A criminal case was initiated against Mikhail Svetov over an Instagram post from 2012. Given how keen the interest in him has been from Russian security forces, it is completely obvious that the case was opened when they decided the moment was most appropriate.
I can assume that the moment was deemed appropriate for one simple reason: at the recently held LPR congress, Mikhail Svetov stepped down from the party’s governing bodies. The security forces may have reasonably decided in connection with this that Mikhail had lost public support, and it would be possible to settle scores with him without much of a scandal. They will have to be made to understand that they were seriously mistaken.
The LPR calls for holding solo pickets in support of Mikhail at the building of the Moscow Investigative Committee. This is a good step, but more can be done. Quite recently, Mikhail Svetov visited 30 cities across the western and central parts of Russia with lectures. Thus, literally every attendee of a lecture (or those who wanted to attend but could not fit into the hall due to the zeal of local security forces) now has an excellent reason to also hold a picket at the Investigative Committee building in their own city, with a poster saying, for instance, that they know Svetov personally, consider him a decent person, the case is being fabricated, enough of the embarrassment, stop this farce.
People registered for the lectures via Timepad, leaving their contact details. It would make sense for the lecture organizers to send a mailing to the collected data and suggest expressing support for Mikhail. After all, during the lectures themselves, Mikhail said that he travels to cities not so much so that people would listen to him—they can listen on YouTube. His main goal was for people in the regions to look at each other and realize how they are not alone in their distrust of the state. Well, here is a new excellent reason to gather and look at each other.
Enough people should come out, and then let the worried security forces urgently inform the head of the IC, Bastrykin, that a mistake was made, he shouldn’t have been touched, and it’s better to hush up this scandal before it flares up.
“In order to achieve a perfect market, it would be necessary, first, to create an absolutely symmetrical information space; second, to exclude non-excludable and non-competitive goods from the economic system; third, to eliminate external effects; fourth, to completely remove differentiated products; fifth, to somehow maintain all the above-mentioned (in themselves fantastic) conditions; sixth, to prevent the intentional violation of the established order by others.”
A perfect market is a market in a vacuum, a simplified model for graphs and clear explanations of theories. Therefore, the transition to a “beautiful ancap” is impossible not because of “omnipresent etatism,” but simply because the conditions for its existence in the form you imagine are unattainable”
How should I prove that the market is real? Perhaps you can suggest some articles on this topic?
Igor
This is a classic “straw man” rhetorical device, where it is not the opponent’s actual thesis that is refuted, but one that is convenient to refute. A perfect market (or perfect competition) is a term from neoclassical economic theory, whereas ancap is based primarily on the Austrian school. Something similar to the perfect market model is described by Mises in Human Action, introducing such a theoretical construct as a uniformly functioning economy. In such an economy, all agents possess full information, and all other conditions described by your opponent are met. As a result, such an economy is absolutely predictable, and entrepreneurship is impossible within it. This theoretical construct is introduced for exactly one purpose: to demonstrate the difference between a real economy and a uniformly functioning one, and thereby show what the role of the entrepreneur consists of (which is precisely obtaining profit by utilizing the uncertainty of the future) and the role of the investor (which is to maintain a certain reserve of capital goods in the past for consumption in the future). Similarly, in physics, there is the concept of uniform rectilinear motion; in various schools of dance and martial arts, there are basic stances, basic steps, and so on. To say that an ideal market is a market of perfect competition is like claiming that an ideal dance is a couple moving in basic steps from a basic stance, while the whole essence of dance is precisely improvisation based on that very foundation.
In my view, this substitution is made far too often partly because of the poor choice of the term “perfect market” itself—it contains a manipulation that makes one think of this phenomenon as something desirable, for who doesn’t dream of perfection! Meanwhile, a perfect market is generally indistinguishable from a perfect planned economy, where everything is also calculated and predetermined. Likewise, we could speak of a perfect communism, where absolutely all material objects are in public ownership, and absolutely all actions are performed only with universal consent after comprehensive and full discussion. Indeed, such a theoretical model of perfect communism is used by theorists when they demonstrate the necessity of self-ownership.
Who taught you to dance like that? Where is the correct stance?
A certain anonymous organization with the nondescript name “Cell of Anarchic Action” is distributing the following manifesto across various near-libertarian resources (sorry guys, I corrected the spelling for you, otherwise it was impossible to read):
Revolutionary Ancap, or r-ancap
The ideology behind the active participation of anarchists in the revolutionary struggle against the state and the police.
