Today everyone is having a day of reflections about the Russian-Ukrainian War. I was lucky enough to leave Russia before 2022, with a formed libertarian worldview, tactical goals and like-minded people. How wonderful that Putin didn’t read this textbook for the Dark Lord, where it’s suggested to crush your opponent immediately with all their might, instead of feeding them first for training the weakest subordinates. If he had launched a full-scale war in 2014, I don’t know what would have happened to my fate. Most likely, I would have been swearing at my parents eight years earlier, got involved in meaningless street protests, and just about now would be getting out of prison without really understanding what to do next.
Well, as for the current version of reality, I’ve enriched libertarian theory somewhat, persuaded a few people to leave Russia, am surviving with other emigrants in an increasingly deteriorating situation and also don’t really understand what to do next.
What will happen when this annoying war ends? People will switch to something more exciting and interesting – fortunately politicians then dance on the political stage to provide fresh news. Because if they stop being interesting to anyone, it’s not far off to anankapon. And when the Russians stop attracting intense unfriendly attention, perhaps Russian emigrants will start to live a little simpler. It’s wonderful when you are uninteresting to the state. You can start building normal long-term plans without caveats like “if in Skupstine don’t adopt some new crap”.
And this is me just finishing an anime, and there the war ended
Perhaps you have heard about a man such as Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador. He looks cool: he rolled Bitcoin into the country, reduced crime almost to zero, destroyed the gangs. Sounds like success, right? But there is one major problem: in the process, he essentially transformed the entire country into one enormous prison.
Briefly: since March 2022, a “state of emergency” has been in effect in El Salvador. Sounds formal? Well, imagine that the police can arrest you right on the street simply for appearing suspicious. And this is not an exaggeration. Over two years of such a regime, more than 85 thousand people have been arrested. That’s 1% of the entire population. Imagine, one in every hundred families has lost someone close to them behind bars. Justice? Let’s forget about it! Courts take place in groups of 500 people, where you are given a sentence of 15-20 years in just 5 minutes. Guilty or not, nobody really figures it out. Orwell is smoking on the sidelines.
Incidentally, you can also end up in this “wonderful” statistics for criticizing the regime. Journalists and human rights activists regularly face threats, phone hacking through the Pegasus spy program (a greeting to Israeli intelligence services) and even have to flee the country because they don’t want to spend 15 years in jail for a report about a gang.
Instead of fighting violence like in developed countries (strengthening courts, working on education, creating jobs) or taking an innovative technological path (in the direction of treating violent criminals with means to strengthen the mechanism of inhibiting violence), Bukele chose the shortest way – mass repression and force suppressing all who impede him. Crime has decreased, yes. But now all of El Salvador is one huge zone of fear, where criminals have been replaced by the military and police.
Incidentally, let’s remember old Benjamin Franklin: “Those who sacrifice liberty for temporary security do not deserve either one.” In El Salvador, they sacrificed literally everything for an illusory stability. What comes next? Today the troops come for gangs, tomorrow they will come for the opposition, and after tomorrow – for you if you happen to become inconvenient.
History has already shown us time and again: a state, once it feels limitless power, never voluntarily relinquishes it. Of course, we all want security and order. But the price shouldn’t be equal to destroying civil liberties and turning society into a herd of frightened sheep. And you know what’s the worst thing? Bukele destroyed practically all independent institutions under the guise of fighting the Bukele gangs. Courts? Now completely controlled by the president. Parliament? It stamps out any laws, even the most absurd ones. Freedom of speech? Forget about it. Any mention of gangs or criticism of the government now can end with charges of “supporting terrorism.” And don’t forget about the “foreign agent” law, which El Salvador copied from Russia and Nicaragua. NGOs and independent media are required to pay huge taxes if they receive money from abroad. All in order to drown out uncomfortable voices and destroy any dissent.
Speaking of such “freedom” of business: under Bukele, police can easily confiscate your phone, money or car if you don’t please them. And there are no courts – because the judicial system simply stamps out decisions that suit the president. But Bitcoin is legal! True, who will buy it if your money can vanish without a trace? And this will certainly happen if you buy crypto on legitimate exchanges with KYC, revealing your identity and thus becoming vulnerable to raids by security forces who already know where to come.
