Автор: Анкап-тян

Evaluate the idea for the privatization of land

Alexey Data Engineer

Hello. I am interested in your opinion.

The Problem

During land privatization, the right to choose is curtailed due to a lack of knowledge. And the consequences of this ignorance are often irreparable.

The Idea

All state land should be returned to the citizens, and its disposal should reflect the democratic nature of the state.

The Motive

If 3,155,372,300 hectares are divided among every citizen in the RF, it results in 21.84 hectares per person. At a market value of 1 million rubles per hectare, each of us is a potential millionaire. Unfortunately, the voucher privatization model proved itself unsuccessful, therefore I consider the above-described reform the optimal way to bring the market into solving the problem.

The Solution

Technological progress allows us, unlike in ancient times, to automate processes. Many things that were unavailable to the ancients are now possible.

All RF land can be divided into minimal squares (1 sq.m). Every citizen of the RF receives a proportional share of every square for life, without the right of resale, but with the right of temporary transfer under contractual terms.

Legislative Part

  • Everyone has their own share in every square meter of Russia, giving them the right to dispose of it.
  • Until all owners of the meter (Russians) have granted the right of specific land use to a User, the User has no right to carry out its specific use.
    • For example, if you want to build a factory, you must obtain the right to build a factory from all current owners of the leased land.
  • Upon the death of a landowner, their land is distributed according to a will, or in its absence, to blood relatives. If there are no heirs, the shares are evenly distributed among all citizens.
  • The land of incapacitated citizens is under the trust management of every citizen; rental income goes toward benefits for incapacitated citizens, and a percentage is paid to the manager as a reward for quality management.
  • If a person obtains citizenship, they must pay the market price and buy out a proportional share from ALL citizens. This allows them to become a full citizen with the right to dispose of and grant rights to use the land.
  • Budget funds are spent only on maintaining the blockchain that stores the data.
  • Costs and lease agreements are also stored in the blockchain to solve the problem of citizens’ incomplete awareness of the real price.
  • No tax is levied for owning such land, as all people possess equal rights.
  • Land that was in private ownership prior to privatization remains private.

Consequences

Since land that is closer to a person is more valuable to them, companies will emerge that implement trust management of irrelevant land.

The process will create a huge number of jobs and contract templates, allowing interested people to negotiate and lease land from others.

Environmentalists can hinder the construction of factories without an expertise agreement; factories can hinder environmentalists in the exercise of their domestic disposal of lands.

And other market fantasies.

Answer from Ancap-chan

I’ll start with the simplest. Of course, there is not the slightest sense in keeping a land registry in a blockchain. The whole point of a distributed public ledger is to eliminate the need for trusted intermediaries. But if the land use mechanism includes the possibility of forced alienation of land or deprivation of management rights due to incapacity, then the corresponding entries in the blockchain would have to be made by certain persons with admin privileges. That’s it, the blockchain can be thrown away; the optimal solution here would be a regular centralized database. Errors in the database are inevitable, but they can be corrected through various appeal mechanisms.

Now let’s move to something more complex. The proposed mechanism assumes that there will be two land registries in the country simultaneously, and land will circulate within two fundamentally different mechanisms. The part of the land that will be in private ownership at the time of the aforementioned “privatization” (it would be more appropriate to call this procedure socialization, instead) will remain private. A contract between the seller and the buyer would be sufficient for its sale; in other words, the land will be quite liquid. Suppose that by hour X, such land in the RF will be 10%, and the remaining 90% of land belonging to the state will be in the shared ownership of all 140-something million citizens of Russia. The circulation of this socialized land will be extremely difficult, because it will be impossible to buy; only leasing for a specific project will remain, and this project must be approved by the consensus of all owners.

