How does a human neighbor differ from other annoying factors, such as a thunderstorm, a highway under the windows, flying planes, barking dogs, and so on? Only in that you can try to reach an agreement with them, whereas the most realistic way to avoid the other annoying factors is soundproofing.
But the neighbor, in turn, also understands that by coming to them and demanding that the noise stop, you are demonstrating double standards, because if you had actively protected yourself from the noise of the other sources mentioned above, then the noise from behind the wall would not bother you, as its level would be below the threshold.
Thus, after hearing your requests regarding reducing the volume level, they will expect a deal. The subject of the deal may turn out to be the most unexpected thing.
You can state that since they are celebrating so wildly that it’s impossible to sleep, they should pour you a drink as well—and join the party.
You can ask when the banquet is expected to end, and, having received an answer, declare that you are willing to tolerate it until then, but if they continue after that, they should be prepared for the harshest sanctions, from “I’ll shit under your door” to “I’ll smash the door with an axe.”
You can agree on monetary compensation, enough to spend the night in a quiet hotel nearby…
In general, there are plenty of options.
But, of course, you may also fail to reach an agreement. This will mean that you and your neighbor were unlucky with each other: you had a grievance, you initiated a conflict, the conflict was not resolved, and escalation is possible in the future, which entails costs for both parties. And no daddy-mommy-state will help; you are adults now, it’s time to learn how to negotiate on your own.
Here, I really want to start with an extended quote from a source I constantly refer to—our Political Science-chan, Ekaterina Schulmann:
As for the actual state of affairs, generally speaking, the Russian person is a spontaneous libertarian, but does not know it and would never call themselves such. In reality, they are very inclined toward libertarian values, namely: they do not trust the state, state institutions, or law enforcement agencies. In general, they trust no one except personal acquaintances. They tend to rely only on themselves and their closest relatives. Accordingly, they would like it if no one messed with them, if they were left in peace and not told how to live. In other words, these libertarian values are very strong in Russian people.
At the same time, the opposite view is entirely justified: Russia is a country of ingrained social-democratic values, and the ideal state for the majority of Russians is the Scandinavian countries, with low levels of inequality, comfortable prisons, officials on bicycles, and broad public discussion of all issues—in short, a proper Soviet government as it should be, according to the project documentation. The high taxes and strict regulations attached to this model are perceived as a fully justified price for this paternalistic paradise.
And finally, it would be strange not to mention the viewpoint that the Russian person is a sucker and a doormat, burdened by Stockholm syndrome and learned helplessness. Their motto is “initiative is punishable”, and not “punishable by being ordered to implement the initiative”, as in the ideal Confucian China, but literally punishable by a blow to the head so that they don’t stick their neck out. They harbor no illusions about the benevolence of state power, but justify the actions of officials by believing that they themselves would behave the same way in their place.
The first category—these are our natural allies. They might not provide active support because they are busy with their own peaceful anarcho-capitalist affairs, but at the very least, at the right moment, they will look away and not snitch on people for their peaceful anarcho-capitalist affairs.
The second category—these are our natural allies. They understand the importance of jointly solving local problems, the ability to negotiate, and the desire to unite around common interests, rather than simply on the principle of “us versus them.”
The third category—these are our natural allies. Gradually, it dawns on them that an official is not some inexorable force, omnipotent and omniscient. An official is a ridiculous idiot who doesn’t dare take a step without instructions, yet treats orders according to the principles of “wait to execute—they’ll cancel it” and “if you can shift the responsibility—shift it.” Finally, these people realize that an official immediately loses all their superior arrogance when facing a crowd one-on-one. And then officials can be peacefully pelted with snowballs, as in Volokolamsk, or subjected to “garbage lustrations,” as in Ukraine, but if things get really heated, it can even lead to defenestrations, which our Slavic brothers in the Czech Republic loved to use.
mm, lustrations!
