Тег: Ancap

The Westphalian state, panarchy, and ancap using IT as an example

Column of Bitarch

Three main types of system organization can be identified: centralized, decentralized, and distributed. This applies to all complex systems with multiple nodes, both technological and social. In a centralized system, there is a single point of control (a server) through which all interaction of regular nodes (clients) occurs, both with the server itself and with each other. In a decentralized system, there is no single server; instead, there is a certain number of super-nodes connected to other super-nodes as well as to clients (client-to-client interaction occurs with the participation of super-nodes). In a distributed system, the network is entirely peer-to-peer, and clients interact with each other directly, without any intermediary.

Let’s consider the history of the Internet. In its early days, if you wanted to distribute a file to other people, you had to upload it to your own server (Web, FTP), from where anyone interested could then download it. As the flow of visitors increased, your server might fail to handle the load, or the bandwidth of the communication channel could be exhausted, which ultimately made downloading the file impossible. I don’t think it’s necessary to mention the extreme vulnerability of such a system to a “forceful” server shutdown—that should be obvious.

Later, decentralized file-sharing systems appeared, such as Kazaa, eDonkey, and BitTorrent. These no longer had a central server that could easily fail. User interaction occurred through many independent super-nodes (for example, torrent trackers), which provided file search and coordination of data regarding the availability of files on regular users’ computers. For greater resilience and improved quality of service, fully peer-to-peer (distributed) networks later emerged, such as BitTorrent with DHT, which can operate without a torrent tracker at all, or the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) on the blockchain, which is fully resistant to censorship and individual node failure.

Decided to create your own internet resource? You’re in luck! Today there is a sea of options for hosting it. A quarter of a century ago, it would have been significantly more difficult. Back then, you needed to possess a huge sum of money to buy a physical server, place it in a room with a high-speed Internet connection, powerful power supply, cooling, etc. It is not surprising that there were practically no individual online projects at that time.

The boom of the Internet coincided with the appearance of virtualization technology, which allowed several virtual machines (VMs) to run on one physical server simultaneously. For example, there are the well-known VirtualBox and VMware. Each virtual machine allowed it to be treated as a physical server, solving the problem of running several applications simultaneously (each may require its own versions of system libraries and OS settings, so running them simultaneously under one OS could create a conflict).

The number of applications grew, but the ability of a physical server to run VMs is limited by memory and disk space. A solution emerged—containerization—virtualization at the operating system level (e.g., Docker). It uses the shared kernel of the physical server’s operating system, and each container encapsulates only the application itself, the required versions of libraries, and specific OS settings (rather than a full OS, as in a VM). This allows for a significant reduction in the size of the container image compared to a VM (which makes it easier to move from server to server), and also reduces the load on the physical server (meaning more applications can be run on it, lowering the price for end users).

How does all of this relate to social organization? Currently, we live in a fully centralized state with a territorial monopoly (the so-called Westphalian state) and constantly encounter it. As in the previous example with different versions of system libraries for different applications, different people have different values, religions, and ideas about life. It is complete absurdity to believe that, for example, Turks and Kurds can live by the same laws! And, as we see, any attempts by the Turkish authorities to impose uniform rules are met with resistance, up to armed struggle.

The simplest solution in this situation seems to be a transition to a decentralized system in the form of panarchy (a system of contractual jurisdictions – CJ), where each group with shared views has its own government, not tied to a territory. Some libertarians may not like this option, as they want to choose “components” on the market entirely according to their own tastes and not depend on a CJ. This results in a fully distributed model, which we call anarcho-capitalism (ancap).

History has many examples of transitioning from a centralized system to a decentralized one, and then to a distributed one. Here is another example—electronic media. First, there was fully centralized radio and television, then came the decentralized Internet with websites, and only now are the sprouts of fully distributed applications appearing (such as Bitcoin, or Ethereum with smart contracts). I cannot even provide examples of a transition from a centralized system directly to a distributed one (bypassing the decentralized), so I consider such a thing extremely unlikely. This also applies to social organization, and it is naive to believe that we can move directly from a centralized state (even a minarchist one) to ancap. I provided practical arguments in my article “Realistic Libertarianism”.