Thus, the legal turnover of socialized land will be completely frozen, and private land, due to the simplicity of its legal use, will immediately skyrocket in price. Judge for yourself. I want to build a factory. The construction cost is 100 million dollars plus the price of one hectare of land. If I build on socialized land, I will have to conclude an agreement with each of the 100 million disposers (counting only the capable ones who will manage the property of their wards). Suppose, with the help of arch-effective means of communication and persuasion, I manage to conclude this agreement in just one year at a price of just one dollar per vote. In total, we have an estimate: 200 million dollars and a year of time to buy construction permission. Alternative: one month of negotiations with a single owner, and I buy one hectare of land from him for just 50 million dollars. Voila: I save time and money, so I won’t even attempt the legal use of socialized land.

On the other hand, I can always carry out a land grab of this very land and use it quite peacefully. Who can stop me? Only the nearest neighbors, who would themselves not mind using this plot. I will share some money with them so they close their eyes to this. I will also share with the land inspector so that on paper the land continues to remain unoccupied. Voila, I build a factory, spending a measly million dollars on bribes and the same month of time.

Such land grabbing will take on a massive and uncontrolled character, because due to the tragedy of the commons, no one will be interested in doing things the long and expensive way if it can be done quickly and cheaply. The doctrine of deterrence will be applied to the most obtuse opponents.

So, the draconian regulation mechanism that was proposed will lead to the emergence of a very expensive white land market and a very massive black one. As we know from history, the prevalence of a black market sooner or later leads to its legalization. This happened in Great Britain, this happened in the USA, this happened in the USSR—yes, it happened in many places—and there is no reason to believe that this case will be an exception.

And what if you have to negotiate with every Russian not about building a factory, but about building a private house?

A barrier on the road to slavery: a dead end or a detour?

Ancap-tyan, Bitarch

At the “Constitution of Freedom” conference held on June 1 in Moscow, “Constitution of Freedom”, British economist John Meadowcroft gave a presentation titled “Is there a road to serfdom? A public choice analysis of Hayek’s most famous work”. The lecture was based on his joint article with André Alves, “Hayek’s Slippery Slope, the Stability of the Mixed Economy and the Dynamics of Rent Seeking”, published in 2014 in the journal Political Studies.

Meadowcroft analyzes the prediction formulated by Hayek in his famous political pamphlet “The Road to Serfdom” and shows that the prediction turned out to be incorrect: not only is minarchism unstable, but so is totalitarianism, whereas a mixed economy actually is stable. Using rich material, he demonstrates that today, the conditional norm is approximately 40-50% of GDP redistributed by the state. States that redistribute less strive to redistribute more, in full accordance with Hayek’s logic, while states that redistribute more face serious market inefficiency and social discontent—and after some time return to a stable state. Moreover, developed states that have reached this norm today confidently hold high positions in economic and political freedom rankings.

On June 13, Ved Neumann released a review in which he explained the phenomenon described by Meadowcroft through the hypothesis that the modern state is a form of secular religion. According to Ved, this explains, for example, why the stability of the welfare state is paradoxically provided by its opacity. Further, Ved predicts that the transparency brought about by the information revolution will indeed make this religion marginal, and the modern welfare state will not be able to survive this, being replaced by panarchy.

However, it makes sense to question the very thesis that the state stops expanding once it reaches a certain level of redistribution. Yes, it is true that direct levies cause discontent, and direct monopoly management of the economy undermines the foundation of economic growth. But in addition to the tax burden, there is also the regulatory burden, and many business representatives note that it can hinder work almost even more.

At the same time, by strengthening regulations, the state may even decrease the share of its presence in the economy. For example, with a single education standard and a single state exam, the state can boldly abandon the maintenance of schools: private schools will still be forced to engage in the same brainwashing, as the auditing authorities will demand of them. At the same time, it is unlikely that such a state of affairs will negatively affect the country’s position in freedom rankings—since ranking calculations evaluate access to education, not its content or the freedom to choose subjects.

State standards in many other sectors, from medicine to trade, or, for instance, vehicle technical inspections, can work in a similar way. All certification procedures can be extremely transparent and completely free of corruption (this is precisely what fundamentally distinguishes the first world from the third), but even the most pleasant packaging will only mask the continued movement along the same road described by Hayek.