R-ANCAP proclaims the following ideas:
1) Active NAP. If a person becomes an ancap and is ready to accept the NAP as a non-aggression pact, they must recognize that once they have accepted the NAP as an idea, they must abide by it. However, the state obstructs this, as it is the greatest violator of the NAP; therefore, after acceptance, any violent action directed from the state can be regarded as a manifestation of clear disagreement with the observance of this pact. This means that violent actions can be taken against the state, and its property can be seized and made private, as well as resistance offered to laws, police, officials, etc.
2) Agorism. Revolutionary anarcho-capitalism recognizes agorism as the basis of resistance to the state. Resistance and ignorance of it; a shadow market instead of a legal market, unions of squats forming districts that are their own closed system with an economy and rules in the form of contracts. Also, the creation of one’s own currency or method of exchange.
3) To achieve their goals, it is sometimes necessary to enter into alliances with other anarchists, creating solidarity and tolerance among anarchists, and sometimes full-fledged unions where the economic agenda is currently ignored, focusing only on the political and social—namely, the destruction of the state and opposition to coercion by other people.
4) Active Armament. Our goal is to demonstrate readiness and to arm ourselves actively to justify our capabilities for our own protection and that of other people in any case. This means only one thing: the creation of militias to protect demonstrators and private property that the state encroaches upon.
5) Instead of rights. Utilitarian ethics are also called teleological (from the Ancient Greek “teleos” – goal). Besides immediate pleasure, any utility can serve as the goal of a morally correct choice. The greater the utility, the more correct the action. But in striving for utility for oneself or one’s loved ones, a person may harm others. Therefore, one should act in a way that brings the greatest benefit to the greatest number of people. And moral principles? They should be followed, but where they conflict with practical considerations, their conventionality must be recognized. We can protect our capabilities by guaranteeing them through alliances, contracts, and our own strength, both physical and intellectual.
6) Direct Action. Actions undertaken by individuals or groups to achieve political, economic, or social goals by means that exclude the need for intermediaries. In other words, actions aimed at solving a problem directly by one’s own efforts.
The ideal example of organization is a communitarian confederation, where communes are united into a confederation.
The NAP refers only to attack, and only to violent attack, or one that led to suicide. The latter only in the presence of substantial evidence.
Attitude toward parties. For the complete rejection of political parties, even libertarian ones, considering them traitors and advocating only for associations and political clubs of interest.
Commentary by Ancap-chan
As Mikhail Svetov has repeatedly mentioned in his speeches, if the authorities do not hear those who speak from relatively moderate positions, they are replaced by real radicals. And when these radicals seize the agenda, it will be too late to talk about lustration; defenestrations will come into fashion. In the example of the aforementioned manifesto, we see one of the early examples of the changing rhetoric of protest.
Yes, it could very well turn out that another “New Greatness” stands behind this manifesto, and after some time, the security forces will simply chop off another branch. Or maybe not.
Now, a bit about what is wrong with the ideas presented. I will not argue that the NAP is not a contract, because that is unimportant. I will not say that one cannot offer forceful resistance to any attempts at state aggression. Of course, one can. I will not argue about which way of organizing society is ideal. Of course, everyone has their own; ancap simply implies non-violence when entering associations, and from there, let the market decide. I’d rather talk about utilitarianism.
The logic of human activity suggests that if there is a goal, a means should be selected for it. If the goal is the destruction of the state, the solution suggests itself: create an organization for the destruction of the state. Hence the ideas about revolutionary cells and so on. The problem is that an organization is easy to create, but difficult to dissolve. First, you carry out an Islamic revolution, then you have an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The stronger the regime, the stronger the organization needed to overthrow it must be, the less likely this organization will be to dissolve, and the more likely it will be to terrorize peaceful citizens after its victory.
Therefore, the whole point of tactics for achieving ancap is to weaken the state, not to break it immediately. Minarchists reduce its powers. Panarchists carefully cut the state along the grain so that it begins to bend and satisfy various private requests. Agorists gnaw at the roots, starving the state, and this parasite dies from neglect. But if you start breaking it by force, then instead of the absence of a state, in the best case, you get a failed state. We’ve been there.
In the LiveJournal blog of science fiction writer Alexander Rozov (known primarily for his Meganesian cycle), an interesting post was published regarding the idea of a “vaccination against violence” applied by the Senoi people in Malaysia. Based on other posts in his blog, it is easy to conclude that Rozov sympathizes with the idea of the deterrence doctrine (DD) — manifestations of it are mentioned with enviable regularity.
