The state is a form of violent hierarchy of dominance

Voluntarist, Bitarch

A state, which possesses undisputed power and a monopoly on violence, is typically regarded as a purely human social phenomenon. However, if we look at the very foundation of the state’s structure—namely, the fact of coercive force exerted on people by political power—it can boldly be called one of the forms of a violent hierarchy of dominance, much like the hierarchies that arise under certain conditions in many animal species. This prompts us to analyze the phenomenon of the violent hierarchy of dominance as a whole, the prerequisites and consequences of its emergence, including in the case of humans.

We will cover all points of this topic. We will examine the history of the emergence and development of states and compare it with how violent hierarchies of dominance arise in animals, including known experiments such as “Universe 25,” in which a mouse population went extinct despite an abundance of resources, or the experiment by Didier Dezos, where some rats forcibly compelled other rats to swim across a pool for food. As a result, we will draw certain conclusions regarding the influence of violence on society as a whole.

First, let us confirm the violent nature of the state. To do this, we must turn to the theory of the stationary bandit. According to this theory, the state is a settled (stationary) bandit who decided to establish themselves in a certain territory, control it exclusively, and rob the population in the long term [1]. We should look at what serves as a prerequisite for the independent emergence of states in different corners of the world. Consider the Nile, Tigris, Euphrates, and Indus valleys in the Old World, and the Mexico Valley, as well as the mountain and coastal plains of Peru in the New World. All these places have one thing in common: lands suitable for agriculture that are limited by seas, mountains, or deserts. In such places, there is simply nowhere to flee from coercive force, which led to the appearance of the first states there. We should also add social boundaries to this. Communities located in the center of populated lands are far more likely to be subjugated than those located on the periphery [2].

Over time, the entire world came under the violent control of certain groups of people, and this continues today. Let us not forget that modern state borders were drawn as a result of wars and subjugations. Even if we assume that in the past some group of people truly volunteered to form a monopoly government, they were either forcibly subjugated by someone else, or they themselves engaged in the subjugation of others. The same happened with subsequent generations, who did not initially agree to such a contract. Current states also actively control your life and their borders, resorting to all possible means. If the state does not allow you to do something, your chances of hiding or escaping from it will be extremely slim.

Let us keep in mind what the stationary bandit theory tells us about the state and move on to considering the issue of violence in the animal world, which is very important for understanding the reasons behind the emergence of a violent hierarchy of dominance. It is worth starting with the research of ethologist Konrad Lorenz, which showed that species with strong innate weaponry have evolutionarily developed a strong innate intraspecific morality of non-violence—that is, a mechanism that inhibits the manifestation of violent behavior in intraspecific clashes [3]. The following example can effectively demonstrate this mechanism:

“During a territorial clash, venomous snakes exaggerate their size by stretching, competing to see who can stand higher; they sway and push each other, but they never bite, nor do they even display their weapons. Some species even threaten each other by turning their heads away. It is no wonder that not only ordinary people, but many zoologists, mistook the tournament battles of snakes for mating dances.” [4]

No one will dispute that venomous snakes are heavily armed species; with a venomous bite, they can instantly kill a member of their own species. But they do not bite their own. This is all due to the Lorenz mechanism (LM), for if its development had been impossible over the course of evolution, many species would simply have self-destructed. However, the development of this mechanism is a fairly obvious process, given that individuals without an innate inhibitor of violent behavior would very often face death due to repeated attacks on heavily armed conspecifics, and therefore their genetic material would not be passed on to future generations.

This mechanism can be observed to varying degrees in many species. The more heavily armed a species is, the more strongly the LM is expressed in its representatives, and conversely—in weak species, it is weakly expressed. Lorenz gave quite interesting examples regarding wolves, which do not bite their tribesmen in the neck, and ravens, which under no circumstances peck out the eyes of other ravens even during clashes. However, after leaving two turtle doves—seemingly peaceful birds of the pigeon family—in one cage for some time, Lorenz discovered that one of them nearly killed the other. Of course, a strong LM could not have developed in turtle doves because, in this case, its absence does not threaten their survival, as they have weak weaponry and can easily flee from an attacker in nature.

