How does capitalism work under conditions of full or nearly full automation of labor?

анонимный вопрос

The difference between an enterprise with automated and non-automated labor can be easily illustrated using the example of a kitchen. You could hire a cook, pay her pennies, and she would prepare whatever your heart desires and go to the market for groceries herself. Or you could buy a refrigerator, a microwave, and stock up on semi-finished products yourself. Such dining could be cheaper or more expensive than having a cook, but the hired employee is removed from the equation, along with all the baggage in their head, the need to rely on their conscientiousness, and the requirement to pay them regardless of whether you eat at home or at a restaurant today.

Labor automation does not even save so much as money (although in the long run, of course, it does). The main thing is that it saves nerves. An entrepreneur always strives to reduce their risks. Making the success of one’s activity dependent on someone’s goodwill is always a risk. Today the employee works hard, tomorrow they take sick leave, or bury a grandmother, or strike, or quit—and plans must be adjusted. Therefore, investing more capital to rely less on labor is always a great temptation, even if the monetary gain is relatively small.

In general, capitalism works magnificently under conditions of full or nearly full replacement of labor by capital. However, under conditions where labor is hardly automated, it always tends to degenerate into something paternalistic. One should seemingly think in terms of costs and profits, but is forced to think in terms of social responsibility. Therefore, mass manual production inevitably gives rise to various socialist or feudal practices, whereas automated production can be easily reduced to purely market relations.

I could gaze at it for a century! Only two supervisors for the robots, absolute beauty!

Connecto VPN

During the period when Roskomnadzor was going crazy and using a scattergun approach in attempts to block Telegram, a proxy from Vee Security helped many Russian users. Now Roskomnadzor has toned down its fervor, Telegram has become smarter, and for most of the time, it no longer requires a proxy.

However, this episode demonstrated that people in a repressive state (and potentially all states are repressive) should learn the rules of network hygiene in advance. In particular, one means for this is the use of VPN services.

Of course, if you have specific tasks such as surfing from behind the Great Firewall of China or watching movies on Netflix from a country where it does not distribute content, you have likely already found reliable, fast, and expensive services for this. However, for the vast majority of users, this is excessive functionality that they do not want to overpay for.

Connecto VPN by Vee Security is exactly such an optimal solution for our modest market. On one hand, there is a clear emphasis on security. No logs, no mandatory personal data when connecting, and if desired, the service can be paid for with cryptocurrencies. On the other hand, with monthly payment, the price is only four euros per month, while the market leaders ask for around ten.

The company has only four servers so far, but I read winter reviews, and there were three back then. Steady growth as the company scales is a good, sustainable business model. Vee Security is located in the safe Estonian jurisdiction, so Russian clients have nothing to fear in this regard.

For everyone who decides to connect to the Connecto VPN service via my link, I will receive 2 euros for a monthly subscription, 5 euros for a semi-annual one, and 8 euros for an annual one. So, if you were thinking about donating some money to me anyway, you can combine business with pleasure. The service is truly good; I have read many warm reviews about it, not only immediately before writing this article while trying to find any pitfalls, but long before that, from my acquaintances. Usually, they praised it.

At the same time, I recommend subscribing to the channel of the owner of Vee Security, dedicated to cybersecurity. Security issues can also be discussed in the corresponding chat.

New translation!

We present for your consideration a translation of the article by Rainer Eichenberger and Bruno Frey “Functional Overlapping and Competing Jurisdictions (FOCJ): Developing the Idea of Modern Federalism”.

The article examines a model for a soft, evolutionary transition to a libertarian society through functional panarchy. The model was developed for actual implementation via political means (which is why it is non-radical and complies with the requirements of legislation on political parties). It could serve as a strong foundation for updating the program of the Libertarian Party of Russia, as it is well-suited for heterogeneous political entities such as the Russian Federation. Although a significant portion of the article is dedicated to proposals for reforming the European Union, a separate chapter analyzes the specifics of implementing FOCJ in developing countries.

Translation: Kreadon
Editing: Ancap-chan
General coordination: Bitarch

What ways exist to rehabilitate people in the eyes of the libertarian public in the case of a complicated background?

For example, what if there were some relationships with “United Russia” in the past, or if non-libertarian laws were promoted? In general, what do you advise such people to do? Is damaging those in power through compromising materials or lawsuits the only format? And what if those in power were not comrades of any sort, and there is no compromising material on hand? Perhaps reversing the adopted bad laws would also work? Maybe something else?