Bukele assures us that he’s protecting people from bandits, but instead he simply replaced criminal lawlessness with the state. Suppressing rights and freedoms, power only sows new seeds of violence and resentment, which inevitably will give their poisonous fruits in the future. Therefore, remember that a state machine, once it tastes absolute power, usually turns into a monster that devours its own citizens, even the most loyal ones. And El Salvador is a striking example of this.
An important section has been completed, analyzing when the state attacks a group. Instead of the traditional internal classification of cases based on the answer to the question “is it attacking your group?”, here the priority had to be given to the answer to another question: “did the group identify itself as such?”
It also became clear that the next section will not be the final one regarding state-on-state attacks, but another intermediate one — about civil war.
Modern science shows that violence – not just the result of influence on a person by society, environment, upbringing or simply their personal choice. Primarily, violence is a biological phenomenon – the result of dysfunction of the inhibition mechanism of violence and arising psychopathic predispositions due to this. And John Marshall, a forensic psychologist, writes quite well about the key role of psychopathy in committing violence in one of his articles, which we will now consider in more detail.
Firstly, he mentions the meta-analysis by Brittany Fox and Matt DeLisi from 2019, which considered 29 samples from various countries covering over 2600 murders. The correlation between psychopathy and committing murder was equal to 0.68. For comparison – in medicine a correlation of 0.3 between smoking and lung cancer is already considered significant enough not to be ignored. And the link between psychopathy and murder was twice as strong! What’s more, the more extreme or organized the form of killing is, the more manifestations of psychopathy there are in it.
Moving on to the most relevant studies published this year, Melissa Parker West and her colleagues conducted an analysis of 117 studies on the connection between psychopathy and sexual violence. The correlation was moderate, at a level of 0.35, however it is important to note that it remains stable across various samples, including prisoners in jails and public samples. In medicine, similarly strong will be the link between cholesterol and heart disease. Such results completely destroy the idea that psychopathy has nothing to do with sexual or non-sexual violence. The data indicates the opposite: features of psychopathy significantly increase the risk of violence.
Why is this important? Critics argue that psychopathy – a too vague, exaggerated and useless in practice construct. But the data says something different. Psychopathy predicts murders with an effect size that is very rarely found in social sciences. It predicts sexual aggression at a level comparable to well-established medical risk factors. This makes it one of the most powerful indicators of violence. And the fact that the “average” criminal who has committed murder shows moderate manifestations of psychopathy underlines that this is not just a rare subtype of killers, but a general tendency for all cases of lethal violence.
But what is the practical benefit of such knowledge? Of course its value is not purely academic; it’s useful in assessing and managing risks. For example, we need to understand what measures to take towards a criminal and how suitable he is for returning to society. And if we ignore the factor of psychopathy, we can easily make a wrong answer and issue a blind judgment.
Also, this knowledge is useful in preventing violence. Psychopathic traits don’t arise at one moment when a person turns 18 years old. They can be traced in the individual’s development even in childhood and adolescence, observing their callousness and lack of emotion, absence of empathy and a tendency to manipulative or abusive behavior. It is very important to identify and intervene in the problem as early as possible. Combating these traits before they turn into ingrained adult personality models is one of the ways to reduce the number of future abusers.
Finally, psychopathy doesn’t limit itself to prisons or громкие дела (loud cases) about murders. Many people discover psychopathy in personal life: with partners, colleagues, friends or bosses. The ability to recognize emotional superficiality, pathological lies, manipulation and lack of empathy can protect a person from violence. It is necessary to raise public awareness, which will help people avoid psychopaths and the danger they represent, as well as take the right actions when encountering them!
You’ve all probably heard about this phenomenon – Stockholm syndrome – when a victim of abuse starts forming a strong emotional connection with the abuser, acquiring sympathy and complete loyalty to him. It got its name from one incident that occurred in Stockholm, where after an attempted bank robbery, hostages began justifying the captor’s actions, hiring him a lawyer and even sending him admiring letters. This kind of reaction is extremely dangerous because it forces the victim to act against her own interests, sometimes even defending the abuser at the cost of her life.