Based on this, we can link the development of the LM to two factors: the presence of strong innate weaponry and the impossibility of escaping from violent pursuit. Now it is time to move to the topic of the emergence of a violent hierarchy of dominance among animals, and we will take the famous experiment called “Universe 25” as an example. In this experiment, ethologist John Calhoun created an enclosure for mice in which he provided an abundance of resources. Initially, the mouse population grew rapidly up to 2,200 individuals, but after that, their numbers began to decline, and in less than 5 years, the population became completely extinct.

Many reasons for this can be cited; the conditions of Calhoun’s enclosure were actually far from paradise, and there is also an opinion that the problem lies in the abundance of resources itself—and humanity, by the way, with its current high level of prosperity, faces the same fate. However, the main factor that led to extinction, especially compared to vivariums in other laboratories where mouse populations lived peacefully for decades, was that the design of the enclosure promoted the emergence of a violent hierarchy of dominance:

“The enclosure built by Calhoun, unlike a standard vivarium or natural environments, had one characteristic feature: an extremely irrational and inconvenient systematization of space for the mice, as a result of which a situation arose where the 65 largest males were able to monopolize access to food sources and females, while the mice driven into the center of the enclosure were forced to lead a wretched existence.” [5]

Under such conditions, further reproduction became impossible. The stress level of the mice simply skyrocketed, and the males who occupied the top of the dominance hierarchy did not allow other males access to females even after losing their own ability to reproduce due to old age.

Let us recall another experiment conducted by French researcher Didier Dezos. Six rats were placed in a cage with only one exit—into a pool. At the end of the pool was a feeder with food, but the rat could not eat there—after swimming across, it would take the food and had to return to its companions in the cage. Under these conditions, a rigid hierarchy of dominance formed, in which some rats forced others to swim for food and took it from them. Here too, we can clearly link the emergence of a dominance hierarchy to the limitation of space and the impossibility of escaping from it.

Interesting cases can also be noted in the world of primates. Observation of three species of macaques showed that in two of them (the rhesus macaque and the crab-eating macaque), a strong hierarchy of dominance can be seen, whereas the social relationships of the third species (the Tonkin macaque) are non-violent in nature [6]. Different researchers explain this difference through both environmental factors and genetics. However, it is most likely that a combination of these factors is at play—the corresponding environment led to the development of corresponding innate tendencies, specifically a weaker LM in the first two species and a stronger LM in the third (this explanation is not provided in the macaque study, but it fits perfectly based on the explanation of the nature of violence in many other species).

Another interesting case was observed by biologists Robert Sapolsky and Lisa Sher regarding a troop of baboons—primates known for their aggressiveness. In 1982, the most aggressive males of this troop began feeding at a tourist dump and ate contaminated meat. Eventually, they all died, leaving behind less aggressive males. As a result, the level of violence in the troop decreased sharply [7]. It is also worth remembering the pygmy chimpanzees—bonobos, whose behavior is less violent than that of other chimpanzees. This fact is explained by the fact that they do not have to share their habitat with large and aggressive gorillas. The latter displace and limit the resources of other chimpanzees, which effectively leads them to the very situation where there is nowhere to flee from violence within society due to the limitation of available living space.

Let us now return to humans. Humans are naturally a weakly armed species, which is one of the prerequisites for the development of a weak version of the LM. Combining this with the fact of the limited space suitable for agriculture in the territory where the first states emerged, one can conclude that the state is the same form of violent hierarchy of dominance as in the case of other species when they also find themselves in similar living conditions. And over time, people most prone to violence, who occupied the top of this hierarchy, gained increasing opportunities to control and restrict the freedom of all other people. Thus we have arrived at the modern state of total control, in which, as we mentioned at the beginning, without permission from above, you have no right to anything, including the right to escape from the violence of the stationary bandit.

This state of affairs seriously threatens the survival of humanity. Let us recall Calhoun’s experiment. Many call it prophetic in view of the observed decline in birth rates in developed countries. But usually, incorrect reasons are given, related to the high level of prosperity. The only correct reason is the existence of a violent hierarchy of dominance. This also explains why birth rates do not decline as sharply in less developed countries—states there simply lack the technical means and resources to control their population, regardless of what level of control is written in their laws.

