Тег: Ancap

Police brutality and pogroms under ancap

A discussion arose in the Libertarian Band patrons’ chat regarding an incident in the USA, which has led to riots accompanied by looting for nearly a week now.

Could an episode of police brutality occur under ancap? Absolutely! The “gatekeeper syndrome” operates under any regime. A petty fraudster pays with a fake check, the store calls security, they detain the thief—and then an excess occurs, and the head of the security team begins to strangle the detainee. The partners are stunned: on one hand, it is a clear abuse of authority; on the other, it is the firm’s honor, and staging a public quarrel is unprofessional, so they simply try to calm the crowd. What happens next? The director, a floor manager, or even just a cashier rushes out of the store and barks, “Stop it!”

This is where the key difference between ancap and the state manifests. It is not just anyone barking, but an official representative of the client. The partners of the security guard who lost his mind immediately pull the boss away and provide first aid to the victim, because the highest authority—the client—has commanded it. The one who pays the money.

Then the routine chores begin: the security company fires the overzealous guard, the thief reimburses the store for the money that caused the scuffle, there may be some maneuvers regarding his health insurance, and finally, there may be a press campaign resulting in damage to the security company’s reputation (and possibly the store’s, although that would be unfair).

But what if the store director rushed out and began to shout enthusiastically, “Give it to him, you scum, crush him!”? That is when a riot could happen. We can, of course, hope that everything will be limited to lawsuits, boycotts, and similar civilized reactions, but a riot or the burning of the store cannot be ruled out in this situation: people react extremely nervously to manifestations of crude thuggery—and there is no reason to assume that people would suddenly change under ancap.

Can riots become mass movements? They can, if we are considering something like a clan society. This can be considered ancap only with a great stretch, but such a society is certainly stateless and, therefore, also worthy of consideration. As we know from the example of Somalia, a specific legal system develops in a clan society where the clan acts as an insurance group and pays for crimes committed by its members. Such a system managed to extinguish the civil war in Somalia; it would handle riots as well.

However, the type of society where problems could truly take on a protracted character is one with a combination of market and clan orders. On one hand, there are several large groups defending the interests of their members, and on the other, there is a large number of individuals who do not belong to any clans and attempt to interact in a mode of open market access to goods and services. Clan members may perceive such loners as members of some foreign clans and bring claims against uninvolved parties within the framework of collective responsibility. Meanwhile, the loners, by inertia, will view the rioters as individuals with their own personal grievances—and be surprised by the absurdity of those claims.

Essentially, this is exactly what is happening in the USA right now. The quarrel occurred between the nominal clans of left-wing activists and police officers, but the leftists consider all business owners to be allies of the police—after all, it was the store that called the police when the incident happened. Blurred boundaries between groups generate numerous misunderstandings, where even those who express sympathy for the rioters are attacked. And the more such unresolved conflicts there are, the harder it is to stop the war.

Therefore, I venture to suggest that under ancap, in various unrest-prone areas, it will be very important to be able to quickly and clearly communicate to everyone who stands behind you. First, people learn to draw boundaries, and only then do they learn not to cross them.

Registration of property rights under ancap

What will the registration of property rights for assets (land, real estate, enterprises, securities, files(?)) look like in the absence of a monopoly registrar (USRN and others)? Will it be mandatory? And what about bundles of rights under ancap?

Free Reader

Bundles of rights are simply an analytical tool for a deeper understanding of the phenomenon we commonly call ownership. Any relationship between a subject and an object can be described through bundles of rights, regardless of whether it is ancap or socialism. It is simply that under socialism, a certain property, for example, does not grant the right to derive profit from it, while under ancap it does. Also, for instance, rights to a plot of land may imply the right to prohibit boundary violations, or they may be encumbered by an easement requiring the provision of, say, free passage. All these bundles of rights are formed both as a result of concluding direct contracts and simply by virtue of established traditions. Any right is a claim that is tolerated, and if a certain claim is contested, it means that specific right is under threat.

For those who struggle to understand what the previous paragraph is about, I recommend watching Boris Yurovsky’s video, which is titled: Property as a Bundle of Rights.

Now let’s move on to the registration of property rights. A title of ownership for any object that can be uniquely identified is very easily stored in one registry or another. These could be objects such as “a plot of land with such-and-such boundaries” or “a smartphone with such-and-such a serial number” or “a file with such-and-such a checksum.”

How do titles of ownership get into registries? They are entered there by the owners of the property assets to inform everyone of their ownership right, which is primarily necessary to confirm that this right exists. Maintaining a registry requires resources, so those who decide to engage in this will have to think through a monetization scheme for the service. One could charge money for placing information about a property asset in the registry. This risks the registry being incomplete. One could charge for obtaining information from the registry. This risks people obtaining information through cheaper means. One could establish a fund, feed it for some time, and once the registry begins to demonstrate its utility to a wide circle of people, the fund could quite possibly develop the registry through donations.

