The state is an order that determines exactly how it is customary to systematically rob people in a given place. Anarchy implies a high degree of decentralization of power in society, where in the worst-case scenario, people unite into situational alliances to restore justice, and once the task is solved, the alliance begins to struggle with goal-setting and tends to dissolve. A certain analogy can be found in modern interstate relations: the NATO defensive alliance almost collapsed from neglect when the threat of the USSR vanished, but immediately revived and is ready to accept new members when the RF began rattling sabers. But for a victim of aggression to receive support under anarchy, they do not even need to formally belong to an alliance, which we can clearly see in the example of Ukraine.
The same applies to ancap: no one will object to a particular market agent becoming stronger: why not, if they satisfy their clients so well. But as soon as they begin to exercise non-market power, clients begin to flee, and competitors begin to consider which side is most convenient to strike from.
A sufficiently strong agent under ancap
Is this mechanism sufficient to ensure that ancap, once established, prospers for all eternity? I cannot guarantee it. Fukuyama deceived us: there is no end of history. The stability of ancap is based on economic incentives that prevent inefficient centralization, but anomalies cannot be ruled out. For example, the proof-of-work mechanism in Bitcoin is a good model of ancap, and we see that over time, the decentralization of mining only increases, yet the history of Bitcoin has by no means been devoid of crises related to miners’ attempts to dictate their will to coin holders. And a poorly balanced PoW, as we see in the example of ether, does not prevent the creator of the currency from ruling it unilaterally at all.
Liberal democracies are precisely an example of such crooked systems, where checks and balances are drawn on paper, but in fact, it still results in a vertical of power or, at best, an oligarchy. Designing a reasonable system of anarchic self-government from scratch and launching it instead of a particular state is a non-trivial task, and it does not occur to me how it could be implemented in the absence of crises. However, since the state is a system of robbery in which positive feedback loops are historically much stronger than negative ones (the more you have robbed, the easier it is to rob more—positive feedback; but the more you are hated—negative feedback), crises in states are inevitable. From time to time, I come up with some story about how, in one place or another, a transition from a rigid state to something like ancap occurs against the backdrop of a crisis. For instance, right here about liberal parliamentary democracy.
I’m being nudged here to speak out on the Ukrainian issue, but I’d rather answer this one instead.
Mercantilism is any policy based on the idea that free trade is unacceptable and should be regulated. In the past, one of the justifications for such a policy was the notion that trade is a war where one party loses and the other profits, and if the profiteering trader is not kept in check, he will rot everyone else while gorging himself on the people’s blood. This strange view of trade was accompanied by a belief in the harm of competition: supposedly, under competition, a merchant or craftsman cannot concentrate on one assigned area of activity, and due to meaningless fighting among themselves, there will be complete chaos in production and trade. Finally, this was accompanied by the idea that low prices for goods are harmful, just as high prices for labor are harmful—because there are “fair prices,” and every producer or trader is obliged to observe them.
It is no surprise that where such notions were strictly followed, humanity had little chance of becoming wealthy or developing technology. But this was also accompanied by the postulate of the benefit of poverty for the salvation of the soul, so no problem was seen in this.
Finally, mercantilism implied that it was extremely foolish for a ruler to allow people to buy foreign goods with money, because it was far more useful to accumulate money in the treasury—it would always come in handy for buying luxury items, but most importantly, for paying for wars. And this meant that trade should be subject to the highest possible tariffs.
A more or less systematic explanation of the errors of mercantilist views was provided by Adam Smith in his Wealth of Nations, which Pushkin reported to us when describing education in the early 19th century: he scolded Homer and Theocritus, but read Adam Smith and was a deep economist, that is, he knew how to judge how a state becomes wealthy, and what it lives by, and why it does not need gold when it has simple products. The ground was finally pulled from under mercantilism during the marginalist revolution (a conference honoring the 150th anniversary of this event was recently held in Moscow), when the pricing mechanism was explained through subjective preferences rather than cost, which finally made it clear why a voluntary transaction improves the position of both parties involved.
https://youtu.be/Z59nPehJBSE
Why then, 246 years after the publication of The Wealth of Nations and 150 years after the marginalist revolution, is mercantilism still alive in people’s heads and actively applied in politics?