So, the arrival of new transparency may not kill that very secular religion, but only lead to its reformation. Therefore, we would be better off assuming that no panarchy will build itself, and continuing our regular sermons.

John Meadowcroft

Why is it so important to sell bitcoins for cash, rather than for transfers to a card?

Or—what are the risks of sending bitcoin to a personal card? Because all I hear from everyone is that it should only be cash. Are there real cases where sending to a card led to bad consequences? Does it depend on the amount or other circumstances?

анонимный вопрос

The most direct way to exchange bitcoin for fiat is to sit down together, agree on a deal, then the fiat amount is placed on the table, the bitcoin seller transfers them to the buyer, the parties wait for the first confirmation, after which the seller takes the fiat from the table and puts it in their pocket.

The main inconvenience with this type of deal is the need for very serious trust in the buyer. Nothing stops the cash owner from pulling out a gun after the transaction is complete and demanding their cash back, as well as the private keys to the bitcoin wallet. Using bank transfers instead of cash at least allows you to avoid meeting in person. Therefore, a service such as localbitcoins has gained considerable popularity.

The essence of exchanging through this service is that the parties trust the service itself rather than each other. One party publishes an ad, the second responds to it, after which the seller’s bitcoins (previously transferred to an online wallet belonging to the service) are frozen. When the bank transfer is received from the buyer, the seller notifies the service, and the service transfers the bitcoins to the buyer. If a conflict arises, the service acts as a judge (so-called escrow), requires proof of money transfer and proof of non-receipt on the account from the parties, after which it makes a decision in favor of one of the parties.

From the bank’s point of view, it is a transfer from one individual to another individual. The bank knows nothing about any bitcoins. Reversing such a transfer is practically impossible. Of course, as part of the fight against money laundering, the bank may freeze the transfer, but that is the buyer’s problem—they will not receive the bitcoins, the frozen amount will simply return to the seller, and the seller can make another attempt.

Localbitcoins is a large international service that is good because it allows you to obtain fiat money from any country, wherever you are. But specifically in Russia, I personally find it more convenient to use a Telegram bot with completely identical functionality (I have already advertised it here).

In any such service, there is also the option to buy bitcoin for cash. I haven’t used it myself because the rate is usually much less favorable. Remotely, this is done by topping up the bitcoin seller’s card with cash at an ATM. This method provides the greatest security for buying bitcoins, as the buyer’s personal data does not reach any bank. As for the seller, they don’t care; the fiat still ends up in a bank account.

Bitcoins can also be bought for cash in crypto ATMs, but selling them for fiat in this way is not yet possible. As Lightning is implemented, crypto ATMs with the ability to operate in both directions will likely enter the market.

To summarize. Buying bitcoins for cash is indeed a way to ensure additional anonymity. Selling bitcoins for cash carries the same risks at best, and even more serious ones at worst. As long as your sales volume is small, receiving fiat on a bank card is the most reliable way to protect yourself. When volumes grow, you can accept fiat on cards from different banks. If they grow even further—try using strawmen.

And for the most paranoid, I want to recommend an article from a very peculiar channel Cryptoagora, where even more curious ways of ensuring anonymity when working with fiat are detailed.

Golunov as a white swan

Journalist Ivan Golunov spent his time demonstrating to his readers how uglily the Russian state operates. He wasn’t very successful: even among the liberal public, many knew neither his name nor, more importantly, what he wrote about.

Later, however, he himself became a living illustration of how uglily the Russian state operates, and it was so vivid that it required no special investigations. After all, who in Russia doesn’t know that cops can plant, and regularly do plant, banned substances on anyone, either to make quick money or to pad their stats. Nevertheless, the stars aligned in the right way, and Golunov became a global celebrity.

Golunov was printed in newspapers, Golunov was printed on T-shirts, Golunov was printed on posters, people went to pickets across the country with Golunov’s name—and the regime wavered. Golunov was released.

That’s it, it’s over, Golunov did his part, and now, as one ancient Greek recommended to another, he could even die, for he can become no greater. Instead, Golunov opened his mouth and immediately caused frustration among those who had fought so hard for his release, because he recommended that everyone breathe out and calm down.