Of course, sometimes with allies like these, you don’t even need enemies. Of course, such allies are too easily lured by communist slogans, and then they will go beat up the liberalists and the bourgeois. Therefore, as unpleasant as it may be, it is necessary to perform the important work of creating the correct image of the enemy in these people’s heads. This is precisely why Mikhail Svetov, with his propaganda of hatred toward the nomenklatura, is also doing important work; I couldn’t do it, I find it much more pleasant to tell various optimistic tales about how we can organize ourselves.
No matter how much one wants to always take the straightest path to a goal, if the interlocutor’s head is already shaped like a screw-hole, it’s pointless to hammer something straight in there; you have to screw it in.
This is where marketing comes to our rescue, with all its techniques aimed at increasing sales. For example, it makes sense to understand exactly what pain lies behind a mother’s objections. Because what is the point of talking about social safety nets in private companies in a free market in an affluent society, if her pain isn’t caused by the demise of Soviet social security, but, say, by savings burned in some financial pyramid, or by shootouts in the streets. Then, we work with that pain.
Pyramids
Explain that the most important reason for the rapid rise of pyramids was the need to protect one’s savings from hyperinflation, and hyperinflation was caused by the state’s frantic emission of money. Consumers never demand inflationary money; they much prefer stability, or even deflation, so that they can simply put money in a piggy bank and have it retain its value for decades.
And this is Bitcoin, Mom. Designed by hardcore ancaps specifically for that very purpose. Even gold, as a tool for long-term value preservation, works worse, because gold production can be increased in the event of a surge in demand, but you can’t pull that trick with Bitcoin. Well, and if there are cryptocurrencies, then we can boldly get rid of all these central banks, hooray.
Shootouts
Explain that in the wild nineties, the state by no means stopped regulating issues of civilian weapons and establishing rules for resolving conflicts. The police were happy to pressure law-abiding citizens, giving them neither the means to effectively oppose gangsters nor the ability to sue them, but at the same time, they readily backed down before any moderately brazen thug. Naturally, this created a powerful economic incentive for criminal behavior and provided no reward for striving toward a peaceful resolution of issues. In effect, this means that in the nineties, the state worked with all its meager power for the aggressors, until it managed to somehow squeeze the preferential right to banditry away from private aggressors.
Tell me, if you were cornered on the street now with a demand for your wallet, and you pulled a Glock out of your purse and shot the robbers, would you perhaps be praised for riddding society of dangerous criminals? No, you would be charged with illegal possession of a weapon and exceeding the limits of self-defense, and you’d be imprisoned for a long time, eating up taxpayers’ money in jail. And if you don’t shoot, but only frighten them, you’ll be charged just for possessing the weapon, and you’ll still be imprisoned. So why on earth do you need such a “protector”—this very state?
Oh, you don’t want to carry a Glock, you want it so that people don’t attack you? Well, can you go to an insurance company and get insurance against robbery? No. Because companies would only start insuring against that if they had the right to maintain order and effectively oppose gangsters. And that is exactly what is forbidden—state monopoly. No matter where you turn, no matter how you try to secure your life—you run into this or that state prohibition.
You’d better know what is currently in your mother’s head instead of ancap. Act subtly, feed her individual cases, both regarding state lawlessness and (this is much more important!) regarding the effective resolution of vital issues without the state or even despite it. And eventually, she won’t even notice when she starts discussing these things with her neighbors, because people are very fond of secret knowledge unavailable to ordinary mortals—how could she not share it with those ignorant folks?
People are held captive by Hobbes. The idea of a war of all against all, from which the benevolent state saves them, looms over their minds. It is even strange that it hasn’t started being taught in middle school yet. However, propaganda doesn’t necessarily need to delve into the depths of the history of philosophy; it shoves the wicked nineties in people’s faces and tries to convince them: here it is, your ancap—do you like it, do you want it again, you cannibals?
This is precisely what people ask first when they hear that there is not a single service officially provided by the state that could not be provided with higher quality and at a lower cost in a free competitive market. In other words, people say, you want to privatize everything, abolish all social protection, and leave only a wild market flooded with scammers and bandits, with no one left to fight them.
