Libertarian band has released a new video from the “for grandmothers” series, this time about agorism. Be sure to watch it; I think it turned out quite lively. And for those who want to dive a bit deeper, I’ll remind you that I have already talked about agorism on my channel. In January, I answered a question from the Classical Liberal, where I pointed out that agorism is not the only way, and one should not completely neglect political methods, and in June, on the contrary, I responded to criticism of agorism regarding the claim that counter-economics does not weaken the state in any way.
On Participation in Elections – 2
About a year ago, I wrote a post “On Participating in Elections”, where I gave my interpretation of why ancaps need it at all. Recently, a snide comment appeared under the post, suggesting that people will come up with anything just to convince voters to give up on boycotting. I replied to the comment, but perhaps these considerations should be put into a separate post.
Election boycotting is a tactic that leads to victory in only one case: if voters, by not showing up at polling stations, form their own self-governing bodies without the state’s participation and voluntarily use them, ignoring those created in state-organized elections. In other words, one should boycott not only the elections, but the state as such.
In principle, my argument that going to a polling station to vote or observe is simply practice can be flipped in favor of boycotting elections—that it is simply practice in boycotting the state. I agree, but it is one thing to practice a plank, and quite another to practice simply lying on the couch; nothing will come of that except bedsores. A boycott is an active refusal to cooperate, so if you want, you can practice specifically this skill; it is also very useful. In this case, you will need not just to skip the elections, but to convince as many people as possible to skip them, so that the preaching of non-participation in this shit is heard from everywhere. And then, not limiting yourself to elections, begin to boycott legislation on mass rallies, the tax code, the law on personal data, and many other harmful state regulations. Do not inform the state about your actions, because it’s a boycott—there is no state for you. Treat state employees as ordinary people, and if they use violence, as ordinary gangsters.
In short, a boycott is a very difficult and responsible path, and boycotting elections is only the beginning. If you are not ready for it yet, or consider it hopeless, then it is better to practice the skills of democratic decision-making. Again, a year ago, when I suggested you engage in this, the exercise was simple. Now, the proposal is to master something more complex—not just to simulate filling out a ballot, dropping it in the box, and counting votes, but additionally, to do this in a consolidated manner, within the framework of smart voting. If anyone hasn’t registered to participate in this flashmob yet—I highly recommend it, because ancap is not about aggressive individualism where you don’t give a damn about anything except your immediate desires. Ancap is about living in a society without coercion, based on voluntary cooperation. Smart voting is the opposition of that very voluntary cooperation to the administrative resource, so it’s high time to show whose kung fu is stronger.
Another answer to the question about the interaction between the ECU and people outside the ECU
To start, I recommend reading the question itself and my answer to it. I primarily covered the transition between panarchy and ancap, while in the “Anti-state” channel you can read another answer from Ved Neuman, which mainly concerns the transition from statism to panarchy.
Navalny, Libertarians, and Protest Discourse
Civil society in Russia has been trying to rock the boat and change the government for something more human-like for quite some time now, in order to stop the country’s slide into an authoritarian hole. Alexei Navalny has long and firmly been the frontman of the Russian protest.
The core of Navalny’s agenda is the exploitation of the public demand for justice. Lawlessness, corruption, and the looting of the state budget—covering all these topics ensured Navalny’s well-deserved popularity. Nationalists tried to speak out against the infringement of the rights of the Russian-speaking population, but this aspect of justice proved not to be particularly in demand among the masses. Old-regime democrats peddled the theme of Russian foreign policy aggression, the tightening of civil liberties, and the escalation of political repression—but they only earned the label of “demshiza” (democratic crazies). Libertarians protested against increased regulation and higher taxes—they were completely ignored. Everything flowed in its own way until Svetov arrived.
In the eyes of the average citizen, Navalny’s agenda boiled down to the idea that once he comes to power, he will imprison all the crooks and thieves, thereby restoring justice. Svetov increased the level of populism even further, adding: those we don’t imprison, we will fire without severance pay and strip of their political rights. Such a demand for revenge, due to the use of the sophisticated word “Lustration,” did not resonate with people immediately, but aggressive advertising did its job. The Libertarian Party received a huge influx of fresh blood and rightfully took its place in the protest pantheon to the right of Navalny himself.