Calm down? What calm down? The regime wavered; at the very least, Article 228 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation is under attack. Crush it, damn it!

Crush it, damn it!

And the Muscovites went to crush it. Peacefully, civilly, on a holiday. The regime took the bait, and instead of one Golunov, we now have more than four hundred Golunovs.

Excellent, now we need twice as many people to take to the streets tomorrow, even though it’s no longer a holiday, and continue the fun. The Yekaterinburg protest blazed a trail; all that’s left is to repeat it in Moscow. Only increase the numbers, and with each day—new demands. Otherwise, it doesn’t work. Today they demanded the repeal of Article 228, tomorrow they can add the demand to dissolve the Rosgvardia, then activists from the regions will flock to Moscow, and after a month of escalation, Putin will flee to Donetsk via Crimea.

But unfortunately, most likely, none of this will happen. Golunov will not become a black swan for the regime. Simply, of the four hundred detainees, three hundred will receive fines and pay them, assuming that in three years they will sue the Russian budget for compensation through the ECHR. Cosmetic changes will be made to Article 228 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, slightly reducing the sentences and changing, for example, the norm regarding the total weight of the product to a norm regarding the weight of the pure substance. The operatives who planted the bags will be imprisoned. The ones who ordered it will not be touched—you say it yourselves that the police plant drugs constantly, well, Golunov just had bad luck that day, it happens.

Alas, bursts of enthusiasm in Russia are still too short; even successful opportunities do not trigger a chain reaction. For now, the regime reliably controls the situation and is always ready to shove as many control rods into the reactor as necessary. But, as we know, in Russia, even this can sometimes have unforeseen consequences.

Everything is under control

How will new and underdeveloped capitalists emerge under conditions of anarcho-capitalism?

Assuming that an organized crime group (OCG) could appear, engaging in banditry and robbery. As an example, I can provide such a situation: a citizen (territorially, since there is no state as such) decided to grow and sell vegetables and fruits, but in the absence of large starting capital, all his funds go only towards cultivation and care; he cannot afford security, as a result, an OCG with taped-over license plates and masks could drive up to him, and… I can only imagine such a situation: this citizen will sell his goods and services at a special market, where he will pay (tribute/taxes) for its protection. So the question is: how is it possible for a small business to grow under ancap conditions, given that criminal groups will arise that will rob and kill, and who will be interested in catching them?

анонимный вопрос

All growth in human well-being is based on the division of labor and its capitalization. The division of labor increases productivity because each participant in the system of division of labor does what they are more efficient at and does not do what they are less efficient at. The capitalization of labor is, in essence, the same division of labor, but not only among the immediate participants of the production process, but also across time and space. That is, it is not simply “Vasya digs holes, Masha plants seedlings,” but “a factory once produced a shovel somewhere, Vasya bought it, and now he digs holes faster — and Masha plants the seedlings.” A bunch of people participated in the division of labor, this labor is encapsulated in a conventional shovel, and as a result of such a division of labor, productivity in planting increased.

The flip side of the division of labor is that it is not always possible to organize it so that everyone does what they are best at and does not do what they are worst at. A bad manager (and a good locksmith) may end up being the boss of a bad locksmith (and a good manager) simply because of the way things historically unfolded — the career ladder, personal connections, and so on. The larger the business, the greater the probability of such inefficient sections appearing in it, reducing overall productivity. Also, since within one company the relationships between its employees are not market-based, the division of labor and the division of profit in it can differ greatly. These factors are amplified when scaling a business.

Small business is a form of organization with a low level of division of labor and/or a low level of its capitalization. It is effective only in those areas where the negative effect of scale is higher than the positive one. But no one knows in advance and cannot calculate all these effects — market knowledge is dispersed in nature and is acquired only in the course of activity. Therefore, new small enterprises will always be formed and old large ones will collapse.

And now, after a long theoretical preamble, let’s talk about solving the specific problem of protection for small business.