After such an approach, not everyone manages to explain that a new set of nineties is certainly not the goal, nor even an inevitable consequence of the transition to a market, and let’s look at Georgia, for example, which is much closer to current times. Many simply shut down, either because their personal experience of the nineties was too painful, or because they didn’t intend to have a discussion in the first place and simply consider this the most effective thesis against ancap.
Did you miss me?
As for the memes about roads and similar folklore—that is the interest of those who are younger, who didn’t experience the nineties at a conscious age, and for them, ancap is just some abstract internet joke
Answering this question is not just simple, but very simple. If people only apply to a court voluntarily, and the court has no means of coercing the execution of its decisions—which is precisely the kind of pathetic existence courts might lead under ancap—then courts have no options left but to follow libertarian principles of law.
Alice, based on the principle of self-ownership, voluntarily turned to a court to resolve a conflict with Bob. The court denies Alice self-ownership and issues a verdict stating that she has no right to own any property, so that Bob has the right of exclusive disposal over all disputed property, starting with Alice herself. Bob, in accordance with the court’s decision, appropriates all the property, including Alice, whom he keeps on a leash and beats for any disobedience.
Under ancap, there cannot be a sad girl on a leash!
What will stop Alice from sabotaging the court’s decision and actively resisting Bob, seeking any outside help? What will stop any outsider who, seeing a violation of the NAP, asks what is going on, is told it is the execution of a court decision, and responds that he doesn’t give a fuck?
Since the question itself postulates that it is ancap all around, it means the vast majority of relationships in this society are voluntary and market-based. This is precisely what everyone perceives as the norm, and any deviation from the norm must be hidden or very carefully justified.
One can ask “what would be the typical reaction under ancap to such-and-such a deviation from libertarian principles,” and in response, those typical reactions will be described, demonstrating the feedback mechanisms in an anarcho-capitalist society that make deviating from basic principles unprofitable. But it is pointless to frame the question as “how to fight mass deviations of courts from libertarian principles under ancap?” If they are mass deviations, it is no longer ancap, and one must look into why they are mass and which feedback mechanisms were lacking.
The question of whether a pure anarcho-capitalist society is stable has no theoretical solution today. Societies considered precursors to ancap in legal terms (Ireland, Iceland) were historically defeated by external forces, but this is not an argument for internal instability.
The main drawback of both libertarian and anarcho-capitalist theories is that they do not exist.
There is an economic theory developed by the Austrian school of economics, which took on a relatively cohesive form thanks to Mises. This is praxeology, that is, the theory of human action; catallactics, that is, the theory of exchange; the theory of money, the theory of interventionism, the theory of the business cycle, and so on. The logic of the libertarian doctrine’s presentation is built upon economic theory, and it is used to verify various fantasies regarding the possible structure of society. Austrian economic theory does not provide quantitative forecasts and postulates the fundamental impossibility of doing so, which gives many followers of other schools reason to criticize it for uselessness in this regard.
There is a libertarian legal theory, also known as institutional or sociological. Russian libertarians generally tend to rely on it in their legal constructions, which is not least because it was developed by Vladimir Chetvernin, who is Russian and still alive. In the English-speaking world, natural law theories are more common.
There are various ethical libertarian teachings: some take natural rights as their basis, others derive ethics from the idea of a contract, and some rely on consequentialism—that is, evaluating actions by their consequences. In short, in the field of ethics, libertarians experience considerable fragmentation and instability.
As a result, libertarianism is a rather broad and pluralistic current of thought, which can be seen as both a plus (there is internal discussion, there is development, but there is also agreement on the fundamentals) and a minus (there is no unambiguous opinion on a number of specialized questions, some of which are quite serious—for example, whether an institution such as the state has a right to exist).
Cool little tree, and Chetvernin isn’t even here yet…
Update: after the post was already written, a video with Alexei Tereshchuk was released on SVTV, which deals precisely with similar issues.
