systemic censorship, people would simply move their trolling to a less stifling platform. If the owners of such platforms are persecuted, people will start writing on the blockchain of some Steam or Voice.

I recommend everyone reread the chapter from Mechanics of Freedom published the day before yesterday about the public good. When someone writes a post on 2ch, it is a private good: the author receives all the benefits from the publication that interest them, and the opinion of others either doesn’t interest them at all or is one of the benefits for them. When someone tries to systematically fight certain types of publications on 2ch or deanonymize their authors, it is a public good. Such activity can bring small benefits to a large group of people, but the person who puts in the primary effort spends disproportionately more than the benefit they personally receive. Others spend nothing, except for the money to buy popcorn.

Public goods always suffer from underproduction. I have encountered a similar problem in my own chat. I positioned it as a place where one could chat with me on random topics or clarify something regarding the channel’s publications. No ideological filtering was intended; the only request to the public was to remain friendly. It’s unknown what the majority of the public wanted, but the targeted efforts of a small group were enough to turn the chat into a rather unpleasant place for me. I barely suppressed the urge to delete the chat, transferred the creator rights to another person, and since I cannot maintain friendliness toward its participants right now, I simply archived it. Mockery, stupid repetitive copypastas, attempts to fish for more personal information for deanonymization or to demonstrate my incompetence—all these are things that bring me no joy and are extremely costly to fight, so it’s easier for me to abandon the chat entirely than to try to ensure a pleasant atmosphere there.

But as soon as someone tries to bring something from the internet into real life, the situation reverses. An attempt to harass a person in real life over some nonsense attributed to them on the internet is the production of a public evil. All the costs fall on the perpetrator, while the internet just laughs, especially if the perpetrator fails in a funny way. It doesn’t even matter if they succeed in humiliating the target of the harassment in a funny way or fail miserably in a funny way. The attacker gains no significant benefit. For the defending party, self-defense is a private good from the production of which they receive all the benefits, and therefore they are fully motivated to invest in it.

It is thanks to this system of economic incentives that we have the internet as a space of relative freedom, including for stupid aggressive jokes—and offline as a space of relative safety, where one can actually get hit for stupid aggressive jokes. Responsibility for aggression online and impunity for aggression offline are not perceived as the norm. And the only thing we can do to ensure there is less stupid aggression on the internet is to work on the general softening of manners.

An example of stupid aggression from the internet

Give the enemy a weapon

Bitarch posted reflections on his VKontakte page regarding the idea that instead of bombs, weapons and ammunition should have been dropped on the Third Reich. As justification, he cites the same Hirschleifer model in the form presented by Auzan — with conclusions that the stable existence of an anarchic society requires maintaining a balance of the potential for violence. If so, the artificial equalization of the BPN (Balance of Potential for Violence) in Germany during WWII would have led to the fall of totalitarianism and, consequently, to a swift end to the war.

One thing can be said for sure: if small arms and equipment were dropped on concentration camps, it would indeed have immediately led to an armed uprising, followed by attempts to leave the Reich or seize a certain area for the subsequent effective deterrence of punitive units.

To what extent the same tactic would have led to an armed uprising against the regime throughout the rest of the Reich’s territory depends solely on the degree to which that remaining territory resembled a concentration camp. Conversely, the more complacency toward power existed in a given social stratum, the more likely it is that the weapons gifted from the skies would have been disciplinedly handed over to the authorities for subsequent shipment to the front.

These obvious considerations follow directly from the Hirschleifer model as well: the higher the bitterness parameter and the lower the overall level of resources, the greater the probability that a battle for hegemony until total victory will occur in the system instead of peaceful anarchy. Conversely, the lower the bitterness and the higher the relative prosperity, the fewer efforts the parties are inclined to spend on fighting each other, and the more they leave for production.

The greater the legitimacy of the regime, the less likely it is that the artificial equalization of the potential for violence through the distribution of firearms will lead to any problems for the regime. The reason is quite simple: under conditions of low bitterness between parties, firearms simply will not be used for political struggle. It doesn’t matter if I have a gun if I express my dissatisfaction with the regime in the form of a solo picket and signatures on open letters, and the state politely takes my dissatisfaction into account without hindering me in any way. Having a gun begins to play a role when I encounter direct illegitimate violence and realize that I have a chance to solve the problem with counter-violence.

