Since the last update, I have slightly reworked the chapter on the market, added a brief summary, and in terms of formatting, I finished the navigation between chapters. Now it can be read as a fully independent work with a sufficiently complete, yet maximally concise presentation of the libertarian worldview.
If you know any sufficiently competent libertarian theorists, please pass this text to them for review. Before starting the practical part of the book, I would like to ensure that I haven’t forgotten anything important in the theory. If they don’t mind publishing their reviews, please let me know about that as well.
In the second part of the book, I will attempt to describe an anarcho-capitalist society in a sufficiently structured and also maximally concise manner—what features it might have and which are highly unlikely.
A certain Yuri appeared in the Montelibero project, who became interested in understanding what kind of people were joining it, what their motivations were, and so on. And so he began recording interviews with everyone he could reach. Well, to make sure such good work didn’t go to waste, they gave him management rights to the project’s YouTube channel, and now all the interviews are there, in a separate playlist.
It turned out that almost everyone during the interviews stated that they had read about the project via Ancap-chan. So Yuri came to me and also asked for an interview. In short, now in addition to a bunch of videos, there is one text-based one with me. And since I don’t like the look of a Google Doc, I think I’ll move this interview to my own website.
Interview with Ancap-chan about Monte Libero
September 2021, Yuri Vilnid
Tell us about yourself
What did you devote most of your time to last week?
My main work is running a personal Telegram channel. As usual, I devoted most of my time to it last week. I translated a fairly long chapter from the book “Libertarianism” by Eric Mack, wrote a couple of chapters for my own book about ancap, for which I haven’t come up with a title yet—basically, I was doing the usual routine. But on Saturday, I went to Albania to “de-virtualize” with one of my subscribers, and I’m still living here for now. In general, I love discovering new places and new people.
What is the last book you read that significantly influenced you?
In recent years, I’ve mostly been reading non-fiction, and the one that influenced me most strongly was “The Machinery of Freedom” by David Friedman, which I translated for my channel. From fiction, I could probably name “We the Living” by Ayn Rand; it’s the first or one of the first books she wrote, partially autobiographical, about the early years of Soviet Russia, which she escaped, becoming a so-called “non-returnee.” I left Russia partly under the influence of this book.
What is the last thing you did for the community?
I told my subscriber, with whom I am now in Albania, in detail about Montelibero, and next week we will go show him the plot. Most likely, he will invest in the land, and then, who knows, he might move here.
What was the last thing you did for your soul? (creativity, hobbies, self-education)
I love swimming very much. The trip to Albania also became an opportunity for me to extend summer a bit. I continue to swim about a kilometer every day. And putting physical adventures aside, I recently finished reading James C. Scott’s book “The Art of Not Being Governed”, and now I treat anarcho-primitivists with much greater respect. I’ll probably write something in the channel about this once the thoughts in my head are fully formed.
Relocation
When did you first think about changing your place of residence (approximately—month, year)?
2014.
What events made you think about this?
There was such a militaristic hysteria in Russia that I suddenly wanted to run away from it as far as possible. For example, it was at this time that I first had a fundamental disagreement with my parents, and now in our mutual communication, we filter the discourse, trying not to touch upon painful topics.
What attracted you to the idea of moving? What held you back?
What attracted me to the idea of moving was that I could stop saying that I am from Russia. Being Russian became shameful—at that time, there was a complete feeling that no matter which Russian you poked, they would turn out to be an imperialist. For the same reason, the idea of living in neighboring Serbia, for example, seems very doubtful to me.
What held me back was the lack of understanding as to who would need me there.
What happened next—what milestones can you note? (month, year)
During the period 2014-2018, I closed myself off a bit, going into internal emigration. I made a living through copywriting and tried not to even look at the political field.
The first milestone—at the end of August 2018, I was offered to run the “Ancap-chan” channel. I partially adapted its style to my own. But I changed much more myself, because I had to read quite a lot about libertarianism, and that changes people.
The second milestone—in December 2019, I was offered to move to Montenegro and write articles on agorism here. I agreed literally five minutes after a brief reflection, which greatly surprised the inviter, who expected doubts and agonizing deliberations.
