Автор: Анкап-тян

Right of Way

I listened to the debates on the subject that took place on August 10th on the “Gorbushka Istorii” channel. Boris Strannik, who defended his invented concept of the right of way, and Alexei Sherstnev, who opposed him, were the discussants.

I will admit my bias right away. I like Boris. When he was in Montenegro for a few months, we met; he stayed at my house for about a week. It didn’t go beyond kissing, but nevertheless, he left me with the most positive impression. I dislike Alexei. He used to be rude and dogmatic, so I removed him from my echo chamber quite quickly, especially since there was no ideological novelty in his views, meaning there were no reasons to tolerate his tone. Therefore, I will not comment on who was more convincing in the debates.

Next, I want to note one point in the debates, simply because I was mentioned there. One of the listeners asked the opponents what “right” (pravo) is. Alexei formulated a rather confused idea of right as a spontaneous order of human interaction, clearly drawn from Zolotovrev (I prefer to operate with a narrower concept of right as a spontaneous order of conflict resolution, to separate it from morality as a spontaneous order of entering into conflicts). Boris, however, began to speak not about “right” (law/pravo) but about “rights” (prava), and quoted my definition: “rights are claims that have been accepted.” Only he said it in the singular. And, naturally, when the moderator summarized his impressions of the debates, he said he was appalled that Boris gave some irrelevant slogan instead of a definition. Here we have a banal misunderstanding related to the features of the Russian language, in which “right” and “law” are expressed by the same word “pravo.” The debaters understood the question differently, and the moderator didn’t even grasp what was happening. Well, it happens.

I will not say more about the debates; you can listen to them yourselves and form your own impression. I would rather reflect on the concept of the right of way itself.

After Montenegro, Boris visited several other countries and is currently living in South America. In Uruguay, he saw countless latifundia enclosed with barbed wire and realized that, although the country is not small, one can effectively only walk along the roads—no cozy paths through fields and woodlands. He began to reflect on this within the framework of libertarian ideology and reached certain conclusions.

Originally, the entire surface of the earth is unowned. When someone, according to the homesteading principle, appropriates a plot of land for use, they acquire the right to the resource they use for their economic activity—but not an absolute property right to everything located in the area of space limited by rays from the center of the Earth passing through the boundaries of the land plot and extending to infinity (this is the purely geometric approach to drawing land property boundaries that Alexei Sherstnev defended in the debates). But by acquiring the right to dig in the soil, he does not automatically acquire the right to forbid anyone from moving across that land. At most, he can insist on a certain penalty for the destruction of crops and similar specific measurable costs. The right to move in space belongs to every person according to the same homesteading principle—simply by the fact that they love it, know how to do it, practice it, and cannot exercise their self-ownership without it. A ban on movement is traditionally called deprivation of liberty, so why on earth does some latifundist deprive people of liberty? These are roughly the arguments in favor of the existence of an unconditional right of way.

What proposals does Boris make next, having presented arguments for the existence of such a right? In essence, it is about changing the defaults. If existing legal systems that provide for private land ownership assume by default the owner’s right to impose a ban on movement across their property, and then specify certain exceptions where the owner must still provide the right of way—then now a reverse scheme is proposed. By default, the landowner does not have the right to prohibit passage through their territory, however, they can present various grounds why in a specific case a ban is nonetheless appropriate.

Boris is quite radical, stating approximately the following: yes, a landowner can physically enclose themselves with a wall, but they cannot thereby steal from other people the right to pass through the wall-enclosed area: they can climb over the wall and continue moving. If the space is covered by a roof, then that’s great—the traveler will simply move across the roof; thus, their right of way is not infringed. And whatever is under the roof is already fully private. Generally speaking, exactly such a legal system existed long ago in the Neolithic settlement at the site of present-day Çatalhöyük: houses are built tightly together, and the roofs of the houses are public space. Thus, Boris’s legal intuition finds direct reflection in history.