The capitalization of the business is low, so the entrepreneur grows and sells the product himself. Theoretically, he could protect himself from encroachments as well. For example, it is quite conceivable that a person sells the product he grows exclusively to friends and acquaintances, and as a result, simply remains invisible to a potential external aggressor. Trust is also a form of capitalization. A person invests effort into gaining connections, and then uses those connections to safely obtain profit.

Another possibility of using trust to ensure security is associations of small producers. Each invests relatively little in self-defense means (knowingly insufficient for independent protection against a typical gang), but at the moment of attack, combines their efforts with other members of the association and puts up a confident fight. The cry “they’re beating our people!” has been tested by centuries of practice and works splendidly.

A third possibility is also related to an association of producers, but the division of labor is added to it. A village hires seven samurai. No single peasant alone would be able to hire even one.

You described the fourth possibility yourself: producers purchase a safe sale service from the fairground owner.

The fifth possibility is to specialize only in production and sell the grown produce immediately to a wholesaler, who will come, buy, and take the goods away themselves. This is currently actively practiced by small agricultural producers in Russia, but not out of a good life, and often such a buyer is able to ensure a local monopsony, that is, a buyer’s monopoly. In other words, here is the obvious threshold that the division of labor in agricultural production hits: every producer is interested in selling the products personally to the final consumer, without losing money on intermediaries.

Under ancap, several systemic factors that hinder an agricultural producer from contacting the end consumer are abolished. First, in the absence of taxation, costs for accounting and record-keeping in retail sales are sharply reduced. Second, in the absence of urban planning regulation, the possibility of organizing trade in the city is sharply simplified — in essence, it is regulated only by consumer preferences (the consumer themselves, and not an external regulator for them, makes the choice between the cheapness of the product and the quality of service). Third, entrepreneurial initiative to ensure one’s own security is also not restricted by such a systemic factor as the state.

Of course, without a state, entry into the market for small-time bandits will also be simplified. In the example of the much-discussed Somalia, we see that entrepreneurs there have to invest quite a lot in their security, and yet its level remains low. Therefore, not only the relative size of investments in security is important, but also the level of capitalization in this sphere. Institutions that increase trust in society, a developed and diversified labor market providing potential bandits with plenty of opportunities for honest earnings, the purely technological cheapening of security — all these are measures that make the “war of all against all” scenario under ancap less likely.

Work can be done on this already now; there is no need to ask the state for permission.

The specificity of the force market: it is very difficult to understand whether a bandit or a guard is before us. Most likely, both.

What will happen to the channel once you explain all aspects of libertarianism and the questions run out? (meanwhile, I am doing everything possible to make sure they don’t)

…And justice for all

Lately, indeed, interesting new questions have begun to appear less frequently, so soon I will need to devote more attention not to new answers, but to structuring what has already been accumulated. The results of the survey indicate precisely that people wish to see not so much regular fresh posts, but rather a certain new quality.

In general, the long-term goal of the project is the formation of a community of people who have a clear understanding of libertarianism, are ready to convey their ideas to those around them, and arrange their lives in accordance with libertarian principles. So I very much hope that gradually more stories about successful libertarian practices will appear here, and not at the level of “somewhere far away something was done, I read it in a questionable article,” but rather “our readers implemented such-and-such a mechanism and are telling us how they navigated the pitfalls.”

What pleases me is that the view that it is time to work as a team is leading in the survey. Great, let’s expand.

Translators for “The Mechanics of Liberty” are very much needed. A polished literary style is not mandatory; accuracy of work is far more important. I will be editing the submitted text anyway. So, if anyone feels they have the strength and desire to participate in the translation, take any unoccupied chapter—and go for it.

There is quite a high demand for a guide on the promotion of libertarianism, so I will have to pay quite close attention to this. If you have ideas about what the structure of this text should be, please suggest them; it is easier for me to work with a semi-finished product than to invent it from scratch.

