Тег: banks

Financial freedom and violence are incompatible

Supporters of authoritarian-right (conservative) ideas should consider whether the financial and economic freedom they so praise is even compatible with the persistence of physical violence in society.

Those who believe that free economic relations can be ensured in a society where violent activity is permissible—and where a strong centralized organ of violence exists—are making a fairly significant mistake. Let us correct this error.

Let us first note that the problem is much broader than state violence, meaning that the mere destruction of the “stationary bandit” will not solve it. The problem lies in aggressive violence as such, regardless of its source. The public will only continue to support states in strengthening financial control as long as the threat of financing violent activity, such as terrorism, exists. And even in a stateless society, people, fearing they will become victims of violence, will continue to pressure free and independent financial structures to control the flow of finances as strictly as possible. Moreover, the structures themselves are interested in control, as violence threatens them as well.

Perhaps you have heard of cases where some European banks voluntarily blocked the accounts of cryptocurrency traders due to suspicion of financing terrorism, even though the traders provided all legally required documents within the AML/KYC procedure. The state did not compel the banks to do this, but they nevertheless decided to forego a portion of their profits to reduce potential reputational damage (if the cryptocurrency was indeed obtained for jihadism or contract killings and this later surfaced, clients concerned with their own reputation would not want to do business with these banks, even if the banks had done everything correctly from the perspective of state law).

Also, do not forget that in a society with an unresolved problem of violence, financial control will inevitably grow with scientific and technical progress, as potential violent actors will have more opportunities to cause significant harm—for example, by using high-capacity energy sources, new types of explosives, or even biological threats in the form of intentional viral infection (DNA synthesizers are becoming more accessible every year).

Where will all this lead? To the fact that many market agents, driven by fear, will most thoroughly verify the origin of funds of any subjects entering into transactions with them. After all, who would want to conduct a transaction with a person who earns their money by selling explosives to terrorists, thereby putting their own life at risk?

As a result, transaction costs will only increase, and any inaccuracies or suspicions will lead to the blocking of bank accounts and the seizure of funds from a suspicious person, just to ensure that violence is avoided. Many may be caught in the crossfire for no reason (the problem of “false positives” remains). This will clearly slow down the economy, making it quite inefficient, which will ultimately lead to a sharp decline in people’s well-being and the stagnation of progress. Even the use of uncontrollable financial instruments, such as cryptocurrencies, will not help, as they will be useless if the majority of agents in the economy refuse to accept them, again, fearing a violent origin.

Conservatives may object—that this is exactly why a strong state is needed: to deter violence. They believe that if it is properly organized within constitutional frameworks that limit its growth, it is possible to ensure both economic freedom, so people can earn money and engage in entrepreneurial activity without hindrance, and a low level of violence.

However, a strong state cannot exist without financial control; for its existence, it needs enormous funds, which can only be obtained by levying high taxes on people and enterprises, as well as by using monopoly privileges in a significant portion of economic spheres. A strong state is incompatible with a free economy. And even a weak, minimal state is also incompatible, as it always degenerates into a strong state; politicians cannot be stopped from expanding their powers, as we have clearly observed throughout the history of states. Even the most seemingly liberal states, such as Switzerland, strengthen economic control over their citizens every day.

Moreover, politicians have interested groups of people supporting them and many justifications for increasing control—be it the expansion of state social programs, the increase of defense capabilities, or the supposed development of the economy. The latter is the most absurd thing one could imagine—how can the violent extraction of funds from the economy through the taxation of its participants, as well as the strict limitation of their activities in certain economic spheres, help it develop? Nonsense! Yet some interested groups follow even such nonsense.

I think it should now be clear that the fight against violence as a phenomenon in general is critically important for achieving financial freedom and all its accompanying positive aspects. And social models that permit the initiation of violence—whether it be state-monopolized and centralized, or private and independent—clearly contradict financial freedom.

Bitarch

How are international crimes handled in the case of ancap? For example, carding.

royal_hacker

First, I want to say that the word “ancap” does not go well with the word “international” or the word “crimes,” because “international” is used today as a synonym for “interstate,” and “crime” means a violation of the law, which, again, does not exist under ancap; instead, there are many private rules and preferences that form spontaneous orders. So I will have to translate the question from statist to ancap before I begin to answer.

So, how are property rights violations handled in an anarcho-capitalist society when using global market tools? Let’s take carding as an example.

One of the popular carding business chains today looks roughly like this:
1. Using holes in the security systems of banks and online stores, hackers steal databases of credit card data.
2. Carders buy these databases in parts for further use.
3. A carder uses the stolen credit card data to buy goods from an online store.
4. The goods sent by the store are received by a drop.
5. The drop shares part of the cost of the goods with the carder and sells the product.
6. The carder launders the money received and gets a clean profit.

Don’t think anything strange—all these materials can be Googled in five seconds, and in half an hour you’ll have more knowledge about carding than I managed to acquire 😉

So, the peculiarity of this high-tech criminal business is the developed division of labor, the use of advanced anonymization technologies at every stage, and, accordingly, a rather high cost of catching even one of the chain participants, let alone unraveling the whole thing.

Another feature related to carding is that the cardholder is insured against such fraud through a bank chargeback procedure, and the bank, in turn, passes the costs onto the online store. Thus, the final victims and the main parties interested in the destruction of this criminal industry are the online retailers, and their primary tool is by no means the search for fraudsters, but the improvement of protection, which they can perfectly well do whether a state exists or not, since it seems to have no role here, as it apparently does not affect anything.

In reality, it does. State regulations make it difficult for stores to switch to cryptocurrency payments—which, unlike centralized banking systems, knows no such concept as reversing an operation, meaning it completely removes the store from the line of fire in such situations and makes the final victim the one who lost the private key to their crypto wallet.

In the absence of a state, it will be harder for banks to pass costs onto retailers because they will have to compete honestly in a free market with crypto and offer stores the most favorable acquiring terms possible. So they will at least have to obsess over data protection, implement two-factor authentication for online purchases across the board, and so on, and if a refund request does occur, they will mostly have to bear the losses themselves. Which is great; let them stay sharp.

So, can carders feel safe under ancap? This will depend on the strategy banks use. If they focus on passive defense, carders will be drawn into a technological race, which will increase the cost and intellectual threshold for engaging in the carding business. But defense can also be active. The market can be flooded with fake drops who will scam the carders, fake database sellers who will sell non-existent credit card details and try to report their buyers to the customer, moles can be planted in themed communities—in short, this criminal industry can be made significantly more costly and risky than it is now, and this could also lead to most criminal entrepreneurs retraining for something more innocent.

White cardboard is about another powerful branch of carding, but that is a completely different story