The alternative to registries is the archaeology of property titles, where, wanting to ensure that the property being purchased actually belongs to the seller, a potential buyer examines the document recording the acquisition of the property, for example, a purchase and sale agreement, then turns to the previous owner, finds out how they acquired the object, and so on until their paranoia is satisfied. In effect, this is the same methodology as blockchain analysis—just without the blockchain. Additionally, if we are talking about a plot of land, for example, one can ask the neighbors whether they truly know the seller as the owner of the plot or if he is an impostor.

But this will be of little help in a situation where the owner of a property asset sells it to several people simultaneously, takes money from each, and then leaves them to figure it out however they want. This is the very “double spend” against which, in the case of bitcoin transactions, it is recommended to wait for several confirmations before considering the transaction complete. Unfortunately, blockchain is not the Internet of Things, as Ivan Ivanitsky aptly formulated in his article on Habr. Information in a registry, whether centralized or distributed, may differ from the conditions of the transaction. To protect against most such fraudulent transactions, a temporary freeze of the funds paid for the acquired object is sufficient. During this time, the problem of multiple claimants to one title of ownership will have time to surface, but the seller will not have had time to secure the money, and it can be returned to the unsuccessful buyers. Such a payment delay can be implemented either through a trusted intermediary or, possibly, through smart contracts (although I am not an expert in this area).

Morality. A new video from Libertarian Band.

In the new video, the Libertarian Band team and I examined morality from the same perspective we previously used to examine law, namely as a spontaneous order, so it is better to watch both videos one after the other. I don’t recall anyone describing morality in this way before, but I hope we managed to provide a sufficiently coherent, consistent, and practically applicable vision of the topic.

And next will be a video on a topic that many libertarian theorists have clashed over — about children. So don’t forget to subscribe to the channel.

Don’t we live under anarcho-capitalism?

Every state is a community with its own voluntary hierarchy and structure, in which all basic libertarian principles are recognized and could even be formalized as contracts, but they are simply ignored by the majority; if some maniac with his own private army terrorizes people, the lack of resistance is the responsibility of the latter, for their hands are completely untied.

Belkovich

Ancap can be viewed as an ideal construction in which all goods and services are supplied only on a free competitive market. Such a construction serves as an analytical tool, but is unimplementable in real life. At the very least, because kinship ties, friendship, love, dislike, and the like have no direct relation to the market; and to claim otherwise, describing how, for example, the marriage market should be organized or the mechanism of selling oneself into slavery—this may, of course, be a way of exploring the limits of the model’s applicability, but it looks more like a way of pushing principles to the point of absurdity, only to then say: I don’t like where this logic has led me—so I choose to change nothing in life.

Conversely, one could postulate that since we consider ancap to be the natural and most suitable state for society, then we must say that we live under ancap and can reason about it in ancap terms. Namely, that a person’s relationship with the state is a contract, a sort of poorly drafted open offer where people checked the “I agree” box without even reading the text, and that the state is a corporation and its territory is the private property of the corporation. Such a vision can help one look at the world differently, but it can also function as a path of self-deception. That is, ancap is already all around us, why fuss, we have already arrived. We relax and, once again, do nothing.

The same reality can indeed be described in different ways, depending on how a person intends to interact with it. One can think in terms of “in office 202 sits the department head, he must sign the permit if the application is submitted in the correct form and the state fee is paid.” One can think in terms of “Petrovich will sign for ten thousand, but one could invite him fishing, which is even more useful in the long run.” Finally, one can think in terms of “enter, clear out the secretary, then the boss, exit through the window.” One can think “Vasya is so sweet,” or one can think “perhaps I’ll string him along for one more dinner, and then I need to bail.”

The difference between descriptions of the declared, the actual, and the ideal is also quite obvious. It is one thing to describe how the state looks according to official documents: the Constitution, separation of powers, legislative mechanisms, and so on. It is another thing how it looks in reality: the mutual influence of political actors, corrupt ties, the monitoring and formation of public sentiment, and all that. And it is a completely third thing to describe how one would like society to be. There, the state may be present in a completely different form, or be absent entirely. Private property may be revered as the highest form of manifestation of human freedom, or condemned as the highest form of exploitation. Power may be viewed as violence, or as fatherly care.

Anarcho-capitalism today, in most cases, is only suitable for describing the ideal order of things. The actual can be described in political science terms—and then one can try to devise separate descriptions for the transition from the actual to the ideal. Alternatively, one can describe the actual as a corrupted ancap, and then it becomes seemingly obvious what to do: simply eliminate all differences between the current state of affairs and the ideal model. The trouble is that while such an approach answers the question of what to do magnificently, it says nothing about how to do it. That is precisely where its main problem lies.