As for building a convenient catalog of previously created posts, I think I will create a more detailed category system and move it to a separate page. I hope this will make it easier for you to find something valuable in this mess.

You’ll agree, it looks quite similar to my channel: many useful things very compactly in one place, but in terms of usability, it’s far from a masterpiece.

Apology for Agorism

One often reads that agorism not only fails to help abolish the state but actually directly harms the libertarian movement. The main argument against agorism boils down to the claim that the black market in no way contributes to the disappearance of the state. On the contrary, by reducing the share of legally employed people, the growing black market increases the tax burden on the white market, as well as the number and severity of various inspections. Thus, the competitiveness of the state’s economy declines, people become impoverished, and the poor are prone to socialist views. Therefore, it is respect for the law and civilized political activity that allow for gradual movement toward freedom, while all forms of rebellion only give the state excuses to tighten the screws.

To everyone deeply interested in this issue, I would recommend reading Konkin’s “New Libertarian Manifesto”, as well as the discussion between Konkin and Rothbard regarding this manifesto. And for symmetry, it is worth looking at Rothbard’s “For a New Liberty”, which serves as the manifesto of the Libertarian Party of the USA—although the latter work is significantly more voluminous than the first two.

Both sides presented various interesting arguments in their discussion, which took place in the early eighties of the last century. However, nearly forty years have passed since then, and we can see what has changed in the USA.

The Libertarian Party continues to slowly increase its electoral support, received nearly 5% of the voters’ votes in the 2016 presidential election, and has a few small electoral victories. However, the trend of the USA turning into a socialist state has not been broken; there is incredible monetary emission and an increase in national debt, and the powers of intelligence services are expanding—in short, the state is advancing in full force.

Meanwhile, agorists have invented Bitcoin, are operating full-throttle in the darknet, printing weapons on 3D printers, and mastering biohacking. At the intersection with panarchists, they are launching Bitnation.

And finally, there is the phenomenon of New Hampshire, where agorists and supporters of political methods combined their efforts, even if without much concern for coordinating their actions. Political activists there are actively elected to legislative bodies and engage in deregulation. Meanwhile, agorists organize direct action campaigns to demonstratively violate idiotic laws—and this also sparks public campaigns for their repeal. It is precisely the simultaneous action on two fronts that led to New Hampshire becoming the freest of all fifty states.

A similar tactic is used by the Georgian Girchi party. On one hand, it is a political party; it participates in elections and is ostensibly a legal subject of politics. On the other hand, it is a gang of hardcore agorists who openly grew marijuana right in their central office and then publicly sold joints in the square in the presence of the police. This led to the legalization of marijuana in Georgia. Now they have organized a brothel in their central office—everything points to the fact that sex work will soon be legalized in the country as well. Thus, we see that coordinated actions of politicians and agorists yield an even more effective result than if they worked separately.

Meanwhile, agorism by itself simply slowly delegitimizes the state and increases the share of people who have, more or less, slipped from under its short-sighted eye. And the political process by itself helps broader masses learn the word “libertarianism.” Both are very useful, but neither compares in effect to the joint application of these two recipes—agorism and minarchism. And we have barely seen the implementation of panarchist developments, with their functional contractual jurisdictions. I suspect that an offensive on three fronts at once would be even more effective.

In Russia over the last year, the positions of the Libertarian Party have strengthened quite significantly. I would like the agorists not to lag behind; otherwise, it will be like in Ukraine, whereas I would prefer it to be like in Georgia. The Russian Libertarian Party has its own Rothbard—Mikhail Svetov. All that is left is to find its own Konkin.

the father of world agorism

Poll on channel priorities

Recently, I haven’t had much time for the channel, and many different projects have already been announced. I would like to find out where, in your opinion, I should focus my main efforts.

На чём мне стоит сосредоточить основные усилия?
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Хвататься за всё сразу - рук не хватит. Куда лучше направить усилия в первую очередь? Выбираем один вариант.