Because politics is war. It is a zero-sum game where those who gain power diminish the power of others. But fighting hot wars has become a faux pas, and instead, trade wars are actively used. Want to tell another regime “to hell with you”—introduce trade sanctions against it.
Politics is not only external but also internal. Fighting hot internal wars is even more of a faux pas, but representatives of certain industries can lobby for trade preferences for themselves and restrictions for their competitors, both inside the country and abroad. The slogan of protecting the domestic producer is as effective as the slogan of protecting the homeland, and it leads to the same consequences: the domestic consumer becomes poorer.
Moreover, take even the quite libertarian Montelibero project. We also primarily try to hire project participants rather than freelancers for the project’s work. Mercantilism is psychologically comfortable: you give up a bit of personal gain, but you do a good deed for a neighbor from whom you buy a more expensive product, ignoring cheaper analogues from those you dislike. Similarly, agorists may fundamentally trade only with those who do not pay taxes, even if the effect of scale and the cost of security measures would make it cheaper to deal with taxpayers. But then the state won’t get a single agorist penny.
So what is the difference? Why do libertarians consider their own behavior moral, but state regulations criminal? Of course, it’s a matter of voluntariness. You personally have every right to sacrifice profit for the sake of moral superiority. But to demand the same from others by force—that’s a no-no!
Imagine you have entered into a contract of any kind with someone, whether it’s purchasing a product or employment. But later, the other party to the contract decides to “screw you over.” What are the consequences of such an action? This question can be answered based on who your now former partner actually is. If it was an ordinary person or a company, the worst you will experience is financial loss, and perhaps to some extent moral damage. You will be left without money, your property may be taken through deception, but overall you will still be okay and free. No market entity that does not use violence as a tool in its activities can deprive you of this.
But what happens if some bandit decides to screw you over? And a bandit can do anything, up to a beating resulting in lifelong disability, or even murder. Maintaining relations of any kind with a bandit is always dangerous because there is a significant probability that at a certain point he will decide to get rid of you. The state can also be categorized as bandits, since it is itself a stationary bandit that is not at all averse to committing violence against its citizens if it allows it to achieve certain goals. This means it is dangerous to conduct any kind of business with it, just as with any other bandit. It is enough for you to displease some official once, or even just to be disliked by them, for them to take a serious interest in you and for you to end up either behind bars or in a cemetery.
For example, let’s recall the recent case with Group-IB, a cybersecurity company. Its founder was arrested, and searches were conducted within the company itself. Although it had previously cooperated closely with the FSB, this is certainly not something that can guarantee the absence of violence on its part. From older stories, one can recall the “Seventh Studio” case, when members of a theater troupe that received government subsidies were eventually imprisoned for the alleged misuse of those subsidies. It is dangerous even to engage in work provided by the state or heavily regulated by it. Recently, two honored doctors with heroic pasts were sent to a pretrial detention center for the most ordinary provision of medical care to an elderly patient.
It turns out that it is somewhat risky to hold a government position or even simply cooperate with the state, because in such a case, any mistake or even simple dissatisfaction from the “partner” will cost you not only the loss of funds—you could be left without freedom, or even your own life. Your connections with the state certainly do not guarantee your safety from the state itself.
Taking this opportunity, I want to say thank you for the regular reposts of my materials on Twitter)))
As for the question, I believe the reason is roughly the same as why far fewer people die in earthquakes in California than in Haiti. It is because of poverty, which in turn stems from the poor organization of society.
And I am not even talking about the size of the state, because it is difficult to say offhand in which country the state interferes more in people’s lives—Sweden or Russia, California or Haiti. Any society has as much state as it resisted poorly, and mainly in those areas where the resistance was particularly ineffective.
In Russia, the main strategy for resisting the state has always been flight; therefore, people here are effective at gathering something and using it quickly—be it mushrooms from a state forest or machinery from a state factory for scrap metal—while owning real estate is always a zone of vulnerability, so they don’t get attached to it and don’t take care of it. Who would take care of state forests, and why? Who would put out the fires, and why?