Sergey Sushinsky

This is a very complex topic if viewed through the prism of holistic constructs like the “libertarian public,” but it becomes much simpler if one does not deviate from the principle of methodological subjectivism. It is impossible to please the public as a whole; it is impossible to stain your reputation in the eyes of absolutely everyone, and to an equal extent. To some, Stalin is a bloody tyrant; to some, the father of nations; and to some, a weakling who failed to crush the hydra of counter-revolution.

There are very intolerant libertarians, at least in their public rhetoric. Judging by your mention of compromising materials on government representatives in your question, you clearly meant, among other things, “how to curry favor with Mikhail Svetov if you are Dmitry Gudkov.” You can’t. Svetov is just as biased as many others, and will similarly fit the arguments to his pre-existing opinion. This works both negatively and positively; any conditional Svetov will inevitably have a “inner circle” that is forgiven more than outsiders. This is normal, in the sense that it is determined by our biology.

From the outside, of course, one can indeed imagine horrors. If these guys are so strict with a person whose father voted for bad laws and who did not disown him, then what will they say about a person who personally lobbied for bad laws?

In fact, however, people are quite inclined to respect those who act in accordance with their convictions, and when those convictions change, those who honestly admit it and declare their new agenda, providing a justification for why it appeared.

You believed smoking was an evil and lobbied for anti-tobacco laws. Now you believe smoking is an evil, but you consider anti-tobacco laws an even greater evil. This is a perfectly natural evolution of thought, and you naturally seek arguments now against the lobbying of anti-tobacco laws. You collaborated with United Russia, realized that it was not only futile but harmful, and now you seek ways to shake its monopoly. This is a far more understandable, consistent, and respectable position than having no position at all, or simply claiming that no one can be trusted and there is no point in trying.

Take Vladimir Zolotorev, whom I have mentioned repeatedly: he used to be involved in public politics, and now he has not only cooled toward it but considers the pursuit harmful. I believe he is wrong, but given the difference in experience, I fully admit that I might be the one who is wrong. We have noted our disagreement, and I hope that for him this will not be a reason to “cut me out of the movement,” as especially intolerant people like to do. If you encounter such people, simply understand that using simple oppositions saves a great deal of mental effort, and do not force them to strain themselves where they don’t need to. On the other hand, they can use their thinking to the fullest where it is more justified for them, and division of labor is great, even if it is the division of brain labor between separate tasks.

I am not a neurobiologist, and it is difficult for me to say what this brain is busy with now, but in any case, that is its private business

A little more about Zelensky

Yesterday’s spontaneous post about how Ukraine has finally waited for a libertarian president caused a number of comments from actual Ukrainian libertarians, such as, for example, Vladimir Zolotoryov. The comments boil down to the fact that there is nothing to rejoice about; Zelensky is as much a libertarian as Zolotoryov himself is a communist, so he will ruin everything no better than Balashov.

Indeed, Zelensky’s statements are quite contradictory: he simultaneously quotes Reagan, with his “government is not the solution to the problem; government is the problem,” immediately proposes the concept of government as a service, and then promptly reports that it would be a good idea to imprison more people for tax evasion and introduce total income declaration. So, Zelensky is certainly not a convinced libertarian; he is an obvious populist trying to guess the demand of the target audience to gain maximum support.

What do I see as the merit of Zolotoryov, Balashov, Yurovsky, and even the—heaven forbid—late Sherstnyov? It is that they, and many other Ukrainians, broadcast the libertarian agenda so loudly and convincingly that the populist Zelensky believed: this is the people’s demand, and this is what I will latch onto. Zelensky, having no distinct program of his own, is an amplifier of someone else’s agenda. Yes, his microphone captures noise along with the signal, introduces its own distortions, and then delivers something close to a cacophony to the public. But he draws attention to the libertarian doctrine itself, and after that, interested people can already bend the ears of others and explain that taxes are theft, the state is a gangster, and this is how ancap works—take it and use it.

In Russia, however, Vladimir Popov asks an interesting question in his channel. Generally, the channel is mostly dedicated to weapons, and I love it dearly, but opinions on a wide variety of topics are found there. Vladimir asks: how is it that when Enteo says he is a libertarian, everyone brushes it off as something you’d expect from a fool. But when people say Zelensky is a libertarian, everyone rejoices wildly that Ukraine succeeded. What is the libertarianism of Zelensky, how does he differ from Enteo, and what did Ukraine succeed in?

