Тег: Books

The book about ancap – finished polishing the section on human imperfection

I have finished the chapter about the likely approaches in an anarcho-capitalist society to solving problems related to the fact that a real person is by nature not necessarily always fully ready to act as a full legal subject, as well as the fact that their planning horizon may in some cases be extremely short. Now all that remains is to finish the section on the non-ideality of society, and then I can summarize the second part of the book.

As a reminder, the book can be read online by chapters, or it can be downloaded for offline reading in e-book formats. I suspect the latter will be relevant for most only after the book is completed, but just in case, I keep this file up to date. And while I’m at it, I’ll remind you that I am always glad to receive your donations and comments. Regarding this book, I welcome comments even more, as they can help improve the text.

A book about ancap – analyzing the imperfection of man

After venting about the sudden outbreak of war, I took a bit of a break, and now I am gradually returning to my routine. I have started the second section of the second part of the book on ancap—it sounds soothingly boring and mundane, exactly what the doctor ordered.

Right out of the gate, I wrote a short introduction to the section, a chapter on the fact that a person is not fully a legal subject (ancap and children are an eternal theme), as well as a chapter on the fact that humans are mortal, and this also hinders the triumphant march of ancap.

Humans have many other shortcomings, but I will leave the dwelling on them for next time, and perhaps then I’ll get around to discussing what we should do with all of this.

Ancap and the Imperfect World

Summarized the first section of the second part of my book about ancap: in the first two chapters, I covered the problems caused by the imperfection of the world, and now I’ve added a chapter about how ancap overcomes this family of problems. The chapter is short, but I’ve packed into it the main approaches from Friedman’s talmud The Machinery of Freedom, which first required me to tackle said talmud—something I suggest you do as well, as it’s far more interesting than my work.

Further, I plan to proceed in a similar manner with the family of problems caused by the imperfection of humans and the imperfection of human society.

A book about ancap – describing the problems of the world

I am continuing work on the second part of the book about ancap. If at first I briefly presented a beautiful picture of what an ideal anarcho-capitalist society looks like, now I am starting to explain in meticulous detail what obstacles might get in our dancer’s way. To start, I’m talking about the general imperfection of the world, and so far I have covered the problem of fuzzy boundaries and the problem of externalities.

Beyond that, I’ve taken a pause to think about whether to dump some more global problems here, or to move on to approaches for resolving them.

A book about ancap: a second attempt to start the second part

How I love diagrams! Making my first attempt at describing society under ancap, I tried to outline two approaches to how it is done, and then fell into a long stupor facing the question “and so what?”

The thing is, those were two bad approaches; ancap should not be described either by adding capitalism to real anarchy, or by adding anarchy to real capitalism. Ancap must be described based on theory.

So I tossed out the two previously published chapters and composed another one instead, where I briefly described the ideal ancap, how it looks based on theoretical ideas of how it should look. And next, I face a fascinating task: to detail what mechanisms push imperfect people, living in an imperfect world and forming an imperfect society, toward making society more or less correspond to the described ideal after all.

I hope things will move along more briskly now.

Since that’s the case, the picture can be more brisk too

The second part of the book about ancap has begun, and a title for the book still hasn’t been thought of…

The second part of the book is intended to provide a relatively plausible description of an anarcho-capitalist society. I spent a long time considering where to begin, and I started with a tedious methodological introduction on how such a description can be formed in the first place. There is time to build momentum, so I decided that I could afford not to rush headlong into it. After all, it is important to me not to present some single, alternative-free picture of a beautiful future, but to show the principles of how it is all derived.

The first chapter provides a less trivial approach—by adding capitalism to anarchy. This immediately reeks of alternative history and other joys of that sort. The second chapter takes a more obvious approach, by cutting the state out of an existing capitalist society.

Next, there will likely be a large section with a more detailed analysis of how the main institutions of society work, followed by a necessary section describing the difficulties of ancap.

Book about ancap – the first part, theoretical, is completely finished

Since the last update, I have slightly reworked the chapter on the market, added a brief summary, and in terms of formatting, I finished the navigation between chapters. Now it can be read as a fully independent work with a sufficiently complete, yet maximally concise presentation of the libertarian worldview.

The book is available to read online by chapter, as well as in epub format for those who prefer the e-book format.

If you know any sufficiently competent libertarian theorists, please pass this text to them for review. Before starting the practical part of the book, I would like to ensure that I haven’t forgotten anything important in the theory. If they don’t mind publishing their reviews, please let me know about that as well.

In the second part of the book, I will attempt to describe an anarcho-capitalist society in a sufficiently structured and also maximally concise manner—what features it might have and which are highly unlikely.

Chapters about ancap finally appear in the book about ancap. The reader will be disappointed.

I have started writing the final, fourth section of the first and most important part of the book about ancap. As usual, I produced two chapters: The first — the concept of ancap, where I simply formulate the banality that anarcho-capitalism is, believe it or not, anarchy plus capitalism. The second — the expansion and contraction of ancap — concerns the dynamics of how the corresponding relations penetrate society.

Essentially, my theory regarding libertarianism and ancap ends here: I tried very hard to be extremely concise, so I don’t even intend to push the fourth section to the traditional four chapters. Instead, I want to write a fairly detailed conclusion summarizing the first part, after which it could well be set sail as a standalone book, serving as a convenient (hopefully) entry point into libertarianism.

The second and third parts are intended to be the application of the previously outlined theory to various practical issues — regarding how different aspects of life may be organized under ancap, and what practical steps are envisioned for the transition to ancap. These parts, unlike the first theoretical one, should lose relevance much faster, whereas the first was written for eternity, to take a small spot on the pedestal, where it is already quite crowded with the greats.

Book about ancap – finished the section on the marketlet

I’ve unexpectedly ended up hanging out in Albania, so my posting pace has slipped a bit. On the other hand, dropping out of the usual flow is very conducive to slow-paced creativity, so I relatively quickly finished the two remaining chapters of the market section in my future book: specifically on the market and on capitalism. In the next section, I will finally begin describing ancap—assuming, of course, that I don’t get swept away somewhere again.

A couple more chapters for the book about ancap

I have put together the first two chapters of the third section of the book about ancap. The section is called “The Market” and, of course, the first chapters are dedicated to anything but the market. In the first one, I ramble on about labor productivity, and then suddenly switch to inequality, and I’m currently pondering whether to remove the final passages. The second chapter is dedicated to planning, and this is the first place in the book where I appeal to specific named authorities, Mises and Hayek, which also creates a certain dissonance, as it might overcomplicate the text.

Overall, I am dissatisfied with the writing pace; I thought I would announce three chapters at once, but the chapter about the market isn’t coming along yet, so I have to report on only two.