Another reason why violence is a major problem and must be fought is the multitude of negative externalities. These include the increase in stress levels in society and the slowing of economic development, but most importantly—the risk of the destruction of humanity due to the use of weapons of mass destruction. And such means are becoming more accessible every day, even for small organizations and individuals. For example, trends in the development of biotechnology tell us that creating artificial viruses will soon be a fairly easy task, which in turn will allow some violent individual to create and release a very dangerous infection, far more serious than the coronavirus we recently faced. You can learn more about these externalities and methods for fighting violence in another material titled “Violence: Problems and Solutions” [8].

Sources:

1. M. Olson “Dictatorship, Democracy, and Development”: http://ecsocman.hse.ru/data/2012/11/22/1251382788/13.pdf

2. R.L. Carneiro “A Theory of the Origin of the State”: https://vk.com/@bitarchy-teoriya-proishozhdeniya-gosudarstva-roberta-karneiro

3. Konrad Lorenz “King Solomon’s Ring,” chapter “Morality and Weaponry”: https://vk.com/@bitarchy-moral-i-oruzhie

4. V.R. Dolnik “Ethological Excursions into the Forbidden Gardens of Humanitarians”: http://vivovoco.astronet.ru/VV/PAPERS/ECCE/VV_EH4_W.HTM

5. Pavel Khokhlovsky “Universe 25: Crushing Critique of Myths and New Conclusions”: https://tjournal.ru/analysis/212316-vselennaya-25-razgromnaya-kritika-mifov-i-novye-vyvody

6. Bernard Thierry “Feedback Loop between Kinship and Dominance: The Macaque Model”: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022519305804850

7. Kathryn Stutzman “Are war and violence natural? Animal behavior and how it relates to humans”: https://www.goshen.edu/bio/Biol410/bsspapers05/Kat.html

8. Voluntarist “Violence: Problems and Solutions”: https://medium.com/voluntarity/насилие-проблемы-и-решения-c348a72c5bdc

How do you feel about anarcho-punks, being an anarchist yourself?

Mohawks, metal, port wine, speakers, Yegor Letov, Grazhdanskaya Oborona, Yuri Hoy and Viktor Tsoi! And of course, mother-anarchy!

But seriously, do you think there are common grounds between libertarians and anarcho-punks, and is interaction or even cooperation between them possible?

Ahmad (question accompanied by a donation of 0.00005166 btc)

Perhaps the most punk thing I’ve ever seen is the movie “Fight Club.” There, it’s no longer just Tsoi’s “you must be strong, you must be able to say don’t tread on me,” but an aggressive denial of the dominant system as a whole, in which, of course, the distinct contours of some anti-system are visible: how wonderful it is to destroy something beautiful, how wonderful it is to wage guerrilla warfare against the regime by any means from spitting in soup to blowing up buildings, and most importantly—how wonderful self-destruction is. Self-destruction proves the sincerity of one’s views and provides a person with a high platform, even if before that they were nobody and had no name. And here, everyone repeats in chorus—his name is Vladislav Roslyakov! That is impressive.

Of course, the punk movement is a product of the twentieth century with its disregard for individual human life and very large-scale thinking. Punks did not defend their own individual freedom (freedom within the existing system is shit), because it is only possible through a transition to anarchy, and that primarily means the breakdown of the existing system. It is pointless to discuss whether punks have a positive agenda and to make its presence a condition for cooperation with them. It is quite enough that a punk will fight not against every system, but only against the one that spawned him. We are all a bit like virologists now, so I think the analogy of punks as antibodies to the state would be quite appropriate.

I think it’s clear from the above that there are common grounds between anarcho-punks and anarcho-libertarians. But what about interaction and cooperation? Here, I’m afraid, anarcho-libertarians will seem like boring, stifling and useless theorists to anarcho-punks. What is this “respect for private property”? The state holds you as property tighter than it holds your balls; forget about it. As long as you are afraid of living in shit, they will scare you by dipping you in shit, and in the fight against the system, one cannot be distracted by such trivial fears.

