I have added the ability to make donations in rubles. The forms for sending rubles differ slightly on different pages so that I can understand whether the donation is for a question, for Eric Mac’s translation, or simply for the project’s development. Unfortunately, I cannot trust you to write the payment purpose yourselves—the state does not react well to joking payment purposes such as “to overthrow Putin” or “4.20” (congrats, by the way!).
It looks something like this:
From time to time, I write reviews of various articles or videos, and it occurred to me that you could also suggest materials for reviews to me, if you are interested. Naturally, preference will be given to requests accompanied by donations. This option could be especially interesting for Telegram channel owners, because it is certainly more interesting to readers than a standard promo post.
I have promoted agorism quite a bit here, and you may have gotten the impression that it is the only worthy way to fight the state: minarchism quickly stalls, panarchism also bogs down in the very first stages of implementation, and only agorism is indestructible, actually helps many people live, and forms useful qualities in them, meaning it strengthens itself. Nevertheless, it has its downsides. Today I will try to bring them together, but, of course, I will provide a counter-thesis for every thesis, because the goal of the post is not to induce gloom.
As a reminder, by agorism I mean any non-violent entrepreneurship that is either directly prohibited by the state or, at the very least, not regulated by it in any way.
Thesis 1. Due to state opposition, the agorist must spend effort on disguising their activities or other ways to stay out of harm’s way. The costs for this are not zero even for micro-businesses, and they grow rapidly as the scale of the enterprise increases.
Counter-thesis. Russians, as well as subjects of other natural states, might object that for white businesses in their jurisdictions, the costs of opposing state raiding also grow rapidly with the success of the enterprise; therefore, it is important to hide turnover and profit not only to avoid taxes, but also so that the security forces do not seize the enterprise itself.
Thesis 2. Speaking of raiders. Besides state ones, there are also private ones. Black businesses cannot use state protection from such raiding and are forced to defend themselves with their own resources, and the costs for this also grow rapidly as the scale of activity increases.
Counter-thesis. Russians or subjects of other natural states will pat you, you naive soul, on the head upon hearing the words “state protection,” and then tell you many grim tales. De facto, the forceful seizure of business in such jurisdictions is a public-private partnership, where the state seizes and a private person buys for pennies, or where a private person seizes and the state confirms their right through its court, or, finally, where the state pressures lawlessly until the business is rewritten to a private individual.
Thesis 3. It is difficult for an agorist to maintain their libertarian purity—on the black market, they will quite quickly be forced to engage in forceful entrepreneurship themselves, or cooperate with forceful entrepreneurs, or fall into a vassal dependency on them. Legal activity will not make the question of deals with conscience so acute.
Counter-thesis. Yes, this is not ruled out; much depends on the situation. In some places, every street vendor is forced to pay off the mafia, while in others, every government employee may be sent to a pro-government rally or forced to vote according to their boss’s instructions. So legality or illegality itself guarantees nothing, and one will still have to defend their principles, simply out of self-respect.
Thesis 4. The idea of starving the state through agorism could work in the USA, where small business constitutes a significant share of the economy, but in Russia, it languishes on the brink of extinction, and its share of taxes in the state budget is small. Therefore, in Russia, with its gigantomania, agorism will not be able to fulfill its declared task.
Counter-thesis. It is precisely the small business operating “in the white” that languishes on the brink of extinction, which only increases the attractiveness of agorist practices. Nevertheless, I am forced to agree: as long as agorists fundamentally fly below the radar, they will not have a significant influence on the state; for the failure to pay money to the state from scattered individual secret practices to turn into a powerful campaign of civil disobedience, the legitimacy of the state must be seriously undermined by its own failures. The Russian state is currently handling this task confidently; we must seize the moment.
And in conclusion, I will reinforce the message given at the beginning of the article. The main task of agorism in today’s Russia is educational. Nothing rid one of paternalism in their own consciousness better than crude practice. And without eradicating paternalism, you cannot abolish the state.
When Alexander Litreev was swept up for substances at the end of February, I published a post where I urged people to focus not so much on the specific case, but on the repeal of Article 228 itself. The suggestion was to hurry with pressuring the state through mass actions before the news cycle was replaced by something else. Alas, the news cycle was indeed replaced, and mass actions now can only occur as a result of state sabotage, as happened in the Moscow metro on the day the access system premiered.
So, while the country was gradually settling into home self-arrest, Litreev’s support group worked quietly for his release and succeeded: Alexander has been freed. But the direction of undermining state drug policy has not been forgotten, and today the Tea Club movement released a very good, detailed longread about how the state fights drugs and how it should be done.
I am aware that the Libertarian Party is on strained terms with the Tea Club, but in this particular case, I would consider it a major oversight on the part of the LP not to promote this article—even if it requires pulling it onto their own site and removing mentions of the TC and the signatures of all authors who are not party members. As Ekaterina Schulmann likes to repeat, for political success, one must unite around common interests, not common sympathies. So please, help your editorial board make the right decision.