It is known that environmental regulations have been able to radically improve air purity in New York since the 1970s. But how would this work under ancap? What would replace regulations and how would the purity of water and air be ensured?

анонимный вопрос

What needs to be done to achieve clean air with the help of the state? You need to launch a public campaign, convince politicians that ecological regulations can generate both political capital and a decent amount of embezzled money—and eventually, the state will squeeze those who pollute, reducing their income, and bestow favors upon those who want clean air. This is, of course, if you live in New York, and not in the city of Sibay in the Republic of Bashkortostan.

What happens to the environment in a free market? Where existing technologies mean that you either pollute and make money, or you don’t pollute and make jack shit, you will pollute. And around you will live those who also pollute and make money, or are otherwise tied to your business. Those for whom the smoke is harmful simply leave for wherever it is cleaner and start their own business there, linked to the sale of beautiful views and clean air. For example, in the USA in the 20th century, New York and other Detroits and Los Angeleses were polluting, while connoisseurs of healthy recreation mass-developed Florida, which rapidly transformed from a land of swamps into a land of beaches.

The market very reliably compels people toward peaceful coexistence when everyone minds their own business and does not try to suppress competitors by force. When the state began to actively fight for clean air in cities, businesses found places to pollute and began moving to third-world countries; the country paid for this with the emergence of the Rust Belt—cities where it was impossible to find any other more or less profitable activities besides polluting. Of course, I am simplifying greatly, and it wasn’t just about ecology—the state was advancing on many fronts.

Of course, business can be criticized for often starting to solve problems as they arise, meaning that for some time a problem remains unsolved. But the state, with its manic-depressive style of reacting, either forces you to swim in an empty pool or demands that you march along the bottom of one that has already filled up. If ecological regulations are introduced before the emergence of sufficiently cheap emission cleaning technologies, you will either get corruption or destroy businesses, and a vast number of people will suffer needlessly from poverty. Conversely, if you try to centrally suppress ecological protests, a vast number of people will also suffer needlessly from poor ecology.

At the same time, business in a free market, even without any state regulations, will look for ways to pollute less, produce less waste, spend less energy, and so on. A dirty enterprise is located on the outskirts; skilled workers must be lured there with good money, the produced goods must be transported to consumers in far-off lands, waste must also be hauled away, and so on. If it were possible to produce the same thing with comparable costs right next to the mass consumer, it would provide a significant competitive advantage, which means investing in technologies that reduce ecological damage.

The main means of improving the environment is the prosperity of the people. As long as people are poor, they will turn a blind eye to everything that hinders the satisfaction of their most urgent needs. Only after becoming wealthy do they begin to think about how to organize a comfortable life. Trying to organize their life for them immediately, at their own expense, while preventing them from becoming wealthy, is a crime.

If you live here, it means you need this for some reason

Ancap-sama, it seems to me that intellectual property law is not as much of a delusion as one might imagine, and the problem lies at most in the terminology (“right” → “privilege”).

After all, for example, when using streaming services, a completely free contract is concluded with the user, which specifies how the content can be used. If you don’t like it—don’t enter into these contractual relations! The problem arises perhaps when buying physical media, as I haven’t seen any contracts there (but usually the relevant laws are cited, which, roughly speaking, are the same contract, as they are voluntary). In conclusion—is it possible that under ancap, after publishing a book, I wouldn’t be able to forbid readers, for example, from reading it on the street during the day? Where would you disagree?

Atomic Tram

Answered by Alex Murin

Let’s start with how copyright is currently protected. That is the entirety of Part 4 of the Civil Code. To properly manage the fruits of one’s creativity, one must know the laws. Currently, the law prohibits copying without permission, assuming that the author did not grant such permission initially. And it assumes that your interests can be protected without your knowledge by some organization, like the Russian Authors’ Society. The law also protects your descendants, who haven’t written a single line of music or a single kilobyte of code.