But why does it actually occur? Of course, it’s all about neurobiology. When someone is under chronic stress, periodic abuse and manipulation, a biochemical cocktail of cortisol, dopamine, and oxytocin is released. A traumatic attachment forms in which the abuser becomes both a source of fear and a perceived source of safety. In this case, the victim follows the abuser’s mood, behavior, and expectations and begins to prioritize his needs over her own, in order to maintain the relationship and avoid further harm.
This kind of attachment relies on a convergence of factors such as an imbalance of power, periodic cruel treatment, manipulation, as well as the emergence of a situation where escape seems unimaginable. But what’s also important is that its flourishing requires an environment of narcissistic abuse. The presence of “dark traits” in the abuser is particularly important: narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. Being around such a person, the victim is forced to rationalize his behavior and suppress her awareness of the situation in order to simply survive.
Of course, this phenomenon doesn’t necessarily limit itself to interpersonal relationships – it can also be observed at the sociopolitical level. When society is full of betrayal, intimidation and false assurances, citizens become attached to an abusive or narcissistic political leader who manipulates their existential fears, while offering periodic psychological rewards such as national pride, economic promises, or symbolic protection from exaggerated threats.
As a result, people begin to justify authoritarian abuses in order to cope with their helplessness and avoid cognitive dissonance. A collective Stockholm syndrome emerges, manifested at the cultural level. The political leader becomes simultaneously both a protector and a punisher, providing a sense of belonging while threatening rejection, promising prosperity while simultaneously inciting fear. Like in personal and cultural traumatic bonds, people are inclined to minimize harm, discredit critics, and remain emotionally connected with those who undermine their rights and well-being.
Resistance to the cultural traumatic bond requires understanding this phenomenon. We know that, depending on their psychological traits, different people are prone to forming it to varying degrees. Moreover, there exist emotional methods of strengthening acceptance of authoritarian leadership, such as creating a “we versus they” dynamic, exaggerating existential threats, and presenting oneself as the sole solution to social problems. Finally, authoritarianism thrives in conditions of disorientation, offering a sense of certainty and identity in exchange for obedience. All of this is important to take into account when developing strategies for destroying the traumatic bond.
People who have experienced interpersonal trauma need support, recognition, and education so that they can be freed. Citizens who have experienced cultural trauma also need this to free themselves from authoritarianism. Among other things, it’s important to expose disinformation and teach critical thinking. It is also necessary to restore voluntary and trusting relationships between people, return them a sense of dignity and collective strength. In this case, they will be able to heal from the trauma and become capable of acting against politicians who destroy trust between them.
Итак, российские власти наконец-то решились заблокировать святое – Telegram, на котором стоит не только большая часть русскоязычного комьюнити, но на него также завязаны и практически все процессы в самой стране – от пересылки депутатами мемов друг другу во время заседания, до координации действий подразделений на фронте. Естественно, это вызвало пожар, подобный Чикагскому и все наперебой (и слева и справа) умоляют товарища Сталина РКН отменить это дикое решение.
Однако, важно здесь немного иное. Блокировка Telegram – лишь следствие, а не причина. И нет, дело вовсе не в цензуре ради цензуры — например, российская цифровая инфраструктура совершенно не готова к массовому использованию населением «национального мессенджера» по причине банального отсутствия серверов, которые, кстати, Москва безуспешно пыталась арендовать в странах Центральной Азии и Китае.
Причина лежит в другой плоскости: Российская Федерация находится на пороге кризиса, причем кризиса открытого, и он, очевидно, должен открыто проявить себя в текущем году. Экономические санкции, силовое давление на инфраструктуру экспорта, отсутствие устойчивых союзнических отношений (что также связано с экономикой) уже прямо демонстрируют своё влияние на функционирование государства. Российские же экономические отчеты показывают нехватку бюджетных средств, урезание экспортных доходов, растущую инфляцию и все прочие издержки «мобилизационной трансформации».
