Автор: Анкап-тян

Containment Doctrine – a new video from Libertarian band

I am pleased to present to you a new video from our Libertarian band team. In the first five, we gave a brief introduction to why libertarianism is relevant, the paths it takes, and where it is heading. Now, we have decided to deal with the specifics. In this six-minute video, we briefly explain why a war of all against all is a ridiculous scare story, where the state came from, and why, after its abolition, it is unlikely to be able to rise again.

I hope you appreciate the increased artistic level. They say the main character of the video was very non-illusorily hit in the face with a rifle butt; I am admired by his heroism and love for art.

– Omae wa mou shindeiru.
– Nani?

Ancap as a left-wing project

Today I am posting material from an author with the nickname Polnota, which he shared with me in the chat. The author’s style is quite distinct and differs too much from mine, so I will not make any corrections to it.

Generally, as you may have noticed, I have been publishing less frequently. This is due to the emergence of a tasty side hustle—collaboration with the YouTube project Libertarian band—as well as banal autumn melancholy. I don’t want to dilute the content with reposts, but as for posting finished materials on my own page—why not? I can simply reject what is sent, I can seriously rework it and post it as our joint creation, or finally, I can post it more or less unedited, perhaps adding my own comment. If the collaboration becomes regular, you will simply get a dedicated column here.

I want to bring a fresh perspective to ancap. This is the best strategy, first and foremost, for the popularization of ancap.

Misanthropes can put on an individualist face, but the fact remains: they are incapable of handling the real law of the jungle that reigns today. For some reason, these untermenschen cannot handle a real hierarchy. For some reason, Punya, the Rotenbergs, and Sobyanin manage to be alphas, while these hikikomoris are left to whine in group chats, frustrated in their expectations of some… oops, fair system where they—the omegas—can stand tall. It seems you couldn’t hack true individualism.

(Honestly, no one has even harassed you with taxes, and you don’t pay any taxes anyway. Half of those present here are living on mommy’s subsidies.)

Right-wing hierarchists really shouldn’t grumble about Putinism. Putinism is an excellent system for the realization of the Overman. Putinism is the dominance of Overmen over omegas. A gorgeous right-wing regime. What, you can’t manage to become a Zolotov? Loser… 😊

Ancap is the rebellion of the omegas. The “cry of the oppressed creature.” For this and several other reasons, it is a left-wing movement, and a true-left brand has never been something shameful. This is the main road of humanity—moving from slavery to freedom.

It is necessary to baby the “lefties,” explaining that ancap is not a philosophy of some individualism, but a philosophy of freedom for all. Including the freedom for the weak to associate, so that life is easier and more joyful.

If we kick the aggrieved authoritarians and all sorts of psychopaths out of the ancap movement with a boot to the ass, and proclaim ancap as a true-left vector in which everyone wins, even the weak, then the gears will start turning in the right direction.

Yes, you were fucked over with this left-right orientation. The alphas stay up at night thinking about how to fuck you over further. But turn everything on its head, rehabilitate the left brand, separate the wheat from the chaff, and start the movement not toward the super-human, but simply toward the human.

Otherwise, Putinism provides all the opportunities for the realization of right-wingers. It’s just that you personally are a loser.

Addition from Ancap-chan

If we are going to dive into populism, it would be strange not to also reference Svetkov’s very famous lecture from the police van, where he explains exactly why libertarianism is beneficial for the poor.

How will ancap prevent the formation of the state?

Deterrence doctrine? Yes, yes, hilarious — 25 people against one. He’ll stop them with a deterrence doctrine, uh-huh. He’ll blow up his own house with a “dead hand” system so the bastards get nothing. Sounds like nonsense. It’s like saying: if I have a weapon, 25 people with the same weapon won’t stop me because they’ll miss.

Gangs and organized crime under ancap cannot be stopped by any means whatsoever. Self-organization? Sure, look at the protests — there’s your free and voluntary self-organization for you.

The market will sort it out, so they can only be stopped by a PDA (Private Defense Agency) or another gang — that is self-organization, just for money — everything according to the market.

Consequently, panarchy is the future structure of society, and ancap is a fantasy about what would happen if people didn’t organize into gangs, just like in ancient times.