No one intends to limit the freedom of contract under ancap. If you like such a contract, then you offer the user or the new owner to enter into it. Ask them to write a paper stating that they have indeed read it, understood everything, like the terms, and have paid. If you believe that your book cannot be read during the day in public places, then write that and get the buyer’s consent. Not in the form of “by opening this link, I acknowledge that I am now the eternal serf of the publisher, who bought the author two beers and thereby gained exclusive rights to the work,” but ask them to perform a conscious action: write a paper or an electronic document and sign it. And preferably without hidden pitfalls, so that the buyer understands what they are doing. And without state lobbying, under which the actual author ends up in holey shoes in a cold shed.

And yes, you will have to independently find a court that will compel the payment of compensation to you, rather than giving three hundred rubles to the Ust-Labinsk District Court, by whose order the bold offender will be caught, brought in handcuffs, and put in a cage with robbers. If you like copyright, take the trouble not to create traps when executing such a contract, otherwise someone might consider it a direct attack. Voluntariness must be truly voluntary, not a pit that a user falls into by clicking the wrong button. Or one where the state finds a song remaining in the browser cache, even if they didn’t listen to it.

Addition from Ancap-chan

I have nothing much to object to in this harsh rebuke. Yes, you can demand certain restrictions on the use of your content from the consumer, but you will have to pay for the enforcement of these requirements yourself. So it’s better to think ten times before setting any requirements at all, because it will be far more reliable to win the loyalty of consumers rather than trying to oppose their will with your own. For instance, some Kirill Yeskov or Pavel Usanov writes a new book, publishes it, and warns readers: “Guys, let’s let the publisher make some money, let the book be sold only on paper for about three months, and then I will release the text for free access myself, and you won’t have to deal with piracy technologies.” And it works! And then, when the text becomes freely available, grateful readers even send donations. Because you don’t need to be an asshole; it doesn’t pay off.

Scientists are smart, be like scientists!

E. Shulman

On ridiculous lawsuits under ancap

Suppose the owner of a private garden with trees files a lawsuit against one of the neighbors, claiming that the neighbor breathes oxygen produced by the garden’s trees but does not pay for it, and demands payment for this oxygen at a price of 1 ancapodollar per liter. What decision is a court following libertarian principles most likely to make?

анонимный вопрос

Answered by Alex Murin

Most likely, the greedy plaintiff’s reputation will suffer greatly, and the court will fine them for attempting to enrich themselves through the court. The burden of proof lies with the plaintiff. Consequently, the plaintiff would have to prove that the defendant is actually breathing their oxygen. For example, by finding oxygen molecules produced by their plants within the defendant’s body. Not to assume it, but to provide real evidence. Since the service was not ordered and no promise to pay for it was made, the defendant had no malicious intent to obtain the plaintiff’s property in the form of oxygen. The plaintiff did not take proper measures to preserve their property—for example, by installing a dome over their garden. Furthermore, the plaintiff themselves breathes, and they breathe air containing oxygen not only from their own garden. The plaintiff somehow obtained the carbon dioxide needed for photosynthesis. Is the gas they received cheaper than the one they released into the common space?

For every plaintiff who loves to reduce things to absurdity, there is a judge who can take the absurdity even further: force them to enclose their garden with a dome and stop giving their expensive oxygen to the general atmosphere and shamelessly stealing carbon dioxide.

An important point: the share of oxygen in the atmosphere from the owner of a couple of hectares of forest is negligible, and a hermetic dome over a couple of hectares of land is a very expensive pleasure.

Addition from Ancap-chan

An important factor is that a court handling a property dispute between two neighbors is obviously an arbitration court. Its task is not the formal consideration of a claim, but the resolution of a conflict. These people still have a vast amount of time to live side by side, and if such ridiculous litigation begins between them, it makes sense to find out what the real grievance is, what the real conflict is—and then, based on this, try to resolve the issue so that conflicts no longer arise.