Zelensky, unlike Enteo, does not practice direct aggressive violence, declares a desire to end the war, and defends the desire of Ukrainians to live their own private lives. And if the statement “Enteo is a libertarian” evokes nervous laughter and a response of “why don’t you call the Tsapkovs libertarians too,” here it is more of a shrug and a thoughtful “well, in some ways—yes.”

So, it makes sense for Ukrainian minarchists to express joy and start broadcasting something like “Hooray, Zelensky is a libertarian, which means he must lower taxes, reduce regulations, carry out decentralization, and privatize state enterprises. Show us the scoundrel who dares to hinder our beloved Mr. President in these libertarian endeavors, and we will cover them in shame.”

The same applies in Russia: if Putin says he is a libertarian, the reaction will be like it was for Enteo. If Navalny says he is a libertarian, it makes sense to express joy and bring the good news to the city and the world: finally, we have reached Navalny, he has become imbued with libertarianism, renounced the minimum wage and other leftism, and will now change the economic block of the program—forward, Navalny to the Duma, and so on.

And yet, Ukraine has finally gotten its libertarian president!

Remember, a long time ago, I rejoiced along with you that a libertarian ran for president of Ukraine? In the elections, Gennady Balashov received some ridiculously low numbers of support, partly because his electorate went to Volodymyr Zelenskyy. And, as it turned out, not in vain! A representative of Zelenskyy in the Rada just stated that his “Servant of the People” party will run in the parliamentary elections with a libertarian program.

Of course, judging by current polls, the chances of the libertarian party of Ukraine obtaining an absolute majority in the Rada are slim, and they will have to form a coalition, but slow and steady wins the race; this is already significantly more than one could have hoped for. I congratulate our neighbors on this stroke of luck; the cat that came out of the bag turned out to be exactly the right kind of cat.

Is it okay to punch someone in the face if they threw shit at you?

анонимный вопрос

As I understand it, you are only secondarily concerned with how a proper ancap should appropriately react to such a thing during an ancap (the correct answer: it’s not mandatory, provided you see an opportunity to hold the attacker accountable while maintaining greater dignity). More likely, you want to understand what a specific Svetov could have opposed against a specific attack in a specific Putinist Kazan.

And here, of course, it is important to have accompaniment. Since such symbolic actions, logically, may be recorded on video by the attackers’ accomplices, it is primarily important not to give them the opportunity to obtain footage that portrays the victim in an even more unflattering light, or worse, provides grounds for criminal charges. Therefore, the object of the attack must not chase anyone or attack anyone.

Meanwhile, a private individual who happens to be a witness to the attack by pure chance could well catch up to the attacker, detain them, and take a close-up photo; after that, it would be possible to sue them, as a photo is usually sufficient nowadays to establish identity through open sources. Of course, in Russia, and especially in sultanates like the one in Kazan, the investigation could easily fail to find the suspect, even if their full name, address, and phone number are handed to them on a silver platter, and the case would remain open against unidentified persons. After all, there has been no news regarding the investigation of the attack on Svetov in another sultanate—Kemerovo. But if people with authority were working there, then here the attackers are quite vulnerable. And (finally answering the direct question) after it turns out that it is impossible to legally hold them accountable, you can—and it is even highly desirable to—beat their faces. But this should not be done by Svetov, but by some unidentified persons who are in no way connected to the incident and simply learned about it from open sources. Well, what can you do; some people don’t like political activists, and some don’t like thugs.

without a vest(((

What about water supply and housing and communal services in a free market?

анонимный вопрос

Let me talk only about water supply so as not to dilute, pardon the pun, the topic.

To provide a city dweller with water, it is necessary to:

  • find a water source
  • extract the water
  • deliver the water to the consumer

For all of this to work in a free market, each of these stages must be able to be carried out without coercion and bring profit to the person who carries it out. Now, let’s go through the points.