Conflict between protective organizations is a false argument against ancap

Bitarkh’s Column

Original publication on VKontakte

Critics of ancap constantly cite the well-known argument from Robert Nozick’s 1974 book Anarchy, State, and Utopia regarding the impossibility of ancap. Its essence is that different protection agencies may reach contradictory decisions regarding a particular case, enter into an armed conflict when attempting to execute them, and ultimately, one strongest agency will remain, becoming an ordinary mini-state with a territorial monopoly. In his work on the conditions for the stability of anarchy, Jack Hirschleifer demonstrated the conditions under which this occurs, leading to a war for hegemony instead of a state of anarchy.

But this argument applies exclusively to models of a stateless society where the use of violence is still permissible for certain purposes (enforcement of contracts, collection of compensation). For example, this position is partially held by Murray Rothbard and fully by David Friedman (the book The Machinery of Freedom). For a fully voluntarist society, the problem of conflict between protection agencies, as well as the determination of a higher court instance (which makes the final decision), is completely absent.

In any model of a voluntarist society, conditions are created where the initiation of violence is impossible or instantly extinguished (there is a uniform balance of violence potential (BVP) “everyone has weapons” and a deterrence doctrine (DD), i.e., the readiness of the majority of society to use counter-violence to stop aggression). Counter-violence can only be applied during a direct attack, but one cannot start a war to “punish a violator” or “collect compensation.” An offender, if they are not initiating violence at that moment, can only be boycotted—that is, no business is conducted with them. By the way, this is standard behavior between all subject players with BVP, such as stationary bandits (SB, “states”) in their relations with each other.

Under ancap, a trial (as is currently the case in relations between SB) can occur only by the mutual consent of both parties. The parties also agree in advance on the conditions for appealing the court’s decision if it does not satisfy them. And what if one party does not want to go to court? In a voluntarist society with BVP, no one can force them to go, but the refusal may be viewed as an admission of guilt, leading to a demand for compensation for the plaintiff, and in case of refusal—a decrease in reputation and possible ostracism. If the violator does this constantly, the severity of the ostracism will increase; eventually, they will simply stop being provided with utility services and sold goods in most stores, and they will be forced either to agree to cooperate or to move far away, to where their reputation is not taken so close to heart. Although with a ruined reputation, entry into all more or less decent jurisdictions will be closed to them.

As we can see, there is absolutely no room for the conflict described by Nozick.

Commentary by Ancap-chan

Nozick shows how a system of competing protection agencies can turn into a system of minimal states without violating the gentlemanly principle of compensating damage to clients affected by their activities, as well as to third parties. Bitarkh shows that if we take away from protection agencies this convenient pretext to coerce anyone for their own good, the problem of the state’s renaissance is resolved. Then the question arises, “well, how do we actually coerce if we really want to,” and to this Stefan Molinier answers. Which scenario is less realistic—the emergence of ultra-minimal states based on protection agencies or the emergence of a voluntarist society based on universal armament and readiness to actively counteract violence directed at oneself—we leave for the reader to judge.

Persuading Statists

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.

How would juvenile justice work under libertarianism?

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?

Vopros999 (question accompanied by a donation of 0.00008510 BTC)

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

Law, or courts under ancap. A new video from Libertarian Band

This is not an April Fool’s joke: Libertarian Band has finally released the long-awaited video about courts under ancap. I consider it one of our most important works, and I hope the video goes viral at least as well as the old video about ancap itself.

The film crew are absolute legends for managing to produce content at a good pace despite the current situation. Throw some money their way; they’ve earned it.

While creating the script, I leaned heavily on Hayek as interpreted by Zolotorev and, to a lesser extent, Chetvernin, as well as David Friedman and some other sources. I hope I managed to combine these diverse concepts harmoniously and create a truly original product.

I look forward to your likes and comments under the video.

Doomsday Weapon and NAP, a discussion

Recently, I published a post in Bitarch’s column stating that current trends in technological development are easily extrapolated into the near future, and based on them, we see that the capabilities of private individuals to carry out indiscriminate mass killings continue to grow and could well reach the level of a global threat. From this, the author concludes that to eliminate this threat, not only the institution of the state must be rejected, but also any other factors that potentially place people in a desperate position where there is no particular difference for them whether to die alone or to take all of humanity with them.

Bitarch then expanded on the topic on his VKontakte page, responding to a number of objections. The response boiled down to the idea that the threat is closer than one might assume and that, in general, we need to be more responsible. Unfortunately, this rhetoric added few substantial arguments—how is such a call for responsibility different from Greta Thunberg’s appeals? She also threatens global consequences if we do not all wake up right now.

After that, Bitarch released a third article, and this time proposed a more specific case for consideration. Imagine a dangerous asshole (Harvey Weinstein is used in the example) or an organization (let’s say, for example, ELF) who are given a severe punishment, and instead of accepting it humbly, they demand immediate pardon under the threat of releasing some unpleasant virus according to the dead hand principle. The virus would not kill humanity, but as we see from current events, it is capable of seriously damaging the economy.