Of course, supporters of full private property have their own arguments: the right of way is too easy to abuse. Once you allow the possibility of moving across someone else’s territory without permission and without compensation, tomorrow you could organize a flash mob on the lawn in front of an unpleasant person’s house, trample the flowerbeds, and so on, not to mention the constant stomping on the roof. But since rights (claims that have been accepted) are merely a generalization of principles that allow for the implementation of right (a spontaneous order of conflict resolution), constructive compromises are entirely possible between those who defend the right to prohibit trespassing and those who defend the right of way. They boil down to the landowner agreeing to a limited right of way if those passing through minimize the inconveniences caused to the landowner, and perhaps even compensate for them. The landowner, in turn, takes measures to simplify passage across their land: by laying paths. Why? First, a path organizes the flow of people, reducing the load on the rest of the territory. Second, the landowner’s appeal to the fact of providing a path is a strong moral demand in favor of limiting passage to the path specifically, and in some cases—in favor of charging a fee for passage (more often for driving).

However, for such practices to spread more widely, it is indeed necessary to change the presumption from “forbidden by default” to “allowed by default,” and here Boris is likely right. I will add that changing presumptions in this direction also prepares the ground for a future ancap, where all land becomes private. Just as the abolition of state social welfare forces people to be more responsible regarding the prevention of life’s difficulties, the abolition of the concept of state-owned public land will force people to approach the issues of freedom of movement more consciously.

Capitalist Transutopia

Alex Rozov, author of the Meganesian cycle, began in his LiveJournal preliminary inquiries into how he might best write a capitalist transutopia—that is, a realistic positive picture of pure capitalism, the processes that led to it, and the processes that make it sustainable. I have serious doubts that he will succeed, because his understanding of the market does not seem entirely adequate to me. Roughly speaking, he will be inclined to think about the market more according to Marx than according to Mises. The crowd grazing in his comments is more likely to exacerbate his problems, because, as usual, it is full of choice Hobbesians who believe humanity to be thoroughly depraved and in need of a strong regulator, without which people would, of course, devour each other.

Also interesting is a certain passage set forth by one of his commenters, with which the author generally agreed:

“Professional” supporters of capitalism (writing in popular analytical media) gloss over real capitalism.

“Unprofessional” ones (participating in online flame wars) imagine a picture-book capitalism—or rather, not capitalism at all, but some phantom feudalism interspersed with farmers, artisans, and shopkeepers with primitively structured family businesses.

Real capitalism, however (in which the main players are large companies with pyramids of bureaucracy, complex ownership relations, unspoken deals between top managers and majority shareholders, and even more complex relations with financial-banking and state systems) is unacceptable to the “unprofessionals.” Such capitalism seems (suddenly) to them to be a “leftist distortion of capitalism.”

In short, the state is considered by them to be an indispensable, inevitable, and inherent attribute of capitalism, which accordingly makes all ancap ideas, for them, mere picture-book images that cannot have any relation to reality.

Mikhail Svetov once promised to write a book about libertarianism and flaked. I had to take it upon myself and write my own. Vladimir Zolotorev complained about the lack of a libertarian theory of war; I had to start thinking in that direction as well. Now, it seems, I will also have to compose some sort of fictional text about what one of the many possible embodiments of ancap looks like. I am currently in the bargaining stage: well, maybe I should wait a bit, and perhaps Alex will write something passable after all—he is a prolific author, he even wrote about a cesspit cleaner under communism, so why shouldn’t he solve this new problem, and I won’t have to take up something I’m not good at.

But just in case Rozov doesn’t deliver, or the result matches my current low expectations, I am starting to think about how to do something of my own. My strengths are a sense of style, conciseness, and analytical abilities. My weaknesses are difficulty keeping a broad vision in mind and a poor imagination; that is why my creative work consists of short posts on specific topics assigned by others. However, what is required here is a fairly voluminous fictional text.

Most likely, a passable solution would be a cycle of stories. A sort of Montelliberian cycle as a counterpoint to the Meganesian one. I don’t know. I don’t want to think about it yet. It’s scary to dive into these waters.

Stefan Molynieux, Practical Anarchy, translation of chapter 24

The final version of the translation of another chapter of Practical Anarchy by Stephan Molinari is ready, this time concerning healthcare. In principle, the structure of the chapter is already quite familiar: an analysis of the current statist picture, followed by a description of how it would all look in a stateless market society. Unlike the situation with roads and similar infrastructure, here it was necessary to add a touch of socialism in the form of charity, without which purely commercial healthcare could present unsightly images of the poor dying by the fence. However, charity does not need the state, so this does not disrupt the coherence of the constructions.

