Alex Dvoretsky cheered me up with another donation, so I am releasing the translation of the final chapter of the bonus section of Eric Mack’s book on libertarianism. The chapter is devoted to a problem faced by all indirect consequentialist approaches to creating a pleasant society to live in. For people in a society to limit themselves to voluntary interaction, voluntary self-restraint and widespread adherence to the rules of fair behavior are required. But for every specific person, there will always be a justification for deviating slightly from these rules for a bit more gain. And they know that others have similar justifications. Where would the confidence come from that everyone will follow the rules? And without this confidence, who will follow them?
This is exactly why raw consequentialism is unable to create a stable libertarian society — a catalyst in the form of a belief in the necessity of following the rules is required; that is, their observance must be seen as inherently valuable, and not just as a means to achieve general well-being. Only then will general well-being follow.
I have left to translate the last part of the book, dedicated to the critique of libertarianism. There is an introduction and four chapters; perhaps I will finish within a reasonable timeframe, before Mikhail Pozharsky, who inspired me to translate, dies of boredom.
Six months ago, Mikhail spoke in Latin America and said that the state has no incentives to “leave you alone and let you live as you wish,” but it does have economic and power-based incentives not to do so.
And at the end of the lecture, he stated directly that libertarianism is a revolutionary ideology. And if you are not an extremist-revolutionary at heart, then you are not a true libertarian.
How do you feel about this statement and the lecture as a whole?
Anonymous question
With a feeling of slight nostalgia, I reread my post about the conversation between Svetov and Shulman. I noted that neither Svetov’s premonition of a civil war nor Shulman’s premonition that the government would continue to lose ground during elections came true. Instead, we have a hecatomb that Putin is orchestrating for his own voters by the hands of the AFU, which, of course, almost no one predicted back in 2018. I suppose this means that these voters are not actually that necessary to him.
In the Latin American lecture you mentioned, Svetov launched an interesting take: that we do not resist the state not because it has the biggest club, but because deep down we actually believe in its legitimacy, even if we position ourselves as ancaps. This corresponds with Belkovich’s well-known take that we already live under ancap; it’s just that all the territories have been divided among bandits, and people mostly endure their subordinate status without complaint, although, in general, they are not obliged to.
As justification for his thesis, Svetov brings onto the stage a poor Afghan with a Kalashnikov, who first drove out the Soviet and then the American “civilizers” because his belief that he alone knew how to live correctly was far stronger.
Since Svetov spent the entire first part of his lecture savoring how he was beaten and humiliated by representatives and henchmen of the state while he was organizing the coolest events in Eastern Europe, it can be concluded that he, too, believes in the legitimacy of the state deep down. After all, a proper, sincere ancap with a bunch of bitcoins would surely have found a way to personally avenge those miserable lackeys who dared to violate the NAP against him, and thus set a good example of how to deal with violators of the non-aggression principle.
As you may have noticed, my tone was always quite extremist even in Russia, and once I left the RF, it became completely unrestrained. In practice, however, my activism very rarely goes beyond tax evasion. Perhaps I am simply waiting for a talented libertarian revolutionary who will raise the people to the barricades for freedom and the market—so that I may stand under his banner. But for now, while the fiery libertarians limit themselves to looking reprovingly at the Latin American audience in search of radicals, I must also limit myself to purely peaceful activities in building my own village ancap.
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!
Let me remind you what this is about. Here is a summary of the first article by Konstantin Morozov—about how libertarians should embrace moral realism and, along with it, agree to certain taxes; and here is a summary of the second article—about how libertarians should embrace moral realism and, along with it, agree to the state and some form of state coercion. For those who doubt whether the articles were summarized correctly, there are links to the original sources that you can review.
In my view, Konstantin is proposing a false dilemma. Here is a chair with the spikes of moral realism; if you sit on it, your desires mean nothing as long as they contradict the only correct objective morality, which will be dictated to you by the state through the mouths of court intellectuals. And here is a chair with the dicks of moral subjectivism; sit on it, and your desires mean no more than the desires of any statist.
Of course, after the marginalist revolution in economic theory, there is no longer any point in seriously talking about the objectivity of values, and moral philosophers can strain every nerve trying to invent syllogisms to prove the opposite—so, without a second thought, I take a seat on the second chair and begin to proclaim from this cozy tripod, trying to do so more coherently than is typical for Pythias.
Conflict is a state in which the same object (the subject of the conflict) is viewed as a means to achieve different goals, whereby one use hinders the other or even makes it impossible.
Every person develops their own internal settings regarding which behavioral tactic to choose in which conflicts. These are their personal ethical norms.
As for morality, it is simply the order of behavior during conflicts that garners the greatest approval in a given society.
Thus, morality is based on the subjective values of individuals, but at the same time, it constitutes an abstract object that can be roughly outlined in some set commandments, while the subtleties of one or another morality can be dissected in hundreds of treatises and thousands of literary texts. In particular, we can describe libertarian morality quite clearly; a considerable number of libertarians accept these norms in general for themselves, though, of course, they will not hesitate to argue over various subtle points.