анонимный вопрос

When making predictions about what society will look like, a person holds a certain image of society in their head. Following Laksi Katal (and perhaps for the same reasons, namely the experience of the nineties, which I myself didn’t have enough time to fully drink in), you see society as a collection of people who are eager to unite for joint looting, but extremely reluctant to unite for mutual assistance in defending against looting.

I am constantly asked how ancaps can withstand millions of Chinese hordes and other collectivist bullshit — behind all these questions lies the same fear of being alone in the face of an aggressive crowd.

So here it is. The dominance of anarcho-capitalist (i.e., free market) relations in society is possible only when being part of an aggressive crowd is far less profitable than not being part of it. Just as in South Korea any schoolchild knows that while you sleep, your competitor is studying, under ancap it should be a fairly common belief that while you are risking your life snatching phones behind garages, your competitor is launching a startup — and you’ll be lucky if it’s not a startup for delivering remote kicks to those who snatch phones.

As a salvation from gangs, you suggest PDAs or other gangs (meaning something like the insurance rackets described by the aforementioned Laksi Katal). This truly is capable of reducing organized systematic aggressive violence in society, if there is a lot of it. The other thing is that the reduction of violence will quickly reduce the demand for expensive insurance services against violence. For instance, in earthquake-safe areas, people are unlikely to insure against earthquakes. For this very reason, I am quite ready to consider the PDA system as a transitional stage to ancap, but I find it hard to believe that they would have a noticeable influence for long enough. Right now, the most profitable business in the world is running your own state. But competition will quickly lower the margin, and the lack of sacred reverence for this field of earnings will do its part. Protection rackets in a society with a developed free market will be about as significant as pest control companies are today. Yes, someone suffers from harmful rodents and uses the services of specialists to exterminate them. And someone had their phone snatched, and they also turn to specialists to eliminate this inconvenience.

Rats, cockroaches, the state, and other problems that can arise in society are the result of poor hygiene. Assuring people that the only way to get rid of rats is to bring out the rat king, and the only way to eliminate armed gangs is to hire other armed gangs, looks like a quite reasonable idea, but only when society is very poor and the mentioned plagues are literally at every step. Wealth and social hygiene skills provide a greater variety of methods to prevent all this nonsense.

The state from the perspective of a rich and developed society

Greta Thunberg

There is a very active discussion online about eco-activist Greta Thunberg’s speech before the UN General Assembly. People are talking about how adults are using a poor, sick girl for their own disgusting purposes, which boil down to milking even more money from taxpayers in developed countries to fight climate change.

This is bad rhetoric.

Children, like all people, possess self-ownership. A sixteen-year-old is developed enough to have partial legal capacity: they can testify in court, and therefore they are certainly entitled to speak before the UN General Assembly. Finally, the bouquet of diagnoses that doctors have given Greta guarantees that she is completely sincere in her speech. Thus, we are forced to conclude that she is sending us her message of her own free will and with full awareness. So, in this situation, there is only one thing left for me to regret.

I regret that instead of Greta, another girl did not appear on the podium of the UN General Assembly with very similar words:

Here is my message: we will be watching you. All of this is wrong. I should not be here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. But you turn to us, to the youth, for hope. How dare you! You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words.

However, I am one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. You are driving entire nations into mass poverty. We are all on the brink of a global economic crisis, yet all you can talk about is the carbon footprint and fairy tales about terrible climate change. How dare you!

For over a hundred years, science has provided extremely clear forecasts. How dare you continue to turn away, saying that you are doing enough, when strategies and necessary solutions are still nowhere to be seen? You say that you see us and understand the urgency of the matter, but despite how much this saddens and angers me — I do not believe it. If you truly understood the situation and still did nothing — you would simply be evil people, and that is something I refuse to believe…

You collect insane social contributions from people and promise to provide them with a pension in old age, but calculations show that all pension funds will be bankrupt in thirty years. Protectionism was rejected by economic science back in the 18th century, yet you still wage trade wars and distract us with tales about protecting domestic producers. You felt constrained by the gold standard and preferred unrestrained emission, which devalues any savings. By handing out populist promises, you have created a pyramid of national debt. You adults are stealing the future from us, your descendants. How dare you!

Today, no plans or solutions based on this data will be presented. This data is uncomfortable, and you are still not mature enough to tell the truth about it. You are failing us, but the youth notice your betrayal. All future generations are looking at you, and if you decide to let us down, we will never forgive you for it.