До определенной поры Москва умело маскировала нарастающий ком проблем в глазах населения. Полагаю, что скором времени подобная политика уже не будет оправдывать себя в полной мере – и потому требуется превентивная, ещё более жесткая зачистка информационного пространства. Никаких даже условно «независимых» (не секрет, что фактически все российские каналы более 100 тыс. читателей финансируются и де-факто принадлежат тому или иному ведомству и подконтрольны чиновникам куда в большей степени, чем могло бы казаться) информационных ресурсов и средств коммуникации, доступных широким массам, существовать не должно.
Секретом Полишенеля является и то, что инициатором закручивания всех гаек являются чекисты (просто по принципу – торчит гайка? крутим!), даже если это не только не оправдано логически, но и катастрофично экономически и социально. КГБ – сама по себе организация не из приятных, но когда КГБ радостно бежит в сторону КСИР – это заставляет задуматься о том, что же их так подгоняет.
И, на мой субъективный взгляд, в действительности населению РФ нужно больше размышлять именно над этой непростой темой, а не сокрушаться и сетовать на следствия в виде ужесточающейся цензуры. Правильные вопросы находятся в области первопричин этой цензуры, а не её природы – и ответы на них куда более злободневны и оттого чудовищно неприятны для многих.
Recently, an intriguing longread was published on our channel by a user under the nickname “Sperry UNIVAC.” The author, who took a nickname in honor of the computer manufacturing company—which, by the way, lived for decades on fat government contracts and worked almost entirely for the military—suddenly decided to drop some “based” truths. But instead of being based, it turned out to be a typical justification of etatism with a light touch of Marxism. Sperry tries to sell us an idea as old as time: robbery is inevitable, the “social contract” is a blessing, and the private sector is just the same thing from a different angle; basically, you should be grateful that the state is simply shearing you rather than shooting you with machine guns. But let’s dismantle this heap of conceptual substitutions before it starts to smell.
Sperry claims that a corporation taking a portion of the profit “steals” from the worker in exactly the same way that the state takes taxes. “There isn’t much difference between state taxes and corporate levies,” he writes. But if we examine this issue more closely, we will realize that the difference between private companies and a stationary bandit is like the difference between consensual sex and rape.
In the first case (the market), you voluntarily sell your time and skills for an agreed sum. If you don’t like the terms, you stand up and leave. You look for another buyer for your labor or start your own business. In the second case (the state), guys with clubs come to you and say: “Give us 40% of what you’ve earned, and we might build you a road. Or a palace for our leader. Or bomb someone on the other side of the world. And if you don’t give it, we’ll put you in a cage.” Feel the nuance? In Sperry’s world, there is none. For him, the voluntary surrender of part of the profit in exchange for a guaranteed salary and the absence of risk is the same as the forced seizure of funds under threat of violence.
Next, Sperry scares us with horror stories about “wild capitalism,” the United Fruit Company, and the shooting of workers. He forgets (or intentionally omits) that the United Fruit Company and other “banana kings” did not exist in the vacuum of a free market. These were privileged monopolies fed by the state. Who gave them the land? Local governments. Who sent US Marines to suppress riots when local petty tyrants couldn’t handle it? The US government.
This is not a “free market”; this is crony capitalism in its purest form. When a corporation merges with state power, it gains access to “legalized” violence. Libertarians oppose any initiation of violence, whether by a private army or a state guard. But history shows that the most massive killings and the largest Gulags were always organized by states, not by chair manufacturers.
The passage about “corporate taxes” in the form of gyms and cookies deserves separate laughter. He claims that the corporation decides for you where to spend the profit—on your fitness or in your pocket—and that this is the same as state distribution. But a logical error is immediately apparent in such reasoning. This is called “competition for talent.” Conscious people choose an employer not only by the figure on the payroll but also by the conditions. Don’t like the fitness and want cash? Go where they pay more in cash. The market offers options. The state offers no options. You cannot tell the tax office: “Guys, I don’t need your free healthcare and police, give it back in money, I’ll buy services from private providers myself.”
Sperry leads us to the thought: “Everyone will always steal.” This is a philosophy of learned helplessness. “Relax and enjoy yourself while you are being raped with a velvet glove, otherwise they might use a gauntlet.” We, on the other hand, say that violence is not the norm and we propose solutions. Any taxes are robbery. Any regulations are a restriction of the freedom of conscious people. And the fact that the stationary bandit tries to buy our loyalty by throwing us bones from the master’s table in the form of “social welfare” (bought with our own money, but with a wild commission for bureaucrats) does not make him a benefactor.