Ideally, the court’s decision should look, in my view, something like this: 1) carry out a mutual offset of the oxygen supplied by the plaintiff’s garden and the carbon dioxide produced by the defendant’s breathing; 2) oblige the defendant to include the plaintiff among the invited guests when having a barbecue in their backyard to monitor additional carbon dioxide emissions from grilling meat over coals; 3) oblige the plaintiff to compensate the defendant for the additional carbon dioxide emissions from the barbecue with supplies of garden produce.

Breathe deeper, the trees need more raw materials for photosynthesis!

There is Singapore. It is a bird in a golden cage. But they live better than in the USA, and there is no corruption. Ancap vs Singapore?

Someone Unknown

Singapore is a state with severely curtailed personal freedoms and a very significant level of economic freedom. In effect, it is a state organized like a commercial company, where all of life is regulated within the logic of business processes. Naturally, this model cannot imply any political competition. For appearances’ sake, besides the ruling People’s Action Party, there is also an opposition Workers’ Party in Singapore. Even from the name, one can assume that its role is something like a pampered trade union, which certainly cannot claim to manage the enterprise, but theoretically can provide management with some feedback if they start messing up the administrative measures.

If something like the Soviet Union could be conditionally called a dictatorship of the proletariat, then Singapore, within Marxist terminology, is a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. Everything for business, everything for economic growth! A slogan roughly of the same vein as “everything for the front, everything for victory.”

Could a city with anarcho-capitalist orders have emerged instead of the Singapore we see now? Generally speaking, yes. If those same investors, whom Lee Kuan Yew chased with exhortations, had come on their own and established their own order—first buying out the extremely cheap local officials root and branch, and then abolishing state power altogether for lack of need—would we now have in this place a self-governing city with a very compact administration existing on an endowment fund, where the share of small and medium-sized businesses in its extremely dynamic economy would be about four-fifths, it would be slightly poorer, slightly dirtier, there would be three times as many poor people, and ten times as many happy people? Where do I get my estimates? I mostly base them on Hong Kong, taking into account local specifics and the fact that in Hong Kong there is still some form of state.

The main problem with such cities with a free economy is that there are too few of them, they are damn attractive, and therefore overcrowded with crowds of people wishing to settle in this wonderful place. Meanwhile, in order to non-violently replicate a successful model, a free land market is needed. Then there are no problems: investors from a conditional Singapore organize a consortium, buy a convenient territory from some state—and develop it. But for states, territory too often turns out to be some kind of sacred value for which they are ready to sacrifice millions of people, and to hell with these crazies and their hang-ups. And so, people thirsting for freedom and prosperity crowd onto tiny territories, vastly overpaying for such a rare opportunity.

But all economic history tells us that this is perfectly normal: a certain product is first premium, gradually becomes replicated, and its cost drops to an acceptable level, and then it becomes a mere mass-market commodity. Freedom in this case is an example of such a product. There is a demand for it, it is growing, and therefore the supply will expand.

Big brother is watching you!

A question regarding medications for rare diseases.

What guarantees are there that under ancap, people with rare diseases (affecting fewer than 200,000 people) will not be left without medication because it would simply be unprofitable to develop and sell them (given such a small number of consumers)?

анонимный вопрос

Answered by Alex Murin

The strangest question I have ever encountered. And why is it profitable for states to fund scientists who conduct such research? Perhaps because funding scientists is profitable in general? They make useful discoveries, and over the last 100 years, these have become increasingly frequent, useful, and interesting.

A company that develops a new drug gains notoriety. This is currently the best advertisement a pharmaceutical company can imagine. One could hire a hundred PR agents to write that this company’s vitamin C and plantain are the best in the world. But many people sell vitamin C and herbal mixtures. So, most of the time, PR agents would be producing information junk. Instead, one could hire another dozen scientists to develop a drug for a rare disease. Journalists from many publications would gather to see and report on the discovery, the company’s name would hit the top news of all websites for a couple of days, and remain in the top of specialized publications for another month. In addition to that rare pill, the company produces hundreds of other less rare ones. A discovery means new clients, the respect of doctors, and the attention of their patients.