Find a water source

Given the presence of bodies of water, this is a relatively simple task, so let’s consider a more difficult case: searching for an artesian basin. To carry out this work, it is necessary to hire a specialized organization that will deploy its recording equipment on the ground, use it to obtain data from depth, process it, and draw conclusions about where the boundary of the basin is and, therefore, what the water reserves are. That is, it is necessary to reach an agreement with the owners of the land where the survey will be conducted, pay them the agreed compensations, and carry out the exploration. This task is not unsolvable.

In Russia, where all subsoil belongs to the state and land can belong to private individuals, geological explorers pay landowners for land damage, and the profit will ultimately go to whoever acquired a license for extraction from the state. In a free market, it would more likely be like in the USA, where subsoil rights belong to the landowners, meaning they are even more interested in the exploration of the subsoil beneath them. Also, as far as I could understand, the data obtained during exploration possess a certain redundancy, and therefore the disagreement of some landowners or the impossibility of surveying due to the location of buildings on the land will not significantly hinder obtaining a result. In other words, at this stage there are no particular difficulties for the market—there are ordinary entrepreneurial risks, where the money for exploration is paid, but no basin is found.

Extract the water

Here, again, the greatest theoretical difficulty is the situation involving an artesian basin. The thing is that it is usually large enough that the water intake wells exploiting it can be located on the land of different owners. If there are many consumers and little water, it is important to prevent the tragedy of the commons, otherwise the source will not be able to replenish naturally due to excessive extraction.

Several such cases are analyzed in detail by Elinor Ostrom in the book “Governing the Commons”, where she presents the main principles that extraction organizations must adhere to in order to prevent the degradation of the resource. Here, they will need a fixed agreement on water extraction norms, a monitoring body, and the ability to stop abuses, using a graduated system of fines. Moreover, interestingly, it is very important that there be a possibility for contract enforcement, but no less important that no state attempts to interfere in the process of concluding the contract itself. That is, for the confident resolution of such types of property conflicts, the existence of a developed free market is not just desirable, but absolutely vital.

Deliver water to the consumer

The question of who will lay and repair the water pipeline is similar to the question of who will build roads. Roads are built by those who need them, namely the owners of the real estate to which the road leads, because it increases their value. In the same way, a water pipeline passing through a plot of land increases its value, because it means that a water-consuming facility can be built on the land and then quickly and easily connected to the water supply.

So the picture here will be roughly the same as at the exploration stage. Either the landowners pay for the pipes on their land themselves, or, at least, they grant the water supply organization permission to lay the pipes, for money or free of charge—depending on what they agree upon.

Summary

Roughly the same approach can be applied to other infrastructure objects and other spheres of housing and communal services. The process of providing a service is broken down into stages, each of which must bring profit. At each stage, property conflicts may arise, which must be resolved by concluding contracts, and these contracts will either provide direct mutual benefit, such as a land lease agreement for laying communications, or be the result of a compromise, such as an agreement on water extraction quotas. And all these complexities, of course, do not compare to the complexities of organizing the same thing through central planning mechanisms—that is where the task is truly solved haphazardly: it consumes tax money and leaves the consumer dissatisfied.

Taking money away from people may not be good, but on the other hand, society wins from it

Yes, the middle class and the wealthy have more expenses, but in return, the poor get the opportunity, for example, to receive an affordable education. For instance, in the US, both education in good colleges and universities, as well as medicine, are very expensive. I see no reason why one cannot help a person now, and then they will help others through their own taxes. Yes, involuntarily. Yes, they will grumble about robbery. But life now is much better than it would be if there were no taxes.

My friend

Alas, it is impossible to reliably learn the opinion of speculative subjects about what constitutes their gain, since speculative subjects exist only in a specific human mind. One will say that society gains from taxes, another that God gains from the ban on abortions, a third that his imaginary friend will gain from a school shooting, and these will be equally reliable statements.

Therefore, it is better to proceed from what benefits, say, a specific child from a poor family will receive from the fact that education is funded by taxes, compared to a situation where education is funded voluntarily.

Since money for education is spent centrally, the curriculum is also determined centrally. Thus, the child studies according to a program prescribed from above, receives a diploma upon graduation, and after that, it depends on luck. Either the knowledge acquired is in demand by business, or it is not. If not, he has quite justified grievances against the state: you ordered me to study things for which no one is willing to pay, so go ahead and pay for it yourself. And the obedient state provides the person with a budgeted job, paying them a salary from money that is, again, collected from private business in the form of taxes.