In Sweden, for example, you cannot flee from the state, and people had to cling to the land. As a result, the state there is more effective at collecting taxes, since everyone sits neatly in their places, everyone is counted, and everyone is accounted for. Life costs a pretty penny and is entirely scheduled, but the forests do not burn.
I have now moved to a country where, on the one hand, private property is reasonably well protected—and this is not so much because of the state as because those are the interests of society; it is profitable for people to sell it dearly to foreigners. On the other hand, state intervention is tolerated quite reluctantly, and quite often it puts on a brave face while playing a bad game, simply legalizing over time what people did for themselves at their own risk. Forests here still burn from time to time, but gradually there is less and less ownerless junk.
If we reason specifically about the forest, then to reduce the number of fires, it is very important that it is not just private, but also belongs to owners who are not too large. A large owner, at best, will make quarterly clearings, and if lucky, will also plow firebreaks. If very lucky, they will perform selective logging and remove deadwood. But generally, for them, the concentration of production and square-nest thinking is effective. But a small owner will live in the forest themselves and will build a paved road to their farmstead. Such a road will not only serve as a firebreak but will also allow all necessary equipment to be delivered almost instantaneously anywhere to put out a blaze. And since putting out the fire will be economically effective, it will be put out.
A state, which possesses undisputed power and a monopoly on violence, is typically regarded as a purely human social phenomenon. However, if we look at the very foundation of the state’s structure—namely, the fact of coercive force exerted on people by political power—it can boldly be called one of the forms of a violent hierarchy of dominance, much like the hierarchies that arise under certain conditions in many animal species. This prompts us to analyze the phenomenon of the violent hierarchy of dominance as a whole, the prerequisites and consequences of its emergence, including in the case of humans.
We will cover all points of this topic. We will examine the history of the emergence and development of states and compare it with how violent hierarchies of dominance arise in animals, including known experiments such as “Universe 25,” in which a mouse population went extinct despite an abundance of resources, or the experiment by Didier Dezos, where some rats forcibly compelled other rats to swim across a pool for food. As a result, we will draw certain conclusions regarding the influence of violence on society as a whole.
First, let us confirm the violent nature of the state. To do this, we must turn to the theory of the stationary bandit. According to this theory, the state is a settled (stationary) bandit who decided to establish themselves in a certain territory, control it exclusively, and rob the population in the long term [1]. We should look at what serves as a prerequisite for the independent emergence of states in different corners of the world. Consider the Nile, Tigris, Euphrates, and Indus valleys in the Old World, and the Mexico Valley, as well as the mountain and coastal plains of Peru in the New World. All these places have one thing in common: lands suitable for agriculture that are limited by seas, mountains, or deserts. In such places, there is simply nowhere to flee from coercive force, which led to the appearance of the first states there. We should also add social boundaries to this. Communities located in the center of populated lands are far more likely to be subjugated than those located on the periphery [2].
Over time, the entire world came under the violent control of certain groups of people, and this continues today. Let us not forget that modern state borders were drawn as a result of wars and subjugations. Even if we assume that in the past some group of people truly volunteered to form a monopoly government, they were either forcibly subjugated by someone else, or they themselves engaged in the subjugation of others. The same happened with subsequent generations, who did not initially agree to such a contract. Current states also actively control your life and their borders, resorting to all possible means. If the state does not allow you to do something, your chances of hiding or escaping from it will be extremely slim.
Let us keep in mind what the stationary bandit theory tells us about the state and move on to considering the issue of violence in the animal world, which is very important for understanding the reasons behind the emergence of a violent hierarchy of dominance. It is worth starting with the research of ethologist Konrad Lorenz, which showed that species with strong innate weaponry have evolutionarily developed a strong innate intraspecific morality of non-violence—that is, a mechanism that inhibits the manifestation of violent behavior in intraspecific clashes [3]. The following example can effectively demonstrate this mechanism:
“During a territorial clash, venomous snakes exaggerate their size by stretching, competing to see who can stand higher; they sway and push each other, but they never bite, nor do they even display their weapons. Some species even threaten each other by turning their heads away. It is no wonder that not only ordinary people, but many zoologists, mistook the tournament battles of snakes for mating dances.” [4]
No one will dispute that venomous snakes are heavily armed species; with a venomous bite, they can instantly kill a member of their own species. But they do not bite their own. This is all due to the Lorenz mechanism (LM), for if its development had been impossible over the course of evolution, many species would simply have self-destructed. However, the development of this mechanism is a fairly obvious process, given that individuals without an innate inhibitor of violent behavior would very often face death due to repeated attacks on heavily armed conspecifics, and therefore their genetic material would not be passed on to future generations.