Punks are guerrillas. I think they could have quite mutually beneficial and mutually understandable cooperation with sufficiently hardcore agorists, who are also essentially guerrillas. But still, I would like to see a lecture, say, by Pavel Usanov before an audience of anarcho-punks, dedicated to some kind of brutality. Well, for example, a talk on the economics of Mexican cartels from the position of AEL. Naturally, Pavel should be in full dress, with a bow tie, otherwise the picture won’t be right.

The image is very important in terms of influence on society, so there should, of course, also be many carnival punks in a strong subculture, who mostly copy visual images rather than the style of thinking and, most importantly, actions. But please forgive me for not dwelling in detail on the visual component, such as mohawks and studs: that’s for the designers, they understand the language of material culture better.

A joke question

If there is no state, and my wife cheats on me, would it be lawful to throw her out the window if I live on the second floor of a building owned by a homeowners’ association that has opted out of insurance services, but has an oral contract for territory security with a private security company (PSC) registered in a territory where a state exists, of which our joint daughter is a citizen, and who, under their law, is obliged to look after disabled parents—a category that includes stateless persons, which my wife is, having applied for a residence permit that was formally accepted due to the difference in time zones?

Topotushka

This question, if I recall correctly, was cited by Alexei “Komendant” Tereshchuk as an example of how even non-trolls—but quite enthusiastic ancaps—can be intensely interested in the most minute details of a completely hypothetical stateless society of the future, falling into the deductive heresy of deriving any, no matter how subtle, specifics from a few general principles.

But no. In order to derive specific consequences from general principles, one must add additional information to the general principles regarding the conditions to which we are deriving those specific consequences. The more assumptions the initial data rely on, the more unstable the result of such reflections becomes.

Does this mean that the deductive method is useless? Of course not. It simply means that to obtain reliable results, you need to take the general principles and bring them as close as possible to the local environment to which you will be applying them.

Now, let us return to the joking question and provide a serious answer to it.

The question of the lawfulness of throwing a cheating wife out the window can only have a positive resolution under conditions where cheating is considered a legal offense. Can cheating be considered a legal offense in the absence of a state? It can. Let us note that in our hypothetical society, marriage is officially considered a property relationship—at least, Topotushka’s “ownership” over his wife.

Moving forward. The homeowners’ association’s refusal of insurance services means that causing harm to the health of one of the association’s residents does not constitute a tort against the association.

The fact that the PSC is fulfilling an oral contract for territory security means that oral contracts are recognized in our hypothetical stateless society.

If the PSC operating legally on the protected territory records damage to the adjacent territory caused by the fall of Topotushka’s wife, I find it difficult to imagine a legal construction within which the responsibility for the damage would be placed by the PSC on the wife rather than on the Topotushka who threw her. Thus, we can state that since throwing a large object out of a window entails a risk of damage to the adjacent territory, it is an unlawful act, and we have obtained an answer to the original question without even delving into the intricacies of time zones. Moreover, according to the oral contract, the PSC may be obliged to prevent even the throwing of cigarette butts on the lawn, which are viewed as litter; therefore, Topotushka’s arguments that his wife is quite compact and did not cause any significant damage are unlikely to hold weight. Littering under the windows is an unlawful act, period.

Recording an offense

Private monopolies pose no threat to you

Voluntarist, Bitarch

One of the claims against a free society is that monopolies cannot be avoided because there are certain physical limitations. For example, it is unlikely that several companies providing water or electricity could operate in a single building simultaneously. Living in a certain place, you will in any case have to accept that some services will be provided by only one supplier, meaning they will be able to manipulate the prices and quality of these services as they please, since you will still have no way to opt out due to a lack of alternatives. This is why political control and regulation of the activities of some service providers are necessary.

This argument often confuses many supporters of the ideas of freedom, but the answer is actually quite obvious. Let’s consider what happens when a state-owned company (or a state-regulated private company) and an independent private company try to inflate the prices of their services and lower their quality.

If you cannot simply switch to an alternative, people in such a situation usually begin to boycott the unscrupulous service provider. They stop paying them money, organize rallies at their offices, block entrances—in short, they hinder the organization’s ability to continue its activities in every way possible until the problem is solved. How, exactly, does a boycott affect the activities of different types of companies?