Sperry’s article about why there is no point in opposing taxes was actively discussed in the comments of the telegram channel, which was largely the goal of the publication. In short, the text is about how, one way or another, even in a free market, a sum comparable to government taxes will be squeezed out of you anyway and spent on roughly the same things the state would have spent it on; and since there is no difference, why be outraged?
The article shows two extremes. One extreme is the organization of an enterprise requiring a vast amount of unskilled labor in conditions where manpower is in huge abundance. Appealing to historical examples, Sperry reminds us that in such cases it is usually more profitable to pay workers mere pittance, and preferably not in money, but in food tokens, while suppressing discontent through organized violence. The other extreme is the organization of an enterprise requiring a handful of highly qualified specialists who are exhausting to find, and who must be kept from being poached by competitors. Here, the employer not only pays them a hefty salary but also provides substantial bonuses, from a simple coffee machine in the break room to fitness gyms, expensive health insurance for the employee’s entire family, flexible work schedules, and company stock options.
In both extreme cases, Sperry makes it clear that the worker is not free and is forced to eat whatever they are given. In one case, tokens for miserable food at the plantation store instead of a simple human wage. In the other, an unwanted fitness gym instead of a simple salary increase. But why, exactly, does this happen?
For it to be profitable to coerce labor through violence, that labor must be very monotonous, concentrated in space, and not involve active movement. Only in this case can one get by with mobile armed overseers, who must be very few in number relative to the workers; otherwise, the cost of the thug no longer pays off. Thus, tending bushes or mining raw materials are perfectly optimized for mass slave labor, but grazing livestock is not particularly so. But, one way or another, in a free market, if you put together a gang of thugs to organize forced labor, you will have to be the leader of those thugs. Relax for a moment, and tomorrow you will find that your foreman has taken your place, and you are already being driven to pick bananas.
Naturally, the planter is not interested in such an outcome; he wants his property rights protected and the workers, even if armed, to know their place. And here, the state comes to his aid. The state becomes the guarantor that the security foreman will moderately and diligently perform his job for hard cash rather than seizing the plantation for himself. In exchange, the state takes taxes, and with them maintains an army and police. From this moment on, the planter is doomed. Tomorrow the state will raise land taxes, introduce inheritance taxes, nationalize latifundia, or otherwise optimize the privileged class because it consumes too much, and its “dekulakization” will inevitably be popular among the people. It turns out that for a share of his profit, the planter receives the same tokens for protection, just as his workers receive tokens for food. And the quality of the tokens’ provision will arbitrarily decrease as the issuer’s appetite grows.
So, either you are a stern Spartan who personally arranges krypteia with colleagues so that the helots know their place and do not think of rebellion, or you degenerate into an effeminate sybarite who has outsourced his functions of coercion, and the question of your abolition becomes effectively decided.
And what about the second extreme case? Generally speaking, in a free market, mega-qualified specialists will not eat whatever they are given. The employer sets up a fitness gym in the office because the specialist specifically wants that. He is too lazy to go lift weights after work; he wants to have the option when the urge hits, and if the employer is not ready for that, there are competitors. And if the worker grows tired of the fitness gym, they will have no problem putting a bar next to it—just keep working, sweetheart. You don’t want anything extra, just more money? Here is more money, and work from home if you like. Of course, all these measures to increase loyalty benefit the employer only if the specialist genuinely enjoys their work, but it cannot be otherwise; otherwise, they would not have acquired their outstanding qualification.
However, even if a corporation’s main engine consists of a few mega-professionals, it still cannot do without a team of mid-level employees; someone must handle the routine. And these people are the ones who don’t get to choose between fitness, a bar, or cash in hand. Firstly, it is above their rank. Secondly, a benefits package reduces profit and therefore reduces the profit tax. Salary, on the other hand, requires payment of payroll tax. Therefore, it is often more profitable for a corporation to pay its rank-and-file employees less in cash, and instead provide benefits in kind, which, of course, evokes associations with food tokens in the plantation cafeteria.