This mechanism can be observed to varying degrees in many species. The more heavily armed a species is, the more strongly the LM is expressed in its representatives, and conversely—in weak species, it is weakly expressed. Lorenz gave quite interesting examples regarding wolves, which do not bite their tribesmen in the neck, and ravens, which under no circumstances peck out the eyes of other ravens even during clashes. However, after leaving two turtle doves—seemingly peaceful birds of the pigeon family—in one cage for some time, Lorenz discovered that one of them nearly killed the other. Of course, a strong LM could not have developed in turtle doves because, in this case, its absence does not threaten their survival, as they have weak weaponry and can easily flee from an attacker in nature.
Based on this, we can link the development of the LM to two factors: the presence of strong innate weaponry and the impossibility of escaping from violent pursuit. Now it is time to move to the topic of the emergence of a violent hierarchy of dominance among animals, and we will take the famous experiment called “Universe 25” as an example. In this experiment, ethologist John Calhoun created an enclosure for mice in which he provided an abundance of resources. Initially, the mouse population grew rapidly up to 2,200 individuals, but after that, their numbers began to decline, and in less than 5 years, the population became completely extinct.
Many reasons for this can be cited; the conditions of Calhoun’s enclosure were actually far from paradise, and there is also an opinion that the problem lies in the abundance of resources itself—and humanity, by the way, with its current high level of prosperity, faces the same fate. However, the main factor that led to extinction, especially compared to vivariums in other laboratories where mouse populations lived peacefully for decades, was that the design of the enclosure promoted the emergence of a violent hierarchy of dominance:
“The enclosure built by Calhoun, unlike a standard vivarium or natural environments, had one characteristic feature: an extremely irrational and inconvenient systematization of space for the mice, as a result of which a situation arose where the 65 largest males were able to monopolize access to food sources and females, while the mice driven into the center of the enclosure were forced to lead a wretched existence.” [5]
Under such conditions, further reproduction became impossible. The stress level of the mice simply skyrocketed, and the males who occupied the top of the dominance hierarchy did not allow other males access to females even after losing their own ability to reproduce due to old age.
Let us recall another experiment conducted by French researcher Didier Dezos. Six rats were placed in a cage with only one exit—into a pool. At the end of the pool was a feeder with food, but the rat could not eat there—after swimming across, it would take the food and had to return to its companions in the cage. Under these conditions, a rigid hierarchy of dominance formed, in which some rats forced others to swim for food and took it from them. Here too, we can clearly link the emergence of a dominance hierarchy to the limitation of space and the impossibility of escaping from it.
Interesting cases can also be noted in the world of primates. Observation of three species of macaques showed that in two of them (the rhesus macaque and the crab-eating macaque), a strong hierarchy of dominance can be seen, whereas the social relationships of the third species (the Tonkin macaque) are non-violent in nature [6]. Different researchers explain this difference through both environmental factors and genetics. However, it is most likely that a combination of these factors is at play—the corresponding environment led to the development of corresponding innate tendencies, specifically a weaker LM in the first two species and a stronger LM in the third (this explanation is not provided in the macaque study, but it fits perfectly based on the explanation of the nature of violence in many other species).