Hi, a question about the balance of political and countercultural methods

Since the majority of Russia’s population are “hereditary” statistists with deep subconscious demands for a leftist agenda (I was like that myself, and I’m the one who broke away from it), I believe that ancap cannot be achieved through political methods alone. Propaganda for statistists leaks from every crack, and it relies on middle-aged and elderly people (as people with already formed views), while for the youth, very dangerous ideas of “patriotism,” “service to the state,” and all this pro-statist nonsense are promoted almost from kindergarten. This is exactly where a countercultural method is required. In youth, it is much easier and more interesting to go against the current than when you already have something to lose. And reading heavy economic theory…? Few will manage it. Many are repulsed by politics, even though people may be ideologically for freedom (which is why they are repulsed, as current politics are against freedom). In short, we need more counterculture (because the state is in the minds), more agorism (especially in legal spheres—it needs to be shown that freelancing for crypto or fiat, and direct buy-sell deals on Avito and similar resources are good and profitable!), and more decentralization in everything, especially with the approaching total information and biometric control by the state.

It is possible to live, at least partially, according to ancap, and the goal is to convey this to a receptive audience. What do you think?

анонимный вопрос

Libertarianism is very strongly tied to ethics. The same people in the same conditions can either create bloody chaos or a cozy community with respect for private property, freedom of trade, and the values of good neighborliness. Of course, ethics are inevitably developed through the practice of interaction. There is no central authority, there is an opportunity to buy weapons—and with every armed conflict, the survivors will accumulate both the skills of living without a central authority and the skills of respecting others’ rights. But humans did not create culture so that every new generation would have to make its own mistakes entirely on its own.

Fictional plots educate worse than direct experience, but they still do it. Some will respond better to movies, some to novels, some to jokes, and some to memes. The wider the cultural layer, the more people it will hook. Moreover, the cultural transmission of ethical values will allow ancap to be instilled in certain individuals even within a statist society.

And besides artistic culture, there is perhaps the most important mechanism for transmitting values—the ethical statement through personal example. If you are offered “white” employment, you can make a disgusted face, ask how the employer isn’t ashamed to spend the payroll fund to feed the state, and demand to be employed “under the table.” If you like a small lawn near your entrance and want to plant flowers, don’t forget a sign saying “converted to private property by the resident of apartment X by right of original appropriation”; you can even reference Rothbard for solidity. When borrowing money until payday, suggest drafting a short contract specifying: who borrowed it, when it will be returned, at what interest rate, and what sanctions apply for untimely return.

In other words, it is very useful to show that this was not only possible, but that it works best. Draw boundaries between your own and not your own, respect the rights of others, avoid appealing to the state—and be a successful person while doing so. That is when ancap will form around you on its own.

My wall—my rules. And the door—well, I just homesteaded it for good measure, no one else claimed it.

Incels, the state, and how to set them against each other

I have already published two texts about incels, but I don’t like either of them: hostility toward the subject of study is easily detectable in them, and that is wrong. Now, I have finally managed to create a sufficiently unbiased synthesis. Thus, you were able to observe in real time the thought process of searching for the right formulations on a complex topic. I hope it was entertaining.

Progress in communications, allowing literally everyone, no matter how surprising their interests may be, to find a kindred spirit, has led to the emergence of some very peculiar subcultures. And while cultural phenomena—say, a certain genre of music—previously played a significant role in building such group identities, people now cluster much more often by ideological traits or around a specific problem. Our subject of consideration is the incel subculture, and their problem is quite serious: women deny them sex.

The word incel comes from involuntary celibate. Incels generally believe that their failures are entirely due to their appearance, meaning they are genetically programmed, and therefore their problem is unsolvable without violence. Some go further in their logic and begin, for example, to advocate for the idea that women should be legally restricted in their right to refuse sex, or that rape should not be prosecuted, as it is the satisfaction of a natural vital need.

