Тег: LP

Apology for Agorism

One often reads that agorism not only fails to help abolish the state but actually directly harms the libertarian movement. The main argument against agorism boils down to the claim that the black market in no way contributes to the disappearance of the state. On the contrary, by reducing the share of legally employed people, the growing black market increases the tax burden on the white market, as well as the number and severity of various inspections. Thus, the competitiveness of the state’s economy declines, people become impoverished, and the poor are prone to socialist views. Therefore, it is respect for the law and civilized political activity that allow for gradual movement toward freedom, while all forms of rebellion only give the state excuses to tighten the screws.

To everyone deeply interested in this issue, I would recommend reading Konkin’s “New Libertarian Manifesto”, as well as the discussion between Konkin and Rothbard regarding this manifesto. And for symmetry, it is worth looking at Rothbard’s “For a New Liberty”, which serves as the manifesto of the Libertarian Party of the USA—although the latter work is significantly more voluminous than the first two.

Both sides presented various interesting arguments in their discussion, which took place in the early eighties of the last century. However, nearly forty years have passed since then, and we can see what has changed in the USA.

The Libertarian Party continues to slowly increase its electoral support, received nearly 5% of the voters’ votes in the 2016 presidential election, and has a few small electoral victories. However, the trend of the USA turning into a socialist state has not been broken; there is incredible monetary emission and an increase in national debt, and the powers of intelligence services are expanding—in short, the state is advancing in full force.

Meanwhile, agorists have invented Bitcoin, are operating full-throttle in the darknet, printing weapons on 3D printers, and mastering biohacking. At the intersection with panarchists, they are launching Bitnation.

And finally, there is the phenomenon of New Hampshire, where agorists and supporters of political methods combined their efforts, even if without much concern for coordinating their actions. Political activists there are actively elected to legislative bodies and engage in deregulation. Meanwhile, agorists organize direct action campaigns to demonstratively violate idiotic laws—and this also sparks public campaigns for their repeal. It is precisely the simultaneous action on two fronts that led to New Hampshire becoming the freest of all fifty states.

A similar tactic is used by the Georgian Girchi party. On one hand, it is a political party; it participates in elections and is ostensibly a legal subject of politics. On the other hand, it is a gang of hardcore agorists who openly grew marijuana right in their central office and then publicly sold joints in the square in the presence of the police. This led to the legalization of marijuana in Georgia. Now they have organized a brothel in their central office—everything points to the fact that sex work will soon be legalized in the country as well. Thus, we see that coordinated actions of politicians and agorists yield an even more effective result than if they worked separately.

Meanwhile, agorism by itself simply slowly delegitimizes the state and increases the share of people who have, more or less, slipped from under its short-sighted eye. And the political process by itself helps broader masses learn the word “libertarianism.” Both are very useful, but neither compares in effect to the joint application of these two recipes—agorism and minarchism. And we have barely seen the implementation of panarchist developments, with their functional contractual jurisdictions. I suspect that an offensive on three fronts at once would be even more effective.

In Russia over the last year, the positions of the Libertarian Party have strengthened quite significantly. I would like the agorists not to lag behind; otherwise, it will be like in Ukraine, whereas I would prefer it to be like in Georgia. The Russian Libertarian Party has its own Rothbard—Mikhail Svetov. All that is left is to find its own Konkin.

the father of world agorism

New translation!

We present for your consideration a translation of the article by Rainer Eichenberger and Bruno Frey “Functional Overlapping and Competing Jurisdictions (FOCJ): Developing the Idea of Modern Federalism”.

The article examines a model for a soft, evolutionary transition to a libertarian society through functional panarchy. The model was developed for actual implementation via political means (which is why it is non-radical and complies with the requirements of legislation on political parties). It could serve as a strong foundation for updating the program of the Libertarian Party of Russia, as it is well-suited for heterogeneous political entities such as the Russian Federation. Although a significant portion of the article is dedicated to proposals for reforming the European Union, a separate chapter analyzes the specifics of implementing FOCJ in developing countries.

Translation: Kreadon
Editing: Ancap-chan
General coordination: Bitarch

11 years of LPR

Today, the Libertarian Party of Russia celebrates its eleventh anniversary. A solid age, solid achievements, solid prospects.

