Yesterday’s spontaneous post about how Ukraine has finally waited for a libertarian president caused a number of comments from actual Ukrainian libertarians, such as, for example, Vladimir Zolotoryov. The comments boil down to the fact that there is nothing to rejoice about; Zelensky is as much a libertarian as Zolotoryov himself is a communist, so he will ruin everything no better than Balashov.
Indeed, Zelensky’s statements are quite contradictory: he simultaneously quotes Reagan, with his “government is not the solution to the problem; government is the problem,” immediately proposes the concept of government as a service, and then promptly reports that it would be a good idea to imprison more people for tax evasion and introduce total income declaration. So, Zelensky is certainly not a convinced libertarian; he is an obvious populist trying to guess the demand of the target audience to gain maximum support.
What do I see as the merit of Zolotoryov, Balashov, Yurovsky, and even the—heaven forbid—late Sherstnyov? It is that they, and many other Ukrainians, broadcast the libertarian agenda so loudly and convincingly that the populist Zelensky believed: this is the people’s demand, and this is what I will latch onto. Zelensky, having no distinct program of his own, is an amplifier of someone else’s agenda. Yes, his microphone captures noise along with the signal, introduces its own distortions, and then delivers something close to a cacophony to the public. But he draws attention to the libertarian doctrine itself, and after that, interested people can already bend the ears of others and explain that taxes are theft, the state is a gangster, and this is how ancap works—take it and use it.
In Russia, however, Vladimir Popov asks an interesting question in his channel. Generally, the channel is mostly dedicated to weapons, and I love it dearly, but opinions on a wide variety of topics are found there. Vladimir asks: how is it that when Enteo says he is a libertarian, everyone brushes it off as something you’d expect from a fool. But when people say Zelensky is a libertarian, everyone rejoices wildly that Ukraine succeeded. What is the libertarianism of Zelensky, how does he differ from Enteo, and what did Ukraine succeed in?
Zelensky, unlike Enteo, does not practice direct aggressive violence, declares a desire to end the war, and defends the desire of Ukrainians to live their own private lives. And if the statement “Enteo is a libertarian” evokes nervous laughter and a response of “why don’t you call the Tsapkovs libertarians too,” here it is more of a shrug and a thoughtful “well, in some ways—yes.”
So, it makes sense for Ukrainian minarchists to express joy and start broadcasting something like “Hooray, Zelensky is a libertarian, which means he must lower taxes, reduce regulations, carry out decentralization, and privatize state enterprises. Show us the scoundrel who dares to hinder our beloved Mr. President in these libertarian endeavors, and we will cover them in shame.”
The same applies in Russia: if Putin says he is a libertarian, the reaction will be like it was for Enteo. If Navalny says he is a libertarian, it makes sense to express joy and bring the good news to the city and the world: finally, we have reached Navalny, he has become imbued with libertarianism, renounced the minimum wage and other leftism, and will now change the economic block of the program—forward, Navalny to the Duma, and so on.
Remember, a long time ago, I rejoiced along with you that a libertarian ran for president of Ukraine? In the elections, Gennady Balashov received some ridiculously low numbers of support, partly because his electorate went to Volodymyr Zelenskyy. And, as it turned out, not in vain! A representative of Zelenskyy in the Rada just stated that his “Servant of the People” party will run in the parliamentary elections with a libertarian program.
Of course, judging by current polls, the chances of the libertarian party of Ukraine obtaining an absolute majority in the Rada are slim, and they will have to form a coalition, but slow and steady wins the race; this is already significantly more than one could have hoped for. I congratulate our neighbors on this stroke of luck; the cat that came out of the bag turned out to be exactly the right kind of cat.
As I understand it, you are only secondarily concerned with how a proper ancap should appropriately react to such a thing during an ancap (the correct answer: it’s not mandatory, provided you see an opportunity to hold the attacker accountable while maintaining greater dignity). More likely, you want to understand what a specific Svetov could have opposed against a specific attack in a specific Putinist Kazan.
And here, of course, it is important to have accompaniment. Since such symbolic actions, logically, may be recorded on video by the attackers’ accomplices, it is primarily important not to give them the opportunity to obtain footage that portrays the victim in an even more unflattering light, or worse, provides grounds for criminal charges. Therefore, the object of the attack must not chase anyone or attack anyone.
