I’m back from my trip to the mountains, so there will be plenty of fresh material soon. Today, to get back into the swing of things, I’ll answer some simple question, and here’s the rough plan for what comes next:
I will break down the trip into cases illustrating different aspects of libertarianism and economic theory and release a fairly extensive article on the subject
I’ll edit and post the Friedman translations that my wonderful assistants managed to put together while I was away
I’ll put out a couple of articles for Bitarch and a new text for the Novosibirsk YouTube channel Libertarian Band (by the way, if anyone hasn’t checked out their latest video on libertarianism for grandmothers, definitely take a look; they have a new sexy host, and I like how he presented my text—the previous one, about lifelong tenure, turned out less lively).
I liked the idea of writing a few fairy tales in the style of Gorky’s Luka.
And we’ll see where it goes from there.
Oh, right, about Friedman. Shortly before leaving, I managed to edit the translation of one of the chapters of the third edition of the Mechanics of Liberty: Problems with deriving the ought from the is in Ayn Rand—enjoy this exclusive, as this text is hardly found anywhere, even in English. I’ve estimated the progress of the translation and think I can set a deadline for the project: February 12, 2020. Grandpa Friedman will turn 75 then, and we’ll have something to congratulate him with. I also remind you that donations for the translation are best sent to a separate wallet 1AFkD2bazCs5YZBBrSD7HsRMWLmRbg6QBo—it will be easier for me to estimate how much I can spend on rewarding my assistants. Please bear with me, but I will bother you with this reminder with every new chapter publication.
It is believed that the state is something absolutely necessary for people, without which there would be chaos, banditry, and ruin. Yet, in different eras, the perception of what the state is and what it should be has differed radically. No matter which government textbook you look at, it always says that in the past, the state was very bad, oppressed people, and they rebelled. But now, the state is good, it does not oppress people, and stability is very important to us all. At the same time, the structure of the state in different countries also differs greatly, and the greater the difference between what is there and what is here, the more “incorrect” the model there is, and the better it would be for those unwise people to do as we do here. Meanwhile, we need to defend ourselves so they don’t do here what they do there.
Why the National State is Needed
Strong national states formed as a response to the constant threat of foreign invasion, as well as as a tool for such invasion. But although territorial seizures continue to this day, this is becoming less justified in the eyes of residents of other countries and less popular among their own citizens. The globalization of the economy has made trade wars far less effective. In other words, the unified national state is becoming less in demand—tasks simply cannot be found for this expensive and inconvenient tool.
The main threat to the state today is not external aggression, but the lack of civil consensus. In democratic states, candidates who rely on the people’s dislike of the political establishment are coming to power one after another. This means that people are not dissatisfied with individuals—they are dissatisfied with the system itself.
Problems of Democracy
Why is democracy providing civil consensus worse and worse? Because it is a dictatorship of the majority. If power stably belongs to the same political force, a stable dissatisfied minority forms, convinced that its interests are not being observed by the government, and therefore completely unmotivated to maintain any loyalty to the government. If the government and opposition regularly switch places, it results in an endless tug-of-war where policy becomes a compromise. Regulations are loosened, then tightened; taxes are decreased, then increased. No political program is implemented, and the voter’s frustration grows.
A minority is ready to obey the majority if it sees the need to unite in the face of external danger. But when there is no external danger, people realize there is no reason to tolerate it. And if external danger is fabricated, in our age of informational transparency, this causes even more irritation and distrust toward the establishment. The “make it the same for everyone” approach is rapidly losing popularity also because in all other sectors, a person easily receives individual service according to their requests—and only in those spheres for which the government is responsible must they somehow put up with unification. The future lies in transferring the individual approach into the political sphere.
For now, the individual approach in politics manifests in how the same candidate is tried to be sold to different categories of voters under different sauces before elections. In other words, political technologists already see the demand of the voters, but, unable to satisfy it, they try to at least give the dish different shades of flavor. But such a marketing strategy cannot work for long. More and more people want to somehow unite with those who share similar views and somehow peacefully separate from those to whom these views are offensive.
Separation
The simplest way of separation within the existing legal political tools is spatial separation. Chechens pushed all Russians off their land and now demonstrate a touching national unanimity to the outside world. American libertarians are moving to New Hampshire—and the state is rapidly deregulating its legislation.