Family is a communist cell in an ocean of the free market. Outside, there is private property and commodity-money relations, inside everything is shared, and there are gift relationships. But then one of the members of the communist cell decides to leave it and enter the market. What happens to the property? What happens to the accumulated obligations? Under communism, all of this continues to exist, but in a latent, implicit form.
One partner invests resources into another, expecting that over time there will be some return from the second person. Instead, after some time, the second person decides to leave. Or two people decide to have a child; this is a long-term creative project lasting a couple of decades, constantly consuming resources. And then one of the partners exits the project. Or, even worse, exits the family, but wishes to continue participating specifically in the project of raising the child.
The transition from communism to market relations is always privatization, the fixation of obligations, and a transition from implicit assumptions to clear contracts. The two most typical contracts in a divorce are a property division agreement and an agreement on regular payments to settle accumulated obligations. The latter are the very alimony payments you asked about.
As is easy to see, under a state, the evasion of alimony payments is widespread because those upon whom this obligation is placed consider it unfair. Indeed, it is hard to consider it fair when the lion’s share of the property during division goes to the party who invested fewer resources into its creation, and at the same time, the second party continues to bear financial obligations toward the first.
Now let’s move on to how it would be under ancap.
When I was talking about the future of the institution of marriage under ancap, I briefly touched upon the topic of children. Under ancap, a child to a much greater extent decides for themselves who to live with, who to be friends with, and from whom and what to learn. Thus, regular targeted payments for the maintenance of a child after divorce under ancap are far less likely than now, unless someone agrees to this voluntarily.
So, court-ordered alimony under ancap will be awarded primarily as payment for accumulated obligations, and the child will have nothing to do with it at all. For example, a wife paid for her husband’s landscape design courses, and after the divorce, he reimburses her for the cost of the courses.
The only example of court-ordered alimony related to a child that comes to mind is if a child is conceived at the husband’s initiative, which is documented, and at some late stage of pregnancy he changes his mind. Well, now he will have to pay a penalty “under the gestation contract.”
And what means of coercion for payments exist under ancap? Exactly the same as now: freezing of accounts and seizure of property.
Unlike a modern state, in a libertarian society, it is impermissible to detain suspects, intrude into private life through surveillance, compel testimony through the threat of violence, or forbid perjury. How then is the non-aggression principle to be applied without all these extremely useful tools necessary for an investigation? After all, without them, it is simply impossible to catch anyone, which means that instead of non-aggression, we will face impunity for a violent criminal who was not killed in self-defense.
anonymous question
Not everything is so bleak)
Surveillance
Surveillance and uncovering secrets of private life do not violate the non-aggression principle at all, so under ancap conditions, this direction will face even fewer obstacles than under a state. We should all mentally prepare to live in a condition of a 24/7 stream of everyone and everything in the public domain. It is already almost like this now, and the trend will only develop.
Compelling testimony
As usual, the state’s stick will be replaced by the ancap carrot. Yes, a person has the right not to share information with anyone, but if they are materially interested, the probability of evidence appearing increases. Even now, it is not perceived as something extraordinary when someone interested in an investigation announces a reward for testimony. As for compelling testimony against oneself, this is forbidden even under a state, although we all know how tenderly state representatives treat such prohibitions.
Detention of suspects
The more developed surveillance technologies are, the less need there is to detain a suspect. Simply put, retrospective research through open sources—what the suspect was doing at the moment in question—will finally replace interrogations and confrontations.
Actually, it is strange that this question concerns you so much: we are currently literally watching in real-time the investigation of numerous crimes committed by Russian officials, military personnel, and intelligence officers through open sources. In effect, almost everything here is as it is under ancap: you cannot detain, you cannot compel testimony, but it is quite realistic to study the matter. As for how the transition from investigation to court, or directly to sanctions, occurs under ancap, I have already written multiple times.