Meanwhile, a private individual who happens to be a witness to the attack by pure chance could well catch up to the attacker, detain them, and take a close-up photo; after that, it would be possible to sue them, as a photo is usually sufficient nowadays to establish identity through open sources. Of course, in Russia, and especially in sultanates like the one in Kazan, the investigation could easily fail to find the suspect, even if their full name, address, and phone number are handed to them on a silver platter, and the case would remain open against unidentified persons. After all, there has been no news regarding the investigation of the attack on Svetov in another sultanate—Kemerovo. But if people with authority were working there, then here the attackers are quite vulnerable. And (finally answering the direct question) after it turns out that it is impossible to legally hold them accountable, you can—and it is even highly desirable to—beat their faces. But this should not be done by Svetov, but by some unidentified persons who are in no way connected to the incident and simply learned about it from open sources. Well, what can you do; some people don’t like political activists, and some don’t like thugs.
Let me talk only about water supply so as not to dilute, pardon the pun, the topic.
To provide a city dweller with water, it is necessary to:
find a water source
extract the water
deliver the water to the consumer
For all of this to work in a free market, each of these stages must be able to be carried out without coercion and bring profit to the person who carries it out. Now, let’s go through the points.
Find a water source
Given the presence of bodies of water, this is a relatively simple task, so let’s consider a more difficult case: searching for an artesian basin. To carry out this work, it is necessary to hire a specialized organization that will deploy its recording equipment on the ground, use it to obtain data from depth, process it, and draw conclusions about where the boundary of the basin is and, therefore, what the water reserves are. That is, it is necessary to reach an agreement with the owners of the land where the survey will be conducted, pay them the agreed compensations, and carry out the exploration. This task is not unsolvable.
In Russia, where all subsoil belongs to the state and land can belong to private individuals, geological explorers pay landowners for land damage, and the profit will ultimately go to whoever acquired a license for extraction from the state. In a free market, it would more likely be like in the USA, where subsoil rights belong to the landowners, meaning they are even more interested in the exploration of the subsoil beneath them. Also, as far as I could understand, the data obtained during exploration possess a certain redundancy, and therefore the disagreement of some landowners or the impossibility of surveying due to the location of buildings on the land will not significantly hinder obtaining a result. In other words, at this stage there are no particular difficulties for the market—there are ordinary entrepreneurial risks, where the money for exploration is paid, but no basin is found.
Extract the water
Here, again, the greatest theoretical difficulty is the situation involving an artesian basin. The thing is that it is usually large enough that the water intake wells exploiting it can be located on the land of different owners. If there are many consumers and little water, it is important to prevent the tragedy of the commons, otherwise the source will not be able to replenish naturally due to excessive extraction.
Several such cases are analyzed in detail by Elinor Ostrom in the book “Governing the Commons”, where she presents the main principles that extraction organizations must adhere to in order to prevent the degradation of the resource. Here, they will need a fixed agreement on water extraction norms, a monitoring body, and the ability to stop abuses, using a graduated system of fines. Moreover, interestingly, it is very important that there be a possibility for contract enforcement, but no less important that no state attempts to interfere in the process of concluding the contract itself. That is, for the confident resolution of such types of property conflicts, the existence of a developed free market is not just desirable, but absolutely vital.
Deliver water to the consumer
The question of who will lay and repair the water pipeline is similar to the question of who will build roads. Roads are built by those who need them, namely the owners of the real estate to which the road leads, because it increases their value. In the same way, a water pipeline passing through a plot of land increases its value, because it means that a water-consuming facility can be built on the land and then quickly and easily connected to the water supply.
So the picture here will be roughly the same as at the exploration stage. Either the landowners pay for the pipes on their land themselves, or, at least, they grant the water supply organization permission to lay the pipes, for money or free of charge—depending on what they agree upon.
Summary
Roughly the same approach can be applied to other infrastructure objects and other spheres of housing and communal services. The process of providing a service is broken down into stages, each of which must bring profit. At each stage, property conflicts may arise, which must be resolved by concluding contracts, and these contracts will either provide direct mutual benefit, such as a land lease agreement for laying communications, or be the result of a compromise, such as an agreement on water extraction quotas. And all these complexities, of course, do not compare to the complexities of organizing the same thing through central planning mechanisms—that is where the task is truly solved haphazardly: it consumes tax money and leaves the consumer dissatisfied.
Yes, the middle class and the wealthy have more expenses, but in return, the poor get the opportunity, for example, to receive an affordable education. For instance, in the US, both education in good colleges and universities, as well as medicine, are very expensive. I see no reason why one cannot help a person now, and then they will help others through their own taxes. Yes, involuntarily. Yes, they will grumble about robbery. But life now is much better than it would be if there were no taxes.
