I am still not sure how to feel about the American Civil War, its causes, and its results. How do ancaps view slavery, voluntary sale into slavery, and the forced liberation of slaves?

анонимный вопрос

It seems to me that the best approach is to treat the events of the past with a certain detachment and not attempt to seriously judge those people by today’s standards. It is a completely different matter if someone today tries to dig up obsolete recipes and implement them in life under the pretext that it is a venerable tradition stretching back centuries.

Therefore, it is one thing to carefully study the complex collision of ethics and law that emerged in the 19th century in the USA, further complicated by the serious difference in economic systems between the North and the South and the immediate interests of politicians. It is another thing to consider, for example, the US Declaration of Independence a harmful document on the grounds that its author was a slave owner. And it is a third thing entirely to consider slavery justified on those same grounds—if Jefferson could do it, why can’t we.

The Southern states had both the legal right to declare their secession and quite valid reasons, as US President Lincoln blatantly violated the fragile compromise according to which half of the newly created states were slave-holding and half were not. So many funds were spent on the war between the USA and the Confederacy that it would have been enough to buy out and free all the slaves, teach them to read and write, and build them housing. More people died than in all subsequent wars in which the USA participated. During and immediately after the war, the powers of the federal government were expanded, and the powers of the states were curtailed. In short, the war was a huge tragedy, and of course, an outcome in which the market, rather than war, decided the fate of slavery would have personally suited me much better.

That is precisely why I have no theoretical objections to people voluntarily entering into relationships that might seem like slavery to someone else. But likewise, I have nothing against private abolitionism, if the abolitionist provides convincing evidence of the involuntary nature of the slave state. Nevertheless, I would prefer such activism to take place through means of moral pressure rather than through violence, because you don’t want it to be like the Civil War!

You can achieve more with a kind word and a gun than with a gun alone. It is believed that this phrase was invented only in the 20th century, and it is a great pity that Lincoln, who lived in the 19th century, did not think of it himself. My sympathy is completely sincere: after all, this guy paid with his life for his policies.

Here is another person who paid with his life for his abolitionism, but at least he killed fewer innocent bystanders

Shulman on Telegram

Ekaterina Schulmann, my favorite political scientist, who until very recently claimed that she did not understand Telegram and hardly used it, started her own channel on December 13. So, if you previously struggled and suffered but read her on Facebook, you can now breathe a sigh of relief and switch to your favorite interface. And the more people who join her, the more attention she will give to it.

Telegram is taking over the world even faster than kittens!

Can one praise a tyrant to save lives?

For example, praising and promoting Putin to gain the ability to operate your own charitable foundation where you will save lives. Is this a violation of the NAP?

анонимный вопрос

I present to you my new co-author; he will answer the questions you have accumulated from time to time, and where I want to add something, I will do so. So, responding is Alex Murin.
Ancap-chan

The principle of the non-aggression principle implies only the rejection of aggressive violence. Everything you write or say does not relate to the NAP. However, the NAP is a fundamental principle, not the only one. There is also the principle of freedom of contract, the institution of reputation, public opinion, and traditions. In general, there are many different factors to which the NAP has no relation. If everything is reduced to the NAP, one can simply get lost in logical and legal constructions. It is not worth doing that.

From the point of view of the NAP, praising Putin to get money for a charity or a public organization is permissible. You are not attacking people to kill or rob them.

And then there is the reputational aspect: you convince people that the system currently in place in Russia is the only possible one, that the country is managed by a person leading it toward prosperity. If you do not believe this, but want to get money from it to implement a humanitarian mission, then judge yourself. You did not attack, kill, or rob. You wrote or spoke words that you will then reproduce in one way or another. People who have not seen you will judge you by these words. Will they want to accept help from a person who praises a system that sent them to the bottom of life? Everything stated in the question has no relation whatsoever to the prohibition of aggressive violence. If, in your opinion, you are lying and then performing good deeds to redeem your own guilt, then you are doing double work. If you believe that Vladimir Vladimirovich is the person who deserves to be exalted, while performing good deeds, then “blessed is he who believes,” and your conscience is clear. If this is how you earn money, then your judge is your conscience. In short: this has no relation to the NAP, based on its definition. But the NAP is the primary, not the only principle.

And yes, I would not use the techniques of a Baptist preacher to influence your opinion; that would be dishonest.