So, overall, the idea of artificial BPN equalization is good as a thought experiment, but it should not be taken literally: today, peaceful public discontent far more often becomes a weapon against the state, and to evoke it, I would likely need not a gun, but a boost to my info-resources. And here, of course, a humanitarian bombing in the form of, for example, a retweet of me by Mr. Trump could indeed produce a significant effect.

Mechanics of Freedom. Chapters 38-40 and postscript to the first edition.

Chapter 38, The Economics of Theft, or the Absence of a Ruling Class, provides an economic analysis of the theft industry, showing that competition in this sphere leads to the impoverishment of society, and that this industry is essentially unprofitable even for the thieves themselves. A similar system of arguments shows that the state, as a variety of theft, is unprofitable even for top politicians, as their costs turn out to be higher than the profits. Of course, this argument seems paradoxical, since it is easy to oppose it with many counterexamples; however, the main conclusion of the chapter does not relate to the denial of the possibilities of individual profit through the state, but to the indication that no single class interest can be seen behind the actions of the state.

Chapter 39, The Right Side of the Public Goods Trap, tells of a very interesting paradox related to the fact that public goods are always underproduced relative to the demand for them, due to difficulties with their monetization. Under a state, such a public good turns out to be good laws that make life simple, convenient, and unburdened, as opposed to bad ones that distribute costs among all while bringing profit to a few. However, under anarchy, it is exactly the opposite: since laws are, in a sense, purchased on the market, good laws turn out to be a private good and are produced until demand is fully satisfied, while bad laws turn out to be a public evil: few are willing to spend on their production for their own profit, and everyone will be able to sabotage their implementation, and cheaply at that. Thus, if it is possible to transition somehow from the state to an anarcho-capitalist order, it will prove quite stable against attempts to bring back the state.

In Chapter 40, How to Get from Here to There, Friedman tells me that I am doing well and correctly understand the strategy of building ancap, and suggests that Mikhail Svetov tone down his zeal in building a vertical of power in the libertarian party and focus on personal educational projects. Thank you, David!

In the Postscript for Perfectionists, Friedman explains which subjects he did not touch upon in the book and why.

This concludes the first edition of The Machinery of Freedom. Subsequent parts were written for the second and third editions of the book.

How to build mutual aid in terms of justice and fairness under anarcho-capitalism?

Vladimir

Thanks to the influence of Mikhail Svetov, many perceive ancap as a stateless society for the most morose individualists—and contrast it with the bright world of contractual jurisdictions, territorial and extraterritorial, where people gather into communities, agreeing to live by common rules, and where the most sacred right of every member of such a community is the right to leave it.

But for a human being, it is actually quite uncomfortable to completely enclose oneself within the framework of a narrow community, perceiving the world beyond the fence as a habitat for cynocephali. Rarely does any community in the world outlive its founder. Even the ideologues of left-wing anarchism, who generally adhered to collectivist values, such as Kropotkin, noted that a bleak existence in a closed collective on the sidelines of life is absolutely not what the vast majority needs.

Therefore, for a person wishing to live in a just society, the most important thing is the ability to build it without falling into self-isolation. Does one have such opportunities under ancap? Let’s figure it out.

Only the most hardline communists or theocrats are willing to expect that humanity will entirely adhere to identical notions of justice; therefore, we can start from the premise that under ancap, these notions will vary among different people.

So, you have certain notions of justice, and you would like the arbitrator to adhere to them specifically in the event that you encounter conflicts, even if the other party to the conflict holds different views. To me, the most workable David Friedman model seems to be the one that assumes competition and natural selection between law enforcement agencies, between arbitration agencies, and between legal systems. Thus, the client only needs to ensure one small thing: that the law enforcement agency they approached for a specific conflict uses the services of a court that operates within a specific legal system that meets the client’s notions of justice.

What do you need for this? To conduct effective propaganda of the principles you follow. The more popular your ideas are, the easier it will be to insist that the court rely on them. In turn, in a free market, ideas will be most widespread in those areas of activity where their application is most convenient and provides the maximum economic gain. So, the less your ideas are detached from reality, the easier it will be for you to promote them.

Finally, if there are not many supporters of your notions of justice, you may prefer not to bother with a court, but to attract like-minded people for mutual aid. In doing so, you will earn a reputation as a community that stands firmly by its own. This has advantages: people will be afraid to touch you without a significant advantage in strength. But there are also disadvantages: people will be afraid to enter into contracts with you. Do you need such a reputation? Decide for yourself. There is no state under ancap that would treat everyone with a one-size-fits-all approach and make things equally inconvenient for everyone.