For a state-controlled company, a boycott is not scary at all. It can always receive subsidies from the state to cover all associated costs. People are more likely to give up and accept high prices and poor service quality than the boycotted company is to suffer any damage. Of course, there is a chance that through their boycott, people can influence political power, but even in such a case, improvements are not guaranteed. Most likely, one politician will be replaced by another who promises improvements to appease the people, but will also do nothing much himself.

For an independent private company, a boycott is quite critical. It can rely only on its own income, which simply will not exist in the event of a boycott. There is no one to provide it with subsidies. Any unwillingness to please consumers can lead to bankruptcy. The company would have to be run by complete idiots not to react to a boycott appropriately, as anything else would lead to a loss of profit. But even if there are actually idiots there—this company will simply go bankrupt, and another company with more adequate management will take its place.

As we can see, private organizations are quite easy to boycott, even if they hold a monopoly position, because their profit still depends on voluntary payments from customers and the fact that they will not hinder the company’s work. Boycotting state-controlled companies is almost useless, because they do not care if they do not receive profit through market means—they will receive it from your taxes.

The conclusion is simple: natural monopolies arising in a market environment do not threaten you in any way, because you always have the option to boycott their activities. However, you have almost no chance of defeating a state monopoly and demanding that it fulfill its duties with quality.

A Month in Montenegro. A Brief Report.

I arrived in Montenegro on May 21st to work on the Montelibero project. During this time, I have personally accomplished a little for the project: I settled in relative proximity to the plot of land being acquired as part of the project, participated in clearing the territory so that the surveyor could mark the cadastral boundaries of the plot and the future road leading to it, and submitted documents to be appointed as the director of the LLC Montelibero, which is currently in the process of registration. Until the company is registered, the possibilities for further offline activity regarding the land are limited.

Surveyor at work

Many are concerned about the cost of living in Montenegro. Here is a summary for the first month.

A total of 834 euros was spent — this is only for myself, excluding expenses within the framework of Montelibero. However, this amount includes some items that will be significantly lower in the future.

Housing cost 282 euros; it will be much less moving forward. First, the first 7 days were in a hostel at 6 euros per night. Second, when I rented long-term housing for 120 euros a month, I had to leave one month’s payment as a deposit, with a potential return not for a long time.

113 euros were spent on furnishings. For instance, I brought almost my entire desktop computer from Russia, except for the monitor and the case because they are heavy, and I forgot to take the router. I had to buy used hardware locally. Or, for example, the apartment turned out to have no electric kettle or clothes drying rack. In the future, I expect one major expense in this category, and after that, it will almost vanish.

A very unpleasant expense is the 30-euro tourist tax, which is 1 euro per day of stay in the country. The tax must be paid until a residence permit is obtained, which in turn is tied to the registration timelines of the company where I am the director. So this expense will decrease next month and eventually disappear completely. However, company maintenance costs will begin; but in my case, fortunately, these will be paid for by the project — a kind of social package for an employee with a monthly salary of 80 euros.

The wildest expense item from the perspective of former residents of Russia is the cash-out commissions, which cost 29 euros. Local ATMs charge 2% + 5 euros. In supermarkets, of course, you can pay by card, but between people — only cash; there is no “I’ll transfer to Sber via phone number” here. This is a serious reason to start earning cash here or making useful acquaintances for more profitable cash-outs than via an ATM.

170 euros were spent on shops, and another 54 on establishments. These expenses can be optimized, but I would assume that food and small household needs will continue to cost around two hundred.

In short, if you rent a very modest apartment in a cheap city (Bar is perhaps the cheapest city on the coast), then once life more or less settles down, you can expect to fit within 350-400 euros per month — if living alone. A family will have lower per capita rental costs and will likely fit within a price tag of 300 euros per person.

However, for expenses to stay within this modest price tag, a couple of other conditions must be met. First, forget about smoking; cigarettes are very expensive here, more than 2 euros per pack. I didn’t even start, which is easier for me. Second, you can choose not to apply for a residence permit and instead do a visa run. More on that below.

