The institute of superherosim already exists, albeit without any special effects. Take William Browder, for instance: offended that the RF killed his employee, he put on some cool gear and went to the lobbyists, ultimately punishing those who violated the NAP with the Magnitsky list. Mikhail Khodorkovsky put on cool gear and began funding the investigation into the murder of his employees in the CAR, and is also creating his own Shevchenko list. Alexander Litreev put on cool gear, flies around at night and deanonymizes shameful cops along with the Rosgvardiya officers who joined them.
Given how poorly the state functions in investigating certain incidents, we cannot guarantee that superheroes are not already operating in the field of direct physical punishment of NAP violators. For example, recently some owner of an award firearm for merits in the annexation of Crimea carelessly scratched himself with it. Let’s laugh at the safety regulation violator; let the superhero remain off-camera. Secret submarines, of course, also sink without any participation from superheroes.
Naturally, once the main enemy of any superhero—the state—is defeated, he will be able to turn his attention to the struggle against smaller bandits. It will be easier for him; he may even be able to afford to unobtrusively appear on camera in his cool gear from time to time, because the fear of retribution is a crucial element of the deterrence doctrine.
For a long time, it was believed that the state is a natural and even god-given condition of society. Later, the roots of the state were traced back to some mythical social contract, or to the immutable laws of economic development. However, modern historical and anthropological data show that all or practically all states are the result of the conquest of a peaceful stateless society by an external enemy—usually a relatively small number of nomadic bandits who were lucky enough not only to carry out a successful raid but also to establish their permanent power over the conquered society. This is the so-called stationary bandit theory, proposed by economist Mancur Olson.
Old pre-state practices of interaction in society have not disappeared; they still work and are perfectly compatible with modern high technologies. The abolition of the state will only free people, and in order to continue living a free and peaceful life, they simply need to avoid attempting to recreate a regime of political power anew.
Introduction
Much has been discussed regarding the origin of the state, and several clever theories have been devised on the subject. Before presenting one of them, I would like to understand the purpose of such studies.
Why is a theory of the origin of the state needed at all? This is a simple question. A theory is needed to base one’s actions upon it and to examine new facts from its perspective. But for actions based on a theory to be successful, the theory must be functional. A functional theory, first, is capable of explaining existing facts no worse than other theories. Second, it must explain a series of facts that do not fit into previously created theories; otherwise, why invent it at all if the old ones managed? Third, a theory can be used to predict new facts. If the facts predicted by the theory are actually established, this is strong evidence that the theory is functional.
Divine Right
The oldest and most venerable theory of the origin of the state was the theory of divine right, according to which the person who became the head of the state did so by divine will. Additionally, this person could be a god themselves. The theory aligned perfectly with the prevailing views of the time that gods generally determine the fates of people: reasoning purely logically, rulers in this case had to be declared either rivals of the gods or executors of their will. The theory had the flaw that it only explained the past and predicted no new facts. Any usurpation of power within the framework of the divine theory came as a complete surprise, and thereafter one had to search for traces of providence on the brow of the new ruler. Furthermore, the model of distribution of power inherent in polis democracies was completely inconsistent with this theory.
For what purpose was this theory actively promoted? To reduce the costs of suppressing people’s resistance to the ruler’s power. It is difficult to argue with divine authority if the deity is responsible not only for the figure of the ruler but also, for example, for the harvest. However, this could also become an inconvenience for rulers, as crop failures became evidence of the gods’ punishment and a sign that the ruler ought to be overthrown.
Social Contract
The next theory of the origin of the state was the social contract theory. The idea is that in a state of nature, there is a war of all against all, and to end this war, a certain government is established to regulate violence. Obviously, even the founding fathers of the theory did not explicitly state that people gathered in a meadow and agreed to establish a state. It was only said that people behave toward the state as if they had agreed to its establishment.
This theory explained both the states that the divine right theory explained, as well as polis democracies, the Roman Republic, and the like. A logical consequence of the social contract theory was the consideration that if people once established a certain form of government, nothing prevents them from repeating this once the current form ceases to satisfy them. This consequence is explicitly contained in the US Declaration of Independence, and indeed, the USA became a vivid example of the practical application of the social contract theory.
