Bitarch posted a note on VKontakte about risk-free struggle against the state. In short, the idea is to anonymously hire non-politicized members of the public for real-world actions. The methodology is quite obvious; it is a standard division of labor. But, of course, such technology requires infrastructure for widespread implementation — secure platforms where one could post orders and expressions of readiness to fulfill specific tasks. Bitarch writes about the darknet, which is rather vague, and without certain qualifications, this tells an inexperienced political activist practically nothing. However, to develop a taste for this, one can start by using simple, makeshift services.
For instance, the friendly channel Anarchy+ recently launched a service called Protest Action Exchange, where you can place an order for an action, ask for donations to implement your idea, and so on. Although the channel is anonymous and all communication goes through a bot, it is still far from true security, but the risks are modest enough because the exchange does not accept orders related to violent actions.
So, if you have ideas, take the opportunity to find performers. If you have the strength, take the opportunity to get involved. The project is non-commercial, and although it was started by left-wing anarchists, they have no prejudice against libertarianism, so no ideological screening is expected.
Imagine an economy where the property of all or most enterprises producing goods and providing services is under the shared ownership of the workers, who gain and lose it upon joining or leaving the collective, decisions are made through the expression of the workers’ will, and the net profit of the enterprise is divided equally among everyone.
Please provide a critique of such a model. How should one respond to opponents proposing this model? What points should be highlighted? Thank you.
анонимный вопрос
Before imagining an economy consisting entirely of such enterprises, it makes sense to look at how they might form within a regular economy where ownership of the means of production exists.
So, there is a group of people who want to implement a certain idea and intend to start a business. They need a set of competent workers for several different positions, as well as startup capital. Presumably, the workers are there—they are the founders themselves. Where do they get the capital? In a modern economy, they can chip in in certain proportions, and each will receive a share in the founding enterprise corresponding to the amount contributed. Within the proposed model, shares are strictly equal, meaning they must contribute strictly equal amounts, which reduces the system’s flexibility, as a potentially valuable worker might not have enough savings to join the enterprise, or may not be willing to risk them. When the functions of capitalist and worker are separated, this is not a problem. When they are forcibly combined, not everyone can handle it.
What are the alternatives to chipping in equally? One could take a loan from a credit institution. But for a bare idea, a loan will only be granted at serious interest rates. These could be lowered by providing collateral, but the conditions of the problem assume no collateral, and it is impossible to pledge the shares of the future enterprise, because the enterprise must remain in equal shared ownership of the workers, not some capitalists.
But fine, let’s assume a group of people chipped in a very small amount, opened a micro-business, and gradually grew it by investing most of the profits into expanding production—and now they start lacking manpower. They need to hire someone else and allocate an equal share to them, proportionally reducing the shares of each founder. The larger the starting contribution was, the longer they had to deny themselves the basics to get the enterprise running—the harder it will be to make the decision to simply give away an equal share for free. If they intend to hire a highly valuable specialist, the founders will think it over and decide it’s worth it. But with equal probability, it could be about hiring someone with low qualifications. For example, production has grown, delivering to customers independently is no longer convenient, and a courier is needed. And this courier, a position that literally any random person could handle, becomes an equal shareholder in a successful startup? It is not hard to see that old workers will face such psychological problems every time a new vacancy opens.
Similar difficulties await the person who was there at the start, invested a lot of effort into the enterprise, and now, for one reason or another, would like to leave. They realize that they have no way to monetize their share, and all their merits toward the company are wiped out the second they quit. They must now look for a new place and persuade a new collective to take them as a shareholder. Obviously, under the conditions of a well-functioning institution of reputation, a person who was in good standing in one company will be able to find a place in another without problems, but still, relying on the hope of obtaining a share in a more productive enterprise instead of the individual value of one’s labor is not such a flexible scheme.
The real nightmare begins if, due to changes in market conditions or other reasons, it becomes necessary to reduce staff; otherwise, the company will start incurring losses. That’s it, a scandal is guaranteed. Everyone accuses everyone else of causing the company’s situation to worsen, no one is ready to jump overboard and lose their share, but without this, instead of a regular share of profit, all shareholders must instead regularly contribute to a loss-making enterprise in equal shares. It remains unclear exactly how to decide who to throw out. In a regular company, the management makes the decision based on production necessity. But here, everyone is a shareholder, and everyone has a vote. That is, it will have to be decided democratically at a general meeting, and it may very well turn out that it is not the least necessary employees who have to leave, but the least eloquent.
Thus, such enterprises lose to companies without socialist burdens on labor relations in terms of flexibility, and therefore, they will likely fall behind in the competitive race. In essence, nothing prevents anyone from opening enterprises of this type right now in countries without labor codes, like Georgia. But practice shows that few people need this. Even if people unite in an artel or cooperative, they still prefer to retain the right to a share in the company, and upon leaving, they demand their share in money or equipment, and when accepting a new member, they find it justified to require an entrance fee—again, in monetary or in-kind form.
In essence, the entire toolkit of market manipulations with shares is precisely an additional expansion of possibilities over the limited functionality of equal shared conditional ownership, and if it was evolutionarily developed in the course of humanity’s economic progress, it would be very strange to abandon it on a mass scale. But to each their own; anyone who wishes can start working according to this scheme as early as tomorrow.