What problems did you want to solve by moving?
I wanted to start moving from the theory of libertarianism to practice. Practice is the building of a libertarian community offline, similar to what the Free Staters in New Hampshire did. For this, it is quite acceptable, especially in the initial stages, for each member of the community to earn money in the external market, because what is being tested first and foremost is the possibility of long-term coexistence, contrary to claims that anarcho-capitalists (ancaps) are blatant individualists who are fundamentally incapable of creating and maintaining communities.
If you were only thinking about moving now, what would you do differently?
I was invited in winter, but I only arrived in the country at the end of May because I was putting my affairs in order, selling things, renewing my passport, and so on. Moreover, the country was closed due to Covid. Now I would try to succeed much faster, so that by winter I would definitely be here.
What obstacles did you have to overcome?
I had to get vaccinated (although, as it turned out, I could have done without it). I had to sell my bicycle, which I very much regret, as they are incredibly expensive here. I had to explain things to my parents, but that was actually the easiest part.
Compare the expectations of the move and the reality
I had heard about “polako” (the local habit of doing everything in a relaxed manner), but I didn’t expect that this phenomenon would be so depressing. The most egregious example is the behavior of our road contractor, who by contract committed to finish all work by the beginning of July, but in the end performed them not in full and with a great delay.
How did you solve the problem of the lack of qualified work on the spot?
First, my channel is not tied to a specific place, as long as there is internet. Second, in 2018, starting the channel, I got acquainted with bitcoins. I was handed the channel and the key to a wallet for donations, where a little bit of bitcoin already lay, after which I had a short briefing on how to work with it, and then I was shown Saifedean Ammous’s book “The Bitcoin Standard”.
At that time, I managed to buy bitcoins almost at the bottom, and the modest donations collected in crypto back then now look like royal gifts. So now I can afford to spend more time than I earn for a while.
Where are you living while you build?
I rent a cheap studio on the outskirts of the city of Bar; I maintain quite friendly relations with the landlord.
What does your cost structure look like and how much does life cost?
Fixed monthly expenses look like this: 120 euros for rent, 25 euros for electricity, 10 for internet, 150 euros for groceries, 150 euros for trips and establishments. Besides this, there are one-time expenses, which will decrease as I settle into the country.
Legalization
Do you have a residence permit (VNZH)?
The Montelibero foundation helped me get it by hiring me into the staff of the company that bought the land. I pay for this partially by working on the project, and partially, apparently, I will reimburse it with money.
Banks
Can a person with a residence permit open a bank account and transfer money to themselves from another country?
An account was opened for me as an employee of the company; a white salary drops into it, a quarter of the minimum rate. Theoretically, I could transfer money to this account, but banks here manage to take commissions even for receiving, let alone sending, so I would prefer to do without that and accept in bitcoins.
How accurate is the statement: “On the other hand, there are jurisdictions so tenderly loved by Russians, such as Montenegro and Thailand, which have not joined the auto-exchange at all yet.” Vedomosti (meaning they do not participate in the automatic exchange with the RF).
I haven’t looked into it. The banking sphere in Montenegro is more dead than alive for me. In Russia, I almost forgot how to hold banknotes in my hands; here I am getting used to it again.
Are there examples of RF citizens using foreign bank accounts without notifying the tax office?
Of course, I do not intend to notify the RF authorities of anything; this country is completely illegitimate to me.
Business Incubator
What obstacles do you see on the path to cooperation among free people of good will?
The small size of the community. In a world with a high level of specialization, a person needs a fairly large market to find customers for their services and suppliers for all their needs. Let alone the libertarians of Montenegro—even the entire Russian-speaking diaspora in Montenegro is not yet self-sufficient, so one has to look far beyond just their own.
What is needed to stimulate the provision of person-to-person services? (fitness trainer, massage therapist, vocal teacher, etc.).
Increasing the number of people in the community and the informational connectivity within it.
What businesses could be in demand?