Regarding sales: selling medications is always profitable. Just as it was profitable in primitive society, when a hunter brought the shaman the best piece of meat for a pot of magic potion, so it is in a post-industrial society, where hundreds of pharmaceutical companies make aspirin and millions of pharmacies sell it. Perhaps it would be unprofitable to keep a rare medicine in a pharmacy, but nothing stops it from being ordered. Currently, restrictions on the online sale of medications are created by states.

The role of the state in the production of drugs for rare diseases is not very obvious. In funding scientists? They can be funded by charitable foundations and insurance companies. It is always profitable for an insurer for their patient to be healthy and pay premiums regularly, rather than lying on their deathbed.

By the way, the famous EU Directive 141/2000 (reduction of regulations in the development of orphan drugs) was adopted precisely thanks to private initiative, and not at the suggestion of any state. EURORDIS, an association supporting patients with rare diseases, was one of the organizations that contributed to the development and adoption of such an initiative.

Very rare pills

Will this be within the norm under ancap?

анонимный вопрос

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CoAlxgwXcM

In this case, the norm has absolutely nothing to do with whether it is anpcap or socialism. There is a broad global trend toward the reduction of aggression, including toward children. When you read someone like Kassil, far more brutal customs are described, both between children and between children and adults. I suspect that in those times, such an episode would not have attracted any attention at all. He didn’t kill or maim; he simply forced a fussy child to get up and led them by the hand—what’s the big deal? A hundred years have passed, and this episode is now perceived as clear coarseness of manners, though still not so egregious as to make one jump out into the yard and immediately intervene for the child instead of continuing the filming, or, say, to lean out of a window with a rifle and demand an immediate stop.

It is very difficult to predict what the norms regarding violence against children will be in the foreseeable future. The trend may continue, and then the ideas currently being promoted—for example, by the Dobroum project—will over time seem banal, or even self-evident. Or the trend may reverse, and then our era will seem to descendants as a time of softness and degeneration.

At the same time, ancap can develop within the framework of any current of this trend. If the world becomes more non-violent, the key principle in relations with children will be the principle of non-aggression. Did the child attack? No, they were just lying there and didn’t want to get up. How can they be hit? How can children be hit at all? If greater violence becomes the norm, the emphasis will shift toward legal capacity. Is the child not a legal subject? Then they are in the zone of the guardian’s responsibility. See a child being hit? Well, ask whose child it is. If the guardian is the one hitting—well, they are probably hitting for a reason. If it is not the guardian hitting, it is an attack on someone else’s property, an impropriety, and should be stopped—for example, by blowing the aggressor’s brains out.

To me, of course, the first scenario seems more natural and probable. The trend toward non-violence is accompanied by an increasing value of human life and is largely driven by this. Ancap presupposes the elimination of the state, which, among other things, is a systemic factor that reduces the value of human life (firstly, it produces violence, meaning violence becomes commonplace; secondly, it makes people poorer, thereby reducing the value of life). This means that under ancap, the value of life will increase, and there will be less violence.

But, alas, the reasons for the trend are not fully clear, and I cannot guarantee anything on this matter. After all, the softening and hardening of manners throughout world history clearly does not follow a simple linear dependency.

P.S. When the post was already ready for publication, news arrived that Anastasia Shevchenko’s daughter died in intensive care. For those who do not know: the mother was accused of membership in an undesirable organization and placed under house arrest until trial, deprived of the right to communicate with her daughter. The daughter was seriously ill and required constant care. The court, choosing the preventive measure, ignored this circumstance.

So: under ancap, this would not only not be the norm, but would become completely impossible. The state kills. It is not just a machine of violence, but also a completely irresponsible machine.

What do you think about agorism? Are there differences between anarcho-capitalism and agorism?