Well, damn the high podium of the UN General Assembly. We have other platforms, so let’s not remain silent. Otherwise, they will decide that all youth are Greta Thunbergs and will dance around her as if we don’t exist. Or do you believe they wouldn’t dare?

Not Greta, of course, but I can also let some emotions slip sometimes

“The Ten Plagues of Egypt” as an Example of Deterrence Doctrine

Bitarch’s Column

One may have different views on the truthfulness of the stories described in the Bible, but that does not negate their philosophical meaning. A rather interesting idea was described in the Book of Exodus, known as the “Ten Plagues of Egypt.” In essence, it describes the idea of applying a strategy known today as “deterrence by punishment” or the deterrence doctrine (DD), two millennia before the research of the RAND Corporation in the mid-20th century.

This biblical plot, in modern terms, describes a struggle for the right of a specific minority group to secede from a state. For those who have not read the Bible or no longer remember the details, let us recall its essence. In Ancient Egypt, the Jews were in a state of slavery; the Pharaoh categorically refused to let them go. Moses, the leader of the Jewish community, threatened the Pharaoh with misfortunes for himself and his subjects until he agreed to release the Jews. These misfortunes (“the Egyptian plagues”) became increasingly severe each time—from the completely harmless reddening of the Nile’s water and the plague of frogs to the death of the firstborn children of the Pharaoh and his subjects. Nine times the Pharaoh refused to release the Jews; on the tenth, he let them go.

Thus, the Pharaoh continuously initiated aggression against the Jews by keeping them in slavery. The costs of keeping them were minimal, and the profit was enormous. After Moses began the “deterrence campaign,” the Pharaoh’s costs gradually increased (accordingly, the profit and moral satisfaction from keeping the Jews began to decrease). At a certain point, the cost of retention exceeded the total profit from their retention, and the Pharaoh gave up.

How can this be applied to modern times? Very simply—consider all supporters of etatism to be your enemies, who constantly initiate aggression against us through the institution of the state. Constantly increase the costs of initiating violence until the benefit from a salary, social status, or moral satisfaction becomes less than the damage that will be inflicted upon them.

Is someone calling to beat opposition members with chains? Their photo, name, and address appear in the public domain, and such a person’s peaceful life comes to an end. Do old women from Putin’s squads barge into your office? You have every right to use at least pepper spray against them (although, of course, it would be safer to hold a security license and a contract with Navalny’s headquarters, where these women are barging in). Do teachers at school call you a fifth column and enemies of the people? Their photos appear in hallways, the lock on the front door somehow strangely jams, you have to buy solvents to clean the door and walls, wake up to snowballs hitting the window, and so on.

Of course, this is not enough, for Moses not only asked the Lord to send plagues but also exhorted the Pharaoh. So, one must not only express their “fuck you” to the supporters of the state but also explain the desired alternative and encourage repentance; otherwise, the sent plagues will be seen by them as meaningless harassment, and this will only harden them or drive them into the depths of apathy.

How will private utilities work? After all, there is only one pipeline, so how can water be supplied to everyone at different prices?

анонимный вопрос

I answered a similar question in quite some detail analyzing all stages of water supply in a free market, from finding a water source to its delivery via pipes to the end consumer. But you are not so much interested in how various market actors will negotiate the coordination of geological exploration, extraction, pipe laying, and repair—but rather what mechanisms will affect the tariffs for the end consumer. And, presumably, you have a concern that without central controlling bodies, tariffs will skyrocket.

Here, I suggest you familiarize yourself with the analysis of such a mechanism for electricity supplies that I provided previously. For the water market, the hard upper limit for tariffs turns out to be the cost of water production or supply by the consumers themselves: this could be buying bottled water in a store, collecting rainwater, desalination, recycling—depending on who the consumer is. But slightly before the price hits this natural barrier, the factors of competition and demand elasticity will kick in: expensive water will be conserved, and at a certain point, the supplier will realize that it is more profitable to earn from volume rather than markups, especially if alternative water suppliers do not jack up their prices and seize the market while the miser tries to squeeze their few remaining clients dry.

At the same time, of course, I do not rule out that water will be supplied to different houses by one company at different prices, taking into account the length of the pipes, for example, or the different competitive environment in different districts. Finally, a price markup is also added by the company that manages the building, if such a company exists. For instance, in Thailand, where I vacationed in the spring, it seems that every condominium has its own water price, because in one they water the garden, in another the pool is larger, in a third it is smaller, and so on. This is normal.