Well, why does the corporation need the state? For the same reason the planter does: to protect the corporation’s interests through brute force (mainly by limiting market entry for competitors, plus government contracts). Naturally, as a result, the corporation also ends up vulnerable if a certain high-ranking state official decides to “dekulakize” it. What could replace the state regulator? As in the case of the union of planters, it would have to be some situational alliance of industry representatives agreeing on voluntarily observed norms and standards. If the corporation’s business itself is not based on coercion, then living without a state is still somewhat easier for it than for latifundists.
Thus, the state, by its very existence, exerts a corrosive effect on large business: it reduces the costs of violence against workers or competitors, and as a result, business acquires state-like characteristics. It is much harder for small business to latch onto this mechanism, so even within an existing state, it remains a purer market agent and therefore will survive the abolition of the state with much greater ease. This leaves the ancaps with only one question: can a society without a state maintain a high level of structural complexity and a deep division of labor in the absence of large business? Or can large business remain so in the absence of a state? I will leave this question hanging for now.
Sometimes circumstances develop such that superficial and inaccurate representations of something become deeply ingrained in people’s minds. Thus we obtain expressions like “one person to another is a wolf,” which implies that the wolf is supposedly a creature extremely selfish, hostile, and aggressive towards its own kind, and people are similarly no different from wolves. Wolves are compared to many bad things in general. For example, someone even might call authoritarian political leaders wolves for their lies, sinister nature, bullying other people and psychopathic indifference to their pain. However, reality is sometimes far from what is commonly believed.
In fact, if you carefully study the behavior of wolves in natural conditions, you can understand that their social organization is more cooperative than hierarchical. The organizational structure of wolf societies is more like a circle than a pyramid. Games and mutual support bond them together, but not hostility and competition for dominance within the pack. Wolves cannot actually be called merciless and antisocial creatures.
We were all told that there is some “alpha male” in wolf society who does not occupy his position to the last degree due to aggressive domination. However, in fact the display of aggression by leaders of packs towards their subordinates is very rare. And generally, violent hierarchies of dominance in wolf societies arise only when unfamiliar individuals are placed together in one closed enclosure, while observations of wolves in their natural environment completely disprove the myth of a single, most aggressive “alpha male.”
We can also recall the work of ethologist Konrad Lorenz, who in his works, especially in his article “Morality and Weaponry,” found that wolves have an inhibitor of violence that is activated in one of the fighting wolves when demonstrating to another wolf submissive postures or vulnerable parts of the body such as the neck or abdomen. Observing this, the stunned aggressor loses the ability to continue the attack. And another ethologist, Jason Badger, once managed to infiltrate a wolf pack and observe their lives very closely. Among other things, he noted that overly aggressive individuals were simply expelled from the pack.
As we see, in natural conditions aggression among wolves is not encouraged. A wolf who is merciless to his relatives and ready to harm them for his dominance may only expect success in the conditions of a cell from which one simply cannot escape. And the cruelty and violent hierarchy that exist in human society are likely possible only because it has also been driven into “state cells.” Of course, the natural state of affairs should not be like this, and the expression “man is man’s wolf” should mean friendship and cooperation, not enmity and violence.
Prologue by Ankapan-tyan We have a new author’s column on our channel, here we will butcher the sacred cows of libertarianism. Because readers complain that it’s boring to comment on me, Bitarkha is tired of it, well, here’s food for discussion.
Yesterday I had a dispute that prompted me to write this post. I ironically described that the Viking warriors were not a professional army because they didn’t live off salaries but from what they could plunder, which elicited an ironic comment about how our modern professional army lives off what it plunders – so the difference is zero. Basically, soldiers on government service get paid a salary, the salary comes from the budget, the budget comes from taxes, and taxes are essentially theft. That’s exactly the sacred cow I want to poke around at a little.
