Discussion of the pension reform catches up with me from every channel. Doesn’t the fact that for some time the number of beneficiaries of this predatory clusterfuck will not grow—not reduce the number of beneficiaries in the future, and not increase the chances that in perspective this clusterfuck might possibly be cancelled altogether?

anonymous question

The fact that the state will collectively receive more money from working people and return less to those who have reached the threshold age will only increase the number of beneficiaries of this predatory clusterfuck. A pensioner receiving an old-age pension is not a beneficiary of the pension clusterfuck; they are just as much a victim of it as someone who didn’t live to see retirement—they have simply been compensated for part of the damage previously sustained. The beneficiaries, however, are the pension fund employees and those who manage the plundered pension savings. Naturally, there will only be more of them as a result of such a reform.

One can conditionally agree with the logic of “the worse, the better.” The more victims the system has, and the fewer chances they have to receive any compensation within the system, the more reasons there are for the complete abolition of the system; whereas if the robbery were more moderate, far more people would be willing to tolerate it, and the few dissatisfied people would talk about reforms rather than the abolition of the system.

On the other hand, the worse, the worse. “The poor pray that their poverty is guaranteed.” Try to abolish the system of robbing the working class all at once if there is a hole in the pension fund and the elderly are universally destitute without savings—they will tear you apart, no matter how charismatic a reformer you are.

Example of the only reasonable behavior toward the pension system

And, as already mentioned, there is no more reliable tool for pension savings today than bitcoins. So you can donate a few of them to my channel 1A7Wu2enQNRETLXDNpQEufcbJybtM1VHZ8, and set aside the majority for your own old age.

Do libertarians realize that their ideology is impossible in the real world, since “non-aggression” itself contradicts human nature?

anonymous question

The correct definition of the non-aggression principle is as follows:
No one has the right to initiate violence with impunity.
If Alice initiates violence against Bob and does not face responsibility, the society does not cease to be libertarian. It ceases to be libertarian if there is a rule according to which neither Bob nor Carol has the right to hold Alice accountable for initiating violence.
The state is an organization of violence elevated into an institution, that is, precisely the kind of order where Alice is not held responsible for initiating violence simply because the state ordered it so.

The question is, what corresponds more to human nature: the desire to hold accountable everyone who initiates violence, or only those whom some external enforcer allows to be held accountable? I think if the latter corresponded more to human nature, we would have to admit that calls to hang thieving officials from lampposts do not correspond to human nature. Meanwhile, even the thieving officials themselves do not claim such heresy; on the contrary, they say that it is a natural human impulse, but let us be civilized people and obediently follow the laws we have invented.

symbolic violence, not elevated into an institution

Just think about it, it’s so unnatural: to just go ahead and donate bits to a favorite telegram channel: 
1A7Wu2enQNRETLXDNpQEufcbJybtM1VHZ8

If a libertarian penitentiary system is aimed at restitution, then how will it work in the case of a murderer?

anonymous question

The system will work exactly as it does with a robber. Compensation for damages resulting from a murder will be demanded by those who suffered that damage. This is precisely why insurance companies play such an important role in theoretical developments regarding ancap: they suffer direct financial loss from the death of the insured person, and therefore, a developed insurance market will obviously lead to a reduction in the murder rate.

If one attempts to limit feedback to such archaic mechanisms as blood feuds, this also works, of course, but it looks rather primitive in modern society; more effective market mechanisms have been developed in our time.

What’s going on with New Hampshire? Which laws did they manage to change? How many libertarians ended up moving there?

anonymous question

I will remind those who are not aware of what, exactly, we are talking about. New Hampshire is a fairly sparsely populated state in New England that was chosen for the implementation of the Free State Project – a project to build a minarchist utopia in a single state. According to the plan, during the project’s crypto-phase, people were to sign a declaration of intent to relocate to New Hampshire once 20,000 such signatories were gathered. It was assumed that given the current population of the state, an active minority of twenty thousand would be able to effectively implement its policies.

In fact, the relocation began even before the coveted figure was reached. Today, according to data from the project’s official website, 24,155 people have signed the declaration, and 4,392 people have moved to the state.

FSP is not a political organization, and most of those who moved simply live according to libertarian ideals. However, Freestaters have also developed political activity. The project’s website claims that throughout the project’s existence, a total of 45 Freestaters have been elected to the state’s representative bodies.

Even before the start of the project, New Hampshire was somewhere in the top ten states by freedom index, and after the launch of the relocation, it confidently climbed to first place within about three years. The state has very lenient laws regarding weapons, substances, road control, and small business regulation. Homeschooling is also widespread here, and the religiosity of the residents is very low—while tolerance towards religions remains high.

Mikhail Svetov claims that the fastest-growing community in the USA is the Amish. In terms of organic growth, this may be true, but if you consider those joining from the outside, the Freestaters obviously beat the Amish with one hand tied behind their back.
The LPR is represented in the FSP by a member of the St. Petersburg branch, Yuri Polozov.