A serious flaw of the theory is that it is based on the rather dubious assertion that a war of all against all is an indispensable attribute of the state of nature. Anthropological research has shown that this assertion does not correspond to reality, and that relations of cooperation precede the appearance of power relations in human communities. Thus, the assertion about the voluntary nature of such an institution as the state turns out to be baseless—no less baseless than the assertion of the divine right of kings to the throne.
Class Theory
Class theory
takes into account the views on anthropology
of the 19th century and one of the directions of political economy
of the same time. The theory indicates that
the state arises as an inevitable
consequence of economic stratification,
which, in turn, is
an inevitable consequence of increased
labor productivity and, accordingly,
the accumulation of surpluses. The state within
the framework of class theory is
an instrument of oppression of subordinate
classes by the ruling class.
Thus, for the first time
in the history of views on the mechanisms
of state formation, it is pointed out
that the state is fundamentally
antagonistic to the vast majority of the
population, and must be abolished.
This is a major plus of class theory,
explaining many observed
facts of people’s oppression by representatives
of power, which both previous
theories failed to handle.
The downside of class theory was that it was based on the labor theory of value, the theory of exploitation, and similar premises later rejected by economic science. Meanwhile, these false premises dictated to the adherents of class theory methods of opposing the state that only reinforced its repressive nature. Many political regimes established by adherents of class theory attest to this: all of them led only to widespread repressions among the population and usually ended in economic collapse.
Thus, although the state is indeed an enemy of its own people, it was not formed through economic actions; therefore, the path to the abolition of the state does not lie through the abolition of natural economic mechanisms.
Stationary
Bandit Theory
When it became clear that the state is not formed through economic oppression but by means of pure violence, a theory was proposed in the 20th century which asserted that the state arose from the confrontation between peaceful sedentary producers and nomads, who preferred to practice looting as a means of increasing their wealth. As long as sedentary residents successfully resisted raids, the bandit remained nomadic. As soon as they weakened, the nomads imposed a regular tribute on them, and then gradually strengthened their power, establishing rules for the taxable population that allowed them to maximize tribute and minimize the population’s opportunities for rebellion. In particular, the divine right of the conquerors to exercise their power over the captured was proclaimed for this purpose.
This theory explained
many historical examples where
the state arose specifically as a result
of external capture, after which the former
nomads became the hereditary
nobility of the people formed in this way.
The theory also asserted
that for the conquered, in a number of cases,
the presence of one stationary bandit
turned out to be more beneficial than a situation
in which they were surrounded by many
nomads who did not limit
their violence in any way. Thus, the famous legend
about the calling of the Varangians to bring
order among the Slavs and rule them fully
corresponds to this conclusion from the
stationary bandit theory. To some extent,
such a mechanism of conditionally voluntary
acceptance of the state converges with the
social contract theory.
However, although for many
it is more beneficial to fall into slavery than to perish,
this does not rehabilitate the slave owner,
for were he not to exist at all, there would be no
reason to choose between death and
slavery when one could remain
free. Thus, even with the caveat that the stationary
bandit could turn out to be more beneficial for peaceful
residents than the nomadic one (and could not be),
this in no way
indicates the undesirability of completely
getting rid of the bandit.
The Great Fiction
A small number of conquerors are unable to maintain their power over the conquered for a long time if their power rests only on the threat of violence. Or, in the words of Talleyrand, bayonets are good for everything except one thing: you cannot sit on them. The longest-term project of purely forceful retention of power in the history known to us is Lacedaemon, better known by the name of its capital, Sparta. The citizens of Sparta collectively owned helots—residents of the areas of Hellas they had conquered—for approximately five hundred years. By the end of this period, the Spartans simply ran out physically, and their state ceased to exist.
Thus, in order for the stationary bandit to maintain his dominance over the conquered for a longer period, he needed his rule to be based not only on the fear of violence, but to some extent on the consent of the governed (hello again to the social contract theory). In different cases, this consent was ensured by different means, but usually to obtain such consent, conquerors shared their power in measured doses. This expanded their social base. The limit of the development of this mechanism can be called modern social democracies. Economist Frédéric Bastiat called such a state a great fiction, in which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone. The oppressed and the oppressors have mixed to the point of indistinguishability; no one can say exactly how much they pay the state and how much they receive from it—in short, the modern state becomes like a sort of sadomasochistic orgy, where even those who do not experience particular pleasure are forced to simulate it so as not to stress other participants, because such are the rules of the game.
What to do?