An interesting situation emerged where the theme of freedom practically vanished from the public discourse of the LPR, replaced by that very theme of justice, since this rhetoric brings more political points. The main task of the LPR now, judging by the rhetoric, is to overthrow the regime together with its allies; after that, they can distance themselves from Navalny and other fellow travelers and begin advocating for their own specific agenda of reforms. To what extent the Libertarian Party will preserve libertarian values within itself by that time is not yet very clear; however, it is becoming obvious that libertarianism is much broader than what the party does (and what is generally appropriate for a political party to do).
Previously, the activities of the LPR consisted not so much of politics as of education; now the situation has changed, and politics has come to the forefront. This is wonderful, as the division of labor usually contributes to greater efficiency of that very labor. At the same time, of course, it should be expected that those who are not interested in political activity at all, and who were members specifically for the sake of education, or who viewed it as a hobby club, will leave the party. This is logical, since many ancaps fundamentally believe that engaging in politics is pointless, and it would be far more appropriate, for example, to promote a libertarian lifestyle.
I believe that minarchists and panarchists may also receive some indirect profit from the spread of ancap ideas among the apolitical masses, and ancaps are unlikely to lose from having a conditionally friendly political representation—after all, they have nothing against using the state’s weak points to weaken it. Therefore, I urge you not to interfere with libertarians getting into politics, not to quarrel with LPR members, but also not to believe that this party is the only beacon of hope, and that any libertarian activity must be somehow coordinated with this political organization.
However, entering politics under libertarian slogans outside of the LPR is already a serious claim that the libertarian market niche is large and capable of accommodating more than one libertarian party. Perhaps this is true, but here you will have to be ready for fierce competition, which may prove counterproductive, as it diverts resources away from competing with pro-government organizations.
Will an institute of superheroism emerge under ancap? After all, it will cease to be illegal, and people might start taking justice into their own hands. Some actual millionaire could dress up in cool gear and punish violators of the NAP at night.
анонимный вопрос
The institute of superherosim already exists, albeit without any special effects. Take William Browder, for instance: offended that the RF killed his employee, he put on some cool gear and went to the lobbyists, ultimately punishing those who violated the NAP with the Magnitsky list. Mikhail Khodorkovsky put on cool gear and began funding the investigation into the murder of his employees in the CAR, and is also creating his own Shevchenko list. Alexander Litreev put on cool gear, flies around at night and deanonymizes shameful cops along with the Rosgvardiya officers who joined them.
Given how poorly the state functions in investigating certain incidents, we cannot guarantee that superheroes are not already operating in the field of direct physical punishment of NAP violators. For example, recently some owner of an award firearm for merits in the annexation of Crimea carelessly scratched himself with it. Let’s laugh at the safety regulation violator; let the superhero remain off-camera. Secret submarines, of course, also sink without any participation from superheroes.
Naturally, once the main enemy of any superhero—the state—is defeated, he will be able to turn his attention to the struggle against smaller bandits. It will be easier for him; he may even be able to afford to unobtrusively appear on camera in his cool gear from time to time, because the fear of retribution is a crucial element of the deterrence doctrine.
Stationary Bandit
In brief.
For a long time, it was believed that the state is a natural and even god-given condition of society. Later, the roots of the state were traced back to some mythical social contract, or to the immutable laws of economic development. However, modern historical and anthropological data show that all or practically all states are the result of the conquest of a peaceful stateless society by an external enemy—usually a relatively small number of nomadic bandits who were lucky enough not only to carry out a successful raid but also to establish their permanent power over the conquered society. This is the so-called stationary bandit theory, proposed by economist Mancur Olson.
Old pre-state practices of interaction in society have not disappeared; they still work and are perfectly compatible with modern high technologies. The abolition of the state will only free people, and in order to continue living a free and peaceful life, they simply need to avoid attempting to recreate a regime of political power anew.