Can you somehow read chapter 11 of Heinlein’s “The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress” about the trial and give an assessment? It seemed to me that this is exactly an example (although not in every respect) of so-called libertarian courts. Thanks!

Ancap-kun

I don’t know if Heinlein read Hayek, but in the book “The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress,” he effectively describes through examples the emergence of spontaneous orders, specifically a court that does not rely on any laws handed down from above or precedents coming from the depths of centuries.

The essence of the procedure is as follows. The parties to the court turn to anyone who is willing to arbitrate between them and whom they would like to see as a judge in their case. There are those who make judicial practice their profession, those who supplement this with other activities, and those who may suddenly find themselves invited to judge.

An interesting feature of the judicial proceedings is that the judge takes an equal amount of money from each party before the start of the hearing, based solely on the size of the claim. The more that is at stake in the conflict, the more the judge risks their reputation, and the more money they charge for it.

If either party wishes, the judge may call in any number of volunteers as jurors. The task of the jurors is to deliver a verdict of “guilty” or “not guilty,” and for their work, they receive a fixed payment set by the judge. To be honest, this tradition seems to me a rudiment from Earth, and in the described society, it looks like a tacked-on addition.

After the case has been examined on its merits, the jurors, if there are any, deliver a verdict, and the judge announces the sentence, stating who owes how much to whom.

The point of the entire ritual is to defuse conflicts and prevent vendettas. Instead of a court, one can agree to a judicial duel, where, again, there will be a referee and possibly seconds.

Of course, I like the described system, especially since it strongly resembles how I myself described the proposed judicial proceedings under ancap. I am asked about courts often—this is already the fifteenth question—but everything can be easily found via the corresponding hashtag.

How is the success of modern China explained from a libertarian perspective? What is the role of state regulation in it?

анонимный вопрос

Actually, modern China is not only the People’s Republic of China, but also the Republic of China, as well as Macau, Hong Kong, and to a considerable extent, Singapore. And specifically in terms of citizen welfare, the People’s Republic of China fares worse than all the other states I mentioned, despite the fact that the starting conditions for economic development in the PRC, the Republic of China, and Singapore were roughly the same.

Therefore, from a libertarian perspective, one must explain China’s failure rather than its success. Yes, of course, Deng Xiaoping proved better for the PRC than Mao Zedong. But the residents of the Republic of China achieved far more significant success without any world-famous reformers. What is the role of state regulation here? As is easy to see, it is negative.

In reality, of course, there is a degree of cunning here; it is much harder for a large continental country to escape poverty and socialism than for a small maritime one. But any city on the coast of mainland China could today live no worse than Hong Kong or at least the Republic of China, and if that is not the case, the responsibility lies solely with the leadership of the PRC. The guiding and directing role of the Communist Party is too great, the share of the state sector in the economy is too high, and too many resources are spent not on what people are willing to buy, but on the construction of the Great Firewall and the social credit system.

The Great Firewall of China and its role in the success of modern China

And how will things stand with the quality and safety of food products under ancap?

анонимный вопрос

This question complements my yesterday’s post about the movement for the free distribution of discounted food very well, so I chose this specific one from the queue.

Either at the very end of the 19th or the very beginning of the 20th century in the USA, there was a craze for exposé publications in the press. Journalists specializing in this were called “muckrakers,” and they ruined more than a few careers back then. For the most part, “muck” was to be interpreted figuratively as political dishonesty, but today we are interested in a case where muck appeared in a publication in its literal sense. We are talking about a series of publications regarding the terrible unsanitary conditions in slaughterhouses, sausage production, and so on. The extensive press campaign led to the federal government introducing sanitary standards for food production, and indeed, US citizens today are a society that pays enormous attention to the quality and safety of products.

In the United States at the beginning of the last century, a country with a huge proportion of poor immigrants arriving in pursuit of their American dream, the vast majority of the population had a simple requirement for food: it had to be cheap and available in abundance. The state first began to regulate food quality, and by the turn of the thirties, it moved on to regulating both price and quantity, as a result of which during the Great Depression, government agents engaged in destroying food on a massive scale to prevent its price from dropping. Thus, as usual, the road to serfdom was paved with good intentions.