My friend
Alas, it is impossible to reliably learn the opinion of speculative subjects about what constitutes their gain, since speculative subjects exist only in a specific human mind. One will say that society gains from taxes, another that God gains from the ban on abortions, a third that his imaginary friend will gain from a school shooting, and these will be equally reliable statements.
Therefore, it is better to proceed from what benefits, say, a specific child from a poor family will receive from the fact that education is funded by taxes, compared to a situation where education is funded voluntarily.
Since money for education is spent centrally, the curriculum is also determined centrally. Thus, the child studies according to a program prescribed from above, receives a diploma upon graduation, and after that, it depends on luck. Either the knowledge acquired is in demand by business, or it is not. If not, he has quite justified grievances against the state: you ordered me to study things for which no one is willing to pay, so go ahead and pay for it yourself. And the obedient state provides the person with a budgeted job, paying them a salary from money that is, again, collected from private business in the form of taxes.
If the state proves to be a successful entrepreneur and successfully guesses what knowledge in what volume will be in demand by business in the future, then centralized education indeed helps cover the needs of business for a qualified workforce. If the state does not guess correctly, then the money is spent in vain, the workforce remains low-skilled despite the expenditures, but at the same time, having an education, these people are no longer willing to take low-skilled jobs and instead claim high-paying work, even if it is useless, for example, funded by taxes.
The more static a society is, the more justified tax-funded education is within it. The faster a society changes, the less justified it is. If socialism were implemented worldwide, progress would slow down, and such education would become relatively effective, but is this what socialists mean when they say that society will benefit from public education? They seem to call themselves progressives rather than conservatives.
Now let education be private, and a child from a poor family chooses for themselves what they can afford. They can take a loan, receive an expensive education, and then, after landing a high-skilled job, pay back that loan in a few years. They can immediately get a low-skilled job and, in their spare time, get an education based on free courses, which are plentiful on the internet. They may not receive an education at all, but simply increase their qualifications directly in the workplace, which will lead to career growth. And finally, they can demonstrate their great talent in one competition or another and receive a private educational grant. After some time, having achieved success, they themselves will gladly invest in the endowment fund of the university that gave them such a wonderful opportunity.
As a result, we will have a system where every member of society arranges their life exactly as they themselves find most convenient. Wouldn’t it be logical to conclude that society as a whole benefits from such an approach, since each of its members benefits?
Work with your hands by day, and in the evening on Coursera—mastering corporate management
I want to immediately point out the main point of his review, as all subsequent criticism will be based on this fact. Ved does not account for the difference between corporate (CorpETU) and ideological (PolitETU) jurisdiction providers. He himself is a supporter of the former, which is why a clear bias toward them is evident. CorpETU is a “cyberpunk world,” meaning ETUs that prioritize economic calculation and financial gain. PolitETU are, in essence, ideologized extraterritorial states where the criteria for membership are political views, culture, or religion. Examples could be socialist, Marxist, Catholic, Orthodox, traditionalist, transhumanist, or liberal ETUs.
Brief conclusion: Ved is completely right regarding the inapplicability of the containment doctrine (CD) to CorpETU (he promotes panarchy with an emphasis on them, so he thinks with some bias), but CD can certainly be used to “divide” the state into PolitETUs.
Next, I will try to analyze some points of this review separately.
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“The difference implicitly implied by you (which in fact is not a difference, as any separatist groups count on the same thing) is that people will consider your actions just and will not view you as terrorists and crazy psychopaths. But this is just another delusion, stemming from the fact that you think many different people can be convinced of the justice of some single ethical theory or political paradigm. ‘Since I believe in something, others believe in it or will believe if I tell them about it.’ They will not believe. Even without considering propaganda, they will not believe. For the absolute overwhelming majority of people, the state is not something bad, evil, a monopoly on violence, or even some single subject of social relations that needs to be opposed for some reason. Which is fair, because it is not such a subject — all this is merely a conceptual simplification, based moreover on a certain set of axioms. But more on this later.”
Polls show exactly the opposite — trust in the state is constantly declining even in developed countries like the USA, and is currently at a minimum level, while the polarization of views is at a maximum. This is excellent soil for the legitimization of PolitETU in the eyes of the majority of the population. Of course, a powerful advertising campaign is needed.