So, is it a completely unviable scheme? Not at all. Caribbean pirates operated on almost these very principles. You can read more about this in the recently translated chapter of David Friedman’s book on legal systems that differ greatly from ours. In essence, the only difference between the pirate scheme and the proposed socialist one was that the pirates did choose leadership for themselves and paid them not an equal share of the loot, but an increased one. Pirates were also helped by the fact that the problem of startup capital was not so acute for them: they did not build ships, they captured them. But socialists, in fact, can quite well envision their system as the expropriation of existing enterprises from owners in favor of workers, so they can be just as successful as sea robbers.
Thus, it can be stated that within the framework of relatively simple economic activity, and especially in resource economies with low capital intensity, the socialist scheme can quite well take root, but the more serious the division of labor, the more difficult it will be to adapt it to the needs of the collective members, and the closer it will in fact resemble a regular market scheme with private ownership of the means of production.
With this article, I would like to summarize the cycle of previously published notes concerning the NAP—from discussions on the relevance of the topic to various approaches to its dissemination in society. Most of the ideas are taken from Bitarch and have been thoroughly reworked. Links to earlier materials expanding on certain theses are generously scattered throughout the text; if desired, you can refresh them in your memory.
What is unsatisfying about the status quo? Without eliminating aggressive violence from the life of society, it is impossible for any somewhat libertarian model of the country’s socio-political structure to emerge (even healthy federalism, let alone ancap or panarchy). Furthermore, the habit of solving problems through violence creates powerful negative externalities in society—it reduces the quality of life and economic well-being, slows down scientific and technical progress, and even creates a risk of the extinction of all humanity.
What is the non-aggression principle (NAP)? There are many interpretations of the non-aggression principle, but we will limit ourselves to the most minimalistic version. Let us assume that the NAP prohibits only direct physical violence against a person’s body and property that is under their immediate physical control (for example, the house where a person lives and the phone in their pocket). According to this minimal interpretation of the NAP, the use of violence for self-defense is permitted only in the form of counter-violence against the aggressor at the moment they attack and only in the minimal amount sufficient to make them cease the aggression. To seek revenge, punish, or recover compensation using violence would already be going beyond such an NAP. Psychological influence, due to the ambiguity of perception, should also not be considered violence. Following the NAP in this form already ensures freedom of association, and further, within voluntary associations, additional rules can be used that are not derived from the minimal NAP but are convenient for the comfortable interaction of the association’s members. A violation of the NAP itself or the established additional rules within an association can be settled through conciliation procedures or simply lead to a refusal of further cooperation, whether temporary or lifelong.
Why this specific minimal NAP? It inherently corresponds to the notions of justice of the vast majority of people, even if they have no complex concepts of property rights other than those inherited directly from animal ancestors. There is a well-known study by biologist Konrad Lorenz, who described the evolutionary mechanism for the emergence of innate inherited morality regarding intraspecific non-aggression in many animal species, such as hedgehogs, porcupines, echidnas, venomous snakes, and insects. In those periods of human history when society lacked functioning institutions to counteract individual violence, natural selection quickly led to the recognition of the NAP in roughly this minimal form. A similar understanding of the NAP can also be found in international relations, that is, between states, especially developed ones capable of employing deterrent weapons.
Who will be responsible for maintaining the NAP in society? Volunteers. Look at the distribution of the Bitcoin network’s hash rate across mining pools. Bitcoin has existed for over 10 years, and there is still no global dominant pool. People do not spend their efforts gathering statistics and warning miners about the risks of centralization for no reason. It even reaches the point where mining pools that approach a dangerous threshold of dominance, under public pressure but without violent coercion, stop accepting new miners, voluntarily depriving themselves of potential profit. All these people perfectly understand the value of decentralization and that it is better to spend a little of their own effort or give up part of their profit than to have people lose faith in the reliability of Bitcoin during a “51% attack,” which would cause the coins to lose value and the losses to be far higher. The same will happen with the maintenance of the NAP. Volunteers will certainly be found for whom the opportunity to live in a society with a low level of violence and to “enjoy the freedoms we have” are not empty words, and who are ready to exert effort to maintain it.
The methods for fighting aggressive violence described below can be used by anyone and in any combination, depending on the preferences and abilities of the volunteers. Their effectiveness and, accordingly, the appropriateness of their application in each specific case vary. All described methods do not contradict the NAP and do not imply the use of aggressive violence even against the most hardened maniacs. The list is not exhaustive and leaves room for human creativity.
1. Moral pressure
This method involves expressing condemnation toward those who practice aggressive violence themselves, as well as toward all those who approve of it. People are uncomfortable when they are considered villains; they seek justifications for themselves, and the task of moral pressure is to debunk these justifications.
For instance, it is important to convey to people the idea that the state is a stationary bandit, and that political methods of management are, in essence, robbery. Justifying such things is either a manifestation of Stockholm syndrome or evidence of complicity in robbery, and therefore is also subject to condemnation. Few are capable of openly admitting they are a violent criminal and a robber; this is the lot of only a minority of people who see nothing wrong in it, while for others, the very concepts of violence and robbery are primarily associated with something immoral. Let a person first begin to state, even if only under public pressure, that they condemn state violence, and then grow accustomed to such rhetoric and believe in it themselves.