A landscape of the Free State, which for some reason I wildly love))

Furthermore, thanks to the Freestaters, New Hampshire is a leader in the implementation of cryptocurrency payments. If I eventually make it to reporting from the Free State, that’s exactly where your donations will come in handy. Bitcoin wallet 1A7Wu2enQNRETLXDNpQEufcbJybtM1VHZ8.

Why is there so little libertarianism in the libertarian party and is everything centralized?

anonymous question

I received a whole series of questions on a similar theme, and I chose the least acute phrasing that allows for a substantive answer.

The fundamental documentary description of the libertarian party, as with any other political party in Russia, is defined by the Russian law on political parties. The party made four attempts at state registration, making amendments to the charter each time to comply with the Ministry of Justice’s requirements. Eventually, the Ministry of Justice made it clear that there would be no registration without a green light from the presidential administration, and at the 2017 congress, a decision was made to end this farce until the wind changes.

But the charter remained: a charter of a vertical structure consisting of regional branches subordinate to a federal committee, with a congress convened by the federal committee according to representation norms adopted by the federal committee, and with a federal committee elected by the congress. Any Russian party created from the top down maintains full controllability thanks to such a layout until it is decided to tear it apart—after which alternative congresses, committees, and the like magically emerge, and the party is either seized or disappears.

The LPR, however, was created from the bottom up. This does not mean that within the framework of the same charter it suddenly becomes capable of meaningful activity. It means that the values of joint activity for the purpose of spreading the libertarian agenda prove to be higher for people than any formal decisions made without their participation or against their will. Therefore, the overall success of the party is greater the less attention party members pay to the formal side of party activity and, accordingly, the lower the notorious controllability is.

At this point, it’s worth asking why call itself a party at all, rather than a libertarian movement or something of the sort. What difference does it make? Historically, it so happened that this particular entity has this particular name. As long as the costs of keeping the name and charter documents are lower than the costs of changing them, everything will remain as it is; just don’t confuse the map with the territory. Next, you’ll be asking why a character named LPR-chan doesn’t project the official point of view of the party!

So the main thing is to ensure powerful momentum, engage new people as supporters, and compel outsiders to pronounce the word “libertarianism” without a hitch; whether a trip to the shooting range or bowling is documented as a meeting of the steering committee of a regional branch is completely unimportant.

LPR logo (by the way, a different logo is described in the charter, but who cares!)

Yes, just in case: donations to LPR-chan do not count as party dues.

Tell us about decentralized exchanges, their advantages and disadvantages

anonymous question

Well, at least someone is no longer asking why libertarians push for bitcoins, and is starting to ask rather specialized questions.

Why are exchanges needed

An exchange trader is the best friend of any cryptocurrency user because, in the hope of buying low and selling high, they provide the cryptocurrency system with the necessary liquidity; and the greater the liquidity, the smaller the difference between the buying and selling price of the currency (spread), the smaller the rate fluctuations (volatility), and, accordingly, the higher the attractiveness of crypto as a means of payment for goods.

A classic exchange (currency, commodity, stock — it doesn’t matter) is structured this way. The exchange acts as an intermediary that maintains a registry of assets in client accounts, provides the ability to place trading orders and close them with opposing orders, and, of course, to deposit assets into the exchange and withdraw them from it. The vast majority of cryptocurrency trading transactions and exchanges of cryptocurrencies for fiat are conducted on such classic centralized exchanges.

Naturally, any crypto-enthusiast starts to cringe at the mere word “centralized.” Moreover, these exchanges generally live up to their reputation: they are regularly hacked, with significant sums of money stolen from wallets, and there are complaints regarding possible market manipulation, fake volumes, and so on.

What is special about decentralized exchanges

Therefore, for several years, there has been a trend in the cryptocurrency community toward creating decentralized exchanges. At the very least, it is relatively easy to make an exchange hybrid: orders are processed on a central server, while private keys to the wallets remain in the hands of the users, and accordingly, all transactions are recorded on the blockchain. This is the principle on which, for example, Waves, the largest hybrid exchange in Russia, operates. But a question immediately arises: in which blockchain, specifically, should the transaction be recorded if I am buying, for example, ether with bitcoins?

What qualities must a blockchain possess to ensure the operation of a decentralized exchange? First, the blockchain must allow any tokens to be issued on its base. This is possible for the aforementioned Waves, Ethereum, and many others. Second, the blockchain must be as fast as possible. If blocks are written once every ten minutes, as with bitcoin, it’s not serious at all. The performance leaders today are blockchains based on the Graphene engine — from 3,000 operations per second, with new blocks written to the blockchain every three seconds. With such lags, one can already trade normally. Moreover, with such an engine, even exchange orders can be written to the blockchain, which means the possibility of creating not hybrid, but fully decentralized exchanges.