The most unexpected ones. I, for example, cannot wait for the local master to fix my scooter—and he’s almost the only one in all of Bar. There are plenty of car services here, but moto services are kind of stale. On the other hand, for example, the beauty industry is quite developed, and those wishing to enter this market will face competition.
The Monte Libero Project
Can you recall your last conversation with an acquaintance to whom you told about the project?
Since I share an apartment with my last acquaintance, the conversation is not a single instance, but rather we simply refer to this topic from time to time. I’ll show photos of the plot, or complain about the road contractor, or tell how in early June I found myself waving a chainsaw, or mention project partners as they come up in conversation. He sees that I am passionate about this topic and already really wants to see for himself what this Montelibero is all about.
What questions did your acquaintance ask you?
The cost of the land. How much I bought it for (I mention this below in the text). Why so little. What kind of house I intend to build. Whose services I will use. In short, quite detailed and practical questions.
What fears or obstacles did they voice?
Strange, but it seems none. Only interest.
Which conversation with MTL-people has been memorable lately? Who did you speak with and what exactly was memorable?
Igal Hofman met some creative guys from Budva, and we took them to show our land to see about organizing a music festival there. And they looked at the sawn-off branches and twigs and declared, like, to hell with the old concept, we need to do a bonfire festival here. Now we are working through this new idea.
Which of the project participants would you recommend inviting for the next interviews?
Heinrich Polyanyin, if he can be talked into it. He’s the one who invited me to Montenegro.
What do you personally want from the project?
Tactical goal—a friendly libertarian community, united not only by a common ideology, but also by neighborhood. Medium-term goal—creating a platform for accepting political emigrant-libertarians, as they seem to be heading to Georgia more and more. Long-term—influence on the local political climate towards increasing freedom.
What actions confirm this?
I actively communicate with people interested in the project; I devote an unexpectedly large amount of effort (for me) to constant offline communication among project participants who have moved to the country. I think it’s very important to maintain a sense of community among those who moved. We are a gang. Of international scale. We are sawing a massive project. This is much more inspiring rhetoric than “we are refugees from an authoritarian regime trying to survive somehow.”
I continue to run the channel about libertarianism, including writing a book which, I hope, will become a convenient entry point for getting acquainted with our ideology.
What help do you need for this? How can you be supported, and what would you spend additional money on that came after the publication of this material?
A bit of money wouldn’t hurt))) The less you think about your daily bread, the more attention you can devote to working on Montelibero.
I recently spent 34 thousand rubles on a Serbian language course, which put my September budget in the negative, so additional money would allow me to at least break even in my fourth month in the country.
Purchase of Land and House Construction
What values do you see in the project of building your own house?
I think it will be an interesting transition to a new stage of development for me: my land, my rules, the ability to arrange everything, if not entirely to my taste, then at least conveniently enough for myself. Having a base in the form of my own house, I can practice various strange and previously unavailable hobbies: gardening, rakia brewing, fig drying, and who knows what else might come to mind. Maybe I’ll even open a Y-club 🙂 (the term Y-club from Alex Rozov’s Meganesia book cycle means a club for amateur prostitution in a free-access mode).
What problems do you expect it to solve?
The only fundamental problem solved by a house is the removal of dependence on the owner of a rented dwelling. This must be paid for with a large one-time expenditure for building the house, as well as a sharp increase in the level of responsibility.
What alternative ways of solving these problems did you consider?
The alternative to building your own house is buying a finished one. However, I’m not just building a house. I’m building a house in a libertarian village. I care not only about the walls, but also about the neighbors behind the walls. Not only the roof over my head, but the roof of a libertarian jurisdiction.
Can you elaborate on the “roof”?
If rules are determined by the state, then indeed, rules of coexistence are followed without any libertarianism. I absolutely hated it in Germany when the landlady of the apartment we visited whispered to us to go up the stairs as quietly as possible, otherwise the neighbors would report us to the municipality.
But for me, it is much more organic to understand that if a person becomes very arrogant and ignores the interests of others, it’s not some vague official who comes to them, but a delegation of polite neighbors, and they start figuring out how to settle the problem as painlessly as possible.