If the state proves to be a successful entrepreneur and successfully guesses what knowledge in what volume will be in demand by business in the future, then centralized education indeed helps cover the needs of business for a qualified workforce. If the state does not guess correctly, then the money is spent in vain, the workforce remains low-skilled despite the expenditures, but at the same time, having an education, these people are no longer willing to take low-skilled jobs and instead claim high-paying work, even if it is useless, for example, funded by taxes.

The more static a society is, the more justified tax-funded education is within it. The faster a society changes, the less justified it is. If socialism were implemented worldwide, progress would slow down, and such education would become relatively effective, but is this what socialists mean when they say that society will benefit from public education? They seem to call themselves progressives rather than conservatives.

Now let education be private, and a child from a poor family chooses for themselves what they can afford. They can take a loan, receive an expensive education, and then, after landing a high-skilled job, pay back that loan in a few years. They can immediately get a low-skilled job and, in their spare time, get an education based on free courses, which are plentiful on the internet. They may not receive an education at all, but simply increase their qualifications directly in the workplace, which will lead to career growth. And finally, they can demonstrate their great talent in one competition or another and receive a private educational grant. After some time, having achieved success, they themselves will gladly invest in the endowment fund of the university that gave them such a wonderful opportunity.

As a result, we will have a system where every member of society arranges their life exactly as they themselves find most convenient. Wouldn’t it be logical to conclude that society as a whole benefits from such an approach, since each of its members benefits?

Work with your hands by day, and in the evening on Coursera—mastering corporate management

Containment Doctrine, Response to Criticism

Bitarch’s Column

The admin of the “Anti-state” public page Ved Neumann wrote a critical review of the article co-authored by Ancap-chan and me titled “Containment Doctrine — Coercion to Non-Aggression“.

I want to immediately point out the main point of his review, as all subsequent criticism will be based on this fact. Ved does not account for the difference between corporate (CorpETU) and ideological (PolitETU) jurisdiction providers. He himself is a supporter of the former, which is why a clear bias toward them is evident. CorpETU is a “cyberpunk world,” meaning ETUs that prioritize economic calculation and financial gain. PolitETU are, in essence, ideologized extraterritorial states where the criteria for membership are political views, culture, or religion. Examples could be socialist, Marxist, Catholic, Orthodox, traditionalist, transhumanist, or liberal ETUs.

The differences between CorpETU and PolitETU are vast, including the willingness to sacrifice one’s life, renounce habitual comfort, and the likelihood of attracting the majority of the ETUand population (who are not libertarians). These differences are well-described in Oleg Tarakanov’s article “Not Ancap: The Difference Between Extraterritorial States and Private Security Companies“.

Brief conclusion: Ved is completely right regarding the inapplicability of the containment doctrine (CD) to CorpETU (he promotes panarchy with an emphasis on them, so he thinks with some bias), but CD can certainly be used to “divide” the state into PolitETUs.

Next, I will try to analyze some points of this review separately.

> “The difference implicitly implied by you (which in fact is not a difference, as any separatist groups count on the same thing) is that people will consider your actions just and will not view you as terrorists and crazy psychopaths. But this is just another delusion, stemming from the fact that you think many different people can be convinced of the justice of some single ethical theory or political paradigm. ‘Since I believe in something, others believe in it or will believe if I tell them about it.’ They will not believe. Even without considering propaganda, they will not believe. For the absolute overwhelming majority of people, the state is not something bad, evil, a monopoly on violence, or even some single subject of social relations that needs to be opposed for some reason. Which is fair, because it is not such a subject — all this is merely a conceptual simplification, based moreover on a certain set of axioms. But more on this later.”

Polls show exactly the opposite — trust in the state is constantly declining even in developed countries like the USA, and is currently at a minimum level, while the polarization of views is at a maximum. This is excellent soil for the legitimization of PolitETU in the eyes of the majority of the population. Of course, a powerful advertising campaign is needed.

Supporters of the nation-state and democracy were also considered crazy at first, and a decade later it became a mainstream idea. The same can be said about the abolition of slavery.

> “If the system is fragile (very authoritarian with a strong power vertical tied to one person), then with the removal of this person, everything will simply collapse like a house of cards and a civil war will begin. It is not clear how the formation of ten warring Thailands in place of Thailand will help the hypothetical systeders; most likely, sooner or later, not one army, but two or three will come to them, and they will be much more aggressive. It is also unclear how this will help the establishment of ancap or ETU anywhere else. Local residents will definitely not be grateful to ancaps.”

