I have started on the fourth section of Eric Mackay’s book Libertarianism, dedicated to economic justice and property rights. Like the third, it consists of a short introduction and two chapters showing the views of Nozick and Hayek on the subject—apparently, for Mackay, there are no other libertarians worthy of attention on this issue (though this is likely because Mackay is writing a book on philosophy, not on history, economics, or law, which explains the selection of authors).

The chapter on Nozick examines how he tore into supporters of distributive justice, showing that to achieve some ideal end-state, they would have to launch a mechanism of permanent revolution, and to apply some single distributive model, they would have to reduce everyone to partial slavery. Nozick opposes this redistributive ecstasy with the libertarian approach well known to us, according to which the justice of a particular property right depends on the procedures by which it was acquired, rather than on the size of the property or, for example, the degree of the beneficiary’s loyalty to the party line.

I express my deep gratitude to everyone who sent in donations for the translation of this chapter; now we can start collecting for the next one. And while the money for Mackay (or for Molynneux, you love Molynneux, don’t you?) is being collected, I will return to Friedman; a chapter on the laws of the Chinese Empire awaits us.

The donation for the translation of this chapter was quite decent, 6000 rubles, but the volume of text in it is also quite outstanding, so I had to toil away in the intervals between voluntary libertarian hard labor at the logging camp.

In this chapter, Eric Mack explains how Mises’s calculation argument regarding the unviability of a total planned economy influenced Hayek, describes the alternative approach developed by Hayek to describe society through the idea of spontaneous orders, and also analyzes in detail (in my opinion, even excessively meticulously) the idea that freedom is when everyone observes a certain single set of abstract rules, proudly called the rules of just conduct, and they observe them not for reasons of profit, but elevate them to the rank of a transcendent value. In short, if God is dead, it doesn’t mean that everything is permitted.

I hope that the next donation will be for the translation of Stephan Molynieux; his style is simpler, and the chapters are not of such monstrous size, so the interval between the donation and the product can be kept relatively short.

I am continuing to translate Eric Mack’s “Libertarianism.” Last time, having finished Part 2 on philosophical premises, I am now tackling Part 3 on the foundations of libertarianism, and today I present for your attention a short introduction to the third part and a rather long chapter on how Nozick explained self-ownership and the resulting moral constraints. Nozick’s approach is compared with Rawls’ more famous concept—about the veil of ignorance and all that—after which Eric Mack shows in which places Nozick seems more convincing to him.

I tried to translate in a way that makes it as clear as possible what is being discussed, but I cannot guarantee that I haven’t missed some set expressions from the unfamiliar jargon of moral philosophers, so I would be glad if some conditional Artem Seversky could briefly scan the translation and suggest corrections where he deems necessary.

The translation of this chapter was stimulated by a donation of one thousand rubles—which is quite a lot for a single donation, but very modest considering the volume of work. So I would be glad if you chip in more.

The next chapter will also be quite large, and it will be about what the author learned from Friedrich Hayek regarding the foundations of libertarianism.

I also slightly corrected the layout of the previously posted chapters, translated the notes for them, and improved the navigation between chapters. I’m doing great)))

After a long break, during which I was busy finalizing the edition of Mechanics of Freedom, I am returning to two other projects translating libertarian literature that have been pending. Since there are currently no donations coming in for the translation of Stephan Mol liqueur, but two donations of 500 rubles each arrived for Eric Mack, I am posting a chapter from Mack. Don’t forget to encourage the translation process.

With a story about the views of Herbert Spencer, Eric Mack concludes the first part of his book dedicated to the precursors of libertarianism; moving forward, he is expected to approach the main theme of his work.

The focus is on an early and not very well-known work by Spencer, which was moreover partially revised by him in a later edition toward greater moderation and acceptance of the status quo. In it, he introduces as the primary principle of justice the Law of Equal Liberty, which is still actively used by libertarians — the idea that everyone is free to do as they wish, provided they do not violate the similar liberty of other people.

What personally seemed worthy of attention was Spencer’s direct indication that the right of property is determined by the society’s consent to satisfy the corresponding claim. This is almost identical to the phrasing I use when defining any right as a claim that is tolerated.