It would also be great if Egor Zhukov forwarded the article to his recent interlocutor, Evgeny Roizman. In my February post, I naively stated that even within his cannibalistic logic, a drug user is not a criminal. Not by a long shot. On the air of Zhukov’s program “Conditionally Yours”, Roizman claimed exactly the opposite. He also indicated that he was completely unaware of the Portuguese experience—which the article describes.
Thanks to the coronavirus, another promising direction for pressuring the state has emerged. One can demand the full or partial repeal of Article 228, and one can also demand amnesty for everyone imprisoned under this article due to the threatening epidemic situation. When officials have “yes” and “no” options, it is easier for them to refuse. When there is a choice between repealing the article and granting amnesty to those imprisoned under it, the chance of amnesty increases sharply. Immediately following amnesty, one can insist on a moratorium—what is the point of releasing a bunch of people from prisons only to start filling the vacant spots under the same article. And from a moratorium, it is a short step to repeal. But even if repeal doesn’t happen, it’s not that scary—we have already lived for many years in a regime of moratorium on the application of the death penalty.
After a considerable break, I am posting a single chapter from David Friedman’s The Machinery of Freedom, but I hope to speed up in the near future. As usual, I remind you that you can support the translation project with your donations to the wallet 1AFkD2bazCs5YZBBrSD7HsRMWLmRbg6QBo
Chapter 45, Is There a Libertarian Foreign Policy, is devoted to reflections on the moral dilemma facing a potential libertarian government of the United States. On one hand, significant efforts are needed to protect against such a serious adversary as the Soviet Union, which suggests a network of international alliances. On the other hand, every alliance implies the possibility of having to fight for others’ interests in wars that have nothing to do with libertarian values. Ultimately, Friedman concludes that a policy of non-intervention is still preferable for libertarians.
Since then, the Soviet Union has ended, and thus the arguments in favor of a policy of non-intervention have only strengthened.
Vitaly Tizun, whose brochure Theory of a Free Society I recently reviewed, has released a short video in which he discusses how to promote ancap. I am also working in a similar direction and hope to please you soon with a fresh video from Libertarian band, but Vitaly beat me to it.
https://youtu.be/pnpCDuMVaUE
If the video caught your interest, you can download the leaflet for independent distribution — it briefly summarizes the main message of the video. Of course, this is for the future — who needs leaflets now, while people are staying at home. For security reasons, the leaflet should not be ordered from a professional printing house — print in small quantities, on a printer, and pay in cash.
My channel has a VK mirror run by one of the readers. I don’t monitor it myself, so if anything interesting appears in the comments, let me know in private messages. In particular, the description of a business idea for an agorist prompted Alexander Tatarkov, whose YouTube channel I have already recommended here once, to provide a detailed supplement, which I decided to put into a separate post.
I will allow myself to generalize a bit and formulate the main principles of agorism.
1. Work with a private client, not an organization. A private individual doesn’t care whether you paid taxes or not. 2. Work for cash. Only cash can be “black.” (a reminder from Ancap-chan: Bitcoin is cash) 3. Do not underestimate barter. On paper, no money passes through at all, yet each party gets what they wanted. 4. Corruption is not bad, but good. You have an agent in the enemy’s camp (the state). You are not giving money to the enemy (the state). You reduce the official’s dependence on the state by providing them with an alternative income. He is your accomplice. He will cover for you because you are the compromising material on him. And he is more interested than you are in ensuring your scheme is not exposed. 5. Sell things that are impossible to account for or count. For example, portions of lunches, or booklets, or business cards (printing). 6. The purchase of materials should also be in “black” cash. 7. Avoid cashless payments, even to a personal card. Let the client transfer money to someone you owe. My clients even paid for my daughter’s music school! This way, it’s as if you did nothing. Your creditor doesn’t care who paid your debts. And the state only collects taxes from one transaction. 8. A wonderful scheme involving the gifts of nature. No purchasing needed. The money is “clean,” completely black and untraceable. For example, in the 90s, we harvested cedar nuts. Sold them under the table for cash. It’s impossible to prove how much was sold. 9. Working with things that cannot be touched. For example, design. You create a design, you receive money. From whom, for what—try and figure it out. You might not have even seen this person! They sent you the order via WhatsApp, received the sketch by email. They topped up your phone balance for payment. 10. And various on-site or at-home services. Like computer repair, manicures, apartment renovations, dog training/walking. Even if the tax office comes to you via an advertisement, you say that there have been no clients yet. When the first one appears, I’ll get a patent. Proving that half the city is served by you can only be done through an informant. Well, you just have to work properly so that no one informs on you…
Something like that. This is the first thing that came to mind. Much of it is from personal experience in the 90s. I consciously discarded criminal schemes. Perhaps I missed a lot. The main thing here is to outline the direction of thought.