A libertarian’s understanding of taxation is usually like this. I started working for Uncle Joe, bent my back, Uncle Joe gave me $100 for my efforts, then this left-wing (in every sense of the word) guy comes along with a stick, whacks me over the spine, takes $20, and runs off to give them to a sneering bum on the corner who didn’t work a day in his life. SOCIALISM IS THEFT! In this framing of the question, of course, it’s theft. The standard arguments defending taxes – that they will build roads – we all know, and there’s no need to discuss them. I want to approach things from another angle and show that, in some sense, any corporation steals the same $20 from every salary, and thus performs exactly the same governmental role. And so, “fair,” i.e., theft-free distribution of earned money – is much more similar to socialism than state taxation, and you don’t need to automatically shudder when you hear that word. The fact that they take our money always, everywhere – it’s inevitability; they take it with communism and with the Ancap – there isn’t really any difference between state taxes and corporate extortion.
Как это работает на практике? Возьмем случайного человека, который где-то добыл $10к и организовал, скажем, завод стульев. Он нанял 2 квалифицированных сотрудника (допустим, юриста и бухгалтера) и 8 неквалифицированных, которые клепают стулья, купил станки, помещение, доски и работа закипела. Пока все идет по плану. Допустим, все хорошо, и фирма принесла сходу чистую прибыль в $11к. Вопрос, как ее делить? Социалист сказал бы: на 11 частей, каждому по $1к, все справедливо. Но мы не социалисты и учтем, что рабочий не квалифицирован и является бурерожденным (и не вложил в то, чтобы перестать быть бурерожденным, ни копейки), а значит, легко заменяем любым бурерожденным. Значит, он заработал меньше всех, хоть и пахал с утра до ночи. Бухгалтер и юрист — не бурерожденные, их заменить сложнее, и они вложились в свое образование, возвысившись над бурерожденным, значит, им платим больше. Ну и, наконец, босс, его заслуга в том, что он выцыганил у кого-то $10к на бизнес, не каждый на такое способен, значит, ему платим больше всех. В итоге рабочие получили, условно, по $100, белые воротнички — по $500, а все прочее боссу в карман.
На практике, однако, наш эталонный план не взлетит. Почему? А потому что быть бурерожденным никому не нравится, как и видеть, что ты сорвал спину, таская доски и занозил руки, пиля их, и так 30 дней, а получил за это в 10 раз меньше того, чья работа сделать пару звонков корешам-богатеям и пару раз подмахнуть ручку. Так что работать такая схема будет только при условии того, что рабочим вообще больше податься некуда — все работодатели вокруг такие же гниды, а на заводе дежурит ЧВК, всегда готовая вломить дубинкой по почкам тем, кто заикнулся о ереси социализма, то есть о профсоюзе, праве на забастовку, праве на защиту труда и хотя бы на один выходной в неделю.
Были ли такие примеры в истории? Неоднократно, в основном в эпоху дикого капитализма 1880 – 1920х. Union Stock Yard & Transit Co — Чикагские скотобойни; United Fruit Company, устроившая натуральный ГУЛАГ на плантациях в Гватемале и Колумбии; угольные титаны США, дубинками полицейских забивавшие под землю рабочих. Я уже вижу, как анкапы торжествующе потирают руки: так их, давить этих комми-паразитов, расстреливать из пулеметов, чтобы неповадно было воровать у босса честно заработанный навар. В общем, да, ровно так это и было, Банановая бойня в Колумбии закончилась тем, что UFCo попросила правительство послать солдат с пулеметами и расстрелять нахер всех бастующих и требующих человеческих условий труда, что и было проделано. И это не единственный случай. Но постойте… попросила… э-э, кого? Правительство? Разгоняли демонстрации у нас кто? Полицейские и армия…? Компании, при этом, налоги-то щедро отстегивали (а кроме налогов, еще и на лапу президентам банановых республик и их государственным генералам и солдатикам, чтобы веселее стрелялось в народ).
It appears that to establish an ideal benchmark Ankap—where the boss takes 99% of the profits and the commoner works from dawn till dusk for UFCo brass tokens, not even receiving a penny (when previously they exchanged tokens for a bowl of porridge in the cafeteria – and continued working)—we would require the most powerful repressive apparatus to instill fear of Henry Ford in those unconverted to capitalism. This would ultimately result in something suspiciously similar—like that very socialist Gulag which capitalists frighten us with—while simultaneously having precedents for constructing even worse projects, such as rubber plantations in the Amazon. We would need to divert enormous sums from this apparatus, otherwise we’d have to sleep with a saber by our bed and a pistol under our pillow, awaiting the arrival of slaves. It is preferable to use a state that we want to eliminate, which feeds its army through taxes.