The more hardened the statist, the harsher the methods of criticism permissible toward them. They can be compared to pedophiles (a comparison that favors the pedophiles) and totalitarian dictators, for whom the price of a human life is zero. The strategy of Western fighters against homophobia and racism, utilizing the ostracism of such individuals, which has proven its effectiveness, would also be appropriate. All these methods can be amplified by proliferation through specialized online services.
A powerful strategy that is potentially possible is the use of existing left-wing activism to promote the NAP. The alarmist protest, the face of which became Greta Thunberg, succeeded because many beneficiaries of the agenda Greta transmitted were found within the establishment. Now, when many countries are shaken by protests against police aggressive violence, the idea of riding this theme and beginning to transmit a general refusal of aggressive violence looks quite realistic. The same corporations that sponsor this protest will fit into a new expanded discourse. The public loves apocalyptic predictions, and we have them.
2. Transparency
Psychological research shows: people, if they believe their identity is hidden, find it much easier to cause suffering and pain to others. Any situation in which people feel anonymous, when no one knows who they are or does not want to know, reduces the sense of personal responsibility and thereby creates an opportunity for atrocities. The violent effect of anonymization can be amplified by the effect of an upward spiral of emotional arousal, which creates a feeling of power. The Milgram experiment also showed that personal face-to-face contact increases the likelihood that people will not carry out inhuman orders from authority to cause suffering and pain. Anonymity promotes the commission of violence.
Accordingly, the threat of publishing unsightly facts always works as a deterrent to violence. To prevent people from resorting to this method of protection, proponents of aggressive violence usually use shame. You are told that “airing dirty laundry” is shameful. That informing is “snitching.” That the victim of violence, not the perpetrator, will be smeared because they were at fault. This is a serious obstacle that can be overcome precisely through the moral pressure described above. Never condemn the victim, even if it seems to you that they could have been less careless, more modest, or followed cultural norms that you personally like rather than their own.
Technically, it is not so difficult today to find all the data about a person, knowing their appearance, voice, or other clues. Big data is a powerful tool that can also work in the interests of civil society. De-anonymization services, hidden audio and video recording, trackers and the like are actively developing. If you know promising teams working on this—support them. If you know of ready-made useful products that help people uncover the identities of criminals—tell others about them.
3. Balancing the potential for violence
The more evenly the potential for violence is distributed in society, the fewer opportunities a potential aggressor has to commit violence for their own benefit. With a completely even distribution of the potential for violence, the attacker always receives exactly the same damage as the object of the attack. If, at the same time, the potential for violence is not only evenly distributed but also quite high, then even uniting ten people to attack one may seem like a bad idea: one-tenth of the damage received by the victim would be more than enough for each attacker.
Thus, there will be less aggressive violence in society the more evenly the potential for violence is distributed, the greater the potential for violence of the individual, and the more readily they are willing to use force for their own defense, that is, to practice the doctrine of deterrence.
In essence, the presence of a sufficiently large potential for violence in each individual makes an exact parity of forces redundant: it is enough to have the necessary minimum to inflict unacceptable damage on the attacker. A classic example of such a necessary minimum is a firearm: a standard rifled short-barrel weapon. With minimal skill and determination, it allows one to fight off a small group of aggressors or keep at a distance an ill-motivated crowd in which no one wishes to be the first victim. However, a pistol is simply an example of a convenient modern technological solution to the problem of balancing the potential for violence. As shown by the example of the technologically backward Senoi tribe, even blowguns with poisoned darts are quite sufficient to deter aggression, provided they are guaranteed to be used when aggression is directed at them.
One might object that individual self-defense works poorly against the state, but this assertion is refuted by practice. The well-known science fiction author Alexander Rozov expressed himself well on this matter in his blog:
“A completely different matter is in Sweden (with a comparable and very high level of economic well-being). There, a person is, in general, also powerless before the state. But this powerlessness affects almost exclusively the LAW-ABIDING person—he is easier to find and punish for something. But an armed bandit, although also powerless, is harder to punish (since he must first be found, and then detained—and he may offer armed resistance). Therefore, the Swedish police prefer to hunt law-abiding citizens.”
“A completely different matter is in Sweden (with a comparable and very high level of economic well-being). There, a person is, in general, also powerless before the state. But this powerlessness affects almost exclusively the LAW-ABIDING person—he is easier to find and punish for something. But an armed bandit, although also powerless, is harder to punish (since he must first be found, and then detained—and he may offer armed resistance). Therefore, the Swedish police prefer to hunt law-abiding citizens.”
Of course, the state can spend a disproportionate amount of resources on opposing a specific individual, inherently exceeding any of their spending on defense. An individual can oppose this with two tactics.
First, the price of an effective frontal attack by the state on a private person usually turns out to be several dozen times higher than the price the person spent to counter this attack; in other words, in an arms race, the defending individual has the advantage. Having firmly decided to sell their life dearly, they are capable of causing a lot of trouble even after death.
Second, transparency and moral pressure provide a very unfavorable background for large-scale state violence, whereas a large number of people may come out to defend the victim because they decide for some reason that it also concerns them. Despite the fact that the firepower advantage in such situations still remains with the state, mass civil disobedience is often enough for the state to hush up the conflict.