But how could the free market have worked instead to improve food quality? Of course, through the exploitation of such base human traits as vanity and greed. Muckrakers publish reports about unsanitary conditions in slaughterhouses. An enterprising, greedy meat packer opens a slaughterhouse maintained in such cleanliness and order that even the rats tie napkins before eating, invites journalists there, and pays for a series of promotional reports: buy meat only from Butcher & Co, owners of the cleanest slaughterhouse in both Americas! The meat is sold in a branded store at triple the price, vain nouveau riche (America is a land of opportunity!) shop only there, Mr. Butcher gradually expands production, competitors begin to press him, and after some five years, the thought that slaughterhouses could be filthy already seems completely unthinkable.

I am exaggerating, of course, but agree that one can provide many examples of when free competition led to increased quality, and the desire to maintain low costs led to the development of technology, and there is certainly no reason for food production to be some strange exception. First, a certain product or service appears as a luxury item, but after some time, thanks to competition and market expansion, it becomes a complete commonplace and an essential attribute of civilization.

Your attitude towards FNB (Food Not Bombs)? Is it not shameful for a libertarian to participate in such a movement, given that it is anti-capitalist, yet the members of this movement engage in charity?

анонимный вопрос

As I understand it, the movement’s activity consists of volunteers recovering food from supermarkets, wholesale warehouses, and establishments—food that ended up there due to capitalism and is about to be thrown away because otherwise it would not comply with state-established shelf-life regulations—then they cook it and distribute it to the hungry, thereby expressing their disapproval of the government’s budget spending priorities.

At the same time, it ignores the fact that under socialism, the food that in this case rots in trash bins would have rotted back in the fields or at vegetable depots, as well as the fact that socialist regimes usually spent a much higher percentage of their money on bombs than on social welfare, compared to more or less democratic capitalist states.

This behavior is somewhat similar to that of a lady who, preparing to accompany a gentleman through a disadvantaged neighborhood, persuades him to leave his weapon at home and bring some food along to feed the poor. But, for the sake of fairness, let us note that, within our analogy, the neighborhood became disadvantaged largely due to the gentleman’s activities. So, on one hand, the lady’s reproaches are justified, but on the other, the behavior appears quite infantile.

But, however incorrect the rhetoric of the movement’s activists may seem to me, it is completely non-violent and is a form of moral pressure. Moreover, I suspect many participate in it not because of their anti-capitalist beliefs, but solely out of philanthropy, or to promote veganism, or because they went hungry in childhood and find it unbearable to see food thrown into the garbage—there could be many reasons to organize a distribution of homemade food on the street!

How would I personally react to finding some libertarian acquaintance in the ranks of FNB? I would be interested and ask about the people surrounding them there, the people who come for free food, how they manage to find a common language with food suppliers, whether there are problems with the state, and so on. This is an excellent practical exercise in private charity, without which pure ancap would be a rather harsh living environment, so at the current stage, familiarity with it would be useful for anyone. And switching a thinking person from anti-capitalist rhetoric to anti-statist rhetoric is not such a difficult task.

Also, they have a mischievous emblem, although for Russia I would suggest drawing a horseradish root instead of a carrot

Readiness for ancap

1. What qualities does a person need to live in ancap? And to build it?
2. Given that full freedom will be provided — are there any customs or traditions that could more or less objectively negate such qualities in some perspective (and which should be avoided for practical reasons)? For some reason, as an illustration of this, Svetov’s favorite Amish, who reject technical progress and are quite isolated, come to mind.

Atomic Tram

It seems that in the dispute between Marx and McCloskey, you are on the girl’s side, and like her, you believe that having a certain technological framework is not enough to transition to a certain type of society, but a certain ideology is also needed. I also think this is the case; otherwise, my activity in instilling ancap values in people would be pointless.

I see two such key human qualities. First, a strive for freedom, otherwise where would anarchy come from? Second, a strive for wealth, otherwise where would capitalism come from?

Without the first, we easily get a classic pyramidal society where it is normal to be humiliated and to humiliate others — for the sake of grabbing a piece for oneself. Without the second, we will have an excess of conservatism, where anyone who achieves slightly more success than others would rather throw a party for the neighbors, where all the surplus is eaten up, than invest these funds to achieve even greater success in the future. Google what a potlatch is, and you will get a good illustration of what I mean.

And from here we smoothly transition to the second part of the question.