Naturally, libertarian morality includes a norm on the permissibility of coercion for the purpose of the fair resolution of conflicts (fairness being the sense of proportionality between the value of the object of conflict and the damage caused by the conflict). But at the same time, libertarian morality also requires a person to personally enter a conflict on the fair side, and this completely negates any attempts at a monopoly in the sphere of legitimate coercion. For a libertarian, the value of decentralization is higher than the value of monetary efficiency. All other things being equal, they will prefer a decentralized solution. If a centralized one is significantly more profitable, they may permit its use as a moral compromise and continue searching for a line of behavior that is more morally comfortable for them.
I am not speaking now in categories of “ought.” No one must adopt specifically libertarian morality. But if they do, their actions will be driven by approximately the considerations outlined above. Libertarian desires are better than the desires of statists—for libertarians, because values are subjective. They are also better than the desires of statists for many other anarchists, minarchists, liberals, conservatives, and several other abstract moral types. My task is simple—to formulate these desires and follow them. As for the fluttering of individual moral philosophers around the chair with spikes, I prefer to consider it simply a variety of intellectual masochism. Why not, as long as they don’t pounce on people.
Alex Dvoretsky chipped in another 6,000 rubles, which means a fresh chapter from Eric Mack is on its way, presenting a fairly original theory of justice by a certain David Schmidtz. I have just started a new and quite time-consuming job, so as is my habit, I am posting the text without notes for now; they will follow later—otherwise, I would have to delay publication by another day.
It was interesting to translate because the author under consideration is anything but a dogmatist (dogmatists are dry and boring in their meaningless uncompromisingness). In my own book, I limited the consideration of justice only to conflicts, stating that justice is the feeling of proportionality between the damage inflicted and the value of the object of conflict. Schmidtz, however, expands this concept, stating that I am speaking only of desert, whereas there are other irreducible elements of justice, such as reciprocity, equality, and need. And by building fair norms based on a single element, a person will most likely begin to contradict other elements of justice. In short, Schmidtz offers plenty to chew on.
I received a generous donation of 1,000 rubles through boosty for the translation of the next chapter of Eric Mack’s book Libertarianism, but unfortunately, only one. However, the chapter itself is relatively modest in length, so I decided to start working on it without waiting for more money to accumulate.
From time to time, one reads that certain ethical systems have deontological or consequentialist foundations. However, sometimes virtue ethics is also singled out as a separate category. According to Eric Mack, the arguments of Douglas Rasmussen and Douglas Den Uyl rest precisely on this third leg, deriving from virtue ethics the same familiar principles. Thus, libertarian ethics can proudly sit on this tripod and proclaim truths from it that will be firmly grounded, no matter the listener’s philosophical approach.
I feel compelled to remind you, a little more insistently than usual, that various labor-intensive projects like translations progress much better if you donate—simply because without your money coming in, I’m more distracted by trying to earn it elsewhere. And it’s also worth keeping in mind that I currently have three books being translated simultaneously, and your donations are your vote for which one will be finished first.
I am continuing to translate the bonus section of Eric Mack’s book Libertarianism. It contains a selection of views from relatively obscure contemporary theorists who are developing libertarian ideology in directions they find most convenient. The second bonus chapter refers to Loren Lomski’s essay People, Rights, and the Moral Community, and primarily describes exactly which rights and for exactly what reason people would find it appropriate to waive in the interests of others.
In his reasoning, Lomski introduces the curious concept of personal projects—essentially, certain strategic goals that largely define each person’s personality and that somehow connect people with one another. Everyone knows that another person also has a personal project, and this means that they can be given a small amount of respect for it, expressed at minimum as non-interference, and at best, as unburdening assistance.
I would say that these arguments are far more appealing than those of Steiner in the previous chapter, and I am glad that something useful can actually be gleaned from the book being translated, although, of course, the concentration of useful ideas is incomparable to that of Friedman in The Machinery of Freedom, it seems to me.
Alex Dvoretsky, my subscriber on boosty, donated another 6,000 rubles for the translation of a new portion of Eric Mackay’s essay Libertarianism. Thus, I have had the opportunity to work on the bonus online section of the book, which was not included in the original printed or pirated edition. I have translated the introduction to the section, where Mackay says that, you know, you might have gotten the impression that libertarianism got stuck in the seventies, but no, Nozick is not the only one, and Hayek is not the only one singing along; we have a whole wagonload of fresher thinkers, followed by a list of completely unknown names. And I have translated the chapter about a certain Gillell Steiner, who, instead of killing himself against a wall in childhood and thereby immediately entering the public domain, decided instead to publish his musings and enter it fifty years after his death. In short, before us is a pillar of so-called left-libertarianism, and translating his thoughts was not exactly pleasant for me, because who enjoys it when a cannibal clings to you and starts declaring, “look, I’m a libertarian here too.” Fortunately, although Eric Mackay calls him a profound thinker for some reason (or rather, thoughtful), he nonetheless criticizes him in such a way that this characterization begins to seem completely contrived.