Does it not turn out that from all this libertarian freedom, the end result is one continuous nihilism? How does nihilism even mesh with libertarianism?

Nihilist (the question is accompanied by a donation of 0.00009₿)

Nihilism is a perfectly logical consequence of Hume’s guillotine. It is impossible to derive an “ought” from an “is”; therefore, there is nothing objectively obligatory. There is no objective morality (hello, Dobroum), no natural law (hello, Rothbard), and this whole objectivism of yours is some kind of stupid joke (hello, Ayn Rand).

But a nihilist is not a solipsist. He is aware that there are other individualities in the world besides himself, with their own subjective tastes, values, and needs.

Nihilists are often attributed an intention of opposing the entire world, pitting themselves against it, and even almost waging war upon it. This is understandable, as nihilism was born precisely as a negation of imposed values and duties toward higher powers and society. You think I owe someone something? Push kurats.

Similarly, early libertarians are known not so much for their positive agenda as for their criticism of all sorts of statist filth. Nevertheless, a libertarian is usually not very inclined to physically exterminate all statists; likewise, a nihilist, despite all his aggressive and cynical rhetoric, if left alone from the moralizing that irritates him, will still be forced to contact people, negotiate with them, and even unite based on the coincidence of specific values and interests—though, one might ask, where is the nihilism and where are the values? However, even a subjective will has preferences. And where there are coinciding preferences, the possibility of cooperation emerges. And so, Stirner’s Unique unites in unions of egoists.

Of course, if left to their own devices, nihilists will inevitably change their rhetoric. “No higher values exist, no one owes anyone anything by default.” “Well yes, that’s obvious, but what was your point?” Will nihilists necessarily appeal to the right of the strong? At first, quite likely, they will. Then they will realize that no single natural law exists, and this applies to the right of the strong as well, which means they will have to negotiate with each person individually and state obligations in an explicit form.

In short, any ideology that puts individualism at its core (and nihilism is exactly that) will inevitably arrive at more or less libertarian practices, even if at the start people are full of cynical bravado about the possibility of bending everyone over. Universal bending only works where there is the consent of those being bent. And why would nihilists give such consent?

Ugodan dan, prijatna kafica!

Imposing cultural traditions

A quite significant portion of the questions people ask about Ancap boils down to whether one can do this and that, whether it’s permissible to do this and that, how Ancap views this and that. Can you kill pedophiles and murderers? Is slavery and abortion permissible? How does Ancap view intellectual property and global warming?

As you know from memes, Ancaps have a simple, concise, and even fully correct answer to all these questions: the market will resolve it/. In other words, in response to a question about the imaginative subject “Ancap” a specific imaginative subject, “the market,” is pointed out, which will establish the corresponding norms. Of course, this answer is too brief and therefore doesn’t satisfy those asking. Let me elaborate on the topic a bit.

Mostly, people aren’t bothered by what other people do because another person’s behavior fits into another person’s notions of what is proper. And when it stops fitting, that person starts to worry about it, begins to think about how he should relate to it and what can be done with it.

A libertarian can roughly describe his notions of what is proper as “self-ownership is respected, NAP isn’t violated.” This isn’t enough, and notions of what is proper are supplemented by all sorts of “here it’s customary like this.” For example: here right-hand traffic; we let children pass ahead in line; at a restaurant the person who invites pays, and so on. But besides all these ethically neutral customs, there are also those relating to various borderline situations. For example, at what age does sex stop being an adult’s business and become the business of whoever is doing it? Or what kind of natural compensation is permissible to demand from a debtor or from someone who caused damage? Or in what cases does an author have the right to restrict other people from using his work? These things are not derived from basic libertarian principles, as is, for example, right-hand traffic.

In ethically contentious situations, a person tends to offer as a norm the option that’s more advantageous to him personally. If he’s also influential enough – it can be painful to be hit with, it can bring much good, it evokes universal love or simply annoys – then they might agree with his proposed norm; but further down, this decision can easily become a precedent, and now others will cite this version of the norm as local custom. Then, for someone who wants to revise this norm, it will be necessary to be much stronger, more useful, more charming or more annoying, because he’s going against tradition.