A year ago, I congratulated the LPR on its eleventh anniversary, comparing the party to an awkward teenager who is growing rapidly and trying to appear adult. At age 12, we see this teenager experiencing complete internal turmoil, hysterics, a loss of meaning in life, and suicidal thoughts (forgive me, I won’t get into specifics, the post isn’t about that). This is accompanied by public comments, such as Vitaliy Tizun’s recent post about why political parties are bad as such.
Regarding this, I find David Friedman’s rhetoric closer, which boils down to the assertion that product packaging should be produced even if its ultimate fate is to be thrown away. I can only expand on Friedman’s metaphor and point out that, nonetheless, one should not turn the packaging into a cargo cult; if you are ready to purchase a product without packaging, then there is no need to spend resources on it.
The task of the Libertarian Party is to implement libertarian ideas into the state regulatory framework using specialized state political interfaces. The task of the libertarian movement as a whole is to disseminate libertarian ideas throughout society. The party can also perform this secondary task, but it is not obligated to, as it is designed for something else. For the party, broadcasting ideas to society is simply a way to replenish its ranks. The Libertarian Party could dissolve itself tomorrow, and it would simply be the abandonment of one of the approaches to reducing the state, but by no means the end of libertarianism in Russia.
So, I congratulate everyone who is currently a member of the LPR and those who are preparing to join. You are doing what you believe to be important and useful; just please do not approach it with beastly seriousness, otherwise, it can be a little embarrassing for you.
For example, Vasya Pupkin from grade 3 “b”, as a joke, reported a bomb planted in the school, which was later not found during the inspection. Or he beat up a classmate until they ended up in intensive care. Or he stole and then broke someone else’s bicycle. Suppose he was detained. What happens next? If parents, according to libertarianism, are not responsible for their children’s actions, then how will the young hooligan be punished? Suppose neither he nor his parents have the money to compensate for the damage. Will he be put in prison or forced to work and pay for the damages?
The claim that a child possesses self-ownership means that other people recognize their right to dispose of themselves to a greater extent than they could achieve by force. Nevertheless, just as the right of private property over things rarely means the freedom to use them to harm others, a child’s self-ownership does not mean complete freedom to cause harm to those around them.
In addition to the child’s self-ownership, people usually recognize someone’s right of guardianship over them. This right typically includes priority in instilling moral norms, but it is inevitably offset by the right of others to recover damages caused by the child from the guardian. It does not matter who provides the guardianship—parents, the school, just random people contracted for the job—or if all of them distribute these rights among themselves in some way. Either way, the right of guardianship is followed by responsibility for the damage caused to others by the actions of the ward.
Parents take the child for a walk, the child breaks someone else’s toy—the parents are responsible. A grandmother is left with the child—the grandmother is responsible for the broken toy. The child goes to school—the school bears responsibility for the damage they cause to others during school hours. The child goes to school and from there sends an email from a phone reporting a bomb threat—this is the school’s problem, as the child was within its zone of responsibility at that time.
Perhaps the risk of damage from a child’s actions could be insured, similar to how the civil liability of car owners is insured. Now, as we know, car owners are reluctant to insure their liability, which often prompts states to make such contracts mandatory. So I am not sure that in a stateless society, guardianship liability will always be insured. Most likely, schools—especially those in the medium and high price segments—will insure their guardianship liability; firstly, they will have more funds for this, and secondly, it can be assumed that students of expensive schools will, on average, cause damage in smaller amounts (not a fact, I don’t dare to predict exactly).
Another factor that is unlikely to allow guardianship liability insurance to become a panacea for parents is that with every wrongful act committed by the child, the insurance premium will increase; that is, damage from the least socialized children will likely be too expensive to insure.
Further, the imagination of AnCap critics paints all sorts of Dickensian scenarios, with workhouses and the like. I strongly doubt that such things would be in demand in a humane and wealthy society, however, it is obvious that the rights of guardians who find themselves unable to bear responsibility for the actions of their wards will be rejected or, at least, severely restricted. In whose favor? I believe, in favor of charitable organizations whose statutory goal would be precisely the socialization of such children. As an option—in favor of wealthier citizens who agree to cover the debts from lawsuits against the child’s previous guardians, after which they themselves assume further responsibility for this child. I do not dare predict which model will be more in demand in the market, but both are ethically permissible.
Socialization of difficult children two centuries ago—the dark past of AnCap
Mikhail Pozharsky has released a very good video about the illusion of control. Be sure to watch it in full if you haven’t already, and I, as usual, will provide the key points as I understand them.
The experience of falling into a hopeless situation (one in which the subject’s position does not depend on their efforts) triggers the development of learned helplessness.