4. Non-violent upbringing of children
The most humane and unobtrusive thing a person can do to fight aggressive violence in the world is to pass values of non-violence to children. Of course, this means the need to act by personal example, that is, first and foremost not to apply violence to children oneself, so the task may not be easy. Nevertheless, the effort is worth it, for in the long run, this is the strongest means of influencing the world. A person who grew up understanding that they can trust people and not look for a catch, that people are benevolent and inclined to negotiate, will carry these values into adult life, and will react to stories about the realities of the beginning of the 21st century as we react to stories about public executions: with incomprehension and disgust.
Even if the state is not rejected by humanity for its inefficiency, being led by people who absorbed non-violent practices from childhood, it will become humane and unobtrusive in its methods, not even remotely resembling the gang of robbers from which it once grew.
Of course, when instilling values of non-aggression in a child, it is also important to instill a readiness to oppose it: starting from ways to nip a conflict in the bud through constructive negotiations, and ending with the use of means of self-defense, as described in detail in the previous point.
The idea of non-aggression leads directly to the idea of legal equality, so much attention will also need to be paid to instilling this idea. First of all, it manifests in the small things. For example, a society in which adults address children using the informal “ty” while demanding to be addressed with the formal “vy” is already instilling the idea of inequality. Meanwhile, there are situations of natural inequality of opportunities due to different ages and experience, and usually, it is more appropriate for adults not to participate in many children’s games on equal terms with children in order to preserve their dignity.
A good illustration of this thesis is the approach to adolescent sex. In Carl Sagan’s book “The Demon-Haunted World” (or “Science in Search of God”), the results of a statistical study by sociologist James Prescott are described, who compared the customs of hundreds of cultures in human history.
“…the fundamental differences relate to whether it is customary in that culture to hug children and whether premarital sexual intercourse is permissible for youth. He considers these parameters to be key and concludes that all cultures where children are hugged and adolescents are allowed to engage in sexual intercourse ultimately do without a pronounced social hierarchy, and everyone is happy. Whereas those cultures where certain social prohibitions prevent hugging children and a strict taboo is placed on premarital adolescent sex develop a strong hierarchy of dominance and wallow in violence and hatred.”
“…the fundamental differences relate to whether it is customary in that culture to hug children and whether premarital sexual intercourse is permissible for youth. He considers these parameters to be key and concludes that all cultures where children are hugged and adolescents are allowed to engage in sexual intercourse ultimately do without a pronounced social hierarchy, and everyone is happy. Whereas those cultures where certain social prohibitions prevent hugging children and a strict taboo is placed on premarital adolescent sex develop a strong hierarchy of dominance and wallow in violence and hatred.”
At the same time, as noted in the study, the prevalence of sex between adults and adolescents again proves to be a pretext for the development of dominance relationships.
Of course, if you practice non-violent upbringing of children, you will have to face violence from others directed toward them. You will have to be ready to counteract this, even if they are other people’s children; otherwise, you will simply instill in the child the idea that the main thing is personal well-being and it is better to turn a blind eye to everything else to stay safe. Depending on the situation, means of protection, public disclosure of facts of violence, and the creation of moral pressure may be useful here.
5. Freedom of Association
Modern people too often have to be part of various involuntary associations. This could be compulsory schooling, a conscript army, imprisonment, an orphanage, certain family-clan relations in archaic societies, and even the institution of citizenship itself.
It is precisely where leaving a community is impossible or associated with high costs that a phenomenon such as bullying appears, including the use of physical violence. Involuntary association with anyone develops in a person the ability to endure, to act covertly, hiding one’s interests and motivations, and sharply reduces empathy—in short, it makes them a rather unpleasant type. Spending energy on intrigues and survival in society, a person loses the opportunity for development and self-realization.
What can be done to develop freedom of association in society?
First, of course, it is important to recognize the problem itself, to speak publicly about its existence, calling things by their names: prison as prison, slavery as slavery, dependence as dependence.
In many cases, the exit from an involuntary association is not actually closed, and many people remain in them simply by tradition. Having found the exit, one should use it and learn to enjoy life in conditions of freedom, destroying with one’s own example the myths about the troubles awaiting those who leave the cozy cage. Thus, those who leave school for self-education will arouse envy rather than pity if they not only rid themselves of the pressure of the educational system but also achieve the life success for which the entire educational system is presumably built.
Similarly, it makes sense to flee abroad immediately upon the threat of criminal prosecution—or even simply in a situation where the political regime in the country becomes particularly unpleasant, and one can choose something less repulsive.
It is important to promote and publicly approve leaving toxic, abusive personal relationships—it is also desirable to provide support to victims of such relationships afterward so that they can find another support in life and not fall back into something similar.
Finally, it is not enough to know how to exit involuntary associations; it is important to learn how to enter voluntary ones, gaining pleasure, benefit, and security from this. This could be any interest-based group on social networks, membership in public organizations, or establishing a network of known service providers. Finally, one can simply become a regular at bars, clubs, children’s or sports grounds. Even such elementary habits as greeting neighbors in the building and talking with taxi drivers or hairdressers are already an important step toward building a civil society. When people evoke sympathy and interest in each other, it promotes the spread of the values of non-aggression.