Another interesting case was observed by biologists Robert Sapolsky and Lisa Sher regarding a troop of baboons—primates known for their aggressiveness. In 1982, the most aggressive males of this troop began feeding at a tourist dump and ate contaminated meat. Eventually, they all died, leaving behind less aggressive males. As a result, the level of violence in the troop decreased sharply [7]. It is also worth remembering the pygmy chimpanzees—bonobos, whose behavior is less violent than that of other chimpanzees. This fact is explained by the fact that they do not have to share their habitat with large and aggressive gorillas. The latter displace and limit the resources of other chimpanzees, which effectively leads them to the very situation where there is nowhere to flee from violence within society due to the limitation of available living space.
Let us now return to humans. Humans are naturally a weakly armed species, which is one of the prerequisites for the development of a weak version of the LM. Combining this with the fact of the limited space suitable for agriculture in the territory where the first states emerged, one can conclude that the state is the same form of violent hierarchy of dominance as in the case of other species when they also find themselves in similar living conditions. And over time, people most prone to violence, who occupied the top of this hierarchy, gained increasing opportunities to control and restrict the freedom of all other people. Thus we have arrived at the modern state of total control, in which, as we mentioned at the beginning, without permission from above, you have no right to anything, including the right to escape from the violence of the stationary bandit.
This state of affairs seriously threatens the survival of humanity. Let us recall Calhoun’s experiment. Many call it prophetic in view of the observed decline in birth rates in developed countries. But usually, incorrect reasons are given, related to the high level of prosperity. The only correct reason is the existence of a violent hierarchy of dominance. This also explains why birth rates do not decline as sharply in less developed countries—states there simply lack the technical means and resources to control their population, regardless of what level of control is written in their laws.
Another reason why violence is a major problem and must be fought is the multitude of negative externalities. These include the increase in stress levels in society and the slowing of economic development, but most importantly—the risk of the destruction of humanity due to the use of weapons of mass destruction. And such means are becoming more accessible every day, even for small organizations and individuals. For example, trends in the development of biotechnology tell us that creating artificial viruses will soon be a fairly easy task, which in turn will allow some violent individual to create and release a very dangerous infection, far more serious than the coronavirus we recently faced. You can learn more about these externalities and methods for fighting violence in another material titled “Violence: Problems and Solutions” [8].
Won’t all the other states crush it with all sorts of sanctions, like they did with Belarus—banning all firms from flying here, all ships from sailing here, all banks from transferring money here, all goods from being delivered here… or will the black market and smuggling ultimately win?
Orlik
The fears are not unfounded. One recalls, for example, the initiative to unify tax rates worldwide and pressure countries where taxes are too low—to discourage them from poaching capital from welfare economies.
Or we don’t even have to go that far; we can simply remember that customs require the country of origin of the goods to be specified. If the state (recognized by that specific customs office) does not exist, the declaration cannot be filled out. This wouldn’t even be due to anyone’s malicious intent. Simply put, the ancap case does not fit into existing state regulations, and even the most well-meaning official will just shrug their shoulders, saying they can’t help.
Of course, the market will provide some kind of crutches. The most obvious solution is not to abolish the state on paper. Let other states interact with the ancap zone through an emulator. In the cheapest version, I see it roughly like this: there is a nominal head of state, elected by lot from everyone who expressed a desire to participate in a drawing held every, say, four years, who has one single power, which is also a duty: to issue any documents upon request to anyone within a specified timeframe on behalf of the state “let’s say, Ukraine,” in whatever format the client requires—without taking any fee for the transaction into their own pocket, but placing all costs for preparing the documents on the customer. The very first refusal to sign or a delay in delivery leads to immediate resignation and the start of a new drawing. That’s it.
Need a package of documents for trade with “let’s say, Germany”? Draw them up, bring them for signature to the head of state of “let’s say, Ukraine,” and he is obliged to sign. A troll wants permission to eat small children? Let him draw up the permission and bring it for signature. The state doesn’t care; it will sign. The state emulator simply has absolutely no authority to enforce any directive. And if some other state gets the emulator to sign a request to introduce a peacekeeping contingent into the territory of “let’s say, Ukraine” to prevent the genocide of mice by frogs—this will in no way increase the legitimacy of its actions should it begin to fulfill that request.