Supporters of the nation-state and democracy were also considered crazy at first, and a decade later it became a mainstream idea. The same can be said about the abolition of slavery.
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“If the system is fragile (very authoritarian with a strong power vertical tied to one person), then with the removal of this person, everything will simply collapse like a house of cards and a civil war will begin. It is not clear how the formation of ten warring Thailands in place of Thailand will help the hypothetical systeders; most likely, sooner or later, not one army, but two or three will come to them, and they will be much more aggressive. It is also unclear how this will help the establishment of ancap or ETU anywhere else. Local residents will definitely not be grateful to ancaps.”
In the original article, the emphasis was placed on the protection of extraterritorial sovereignty, and these systeders (who tried to create a very small but territorial state) were cited only as an interesting example. CD is indeed applicable mainly for the creation of ETUs, but not for territorial separatism.
Ancaps and CorpETUs might not be welcomed in a hypothetical Thailand immediately. But there are certainly ideological disagreements there, and they could become a good basis for turning Thailand not into ten new territorial states, but into, say, five PolitETUs.
> “More to come. How do you intend to define the target for your attack or your influence? Every state system consists of thousands of functionaries, and it is practically impossible to figure out who among them is an important actor by observing from the outside. By being interested in politics, we know a few dozen key figures in the Russian establishment, and often these are not the people that foreign journalists would notice (Indeed, how do you understand whether Milonov, Mizulina, or the head of Roskomnadzor possess real power?). And what about neighboring Turkey? How much do you know about the actors in Erdogan’s government and the balance of power in their country? What about New Guinea or Ecuador?”
On one hand, I want to point out that the victim always knows best where to direct the retribution, so even if it is decentralized, it will be targeted accurately enough; on the other hand, for a deterrent effect, indirect involvement of the object of retribution in the aggression is sufficient — for example, it could be one of the deputies who voted for a repressive norm, or a key government contractor whose affiliation is beyond doubt, even if some details remain in the shadows.
> “What such terrorist activity can really do is harm democracy by redistributing power between public and non-public figures in the governments of many countries (As we saw after September 11, 2001).”
It is worth distinguishing between terrorist activity (against the civilian population) and extremist activity (against the state). Extremism will most likely look positive in the eyes of the population (as I noted earlier, the majority of the population even in wealthy countries now hates the state). As for the destruction of democracy, it only plays into the hands of libertarians, as it legitimizes the territorial monopoly of the state.
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“And finally, it is simply madness to fight a knowingly stronger opponent using his own methods.”
What “same” methods?! The opponent is territorial; his objects are fixed and located in the same places. ETUs, however, are not tied to a territory, and an attempt to arrest even one member of an ETU will likely lead to huge collateral casualties (which is unacceptable damage for the authorities).
> “The success of Bitcoin is that it is a completely new technology that the state system has never encountered and has no idea what to do with.”
Nevertheless, the state has unerringly figured out how to maximize the difficulty of wide Bitcoin adoption and, if it wishes, easily declares its use for purchasing legal goods illegal. Law-abiding citizens are forced to remain in fiat for everyday purchases. Similarly, the state can hinder the activities of extraterritorial jurisdictions in areas where people are forced to act openly and offline. But this defensive tactic is unable to bring the state victory, both in the case of Bitcoin and in the case of ETU.
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“It is impossible to forbid performing mathematical calculations on your own computer (which is what it was originally intended for), which means it is impossible to forbid mining. It is also impossible to forbid the exchange of data about the results of these calculations (how do you imagine that?), which can happen even offline, which means the circulation of Bitcoin cannot be forbidden. Because it is not money. Blockchain can be camouflaged as something as far removed from money as possible, so that not even the most absurd regulation can do anything to it without simultaneously forbidding the Internet and computers. This is exactly the point of Bitcoin. And this is exactly how the confrontation with the state should look — through technical and intellectual superiority over its slow and clumsy system, using all its flaws and weaknesses inseparable from the state, filling all the gaps in the legal, political, and economic system. And finally, creating an alternative that is impossible within the framework of the existing state system, but surpasses it in all parameters.”
I completely agree here. Projects like Bitnation will greatly help the creation of ETUs.
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“And in the maximum volume, having achieved success, you will simply become ‘another intelligence agency,’ i.e., another machine of violence and another Gestapo, deciding who lives and who does not.”