Why is the Senoi culture of interest to us? This is an extremely primitive ethnic group in technological terms, where blowguns with poisoned arrows are still used as weapons. Nevertheless, the Malays at the end of the 19th century, according to Miklouho-Maclay, were clearly afraid to touch them. The fact is that from early childhood, every Senoi person learns intolerance toward violence. To any initiation of aggression directed at them, they are obliged to apply counter-violence instead of appealing to an external authority. This idea is instilled throughout their entire lives — every morning at breakfast, Senoi families tell each other about their dreams and how they confronted danger, if there was any in them.
Rozov
highlights the main points of Senoi
society:
1. On one hand, the Senoi are clearly not people prone to tolerating violence against themselves (the Malays would not have feared the weapons of these almost primitive characters otherwise, nor would they have described how quickly a person hit by the combat element of Senoi weaponry dies).
2. On the other hand, internal Senoi tribal customs are clearly not aggressive and are not built on violence.
3. Miklouho-Maclay believed that the Senoi were a dying ethnic group (since they were clearly at a lower level of socio-technical development than the surrounding Malays). But now, 150 years after Miklouho-Maclay’s research, the Senoi population is roughly the same as it was then. In other words, it is a quite stable population.
And he
draws the primary conclusion:
“Active opposition to a threat. As it turns out, this trait does not contradict peaceful, non-aggressive customs at all. On the contrary, it is a complementary element. For someone who knows how and is ready to defend themselves, it is easier to be non-aggressive.”
Friendly natives and their deadly weapons
The described example shows that super-modern bee-sized drones or nuclear missiles are not at all mandatory for the successful implementation of the deterrence doctrine. All that is needed is the willingness of as many people as possible in society to apply counter-violence, thereby increasing the costs of initiating aggression. Specifically how they are increased does not matter much. Even light mockery, spitting, a sidelong glance, ignoring, boycotting, shaming, and other actions without any violence at all, but applied by a large number of people, will make the life of any politician unbearable and force them to stop working for a stationary bandit (in terms of the deterrence doctrine: the costs of counter-violence will exceed the benefit of initiating violence, the conditional salary received from the stationary bandit, who, in turn, obtained these funds by coercing citizens to pay taxes).
One can even derive a dependency: the more people in a particular society are intolerant of violence, the less powerful (and, accordingly, technologically complex) weaponry is necessary for the successful deterrence of an aggressor. If in some country only one (!) person is ready to apply counter-violence against an aggressor on the level of the USA, then the only option for deterrence is nuclear weapons with a “dead hand” auto-launch system (which is extremely complex and insanely expensive), but if 90% of the population are ready to apply counter-violence, blowguns will suffice. The war in Somalia (the invasion and subsequent retreat of the US army) demonstrated this perfectly.
The image is clickable. The power units are conventional; the mathematical apparatus for the deterrence doctrine in this direction has not been developed
I often have to use a phrase like this in arguments with impenetrable estatists:
“By supporting the state, you are initiating violence, including against me, therefore the Doctrine of Deterrence (DD) will be applied to you until you stop!”
Could you write a post on this topic, arguing why this is exactly the case?
Bitarch
Allow me two quotes. The first is from the movie “Brother 2”: “Strength is in truth”. The second is from Mikhail Svetov: “You can be a thousand times right, but what’s the point if you are powerless?”
At the same time, the character who uttered the first tirade preferred to assert his truth through the use of force, while the author of the second statement limits himself exclusively to conveying his truth to people in verbal form. Both, despite the apparent contradiction between word and deed, succeeded in their endeavors.
What is this supposed to tell us? That—and here I will bring in a third quote, whose author is traditionally Al Capone: “You can achieve much more with a kind word and a gun than with a kind word alone”.
Now then. When you threaten an estatist with the doctrine of deterrence, you are essentially saying to him: “dude, I have a gun, therefore I am right.” Meanwhile, he is convinced that strength is in truth, and the truth is that he personally did not initiate aggression against you, but merely verbally supported the state. In other words, you are threatening a person with retribution for words, and with rather vague claims at that, since anything can be declared as support for the state. For instance, many Ukrainians accuse Russians of supporting Russian aggression in Ukraine simply by the fact of Russian citizenship (and the incorrect use of prepositions, of course).