At eleven years old, the party has turned into something of an awkward teenager—growing rapidly, gradually learning how to communicate with others on equal terms, but not yet perceived by many as an independent political entity.

The party is created from the bottom up, so it is not very susceptible to the problem of leader dictates. The flip side of this is, and will continue to be for a long time, an extreme limitation of resources. This allows for the development of the most efficient practices, providing maximum effect with minimal costs.

I would like to wish everyone who is a member of the LPR, and everyone who sympathizes with it, to continue increasing the party’s effectiveness as a tool for fighting statism. As for those who do not believe that a political party can be a tool for fighting statism at all, I would wish them to temper their arrogance and perceive the party as a community of libertarians with whom it is perfectly possible to hold a dialogue and offer some additional tools, even if, in your opinion, they are spending disproportionately large efforts on some useless nonsense. It might be useless to you, but they see it differently. Self-ownership, the subjective theory of value, all of that.

There is an LPR cell in Novosibirsk. I got the impression that you used to have common interests with them, and then you distanced yourself slightly.

The explanation “so that the tyan’s opinion isn’t confused with the party’s official position” isn’t very clear to me. A tyan is a tyan, a party is a party, who would confuse the two? Can you break it down for me, like I’m an idiot, what the reason is?

John Griffith (response paid in the amount of 0.0025 BTC)

I have already answered once briefly about my understanding of the inner workings of the LPR. By design, a party is an organization engaged in organizing the political struggle for seats in government bodies. Those who join the party solely because of their libertarian views feel somewhat uncomfortable in it; to them, all this political struggle may even seem like utter foolishness. This creates completely unnecessary friction within the party.

Nevertheless, no bottom-up organized party can achieve success without numerous supporters who will provide funds for its activities in the background. And not so much through direct donations, but through the purchase of merchandise or tickets to public lectures. But their main task is to serve as agents for promoting libertarian ideology in society.

All these people, far removed from the political struggle, nevertheless want to know that they represent a strong and numerous community. The party, however, cannot and should not organize an entertainment program for them; that is not its task. From this, a demand naturally arises for the appearance of many diverse libertarian associations: shooting, cryptocurrency, educational—or even just small social circles without any specialization, which, for example, inevitably arise among the audience of one blogger or another.

The party, however, needs to determine whether a particular group is part of the party structure or is autonomous. And if it is autonomous, to what extent the party can afford to be associated with it. After all, it is through such associations that it is very convenient for the state to dilute the libertarian agenda. Yesterday some Enteo is smashing exhibitions, today he calls himself a libertarian, tomorrow people, hearing about libertarians, think they are all psychos like Enteo.

Hence all this party vigilance regarding whether a particular opinion leader calling themselves a libertarian is worthy of the name, and if someone says something, for example, about the ideas of one of the prominent party ideologues, whether to consider this still an intellectual discussion or already an intra-party split. Don’t judge these guys harshly; maintaining a single coordinated party position on key issues is indeed an important task for the political struggle.

But at the same time, the richer and more diverse the libertarian community is, the harder it will be for a conditional Enteo to draw attention to himself. Decentralization saves from the hijacking of control much like it saves a blockchain from fraudulent transactions. And in this case, there will no longer be a great need for a single centralized validator of publicly expressed views, such as a party, and only pure political activity will remain with it. As for now, I’d better stand aside, since my views in many ways do not coincide with the party program, so why stress good people and insist on the official status of the project? A confederative principle of interaction in our case is exactly what is needed.

Distanced herself…

How can the transition to ancap be carried out by political methods?

Bitarch Explains

People often ask how a libertarian society can be built by coming to power through elections. I will not dwell in detail on whether a libertarian party can come to power through elections at all, because this is the weakest point of the entire idea.

What options for building a libertarian society can the LPR choose? Mikhail Svetov often mentions them in his lectures, so I will try to explain them in plain language and provide my own comments.

1) Federalization. Mikhail constantly praises the USA and Switzerland for their model of national organization, reminding us that the RF is also de jure a federation (but not de facto—due to the violation of the constitution by the state’s first person). In this case, it will be possible to test various models of libertarianism in different regions and transfer best practices from one to another. The advantage of this approach is that in the event of an error, the consequences will be limited to one region rather than spreading across the entire country.