Introduction
Much has been discussed regarding the origin of the state, and several clever theories have been devised on the subject. Before presenting one of them, I would like to understand the purpose of such studies.
Why is a theory of the origin of the state needed at all? This is a simple question. A theory is needed to base one’s actions upon it and to examine new facts from its perspective. But for actions based on a theory to be successful, the theory must be functional. A functional theory, first, is capable of explaining existing facts no worse than other theories. Second, it must explain a series of facts that do not fit into previously created theories; otherwise, why invent it at all if the old ones managed? Third, a theory can be used to predict new facts. If the facts predicted by the theory are actually established, this is strong evidence that the theory is functional.
Divine Right
The oldest and most venerable theory of the origin of the state was the theory of divine right, according to which the person who became the head of the state did so by divine will. Additionally, this person could be a god themselves. The theory aligned perfectly with the prevailing views of the time that gods generally determine the fates of people: reasoning purely logically, rulers in this case had to be declared either rivals of the gods or executors of their will. The theory had the flaw that it only explained the past and predicted no new facts. Any usurpation of power within the framework of the divine theory came as a complete surprise, and thereafter one had to search for traces of providence on the brow of the new ruler. Furthermore, the model of distribution of power inherent in polis democracies was completely inconsistent with this theory.
For what purpose was this theory actively promoted? To reduce the costs of suppressing people’s resistance to the ruler’s power. It is difficult to argue with divine authority if the deity is responsible not only for the figure of the ruler but also, for example, for the harvest. However, this could also become an inconvenience for rulers, as crop failures became evidence of the gods’ punishment and a sign that the ruler ought to be overthrown.
Social Contract
The next theory of the origin of the state was the social contract theory. The idea is that in a state of nature, there is a war of all against all, and to end this war, a certain government is established to regulate violence. Obviously, even the founding fathers of the theory did not explicitly state that people gathered in a meadow and agreed to establish a state. It was only said that people behave toward the state as if they had agreed to its establishment.
This theory explained both the states that the divine right theory explained, as well as polis democracies, the Roman Republic, and the like. A logical consequence of the social contract theory was the consideration that if people once established a certain form of government, nothing prevents them from repeating this once the current form ceases to satisfy them. This consequence is explicitly contained in the US Declaration of Independence, and indeed, the USA became a vivid example of the practical application of the social contract theory.
A serious flaw of the theory is that it is based on the rather dubious assertion that a war of all against all is an indispensable attribute of the state of nature. Anthropological research has shown that this assertion does not correspond to reality, and that relations of cooperation precede the appearance of power relations in human communities. Thus, the assertion about the voluntary nature of such an institution as the state turns out to be baseless—no less baseless than the assertion of the divine right of kings to the throne.
Class Theory
Class theory takes into account the views on anthropology of the 19th century and one of the directions of political economy of the same time. The theory indicates that the state arises as an inevitable consequence of economic stratification, which, in turn, is an inevitable consequence of increased labor productivity and, accordingly, the accumulation of surpluses. The state within the framework of class theory is an instrument of oppression of subordinate classes by the ruling class.
Thus, for the first time in the history of views on the mechanisms of state formation, it is pointed out that the state is fundamentally antagonistic to the vast majority of the population, and must be abolished. This is a major plus of class theory, explaining many observed facts of people’s oppression by representatives of power, which both previous theories failed to handle.
The downside of class theory was that it was based on the labor theory of value, the theory of exploitation, and similar premises later rejected by economic science. Meanwhile, these false premises dictated to the adherents of class theory methods of opposing the state that only reinforced its repressive nature. Many political regimes established by adherents of class theory attest to this: all of them led only to widespread repressions among the population and usually ended in economic collapse.
Thus, although the state is indeed an enemy of its own people, it was not formed through economic actions; therefore, the path to the abolition of the state does not lie through the abolition of natural economic mechanisms.