But what about the lamp in the face, the handcuffs, the good cop and bad cop? A whole layer of culture will perish!
One could answer briefly by stating that within the framework of ancap, there is no foreign policy, since this term refers to interstate relations, and there are no states under ancap. But let’s expand the answer a bit: of course, I’m not paid by the character, but I simply don’t want to release entirely meager texts in separate posts.
What could be likened to foreign policy for ancap? I suppose, relations with entities that are territorially distant, different in culture, type of economic activity, everyday habits, and perhaps even not entirely ancaps. And what are the main goals ancap sets in such a “foreign policy”? Naturally, to ensure freedom of trade with them.
If I find out that somewhere in the depths of the southeast there is the unforgettable smelly durian fruit, I want to be able to buy it. If not in a supermarket in the next block, then at least to visit the durian myself. The people who grow this curious fruit are needed so that I can try it, and as for what the structure of the commodity-money transactions that reunite me with the durian will be—the market knows best.
What will happen to Crimea with the arrival of anarcho-capitalism? The same freedom of trade. The famous international festival KaZantip will return there. Girls in bright swimsuits will flock to the Crimean sea, slender speleologists will flock to Crimean caves, tasters saturated with Georgia will flock to Crimean wine cellars, and the long-awaited Dnipro water will return to Crimean fields at market rates.
Thank you for the interesting question. Indeed, a corpse is a rather peculiar object of property.
At first glance, everything is simple. A person has property rights to their own body; therefore, it is up to them to specify into whose ownership their corpse will pass, or to give paid instructions as to who should perform which specific manipulations with the corpse. If a contract for these manipulations is concluded, the contractors are obliged to perform them. If no instructions regarding the ownership of the corpse have been given, the corpse may be claimed by the first person to express such a desire.
However, in practice, procedural difficulties arise. I will simply list a few of them to illustrate why the theoretical model might fail.
First, a corpse may appear in a closed room belonging to the former owner of the corpse. A person fell asleep in their home and did not wake up. In order to understand that the owner of the house has died, one must enter the house, but as long as there is no certainty that the owner of the house has changed due to the death of the previous owner, entering the house will be considered a violation of the owner’s property rights. The more property rights are respected, the lower the probability of discovering the corpse. In an ideal situation, where respect for property rights is infinitely great, the fact of death will never be established, and the corpse will never pass into anyone’s ownership, continuing to be erroneously recognized as the property of the deceased.
Second, claiming an ownerless corpse may be fraught with claims from those who might assume the claimer’s involvement in the fact of death itself. For example, if someone is sitting peacefully on a riverbank and suddenly sees the corpse of their enemy floating by, it may be in their interest not to claim the corpse, but to let it float peacefully away, which, of course, would spoil their pleasure.
Third, even if the person who found the corpse is obviously uninvolved in its appearance, difficulties still arise in determining the current status of the object. The corpse may already be the property of an heir, since the deceased gave a corresponding instruction in advance. This means that before claiming the corpse, a subject who respects property rights will be forced to take steps to determine the identity of the deceased and their instructions in case of death.
Also, upon discovery of a corpse, it is quite reasonable to assume that the deceased’s friends have already begun searching for them, and if the cause of death was violence, they may be interested in finding the culprit; even if they have no rights to the corpse, they may approach the finder with a request to provide the corpse for an autopsy and similar manipulations.
In short, it is not hard to guess that all these subtleties make a corpse as a commodity quite illiquid and needed by few. Therefore, the question of “who owns the corpse” will more likely arise in the context of reflections on “how to get rid of a found corpse,” rather than “how best to use it for household purposes.” Thus, even in a situation where it is god knows whose corpse it is and it’s unclear if anyone will look for it, the decision to bury it and remember the burial site will be entirely justified and, most likely, less risky than feeding it to pigs. Or one could simply hand it over to a morgue, if we are talking about a civilized area (as it is easy to see from the reasoning provided, the demand for morgues under ancap will not disappear).
