Тег: Economics

How to achieve ancap if states, and not ancap, developed from the state of nature?

It is clear that all states cannot be destroyed overnight, but then how? What should guarantee the stability of ancap?

анонимный вопрос

States evolved from a state of nature because plunder proved more profitable than non-violent methods of enrichment. Much water has flowed under the bridge since then; people are becoming wealthier, as a result of which greed for preservation becomes more characteristic for them than greed for acquisition. That is, not the desire to snatch what belongs to others, but the strive to preserve one’s own. If one attempts to snatch what belongs to others, fraud becomes preferable to direct violence.

So the path to ancap is quite clear: technological progress, an increase in labor productivity, the emergence of free market tools that do not require centralized trusted intermediaries—and on one hand, we will have less and less moral justification for the forced redistribution of resources, and on the other—less and less technical feasibility for it.

Of course, the scenario where “all states disappeared at once” is quite strange; it is even difficult for me to imagine how that could happen without reptilians. The foundations of the state will be eroded gradually, as is actually happening now. It is difficult to say exactly which path humanity will take to reach ancap. The direct and clear path of minarchists, using ordinary tools of political reform? Progressive offshoring with a transition to panarchy? Harsh agorism with a heavy mix of crypto-anarchism? Seasteading and other Liberlands—that is, the construction of anarcho-capitalism through the occupation of no-man’s lands, with subsequent replication of the experience?

Any of these paths would satisfy me; there are no fundamental, insoluble disagreements between the different routes, for the state lives in people’s minds, and exactly how to expel it from there is, in many ways, a matter of taste.

What guarantees the stability of ancap? Only economics. The less profitable plunder is compared to non-violent methods, the lower the probability of the return of systemic plunder, i.e., the state. In the form of marginal practices, it will not pose a serious danger.

Economics and rhetoric. Interest and morality. Being and consciousness. These are mutually influencing things. Based on bare economic incentives, the state will not collapse for a long time and will persist simply by virtue of tradition. Based on bare rhetoric, the abolition of the state is unlikely to be stable: a new lucky plunderer will come and declare an era of prosperity under the shadow of the paternal care of the great steersman. In short, both factors are important.

Mao is perceived by us as a funny ancient deity, but what if I posted a picture of Stalin? Leaders are attractive…

A court in Chechnya, at the request of the prosecutor’s office, forgave debts to Gazprom. Gazprom challenged this decision in court. What are the prospects for this process, in your view? Which side do your personal sympathies lie with?

Dad

I’ll start from the end. My personal sympathies, of course, lie with the residents of those Russian regions who regularly pay for the gas supplied to them, while the inefficient monopolist, enduring losses in the Caucasus, justifies every new tariff increase with non-payments. This time, the regional legislative assemblies, impressed by the fact that Chechnya was once again declared a privileged subject of the federation, also began to compete in demanding the cancellation of their residents’ far more modest debts.

Whether this trolling was successful, or simply competing Caucasian security officials used this quirk to assert themselves at each other’s expense, interesting facts began to emerge immediately following the court decision to write off the debts. It turned out that the debts being written off were pinned on the population without any basis, whereas in reality, the gas was either stolen or squandered (while money for infrastructure repairs was stolen) at a higher level. And now, cases are being opened against those who managed the gas distribution, and in general, it seems that quite a few heads will roll as a result of all this.

In a peaceful region, a utility non-payer will quickly have all supplied resources cut off, and recovery for what has already been consumed will begin. In regions like Chechnya, whoever makes such a decision will be forced to start worrying about their health, so they will prefer to ignore the problem for as long as possible, although with a much greater probability, being unable to defeat the theft, they will lead it.

It is unlikely that as a result of all these investigations, Gazprom will recover any noticeable part of the stolen money. The most sensible thing its management could do is try to get rid of the loss-making asset and sell its Caucasian divisions to those ready to conduct business in the region according to the much more brutal local rules. Gazprom would then only have to honestly supply gas to a regional private gas operator at domestic Russian rates and on a prepayment basis. Let them continue to sell it at three times the price on the spot and try to get at least some money for it.

Since ancient times, representatives of the military aristocracy have considered it shameful to pay for what can be taken by force, for then allies might consider them weakened and turn away, and enemies, for the same reasons, might decide to attack. Therefore, of course, the costs of ensuring the fulfillment of contracts in Chechnya and other bandit enclaves must be monstrous. In such an inefficient system, maintaining even a modicum of stability requires a constant influx of external resources, but those are exactly what are starting to run out.

So, in the foreseeable future, we will see fierce infighting there over dwindling flows of budget funds, over any poorly controlled resource supplies, and simply for the right to dispose of people. Unfortunately, there is also a high probability that violence will spread outward from there even faster.

However, if one does not try to drown the problem in money—which only makes it swell—then all these inefficient practices die off relatively quickly, especially if there is strong opposition to attempts to spread archaic orders to territories where more efficient ones are adopted. And this applies not only to Chechnya, but also to the wonderful, tolerant Europe, which also prefers to appease its internal bandits with handouts rather than presenting them with the fact that this is not that place, and things are not done this way here.

Actually, Chechnya has its own hydrocarbons, but it’s like in Venezuela: the political regime is not the right one for extraction

How is the success of modern China explained from a libertarian perspective? What is the role of state regulation in it?

анонимный вопрос

Actually, modern China is not only the People’s Republic of China, but also the Republic of China, as well as Macau, Hong Kong, and to a considerable extent, Singapore. And specifically in terms of citizen welfare, the People’s Republic of China fares worse than all the other states I mentioned, despite the fact that the starting conditions for economic development in the PRC, the Republic of China, and Singapore were roughly the same.