Classical Liberal

The difference between ancap and agorism is quite simple. Ancap is a state of society in which institutionalized coercion is absent, while agorism is a strategy for achieving ancap. In one of my early posts “Ancap or Minarchism?” I called this method counter-cultural, as opposed to political, but I am ready to agree that the term is subpar and a mouthful; in the future, I will use the word “agorism” specifically.

Agorism assumes that the only effective strategy for achieving ancap is direct action. If you want ancap, live according to ancap; do not try to bargain with the state or use state-approved mechanisms for interacting with the state, because this practice, which is questionable in terms of protecting rights, strengthens those very mechanisms and the state along with them.

Agorism is the black market, private education, crypto-economics, horizontal ties, and voluntary mutual aid. As is easy to see, in recent years, agorists have achieved considerable success in developing the necessary infrastructure and do not plan to stop.

However, it is also easy to see that the greatest intellectual contribution to the development of agorist mechanisms is still made by people living in relatively free states, while agorists in somewhere like China keep quiet as mice. Thus, for agorism to emerge as an ideological direction and develop steadily, rather than representing spontaneous, easily suppressed acts of defiance against violence, a certain basic level of political and economic freedoms is necessary, and this level is achieved precisely by political methods.

On the other hand, for example, the economic transformation from a planned to a market economy in Russia happened largely thanks to the black market that had already developed in the late Soviet Union; without it, private property would have had to be created from absolute scratch, which would have been far more difficult.

Finally, I will note that for a market to emerge, a certain minimum level of trust in society is required, without which the costs of ensuring security simply eat up all the benefits of most transactions, making market relations marginal, while subsistence farming and various forms of coercion come to the fore. The best mechanism for establishing trust is the successful experience of joint activity. And here, political activity, some form of cooperative economics, charity, and even sports competitions or mass celebrations are equally suitable.

So both agorism and political libertarianism successfully work toward the same goal. The more political rights there are relative to underdeveloped economic rights, the more relevant agorism becomes. The more economic rights there are relative to underdeveloped political rights, the more relevant political activity becomes, although it may also take on very peculiar forms—which is no surprise if parties are not registered and not included in ballots. And in a situation where there are neither political nor economic rights, I’m sorry, but the most direct path is flight from this hell, or an armed uprising.

Another pitfall of agorism: the similarity of methods with left-wing anarchists can lead to migration toward their ideology. Be careful with that.

Do you think a full-fledged ancap could emerge in the process of colonizing planets?

анонимный вопрос

A vast number of science fiction works are dedicated to the theme of relations between Earth and its alien colonies. Significant attention is also paid in such works to the organization of society within these colonies. In essence, it all comes down to which specific sci-fi assumptions form the basis of a given plot.

Let us try the opposite approach: to understand what minimum sci-fi (and preferably realistic) assumptions must be made so that the society emerging in Earth’s alien colony is anarcho-capitalist. Well, let us reason it through.

In theory, of course, by the time alien colonies appear, ancap should already exist on Earth; accordingly, it would be quite natural for a colony to maintain this specific type of social relation. But that is too trivial an assumption, albeit quite realistic.

For the sake of interest, I would, for example, assume the opposite: that for some mysterious reason, the technologies for colonizing other planets are all available, yet ancap has still not taken root. It is not entirely clear to me how this could be, as there are no grounds for states to have survived for so long. But we are talking about science fiction, and this is our sci-fi assumption.

Moving on. For anarcho-capitalism to exist in a colony, a free market must be established there. If, for instance, the entire colony consists of a single firm trading with Earth, then the relations within it will likely be monetary-labor relations, and we will get a completely different society. Thus, sufficient autonomy of the colonists is necessary; after all, if they depend on centrally distributed resources in everything, there can be no anarchy. This means either the planet is terraformed, or it was originally habitable, or the technologies for arranging living space around oneself are very inexpensive and accessible to almost everyone.