2) Homesteads. The idea is borrowed from the history of the settlement of the USA, when settlers from Europe occupied vacant lands, and later the government recognized their property rights to these plots. Svetov proposes to distribute the uninhabited territories of Siberia and the Far East in this way, granting settlers the right to autonomy, as if they were colonizing Mars (and accordingly, the opportunity to experiment with various libertarian models). Successful practices from these regions could then be gradually transferred to the main part of the country. Although, judging by the comments on this idea, people are not very eager to move to regions with such a harsh climate and a total lack of infrastructure.

3) Minarchism. A gradual transition to ancap is carried out through the gradual reduction of state functions across the entire country at once (as if the RF were a unitary state, which it is de facto now). Svetov means exactly this path when he calls himself a “forced minarchist.” This immediately raises the question of the stability of minarchism as such, which is further amplified by the centralization of power. A single unsuccessful reform could easily incite the people’s rage and end the LPR’s time in power, which would then create a negative image for the entire libertarian idea in the eyes of the general public for a long time.

Personally, I would propose another option—federalization of the country (simply follow the current constitution of the RF, it’s already in there) and the creation of competing extraterritorial contractual jurisdictions within regions that have approved the experiment by referendum. As the model is refined and “pitfalls” are eliminated, the geography can be expanded, gradually making all of Russia libertarian.

To the last paragraph, I would like to add that an extraterritorial jurisdiction is extraterritorial precisely so as not to be limited by some narrow list of regions. Today, there is one extraterritorial jurisdiction in the world—the jurisdiction of the United States of America. This state does not care whose territory its citizen is on; they continue to exercise their jurisdiction over them. But it is, of course, not contractual.

Ancap-chan

Why are there so many anime fans among your supporters?

anonymous question

To be honest, I don’t fully understand it myself.

It’s just that anime is a genre as far removed as possible from any kind of traditional values. Apparently, free people are drawn to those directions in art that they associate with freedom. Thirty years ago, they were more drawn to Hollywood, but now, from all its wealth of ideas, only the idea of diversity stands out, and as a result, the fashion for it is fading.

And then, of course, there is the general infantilization of humanity, linked to the fact that people have begun to live longer, richer, and more carefree lives, and therefore can afford not to fully leave childhood until the onset of senile dementia. It’s all better than turning into gloomy little old men at the age of five.

Bitcoin-chan

Right now I have pure, unadulterated childhood joy: in the third month of the channel’s existence, the first donation has finally arrived. Here it is, look how lovely!

Hi! How do you feel about feminism? And what if I am a feminist and share libertarian ideas? Will I be accepted into the libertarian party? And how comfortable will I be there (I’ve heard that many of you don’t like feminists)?

anonymous question

Hi!

The answer to this question was composed in close cooperation with a feminist friend)))

I feel positive toward feminism, although I do not consider myself part of the movement. I am for equality. Whether or not to share certain values and ideas is a personal matter for each individual, and I have nothing against it as long as the non-aggression principle is not violated.
Many in the party view the problems raised by feminism as a particular case of the problem of aggressive violence, seeing no value in categorizing these issues as a separate class. So, in principle, it is entirely possible to simultaneously hold feminist and libertarian ideas.

How comfortable will a feminist be in the LPR? They certainly won’t be lonely, because there are feminists in the party, but as for comfort, I can’t say—that is a rather subjective concept. There are some in the party who are absolutely livid with non-libertarian feminists, but there are very few of them.

Why is there so little libertarianism in the libertarian party and is everything centralized?

anonymous question

I received a whole series of questions on a similar theme, and I chose the least acute phrasing that allows for a substantive answer.

The fundamental documentary description of the libertarian party, as with any other political party in Russia, is defined by the Russian law on political parties. The party made four attempts at state registration, making amendments to the charter each time to comply with the Ministry of Justice’s requirements. Eventually, the Ministry of Justice made it clear that there would be no registration without a green light from the presidential administration, and at the 2017 congress, a decision was made to end this farce until the wind changes.

But the charter remained: a charter of a vertical structure consisting of regional branches subordinate to a federal committee, with a congress convened by the federal committee according to representation norms adopted by the federal committee, and with a federal committee elected by the congress. Any Russian party created from the top down maintains full controllability thanks to such a layout until it is decided to tear it apart—after which alternative congresses, committees, and the like magically emerge, and the party is either seized or disappears.