As a result, the estatist gets tense and looks for a way to deal with you, for example, through the state. And, I suspect, it will be especially frustrating for you if he manages to find a way to deal with you, but you cannot do the same to him. In other words, not only did you threaten a person with a gun, but it was a gun you didn’t even have. And here I will allow myself a fourth quote, a quite insulting one, from a character in the comedy “Spizdili”: “Just as a brainless dick should—you don’t understand the situation, and now you’re starting to shrink, and your little balls are starting to shrink along with you—and that’s because on the side of your gun it says—TOY, and on the side of my gun it says DESERT EAGLE .50”.
In order for an estatist, if not to side with you, to at least recognize your right to criticize the state, you first need to demonstrate exactly how it has wronged you. Moreover, complaints in the vein of “I may be evading taxes, but VAT is still included in the price of some goods I buy” are, of course, unconvincing to him. Similarly, pointing out that your grandfather was shot under Stalin will only serve as a supporting argument: first, it didn’t happen to you, but to a person you didn’t even know personally, and second, one can always claim it was a different state. The ideal approach would be to find a story where the state infringed specifically upon your rights, and did so lawlessly, in violation of its own laws, and where no truth could be found through other state agencies. “I was picked up at an unauthorized rally and had my leg broken”—again, this fits poorly unless you are Konstantin Konovalov—for him, this is a perfect case: he had nothing to do with the action, was detained three hours before it began in violation of the police law, suffered bodily injuries—and to top it all off, the court fined him. If you can find something equally convincing, the estatist’s sympathies will, of course, be on your side. To start with, it is important for you to demonstrate that the state is not just a bandit, but a lawless bandit who does not play by the rules.
Next, it would be a good idea to say something like “you understand it all perfectly yourself, I’m sure similar shit has happened to you too,” and let him tell something from his own experience. In Russia, it is customary to play the victim and complain about life, so the interlocutor will likely feel awkward if it turns out that the state’s boot overlooked him, and he will either make something up, or remember something that happened to acquaintances or leaked into the press.
And only then does it make sense to lead the interlocutor to the thought that if a bandit does not play by the rules, then what right does he have to demand that people treat him according to the rules. Therefore, hiding money from him is a virtue, and helping others who have been crushed lawlessly is a good cause, and those who support these thugs are shameful bastards.
And for dessert, you can savor stories about how people are fined for improving their own neighborhoods, how punks repair playgrounds, how the founder of Vimpelcom funded science only to be declared a foreign agent—in short, lead the former estatist to the thought that state people only know how to cut ribbons, while in fact, people provide all the benefits for themselves, and are even forced to bypass the traps set by those very state people.
There are no impenetrable estatists. At least not in Russia.
Satoshi Nakamoto was so kind as to time the publication of his paper “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System” exactly for Halloween, so that we can celebrate two holidays at once, addressing our unchanging trick or treat not to offline neighbors, but to the entire internet.
So let us glorify our ability to perform online peer-to-peer financial transactions on this evening of Saint Satoshi, without which true hardcore agorism today would simply be unimaginable! As for the state, let it be afraid—it is better at that than anything else—so if Bitcoin didn’t exist, it would have found something else to be afraid of anyway.
I will start by noting that this is a thought experiment and a test of a philosophical concept, not a discussion of technological implementation.
The essence of the idea is very simple. There is a potential aggressor in the form of a group of people (a criminal organization). You probably already guess who is being referred to. Although besides a Westphalian state, this could also be an aggressive ECU or a territorial community. A lone individual possessing a technology, which we will conventionally call MinMAD, opposes the criminal organization.
This technology ensures mutual assured destruction (MAD) of only two individuals—if the victim of aggression dies, one person from the criminal organization dies immediately (for example, a random government official, regardless of their relationship to the specific case). The victim of aggression may use conventional weapons to oppose the criminal organization (for example, firing a machine gun at a police squad sent to detain them) and remain alive as long as the aggressor does not destroy them. But if a cruise missile is then launched at their house and they perish, a random member of the criminal organization will die instantly. They can also activate MinMAD independently, for example, if they are taken prisoner. In that case, both they and one random member of the criminal organization will die immediately.
From the conditions of the problem, it is clear that both the criminal organization and the victim are not anonymous. Suppose that in a certain territory, at least 10-20% of the residents have MinMAD. Question: is it possible to maintain institutionalized coercion (the state) in this territory?
My assumption is an absolute “no”: no one will want to participate in the criminal organization (the state), knowing that there is a very high probability they could die. Accordingly, the necessary deterrent effect is achieved, forcing government officials to abandon coercion and seek other ways of making a living that are not based on robbery (which is what “taxes” actually are).
Ancap-chan’s Comment
Bitarch and I disagreed on the prospects of such a doctrine, and now we are submitting the discussion for your judgment.