Thus, one can speak about the right of the strong: that person who put in efforts to create a precedent, may thereby establish a legal norm. It will be difficult for him to change this norm whenever he wants – in legal tradition this is called the Estoppel principle – if someone previously demonstrated by his actions that he adheres to such-and-such a norm, then he cannot legally insist that it not be applied to him.

In artistic form, the Estoppel principle is well demonstrated in Maxim Shapiro’s famous story “Respect for Cultural Traditions”.

Of course, whoever possesses undeniable superiority in strength, usefulness, charm or sheer annoyingness, or who leads a united group of like-minded people, will be able to promote such a legal norm as “this specific idiot has the right to act in any situation, as he pleases,” creating thereby a state. However, until he creates legal norms for transferring his power, this state will inevitably end with his death, and death is usually quite early. At least this regularity ancient history shows us. But we are considering *ankap* here – that is, the public order in which the probability of success of such idiots is deliberately reduced to a minimum.

So how will they treat heretics, slavery and the rest at *ankap*? You decide. The more effort you put into making your opinion prevail, the more intolerant you are of other opinions – the greater the probability that heretics will be given exactly as many lashes as you outlined to the first one you met. And of course, the greater the probability that in defending your opinion you will suffer unacceptable losses – and wipe out. Nevertheless, if these topics excite you vividly, I recommend boosting strength, usefulness, charm.

And annoyingness.

Respect for Cultural Traditions“

Translation of an article about tulip mania

There is a new commissioned translation on the site, the article “Tulipmania: The classic story of the Dutch financial bubble is largely false“. It is 2018, the Bitcoin bear cycle, and there are once again talks that all this crypto of yours is just a new version of tulipmania; so, the article, without mentioning Bitcoin a single word, instead explains that everything with the tulips was not at all like it is in popular economic anecdotes.

Montelibero and Argentina

It has been a while since I’ve reviewed what’s happening in Montelibero, but an interesting occasion has arisen: Anton Ekhin, a political scientist, one of the project’s ideologues and author of articles explaining why a free society for Russian emigrants should be built specifically in Montenegro, has released a new article where he now explains why this should be done in Argentina.

In brief.

The pros of Montenegro, as they were seen in 2021: a sparsely populated democratic country without a dominant nation, with access to the sea and prospects of joining the EU.

The cons of Montenegro, as they are seen in 2025: a country that diligently executes any EU directives to tighten the screws regarding Russians, except, so far, requirements to introduce a visa regime. There is also a media and partially police campaign against Montelibero and Anton personally.

The prospects for the Russian libertarian community in Montenegro to facilitate changes toward freedom in this country are not even zero, but negative: the more active the hustle, the harsher the opposition will be under conditions of complete power dominance by the local state. Anton is not particularly interested in agorist ideas on building a counter-economy; it is important to him that all these measures be supported by the official authorities. In hope of this miracle, he first moved from the RF to the DPR, then supported the Montelibero project, and in the last year, finally realized that the miracle is already happening in Argentina, and that the soil there is more fertile for libertarians.

In this regard, Anton intends to cut his losses in Montenegro and focus on creating a libertarian community in Argentina, based on principles tested in Montelibero. The reaction of the Montenegrin part of the community to such ideas was quite unanimous: let him personally go to Argentina and build whatever he wants there, while we have settled in quite well here. This echoes my thesis from last year that the main incentive for a Russian-speaking libertarian to move to Montenegro is that Montelibero already exists here, while such strong libertarian communities have not yet been built elsewhere.

Thus, the main downside of the idea of switching to Argentina is that there aren’t that many Russian libertarians; in Montenegro, they already have a significant network effect from economic and social ties, and switching to a new platform will continue to yield a net negative for quite some time: those remaining in Montenegro will lose out due to the weakening of the local community, and those moving to Argentina will bear the costs of relocation without receiving the benefits of a community, because it hasn’t been created yet.