First of all, you must
stop pretending that you are
enjoying the orgy. Violence for the purpose
of profit is not only immoral
but also unprofitable. The level of productive
forces (hello to class theory!) has
already grown so much that peaceful cooperation
ensures a much faster and
more stable increase in prosperity
than looting. You can continue to support
such rules of the game in which the state
will forcefully provide you with preferences at
the expense of others, but the state will just as
surely provide others with preferences at the expense
of you. Cooperation turns out
to be more beneficial and predictable, and market
competition is safer than war, even if
you are stronger than your competitors.
And when you stop
relying on the state, you will
undoubtedly develop a desire to stop
sharing your resources with the bandit.
There are many recipes for this,
which work for many particular
cases, and your creative thought, of course,
will allow you to select methods
relevant specifically to you.
Finally, your urges
to get rid of the state will prove
much more effective if they are supported
by others. Therefore, it is in your interests to sow
distrust of the bandit in minds and ridicule
the readiness to support him without protest.
Everyone who evades taxes becomes your ally. Everyone who took a bit of property from the state and kept it for themselves is your potential ally, for they weaken the state, which means you too can snatch something. The state is a stationary bandit, and you are mobile, so it is high time to become that very nomad who is perfectly adapted to crushing such stationary constructions. In this way, you will set history in a spiral (hello to dialectical materialism!) and lead humanity to a new level of development.
The title looks very strange, doesn’t it? One would think that the idea of national sovereignty originates from the Peace of Westphalia, when after the Thirty Years’ War it was decided that each ruler is sovereign in their own territory and manages their own internal affairs, and neighbors should have nothing to do with it. It was the Peace of Westphalia that gave birth to the modern type of state with its territorial monopoly.
However, by the nineteenth century, the idea of the ruler’s sovereignty evolved into the idea of the nation’s sovereignty, as the power of rulers was no longer associated with divine right and was forced to justify itself through the will of the people. For the sake of the nation’s greatness, it became convenient to wage wars far bloodier than some unfortunate Thirty Years’ War. God fought on the side of the larger battalions; nation-states diligently expanded, acquired colonies—and the world, in general, was moving toward being divided among a handful of countries, which were then to clash in a final and decisive battle, where a global hegemon would be determined and a single world power would be formed. At least, if the free market promoted the formation of monopolies, that is exactly what would have happened. But instead, the First World War led to the collapse of four continental empires, and after the Second World War, colonies began to break away from all the other great powers.
The UN has already officially enshrined the equal status of all countries, and the principle of territorial sovereignty was officially supplemented by the directly contradictory principle of a nation’s right to self-determination. In essence, this cheapened the Westphalian principles, and since then, the number of countries in the world has continued to increase. Also, the good old traditions of invasions for the sake of establishing progressive orders have returned to the world stage, replacing the religious wars that are not particularly relevant today.
There are still far more ethnicities in the world than states, so countries may continue to break apart along ethnic lines for quite some time. At the same time, the incentive for people to separate is not ethnic differences as such, but primarily differences in cultures. But there are even more cultural communities than ethnicities; they arise and mutate constantly.
The ease of movement of people, goods, money, and information leads to the fact that any territorial borders are becoming increasingly permeable, and their very existence is becoming less meaningful.
It is not yet clear how soon and as a result of what chain of events the notion of the right of cultures to self-determination will become mainstream, as previously happened with nations. Purely logically, there are no grounds by which a certain group of people, chosen by a more or less arbitrary criterion, has a right to sovereignty, while another group of people or even a single person does not.
This question is discussed in quite some detail in Rothbard’s “The Ethics of Liberty”; I will allow myself a small quote from it:
A more serious question can be asked: does the adherent of the laissez-faire doctrine recognize the right of a region of a country to secede from the country? Is it lawful for West Ruritania to secede from Ruritania? If not, why? And if so, then what could be the logical conclusion of the division of countries? Could not a small district secede, then a city and part of that city, then a residential block, and finally, a specific individual? Recognizing any right to secede in the absence of its logical conclusion, limiting the right to individual secession—which logically limits anarchism—will lead to individuals being able to secede from the state and hire their own protective agencies, and the state will collapse.