Here is an example of a condominium where water will certainly be expensive

Freedom of speech and the First Amendment — are they a blessing?

Bitarch’s Column

Among libertarians, there is a firm belief that the existence of freedom of speech in a country based on the principle of the American First Amendment to the Constitution is an unambiguous benefit that helps us fight statism. But is this actually the case, or is it a cleverly planned trap that has helped the US ruling elites avoid revolutions for almost two and a half centuries?

Let’s look at the fate of well-known anti-statists in the US who began to pose any significant threat to the state. Jim Bell, the creator and evangelist of the “assassination market” idea, was imprisoned for “tax evasion.” Larken Rose, a well-known ancap, also ended up behind bars for taxes. I think there is no need to remind everyone of the story with Julian Assange and the sexual allegations; everyone knows it already.

What conclusion can be drawn from this? If your words pose a real danger to the stationary bandit, a pretext for repression will always be found; it is not necessary for him to repress specifically for words. What do you think will happen if a full-page advertisement is printed in the New York Times with the text “The State is a stationary bandit! Panarchy is the primary path to freedom!”? I am willing to bet that the next day the FBI will find child pornography or drugs in the possession of the activist who ordered such an ad. Or it will turn out that he likes to abuse his dog and is generally not opposed to eating it. Unfortunately, most active fighters against the state in the US do not understand this.

In Russia, the situation is completely different. The authorities repress directly for politics, and they don’t even disguise it particularly well. We have convenient “extremism” articles with extremely vague content, allowing anyone to be imprisoned for anything, so there is no need to bother planting child pornography on an activist. Because of this, all active fighters against the state use VPNs, burner SIMs, encryption, and intermediaries from the very beginning of their activities, and they never show their faces. As a result, in terms of the difficulty of capture, such an activist is equal to a professional hacker, so it is easier to earn medals by searching for extremism on VKontakte. The investigator is not concerned with the fact that a real fighter against the state can indeed be dangerous to the state: that is not his level of responsibility. The more pressure the authorities apply, the more anonymization methods the fighters against the state will use, and the faster its territorial monopoly will be destroyed. The same cannot be said for countries where people still believe in freedom of speech.

Ancap-chan’s Commentary

Yesterday, Ved Neuman released an article in which he responded to a comment by Laksi Katal regarding the deadlock of the “butt-end”: the lighter the power, the more willingly people surrender to it.

As we can see, opinions are divided on what is more beneficial for supporters of the total abolition of the state—an openly repressive state that discredits itself, or its liberalization, with a potential increase in the level of trust in it. Bitarch and Laksi Katal believe that the principle of “the worse, the better” works: the worse the state, the easier it is to convince people that it is not needed at all. Following Ved, I believe that appetite comes with eating, and once one starts pushing back the state, one will not want to stop, especially if life actually improves at every stage of the reforms. This is especially relevant in countries that lack a developed culture of respect for the opposition, where the custom is to finish off the opponent. Once the state begins to bend, they will finish it off.

So it seems strange to me to consider it a bad thing if the state has to seek indirect paths for repression because the direct path is blocked. On the contrary, this is merely a reason to block those very indirect paths. Freedom of speech exists—it must be used to stop persecution for victimless crimes, such as possession of child pornography or drug use, and any flailing of the state in this regard should be used to incite hatred toward the institution itself, which, instead of trying to justify its existence with whatever useful things, continues to insist on its right to repress a wide circle of persons on its own initiative, without a request from victims.

The brief essence of our discussion

I don’t understand how you derive ancap from a variety of collectivism—the nation-state? From fiefs and cities it is much simpler.

Fyodor

The question clearly refers to the article that Bitarkh and I wrote about how the idea of national sovereignty naturally leads to the idea of ancap. Of course, the idea of ancap can be derived in many other ways, because ancap is simply self-organization in society based on the principles of voluntarism and respect for private property. It is possible to derive ancap from the idea of the fief. True, a fief is not initially property, but a feudal tenure granted for service; however, it’s hard to criticize from a standpoint of justice, saying, “what nonsense, some degenerate inherited fabulous fortunes and is squandering them.” No, he earned his estate. Then we extend the logical chain and demand that the one who grants lands in fief must have earned their own holdings. We clarify how property can be earned in general—and suddenly the contours of ancap begin to emerge.