I believe that we already live in a society where this experiment was conducted and led to results that differ significantly from those intended. In the past, the state was relatively compact, and those who opposed it were executed. This led to the emergence of tactics of individual terror by the resistance, which strongly demotivated government employees from performing their duties. But since then, the state has adapted to this threat, and, firstly, it has exponentially expanded the number of government employees, budget workers, and other beneficiaries of the existing system, and secondly, it has stopped killing its opponents, preferring more “vegetarian” methods, such as short prison sentences and fines. Thus, on the one hand, the resistor is demotivated from self-sacrifice, since they only face temporary inconvenience—and on the other hand, the risk of death for government employees has become significantly lower, since there are now millions of them.
So—no. A modern deterrence doctrine should imply the elimination of specifically the person who gives the order to initiate violence, and the higher their position in the state hierarchy, the better. Also, a modern deterrence doctrine should, whenever possible, remove the person practicing it from the line of fire, rather than relying on proud self-sacrifice. A “minimal” deterrence doctrine is like a vaccination against a disease for the state, rather than the disease itself.
P.S. By the way, since the deterrence doctrine is so prominent in Bitarch’s work, he created a separate VKontakte public page, where he puts all materials on this topic to make access to them more convenient.
This question was inspired by an article on Habr and the subsequent comments. The gist is: there is Yandex — they have a search engine. In the search engine, they promote their other products, thereby limiting competition. How correct is this? In the article and comments themselves, there are quite a few arguments IN FAVOR of antitrust legislation. What do you think?
анонимный вопрос
In connection with this question, I would like to recommend Vyacheslav Kostrov’s lecture “Platform Economy and the Hayekian Market Process,” delivered by him at the “Capitalism and Freedom” conference in 2019.
The lecture is very rambling and contains no conclusions, but it places the question you are asking into a broader frame — it considers not a specific case of using a dominant market position, but the principles of the functioning of the platform economy as such.
Let’s consider a platform such as a search engine. By design, it is a service that searches the web for mentions of information that interests the user, based on certain input data provided by the user. After attracting a sufficiently large number of users with the convenience of the service and the quality of the search, the owner of the search engine may raise the question of monetizing the platform.
The most direct way to monetize a service in its original form is through customer donations. This method is implemented by Wikipedia, and it allows it to focus its efforts on the completeness of content and the neatness of its presentation, that is, on improving exactly those consumer qualities of the supplied product for which the user came to the platform. Of course, Wikipedia is not a search engine in the pure sense, but theoretically, nothing prevents the use of the same model for classic search engines. My channel practices this method of monetization.
A search engine could also sell analytics on user search queries to interested clients. This is also a fairly “herbivorous” way to make money and, as in the case of Wiki, is unlikely to bring in mega-bucks. My channel also practices this method of monetization in a sense — these are answers to questions with attached donations and commissioned articles.
Next come the methods of earning money whose application degrades the product itself.
First, there is advertising. In addition to providing the user with what they are searching for, the search engine slips into the results something that the advertiser would like them to be introduced to. Thus, for the user, the product becomes worse due to the lower relevance of the results, but the platform owner gets a profit. I no longer practice this method, and if a request to sell advertising on the channel appears, I try to switch the requester to one of the monetization methods mentioned above.
And finally, the owners of the search engine may start earning not only from others’ advertising, but also lure the user to their own subsidiary services that have no direct relation to the search engine. This is exactly what we see in the article under discussion. As a result of such a policy, search results become even less relevant for the user, and they start looking toward DuckDuckGo, but before the user has completely fled the search engine, the subsidiary platforms, thanks to the inertia of human thinking, will manage to build their own customer base. I do not practice this either, but I can well imagine a blogger periodically advertising some own business on their channel.
As a result of the development of such a mega-platform, after some time it turns out that some businesses under the general brand are more profitable, others less, and some are completely loss-making. However, making decisions about optimizing the asset structure is quite difficult because they influence each other. The platform flounders, making increasingly less balanced decisions, until it finally goes belly up. Just relatively recently, one such behemoth of the platform economy went bankrupt — Cook’s outfit, which existed for over a century and a half. It was the first to implement the package principle for organizing tourist trips, thanks to which it quickly became a global hegemon in the tourism industry, and it ultimately burned out on exactly that: too many of its assets, instead of reacting to market stimuli, were engaged in serving other subsidiary companies of the holding. Its own airlines, its own hotels, its own tour operators — it would seem, here is a monopoly, just collect the rent — but no, it failed to keep up with progress and lost to a conditional Booking.com, a next-generation platform business.