However, physical relocation is only one way of changing conditions. If you don’t like the water company, you have to change your place of residence, but if you don’t like the mobile operator, it is enough to change operators without any moving. Government services have more in common with the services of a mobile operator than with utility infrastructure. At least, most government services look quite mobile.
Panarchy
Today’s state, through taxes, provides citizens with benefits such as education, healthcare, pension provision, law enforcement, control over fire, sanitary, ecological and a bunch of other safety measures, courts, and other small trifles—as well as that for which a strong central government was actually established: border protection against foreign invasion and services for seizing other states. Practically all these services can be perfectly provided on a competitive basis. After all, each of you calls your own insurance company when you get into an accident, so why can’t everyone contact their own police when protection is required?
Market solutions have already been invented and have a practice of successful implementation for absolutely all services that people need. Need, in this case, is determined by the willingness to pay for these services. A system of social relations in which all goods and services are supplied on a free competitive market is called anarcho-capitalism, and this is the liberal ideology brought to its logical limit.
However, such fine fragmentation of government service providers may not seem convenient to everyone, otherwise we would have long lived in such a fully competitive society. There is indeed a demand for a paternalistic state that cares for a person from the cradle to the grave, and it is even quite large. The entire twentieth century passed under the banner of armed struggle between socialism and liberalism, and despite the loud fall of odious totalitarian regimes, it must be admitted that both sides lost in this struggle: classical liberal states have also mostly vanished into oblivion. Therefore, the main challenge facing humanity today is the peaceful separation of socialists and liberals without violating the integrity of national entities (clustering by nationality, having one language and similar cultural norms, is also convenient for people). In fact, we are talking about the simultaneous coexistence of one or several socialist and liberal governments on the territory of one country or block of countries. Such a system is called panarchy, and this idea is being actively developed by intellectuals worldwide, in both developed and developing countries.
Transition Scenarios
Of course, the simplest path to embodying major social transformations is dictatorship. A coup or revolution is not mandatory. It is enough for a populist to come to power, concentrating a constitutional majority in parliament in their hands, subordinating the courts and, most importantly, having broad popularity among the people. A hypothetical Lee Kuan Yew or, conversely, Chavez.
The simplest path, however, also carries the greatest danger. Over time, someone else will replace the dictator and begin to repeal everything that was adopted.
A more complex but more reliable path is a broad public campaign. When very many people demand reforms—loudly, demonstratively and at every convenient opportunity—eventually their inevitability becomes obvious. Once they occur, they are much harder to repeal.
There is also a very simple and familiar path for Russia—catch-up development. Wait until panarchy works in the European Union and the USA, in China and Korea, in South Africa and Brazil—and then finally carry out the necessary transformations, while the lag behind Nigeria still doesn’t look completely hopeless.
And finally, those citizens who require separation can simply present the rest of the state with a fait accompli. Here is your state, here is ours. One territory, different norms. We pay taxes to our government according to the agreement, and we do not pay them to yours. Will you try to use force to return us to your jurisdiction? Guys, a civil war is not budgeted for, and in general, let’s live in harmony, because we have already charged the batteries of our drone. As the famous political scientist Ekaterina Schulmann states, the motto of our time is becoming “What, was that allowed? Yes, it was.”
And if there is no transition?
Well, what will happen if no transition to panarchy occurs?
A couple of inertial scenarios are possible. In the first, Russia sluggishly democratizes, the screws are loosened little by little, and the country gradually turns into something quite decent in Eastern Europe, no worse than some Moldova. In the second, Russia just as sluggishly tightens the screws, pushing particularly active opposition figures abroad, and gradually turns into something bleak in Eastern Europe, like Belarus.
It is also possible that what today exists more in journalistic articles than in regulatory documents will finally take shape. The sovereignization of regions, state corporations, and special services will occur, and the country will slide into clan feudalism. The tendencies for this exist, and as the current president weakens, they may become stronger.
But as long as the state, without reforming in the proper key, continues to somehow degrade, society may simply, by a process of attrition, begin to transition to alternative means of coordination—alongside the state, in spite of the state, and remaining invisible to the state. When people make deals under the table, using private money, resolve their conflicts in a private court, use the services of private security companies and so on, then from a certain moment, the uselessness of the state becomes obvious to literally everyone. In this case, Russia will transition to anarcho-capitalism, bypassing the stage of panarchy.
What to do?