Thus, a clear trajectory for the development of social relations emerges: from the sovereignty of personalities over subjects, through the sovereignty of increasingly smaller groups, to the sovereignty of each individual personality, with the complete eradication of the very category of subjecthood. And if once only a few hundred people in the entire world could claim that “I am the state,” then in the foreseeable future, every person will be able to say this of themselves with full right.
I think I am cosmopolitan enough not to fixate on the RF: any state is unpleasant in any of its active manifestations. As I have already written, it seems to me that building an ancap society in a country where there is already quite little state and already exists a tradition of respect for private property and entrepreneurial initiative is significantly easier than where none of this exists. Building an ancap society as an immigrant is a more natural pursuit: for immigrants, it is natural to view the state as something incomprehensible and hostile, something to be avoided as much as possible. So, of course, I would like to move to some relatively free country and act there.
As a counterexample to such an approach, people usually cite modern Western feminists who fight for trivialities—in the opinion of many—while being completely unperturbed by the violation of women’s rights in, say, Arab countries. Yes, I would also prefer to dismantle Russia rather than Turkmenistan, and Georgia rather than Russia. An ancap society might grow from the ruins of a conditional Venezuela, but it would have to grow out of such shit that going there at that time would require one to be either a martyr or a god-given entrepreneur. Quite different is a carefully dismantled state in an already decent society. No aesthetics of the “wild nineties” for you; everything is free and with dignity.
In Russia now, among the protesters, the reverence for the law takes on a completely religious character. Yes, we know the laws are shit, but for the sake of saving our souls, we will follow them to the last letter; and if the authorities themselves violate their own laws, we will sue them in their own court, lose in three instances, and win in the ECHR. I admire the optimism and consistency of these guys. I myself am too impatient to mow the lawn of democracy for two hundred years only to end up with a social-democratic society, and then wonder what to do with such a deeply rooted state. Reverence for the law can be both good and bad. Better to have reverence for property rights and intolerance towards violations of such rights, even if it means violating current laws.
For me, the indicator of the success of civil society is not the size of rallies, not the number of opposition deputies in parliaments, and not the regular change of heads of state—but a reduction of the state budget by at least ten percent a year while people’s wealth grows at even more significant rates. In this regard, Georgia seems quite promising to me: the sprouts of freedom have taken root well here, the state is quite weak, and there is not much interference in earning money under the table.
Tomorrow I am gradually heading toward Russia, but I will definitely return here, and quite possibly for a long time.
This morning I discovered something terrible: in a drunken haze last night, I had lost my wallet, which contained all my cash reserves and my bank card.
Alone. In a foreign country. One with which Russia doesn’t even have diplomatic relations.
Naturally, I had plenty of options.
Get married urgently and stay in Georgia
Walk home on foot, racing against a Yakut shaman
Organize a meet-and-greet with readers in Batumi and ask for a loan
Learn the phrase “madam, monsieur, I haven’t eaten for six days” in Georgian
But instead, I started investigating whether there were any crypto ATMs in Batumi. I found only one, but that was all I needed. From there, it was just a matter of technique.
Approach the crypto ATM
Tap the screen, the menu appears, select Withdraw Cash
Select the desired currency, which in my case definitely means Bitcoin
Check the rate, select the amount
The crypto ATM generates a QR code, the code is scanned by a bitcoin wallet on a smartphone, an outgoing transaction is created; you need to choose a higher fee so that the bits arrive quickly, otherwise you’ll be stuck waiting in front of the crypto ATM for a long time.
Then the crypto ATM prints a receipt with a certain redemption code and a notification that cash can be claimed after the first transaction confirmation. When the confirmation arrives, you can go back to the crypto ATM again.
Enter that same redemption code
And that’s it, the crypto ATM dispenses the coveted cash
That’s how I played the part of a blacklisted extremist, and consequently, someone without access to banking services. As is easy to see, Bitcoin is a great help in such extreme situations.
Value the freedom of maneuver that cryptocurrencies grant us! This is exactly what they were designed for.
Hooray, we did it! The most anticipated video of this summer has been released on the Libertarian Band channel, where I tried to explain panarchy in the simplest terms possible.
Panarchy for Grandmothers
In my opinion, this is the most successful of my scripts so far, and all the other project participants did a great job.