Stationary Bandit Theory
When it became clear that the state is not formed through economic oppression but by means of pure violence, a theory was proposed in the 20th century which asserted that the state arose from the confrontation between peaceful sedentary producers and nomads, who preferred to practice looting as a means of increasing their wealth. As long as sedentary residents successfully resisted raids, the bandit remained nomadic. As soon as they weakened, the nomads imposed a regular tribute on them, and then gradually strengthened their power, establishing rules for the taxable population that allowed them to maximize tribute and minimize the population’s opportunities for rebellion. In particular, the divine right of the conquerors to exercise their power over the captured was proclaimed for this purpose.
This theory explained many historical examples where the state arose specifically as a result of external capture, after which the former nomads became the hereditary nobility of the people formed in this way.
The theory also asserted that for the conquered, in a number of cases, the presence of one stationary bandit turned out to be more beneficial than a situation in which they were surrounded by many nomads who did not limit their violence in any way. Thus, the famous legend about the calling of the Varangians to bring order among the Slavs and rule them fully corresponds to this conclusion from the stationary bandit theory. To some extent, such a mechanism of conditionally voluntary acceptance of the state converges with the social contract theory.
However, although for many it is more beneficial to fall into slavery than to perish, this does not rehabilitate the slave owner, for were he not to exist at all, there would be no reason to choose between death and slavery when one could remain free. Thus, even with the caveat that the stationary bandit could turn out to be more beneficial for peaceful residents than the nomadic one (and could not be), this in no way indicates the undesirability of completely getting rid of the bandit.
The Great Fiction
A small number of conquerors are unable to maintain their power over the conquered for a long time if their power rests only on the threat of violence. Or, in the words of Talleyrand, bayonets are good for everything except one thing: you cannot sit on them. The longest-term project of purely forceful retention of power in the history known to us is Lacedaemon, better known by the name of its capital, Sparta. The citizens of Sparta collectively owned helots—residents of the areas of Hellas they had conquered—for approximately five hundred years. By the end of this period, the Spartans simply ran out physically, and their state ceased to exist.
Thus, in order for the stationary bandit to maintain his dominance over the conquered for a longer period, he needed his rule to be based not only on the fear of violence, but to some extent on the consent of the governed (hello again to the social contract theory). In different cases, this consent was ensured by different means, but usually to obtain such consent, conquerors shared their power in measured doses. This expanded their social base. The limit of the development of this mechanism can be called modern social democracies. Economist Frédéric Bastiat called such a state a great fiction, in which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone. The oppressed and the oppressors have mixed to the point of indistinguishability; no one can say exactly how much they pay the state and how much they receive from it—in short, the modern state becomes like a sort of sadomasochistic orgy, where even those who do not experience particular pleasure are forced to simulate it so as not to stress other participants, because such are the rules of the game.
What to do?
First of all, you must stop pretending that you are enjoying the orgy. Violence for the purpose of profit is not only immoral but also unprofitable. The level of productive forces (hello to class theory!) has already grown so much that peaceful cooperation ensures a much faster and more stable increase in prosperity than looting. You can continue to support such rules of the game in which the state will forcefully provide you with preferences at the expense of others, but the state will just as surely provide others with preferences at the expense of you. Cooperation turns out to be more beneficial and predictable, and market competition is safer than war, even if you are stronger than your competitors.
And when you stop relying on the state, you will undoubtedly develop a desire to stop sharing your resources with the bandit. There are many recipes for this, which work for many particular cases, and your creative thought, of course, will allow you to select methods relevant specifically to you.
Finally, your urges to get rid of the state will prove much more effective if they are supported by others. Therefore, it is in your interests to sow distrust of the bandit in minds and ridicule the readiness to support him without protest.
Everyone who evades taxes becomes your ally. Everyone who took a bit of property from the state and kept it for themselves is your potential ally, for they weaken the state, which means you too can snatch something. The state is a stationary bandit, and you are mobile, so it is high time to become that very nomad who is perfectly adapted to crushing such stationary constructions. In this way, you will set history in a spiral (hello to dialectical materialism!) and lead humanity to a new level of development.