6. Working with Heredity and Biochemistry
Biologist Konrad Lorenz proposed a model describing the appearance of innate morality of non-aggression toward representatives of one’s own species in many animal species (those possessing innate weaponry—hedgehogs, porcupines, echidnas, venomous snakes, and insects). The higher the ability of the species’ representatives to destroy their conspecifics, the faster the genes responsible for the tendency toward intraspecific aggression are washed out of the population during lethal conflicts. A strong animal may have a strong morality of non-aggression, and a weak one—a weak one. In its natural history, humans are very poorly armed animals. Therefore, in humans, instinctive prohibitions are initially weak, and natural morality is weak. Innate prohibitions in humans correspond to this state of affairs. However, reason has provided humans with the ability to significantly improve their tools for killing humans in timeframes that are negligible by evolutionary standards; therefore, an innate morality of non-aggression toward other humans never had time to appear in humans during natural selection.
It has been established that a tendency toward increased and pathological aggression can be either inherited or acquired (due to brain damage and hormonal imbalances). A single gene or even a precise list of genes responsible for the tendency toward intraspecific aggression has not been found to date, so this is a promising direction for applying effort if you specialize in the relevant biological disciplines.
Several approaches can be proposed for washing out the hereditary tendency toward intraspecific aggression from human society, which differ both in ease of application and in the speed of achieving results.
6.1 Forcing Natural Selection
When armed self-defense is available and welcomed in society, aggressors quickly exit the population. Thus, the implementation of the methods outlined in section 3 can ensure a long-term reduction of aggressiveness in society, although natural glitches and mutations will still not allow the complete and final elimination of intraspecific aggression; therefore, it will be necessary to constantly maintain a uniform BPN (Balance of Power/Non-aggression) so that pathological aggressors appearing by chance as a result of mutation are washed out of the population.
6.2 Sexual Selection
As historian Martin van Creveld said,
“the true reason for the existence of wars is that men have always loved to fight, and women have always loved warriors.”
“the true reason for the existence of wars is that men have always loved to fight, and women have always loved warriors.”
As women increasingly prefer caring partners over aggressive ones, carriers of genes with low aggressiveness get more chances to have offspring—after which aggressive individuals go off to squander their lives and manage perfectly well without reproducing.
In addition to these methods, which are suitable for application already now, the development of science may allow for more direct methods of influence in the future.
6.3 Embryo Selection
A DNA sample is taken from the fetus and analyzed for pathological hereditary diseases, including those related to a tendency toward aggression; in the event of a positive analysis result, the pregnancy is terminated. More obvious hereditary diseases, such as Down syndrome, are already fought in this way. Convincing a mother not to deal with problems she does not need and simply make another attempt at conception later is a solvable task, provided there are not too many cultural constraints in society prohibiting the termination of pregnancy.
6.4 Genetic Modification in Adults
A virus is created that integrates into human DNA and either switches off the genes responsible for the tendency toward aggression or reduces their expression. The technology of genetic modification itself has already been created and is actively developing, but exactly which genes and how exactly should be corrected still needs to be studied thoroughly. The direct switching off of genes most obviously linked to aggression so far leads to many undesirable side pathologies in experiments, so the technology is yet to be refined.
6.5 Genetic Modification at the Embryonic Stage
The method is the same as in the previous point, but it introduces changes into the genome that will subsequently be inherited. The task is much easier, since changes need to be introduced into literally one cell, rather than into an already formed organism.
6.6 Supportive Medication Therapy
Since the tendency toward aggressive violence is regulated by the hormonal background, it is not strictly necessary to delve into the genome if the hormonal background itself can be regulated. Currently, this is done with medications, but in the future, implanted hormonal regulators could be used for this purpose.
Some of the described methods can be practiced by everyone; some require qualification. In any case, speaking of methods 6.4 or 6.6, there can be no question of coercion. Even if someone committed aggressive violence under the influence of pathological tendencies, they should be left with a choice: ridding themselves of the pathology or bearing full responsibility for the act committed. In the latter case, this, again, should not be associated with violent punishments—only compensation for damages and restriction of communication opportunities.
Conclusions
Maintaining a low level of internal aggression in human society is a complex and multifactorial task. There is no single universal solution here; instead, there is room for initiative in a wide variety of directions, some of which are outlined above. It is important to realize the existence of the problem itself, not to hush it up, and to discuss it freely, as if it were a problem of cardiovascular diseases. One manifestation of strong intraspecific aggression in humans became such an institution as the state, with its tendency to sacrifice countless victims on the altar of its own greatness, or simply to poison people’s lives in peacetime. As humanity realizes the tendency toward violence as a problem, this toxic institution will go into the past—either completely, or it will transform into a harmless set of voluntary services. As ideas about the necessity of transitioning to non-violent interactions penetrate, they will find increasing support both in funds and volunteers, but for now, a great responsibility for its rooting in society lies with the few adherents of the idea.
As I promised, I am moving over the two chapters of David Friedman’s new book, Legal Systems Very Different from Our Own, which have already been translated under the editorship of Vladimir Zolotorev. At the same time, I am gradually typesetting the English original by chapters; I will complete this meditative process in a while.
I was recently encouraged by a small donation for the translation of Stephan Molneux, so I continued the editing, and now I am posting the final version of the fifth chapter, The Apocalypse Argument.
First, to get things started, the author analyzes the Apocalypse argument itself, which does not require much intellectual effort, but then the interesting part begins. If in the previous chapter the anarcho-capitalist skillfully explained why roads are not that important, now he sets a new bar and just as skillfully explains why anarchy is not that important. Truly, among none of the critics of ancap have I previously encountered a critique of ancap as convincing as that of the person who consistently preaches that very ancap, and this, if you think about it, is quite logical.