A small, cohesive community with its own notions of justice

Announcing new translations

I am still far from finishing the editing of Friedman’s translation, yet two more long-term projects have appeared in the Translations section of the website. I haven’t read either book yet and will do so only during the editing process of the translations; that is when I will form my own opinion about them.

  1. Stéphane Molinier, Practical Anarchy. The translation was initiated by the Anti-state channel, while I simply took the initiative and suggested using the workflow already tested on Friedman for the translation.
  1. Eric Mack, Libertarianism. The book itself was recommended for reading by Mikhail Pozharsky. No free access to the English text was found, so I had to buy it on Amazon and then pirate it almost as in the era of paper books: take screenshots of the screen and perform OCR on the images. Therefore, the English text cannot boast good formatting; we will polish the translation itself.

To speed up the work on the translations, your donations to the wallet 1AFkD2bazCs5YZBBrSD7HsRMWLmRbg6QBo will be a great help

Ancap vs. Coronavirus

I was asked to comment on the Dobroum project video about coronavirus. Here is a summary of the content:

Coronavirus highlighted the downsides of the state reaction to epidemics. The first reaction: classify information as secret, suppress leaks. But once the information leaks, clearly excessive measures begin. Officials act strictly according to instructions from above, and the closer the attention to the problem, the fewer people are willing to take responsibility for decisions. Instead of a sensible quarantine, a “security theater” occurs, while maintaining the appearance that everything is under control.

The second part briefly shows how the market solves such issues. Let me reflect on this topic as well.

There is a non-state society that did not emerge yesterday; the transition processes have already died down, and the main institutions associated with ancap are in place. That is, there is decentralized law, a free market, and a developed industry for rights enforcement and insurance. And in this society, an epidemic arises.

Where did it come from? Let’s assume the worst: as with coronavirus, it is either someone’s leaked development or a surge of the local biosphere—all exacerbated by high population density and a relatively low average standard of living by ancap standards.

It doesn’t matter whether the first sick person was insured or not. When they collapse on the street, they will get to a hospital quickly enough. Something unusual happened, and something unusual in a free market is always a signal for entrepreneurs. To interpret the signal correctly, it must be processed. Where is the best place to figure out exactly what happened? In a hospital. Therefore, the sick person will be delivered there.

If they were insured, the insurance company will pay a tip to whoever brought the helpless client to the place of care. The sooner treatment begins, the cheaper it is on average. This means there is an economic incentive to reward the delivery for treatment, regardless of who provides it.

If they were not insured, then again, it is important for all insurance companies to know whether this is an epidemic or a single isolated incident, like food poisoning. After all, if an epidemic is contained quickly, it results in giant savings on insurance payouts; thus, every company has an incentive to pay—whether collectively or independently—for the hospital delivery of anyone who potentially poses an infection risk. And then, of course, to pay for the examination.

Once information about the virus is obtained, it certainly won’t be hushed up, because all stakeholders are driven by the desire to minimize their losses. Therefore, it would likely be possible to organize a compact and sufficiently effective quarantine at a fairly early stage, and the epidemic would fail to develop.

But fine, let’s assume the incubation period is quite long, and the virus is easily transmitted during this period; thus, by the end of the incubation period, there are already many infected, and containing the epidemic failed. Can insurance companies build a hospital in ten days, like the Chinese authorities? Unlikely. It is far more likely that they would rent entire hotels for their clients: one for quarantine, one as a hospital. Sequencing the virus and finding a vaccine formula would be at least as fast as in our reality, because modern private high-tech laboratories handle this no worse than the state. Setting up production and supply would be even faster, as there would be fewer approvals.

Regarding the possibilities of organizing a quarantine under ancap, I have already answered in relation to epizootics. In our case, similar mechanisms would operate.

As a result, I believe that in the worst-case scenario, an epidemic under ancap would affect roughly the same number of people as under a state, but the market would likely slump less, because in the absence of a state, there would be no one to crush it out of panic with sudden regulations. And in any case, it is hard to imagine that humanity, in the absence of “benevolent” state intervention, would find itself helpless against some epidemic.

Here he is, the beauty, in ancap colors