The LPR, however, was created from the bottom up. This does not mean that within the framework of the same charter it suddenly becomes capable of meaningful activity. It means that the values of joint activity for the purpose of spreading the libertarian agenda prove to be higher for people than any formal decisions made without their participation or against their will. Therefore, the overall success of the party is greater the less attention party members pay to the formal side of party activity and, accordingly, the lower the notorious controllability is.

At this point, it’s worth asking why call itself a party at all, rather than a libertarian movement or something of the sort. What difference does it make? Historically, it so happened that this particular entity has this particular name. As long as the costs of keeping the name and charter documents are lower than the costs of changing them, everything will remain as it is; just don’t confuse the map with the territory. Next, you’ll be asking why a character named LPR-chan doesn’t project the official point of view of the party!

So the main thing is to ensure powerful momentum, engage new people as supporters, and compel outsiders to pronounce the word “libertarianism” without a hitch; whether a trip to the shooting range or bowling is documented as a meeting of the steering committee of a regional branch is completely unimportant.

LPR logo (by the way, a different logo is described in the charter, but who cares!)

Yes, just in case: donations to LPR-chan do not count as party dues.

I’m a kun. I’ve been in the party for over 6 months, but still no tyan. How do I romance a little libertarian tyan?

anonymous question

I feel your pain, bro!

The hardest part about romancing a libertarian girl is actually finding one. If you already have someone in mind, ninety percent of the task is done. After that, you just need to study her consumer preferences and understand at what cost you will be able to satisfy them… no.
Of course, describing such things in the language of economics would be wrong.

I can assume that if the girl is a libertarian, she will appreciate how well your libertarian rhetoric matches your actual actions. How you keep your agreements. How you respect self-ownership—especially, of course, her self-ownership. How economically independent you are. How ready you are to accept her cultural agenda.

Having common interests will help a lot, and if you don’t have any yet, the ability to present your own attractively or sincerely engage in hers. Nothing brings libertarians together like the joint achievement of complex, interesting goals.

But, most likely, you won’t find a ready-made libertarian girl within a reasonable timeframe and reasonable vicinity, and you’ll have to indoctrinate whichever girl comes your way. To increase your chances of success, pay attention to those who tend to use logical argumentation in disputes, love reading long-form articles, and don’t too actively project to the outside world that everyone in life owes them something.

How can party membership help with all this? Well, unless your local branch organizes various team-building events. Involving girls in them eases indoctrination, but increases the probability that the girl will find a more interesting libertarian, and in fair competition, the market will decide.

Romanced her and won’t let go

Why join the LPR at all?

anonymous question

I am asked this question quite often, usually with an underlying meaning of “well, convince me to join!” For example, Mikhail Svetov answers this question in his interview.

Good attempt, but no. Let’s not confuse the concepts.

I very much want you to become my supporter. You will receive a wealth of recommendations on what to read regarding libertarianism, economic, ethical, and legal theory. You will be able to discuss this substantively with others in chats, at meetings, and in debates. You will receive recommendations and other assistance when applying for a weapons permit. You will be helped in the event of conflicts with the state repressive apparatus. You will be able to join many interesting activities yourself, or involve others in some activity. There is much of interest around me, and it is in you, my supporters, that my strength and pride lie.

But joining the party itself means regular work on a voluntary basis. Here, it is not enough to be a libertarian, not enough to have a desire to educate others in the libertarian spirit, not enough to have a desire to support the party — you must have sufficient time, energy, and talent to do this regularly, and moreover, in constant interaction with other people who have their own ideas about what to do and how to do it. If you were fired up by the idea of joining the party, convinced me to accept you, and then burned out six months later, and now you can’t even be dragged to a regional branch meeting — then you joined for nothing. Now I will have to spend energy transferring you to the supporters, where you belonged from the start — otherwise, your passivity will disrupt the work of the democratic mechanisms, damn them.

So it is not I who needs to convince you to join the party. It is you who will have to convince me that you are not just a libertarian, but that you also understand what you are getting yourself into.

If you will, becoming a supporter of the party is like starting a romance, while joining the party is like starting a family. Feel the difference.

LPR-chan, 2011 edition