In the article about private discrimination, I showed that, first, discrimination in society is inevitable and necessary, and second, the more urgent someone’s need appears to the counterparty, the greater the likelihood that they will not be discriminated against, even if interacting with them is not particularly desirable. In our age of emancipation, a woman usually does not consider a man’s need for sex to be so urgent that she would voluntarily satisfy it upon the first request, and she is even less inclined to do so at the first meeting stage, before any attachment to the man has arisen. Therefore, it is not surprising that incels are infuriated by modern female upbringing and would wish to change the state of affairs somehow.

So, incels are dissatisfied with all men who do not encounter systemic problems with sex, and all women who choose those they find more attractive. How then should a libertarian convey their position when communicating with representatives of a subculture so prejudiced against everyone who is not part of it?

Telling them about biology, about sexual selection, saying that evolutionary mechanisms work because some are culled—is completely counterproductive. On the contrary, it is more useful to point out that humanity has long stepped beyond the limits of pure biology, and now selection is primarily driven by cultural factors. The world has become complex and diverse; there is no such thing as one single type that everyone likes. There are many examples of women liking men of the most varied appearances.

Thus, salvation for discriminated groups lies in the increasing diversity of society. What prevents the increase of diversity? The state, of course.

It is the state that provides children with standardized education, imposes uniform cultural norms, seeks to ban non-traditional sexual practices and non-traditional types of marriage. Well, when human preferences are unified, those who deviate significantly from the norm begin to have problems.

Of course, incels’ preferences also differ greatly.

Some consider the idea of using commercial sex instead of tedious courtship rituals that do not guarantee a result quite calmly. The state hinders them by not allowing the legalization of prostitution.

Others need precisely a classic patriarchal family, with marital fidelity and strong foundations—they are infuriated that even after entering a marriage, they are in no way protected from their wife running off with some handsome man and even having a child by him, using the husband only as a wallet. The state hinders them by depriving people of the right to bring legal claims for infidelity—sanctions for this cannot be written even into a marriage contract in Russia.

A third group sees no possibility of sex with people at all. The state hinders them by interfering for some reason in the sphere of sex-robot exploitation, although it is completely unclear whose interests it is protecting here.

A fourth group has no particular grievances against other people and their preferences, and would wish to adapt themselves to them. The state hinders them by regulating the field of biotechnology and plastic surgery, which drives up prices. The ability of incels to adjust themselves to standards turns out to be limited.

Finally, a fifth group realizes that the issue is not appearance, but simple shyness and an inability to communicate. The state hinders here too, by criminalizing light psychoactive substances for some reason, such as marijuana, euphoretics, and empathogens. Meanwhile, it would seem that everyone should be able to decide for themselves what is scarier—a possible side effect from taking substances or inevitable lifelong loserdom.

One can also point out to incels the fact that it is precisely state paternalism that makes people so frivolous. Why take responsibility for one’s own actions if the state will take care of it anyway? In a paternalistic state, a woman will easily prefer someone she feels attracted to, even if he is worthless as a life partner—because thanks to the state, she doesn’t need a life partner, and she is simply looking for someone to have fun with.

It is precisely due to the actions of the state that powerful migration flows are formed. People flee their talentless dictators to more prosperous countries to somehow feed themselves—and simultaneously increase the competition for women. After all, the vast majority of labor migrants are unmarried men in their prime.

Finally, it is important to remind incels that even if their community achieves some obvious preferences from the state, this will lead not only to obvious benefit, but also to equally obvious harm. If now they are mostly simply ignored, then state patronage will inevitably make them an object of hatred from all those who had to be legally disadvantaged for the sake of incels, as well as all those who hoped for preferences themselves and now feel envy. The state is an attempt by everyone to live at the expense of all others. Avoid this toxic tool, there will be no use from it, live like honest people.

And after the image of the enemy has been formed, one can add a bit of a positive agenda. Pushing political initiatives for deregulation in various sectors, if you prefer a minarchist approach. The idea of organizing ECUs for supporters of traditional family values, if a transition to panarchy seems more promising to you. Kinky parties, drug parties, swinger parties and similar activities—if you are a hardcore agorist and do not wish to come within a cannon shot of the state. One way or another, involving an incel in activity will help them very much, and it is better if this activity is in line with libertarian values.