So, you have encountered a fairly long text where unfamiliar terms are introduced, an unusual social structure is described, and strange predictions are made. What to do with this next?
Even if you are a supporter of the status quo, it is still useful for you to know that such a discourse exists and is gaining popularity. You can warily observe the penetration of these ideas into the masses or actively oppose them—but one way or another, it won’t hurt you to familiarize yourself with them, just as it is useful for liberals to know the basics of socialist doctrine, and for atheists—the New Testament.
If you are a convinced democrat, then perhaps you have simply never eaten any fruit sweeter than a carrot. Take a look at what is being proposed to replace modern liberal democracy; it’s possible you will find a grain of truth in these proposals.
Finally, if you like what has been presented, then it is all the more worth studying the texts on this site, discussing them with acquaintances—and from there, it may lead to gradual implementation.
Opponents of the idea of armed struggle against the state often discourage people from it by frightening them with the power of the state’s army. In reality, however, it can be considered that the state has no army at all! And this is not an exaggeration — it is simply unfit for this task. Only the lightly armed police and Rosgvardia will be able to realistically oppose anti-etatist fighters.
Below is an excerpt from a popular book about the decline of the era of territorial states, which every libertarian should certainly read!
“Facing armed resistance from the occupied population, the Germans soon discovered that it was the most modern components of their armed forces that were the most useless. Until then, their tanks, artillery, fighters, and bombers had experienced no particular difficulty in smashing the world’s most advanced armies to pieces (including the armies of three leading world powers, whose forces significantly exceeded their own), but, facing small detachments of partisans who were not an army, did not wear military uniforms, did not fight in open battle and tended to dissolve either into the rural landscape or among the surrounding population, the German troops found themselves completely bewildered. Like other conquerors after them, the Germans learned the lesson that when conducting counter-insurgency operations, practically the only forces that could prove useful were lightly armed police, infantry, mountain troops, special forces, signal troops and, above all, intelligence of all kinds. All of them had to move on foot or using light vehicles, preferably those that could move across rugged terrain. Outside of cities, they could be reinforced by reconnaissance aircraft, and in those rare cases when the enemy managed to be caught by surprise and forced into open battle — by a small number of artillery pieces and tanks. And there was no room in these operations for the pride of the Wehrmacht — tank and mechanized divisions, and moreover, since the scale of the operations was very small, for any divisions at all.
The discovery made by the Germans (and to a lesser but significant extent by their Japanese allies) during the Second World War has since been repeated by practically all major armed forces in the world. Some of the first to encounter guerrilla warfare at the very beginning of the postwar period were the French and the English. In terms of brutality, their operations were far from those of the Germans; and yet, especially regarding French actions in Indochina and Algeria, they were ruthless enough. In both countries, the attempt by the French, using the most modern weapons available to them, to re-establish control over their colonies led to the death of hundreds of thousands of people and the destruction by fire and sword of entire villages and even regions. Although the English did not go so far (the largest number of civilian casualties in their colonial campaigns was approximately 10,000 people during the fighting in Kenya), they also frequently resorted to the death penalty, torture, and destroyed entire villages, whose inhabitants were relocated to concentration camps! Just like the Germans, the English and French armed forces discovered that it was precisely the most powerful weapons and weapon systems that were the most useless, being either too expensive, too fast, too large, too inaccurate, too indiscriminate, or all of the above simultaneously. As for the most powerful weapon, i.e., nuclear, it was simply inapplicable against an enemy whose forces were so dispersed and so elusive”
Martin van Creveld “The Rise and Decline of the State,” p. 485
To be honest, specifically in Russia, it is not particularly easier for people to realize that they won’t be smeared across the asphalt by tanks, but will instead be limited to being smeared across the asphalt by clubs. Meanwhile, there are more carriers of clubs and other light weaponry, specifically hired for war against their own citizens, in Russia than there are those hired or conscripted for war with foreign powers. So I would emphasize not so much how poorly these forces are equipped and how ineffective their tactics are, but how motivated they are — this is precisely the key factor in deterring armed civilian protest.
Today I am pleased to present three new chapters from The Machinery of Freedom all at once. The pool of translators has remained small but very productive, and I am now quite heavily loaded with editing work that can no longer be delegated to anyone.
In the chapter “Robin Hood Will Sell You Out”, Friedman demonstrates some non-obvious mechanisms of how welfare systems, formally created to help the poor, de facto redistribute money in favor of the rich. He also states that such government behavior is not a system error, but the system itself.