The Idea of National Sovereignty as a Path to Ancap
Bitarch, Ancap-tyan
The title looks very strange, doesn’t it? One would think that the idea of national sovereignty originates from the Peace of Westphalia, when after the Thirty Years’ War it was decided that each ruler is sovereign in their own territory and manages their own internal affairs, and neighbors should have nothing to do with it. It was the Peace of Westphalia that gave birth to the modern type of state with its territorial monopoly.
However, by the nineteenth century, the idea of the ruler’s sovereignty evolved into the idea of the nation’s sovereignty, as the power of rulers was no longer associated with divine right and was forced to justify itself through the will of the people. For the sake of the nation’s greatness, it became convenient to wage wars far bloodier than some unfortunate Thirty Years’ War. God fought on the side of the larger battalions; nation-states diligently expanded, acquired colonies—and the world, in general, was moving toward being divided among a handful of countries, which were then to clash in a final and decisive battle, where a global hegemon would be determined and a single world power would be formed. At least, if the free market promoted the formation of monopolies, that is exactly what would have happened. But instead, the First World War led to the collapse of four continental empires, and after the Second World War, colonies began to break away from all the other great powers.
The UN has already officially enshrined the equal status of all countries, and the principle of territorial sovereignty was officially supplemented by the directly contradictory principle of a nation’s right to self-determination. In essence, this cheapened the Westphalian principles, and since then, the number of countries in the world has continued to increase. Also, the good old traditions of invasions for the sake of establishing progressive orders have returned to the world stage, replacing the religious wars that are not particularly relevant today.
There are still far more ethnicities in the world than states, so countries may continue to break apart along ethnic lines for quite some time. At the same time, the incentive for people to separate is not ethnic differences as such, but primarily differences in cultures. But there are even more cultural communities than ethnicities; they arise and mutate constantly.
The ease of movement of people, goods, money, and information leads to the fact that any territorial borders are becoming increasingly permeable, and their very existence is becoming less meaningful.
It is not yet clear how soon and as a result of what chain of events the notion of the right of cultures to self-determination will become mainstream, as previously happened with nations. Purely logically, there are no grounds by which a certain group of people, chosen by a more or less arbitrary criterion, has a right to sovereignty, while another group of people or even a single person does not.
This question is discussed in quite some detail in Rothbard’s “The Ethics of Liberty”; I will allow myself a small quote from it:
A more serious question can be asked: does the adherent of the laissez-faire doctrine recognize the right of a region of a country to secede from the country? Is it lawful for West Ruritania to secede from Ruritania? If not, why? And if so, then what could be the logical conclusion of the division of countries? Could not a small district secede, then a city and part of that city, then a residential block, and finally, a specific individual? Recognizing any right to secede in the absence of its logical conclusion, limiting the right to individual secession—which logically limits anarchism—will lead to individuals being able to secede from the state and hire their own protective agencies, and the state will collapse.
Thus, a clear trajectory for the development of social relations emerges: from the sovereignty of personalities over subjects, through the sovereignty of increasingly smaller groups, to the sovereignty of each individual personality, with the complete eradication of the very category of subjecthood. And if once only a few hundred people in the entire world could claim that “I am the state,” then in the foreseeable future, every person will be able to say this of themselves with full right.
Man to man is a nation.
And if you had a choice: to fight the state in the RF or in another country, what would you choose?
Andrey
I think I am cosmopolitan enough not to fixate on the RF: any state is unpleasant in any of its active manifestations. As I have already written, it seems to me that building an ancap society in a country where there is already quite little state and already exists a tradition of respect for private property and entrepreneurial initiative is significantly easier than where none of this exists. Building an ancap society as an immigrant is a more natural pursuit: for immigrants, it is natural to view the state as something incomprehensible and hostile, something to be avoided as much as possible. So, of course, I would like to move to some relatively free country and act there.
As a counterexample to such an approach, people usually cite modern Western feminists who fight for trivialities—in the opinion of many—while being completely unperturbed by the violation of women’s rights in, say, Arab countries. Yes, I would also prefer to dismantle Russia rather than Turkmenistan, and Georgia rather than Russia. An ancap society might grow from the ruins of a conditional Venezuela, but it would have to grow out of such shit that going there at that time would require one to be either a martyr or a god-given entrepreneur. Quite different is a carefully dismantled state in an already decent society. No aesthetics of the “wild nineties” for you; everything is free and with dignity.