How Molneux will answer this critique himself, I do not yet know: the end of the chapter caught Scheherazade, and she ceased her permitted speeches. So send your donations for the translation of the next piece of text. There is no rough translation there, so I will be working from the source, but I have become quite adept, and this will not particularly slow me down now, so I will put your donations directly into my own pocket. Nothing can be done, coronacrisis, there is less money.
Provide a quota for girls? Let me say right away that this nonsense—claiming “we will establish a proper system where selection will be unbiased”—doesn’t work, because at the moment “this selection is also unbiased,” yet they still predominantly take guys, and it is difficult for a girl to get in.
liberal
It is a time of anarchy, capitalism, heat, and summer. A young woman submits an application to an educational institution where they teach effective ways of killing people and destroying material assets as part of organized groups and using various specialized equipment. In essence, this is as ordinary an event as if a girl were applying to an educational institution where they would tell her the history of how people effectively killed people as part of armed groups and so on—that is, a faculty of history.
What interests guide the institution when accepting her application? It expects to make a profit. What ways does it have to profit from educating students in the absence of state funding (due to the absence of the state)? There are two main ways. First, trading in knowledge—that is, educating for money anyone who is willing to pay. Second, trading in prestige—that is, implementing a strict selection process, providing the most effective knowledge and skills, and hoping that graduates will be maximally successful in life and then, out of gratitude, contribute to the endowment fund of their beloved university. The education itself might even be free, because the university here effectively acts as a venture capital fund.
If the military university in question makes money by selling knowledge, the girl has no problems. She pays—she receives what she bought. But if the university considers itself prestigious, then the girl has a chance of encountering disproportionately serious difficulties right at the admission stage.
Let’s start with the fact that historically, the army is a male brotherhood, and the entry of women into it often dealt a blow to the prestige of the army (historian Martin van Creveld talks about this interestingly in his book Transformation of War, I highly recommend it). We do not know to what extent patriarchal snobs will form the core of organized armed formations under ancap conditions, and how fundamental it will be for them that women not only do not enter the army, but do not even study military science. I find this unlikely, simply because trends have changed, inclusivity is in fashion, and work in the army looks less and less like a brutal slugfest and more and more like working in a delivery service or other logistics businesses.
Secondly, the army still places significant physical fitness requirements on soldiers, including those related to lifting heavy weights and other disciplines in which women are relatively weak simply by virtue of their constitution. Theoretically, this should not become an obstacle to university admission, as it should, at worst, only narrow the range of available specializations. However, if physical training turns out to be one of the admission criteria at the university, then our hypothetical applicant faces obvious, though surmountable, difficulties.
So your fears are quite justified; it is unlikely that it will be much easier for girls to become specialists in the military sphere under ancap. Then again, this sphere itself does not look particularly promising, so it’s not like anyone really wanted it that much.
In Chapter 52, A Positive Conception of Rights, David Friedman, using the conceptual framework introduced in the previous chapter, develops the idea of Schelling points and claiming strategies from a model microsociety of two people to a society of arbitrary complexity.
In fact, Friedman introduces more extensively and with more justification the very definition of rights that I regularly use in my texts: rights are claims that are tolerated. It is not surprising that we found such a parallelism in thinking: if it hadn’t existed, I would hardly have undertaken to translate his book after reading literally a couple of chapters.
I have reviewed the widely publicized draft of the new constitution from the Society. Future and its leader, Roman Yuneman. I am deeply disappointed.
As I already mentioned in the article about Constitution Day, only one thing matters to me in such documents: exactly what the state declaratively prohibits itself from doing in relation to its citizens. All those complex relationships between branches of government are something like a handbook on the mating habits of toads and vipers, which only makes sense to study from the perspective of navigating between them to minimize one’s own losses.
So here it is: Yuneman’s new constitution does not introduce a single new prohibition on the state squeezing the little people. The state is still prohibited from forcing citizens to testify against themselves, executing them, introducing taxes retroactively—and that’s basically it. Oh, well, except it additionally prohibits obstructing internet access, but implicitly, in the form of “a citizen has the right to hang out on the internet.”
Various citizens’ rights to peaceful assembly are still accompanied by the caveat “without weapons,” which means the state has the right to set boundaries and frisk participants of peaceful assemblies to ensure their constitutional right to assemble specifically without weapons. Voting rights are restricted for prisoners, which opens the door for political persecution to obstruct electoral procedures. Even universal military conscription—the authors of the draft constitution somehow managed to keep it, as if possessed by some demon—which is why Shaveddinov and company are waving to Yuneman from offstage.
Much attention in the project is given to the design of checks and balances between branches of government, while enormous presidential powers are still maintained. The explanation is simple: well, we want the ability to carry out rapid reforms, and for that, a concentration of power is needed. A strange archaism has been preserved whereby the president has the right to stay in power for two terms. Why specifically two? Simply because once upon a time, President Washington did not run for a third term after his second and wrote that enough is enough, and he wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. You’d think—if you want to fight the administrative resource and ensure the rotation of power—you’d make it exactly one presidential term, followed by a ban on holding any government positions. And that’s it; the presidency becomes the natural crown of a career, followed by a normal private life, without shitty personal pensions and other privileges. No, damn it, we want to go back to the nineties, when it was two by four.