In the chapter “The Rich Get Richer, and the Poor Get Richer”, the title is telling enough to understand what it is about. It explains why the impoverishment of the working class, as Marx dreamed, does not occur in a free market, but instead there is a movement toward general prosperity.
Finally, in the chapter “Monopolies I. How to Lose Your Shirt”, Friedman vividly describes how miserable the fate of monopolies is in a free market, and how miserable the fate of those is who are unlucky enough to deal with government monopolies.
On this wonderful holiday, US Independence Day, enjoy the classics of anarcho-capitalist propaganda! By the way, hello to everyone who came via a tip from the Classical Liberal channel; I am very glad to have you, make yourselves comfortable.
In the movie “The Big Short,” there is a moment when the character Mark Baum goes to a rating agency (RA) to ask “has there ever been a time in the past year where you (the RA) didn’t give the triple-A (AAA) rating requested by the banks?”. To which Georgia (an RA employee) responds: “If we don’t give them the rating, they’ll go to Moody’s (another RA) two blocks away.”
The RAs understand everything, but continue to violate their own rules for fear of losing clients to a competitor.
But what if a similar situation arises under conditions of private courts, where courts issue unlawful decisions or, say, decisions in favor of large clients for fear of the client leaving for another private court?
Armchair Hater
In the situation you are considering, we see how poor system design produces incorrect results. A bank pays for the rating agency to give it a high rating, and the rating agency fulfills this market order. Beyond that, anyone can simply disregard this information because it says nothing about the bank’s reliability.
There is a free market. Companies operating on it provide various services. The company’s task is to convince the consumer that it is a good choice. The consumer’s task is to find out which company is truly a good choice. Exactly what the company provides—food, scientific research, or, say, conflict resolution—is completely irrelevant.
A company has two possible strategies. First: by figuring out consumer preferences, deceiving the consumer into believing that the company meets those preferences. Second: by figuring out consumer preferences, bringing its services into alignment with those preferences. The consumer also has two possible strategies. First: thoroughly study the market and make an informed decision in favor of one of the companies. Second: choose the first company they come across, work with it, and if it turns out to be dishonest, make every effort to ensure its management regrets it. These are the extremes I have described. A real strategy will be a combination of the two.
Thus, the company creates a market demand for studying preferences and for information (whether true or false), and the consumer creates a market demand for studying offers and for sanctions against fraud.
This results in an eternal conflict between the shell and the armor (or, if you prefer, the prisoner’s dilemma). The consumer needs independent ratings; the producer is interested in buying a “tastier” rating. The consumer needs a court that will recover damages from the producer for poor quality; the producer needs a court that will acquit them. At the same time, the consumer is not obligated to be a saint either; they might use a product, break it, and then return it as if it were defective; they might receive a product and lie that it was never received; they might pay with counterfeit money…
If the market is regulated from above on an exclusive basis, then both consumers and producers direct their efforts toward corrupting the regulator and inducing it to act specifically in their interests. If there is no centralized regulation, then the most important factor influencing decision-making becomes the practice of successful interactions with a specific counterparty—in other words, their reputation. I have written before about what an ideal reputation system for me might look like. So far, the market mainly features very clumsy systems for analyzing consumer behavior, but these are not needed by me as a consumer, but rather by those who want to push their goods onto me. Systems that would track the behavior of producers just as thoroughly are still far less developed; they are replaced by makeshift solutions from various organizations with the word “oversight” in their names.
In the doctrine of anarcho-capitalism, it is assumed that insurance companies can perform all these oversight functions much more qualitatively. Whether this is actually true, or whether the market will offer us even more sophisticated tools, we will find out once we discard the makeshift solutions.
The market is learning its letters; soon it will start speaking coherently
I have posted the translation of the short fourth chapterThe Machinery of Freedom by David Friedman. So far, the process is funded only by Bitarch, but you have the opportunity to add your own name to the acknowledgments section when preparing the final text, which I will definitely do. I would be glad to receive your donations to pay for the translation to a separate wallet: 1AFkD2bazCs5YZBBrSD7HsRMWLmRbg6QBo
I also invite everyone interested to write their reviews of the book. I would like to attach the most insightful ones to the translated text. Preferably, of course, not in the “read it – liked it” format, but of a more review-analytical nature.