In Russia now, among the protesters, the reverence for the law takes on a completely religious character. Yes, we know the laws are shit, but for the sake of saving our souls, we will follow them to the last letter; and if the authorities themselves violate their own laws, we will sue them in their own court, lose in three instances, and win in the ECHR. I admire the optimism and consistency of these guys. I myself am too impatient to mow the lawn of democracy for two hundred years only to end up with a social-democratic society, and then wonder what to do with such a deeply rooted state. Reverence for the law can be both good and bad. Better to have reverence for property rights and intolerance towards violations of such rights, even if it means violating current laws.
For me, the indicator of the success of civil society is not the size of rallies, not the number of opposition deputies in parliaments, and not the regular change of heads of state—but a reduction of the state budget by at least ten percent a year while people’s wealth grows at even more significant rates. In this regard, Georgia seems quite promising to me: the sprouts of freedom have taken root well here, the state is quite weak, and there is not much interference in earning money under the table.
Tomorrow I am gradually heading toward Russia, but I will definitely return here, and quite possibly for a long time.
Ode to Bitcoin
This morning I discovered something terrible: in a drunken haze last night, I had lost my wallet, which contained all my cash reserves and my bank card.
Alone. In a foreign country. One with which Russia doesn’t even have diplomatic relations.
Naturally, I had plenty of options.
- Get married urgently and stay in Georgia
- Walk home on foot, racing against a Yakut shaman
- Organize a meet-and-greet with readers in Batumi and ask for a loan
- Learn the phrase “madam, monsieur, I haven’t eaten for six days” in Georgian
But instead, I started investigating whether there were any crypto ATMs in Batumi. I found only one, but that was all I needed. From there, it was just a matter of technique.
Then the crypto ATM prints a receipt with a certain redemption code and a notification that cash can be claimed after the first transaction confirmation. When the confirmation arrives, you can go back to the crypto ATM again.
That’s how I played the part of a blacklisted extremist, and consequently, someone without access to banking services. As is easy to see, Bitcoin is a great help in such extreme situations.
Value the freedom of maneuver that cryptocurrencies grant us! This is exactly what they were designed for.
Panarchy for Grandmothers
Hooray, we did it! The most anticipated video of this summer has been released on the Libertarian Band channel, where I tried to explain panarchy in the simplest terms possible.
In my opinion, this is the most successful of my scripts so far, and all the other project participants did a great job.
A bit of behind-the-scenes
In the spring, the team from this channel, with whom I had previously had sporadic experience collaborating, approached me with a request to write a script for a video so they could hold auditions for a new host. I decided that since all sorts of people would be auditioning, the text should be as simple as possible and aimed at the widest audience—an introduction to libertarianism. That’s how the script for “Libertarianism for Grandmothers” came about. During the auditions, they went through about five people, and as a result, the channel got a wonderful new face—Anton. Of course, it’s a bit a pity that the girl didn’t pass the casting; it would have been easier for me to prepare scripts for her, but I really like how it turned out.
The video spread quite well across various public pages and has received over 1,700 views to date, which already exceeds the audience of my own Telegram channel.
Then Bitarch approached me and suggested creating something equally accessible, but about panarchy. I had to disappoint him and reply that I wanted to create a cycle linked by the internal logic of the narrative, and the next one would be a description of minarchism. The video was released relatively recently, but for a reason I don’t understand, it wasn’t received as favorably by the audience. This is a bit strange because, on one hand, the entire agenda of the Libertarian Party in our country today is based on a minarchist platform, and on the other hand, the LP has never once explained its platform in video format, so the video on minarchism is almost the first of its kind. Please share it if you find it useful.
Now the long-awaited panarchy is out. Following panarchy, there should be a “for grandmothers” description of such an interesting strategy as agorism. The text is already ready; all that’s left is to film and edit. There are many other interesting things planned, so please subscribe to Libertarian Band and recommend the channel to your friends.