Katya Latysh (The question is accompanied by a donation in the amount of 0.00008354 BTC. There is also a second half to the question; the answer to it will be in a separate post.)
In my specific case, the principle of noblesse oblige worked. First, I was asked to play the role of Ancap-chan, and then she just stuck to me. It turned out that by starting with a good style and a sufficient amount of common sense, one could create a convincing image, and then refine it through reading literature and countless reflections. Fortunately, kind readers constantly threw me topics for reflection: how does this work under ancap, and how does that work under ancap.
I also think it was a great stroke of luck that I began my acquaintance with libertarian literature with economic works rather than the writings of moral philosophers. I think it was something light, like Callahan’s Economics for the Ordinary Person , from which I immediately moved on to Mises’s Human Action. When I tried Rothbard’s The Ethics of Liberty and Hoppe’s Argumentative Ethics, I found the line of thought there to be excessively dogmatic, preferring to operate not so much with abstract deductively derived principles as with economic logic. In this regard, David Friedman and his The Machinery of Freedom were a true discovery for me, and (also thanks to the fact that David and I do not live together) I have fervently loved him for more than a year now, which is practically a record for me in terms of the duration of feelings. From him, I would very gladly have a child (a small homage to your second question): the potential father not only has a magnificent pedigree but also possesses restrained self-irony, an extremely sane approach to raising children, and on top of that is a connoisseur of historical reenactment (though that is personal).
Now I will try to abstract myself from personal experience and generalize slightly. It seems to me that the optimal path for developing oneself as a libertarian is roughly as follows.
Upon learning that such an attractive ideology exists, immediately realize that so far you only know a few of the most striking positions. Get acquainted with some overview work that provides a fairly general outline of libertarianism. I think I managed to give a maximally brief overview of this kind in the first (and so far only) part of my future, currently untitled book about ancap. Of course, other works with similar goals are also suitable; they don’t have to be text—they could be videos of some successful lectures. A popular economics course would also help significantly, but without the shamanism regarding various macro-indicators, and instead something as close to ordinary life as possible. This is important for establishing an economic worldview, because economics is, in essence, the logic of how incentives work.
Realize for yourself the key point: libertarianism is about the person, their activity, and their interaction with other people. Any logical abstractions, such as “society,” “the state,” “violence,” “inequality,” “justice,” “the market”—these are nothing more than tools of analysis. They have no independent value and certainly no agency. It is not the state that robs and kills, but people who have become arrogant from the realization of how cool a gang is protecting them. It is not “the market” that decides, but people within the framework of market relations. It is not socialism that leads to poverty, but people practicing socialism. This means that libertarianism can be practiced here and now, without waiting for a libertarian revolution or a decree on ancap.
And after that—mostly practice (filling gaps in theory as they are identified by turning to experts and reading specialized literature). A conscious preference for voluntary relations and a conscious avoidance of robbery. Settling conflicts privately, without turning to gangsters. And if you have to turn to them—at least realize that this is precisely a gangster racket operating according to concepts deeply alien to a free person, and there is no need to pay attention to the beautiful facade on which various words are written, such as “state,” “law,” “Spartak is champion,” “Kosovo is Serbia,” “dick,” and whatever else they write on facades.
Perhaps, after some time, you will feel the urge to begin broadcasting your libertarian agenda as widely as possible. This is, of course, an impulse that is hard to resist, but it is very desirable to do this in such a form as to not look ridiculous; otherwise, you will become a walking anti-advertisement for good ideas. For this reason, for example, I do not appear in videos and prefer to avoid discussions in oral form, as that would be a much more pathetic sight than texts. Similarly, it would be counterproductive, for instance, to boast of a deep understanding of economics without having any reasonably well-placed capital or a streamlined business: counterparties will reasonably suspect that the knowledge is detached from life and will prefer the advice of celebrities.
I hope I managed to answer the first question, and Bitarch will answer the second; I will most likely also add something of my own.
I have processed another large donation and finished translating the fourth part of Eric Mack’s book “Libertarianism.” The chapter being posted is interesting because it is the first time Mack polemicizes with the discussed views of a particular author rather than simply transmitting them. Previously, there was nothing like “Locke is wrong here” or “Spencer is wrong there,” but he makes such assertions about Hayek. Apparently, this means he considers Hayek sufficiently his contemporary for it to make sense to argue with him.
Mack classifies Hayek’s argumentation against social justice, highlighting five arguments against it, and notes at the end that in his further reasoning, Hayek still departs from his own principles and argues that society does have the right to provide its members with a basic income, and that this is fair. In short, Nozick, in Mack’s presentation, appears far more consistent.
Strangely enough, this concludes the main positive exposition of the principles of libertarianism by Eric Mack. One more part will be devoted to the critique of libertarianism, and one bonus part contains a set of surnames completely unknown to me, who tweaked the ideology in their own key—I suspect, somewhere toward the left. I will deal with them starting from the next donation.