The phrasing in the draft of the new constitution is just as disgusting as in the old one. Instead of Shulman’s crisp formula “do not enter—will kill,” the typical form of a constitutional article is something like “the state guarantees non-interference,” with a complete absence of instructions on sanctions for interfering.
The right to bear arms, so widely publicized by Yuneman, boils down to the right to acquire it in accordance with federal law (which can be as restrictive as desired) and the right to self-defense. There is no right to armed rebellion; on the contrary, the state is granted the right to squeeze any illegal armed formations, so a “well-regulated militia” in the spirit of the Second Amendment is out of the question for Russians. An inferior populace; they didn’t earn it.
By the way, about Russians. This unfortunate adjective sticks out of every second article in the draft constitution without carrying any meaning. Well, there is some formal entity called by such-and-such a word, so what. In this regard, Yuneman’s constitution resembles Putin’s amendments, where a lot of stylistic garbage is also inserted into the text of the existing document, but nothing changes in substance. There was a multinational people; now there are Russians and other indigenous peoples of Russia. Same difference, in short. However, for everyone who is not a nationalist, this is rather a plus.
We continue our series of sloppy translations of English-language articles on libertarianism from popular websites, simply to keep you up to date with the discourse.
Original publication: David S. d’Amato. Translation: André [remarks in square brackets throughout the text are his]
Libertarianism is, first and foremost, a philosophy of the Other, a philosophy emphasizing our obligation to refrain from dominating other people, and from imposing our vision of a good life on others.
In critiques of libertarianism, a common motif is the claim that libertarianism is nothing more than a celebration of selfishness and greed. According to this view, the libertarian ideal is a heartless miser on a golden toilet, gazing dispassionately down upon the poor. This view is most common among left-wing critics and is not least driven by Ayn Rand’s 1964 collection of essays, The Virtue of Selfishness, in which Rand advocated [regardless of what you think] selfishness. To begin with, it should be noted that Rand’s definition of “selfishness,” as she noted herself, “differs from the common usage.” Her argument is built on a very peculiar and counterintuitive definition of selfishness, differing from both everyday use and dictionaries; she was well aware of how controversial and provocative such a step was, which is precisely why she justifies selfishness. Despite this remark, placed in the very first lines of the preface, Rand still insists that she is simply applying the dictionary definition of selfishness: “concern for one’s own interests.” But Rand overlooks a very important component of the dictionary definition of “selfishness”—disregard and lack of respect for others. This point, as it turns out, is very important both in everyday life and in our discussion of the link between libertarianism and selfishness.
Libertarianism implies a fundamental modesty: we should not be so blinded by our ideals as to forcibly compel [hello GULAG and prison sentences for hate speech] others to follow them. Thus, it is important to understand that in some sense, the libertarian idea embodies a rejection of selfishness. One of the main concerns of libertarianism is that some people will use others as a means to achieve their own goals [when the forest is cut, chips fly], which entails selfishness of the most loathsome kind. Libertarians view everyone and every single person—including that guy on the left—as an important individual deserving of autonomy and dignity, possessing rights that must be protected from violent encroachments. Historically, libertarianism was a reaction to the blatant, irresponsible selfishness of the strong and the powerful. It is a fundamentally egalitarian viewpoint, according to which all people are equal in the sense that, completely regardless of our abilities, skin pigmentation, sex and gender [the same as sex, but if you say so, the Transformers will beat you up], language, and ethnicity, we all have the right to be free and pursue our own notions of a better life. This is simultaneously a radical idea and common sense, but it is not an idea that can be equated with “selfishness.” Put simply: “no one is free until we are all free.”
Selfishness is the arrogant belief that I know best and have the right to force everyone to live as I wish [church, ideologies, SJWs, the state]. Oscar Wilde perhaps expressed this better than anyone: “Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live. Unselfishness is letting people live as they wish to live.” [trans. Oksana Kirichenko] The arrogance and complacency of the belief that I know better than others how they should live is a serious problem in itself, but added to it is the dangerous belief that I have the right, or even the duty, to use force to bring this belief to life. Obviously, this is wrong, but in politics, it is the norm. Libertarians are perceived as childishly minded egoists when they criticize, with undeniably logical ethical arguments, the unacceptability of such a state of affairs. We teach children that hitting and threatening others to get what one wants is unacceptable, but when it comes to the construction of all public institutions, this becomes not only acceptable behavior, but is presented as the best way of organizing society. Libertarians simply ask politely: “on what grounds, exactly, did you decide that among your rights there is a right to violate the rights of others?” Libertarians base their view on the conviction that we should treat others as free and equal, not as tools for achieving a desired end [whether it be ice cream or social justice]. This is sometimes called the law of equal liberty: people deserve—simply because they are human—to be free and do whatever they wish, as long as they do not violate the same liberty of others. People who support the idea that the state should create armed detachments to impose their understanding of the world and morality on people demonstrate an amazing overconfidence, believing their convictions to be the only correct ones. This overconfidence makes such people dangerous, prone to exceeding their authority and abusing power to achieve their ideals. And we are all prone to believing in the truth of our own ideals. As John Stuart Mill notes: “Very few people think it necessary to take any precaution against the possibility of their own views being mistaken, or admit the possibility that any opinion with which they are satisfied may be a case of error, which is itself a logical error.” Libertarians note the diversity of opinions and lifestyles; this position provides protection against the dominance of One Ideal, curbing its destructive potential.