Why invest money and a ton of time in a house, if you can invest that money in crypto and rent? After all, bitcoin’s growth potential is incomparably higher than a house’s. (although the probability of an ideal outcome is lower)
I did invest in crypto for a while. Now it has paid off, and I can give my life a new quality (although not without the help of my parents as well; I’m a libertarian to my dad)))
How, while remaining inside a state, can you guarantee the absence of external influence from its side? Roughly speaking, if Montenegro wants to take this territory, it will take it.
Montenegro was chosen in part because land property rights are protected here. Protected not by the state, but by folk tradition. These are “selyuki”—for them, land is sacred.
No, of course, I’ve heard horror stories about fraud during land registration, when ownership rights turned out to be insufficiently clearly defined, but it was always pointed out that if the law cannot find fault, if there is registered land and a registered building on it, then the land is not threatened, and this norm is strictly observed by everyone.
Can you show the estimate for the land and the house?
The land estimate is roughly as follows:
€70k went to the purchase of a hectare of land (for the whole village),
€25k—for the road,
€5k—for clearing, plus other smaller expenses.
€70k went to the purchase of a hectare of land (for the whole village),
€25k—for the road,
€5k—for clearing, plus other smaller expenses.
Until the moment this hectare is divided into separate plots that can be bought out, the price will increase further. For the house, I’m budgeting no more than €400 per square meter, which is modest but realistic. I’ll build one floor first, live in it, and the second—somehow in the future.
Payment upfront, in installments, or with interest?
I agreed on installments for the land; for the house, expenses will be broken down into many stages.
What did you do regarding the plot or house last week?
I earned money)))
What taxes and when will you have to pay for the house?
Taxes are paid once upon purchase, once upon receiving the urbanization plan (so-called communalities), and a relatively small amount is also expected annually. I’m not familiar with the detailed figures yet. It’s known that communalities are the largest tax, 70 euros per square meter of living space, but it can be paid in installments for almost 30 years, which is what I will do.
The idea of universal armament and armed self-defense is often attempted to be portrayed as untenable by resorting to the argument of the attacker’s advantage. After all, what difference does it make whether the victim is armed or not if the attacker is still better prepared for the clash, since he is the one who planned it, while the victim expects nothing. And in general, few attackers will risk encountering a stronger opponent; they will prefer to choose a weak victim and bypass a strong one. The attacker always has the advantage; he is most often stronger, and freedom of armament will only give him more of an advantage since he will be able to arm himself freely.
To begin with, it should be noted that it is precisely the restriction of the freedom to arm oneself that gives the attacker an advantage. The ban only works for law-abiding citizens. If we take statistics from the USA, then 94% of mass shootings occur in gun-free zones, and 80% of armed criminals obtained their weapons illegally, most often on the black market, rather than simply buying them in a regular gun store; furthermore, 57% of criminals fear armed citizens more than they fear the police. All these facts directly indicate that it is precisely the regulation and prohibition of armament that gives the attacker an additional advantage.
And even if, after this, the attacker still retains some advantage over the victim, in general, this still decides nothing. The attacker cannot guarantee success; in the best-case scenario for him, his chance of success is merely higher than that of his victim. However, the risk of his failure in the event that the victim is armed is also high, and he will expose himself to this risk with every attack. Victory in one individual clash will not make him a winner overall; soon he will face a failure that could cost him his own life. And violent criminals make up an overwhelming minority of the population; as analysis of Russian crime shows, in the worst case, we have one violent criminal per year per 695 people (and that is considering not only murders, rapes, and the infliction of serious physical harm, but also, for example, battery). This means that, purely statistically, rapists and violent criminals have no chance of defeating an armed civilian population, or even inflicting any serious harm on society.
The topic was raised in the panarchist chat, but I had not previously published the considerations I shared in response, so I decided to organize the topic into a separate post.
To begin with—here is what I have already written on the topic of transit through someone else’s territory. In short: in densely populated areas, owners of adjacent plots will have a market incentive to profit from transit, while in sparsely populated areas, models of reciprocal altruism are more likely to work, where allowing transit costs little, forbidding it costs a lot, and the reciprocal gratitude for granting permission may prove very valuable at the right moment.