But let’s return to the actions of other states against “let’s say, Ukraine,” dictated by malicious intent. It might feel as though, without active interstate diplomacy, businesses in the ancap territory are unable to defend their interests, which would worsen the territory’s investment climate. However, on the other hand, this territory is completely free from protectionist norms and places no obstacles in the way of international investors. This means that any influential corporation will be interested in ensuring that its home state does not hinder its operations in a stateless territory. In other words, foreign business will begin to play the role of its own diplomats. So, the market has tools to resolve things here as well. Yes, certain rigid states will easily ban any business working with the ancap zone—fortunately, there are enough states that it would be difficult for them to consistently violate the interests of the businesses that feed them. Seriously significant sanctions require consolidated public opinion to support them—even sponsors of terrorism are not always met with a serious response, and a peaceful stateless society is even less likely to agitate the global public enough for serious economic sanctions against it to be introduced, and once introduced, maintained for long.
The usual answer is that the difference lies in the right to freely leave. But the rules of life in a community can differ so much from the requirements of the outside world that leaving becomes practically impossible. Where would someone who leaves an Amish community, or a communist one, go? They are simply not adapted to life.
Where is the guarantee that some community won’t prepare for an aggressive war against others? Where is the guarantee that anyone wishing to leave the community will be allowed to? Where is the guarantee that someone who has left will be accepted elsewhere?
Anonymous question
States are territorial communities recognized by the leadership of other similar territorial communities as sovereigns over their territory. There can also be territorial communities that are not recognized as sovereigns. For example, condominiums. They may have their own customs, but the state remains the sovereign over that territory. There can be extraterritorial communities. An example is the church. The only church that also has its own state is the Catholic Church. It can be viewed both as an extraterritorial jurisdiction with sovereignty over a small territory and as a state with a very powerful diaspora abroad.
The freedom to leave does not separate communities from the state in any way; it has nothing to do with it here. There can be states with the freedom to renounce citizenship. There can be any other territorial and extraterritorial communities with the freedom to leave. And, similarly, all the same can exist without the freedom to leave. The freedom to leave is the characteristic by which we can judge whether a community is compatible with a libertarian order.
Your concerns regarding guarantees of how decent the order will be in various communities, and how dangerous these orders will be for both the members of the community and those around them, are quite justified, since current sovereign territorial communities aka states cannot provide any such guarantees and regularly demonstrate that such concerns are not groundless.
Today, a state can be coerced into observing propriety in three ways: by the threat of attack from other states, the threat of severing interstate economic ties, and the threat of internal regime instability. In a world without states, similarly, a community that is dangerous to others would have those same incentives to behave decently. So why abolish states at all?
In principle, there is no need. If the vast majority makes constant active efforts to ensure that territorial sovereigns do not violate individual rights, it will be a quite decent world. But in such a world, states would not have the opportunity to fight those who wish to associate in a different manner, for example, within the framework of a contract. Thus, a world of minimal states will inevitably be diluted by extraterritorial associations of people who maintain rules within themselves that are not tied to a territory.
As for the fear that people fleeing a highly exotic community will find themselves completely maladapted to life in a global world, it seems exaggerated to me. There are a huge number of migrants in the world who adapt to life in new conditions, and the easier it is, the more they like these new conditions. So this particular factor is not something to fear. Migrants are dangerous if they become a tool of politics. Purely economic relations benefit all their participants.
If the Amish are such maladapted folks, why are they so wealthy?
Do you believe that social justice, democracy, general welfare, developed feminism, LGBT rights, juvenile justice, tolerance, reliable protection of human rights, liberty, equality, and fraternity are good or bad, and why?
In classical liberalism, the state is considered an evil necessary for the protection of private property rights. In libertarianism, it is not considered necessary for this function; however, as long as it limits itself to this, its existence may be considered justified. In a conditional EU-style liberalism, the state is viewed as a tool for reconciling the interests of various strata of society, one that is more convenient than free market tools.