If a tourist does not pay the tourist tax, the state theoretically threatens to fine them. In practice, only those who apply for a residence permit without having paid their taxes are fined. Therefore, instead of applying for a residence permit, you can simply cross the border with Albania once a month. My landlord actually makes a side income from this: he crowds 4 people into his car, charges 10 euros from each, and drives them to Shkodër, a lovely Albanian town on the shore of Lake Skadar. In Albania, almost all fruits and vegetables are about twice as cheap, as are many items in supermarkets. So many people go there just to stock up, and at the same time, they get a border crossing stamp, which gives them the right to extend their legal stay in Montenegro. So, if you aren’t planning far ahead and aren’t chasing Montenegrin citizenship in ten years, then a visa run is the cheapest way of legalization. No PCR tests are required; I haven’t even seen people wearing masks in Albania at all.

Just a funny Albanian brand

In conclusion, a scattering of general impressions about the country.

The language is related enough to Russian that after a month, you can understand most of what is being said to you, especially if they speak slowly. Ordinary communication happens in a mixture of Montenegrin and Russian, but in difficult cases where this is not enough, switching to English is sufficient and solves the problem.

Locals are quite friendly, although not as breathtakingly hospitable as, say, Georgians. They love to chat: communication with locals almost always boils down to them talking, you occasionally giving one-word answers to their questions, and them being happy that they were understood and that you even replied on topic. They talk little about politics, and this usually concerns the question of whether they should join the European Union, rather than whether some Russians or Belarusians have a dispute with their government. Libertarian values are quite organic for them, though they are not articulated.

Business culture in Montenegro is a legendary topic. You get the feeling that by the time you manage to pull off a more or less complex deal, you will have already gotten to know the counterparty’s entire family and perhaps even become related to them. The price of the deal ultimately turns out to be noticeably higher than expected, but in the process, some unexpected benefits arise that have a completely indirect relation to the original subject of discussion. In short, you have to immerse yourself in it, and it’s harmful to spend too many nerves on it.

There is work here, in principle, both skilled and unskilled. Until your knowledge of the local language is proficient, you can look for work through Russian-speaking groups on Facebook; they are populous and informative. When a person begins to chat fluently, their opportunities expand significantly. Also, nothing prevents working remotely, but you already understand that. The internet is expensive, but the quality is decent enough.

The food is tasty, but the cuisine is not very diverse: meat, cheese, bread, vegetables, fruits. The culture of smoking meat is top-notch. There is fish, but it’s not highly prized by the locals. They eat a lot of pastries, but here I don’t particularly align with the locals.

The climate surprised me at first: at the end of May, evenings were openly cool. Now it much more resembles my idea of the subtropics: hot during the day, pleasant at night. Humidity is not very high and isn’t irritating. I haven’t even turned on the air conditioner yet, but I think it will be needed after some time. The sea is still quite cool, so the beaches are already quite crowded, while the waves are still spacious. They say the locals migrate to the mountains, where it’s cooler, during the height of the heat. I haven’t been there yet, but I plan to.

In general, in terms of tourist attractions, Montenegro is still passing me by. I visited the Old Town of Budva — and that’s pretty much it. Although literally right next to me is some breathtakingly ancient olive tree, 2400 years old, which all the locals speak of with literal breathlessness, and three kilometers away are the ruins of Old Bar — but somehow I just haven’t found the time. Instead, today I plan to visit the tourist center to extend my registration after the visa run, and tomorrow I’ll go to the capital, where I spotted a used scooter (that same expected major expense for furnishings). Perhaps when I have wheels, I’ll be able to ride around the country and explore it in more detail, but that will likely be the topic of the next report.

Old Town Budva — the only tourist attraction I’ve explored in detail

The book about ancap is being written little by little

I think I’ve finished writing the first section of my book on ancap, regarding the basic principles of libertarianism. I’ve broken it down into separate chapters so it’s not too cumbersome. Also, for the convenience of the readers, I’ve moved all the numerous definitions of terms provided in the text to a separate page. There, you will have the opportunity to get a concentrated overview of the strange conceptual apparatus I use.

I’ve also sketched out a rough table of contents for the second section, which is currently tentatively titled “Power.” The third section will presumably be devoted to the relationship between ancap and libertarianism, serving as an afterword to the first part of the book. I haven’t sketched out the structure for the other two parts of the book yet.