A bit of behind-the-scenes
In the spring, the team from this channel, with whom I had previously had sporadic experience collaborating, approached me with a request to write a script for a video so they could hold auditions for a new host. I decided that since all sorts of people would be auditioning, the text should be as simple as possible and aimed at the widest audience—an introduction to libertarianism. That’s how the script for “Libertarianism for Grandmothers” came about. During the auditions, they went through about five people, and as a result, the channel got a wonderful new face—Anton. Of course, it’s a bit a pity that the girl didn’t pass the casting; it would have been easier for me to prepare scripts for her, but I really like how it turned out.
Libertarianism for Grandmothers
The video spread quite well across various public pages and has received over 1,700 views to date, which already exceeds the audience of my own Telegram channel.
Then Bitarch approached me and suggested creating something equally accessible, but about panarchy. I had to disappoint him and reply that I wanted to create a cycle linked by the internal logic of the narrative, and the next one would be a description of minarchism. The video was released relatively recently, but for a reason I don’t understand, it wasn’t received as favorably by the audience. This is a bit strange because, on one hand, the entire agenda of the Libertarian Party in our country today is based on a minarchist platform, and on the other hand, the LP has never once explained its platform in video format, so the video on minarchism is almost the first of its kind. Please share it if you find it useful.
Minarchism for Grandmothers
Now the long-awaited panarchy is out. Following panarchy, there should be a “for grandmothers” description of such an interesting strategy as agorism. The text is already ready; all that’s left is to film and edit. There are many other interesting things planned, so please subscribe to Libertarian Band and recommend the channel to your friends.
Detailed question from Zanudny (not backed by any donations, but it’s always better to give a bore what they want without dragging it out too much)
In the event of abandoning the territorial principle, how will relations between two sovereign entities not linked by any ECU/FPCU, etc., be regulated?
Let’s imagine a statistically realistic situation under conditions of competition among sovereign jurisdictions for territory. Those that establish mandatory laws for citizens (but not for all people in general, including stateless persons, as existing states do for the “human and citizen”). Since they are contractual, not all residents will enter into the proposed agreements. If sovereign jurisdictions are extraterritorial, then opportunists cannot be driven away. Who can convict them and under what laws, if they do not create their own LJ? What will protect citizens from the arbitrariness of “stateless persons,” including violence, if they are not separated territorially and there are no zones of responsibility? What will protect the opportunists themselves from violence by individual “citizens”?
Please note, I am not considering non-recognition or conflict between jurisdictions here. If there are no common rules of the game and no higher authority, looking at history, this seems inevitable. Nor is this a question about the dictate of a local majority, although in the absence of claims to territory, claims to benefits will remain (otherwise there would be no private property). This will not necessarily trigger the “market,” because even entering into trade relations is a contract, and we are talking about sovereign jurisdictions that may autarkize for the sake of security or create a monopoly. The question is: what will guarantee the freedoms of those who would simply like to leave (or even stay) in a given territory without recognizing the legal system of their neighbors, in the event of a conflict, if they have no “protection” behind them?
Answer from Ancap-chan
The questions are getting longer. On one hand, this shows that people are absorbing the previous material. On the other—posts are stopping fitting into the Telegram channel format. Oh well, to hell with the format, I’m used to it.
So, in a certain territory, there are several contractual jurisdictions, as well as a number of individuals who couldn’t care less about all these jurisdictions and do not want to join any of them. This is quite logical, because what is a jurisdiction for? To resolve conflicts with other people using some kind of mediator. But the vast majority of conflicts are perfectly settled without any mediator! How many of you have had to sue someone even once in your life? At the same time, people constantly find themselves in the zone of influence of someone else’s rules. If these rules are known to them in advance and they agree with them, the rules are usually obeyed. If the rules are unknown in advance, people behave as they are used to, and then they are told that there is a different order here, and they adjust their behavior accordingly. If the rules are known and people disagree with them, they try to bypass the rules, sabotage them directly, or obey them but with visible reluctance.
As I have already written, panarchy is an unstable transitional state from territorial monopoly jurisdictions to pure ancap. You are touching upon the problem of how people for whom ancap has already arrived should behave toward those who still have panarchy in their heads. And that’s exactly how they should behave: according to ancap. As long as everything is settled amicably, live as good neighbors. When it stops being settled, organize a movement in your support, with or without the participation of hired professionals.
The most important thing for the unstable situation of panarchy to shift toward ancap, rather than toward the good old territorial monopolists, is the absence of demand for uniform rules, a single order, or a higher decision-making body. On one side of the scale, we have the maximization of convenience—everyone wants rules to be adapted to their ideas of what is right. On the other side will be the desire to save mental effort. It is easier to remember uniform rules than to keep different options in mind.
