Тег: Government

Which industries/spheres will remain in the hands of the state in the Libertarian Russia of the Future? Or will everything be private?

Anonymous question

The question itself already contains part of the answer. Since we are talking specifically about a Libertarian Russia, this already implies a minarchist scenario. Within this scenario, diplomacy, the protection of citizens from external aggression, and the enforcement of court decisions remain in the hands of the state.

Why diplomacy is the easiest to explain. If there are states in the world, it means there can be interstate agreements, and therefore it is necessary to maintain a certain state structure that will prepare and sign these agreements.

In a similar way, one can understand why the protection of citizens from external aggression becomes a matter for the state. It is easy and pleasant when external aggression is carried out by some bandits who are not part of the privileged club of state bandits. A private company can handle them without any diplomatic consequences. However, it would be difficult for a private company to explain to someone like Kim Jong Un that he is wrong: to him, they would look like some terrorists with whom negotiations cannot be conducted, if only because there is no one to talk to: the state considers only another state as a counterpart.

The most questionable justification is why the state should be allowed into the sphere of enforcing court decisions. But even here, one can refer to possible incidents with foreign companies, who might perceive violence against them by private actors as lawlessness and run to complain to their own government.

In any case, this is how minarchists envision the desired future, and I, generally, am not against it — but only until non-state practices begin to be actively implemented in these three areas as well.

By the way, who under minarchism will decide how many migrants to let in and on what terms? The democratic majority? Whoever pays more?

Already(web)

Regarding state borders, under minarchism, the state retains the function of protecting borders from armed invasion, as well as negotiating with other states regarding where these borders actually lie. Therefore, if foreign armies are viewed as a type of migrant, their presence on the state’s territory will be determined by intergovernmental agreements, which, in turn, will be based on the opinion of those who hired that government. In a democratic minarchist state, this will be the democratic majority.

As for all other migrants, the regulation of their movements does not fall within the state’s sphere of competence at all. How many labor migrants, tourists, or refugees to let into a minarchist state is decided by the owners of the infrastructure used for their movement. How many to let across the threshold of an establishment is decided by the owner of the establishment. How many to hire is decided by the employer. And so on.

Dispute over state borders

Mikhail Svetov released a new video in which he briefly formulated thoughts he has repeated many times in his lectures: open borders violate freedom of association, a world without borders is a world where there is nowhere to run, and his other well-known set of paradoxical conclusions. But before I could formulate what exactly is wrong with his concept, it was done by Vera Kichanova — a girl who herself was the media face of LPR for quite a long time, then emigrated, and after some time, Mikhail Svetov, returning from abroad, took the vacant spot.

Thus, we have an ideological confrontation between two media heavyweights, and it is certainly worth our attention.

Vera notes two logical contradictions in Mikhail’s video: first, the state creates closed borders, not open ones, while open borders exist by default, without any state; second, freedom of association is primarily the right to associate, not to fence oneself off, and closed borders violate this right.

In essence, several understandings of the word “borders” are participating in the discussion. First, a border as a line across which people, goods, and money move. Second, a border as a line demarcating territories with different orders. Mikhail warns that uniform orders will be established everywhere (a world where there is nowhere to run) and for this reason calls for closing borders to the movement of people (and mercantilists echo him, suggesting to simultaneously limit the movement of goods and money). Vera, on the other hand, proposes to completely eliminate borders of the first type, but has nothing against the second, because that is precisely the manifestation of freedom of association.

Forgive me if I expressed this quite complexly, but the topic is not the most trivial.

Vera and borders

And what about the age of consent? Are all libertarians really pedophiles?

Anonymous question

The age of consent is simply an arbitrarily chosen age from which the state allows a “yes” answer to be considered “yes” without punishment; in other words, it is a crude and expensive-to-maintain crutch for common sense. In the absence of a state, nothing prevents a person from independently relying on common sense and independently weighing the consequences of their actions.

As for a “no” answer, libertarianism at no age allows it to be considered “yes” without punishment, which resolves the problem of violence.

I’ll just go ahead and agree!

And is painting graffiti on state property an infringement on property, or do you have the right by definition since you pay taxes?

Anonymous question

What are you even talking about? That which government officials are meant to manage is not property at all. It is simply a no-man’s-land resource. Soviet people, who invented the formula “you are the master here, not a guest—take every nail from work,” understood better than anyone what “state-owned” meant. By the way, it was precisely this tactic toward the state that led to its end; it was literally dismantled nail by nail, and only after that did people acquire a certain amount of property that was previously inaccessible to them.

So, graffiti on no-man’s-land walls is simply decorating the space around oneself at one’s own expense.

P.S. Following the discussion of the answer, I will add: graffiti on a government institution is not an attack on property (a government institution is not owned), but it is an attack on the privilege of government officials to have absolute control over the building’s walls.

Isn’t it true that this is better than leaving a bare wall?