I’ve posted the second chapter of David Friedman’s “The Machinery of Freedom”; it’s quite short. The third was posted a couple of months ago, and the fourth is currently being translated. In short, the process has started.
Once we finish the first part, I will polish the posted material to bring it to a consistent style and create an epub. I will do the same with the remaining parts.
So far, one translator has actively joined the project, and two more are getting ready while clearing other tasks. If you feel capable of taking on this work, let’s collaborate. The estimated payment is 400 rubles per standard page of source text (1,800 characters including spaces).
I’ll start from the end. The channel you are asking about is called “Platinum Thoughts of Young Leftists.” The theses proposed for consideration are indeed the platinum thoughts of young leftists. So why should I think that the channel has gone downhill? On the contrary, it has finally achieved harmony of form and content; it is wonderful.
But seriously, one unsuccessful article or series of articles does not yet write off a channel, especially if it is the product of collective efforts.
On the channel PLUM-TV, several notes were published with examples of how cartel agreements harm consumers, and how state antitrust measures benefit consumers. At the same time, it is not difficult to provide examples of how cartels fail to comply with their own agreements for reasons obvious in terms of economic theory (it is profitable for each participant to break the agreement). It is also not hard to find examples of how state antitrust measures harm consumers.
PLUM concludes from this that the state is a quite viable tool if it is properly tuned. Proponents of AES conclude from this that facts are simply events interpreted through one theory or another, statistics are the result of processing many facts using a theory on how facts should be processed, and the results of statistical research are simply an emotional plea in a political struggle, but by no means an argument in a dispute over which theory is correct—since in selecting countless events into what is called a fact, a certain theory is already being applied, meaning that proving a theory using facts is a distortion. PLUM concludes from this that AES is a faith, not a scientific theory, insofar as it is so deaf to facts. Proponents of AES point out that mathematics is also deaf to facts, describes its own little models and generally doesn’t care whether perfect circles exist in reality. This, however, does not prevent it from being successfully applied to real life—though not to everything and not blindly.
In general, this is a long-standing dispute, many spears have been broken, and generally, it is clear that both induction and deduction should be applied carefully. As for whether the state should be given a chance to improve, or whether it should be razed to the ground, I have touched upon this repeatedly in my previous posts. For example, you can refresh your memory with the post on under what circumstances libertarians might consider their teaching a false idea.
I was distracted from the translation for quite a while, but I have recently returned to it. I present to you the first chapter of David Friedman’s The Machinery of Freedom – In Defense of Property.
I hope I have enough momentum to continue the work for some time, but the best way to influence my priorities is to financially support those of my endeavors that are most interesting to you. For those who wish to sponsor the translation of The Machinery of Freedom specifically, rather than just abstractly support the project as a whole, I have set up a separate bitcoin wallet: 1AFkD2bazCs5YZBBrSD7HsRMWLmRbg6QBo
As for those who prefer to use a lightning bot in Telegram for donations, you can simply specify the purpose of the payment in the comment.
I would also be incredibly happy if you joined the translation work. It is very simple: go to the section where the original book is posted, choose any chapter that no one has taken on yet — and go for it.
The principle of non-aggression is one of the criteria people use to make choices while living among others. However, its consistent application encounters the fact that different people in different situations have different criteria for what constitutes violence. A rock concert is far louder than a hammer drill behind a wall, but a person will readily go to a concert and tolerate the violence against their ears there, while they are far less willing to tolerate a hammer drill. Half a century ago, people were far more tolerant of engine exhaust or smoking indoors than they are today, but it is by no means certain that this trend will continue.
Since universal, objective, natural criteria for such things are absent, one must use various heuristics, such as, for example, the principle of estoppel, which states that someone who violates a certain norm is not entitled to demand punishment for others for violating that same norm. If you smoke indoors, you are not entitled to demand that others do not smoke. If you litter, you are not entitled to demand that others do not litter. Thus, places are formed where everyone more or less refrains from littering, and places where everyone doesn’t give a damn.
Indeed, strong intolerance toward emissions will manifest in some places; we can easily observe such territories called nature reserves or national parks. There, the owners maintain a very careful “non-aggression” on the territory and demand the same from others.
If there is anything constant in human society, it is diversity. No single principle will ever absolutely prevail over all. Not even the NAP. It is enough for you to implement it around yourself to a level that is convenient for both you and those around you.