Thus, the simpler the set of regulations, the more likely it is to become nearly universal. The more complex it is, the greater the chance it will remain purely niche. In a simplified explanation, all libertarian theory boils down to one or two principles. Indeed, based on the bare principles of self-ownership and non-aggression, one can interact superficially with almost anyone, but for various highly specialized legal issues, more substantial codes, longer than a single page, will be required. Fortunately, they will not be needed by everyone and not very often.
So let’s drink to the right scale continuing to outweigh!
Yes, a panarchist structure of power will most likely be freer than a centralized one. But the ideas of panarchy resemble a tool for state or social organization more. There is nothing in them about traditional libertarian self-ownership, and nothing is clear even regarding the freedom to exit a jurisdiction. Most academic articles acknowledge the need for an additional jurisdiction that ensures the legal capacity of people and their freedom from the oppression of panarchist jurisdictions. Panarchism as a tool could well be used by a quasi-statist regime: transforming the power of oligarchs into actual serfdom jurisdictions where corporate slaves have no right to exit. This results in the classic cyberpunk scenario that sci-fi writers warned about. For real freedom, we still need classic libertarian works: the concept of self-ownership, the NAP, and their political implementation, whether it be ancap or minarchism. And only then, if people need FOCJs, the market will decide. In short, there is no guarantee that panarchy leads to libertarianism, and I see no libertarian value in the idea of FOCJs itself.
One condition is fundamental for the correct functioning of FOCJs: the guarantee of political and economic competition. This means the openness and freedom of markets, specified in the “four freedoms”—the free movement of people, goods, services, and capital—all of which must be protected. At the same time, the political markets of FOCJs must be competitive, meaning that human rights and basic democratic rights must be guaranteed. This includes the right of people to use direct democracy as a tool. Like states, FOCJs will by nature strive to undermine any competition, following their commercial interests by attempting to build cartels or monopolies. This requires the existence of a “competition oversight board” responsible for ensuring compliance with the rules. This body will also regulate the limits of fees for entry contributions and exit penalties.
In other words, this article explicitly acknowledges that what they call “jurisdictions” must exist within a single legal regime. What the authors call “jurisdictions” looks less like jurisdictions in a political-legal sense and more like providers of certain services; their jurisdictional nature lies only in the fact that they obtain the right to “collect taxes.” A libertarian minimal state does not solve the problems the authors propose handing over to FOCJs, but rather the problems that allow FOCJs to exist and function.
Restricting trade is locally beneficial, which is why historically, people who gained power over a jurisdiction began introducing various fees, penalties, fines, and so on. One could say this was only possible because there was no exit from jurisdictions (and there wasn’t). The thing is, every jurisdiction will be interested in restricting exit, which is exactly what is discussed in the area of the FOCJ article excerpt I quoted above. That is why the authors themselves introduce some minarchist or ancap—it doesn’t matter which—body that stands above and before the FOCJ. And this is exactly what libertarians propose to implement. As for the FOCJs—let the free market decide.
Answer from Ancap-chan
You correctly noted the main shortcomings of the idea of functional overlapping competing jurisdictions proposed by Eichenberger and Frey: it is a certain optimization of existing government functionality without eliminating the key flaws of the state and without guarantees that a management system reformed in this way will not revert over time to a level of oppression as high as it is now. The internal protection against abuse in the FOCJ system is not much higher than in modern states.
The advantage of the FOCJ system is not that it offers the best solution, but that it offers a solution implementable within the specific framework of the European Union. In conditions where, due to flaws inherent in this political Frankenstein, one of the largest European economies is already separating from it, a political force that raises FOCJs on its banners has some chance of success. Moreover, FOCJs can be implemented locally first, and only then can the experience be extended to wider territories.
FOCJ is not panarchy. “Competing,” although it starts with the same letter as “contractual,” is not necessarily contractual, meaning there is no talk of voluntary entry into one jurisdiction or another. As a control mechanism, the authors propose good old representative democracy, which forms the corresponding bodies, as well as direct democracy, allowing local decisions to be made at the level of a particular FOCJ. I have written about the flaws of democracy, so I will not repeat myself.