Learned helplessness sharply reduces the subject’s competitive potential in situations where their actions actually do make a difference.
An important psychological defense against learned helplessness is the illusion of control. In a hopeless situation, one can believe that something still depends on them, and thus learned helplessness will not arise.
However, the rituals of psychological defense designed to create an illusion of control can themselves worsen the hopeless situation.
Therefore, the skill of reflection is more effective, where the subject analyzes what they can actually control and what they cannot, and does not waste strength on the illusion of control, accepting force majeure as it is.
Such a skill is formed through the experience of independently finding a way out of difficult situations, and in no other way.
Therefore, creating cumbersome centralized structures and shifting the responsibility for everything onto them is an illusion of control, whereas a real fight against difficulties implies a decentralized approach based on personal responsibility. Period.
This is why, having outlined three main paths toward ancap — minarchism, panarchism, and agorism — I pay special attention specifically to agorism.
One can start a political party, like the big shots do, hold rallies, like the big shots do, and believe that through political pressure you are somehow influencing the policies pursued by the authorities — and when asked why life isn’t getting better, answer that the efforts undertaken are insufficient, and not a hundred thousand, but a million people must take to the streets.
One can propose reforms to create functional competing jurisdictions, dream of Facebook citizenship or the Bitnation project, and when asked why none of this is being implemented, answer that everything is heading that way anyway, but it would be good to double the propaganda efforts.
Or one can simply make a deal and not pay a tax. Or bypass an inconvenient ban. Or invent a service that is useful to people but invisible to the state’s servants. This is no longer an illusion of control. This is control itself. Through such things, a person learns to independently find a way out of difficult situations. And if they find themselves in conditions where they cannot control the possibility of getting out of the situation, they will already be resistant to learned helplessness, and will not fall back on rituals for the sake of an illusion of control.
One can remain an atheist in the trenches under fire. While one is shitting their pants and another is praying, the agorist digs the trench deeper.
For example, I want to open a cafe. Opening a cafe in the city center, I run a high risk of losing money to the state. How can I avoid this, and is it even worth risking opening an illegal business in modern Russia with a physical space and people inside? It feels like agorism right now is only about selling substances, but I don’t want to sell substances on Tor; I want to run, for example, a cafe, and there is absolutely not that kind of anonymity—you need people to know about it, and it needs to be out in the open. That is completely different from the substances market, for instance, where you can do business via Tor. Furthermore, if some problems with the authorities arise, the courts and law enforcement are monopolized, and no one will protect me from the arbitrary actions of tax officials. What should I do? Wait until avoiding taxes becomes the norm? Grease palms with bribes? Then the money will go to government officials and increase their interest in creating problems (so there would be more bribes). It’s some kind of vicious circle.
The question is accompanied by a donation in the amount of 0.0001985 btc
Agorist practices always imply a certain solidarity between counterparties against the state; this is what you should focus on when figuring out how to build your shadow business. For instance, if you set up a tax-free establishment in an open square in the city center, you have only one chance to avoid repressive pressure from the state: if, in response to such attempts, your customers immediately shoot the state representatives to hell, and the state knows this in advance. Outside the Chechen Republic, you cannot count on this, so let’s move on.
Since we are talking about the catering sector, I would suggest a different business model. Find a business center that isn’t too posh, with a lax access regime, visit every office, and present your simple commercial proposal—that every working day during the lunch break, you are ready to deliver a hot set meal at a fixed low price, with payment in cash. Here is a link to a Telegram bot; every morning until 11:00, an order can be placed by choosing one of three set meals, and from 13:45 to 14:15, the order will be delivered to the office. That, essentially, is the whole model. You will need to rent a kitchen space as a private individual, hire staff under the table—and get to work. You don’t even have to introduce yourself by any name; your name is the Telegram bot. Oh, and you’ll also need to spend some money on writing the bot. Alternatively, the bot can be replaced by a website, but that depends only on how widespread Telegram is in your city.
By the way, to avoid walking around with your advertisements in vain, when you promote your hot lunch service, bring some tasty pastries with you; they’ll go down great in offices whether it’s closer to lunch or closer to five o’clock. Then you won’t just be “some guy who came by with brochures,” but “those people with the buns who can also bring hot lunches.”
Of course, this model works better when there is some life in the offices, so the period of total self-isolation is not the best time to start such a business. On the other hand, right now you can organize free meals for doctors in hospitals, funded by donations. Some NGOs are already doing this; nothing stops you from starting to hone your organizational skills right now. Any charitable organization spends part of the collected funds on its own needs, so, as long as you aren’t greedy, you will at least be able to provide a minimal income for yourself and your employees, plus earn a reputation and visibility, and the object of charity will be grateful to you and, if necessary, will provide a ventilator out of turn.
Of course, this idea is not new, but there will be space for agorism in this sphere for a long time, especially outside the capitals