The oldest and most venerable Graphene blockchain is bitshares, but there are newer competitors, the full list of which is pointless to provide. I will only note the deex project, which is interesting for three things. First, based on the Graphene blockchain, not only a decentralized exchange is implemented, but also a decentralized messenger and a number of other tools. Second, its own network of ATMs is being launched, and bank cards are on the way. This, of course, no longer has anything to do with decentralization, but it has a huge impact on the convenience of the technology’s penetration into the masses. And third, one of the LPR members participates in the work on the project, and this is, of course, a strong reason to distinguish deex from the others.

And finally, about the downsides of decentralized exchanges

If you want to trade there using fiat, it won’t work directly. First, tokens corresponding to that fiat are purchased through a separate gateway, and then trading is conducted with them. As for how to exchange these tokens back into fiat — ask something easier. Perhaps the notorious deex will allow this in its ATMs, but in general, the problem is not solved. Therefore, the main niche for decentralized exchanges is the exchange of different types of crypto for one another.

As a result, volumes on decentralized exchanges are significantly lower, which means relatively low liquidity and a high spread.

And finally, high blockchain performance does not come for free. Instead of honest POW, as with bitcoin or ether, decentralized exchanges lean toward POS, as with Waves, or even DPOS, as with Graphene blockchains. Each new step that speeds up operation reduces the overall level of system decentralization, as it decreases the number of nodes verifying transactions.

So love the exchange traders; they take high risks — all so that we, simple users, don’t have to worry our heads with all these aforementioned high matters.

Especially since bitcoins for LPR-tyans can be transferred even from a regular bank card, without resorting to such complex tools as decentralized exchanges. Here, give it a try: 1A7Wu2enQNRETLXDNpQEufcbJybtM1VHZ8

What do you think about Mikhail Pozharsky’s article

“The Conservative Owl and the Libertarian Globe”

anonymous question

I have already touched upon this topic approximately in the post dedicated to the dispute between Mikhail Svetov and Vera Kichanova.

Then I was asked to clarify Svetov’s position regarding borders with peaceful and prosperous countries—does he really propose closing off from them as well? I had to devise a logical twist that makes Svetov’s proposal relatively acceptable for a minarchist society, and quite universal in the sense that no official is given the right to rank countries: these ones are good, and we are welcome to no one from here.

Mikhail Pozharsky’s article from July 1st is clearly inspired by the same dispute, but he dug deeper, while also addressing Hoppe’s concept that the transition from monarchy to democracy is social regression and a departure from libertarian ideals. Of course, the democratic state is terrible, as is any other state, but the claim that autocracies are generally healthier reveals Hoppe to be a person not very familiar with life under an autocracy.

I would bring another party into this dispute—political scientist Ekaterina Schulmann, who has repeatedly mentioned in her presentations such a characteristic of society as the degree of citizen involvement in decision-making.

If we plot the volume of redistribution carried out by the state on one coordinate axis and the degree of citizen involvement in decision-making on another, and map existing states onto this grid, we will see that the resulting cloud of points is fairly uniform; that is, movement along each axis is generally quite independent. Therefore, both the demand for a reduction in state redistribution in the most direct democracy and the demand for the democratization of authoritarian states are equally justified. There is no need to necessarily link the reduction of taxes and regulations with a transition from democracy to authoritarianism; this assumption seems unfounded.

conservative owl

Raising the same topic for the third time, I begin to remind me of that very Ekaterina Schulmann, who also sings seemingly the same thing, but always in a different tune. And yes, here is my usual chorus about donations: 1A7Wu2enQNRETLXDNpQEufcbJybtM1VHZ8

What, by the way, about the successes of libertarian parties in other countries? Do supporters from different countries communicate? They could share experience. And why is there no charismatic libertarian leader in the USA?

anonymous question

Of course, everyone has heard that the Libertarian Party in the USA is increasing its electoral success. Over 3% in the last presidential elections, occasionally appearing libertarian governors, senators, and congressmen—in short, a quite respectable and actively growing political force.
Why is there no charismatic libertarian leader in the USA? And why is there no charismatic Republican leader? For the exact same reason—the system is designed so that charismatic politicians achieve electoral success, while parties are led by capable administrators.

Do libertarians from different countries communicate? Yes, although not as actively as one would like. There are international forums, such as Liberticon, there are local conferences with foreign speakers, such as our Adam Smith Readings, and there are private contacts.

Why look far, when just recently a Kuzbass activist traveled to Poland, met with the libertarians there, and upon returning, posted a review text on how things are with the Poles.

Direct coordination of efforts between libertarian parties of different countries is not yet observed, so we make do with the exchange of ideas.

Gary Johnson, 2016 US presidential candidate from the Libertarian Party