What is the convenience of the modern liberal state compared to the classical liberal one? Primarily, it is that being personally responsible for one’s own life is a rather frightening level of responsibility for many people. In the market, you must independently decide which property objects to insure, where, and under what conditions; how much and when to save for unforeseen circumstances or for an entirely predictable old age; which neighbors’ claims to satisfy and which to actively oppose, and if you oppose them, whether to do so independently or in a coalition. This is somewhat complicated; it’s better to spend one’s finite intellectual resources on skills that bring in money, and delegate all the aforementioned tasks, as far as possible, to those who are more savvy in these matters.
In a complex world where narrow specialists interact, a vast number of standardized solutions will inevitably be used, and a significantly smaller number of custom ones. The state is a standardized solution for any issues where it is not entirely clear who to offload them onto. And since such issues are constantly proliferating, the functionality of the state—even one consisting of entirely well-meaning liberal bureaucrats completely devoid of corrupt interests—will inevitably expand.
But as the state grows, its inefficiency inevitably grows as well. A Swiss Army knife with a couple hundred blades looks great in a store window, and you really want to buy this shiny toy, but in everyday life, the vast majority find it more convenient to have one very simple knife for most standard tasks, plus a couple of highly specialized ones that are used rarely, but when others are extremely inconvenient. A durable jumpsuit with a bunch of pockets looks exquisitely designed, but in a relaxed setting, a person throws on shorts and a t-shirt. It seems like you’d want to be able to call 911 and solve absolutely any problem, but in practice, this means you’ll get tired of fighting an automated answering machine, selecting menu items, and in the end, you’ll still be directed to the wrong specialist.
One would think that the more aggressive the environment, the tougher and more reliable the institutions should be. Therefore, on a small yacht in the middle of the sea, a single chain of command and clear functional duties for each crew member are quite appropriate, while on a beach, it’s enough that those wishing to play volleyball don’t trip over those sunbathing; otherwise, let complete anarchy reign and no one will care about anyone else. But the state cannot do that. It grew out of military needs, and it’s like a guy who returned from the front, suffers from PTSD, and is extremely outraged that people on the beach aren’t buttoned up to the top, aren’t marching in formation, and aren’t saluting. If you let him establish his order, everyone will have a hard time, even without unofficial hazing. And it’s no better when the state looks like a safety engineer. Fence off the volleyball court! Divide swimming zones by gender and age! Everyone put on life jackets! Organize the delivery of ice cream and lemonade! But the ice cream must be warm so that no one catches a cold, and the lemonade sugar-free, regardless of the fact that the ice cream has sugar. And then the state will see some kind of COVID, and the whole beach will go down the drain because everyone must stay home and wash their hands.
For Bitarkha, it is important that no one attacks anyone. Because one person will attack with fists, and another will sneeze on the first, and the whole world will die from a virus. So that no one dares to attack anyone, it is desirable that everyone be armed, and those who are not stopped by the sight of a weapon in others’ hands should be stopped some other way. It could be a bullet at the moment of attack, but it’s more humane to make them change their mind, perhaps, say, medicinally. Fortunately, Bitarkha only needs people to observe the NAP; otherwise, he would be indistinguishable from an adept of the COVID-fighting state. In order to live in a safe society, he is willing to pay well.
It is important to me that both I and the people around me are wealthy and free. For this, people must not be robbed or restricted, and they must not be extorted for all sorts of useless nonsense. For this, robbing and restricting must be dangerous, unprofitable, and unprestigious. And I, as a civilized and benevolent person, would of course prefer that people be stopped from robbing and regulating for reasons of lack of prestige, or at the very least, lack of profitability. If I have to ensure a threat to them as well, that will stress me out.
I apologize for the lack of a direct list, such as “I feel this way about social justice, that way about democracy,” and so on.
In the past (150-200 years ago and earlier), laws were much more primitive than they are now. Many aspects of life were not regulated at all, many definitions of terms were missing (for example, “everyone must pray loudly in the mornings” — how loud is loud, and where is the boundary of the morning?), and many points were left to the discretion of the subjects of law and the enforcers. Additionally, everyone had the right to carry weapons, and the tax burden was quite primitive. Can it be considered that the society of that time was much closer to ancap than the current one? And if so, why did we take the wrong turn?
анонимный вопрос
On this topic, it is worth first revisiting one of our videos about the stationary bandit, where we explain this simple theory and show how the natural state turned into the strange absurdity we have now.