In the original article, the emphasis was placed on the protection of extraterritorial sovereignty, and these systeders (who tried to create a very small but territorial state) were cited only as an interesting example. CD is indeed applicable mainly for the creation of ETUs, but not for territorial separatism.

Ancaps and CorpETUs might not be welcomed in a hypothetical Thailand immediately. But there are certainly ideological disagreements there, and they could become a good basis for turning Thailand not into ten new territorial states, but into, say, five PolitETUs.

> “More to come. How do you intend to define the target for your attack or your influence? Every state system consists of thousands of functionaries, and it is practically impossible to figure out who among them is an important actor by observing from the outside. By being interested in politics, we know a few dozen key figures in the Russian establishment, and often these are not the people that foreign journalists would notice (Indeed, how do you understand whether Milonov, Mizulina, or the head of Roskomnadzor possess real power?). And what about neighboring Turkey? How much do you know about the actors in Erdogan’s government and the balance of power in their country? What about New Guinea or Ecuador?”

On one hand, I want to point out that the victim always knows best where to direct the retribution, so even if it is decentralized, it will be targeted accurately enough; on the other hand, for a deterrent effect, indirect involvement of the object of retribution in the aggression is sufficient — for example, it could be one of the deputies who voted for a repressive norm, or a key government contractor whose affiliation is beyond doubt, even if some details remain in the shadows.

> “What such terrorist activity can really do is harm democracy by redistributing power between public and non-public figures in the governments of many countries (As we saw after September 11, 2001).”

It is worth distinguishing between terrorist activity (against the civilian population) and extremist activity (against the state). Extremism will most likely look positive in the eyes of the population (as I noted earlier, the majority of the population even in wealthy countries now hates the state). As for the destruction of democracy, it only plays into the hands of libertarians, as it legitimizes the territorial monopoly of the state.

> “And finally, it is simply madness to fight a knowingly stronger opponent using his own methods.”

What “same” methods?! The opponent is territorial; his objects are fixed and located in the same places. ETUs, however, are not tied to a territory, and an attempt to arrest even one member of an ETU will likely lead to huge collateral casualties (which is unacceptable damage for the authorities).

> “The success of Bitcoin is that it is a completely new technology that the state system has never encountered and has no idea what to do with.”

Nevertheless, the state has unerringly figured out how to maximize the difficulty of wide Bitcoin adoption and, if it wishes, easily declares its use for purchasing legal goods illegal. Law-abiding citizens are forced to remain in fiat for everyday purchases. Similarly, the state can hinder the activities of extraterritorial jurisdictions in areas where people are forced to act openly and offline. But this defensive tactic is unable to bring the state victory, both in the case of Bitcoin and in the case of ETU.

> “It is impossible to forbid performing mathematical calculations on your own computer (which is what it was originally intended for), which means it is impossible to forbid mining. It is also impossible to forbid the exchange of data about the results of these calculations (how do you imagine that?), which can happen even offline, which means the circulation of Bitcoin cannot be forbidden. Because it is not money. Blockchain can be camouflaged as something as far removed from money as possible, so that not even the most absurd regulation can do anything to it without simultaneously forbidding the Internet and computers. This is exactly the point of Bitcoin. And this is exactly how the confrontation with the state should look — through technical and intellectual superiority over its slow and clumsy system, using all its flaws and weaknesses inseparable from the state, filling all the gaps in the legal, political, and economic system. And finally, creating an alternative that is impossible within the framework of the existing state system, but surpasses it in all parameters.”

I completely agree here. Projects like Bitnation will greatly help the creation of ETUs.

> “And in the maximum volume, having achieved success, you will simply become ‘another intelligence agency,’ i.e., another machine of violence and another Gestapo, deciding who lives and who does not.”

Even if we consider a “hard scenario” (bloody meat grinder, realization of the futility of war, emergence of tolerance for people with different views, renunciation of territorial monopoly and the creation of competing ETUs), which is unlikely given the global trend toward humanization, the result will be a panarchy with peacefully coexistng people of various views, and by no means “another Gestapo.” History has a great example of such a transition — the emergence of tolerance toward non-believers and peaceful coexistence with them on one territory after the Reformation and the subsequent religious wars.