Even if we consider a “hard scenario” (bloody meat grinder, realization of the futility of war, emergence of tolerance for people with different views, renunciation of territorial monopoly and the creation of competing ETUs), which is unlikely given the global trend toward humanization, the result will be a panarchy with peacefully coexistng people of various views, and by no means “another Gestapo.” History has a great example of such a transition — the emergence of tolerance toward non-believers and peaceful coexistence with them on one territory after the Reformation and the subsequent religious wars.
The Strugatsky brothers were Soviet sci-fi writers who, due to the distortions typical of a planned economy, were published by the Soviet state in much smaller print runs than the actual demand. Consequently, during the transition to a market economy, this deferred demand began to be actively satisfied, and my parents had a complete collection of their works on their shelf. I assume that the current generation of fifty-year-olds knows these books much better than those who are now twenty-five. As for me, I somehow jumped straight from childhood history encyclopedias to fantasy, then to popular science, while the Strugatskys’ collected works just gathered dust on my parents’ shelf.
Actually, I was prompted to write this post by a mention from Mikhail Svetov in a stream about how, as a child, he read authors in their entire collected works. I am not that tedious, and in the case of the Strugatskys, I ended up reading three books at different times.
The first was “Hard to Be a God”, a story about a communist “popadanets” (time-traveler/portal-jumper) in the Middle Ages. It was impossible not to read it because it is memetic, and I wanted to understand the origins of all those tales about how the “greys” are replaced by the “blacks,” and why a noble don should not see the reasons for not doing something. At the time, there was no mass literature about “popadantsy,” so the writers used another planet as a setting, but all the problematic themes perfectly align with the popadanets genre. What gives the work its originality is that the traveler failed miserably at imposing his values on a medieval society, and the mission ended in failure. Modern writers churn out more optimistic things, but here they managed to make a bestseller without a happy end; I respect that.
The second turned out to be the novella “The Predators”; here I owe thanks to Alexander Rozov, who wrote an interesting review of it. The book is about a communist who ends up in a prosperous capitalist consumer society, is horrified, and begins to make plans about what can be done with these unfortunate lost people who want to live happily and do not want to storm Mars in tight ranks. The communists faced a dilemma: either bring assault columns into the country and drive the population into the gulag, or start a multi-year brainwashing campaign. The protagonist humanely adhered to the second strategy, considering the first a failure, and for that, we can be grateful.
Finally, the third novella is “The Distant Rainbow”, which I read quite recently at the dacha when I had a free evening—a book from that very collected works happened to be next to my chair. The story tells of a planetary catastrophe that occurred due to the peculiarities of the communist system of organizing fundamental research, as well as the fact that in a planned economy there are no prices, and therefore economic calculation is impossible. The latter is illustrated with rich material. Rare instruments were brought from the metropolis, and the scientists resort to various tricks to try to obtain them out of turn, through connections (“blat”), or simply by stealing them. The option to “buy” simply does not exist for the poor souls. Energy is needed for experiments, and the scientists steal it from the local power system because the energy issued by coupons has already been spent. The option to “buy” simply does not exist for the poor souls. Another experiment ends in catastrophe (I don’t rule out that it was also caused by a competing laboratory stealing some rare controller right from the test rig, but the reasons for the tragedy remain off-screen), and it turns out that no evacuation means were provided on the planet (what safety regulations, it’s communism). To top it all off, the question of who exactly and what values should be saved first is also solved completely arbitrarily, and not by a legitimate governing body, but by the captain of the only spaceship, who decided for himself who lives and who dies, as if the ship were his private property. And it is exactly this approach, where the “Red Director” is king and god at his enterprise, that is positioned as the most morally justified. And so, back in the distant sixties, the sci-fi writers were already describing the outlines of the “Red Belt” of the nineties.
I once had to answer a question about which books are worth reading. I suggested first ensuring a frame of perception for oneself, and then you can read anything, and the result will invariably please you. Here you go: a libertarian reading of communist propaganda. Try reading all sorts of things; it’s interesting. And yes, the Strugatskys are stylistically simply wonderful, and I perfectly understand the nature of their popularity. If I have more time, I’ll read something else by them.
He calls her a “syslib” and effectively accuses her of justifying the regime. What do you think about syslibs in general?
анонимный вопрос
We are talking about last year’s posts (first and second) in Illarionov’s blog, which no one would have remembered if he hadn’t referenced them recently.