Exactly the same fate will befall Yandex, without any antitrust authorities.
The question of permissible methods of contract enforcement was touched upon during Mikhail Svetov’s lecture in Novosibirsk. Svetov once again unequivocally expressed his position—physical violence (coercion) must not be used. The maximum that can be done against a violator is ostracism.
Unfortunately, not everyone accepts this moral position, so I will try to explain it, relying on utilitarianism and game theory. The example described below is an original illustration for the summary of the RAND Corporation study On the Doctrine of Deterrence, chapter “Local Balance of Power: An Important, but Not Always Decisive Factor.”
“Suppose I entered into a contract with you and decided to break it on my own. You dug in your heels and began to threaten me with ‘special forces’ who would forcibly seize my property. Assume you can send ten fighters, but I can guaranteedly destroy one of them. I make it clear that I am prepared to go to the end. For the fighters to agree to such a risk, you would have to offer each of them $10M. Suppose the contract amount is $100K, and I possess assets that can be liquidated for only $1000. You evaluate the ratio of benefits to costs—and tell me something like: ‘Get out, I don’t want to have anything to do with you anymore; people are right, it’s better not to touch shit!’. After that, we part ways, and you no longer enter into any deals with me. Under certain circumstances, you can retaliate by placing information about my behavior in the public domain, thereby prompting other people to join the ostracism.”
As seen from the example above, contract enforcement through physical coercion becomes impossible in a society where there is at least some balance of violence potential (different from the conditional ‘zero’ for citizens and ‘infinity’ for the state, as is usually the case in etatist societies).
In his book “For a New Liberty,” Murray Rothbard provides historical examples confirming the described theory and shows his affinity for it.
“The fact is that in the Middle Ages and up until 1920, merchants relied exclusively on the power of ostracism and boycotts by other local merchants. In other words, if someone refused to obey the decision of an arbitrator or ignored his decision, other merchants brought this fact to everyone’s attention and everyone refused to deal with the rebel, which quickly brought them to their knees. Woolridge provides a characteristic example of this:
‘Merchant courts were effective because merchants agreed that their decisions would be enforced. One who refused to obey was not sent to prison, but he did not remain a merchant for long after that. The influence of his colleagues and partners proved more effective than physical coercion. Take John of Homing, who made his living in the wholesale fish trade. John sold a batch of herring, all of which was supposed to be the same as in the three barrels presented to the buyer, but it soon turned out that it was actually rotten, and even mixed with sprat. He had to quickly reimburse the buyer in full under threat of ostracism from other merchants.’
Over time, ostracism became an even more effective means, since a situation arose where one who had once disobeyed an arbitrator’s decision could no longer expect any other intermediary to deal with them. Industrialist Owen D. Young, head of General Electric, concluded that moral censorship carried out by other businessmen operates far more effectively than the official judicial system. Modern technologies, computers, and credit ratings make the threat of nationwide ostracism more effective than ever before in the past.”
What is the downvote mainly used for in politics today? These are dislikes under harmful bills, petitions to repeal harmful laws, rallies demanding the government’s resignation, actions like egging, and so on. In other words, it is a standard tool of direct, rather than representative, democracy.
Let’s try to imagine what the consequences of implementing the downvote for representative democracy would look like.
An elective body, a dozen candidates are running, all of them appear on the ballot; the voter comes to the polling station and gives dislikes to everyone they definitely do not wish to see in the specified position. The candidate with the minimum number of dislikes wins.
What are the downsides of such a system?
The chance of victory sharply increases for a “slippery Joe” who hasn’t managed to offend anyone because nobody really knows who he is. Politicians will compete for the image of the most featureless nobody.
A nobody might turn out to be lacking agency and simply hand over the levers of real control to their puppet master. We get the same result, just from a different angle, and with an even greater dilution of responsibility for political decisions.
What are the pluses?
The concept of a spoiled ballot disappears. An empty ballot means all candidates are liked. A scribbled-out one means none are liked.
No candidate with even a moderately high anti-rating will pass; that is, unpopular measures in a previous position effectively kill a public political career, even if there is a significant support group.
Voter turnout increases sharply: for the pleasure of giving a public politician a dislike, even the paralyzed will drag themselves to the polling station.
The fear of drastic measures will ensure that the state becomes far more inactive, and that is exactly what we libertarians want.
So, I approve of the proposed system for improving representative democracy. It’s just a pity that neither you nor I will live to see this wonderful time…