For those who wish to participate in politics, leaving for Argentina is unambiguously preferable. The reason is banal: it is still realistically possible to obtain citizenship there, along with political rights, in a relatively short period, whereas in Montenegro, Russians have no citizenship and will not have it. Montelibero’s resources tried to put a brave face on a bad situation, claiming that political rights aren’t really needed and that they would influence through locals, but now it seems the illusions have vanished.

However, even those who seriously count on obtaining citizenship in about three years must have something to live on during those three years, and also find a way to stay on their feet after receiving citizenship. Despite a year of libertarian reforms, Argentina is still a regulatory hell, and for immigrants, the situation has rather worsened compared to the pre-Milei times—citizenship and residence permits have become harder to obtain. Besides regulatory difficulties, one must also consider that the cost of living in Argentina has become clearly higher than in Montenegro. The same high import duties known from Montenegro, which Milei is somehow struggling to abolish, are doing their dark work.

Which Russian libertarians should actually go to Argentina?

  1. Those who have the resources to create a medium-scale legal business. In Montenegro, this would be a meaningless burying of money: the business climate is deteriorating, and Russian businesses are subject to serious regulatory pressure, especially informal pressure, where fines and suspension orders are issued more or less arbitrarily. In Argentina, taxes are higher and there are plenty of inspections, but the market is larger, and at a certain scale, this can offset the negatives.
  2. Those who have grounds for rapid acquisition of Argentine citizenship: the ability to invest a large sum in the local economy, confirmed large legal rent, or legal employment in a local company. Having a child born on Argentine territory is a lottery.

In other words, there are grounds to flee to Argentina for those who are already very significant actors in the local community in Montenegro, and the departure of each such person from Montenegro would be a great loss for Montelibero. Therefore, the main recommendation for the Montenegrin part of Montelibero is: value our whales, show them signs of respect, and give them no reason to doubt that they are more needed here.

As for the medium-term perspective, the stratification of the Russian emigrant libertarian community into a wealthy legal Argentine and a poor illegal Montenegrin community could eventually produce some useful effect. However, those who could in principle move to Argentina and create a new community there might have a reasonable question: why there specifically? Why not El Salvador, Prospera, or finally New Hampshire? Everywhere has its downsides, and Argentina has them too. So, as was the case with Montenegro in 2021, first a certain small group of people must take a risk and invest in creating a libertarian community in Argentina, and only when some rooting occurs will the presence of their own homegrown “Argentibero” truly become a significant factor for which it would make sense to move there.

New translation. Gustave de Molinari. Evenings on Rue Saint-Lazare. Chapter 11.

At the request of @mysery_tg, I have produced a translation of one of the chapters of “Evenings on the Rue Saint-Lazare” by Gustave de Molinari (1849). In the mid-19th century, the author conceived and popularized the idea that we now know as ancap; in the text presented here, he lays out the arguments for this system of social organization in a theoretical dialogue with a conservative and a socialist.

The translation was made from David Hart’s English translation of 2009. I did not cross-reference it with the French original, but I hope that the “telephone game” factor is negligible.

My acquaintance with Maxim Frantishkov

I have finally managed to finish listening to the previously announced long and tedious debates between Maxim Frantishkov and Alexey Kamendant regarding the problems of the validity of libertarian theory.

This was preceded by a conversation between Bogdan Litvin and the aforementioned Maxim Frantishkov, where the latter described the gaps he sees in libertarian theory.

Maxim’s main take from this first conversation was that self-ownership is not such a necessary concept, the direct application of which runs into numerous borderline cases and conflicts, such as the legal analysis of parent-child relationships—and if we agree to the possibility of parents infringing upon children’s self-ownership-based rights with impunity in the name of their own good, then this literally justifies paternalism in any sphere, and statism as its ultimate manifestation, in one single step. In my book, similar problems are briefly analyzed; however, in Maxim Frantishkov (at least in the two conversations provided), we have not so much a theorist as an erudite who has studied the theoretical works of Mises-Rothbard-Hoppe in detail and is convinced that libertarian theoretical thought stopped with the latter, and now all libertarians are merely obsessing over this trio without moving their research further.