I find Illarionov’s meticulousness extremely useful when it comes to the scrupulous comparison of numerous eyewitness accounts of a large-scale event, based on which a consistent picture of what happened is constructed. For example, I was greatly impressed by his investigation into the 2008 Russo-Georgian War. However, when he turns his talent toward analyzing the nuances of one person’s word usage during a live broadcast, it starts to feel like a certain bias—much like vulgar Freudianism, where there is no room for cucumbers or cigars because there are only phalluses.
Illarionov, if I understand correctly, is the creator of the term “syslib,” and he defines it as a person who uses liberal rhetoric to strengthen a non-liberal political regime and justify non-liberal political practices. Like Chubais’s “bow down to the oligarchs; they pulled the country out of poverty.”
What is he incriminating Ekaterina for?
Cossacks dispersing a rally in Moscow do not look as organic as they would in Krasnodar. Aha, so it’s okay to disperse them in Krasnodar. Syslib.
The army in Turkey is ceasing to be a modernization institution. Aha, so Erdogan, then, is becoming a modernization institution. Syslib.
There are many other minor nitpicks, and finally, the most important one. There is a correlation: the less bloody the removal of an authoritarian regime, the higher the probability of democratization. Aha, so the people on the Maidan are to blame for being shot. Syslib.
I have a feeling that Illarionov confuses the approach of a political scientist-researcher with that of a publicist, and every time he sees a statement about certain patterns, he immediately imagines what a person would mean by that phrase if they were a propagandist for the ruling regime.
Now, if Ekaterina were to state directly, for example, that the sovereignty of the individual is impossible or undesirable, and that only the sovereignty of some group entity, like a nation, is possible or desirable, then I myself would decide that this Shulman has gone bad; bring me a new one. But for now, she merely states that without a well-organized state, people feel somehow uncomfortable, which means the state is necessary. But preferably a liberal one, recognizing that very sovereignty of the individual. And as for the fact that this is an internally contradictory construction—well, what can you do, the world is complex, interests need to be reconciled somehow, so let’s build the institutions that allow us to do that.
In general, I would advise avoiding excessive purism. Let Lenin be the one to decisively distance himself before forcibly uniting everyone, while smart people are indeed better off practicing how to coordinate their interests and align them with their values. Ekaterina Mikhailovna is valuable above all as an inexhaustible source of political science memes. My personal favorite is her “all power to—nobody!”
The syslib is looking at you like you’re the system
If you look threatening enough, people will not dare to attack you. This simple consideration gives rise to rather complex spontaneous orders. We see them in the behavior not only of humans but of many other biological species. Even plants try to portray themselves as something very dangerous that is better left untouched. Similarly, libertarians tend to put animals on their banners that have succeeded in applying the doctrine of deterrence, such as the rattlesnake or the porcupine.
A vivid demonstration of the doctrine of deterrence in the animal kingdom
In military theory, the doctrine of deterrence began to gain popularity in the 19th century and became the dominant view after the appearance of nuclear weapons. The original reasoning was simple. It was necessary to ensure that waging war would be inherently disadvantageous. Since the goal of war, according to Clausewitz, is a peace that is better than the pre-war state, then the means of waging war must be made as horrific and large-scale as possible, so that no one would even think that a country could obtain an economic gain as a result of war. True, a contrary consideration was voiced in parallel: that war, first, would divert many working hands to the front, and second, would provide industry with military orders, which means that workers would receive a sharp increase in wages—thus, they have every reason to desire a great war. And although the First World War showed that, for some reason, famine and poverty began instead of an increase in well-being, this did not prevent Keynes from appearing shortly after with his ideas that during a crisis one must spend more, as this is the best way to achieve wealth.
During the interwar period, the Douhet doctrine spread, suggesting that an opponent’s will to resist could be easily broken by indiscriminate strategic bombing of production facilities in the rear—again, military theorists harbored the thought of how obvious economic senselessness of a confrontation could prevent the start of a slaughter. But the Second World War vividly demonstrated that losses only contribute to cohesion, and a total war begins far beyond any pre-war rational calculations.
After the end of the Second World War, humanity immediately began preparing for a new war, this time a nuclear one. Nuclear powers conducted active tests of new weapons and delivery systems, developed doctrines for their use, and built bunkers to shelter government bodies and headquarters. And then, finally, the most important event of the 20th century, in my view, occurred: the Cuban Missile Crisis. For the first time in human history, two powers, fully equipped for war, having launched their propaganda machines at full throttle, having mobilized troops, and having irreconcilable contradictions in their development doctrines implying the complete defeat of the opponent—did not dare to start a war and launched de-escalation. What happened? The governments of both countries clearly realized that if war began, they would become the first targets and would be destroyed with almost complete certainty. This realization proved to be enough.