Therefore, from a libertarian perspective, one must explain China’s failure rather than its success. Yes, of course, Deng Xiaoping proved better for the PRC than Mao Zedong. But the residents of the Republic of China achieved far more significant success without any world-famous reformers. What is the role of state regulation here? As is easy to see, it is negative.

In reality, of course, there is a degree of cunning here; it is much harder for a large continental country to escape poverty and socialism than for a small maritime one. But any city on the coast of mainland China could today live no worse than Hong Kong or at least the Republic of China, and if that is not the case, the responsibility lies solely with the leadership of the PRC. The guiding and directing role of the Communist Party is too great, the share of the state sector in the economy is too high, and too many resources are spent not on what people are willing to buy, but on the construction of the Great Firewall and the social credit system.

The Great Firewall of China and its role in the success of modern China

The Inviability of Ancap

Grigory Bazhenov, an economist better known to the wider community as the initiator of the project No to Excise (by the way, an interesting example of a fairly competent public campaign, do join), has published an article on the insolvency of the ancap concept.

The language of the article is not the simplest, but as I understood, after scrolling through Grigory’s channel (also recommended, by the way), he is a mainstream economist who believes that non-mainstream things should be communicated in the language of the mainstream and based upon it, otherwise one remains on the sidelines. For an economist, this is logical. For a popularizer, this is walking on thin ice.

But let’s return to the article on ancap. Grigory summarizes that the insolvency of the ancap concept lies in the fact that “anarcho-capitalism proceeds from an economic interpretation of the concepts of competition and monopoly, but at the same time transfers these concepts into spheres where they are simply inappropriate”. I am very sorry, but this is a fight in the wrong place.

The doctrine of anarcho-capitalism does not imply free competition between organizations exercising aggressive violence for the right to rob those who are less efficient in this area. This is closer to the doctrine of extraterritorial insurance rackets advocated by Oleg Tarakanov, which he considers an intermediate option between minarchism and ancap.

Anarcho-capitalism is primarily a legal, not an economic, doctrine, and it asserts that no one has the right to rob, and that any imposed contracts are null and void, regardless of the status of the person imposing the contract.

This legal doctrine is merely supported by economic theory, as it proves that purely economically, a free market is better than an unfree one from the perspective of economic agents. And then Mises says that this conclusion is enough for a smart person to choose the free market, and Rothbard adds that even if it were proven that a certain form of unfreedom were economically more profitable, “proper guys” would still be for freedom. One can treat Rothbard as a freak for such bias, but fortunately, thanks to Mises, this is indeed immaterial.

So ancap is simply a critical hum, whether addressed to a minarchist state structure or to a world of competing insurance rackets: not bad, it says, but it could be better.

What are the drawbacks of libertarian and anarcho-capitalist theories?

анонимный вопрос

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.

Who will you choose: a tyan or a kun?

anonymous question

Murmur! A series of cute questions about personal relationships has started! I’ll answer with pleasure.

I am very, very much lacking tyans. In the best case, they make up about ten percent of the total roster.

Tyans rarely interest themselves in firearms. This is a terrible, unforgivable mistake! With your own shotgun, you’ll be the star at any shooting range, and with your own carbine at 23, you’ll strike any kun dead without any violation of the NAP, so get your first gun right at 18.

Tyans rarely interest themselves in bitcoins. They can actually be understood here: because even under the new law, a tyan will retire a couple of years earlier than a kun, which means her bitcoins won’t grow as much. But, girls, why be so petty?

Tyans rarely interest themselves in economics. It’s terrible, but it’s true. You’d think it’s forgivable for a kun to think that money is bred in a bedside table, but we should know about all these matters much more fully. Girls, fuck the etatist mainstream, study the Austrian school of economics—there’s none of that nasty, nasty mathematics!

But the strangest thing is that tyans rarely interest themselves in politics. You should have heard how Yabloko-tyan lit up the stage at the rally on July 29! The whole square just melted!

Politics is kawaii.

This is the kind of tyan that’s missing

Yes, you’ve noticed that now you can donate bitcoins to me not only by a direct transfer to the wallet 1A7Wu2enQNRETLXDNpQEufcbJybtM1VHZ8, but also simply via bank card? Everything for you!

How lonely was Robinson without Friday?

anonymous question

As everyone who has read anything on economic theory knows, Robinson was damn lonely without Friday: there was no one to practice the division of labor with, and without the division of labor, economic growth is extremely difficult. Who, one might ask, is Robinson supposed to demonstrate the benefits of trade to—under conditions of both relative and absolute comparative advantage in labor productivity—if there is no peaceful, cooperative savage at hand?

No way, a decade of forced juche on a deserted island would convince even a Korean communist that autarky is a bad idea, let alone a representative of a trading nation.

Here it is, the turtle upon which all the popularization of economic theory stands!

Bitcoin is the one thing without which Robinson is especially lonely on a deserted island, and it’s also the best gift for a girl. 1A7Wu2enQNRETLXDNpQEufcbJybtM1VHZ8

Do you think machine translators will replace people in the near future?

anonymous question

I think that even cat-girls won’t be able to replace humans as long as humans remain the measure of all things)))

If we are talking only about the narrow function of translation, then people, as they usually do, will leave all the tedious stuff to machines, while they themselves will translate poetry and other highly artistic works, simply because it is a pleasure in its own right—why give that up to some machines?

mega-translator