Next, Maxim shows that there is no right other than the right of the strong, and libertarian considerations about ethics and law are simply the ideology of the weak. The strong take what they want, and the weak are indignant, asking by what right, yet they endure and do not revolt. In conclusion, he suggests that libertarians acknowledge this conclusion as a fact and act based on these considerations. It must be said that this correlates in some ways with my definition of rights as claims that have been accepted; however, in my view, libertarian ideology will not be sufficiently viable if it only organically fits the worldview of people in a weak position, for as soon as a person becomes strong enough, they will begin to discard all libertarianism with contempt. Our task of ideological expansion consists precisely in demonstrating that libertarian approaches are also capable of improving life for the strong.

As for the debates with Kamendant, I strongly disliked the format; the moderator could have at least somehow reined Maxim in when he went off-topic, exceeding any reasonable time limits. On the other hand, Maxim stated at the very beginning that libertarians always enter debates only to lose, and then immediately demonstrated that for dominance in debates, the pressure applied is more important than the quality of argumentation. This is the nature of the genre, he claimed, so study no-holds-barred fighting; maybe you’ll win someone.

Nevertheless, a couple of takes appealed to me. One from Kamendant, when he said that as the legal system becomes universalized and separate local legal systems merge, local peculiarities disappear from them, and the foundation that remains is natural law. And libertarian ideology can rely perfectly on this very natural law.

The second take was from Maxim, stating that the ethical system of libertarianism has no need to justify itself through another ethical system, such as utilitarianism; the system should be closed within its own values. In principle, Rothbard wrote something similar when, analyzing Mises’ position, he noted that for a libertarian, freedom would be preferable even if it were somehow incredibly possible to construct a working version of communism that would multiply people’s material well-being more effectively than a free market. So, while a libertarian can be glad that the laws of economics are on their side, their ethical position should not rely on this circumstance but be rooted in more fundamental things.

So, in the end, listening to these conversations at 1.5x speed was not a complete waste of time, but in the future, I will prefer someone not so talkative.

How do you feel about feeding neural networks all the content from the internet, disregarding copyright and without anyone’s consent?

M1inki

It has long been no secret to my readers that the copyright law appears to me as an entity that is hopelessly obsolete and extremely expensive in terms of enforcement, and therefore will immediately wither away as soon as the state ceases to carry out this very enforcement. However, with the appearance of large language models, all grounds have emerged to believe that copyright will wither away even and significantly sooner than the state.

There are various arguments in defense of copyright. There is the utilitarian one: if everyone takes someone else’s content for free, the incentive to compose this content will vanish, and that is the end of progress. There is the objectivist one: a person has a right to the product of their mind, and damn it, because that’s what Ayn Rand said. There is the ethical one: labor must be paid for.

And then it turns out that to train another, more advanced version of a large language model, it needs to be fed the entire corpus of texts ever created by humanity, and it will devour them and ask for seconds. If this is not done, then a promising direction of information technology development will hit a dead end. Those training the model are not concerned with the artistic merits of the text. For them, whether it is the Bible or a Harry Potter fanfic—it is simply text possessing a key quality: written by a human. Knowledge of the Bible is more important for a language model, but only for the reason that, firstly, it is more voluminous, and secondly, references to it are far more frequent in other texts and in user queries.

And that’s it, we have immediately lost the utilitarian argument, because it is precisely for the sake of progress that texts need to be fed to the neural network. In exchange, we have acquired very wealthy lobbyists for the abolition of copyright, since companies developing large language models can quite well compete in terms of capital size with digital publishing houses. Moreover, even if for particularly widely circulated texts the rightsholders manage to defend the right not to acquaint LLMs with them, who wins from the fact that in response to “summarize such-and-such story by Stephen King” the chatbot will answer “I don’t know a single work by this author, let me instead summarize such-and-such story by David Friedman”? Surely it won’t be Stephen King’s publishers nor Stephen King himself who will benefit from such a thing.

How will content for training neural networks be obtained? Very simple. Content is usually already physically present on the web in free access; it just has a “pirated” label, and therefore law-abiding companies have to pretend it doesn’t exist. However, this is too flimsy a little fence, and it won’t stop those who consider themselves entitled to step over it. The only person a neural network won’t get is some Rodion Belkovich, because he in principle does not post his books on the web, even for money))) This is a huge loss for the future interlocutors of intellectual chatbots, but what can be done, humanity has lost many valuable texts throughout its history, shit happens.