As before, I don’t rule out various edits, additions, and removals, especially if you provide active feedback.

Violent bans and nonviolent condemnation

Voluntarist, Bitarch

The fight against violence, like any other social activity, implies the unacceptability and inadmissibility of certain phenomena and practices, as well as the use of specific methods to achieve the intended goals. In this regard, those who popularize the idea of fighting violence are accused of wanting to forcibly compel everyone to submit to their own ideals. Sometimes one can hear statements suggesting that life in a society where our goals have been achieved would be less free and more unjust than even under some quite authoritarian state regimes.

However, such argumentation is linked to a simple lack of understanding, and often a refusal to understand, the methods we propose using in the implementation of practices to combat violence. The gaze falls exclusively on the practices themselves, while the methods are completely ignored. To make it clear what this conversation is about, I will list both the practices and the methods.

What, in our opinion and based on our research, should be achieved to suppress, or even eradicate, violence? The inadmissibility of any violent practices, universal armament (a balance of violence potential), and the application of gene therapy against violence. All of this reaches critics, at least partially. What methods do we propose? The application of non-forceful pressure using reputational and financial instruments, as well as self-defense during a direct attack. But this point is very often ignored. For some critics, even repeated explanations fail to convey that we propose a completely different approach to implementing our goals. They view everything within the exact same framework used by states.

But that is not the case at all. Even the aforementioned gene therapy against violence, which some critics claim we want to use to turn all people into “vegetables,” is absolutely not proposed for forced imposition. The scenarios for its application do not go beyond the methods we listed earlier. We propose applying it to specific violent offenders during the commission of direct attacks as a means of self-defense. We also propose introducing reputational and financial sanctions against those who have committed violence in the past, and as an option to lift these sanctions, offering them a choice of gene therapy against violence. And that is all!

Another point that was subject to criticism is our condemnation of any violent practices, even those by mutual consent. The argument is that we have no right to interfere in what is done by voluntary agreement, even if as a result someone causes physical harm to another (a vivid example of this would be no-holds-barred fighting). Yes, we propose interference, because such practices lead to an increase in violence in society as a whole. But we absolutely do not propose forceful interference.

Condemnation and the promotion of anything on our part always fit within the framework of applying non-violent pressure and self-defense during a direct attack. And if someone says that our methods are cruel, or even totalitarian, they are simply criticizing the idea without having understood it at all, merely for the sake of criticizing. Such accusations sound even more absurd given that we never propose the initiation of violence or forceful coercion toward anything. Yet it is precisely this that is the tool of any totalitarian and cruel policy, so we are clearly very far from totalitarianism (or more accurately, not connected to it at all). In fact, accusations of cruelty and totalitarianism look very foolish coming from those critics who advocate for forceful punishment and violence in general as a method for achieving various goals. And it is very foolish to equate non-forceful pressure with forceful coercion.

Salvador and the BPN

Everything is fine with the right to bear arms in El Salvador (ownership from age 21, carrying from 24, a test and a criminal record check are required for a license), freedom of activity for private security companies, a government sector share of only 7.6% in the economy, and the lowest tax burden in all of the Americas. Now they are even giving permanent residency for three bitcoins. It’s not exactly ancap, but much has been successfully implemented. At the same time, El Salvador is one of the most violent countries in the world: robberies, murders, etc. Where is the notorious BPN (Balance of Violence Potential) if any law-abiding citizen can be armed no worse than any gangster?

Anonymous question

The Balance of Violence Potential (BPN) is a concept once used by Bitarch as a universal recipe against violence (later he abandoned such a vulgar interpretation), which he drew from Auzan, who in turn recounted Hirschleifer’s model regarding the conditions for the stability of anarchy. However, in the original model, everything was by no means reduced to the BPN alone. For the stability of anarchy according to Hirschleifer, low conflict intensity, high resource dispersion, and a sufficiently high income from peaceful activities are required.