You suggest the option: “first pure ancap, and then let the market decide if FOCJs are needed.” This brings us closer to Nozick’s speculations: let’s imagine we have pure ancap, and now I will demonstrate to you how it will over time transform into an ultra-minimal state without contradicting libertarian principles. Similarly, based on certain assumptions about human nature and what is just, one could probably derive that pure ancap will inevitably mutate over time into panarchy, i.e., a system of FOCJs.
Either way, for such reasoning to become relevant, one must first achieve pure ancap. Meanwhile, both minarchism and panarchy are ways of reducing state oppression that may or may not lead to pure ancap, and putting the cart before the horse here makes sense only as a thought experiment to determine how stable pure ancap is.
The remaining question is whether the FOCJ system can turn into panarchy over time, and whether that would then turn into ancap. If yes, then it makes sense to support it. If not, then it is a dead end, and FOCJ is as much an obstacle for a true ancap as a regular big state.
Here, as with any forecasts, I step onto the shaky ground of conjecture. My conjecture is that it is easier to bring sparkling cleanliness where it isn’t already heavily soiled, than where the initial cleaning requires bringing the waters of Alpheus and Peneus to the Augean stables. Switzerland, Singapore, North Korea, and Somalia are all far from ancap. For pure ancap to appear there, one must, first, abolish the state, and, second, ensure non-state institutions for the protection of private property. Of course, in Somalia it is easier to abolish the state, and in Switzerland it is easier to ensure the protection of private property, so choosing which of these countries is easier to establish ancap in may prove difficult. But comparing North Korea and Singapore, it is quite obvious that building ancap is easier in Singapore: the state is slightly weaker there, and property is much better protected. Likewise, it is sufficiently obvious that building ancap is easier in a Europe built on the basis of FOCJs than in the current European Union.
So I would wish the esteemed authors of the article on FOCJs a swift adoption of their ideas by European politicians. Even if FOCJ is not libertarianism, with FOCJ, libertarianism has a better chance.
Let Reiner and Bruno dig the canal, and we will come through with the broom afterward.
I won’t venture to judge the details of another round of protests in Russia that took place yesterday, but I am glad that it has increased in size, and it seems to me that either people have learned how to avoid detention, or the Moscow authorities are no longer daring to be so fierce. Either way, there are fewer detainees than a week ago, and no particularly mass cruelty is visible in the photos.
In Georgia, everyone I talk to, upon learning that I am from Russia, immediately asks what is happening in Moscow, from which it can be concluded that in the information space, the protest has long since overcome local boundaries. Moreover, this cannot be attributed to biased coverage of the situation by Georgian media: I was asked questions by tourists from Turkey, Romania, and the Netherlands. I should also note that I am not at some political conference here—all around are carefree vacationers; one would think they wouldn’t care.
Naturally, the sympathy of the global public is on the side of the protesters. However, it is equally on the side of the protesters in Hong Kong, the yellow vests, the Venezuelan opposition, and so on. When volunteers are on one side and salaried employees are on the other, people sympathize with the volunteers. Even regarding the events in Kyrgyzstan, where it seems to be a matter of “the toad and the viper,” the mere fact that people are ready to voluntarily stand up for the former president and fight for him against the authorities already tells people that the government probably shouldn’t have started this whole assault.
I am also constantly assured that I have nothing to fear, that the attitude toward Russians here is still just as friendly. To be honest, this sometimes looks like a mantra for self-convincing. Evidence to the contrary also turns up. I won’t say much, I’ll just provide a few photos.
Suggesting not to feel at home
Ruining good drawings because of the author’s Russian language
But there are also statements that any Russian patriot would sign
I don’t need to answer at length here, because the “Antistate” channel did it for me in a post titled “Why Panarchy is Ancap”. In general, this is the reason why I, being an ancap, write quite a lot about panarchy.
To what is stated in the article, I can only add the following consideration. Panarchy as a system where everyone is under their own governments, but governments compete for citizens, and entry and exit are free, is an unstable state of society. Quite quickly, a significant number of people will accumulate who have not entered into client agreements with any governments at all. They cannot be forced to go under someone’s wing; all that remains is to try to sell them some services. Thus, panarchy will gradually become pure ancap for many, where absolutely all goods and services are offered on a free competitive market. I would say that this could lead to the development of government service aggregators, where everyone can pick an option for themselves, or perhaps do without it entirely.