As a result, we have a surplus of living space, which allows people to coexist only when it brings benefits, and not simply because it is crowded and there is nowhere else to go. This is very important for the emergence of the proverbial autonomy of the individual and the dominance of voluntary relations—coercion in such an environment is simply unnecessary and highly ineffective.

In general, with the colonization of such a planet, we get a situation similar to the experience of the USA, but without Indians and slaves—those two ancestral traumas of the United States that contributed to the expansion of federal government powers and led to internal wars.

We will dismiss the sci-fi assumption regarding the possibility of interplanetary wars with disdain: it is good for a blockbuster, but far too improbable. This also works in favor of ancap: there is no need to maintain a defense against space invasion, because out of fear of something like that, a state might accidentally emerge, and then you’d have to root it out of people’s minds…

How to bring ancap as close as possible in countries with a post-communist economy?

Everything looks quite smooth in the USA, but conditions are different in the former USSR. Often, loss-making state enterprises, mono-towns, an economy tied to the military-industrial complex, and micro-district housing developments hinder individualism and state non-interference — eliminating or minimizing the state and closing loss-making enterprises in a short timeframe would lead to unemployment and the demise of all public sector workers, while the survivors would hang the reformers, disregarding the NAP. Does Russia have a chance for successful libertarian reforms?

анонимный вопрос

Answer by Alex Murin

And why rush? Ancap and libertarianism are an ideology. If people share it, they will be guided by it. If they don’t, they won’t. You cannot force people to live without a state. These are free people; they decide for themselves how to live. It is only in mono-towns and at loss-making state enterprises that people more quickly come to the realization that the government is not their friend. Instead of shops with beautiful displays, kiosks with cheap beer begin to appear; instead of excise vodka, people switch to moonshine. Instead of saying “I am an honest taxpayer,” people prefer to hide their income and conduct cash transactions without documentation.

High-rise development, where neighbors do not know each other and the concept of “one’s own” ends at the apartment threshold, is a serious problem for a free society. Until people become owners of their land and understand that their home is a fortress belonging only to them, it is difficult to speak of freedom and self-government. But we have another factor playing in our favor — poverty. A person who has nothing to lose is more likely to stop supporting the one who robs them year after year than a person who has their own house or firm, who is not ashamed to say “my grandfather and father voted for the Republicans, and I support them too.” There are many paths to a free society; we chose the path through poverty and extreme social inequality. And I would not want to specify deadlines; I would rather indicate the direction.

Addition by Ancap-tyan

During the collapse of the state, we should all take an example from Venezuela. While official propaganda there glorified the victories of the socialist economy and inflation hit record highs, people invested in what was beyond the state’s control — in bitcoin. The volume of bolivar transactions on the localbitcoins service noticeably exceeds, for example, the volume of euro transactions. However, Russians do not particularly need my advice, as the volume of ruble transactions on localbitcoins also exceeds the volume of euro transactions. So, even when the state demonstrates extreme inefficiency, it is by no means necessary to lose everything because of it. When a chance arises to change something in the country, it is better to have resources than not to have them.

Of course, bitcoin is not the only possible investment beyond the state’s control. Even more important are investments in horizontal ties. You may not be a civil society if you believe that political methods are currently ineffective, or if you despise political methods as such. But as atomized loners, you will not survive without the state. Therefore, the well-known communist slogan calling for the unification of the world proletariat should also be taken into account and creatively reworked for yourself, simply by removing the restrictions on the class composition of your community.

Finally, if for some reason you are a public sector worker receiving pennies for meaningless and ineffective work for the state, it would be foolish to discourage you from this job — you would have left it long ago yourself if you could. But you should not obsess over it. They say that in the late Soviet Union, which consisted of public sector workers just a bit more than entirely, terms absent from socialist political economy, such as “shabashka,” “kalym,” and other names for counter-economic phenomena, enjoyed extraordinary popularity. And so it is now — a good leftist under socialism strengthens not the marriage, but the personal budget. You can receive a salary from the state, but it is better to spend your main efforts on side jobs.