And now, what I would like to add. In essence, an easement is a claim by one neighbor to use the property of another neighbor, recognized by the latter. As long as the agreement lasts, there are no problems. One lets another use their lawnmower, and in return, the other allows them to use a bicycle; everyone is happy. But then the bicycle is sold to a third party. Naturally, by default, it is not burdened by any easement upon sale: the new owner does not care who had the right to use their newly acquired property or on what grounds; all agreements regarding this must be built from scratch.
Now, it is roughly the same story with land. If an old neighbor used the right of passage through your plot, then when they sell the land, the new owner does not automatically acquire the right of passage. However, if the old neighbor brought the buyer to you during the sale and said, for instance, “I’m leaving, this person will be here instead of me, discuss the passage with him”—then it’s a completely different matter; you sit down and substantively discuss what and how you will concede to each other for the sake of maintaining good neighborly relations.
Of course, if the easement had already been embodied in specific physical communications passing through someone’s land, then an attempt to sever these relations would likely affect not only the interests of the new owner but also those of other neighbors, who should not lose the easement because their agreement remains in force. Nevertheless, the new owner is brought up to speed, for example, on the terms of joint maintenance of these communications.
Generally, it’s quite funny to hear that ancap is supposedly a rampage of unrestrained individualism. No, it is under the state that there is a rampage of unrestrained individualism, because a mediator is forcibly inserted between people, and any issues must be resolved not between each other, but specifically with the mediator—that is, with one state office or another. In conditions of decentralized law, as is proper in decentralized systems, network nodes agree among themselves on the rules of interaction, so individualism is individualism, but the interests of neighbors must be taken into account.
An important point: since the rules are based on tradition, by default, this tradition is dictated by the older owners. They are the ones aware of how things are done here, and new owners may adapt, they may suggest changes, but they are unlikely to be able to change the rules at their own discretion if it affects the interests of the previous owners.
I have started writing the final, fourth section of the first and most important part of the book about ancap. As usual, I produced two chapters: The first — the concept of ancap, where I simply formulate the banality that anarcho-capitalism is, believe it or not, anarchy plus capitalism. The second — the expansion and contraction of ancap — concerns the dynamics of how the corresponding relations penetrate society.
Essentially, my theory regarding libertarianism and ancap ends here: I tried very hard to be extremely concise, so I don’t even intend to push the fourth section to the traditional four chapters. Instead, I want to write a fairly detailed conclusion summarizing the first part, after which it could well be set sail as a standalone book, serving as a convenient (hopefully) entry point into libertarianism.
The second and third parts are intended to be the application of the previously outlined theory to various practical issues — regarding how different aspects of life may be organized under ancap, and what practical steps are envisioned for the transition to ancap. These parts, unlike the first theoretical one, should lose relevance much faster, whereas the first was written for eternity, to take a small spot on the pedestal, where it is already quite crowded with the greats.
Right now we observe that California is a top statist socialist state in the USA. How did it happen?
L29Ah
I avoided this question for quite a while because I didn’t understand how to provide a detailed answer without falling into a tedious chronicle, which is not so much useless as it is meaningless on its own. Every tax increase and every tightening of regulations had its own unique reason, and digging into them is not the level of a popular channel.
To put it very briefly, California became “Commifornia” because its voters wanted it. It remains in this status now largely despite the will of the voters, but that is usually how socialism works: people try this drug because it is trendy and advertised everywhere, and then it turns out that it is easier to die than to get off it; thus California (as a system of effective resource management for the territory to improve the territory in the interests of its residents) is dying.
It seems possible to get off this drug—the example of Thatcher’s Britain shows this. But relapses are also extremely likely, as shown by the example of modern Britain. Anyway, let us leave the medical metaphors and the abuse of holistic constructs alone. I would like to draw attention to another point.
Generally speaking, Konkin did predict the crisis of the state, because if people had the opportunity to use political methods for the constant and irreversible reduction of state interference, there would be no need for agorism. At the same time, Californian crypto-anarchists indeed seriously pushed humanity toward the implementation of useful agoric technologies, so Konkin’s notion that California would play an important role in the struggle was also justified to some extent.