Will the emergence of such threats lead to state power beginning to bend? Yes, of course. We have a great experimental state, Israel, which over time moved from the doctrine of “we do not negotiate with terrorists” to the doctrine of “we exchange one of our prisoners for a thousand of yours.” Thus, in states where there is a possibility of holding leaders politically accountable, they will bend to the demands of terrorists; and when the threats of terrorists acquire a global character, whether or not to negotiate with terrorists will cease to be the choice of a specific dictator, and even Putin, in such a scenario, would have to bargain. “I, for instance, agree to make certain concessions to the terrorists, but you, dear Western partners, should lift sanctions on me for such compliance, because as you know, terrorism is so unpredictable.”

Under ancap, this problem is simplified. The terrorist loses a subject for negotiations. Yes, he may be ready to indiscriminately exterminate several million people if his conditions are not met. But what conditions? To whom will he address them? There is no state. He could address, for example, the management of some corporation. Let’s say the same “elves” demand that the management of an oil company stop oil production, otherwise, there will be a coronavirus. After this, the board of directors resigns, and the subject of negotiations disappears again. Of course, this will not prevent the elves from launching an epidemic, but the goal of the terrorist act was slightly different.

Of course, means of protection against such threats will also be improved. For example, total transaction transparency could allow for the rapid location of a terrorist network and the neutralization of the dead hand threat. Or it might be possible to change the terrorist’s motivation. Or even local time-stopping. The debate over whose fantastic assumption will be realized first is quite fruitless. Bitarch claims that defense technologies develop significantly slower than attack technologies. Nevertheless, for some reason, the general level of violence is steadily declining, and if state-initiated violence is excluded from the statistics, it becomes practically negligible.

Therefore, it is not that I disregard the threat being discussed. I simply believe it is not very relevant to ancap, and as for postulating the necessity of outgrowing states, I have other sufficient arguments.

Doomsday Weapon

What will happen to socially vulnerable groups of people under anarcho-capitalism? (disabled people, the mentally ill, single mothers)

Alexander

I have already answered similar questions at least twice: at the very beginning of the channel’s existence, and considerably later. The general sense of the answers came down to two considerations. First, in the absence of the state, people will have more money and room for maneuver to engage in charity. Second, the most important skill for those who need the care of others and other resources is the ability to be grateful. It is difficult to convince oneself to take care of a misanthrope who is certain that the whole world owes them, but it is very easy to do so for a sweetheart who skillfully strokes your ego in return.

There are, of course, various cringeworthy answers about the fate of the disabled under ancap, for example, Svetov’s well-known remark about the freak show, which the world was deprived of when the state banned it. Naturally, in this case, it is not so much about the state as it is about society. The mass solvent demand to go and laugh at freaks, no matter how funny they grimaced, disappeared. It became shameful, just as many are ashamed to go to a circus with trained animals. Morals changed; the old business model became unprofitable. Now, the socially vulnerable do not need to try and evoke disgust-filled pity or laughter to get money. It is much easier to evoke tenderness, respect, or some other form of empathy.

Thus, all else being equal, I would buy a product on the street from a child or a disabled person, then simply from the elderly, and only after them from those who look most capable of working. The persistence of a person who has a handicap but tries to compete on equal terms with others now evokes respect rather than irritation.

But fine, socially vulnerable groups will gain something from the abolition of the state, but surely they will lose something too? Yes.

Most likely, the urban environment under ancap will be less inclusive than under a state in a society with a comparable level of wealth—because in the market, for example, there will likely not be significant demand for equipping sidewalks with tactile paving. It is the state that can pour insane amounts of money into asphalt for the hypothetical needs of extremely small groups, neglecting the interests of far more numerous and solvent communities (why serve those who have money when you can rob them under the pretext of providing for the disabled). On the other hand, I fully admit that under ancap, the appearance of quarters specifically designed for the needs of people with limited mobility may prove justified: this is cheaper than equipping an entire city. I would, for instance, gladly rent housing in such a quarter during the period of caring for a small child, and then move to a more ordinary setting.

Also, most likely, under ancap, socially vulnerable groups will not be able to rely on some guaranteed income—but this, as I have already noted, should be compensated by the greater ease of earning. This compensation may prove insufficient. But in the same way, one can claim that a completely healthy but incompetent worker will not succeed in a free market—whereas in a social state, he would feel quite fine on benefits. From here, it is not far to reflections on universal basic income. Starting from a certain sufficiently high level of wealth in society, the idea of indiscriminately giving everyone a minimum sufficient for living, and thereby shielding oneself from the irritating petty crime caused by poverty, begins to seem quite sound and will certainly find its voluntary admirers.

Work is work