Specifically, the video indicates where we took the wrong turn. We took the wrong turn every time we traded freedom for security. In the case of the proto-ancap of Ireland or Iceland, we are talking about the external conquest of quite blatant backwaters, so one could say it didn’t matter what the natives chose; they effectively had no choice, and brute force decided. But in the USA, you cannot rely on the factor of external conquest, as they managed to win the War of Independence in a mode of anarchy. But after that, there was indeed a turn in the wrong direction. In a free market, competition among producers is beneficial to the consumer. But to the producer, of course, a monopoly is beneficial. There are more consumers, but they are worse organized. A cohesive minority is capable of securing a disproportionately large amount of influence. Thus, in the USA, the federal government began to swell, introducing economic regulations, and the state of affairs in the states began to look less and less like ancap. They put a finger in the state’s mouth, and it bit off the whole arm.
From a slightly different perspective, but in much greater detail, this process is examined in the book by Rodion Belkovich, Blood of Patriots, which I recently pirated (don’t forget to donate to the CRI after reading, as the author dislikes pirates and needs to be re-educated). In Europe, the same processes took place with even greater permissiveness from society because they never even got a whiff of real anarchy, so they tried to invent an unreal one based on the denial of private property.
Next, check out our second video on the conditions for the stability of anarchy.
There, we talk about the main condition without which nothing will work. Looking at the macro level, it is a matter of prevailing values. The value of freedom must be higher than the value of security; otherwise, it will be impossible to turn toward ancap, and even if one manages to get there, without the personal protection of one’s rights, it is easy to return to slavery.
But how can freedom remain more valuable than security if the value of human life is growing? The thing is, there are living people on the aggressor’s side too, and they also value security. The willingness to inflict unacceptable damage on the attacker during defense is the basis of the deterrence doctrine, about which we also made a video, and I suggest finishing today’s topic with it.
After publishing yesterday’s post, I encountered an interesting objection from Anton Epikhin, the lead of the channel RLN.Today. He argued that my idea of privatizing a profitable state-owned company is not the best thing that can be done to abolish the state. In short, the reasoning is as follows. People are used to a certain set of public goods provided by the state, and the state’s refusal to provide them would cause widespread outrage, and therefore the situation would be quickly rolled back. Consequently, from a purely political standpoint, it is quite difficult to strip the state of habitual functions such as the police or courts, even if it provides these services at a high cost and very low quality. However, one can try to sell citizens the idea that these services be provided by joint-stock companies where all citizens are shareholders. But a “Court” JSC is also not the most obvious idea. However, if one starts with a state investment company, then why not; this type of state ownership is certainly not essential, and the idea of transferring it to citizens would be successful. Instead of selling it at auction to private individuals, with a subsequent distribution of the proceeds among citizens, the company’s shares could be distributed equally among citizens. After the change of nominal owners, the company would continue to operate in the same mode, except that instead of paying dividends to the sole shareholder—the state—it would pay them to the new shareholders—the citizens.
I reasonably countered that it doesn’t really make a difference. After receiving the shares, people will still decide for themselves what to do with them—hold them, sell them, or buy them from others to obtain a large stake. With equal success, one could have first sold them to those interested, and then let them spend the proceeds however they wish. But no, Anton replies, there is a difference. Having seen the example of high-liquidity state assets and realized that they can be transferred to the ownership of citizens, citizens will get a taste for it and will be more likely after some time to demand that this operation be repeated with other assets, including the army and the police. But if the investment company were simply sold and the money distributed, it would be much easier to say about other state structures that “you don’t understand, this is different,” and that “this other thing” will be funded by taxes.
It still seems to me that there is no significant difference. More precisely, there is none from an economic point of view, but as for which specific decision from a psychological and political rhetoric standpoint will be easier to sell to people, and which is more likely to be followed by further steps toward the denationalization of society—that is difficult for me to say. So I am simply describing this point of view; perhaps it is indeed valid, and in that case, any Singaporeans among my readers should, of course, insist specifically on such an option for the reorganization of Temasek Holdings.