It became clear exactly what should be the basis of the doctrine of deterrence. Not an economic blockade and sanctions, not the readiness to bomb a country back to the Stone Age, but only the guarantee of the destruction of the leadership. As long as the head of state can sacrifice his subordinates, he will be ready to fight. As soon as he himself becomes a piece on this chessboard, his motivation for war decreases sharply.
As is known, a new, previously non-existent product usually first becomes an object of fabulous luxury, but gradually, thanks to its attractiveness and the super-profits generated by its production, it attracts investment, becomes increasingly mass-market, and its price drops. Eventually, the product becomes virtually accessible to everyone.
The product “deterring the opponent through the guaranteed destruction of its leaders” was very expensive, and initially only superpowers could afford it. However, over time, on one hand, the circle of nuclear powers expanded, the cost of nuclear weapons decreased, and their consumer qualities grew; on the other hand, people’s tolerance for military losses decreased.
A good illustration of this trend was the last conventional war between civilized countries—the Falklands conflict. It is interesting because during the war, both sides more or less carefully observed the norms of international law relating to the laws and customs of war, and the conflict itself was clearly geographically localized around the disputed zone. In other words, the parties could no longer afford a total war, were forced to exercise restraint, and quickly transitioned from the hot phase of the conflict to diplomacy.
When high-precision weapons appeared, the great powers began using them to eliminate the leaders of opponents in underdeveloped countries. However, this, on the other hand, further lowered the entry threshold into the circle of countries that could afford a doctrine of deterrence through threats to leaders, since this no longer even required bypassing IAEA restrictions, as Israel did in its time, according to unofficial information.
However, progress in the relevant technologies does not stand still; high-precision weapons continue to become cheaper, and now we are frightened by something like this:
It is obvious that sooner or later, cheap, long-range, high-precision, anonymous weapons will be available to a very wide circle of subjects, including private individuals. And this means that humanity has come very close to the libertarian dream—to ensure guarantees of non-aggression from the state.
In February 2019, the first act of full-scale seasteading in history took place. A couple of bitcoiners, American Chad Elwartowski and Thai Nadia Tepdet, established a small residential platform 15 nautical miles off the coast of Thailand—that is, outside territorial waters, but within the two-hundred-mile exclusive economic zone. In April, the Royal Thai Navy destroyed the platform, which according to maritime law constitutes military action against a sovereign power. Thus, states once again demonstrated that maritime law works only between sovereign subjects, which are only states, and not people.
Now let’s fantasize. Seasteaders continue to mind their own business peacefully: Chad continues to please the public with statements like “I hope my lawyer will be able to reach a reasonable agreement with the Thai government,” Nadia is waiting for political asylum in the USA. Meanwhile, a small drone drops a bomb on King Rama X, after which an entry left by an unknown person appears on the bitcoin blockchain, stating that any head of state who dares to prevent free people from settling outside the jurisdiction of the state will be destroyed in the same way. A few months after the Thai crisis, the seasteading institute announces its intention to establish a residential platform 15 nautical miles off the coast of Vietnam…
Not every state is ready to trade a king for a party-goer
I think not much time will pass before people realize that placing platforms in neutral waters is already boring—look how many have been stuck there—and they will start announcing the secession of their own land-based territories, predicting, in case their sovereignty is not recognized, a sobering retribution against the head of their state by anonymous well-wishers who are simply close to the ideas of freedom and are therefore ready to defend them throughout the world…
Then more. People realize that sovereign territory is an atavism, that sovereignty can be extraterritorial—and they will begin to declare their independence from the state, without even bothering to leave its borders. Get insurance from an anonymous fund for sobering up etatists—and live your life, without taxes and repressions. A tax agent arrives—you show him your insurance policy, his face changes, he apologizes and leaves. Everything is orderly, peaceful, ancap-style.
What is needed for such fantasies to become a reality?
A clear understanding that states begin to speak the language of law only with those behind whom they see power.
Decentralized asymmetric defense. It is impossible to protect a territory from the state; it is not even worth trying. One can only create a threat to the decision-makers on the opponent’s side—the higher the better. Of course, moral pressure should also be exerted on the executors, but making them bitter is extremely harmful: they should not see you as a deadly enemy, otherwise you risk arriving at a total war instead of deterrence. A bitter enemy no longer needs propaganda; he hates you personally and is ready to rip your throat out.