We have a society of people who value their freedom, strive for wealth, and therefore built an ancap around themselves, meaning a free market, which is then supposedly meant to resolve anything. What human quality, not contradicting the two basic ones for ancap, could gradually undermine them and lead to the destruction of a free market society?

Perhaps I can call such a quality oversensitivity. If a person is too bothered by too many things in other people, it will hinder cooperation. Yes, he may still be freedom-loving, yes, he may still strive for wealth, but he’s surrounded by such assholes! One person’s child tortures a cat; how can you buy groceries from him? Another has disgusting musical tastes, so he shouldn’t even hope for interior design. The third is a sexist; it’s a disgrace to even shit on the same hectare as him. And so the person begins to rush around, wondering where to run and where these wretched little humans will finally stop irritating him.

So ancap also cannot do without a certain healthy thick-skinnedness. The institution of reputation, so loved by ancaps, is the Trojan horse capable of “resolving” even the market!

The Inviability of Ancap

Grigory Bazhenov, an economist better known to the wider community as the initiator of the project No to Excise (by the way, an interesting example of a fairly competent public campaign, do join), has published an article on the insolvency of the ancap concept.

The language of the article is not the simplest, but as I understood, after scrolling through Grigory’s channel (also recommended, by the way), he is a mainstream economist who believes that non-mainstream things should be communicated in the language of the mainstream and based upon it, otherwise one remains on the sidelines. For an economist, this is logical. For a popularizer, this is walking on thin ice.

But let’s return to the article on ancap. Grigory summarizes that the insolvency of the ancap concept lies in the fact that “anarcho-capitalism proceeds from an economic interpretation of the concepts of competition and monopoly, but at the same time transfers these concepts into spheres where they are simply inappropriate”. I am very sorry, but this is a fight in the wrong place.

The doctrine of anarcho-capitalism does not imply free competition between organizations exercising aggressive violence for the right to rob those who are less efficient in this area. This is closer to the doctrine of extraterritorial insurance rackets advocated by Oleg Tarakanov, which he considers an intermediate option between minarchism and ancap.

Anarcho-capitalism is primarily a legal, not an economic, doctrine, and it asserts that no one has the right to rob, and that any imposed contracts are null and void, regardless of the status of the person imposing the contract.

This legal doctrine is merely supported by economic theory, as it proves that purely economically, a free market is better than an unfree one from the perspective of economic agents. And then Mises says that this conclusion is enough for a smart person to choose the free market, and Rothbard adds that even if it were proven that a certain form of unfreedom were economically more profitable, “proper guys” would still be for freedom. One can treat Rothbard as a freak for such bias, but fortunately, thanks to Mises, this is indeed immaterial.

So ancap is simply a critical hum, whether addressed to a minarchist state structure or to a world of competing insurance rackets: not bad, it says, but it could be better.

Are classical liberalism and libertarianism the same thing?

The Liberal Boot

Liberalism and libertarianism are two terms with very similar, yet mirrored, fates. In the middle of the 20th century, statists snatched the term “liberalism” away from the proponents of economic freedom. And around the same time, the term “libertarianism” was snatched by proponents of economic freedom from the socialists. Mind you, I have not heard of libertarian socialists calling themselves classical libertarians after that.

Classical liberalism in the 20th century is primarily Mises and Hayek. Both are convinced supporters of the free market, both are convinced opponents of collectivism, but both consider the existence of the state entirely acceptable and see some benefit in it, namely the protection of private property. For this purpose, the state is granted a monopoly on violence, and to ensure it does not use it against citizens, citizens must have the right to bear arms and to self-organize, up to the point of armed resistance to the government.

Libertarianism is, in effect, classical liberalism in economics plus the application of those same principles to all other spheres of life, primarily in ethics and law. Rothbard argued that a monopoly on violence contradicts the principles of a free market and must therefore be rejected along with the state; subsequently, Nozick clarified that if a state were to emerge again on a free market as part of a voluntary process, then libertarians should, in theory, have no complaints about it.

As a result, in addition to classical liberals, who simply say that the state must be limited and that political activity should be pursued for this purpose, we also have anarcho-capitalists, who claim that all services, including the protection of private property, are perfectly provided on the free market, and “we are not buying the state, take it away”—and minarchists, who do not mind the state remaining, but only on the condition that it behaves itself, does not extort taxes, but politely asks for donations.