The intensity factor is a sort of integral indicator consisting of the characteristics of military technologies, the motivation of the parties, and so on. It cannot be calculated directly, so it is rather understood through comparison between different conflicting societies. Resource dispersion ensures the difficulty of achieving hegemony through control of the economy. High income from peaceful activity reduces the motivation for war.

What do we have in El Salvador? Its history includes a war with Honduras in 1969, followed by a civil war that lasted until 1992, meaning one can assume a certain habit of solving issues by force—something institutionalists trace back to ancient colonial times and which is quite characteristic of Latin America in general. Resources are distributed very unevenly: in a tiny, densely populated agrarian country, there is a severe shortage of fertile land, and it is all concentrated in mountainous areas. Poverty and unemployment levels are very high, meaning there must simply be a large number of cheap fighters in the country who will inevitably dispose of themselves while terrorizing businesses, thereby further increasing poverty and unemployment.

What factors should lead to a decrease in the level of violence in El Salvador? First, the notorious second demographic transition. Fewer young people mean less banditry. Second, because a significant share of the economy consists of remittances from abroad, this increases resource dispersion. Recognizing bitcoin as legal tender will reduce remittance fees, which will increase income from peaceful economic activity. Finally, the country has recent experience with a truce between gangs and the government, during which the murder rate dropped sharply. If they wish, they can repeat this, which would not only reduce the level of violence but also increase the decentralization of power.

Why might the government in El Salvador be willing to decentralize? Because there is neighboring Honduras, a former military adversary. And Honduras is implementing panarchic projects, such as the Prospera charter city on Roatan island and a couple of smaller ones. Small El Salvador cannot afford the Russian Federation’s tactics toward neighbors attempting liberalization because it lacks the strength. Instead, it will have to catch up to their level. And wealthy citizens are a far more significant factor in reducing violence than any mythical BPN.

The Debate Between Kagarlitsky and Kapelyushnikov

I listened with great pleasure to the debates between Kagarlitsky and Kapelyushnikov on SVTV.

Of course, Kapelyushnikov’s position was closer to me from the start, so I didn’t expect anything particularly interesting from him, but I was wrong: there were many witty phrases that could be broken down into quotes. It was known that Kagarlitsky is a strong polemicist; he proved himself to be a strong polemicist here as well. The most amusing thing to me was that his position largely echoes the position of Ekaterina Schulmann expressed in the program Status, when she was talking about Hayek:

Essentially, put your liberalism in the background; democracy is more important.

Of course, if one strictly follows the terms of the “two chairs” problem, both options are bad: both an authoritarian ruler who first liberalizes the economy but gradually turns to bronze and goes mad, and a democratic big state acting as a means for everyone to parasitize everyone else, and thus falling into a positive feedback loop.

In the debates, Kagarlitsky actively pushed for democracy instead of state planning; his interlocutor was not prepared for this, and as a result, there wasn’t much room for the critique of democracy in the debates. However, there was one good take regarding the fact that decentralized democratic planning would simply bind private initiative with others’ plans even more tightly than if it were centralized, and practicing pure economics without politics would prove simply impossible.

And yet, I didn’t quite understand: if both participants in the debate were not thrilled with the topic they were discussing and considered the subject of the discussion to be outdated by about seventy years—then what topic could they have argued about with more sense and pleasure, and what stopped them?

Eric Mack. Libertarianism. Translation of the chapter on Hayek and his spontaneous orders.

The donation for the translation of this chapter was quite decent, 6000 rubles, but the volume of text in it is also quite outstanding, so I had to toil away in the intervals between voluntary libertarian hard labor at the logging camp.

In this chapter, Eric Mack explains how Mises’s calculation argument regarding the unviability of a total planned economy influenced Hayek, describes the alternative approach developed by Hayek to describe society through the idea of spontaneous orders, and also analyzes in detail (in my opinion, even excessively meticulously) the idea that freedom is when everyone observes a certain single set of abstract rules, proudly called the rules of just conduct, and they observe them not for reasons of profit, but elevate them to the rank of a transcendent value. In short, if God is dead, it doesn’t mean that everything is permitted.

I hope that the next donation will be for the translation of Stephan Molynieux; his style is simpler, and the chapters are not of such monstrous size, so the interval between the donation and the product can be kept relatively short.