The assumption that libertarians are selfish is an example of bad faith and self-deception, intellectual laziness, and an unfair way for a person to avoid the obligation to consider views on their merits. But while the critique of libertarianism as a philosophy grown out of selfishness is based on an unfair and inaccurate reading of libertarianism and its motives, we are not obliged to pay back in the same coin. Progressives, social democrats, socialists, and other pro-state creatures from the left side of the spectrum likely do not support the state solely to dominate and control those around them, even if this is an inevitable result of the expanding role of the state in our lives. Rather, they tend to mistakenly perceive the state as a virtuous social force aimed at protecting and supporting the most vulnerable and deprived. It would be one thing if they were fundamentally wrong only about what such a state is, how it behaves, and so on—but even the means to which this part of the left appeals do not yield the desired and expected empirical [visible, literally, physically tangible] results. On the contrary, they generate poverty and destitution, while libertarian principles of individual rights, genuine market competition, and private property ensure widespread prosperity and encourage generosity and social trust.
Libertarianism, in essence, is the clearest, most direct, and best path to those goals of the left that are worthwhile: ensuring that as many people as possible around the world have access to basic necessities, and opening the way to economic opportunities and security for the poorest strata of society. From a technical standpoint, those whose stated goals of government policy include the growth of the state, the restriction of free trade (both domestically and internationally), and the increase of the tax and regulatory burden are the primary enemies of the poor and oppressed; they actively hinder the mechanisms that create and distribute material values. Thus, as Jason Brennan notes in “Libertarianism: What Everyone Needs to Know,” when libertarians criticize, for example, the welfare state, it is not because of their “heartless indifference to the plight of the poor,” but “because they are convinced that the welfare state does more harm than good to the poor.” Political dialogue often (in fact, almost always) misses or confuses goals and means, assuming that political and social institutions designed to help the poor work as they should by design, rather than as they actually do.
It must be acknowledged that libertarianism mainly speaks (or, at least, should speak) about means, placing violations of the legitimate sphere of individual autonomy outside the bounds of acceptable behavior—completely regardless of the goals the individual pursues [one cannot drive people into paradise with a stick]. “I have often said,” writes Gandhi, “that if we attend to the means, the end will take care of itself.” Gandhi said this while arguing that non-violence is a practical path to national independence, but libertarians are guided by a broader and more principled interpretation of this idea. Following Gandhi, libertarians recognize that “we do not know our goal,” that the goal must be limited by the use of correct means and therefore “is defined not by our definitions, but by our actions.” Libertarians strive to treat other people appropriately—respectfully and decently—and we think that this constitutes a far better political program than the various forms of authoritarianism that have left so many scars in human history. Those who see in libertarianism only a reflection or rationalization of selfishness do not understand either its history or the philosophical positions that characterize it. Libertarians argue that there is nothing wrong with caring for oneself and pursuing one’s interests, but that our actions are limited by social reciprocity, the recognition of Others, and their inherent human value.
Yesterday, I read the tragic news that US President Donald Trump had his Twitch disabled, and Stefan Molyneux, whom I translate, had his YouTube disabled. After all, what a mess this creates—our opponents will say—here you are, wanting to rid us of the state, after which power will pass to mega-corporations; state censorship can at least be defeated democratically, but what can be opposed against the whims of a corporation owner? You say that the market and the institution of reputation will work against this, but the owners of media platforms don’t give a damn about their reputation in the eyes of their ideological enemies, and they only get more money because they fight those they position as a global evil.
Furthermore, they continue, you say that private discrimination will lead to the emergence of alternative platforms that will serve those who were discriminated against by others. But Twitter banned people for Nazi views, and indeed, an independent platform called Gab was created in opposition to it, where anyone could speak without any censorship, and what happened? It is being disconnected from payment systems. How do you like this triumph of ostracism and private discrimination, gentlemen ancaps?
At the same time, it is hard not to notice that this case differs greatly from the corporate wars depicted in caricatures of ancap. For instance, in the most famous parodic description of anarcho-capitalism, the subject is a war between mega-corporations McDonald’s and Burger King for market share—serious business sharks seeking only money.
In our world, however, the enmity of corporations toward customers is not about money, or at least not directly about money—but about ideology. What introduces such a strange correction? It is not hard to guess—it is the state.
In a free market, you get the maximum number of customers when you start satisfying them better than your competitor, but in a state, you have an additional powerful option—to ban the competitor. However, in a democracy, you cannot simply declare that this company should be given a tax break because it feeds the ruling party, and that one should be banned because it feeds the opposition. Instead, you can declare that the competitors are evil incarnate, literally Hitler, and a hundred other epithets—and therefore they deserve shame, condemnation, censorship, and ostracism. The state distorts market incentives. Always. From the towers of high theory, this may look like harmless private discrimination, but from the ground, it is perfectly clear that we are dealing with good old political struggle.
The market by itself does not defeat the state, only in combination with an ideology that asserts the values of individual freedom. Otherwise, it leads a subjugated existence, being over-regulated by those in power and subjected to arbitrary interventions under the guise of morality, behind which political reasons often stand.
Therefore, the recipe remains the same: defending the values of freedom, promoting them, and constantly searching for new bypasses that are, in principle, not subject to external dictate. And after mega-corporations protected by the state, corporations under ancap will seem to you like innocent lambs.
And we’ll all feel great when Money comes marching home…