A strike against key state figures should come not from those attacked by the state, but as anonymously as possible.
Exactly what means are used for deterrence is, for the most part, unimportant, as long as the restrictions are met: the weapon must provide minimal risk of collateral damage, have decent range, be as accurate as possible, and be as cheap as possible. It does not even have to be lethal; an educational effect can be achieved without such radical measures as killing. This could be the disclosure of critical personal data, such as a family’s home address, the draining of money from bank cards, slashed tires, or a bag of feces on the head instead of a bomb—after all, many analogs to the porcupine’s needle can be imagined in the modern world!
Widespread advertising is needed. Actions within the doctrine of deterrence should be vividly highlighted, skillfully directed, and ideally place the targets of influence in the most idiotic position. It is public shame that works most effectively both against public elected figures and against dictators swelling with a sense of their own importance.
Modern democracies actively use the blurring of responsibility, where certain non-legal laws are passed by collective bodies. However, here lies not only strength but also weakness. It is relatively easy to protect one supreme commander-in-chief, but try constantly guarding an entire battalion of parliamentarians! The doctrine of deterrence opposes collective decisions with collective responsibility.
Of course, the doctrine of deterrence will not work with everyone; there may always be a particularly stubborn functionary who is indifferent to all your warnings. The same tactic as for public campaigns will work here: you simply need to switch to a superior, so that he will order the overzealous subordinate to stand down. In general, when constructing a strategy for deterring an opponent, all developments in conducting public campaigns can be adopted almost in full.
Yulia Latynina likes to repeat that society is structured just like an army, and one influences the other. An unintended consequence of exactly how civil society will deter an institutional aggressor will be certain changes in the structure of society itself. A maximally decentralized principle of coordination and a strive to achieve goals through indirect means will inevitably foster in society a system of those very extraterritorial contractual insurance jurisdictions that I have already talked your ears off about here on my channel. That is exactly how spontaneous orders work.
The most weighty objection against the doctrine of deterrence is as follows: Yes, of course, society can terrorize poor, frightened bureaucrats in the wet dreams of European hipsters. But these hipsters will sing a different tune when conditional “collectivos” start killing them at night—the state has a much richer arsenal of means not only for legal prosecution but also for proxy violence.
Yes, indeed, the state can very easily raise the stakes in this game, and soft “deterrence by denial” with its bags of feces and other attempts to ensure reputational damage will stop working (if the opponent’s leader cannot win beautifully, he may retreat, or he may decide “to hell with it, I will win ugly”), after which civil society will eventually have to adopt hardcore “deterrence by punishment” and use lethal means. But here it is important not to slide into total war, to conduct purely pinpoint actions and actively broadcast to the outside world through the voices of uninvolved parties: “What are you doing? Why are you driving these poor people to despair? Do you find it hard to make insignificant concessions? Why do you need this war?”
The whole point of the doctrine of deterrence is for the opponent to decide: the game is not worth the candle. Even in the most neglected cases, this is a perfectly solvable task.
In the absence of a state, the very existence of orphanages is quite unlikely — it is hard to imagine a person who would need so many children. Few families decide to have more than a dozen. The need to mass-place a huge number of homeless children arises only after major wars, but ancap guarantees that if anything, there will certainly be no major wars — there are no opportunities for such a concentration of forces; it is economically pointless. Under normal conditions, the demand for children exceeds the supply — and if the state does not put a spoke in the wheels, children who are not wanted by some adults quickly end up with other adults ready to take care of them.
Under ancap, things should also generally be better for people with disabilities than under a state. Judge for yourself. Since there are no mandatory fiat currencies, a person is fully capable, without possessing specific investment skills, of saving for old age simply by putting money aside, preferably deflationary ones like bitcoins. Then disability occurs, and even if for some reason they were not insured, all that remains is to open the piggy bank.
Of course, there are children with disabilities, and not every one of them is as talented as Sanya from Dagestan. But, as is easy to see, the state is not intending to care for them anyway. As for society, in the absence of centralized robbery, it has far more opportunities to ensure a decent life even for expensive children with disabilities. There are too few of them for it to truly strain people inclined toward spontaneous acts of kindness.
After all, you have no guarantee that the pseudonym Ancap-chan does not hide a similarly disabled person. You send me money not for what I lack, but for what I give you: interesting reflections expressed in a decent style. Thanks to the fact that I do not have to pay taxes on your donations, they are spent entirely on good deeds. Thank you for not abandoning me.