It’s not difficult with cities either. Suppose people have voluntarily clustered together for the convenience of trade, production, and defense; they have to develop rules for coexistence, and it turns out that it is beneficial for citizens to treat each other with respect. Otherwise, the magical synergy resulting from many people living close together—which, through the concentration of efforts, leads to unprecedented prosperity—will simply disappear, and everyone will flee from this miserable place. So, while they gathered for a small number of simple, practical tasks, a complex mechanism of interaction emerges, generating a host of spontaneous orders, and this ancap community can force any arrogant feudal lord to reckon with it.

In your spare time, you can practice deriving ancap from anything. For example, once, in honor of April Fool’s Day, I went as far as presenting a doctrine of anarcho-statism.

The emergence of the beautiful Ancapistan from a multitude of individual desires

Lectures in Moscow and the regions

The peak of political activity among citizens in the country is coming to an end, for better or worse: the elections are over, the results are known almost everywhere, so Russian libertarians are habitually switching from politics to education, which, of course, always pleases me.

There are about a month and a half left until the annual Adam Smith Readings, but so far last year’s program is still on the Readings website. Those who are still deciding whether to go or not can watch the recording of the 2018 Readings. It is truly a non-trivial choice—between being physically present in the heat and crowd and watching a recording in comfort, but in terrible quality.

In general, it seems that many organizers of public lectures put maximum effort into ensuring there are no glitches during the performance itself—but they lack the strength to ensure a high-quality recording or, even better, a broadcast. Not long ago, I advertised a lecture by Fariza Rodriguez in St. Petersburg, and when the recording finally appeared, I was disgusted for a long time because it was unwatchable.

Mikhail Svetov decided to set a record and organize a large lecture tour across the regions: 29 cities in 34 days, from September 15 to October 18. The performance schedule is posted on his website; you can find out if your city is there and register on the same page. Registration should not be neglected because the first lectures have already shown that Svetov is no longer a “no-name” to the current regime; his activities are monitored and hindered whenever possible. So, at the last moment, you might receive a notification about a change of location or something similar. Of course, you cannot expect a high-quality recording of Svetov’s lectures, so come in person.

As you may have noticed in Svetov’s performance schedule, there is a mysterious three-day pause from October 4 to 7. No, it is not a day off. Mikhail felt that one challenge was not enough, and during this very time, he is bringing Hans-Hermann Hoppe to Moscow. The performance of the living classic of libertarianism is expected on October 6; details are available from Mikhail in his channel.

And for those who find it boring to receive announcements three weeks in advance, I have saved for last the announcement of a cool event that will take place in Moscow this coming Saturday, September 21. The organizers couldn’t decide whether to borrow the title of a Balzac book or a Terry Gilliam film for the event, so they took both. It turned out a bit long: The Splendor and Misery, Fear and Loathing of Monopolies. This is a full-fledged conference in the TED Talks format. Four speakers are mentioned in the channel, but in fact, as of today, agreements have already been made with five, and it’s not impossible that more will appear. You can read about the speakers and the topics of the presentations in the organizers’ channel or download the conference program.

I want to separately note that although the venue is Moscow, the conference organizer is the Tea Club. As we know, no network organization in Russia can claim federal status until it conquers the capital; this is especially evident in supermarket chains or, say, restaurants. So, I am watching this bold bid by the St. Petersburg club with great interest, because in this way, they might eventually reach me in the provinces. I hope they manage to organize a decent recording this time, and if you send them some donations, the chances of this increase. Donation details are provided in the same place, in the announcement on the club’s channel.

Mechanics of Freedom, Part 2, Chapters 3-4

I am posting the translation of two more chapters “The Machinery of Freedom” by David Friedman, dedicated to the criticism and constructive proposals for the reform of universities (spoiler: universities are being “Uberized,” although, of course, such a word had not yet been invented in the seventies of the last century).

I also slightly revised the numbering structure of the chapters in the second part of the book, as previously my epigraph had the number 2-1, as if it were a separate chapter. Now it is page 2-0.

So.
Chapter 3. The Unsolvable Problem of Universities
Chapter 4. Adam Smith’s University