Thanks to open borders between states, many agorists and libertarians found it easier to bail out to tiny New Hampshire rather than try to turn the tide in massive California; therefore, those who wish to focus on business and legal politics rather than survival naturally leave the leftists alone with the governments they chose, heading where their efforts will bring more benefit. For some reason, Konkin warned against such tactics as a kind of simple and wrong solution, calling it anarcho-Zionism. On the other hand, he also predicted the emergence of certain agoric ghettos where people could effectively resist the state’s attempts to regulate them into oblivion, thanks to the fact that their concentration there would be higher, making it difficult for hostile agents.
In short, Konkin was hardly concerned with the fate of a specific state that was one way or another in the hands of statists, and nitpicking that his territory is not the current locomotive of agorism is like nitpicking Ayn Rand for the absence of Rearden Metal based on an iron-copper alloy in our lives.
To the question of whether a person has the right to commit violence, we have only one answer — they do not! No single person in the world should possess the right to initiate an act of violence against another person. But some people (most often supporters of authoritarian-conservative views and force-based methods of solving problems) may say that this is a restriction of freedom. Freedom to commit violence is a freedom like any other, which means we are contradicting ourselves and are authoritarians ourselves, wanting to forcibly impose a single life scenario on everyone.
This is a rather inadequate manipulation in essence, which ignores the fact that violence leads to people being deprived of their freedom. That is, when one person initiates an act of violence against another person, they thereby deprive them of their freedom. Accordingly, violence is non-freedom. The right to violence is the right to deprive people of their freedom. However, the elimination of violence, the striving for its complete eradication as a phenomenon as a whole, is the elimination of the factor that leads people to non-freedom. And no verbal manipulations will change the essence of the phenomenon of violence!
I’ve unexpectedly ended up hanging out in Albania, so my posting pace has slipped a bit. On the other hand, dropping out of the usual flow is very conducive to slow-paced creativity, so I relatively quickly finished the two remaining chapters of the market section in my future book: specifically on the market and on capitalism. In the next section, I will finally begin describing ancap—assuming, of course, that I don’t get swept away somewhere again.
I have processed another large donation and finished translating the fourth part of Eric Mack’s book “Libertarianism.” The chapter being posted is interesting because it is the first time Mack polemicizes with the discussed views of a particular author rather than simply transmitting them. Previously, there was nothing like “Locke is wrong here” or “Spencer is wrong there,” but he makes such assertions about Hayek. Apparently, this means he considers Hayek sufficiently his contemporary for it to make sense to argue with him.
Mack classifies Hayek’s argumentation against social justice, highlighting five arguments against it, and notes at the end that in his further reasoning, Hayek still departs from his own principles and argues that society does have the right to provide its members with a basic income, and that this is fair. In short, Nozick, in Mack’s presentation, appears far more consistent.
Strangely enough, this concludes the main positive exposition of the principles of libertarianism by Eric Mack. One more part will be devoted to the critique of libertarianism, and one bonus part contains a set of surnames completely unknown to me, who tweaked the ideology in their own key—I suspect, somewhere toward the left. I will deal with them starting from the next donation.
I have finally received the recommendations from the State DepartmentSmart Voting regarding which specific single-mandate candidate I should vote for in District 96 in the north of the Irkutsk region: that is where our little warm western Montenegro is located. It turned out to be a certain Andreev Andrey Anatolyevich, from the CPRF. For Navalny’s pawns, this information is quite sufficient, but those who enjoy thoughtfully analyzing the varieties of shit can visit the shit directory kindly created by Khodorkovsky and check the details of all candidates there.
As for the voting by party lists, I intend to balance my vote for the communist single-mandate candidate by voting for the LDPR list—especially since, as far as I can tell, Smart Voting mainly recommends communists for the single-mandate districts, and I don’t really want to give them an overly populous faction.
One should not take elections in modern Russia with animal seriousness; it is nothing more than a way to piss in their slippers. It won’t make them feed us better or bully us less, but we know that when we piss in their slippers, it infuriates them. Is that not enough?