Let’s remove these horrors and consider it from another angle: we are good and principled Ankapists; we don’t desire a repressive state apparatus nor do we wish to decimate our workers weekly with police force and feed them plastic porridge. We believe that in an ideal Ankap world consisting entirely of corporations, suppressing worker unrest would cost us more than creating human working conditions—it’s a debatable point, let’s just ignore it for now. And there are so many companies that if we offer miserable work for pennies, even the last bum will be hustled by a neighbor-corporat who splashed out on gloves for him to avoid scratching his hands from logs. Consequently, we would find ourselves without workers. This is the main point of those who argue that the state with its leftist unions, taxes and laws about an 8-hour workday spoils everything; in Ankap each worker will live like a king. Let’s assume this is true, okay.
But what does that mean then? It appears we would need to invest in a safe lathe, goggles from sawdust, gloves from cuts, a respirator from the smell of glue; and if we are building a complex company with complex labor, it’s desirable for our workers to have everything, including a fitness center, free psychotherapist and dentist for their son—otherwise smart people won’t come to us, they’ll go to those with better conditions. We see that Apple and various other IT giants actually compete to offer their expensive employees even more bonuses (let’s not discuss the fact that workers in Amazon warehouses will be fined half their salary if they went to the bathroom longer than once a day). But these same bonuses for employees—medicine, vacation, even education—they come from somewhere? Yes, they come from profit, that very profit which could be spent, for example, on the same wages.
So it turns out that, taxes…? Well, basically yes, a corporation can, let’s say, add +10% to everyone’s salary, or not, but open a fitness center for everyone. And yes, maybe I’m a lazy bum and don’t want a fitness center; I want to blow my 10% salary at the bar instead of jogging on a treadmill. But nothing was asked of me – let Vasya handle it, we’ve decided for him, he contributes from his salary to cookies for everyone in the office, we’re creating positive vibes of kindness, don’t be stingy. But, forgive me, what’s the difference between this and a state sports complex built on my taxes? I just wanted a state tavern, didn’t I?! The only objection here is that if you don’t like it when a corporation deducts your salary for a fitness center – well, go to whoever deducts salaries for bars. Okay, but:
1. They’re deducting anyway, and maybe I want industrial cleaner!
2. They deduct +/- equally: on medicine, education, sport – yes, in general, the same as with the state, i.e., it’s all the same.
3. If you don’t like the tax policy of a super-socialist state – okay, bug out to another one where it’s different, like Argentina, which got rid of all social benefits completely, and that’s just the way it is, paradise! The truth is, taxes now go to Milei in his pocket, as well as funding the state police and security services to suppress criminal plots dreaming of state medicine – thieves, scum!
And people dream of living somewhere like Scandinavia, and their happiness index is practically the highest on the planet.
Therefore, we come to the conclusion: it’s not so important what kind of regime we have. They will steal everyone and always, if stealing means distributing money that doesn’t suit you personally, dear reader. The other thing is that all libertarians believe they will manage to get into a future where their (!) distribution will suit them. For example, if they have a child and want a good dentist for him, a therapist for his wife, and themselves – a weightlifter after work – all free of charge – then it’s reasonable to complain about the corporation that provides all this for their efforts. But this doesn’t cancel out the principle: not everyone in the world wants exactly what you want. In any case, someone will take money from someone (no matter how they are called: contributions, taxes, insurance, etc.) for something that is useless to them personally (or they prefer to take it and deal with it themselves, but they don’t let them). So, my dears, don’t panic over the word “tax,” it’s just one form of extortion that will always be with us, under any regime and any economic formation. Because the alternative to such soft power through fitness centers and free cookies – is a soldier with an M1919 Browning, a barbed wire fence, and a brass token for porridge from sawdust in the cafeteria. Inevitably, they’ll get to us forcibly—the difference is only whether it’s on a fist or a velvet glove.