Also, importantly, Spencer approaches the adoption of the principle of methodological subjectivism when he notes that to move within the principle of the greatest happiness, there is no need to compare whose concept of happiness is superior; it is sufficient that everyone has the opportunity to actively pursue their own.

About a month ago, I received a small donation for the translation of Eric Mack. It’s not that I was in a great rush with this translation, but I didn’t want to completely ignore the fact that someone felt it was important to encourage the process a bit. So here is a fresh chapter, the penultimate one in the part dedicated to the philosophical prerequisites for the emergence of libertarianism. The translation took some effort: John Stuart Mill wrote quite convolutedly.

The chapter is dedicated to utilitarian arguments in favor of freedom—in other words, attempts to justify its necessity not only by so-called natural rights (which is not a justification at all, but a simple postulate, as if there is such a right, and that’s that), but also by social utility. Of course, with the transition to methodological subjectivism, straightforward reasoning about the common good began to look somewhat like an anachronism, though not entirely, which surprised me a little. In essence, in his utilitarian arguments, from which any totalitarian doctrine can be easily derived if desired, Mill arrives at our old acquaintance, self-ownership, the primacy of individual security, and other liberal attributes.

From our current perspective, this, of course, looks like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Mill was a priori convinced of the value of individual freedom, and thereafter his task was reduced to selecting arguments as to why it is necessary to ensure the highest common good. Had he been a priori convinced of the value of Sharia norms or the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, he could have constructed arguments in exactly the same way, proving that these very crucial things were needed to achieve the highest common good.

Don’t forget to encourage the translation process with your donations.

Today on our program is the promised chapter from Eric Mack’s book “Libertarianism,” dedicated to the views of David Hume as another of the precursors of this ideology. Despite the fact that Hume, opposing Locke (who was discussed in the previous chapter), denied both the social contract and natural rights, he quite sensibly supplemented Locke’s views on social organization with his description of the morality that arises in humans as social animals. Hume also formulates the resulting principles of justice, which lead to mutually beneficial social cooperation.

Many thanks to Mikhail Pozharsky, who promoted our translation project of Libertarianism by Eric Mack. As a result, we have seen a surge in website traffic and gained two new translators, though the rain of donations hasn’t quite fallen yet. Nevertheless, the work continues.

The second part of the book is dedicated to the philosophical premises of libertarianism. Today I am posting a short Introduction to the second part, as well as the first chapter: Locke on natural rights, civil society, resistance and toleration.

The author explains which doctrines of the time Locke opposed with his ideas, where he derives them from, what conclusions he draws, what couple of caveats he accompanies the concept of original appropriation of property with, for what purpose people form a government, at what point they should begin to rebel against it — and why such a rebellion would be just.

Be sure to send your donations to the address 1AFkD2bazCs5YZBBrSD7HsRMWLmRbg6QBo — and next time we will be able to tell you what Hume wrote about the principles of mutually beneficial cooperation.

P.S. It turned out that in addition to the text we pirated, there is another bonus section attached to the book, open to all. But for consistency, we have also posted it on our website, and we will translate it in time. Therefore, the total number of chapters in our progress bar has changed.

The world is going into quarantine, and it is a good time to pay less attention to the news and instead engage in something more fundamental. If you read English fluently, I recommend getting acquainted with Eric Mack’s book Libertarianism, which our team pirated and posted on my site without asking the author. But if you prefer to read in Russian, you have a great opportunity to sponsor the translation of the book. For now, I am posting the introduction so that you can get a general impression of the text.

The book describes how global philosophical thought arrived at the ideas of libertarianism, how these ideas were formulated, what criticism they faced, and how that criticism is countered. While Friedman’s The Machinery of Freedom or Molynieux’s Practical Anarchy are more applied works that may be debatable in some details, here we are in the space of more or less pure theory.

The language of the book is quite heavy, but we are not making an academic edition, so we will adapt the author’s speech as much as possible so that it remains somewhat readable.

In total, the translation will require approximately 75 thousand rubles. For now, I am ready to accept only bitcoins at the address already known to you 1AFkD2bazCs5YZBBrSD7HsRMWLmRbg6QBo , but as much as I am able, I am also looking into anonymous fiat payment systems and perhaps soon you will have a relatively simple way to send money in fiat.