Тег: equality

“Movement for Equal Legal Rights” instead of anarcho-capitalism

Bitarch’s Column

Recently, I posted a dilogy about “making porridge from an axe.” The second part, about preparing ancap from left-wing ideas, was based on an article that I now want to offer you. Instead of publishing it in its original form, I rewrote it completely, so the presentation turned out somewhat different. Bitarch was dissatisfied, so now I am publishing the original close to the initial text.

Let’s be honest—promoting anarcho-capitalism (Rothbard’s ancap) in its pure form to a mass audience is practically impossible. In the real world, unlike the “pink pony worlds” of libertarian public pages and chats, ancap, along with minarchism, is considered an extreme right-wing ideology that defends the interests of that very 0.1% who are so strongly hated in Western mass culture, media, and universities. In Russia, this is slightly less noticeable due to the remaining memory of the failures of socialism in the USSR, and also a general hatred of the state, which is still difficult to find in the developed world. Nevertheless, the majority of the population, both in the West and here, holds social-liberal (Alexey Navalny, Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron) and left-wing (Bernie Sanders, Jeremy Corbyn, mainstream politicians in Scandinavia) views.

From my experience promoting libertarianism, I can confidently say that for such people, the conditional “average Joes,” one might as well not try to promote classical libertarianism (ancap and minarchism)—you’ll just waste your time! They only respond to panarchy with an emphasis on socially-oriented ECUs or Svetov’s conservative communities. But it’s not all that bad—if you try, you can repackage ancap into a wrapper that is more attractive to the common person.

If you ask an average American what made the twentieth century remarkable, he will most likely name various civil rights movements and their significant achievements as one of the first points. The last century began with the suffragette movement for equal voting rights for women and men, which achieved success quite easily. Then, in the 1950s-1960s, mass actions took place for equal rights for Americans regardless of skin color (the abolition of segregation – Civil Rights Act, 1964). Almost immediately after success in this area, riots and protests in support of LGBT began (Stonewall riots, 1969), which also proved successful. A bit later, in 1973, after numerous anti-war demonstrations, conscription slavery was abolished.

Similar processes took place in Western Europe, but instead of the abolition of segregation (which never existed there), the youth protested, and they were eventually given rights as well. In the USSR, there were no protests on such a scale due to the totalitarian ideology and the suppression of any dissent, and since all formal rights had already been handed down from above, everything was limited to dissatisfaction with the economic situation and the dissident movement for the observance of human rights.

What united all these protests? The answer is simple—the struggle for equal legal rights (i.e., that very negative “freedom from”)! It was only later that similar movements degenerated into a struggle for positive rights (privileges)—quotas for Black people in universities, alimony for women, bans on hate speech in favor of homosexuals, and so on. Initially, however, all these movements only demanded that the state “not interfere”—not forbid women from voting, Black people from marrying white people or entering public restrooms, not persecute homosexuals for their behavior. And surprisingly—all these movements quickly achieved success when they demanded equal legal rights.

And what does ancap have to do with this, you ask?! The point is that it can be presented in exactly the same way as a movement for equal legal rights. The main argument is that currently some people can do things with impunity that others are not allowed to do. For example, why can some thug with a badge (“tax officer”) take away half of another person’s salary and get away with it, but if I do the same, I’ll go to prison for several years? Or why can men with certain patches beat people on the street with batons and face no consequences, while I’ll be sent to prison even for throwing a plastic cup in their direction? Is that fair?! No, it’s absolutely not fair!

The same injustice can be explained to teenagers who wish to emancipate themselves but cannot do so because the state has completely arbitrarily, on a whim, established the age of consent, the age for obtaining a driver’s “license” (actually—another privilege from bandits), and “legal adulthood” (also arbitrary; a person at 17 cannot enter into contracts, but at 18 they can—isn’t that absurd).

To raise the emotional tone of the target audience, it would be a good idea to appeal to the theory of the stationary bandit, and also to call anyone who considers such inequality fair a maniac and a rapist (because that is how it actually is; we aren’t making anything up).

From all this, it follows that one doesn’t even have to talk about ancap—if people achieve equal legal rights, it will happen on its own!

Porridge from an axe, part 2. Cooking ancap from left-wing ideas.

Thanks to Bitarch for the idea for the article

I’ve been thinking about how to illustrate the “porridge from an axe” strategy as applied to government people to move closer to ancap, and it seems the only working option is flirting with the idea of separatism. Local leadership, of course, would be happy not to depend on Moscow, and then the task is broken down into small pieces, and campaigns begin for the redistribution of taxes and powers from the center to the localities and so on. But perhaps it would be more interesting to show the strategy by pitching ideas not to officials, but to the people.

As is well known, left-wing sentiments prevail in Russia, and the key idea of the left is equality. Great, let’s cook some porridge out of equality.

Let’s start by exploiting such a wonderful base human quality as envy. If my own cow was taken away, let the neighbor’s be taken too. Not long ago, there was a pension reform where the retirement age for citizens was raised by five years. But not for everyone. Employees of security agencies and several other categories still retire early. To begin with, one could demand that their retirement age also be raised to the same age to ensure equality. If you can’t serve in the FSB at 50, that’s no reason to retire; just transfer to a civilian job and work until the end. The saved funds should be demanded to be divided among all pensioners, so the measure looks sufficiently populist.

Furthermore. If the pension amount for ordinary citizens is determined by how much they paid into the pension fund, then for privileged categories, it is a percentage of their salary. This is an irregularity; down with privileges, let’s have accruals for everyone according to a single formula!

If these measures, which do not put the state directly under attack, can be pushed through, the people will smell blood, and it will be difficult to stop them further. I will outline the remaining steps in dotted lines; the order of their implementation may change anyway.

Abolition of in-kind privileges, such as free public transport, official transport for high-ranking officials, official apartments, and the like. Everything should be folded into the salary for greater transparency and ease of administration.

Abolition of the prosecutor’s office. If the state needs a representative in court, let it hire a lawyer on general terms, rather than keeping a special staff of officials for this purpose. And to initiate lawsuits for various violations, shoulder straps are not needed at all; citizens can handle this themselves, personally or through public organizations.

Abolition of military conscription. Wagner is fighting for Russia anyway, so let it do so officially, along with Tchaikovsky, Liszt, Chopin, and other fine fellows providing their services on the market. For a locksmith with a mortgage, a competitive choice of employers is definitely more profitable than a single PMC, which moreover operates under the table.

Abolition of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. How is the police better than the Cossacks, Serba, and other guardians of traditional values and citizens’ peace? The municipality will figure out for itself whom to hire to guard the peace on the streets. And as for forensic experts—how are they better than laboratory employees who perform paid analyses for citizens? Down with inequality!

Sale of state property. Why is some official disposing of the people’s assets? Seize and redistribute! We sell state property and divide the proceeds equally among all citizens.

And so on. The entire sequential dismantling of the state is perfectly performed under left-wing slogans of equality and justice, and most importantly—there is no need to scare anyone with scary ancap.

In the twentieth century, citizens achieved the most victories under slogans of equality. This includes the movement against segregation in the USA, anti-colonialism, and feminism. And in Russia, social protests are often quite successful. So why not start using this energy in a more useful channel instead of simply branding leftists?

By the way, speaking of bayonets: the right to bear arms is also about equality