Тег: Marketplace

And how will things stand with the quality and safety of food products under ancap?

анонимный вопрос

This question complements my yesterday’s post about the movement for the free distribution of discounted food very well, so I chose this specific one from the queue.

Either at the very end of the 19th or the very beginning of the 20th century in the USA, there was a craze for exposé publications in the press. Journalists specializing in this were called “muckrakers,” and they ruined more than a few careers back then. For the most part, “muck” was to be interpreted figuratively as political dishonesty, but today we are interested in a case where muck appeared in a publication in its literal sense. We are talking about a series of publications regarding the terrible unsanitary conditions in slaughterhouses, sausage production, and so on. The extensive press campaign led to the federal government introducing sanitary standards for food production, and indeed, US citizens today are a society that pays enormous attention to the quality and safety of products.

In the United States at the beginning of the last century, a country with a huge proportion of poor immigrants arriving in pursuit of their American dream, the vast majority of the population had a simple requirement for food: it had to be cheap and available in abundance. The state first began to regulate food quality, and by the turn of the thirties, it moved on to regulating both price and quantity, as a result of which during the Great Depression, government agents engaged in destroying food on a massive scale to prevent its price from dropping. Thus, as usual, the road to serfdom was paved with good intentions.

But how could the free market have worked instead to improve food quality? Of course, through the exploitation of such base human traits as vanity and greed. Muckrakers publish reports about unsanitary conditions in slaughterhouses. An enterprising, greedy meat packer opens a slaughterhouse maintained in such cleanliness and order that even the rats tie napkins before eating, invites journalists there, and pays for a series of promotional reports: buy meat only from Butcher & Co, owners of the cleanest slaughterhouse in both Americas! The meat is sold in a branded store at triple the price, vain nouveau riche (America is a land of opportunity!) shop only there, Mr. Butcher gradually expands production, competitors begin to press him, and after some five years, the thought that slaughterhouses could be filthy already seems completely unthinkable.

I am exaggerating, of course, but agree that one can provide many examples of when free competition led to increased quality, and the desire to maintain low costs led to the development of technology, and there is certainly no reason for food production to be some strange exception. First, a certain product or service appears as a luxury item, but after some time, thanks to competition and market expansion, it becomes a complete commonplace and an essential attribute of civilization.

Beauty!

How could the issue of Earth’s orbit being polluted with space debris be regulated under ancap? After all, you cannot establish private property over space.

anonymous question

There is the Earth. Around the Earth is a certain near-Earth space where people regularly launch satellites. A satellite may fail on its own or disable another satellite, either as a result of targeted commands from its owners or as a result of many unpredictable natural factors.

What rules would govern the interaction of interested parties in this sphere under ancap? In essence, roughly the same as now. The legal frameworks in which property disputes regarding satellites and their mutual influence occur already largely correspond to free market principles: entities are equal and act on the basis of clearly defined agreements.

What would be the reaction now if someone began consciously shooting down other people’s satellites? The affected parties would try to prove this fact, the broader community of those potentially involved in the conflict would also be interested in such an investigation, and further, everyone would be interested in depriving the aggressor of the ability to continue the attacks, as well as recovering damages for the affected parties.

So, with the transition to ancap on Earth, little will fundamentally change in space. Except that currently, sections of the geostationary orbit are divided among states based on geographical criteria; were there no states, other agreements between players in the space industry would come into effect. Perhaps the simple principle of homesteading.

Well, alright. A considerable amount of time has passed, a huge amount of debris has accumulated in orbit—how will the market solve this problem? In general, what is trash for some is a valuable resource for others. Someone has already paid to launch mass into orbit. The temptation arises to use materials raised by someone else instead of launching one’s own. For now, this is commercially inefficient. The more debris there is in orbit, the lower the costs of extracting raw materials from space debris compared to launching.

Finally, it is worth noting that the accumulation of debris occurs only in sufficiently high orbits, while in low orbits, debris soon leaves orbit on its own and harmlessly burns up in the dense layers of the atmosphere. Thus, for low orbits, extending the lifespan of a satellite is more relevant than the accumulation of satellites that have already become debris.

Thus, in the space industry, one can see all the approaches humanity has developed in the fight against the problem of waste: increasing the service life of products, littering less, and recycling waste.

How to catch Pokémon in Pokemon GO under ancap? Everything is private property!

анонимный вопрос

Strictly speaking, under ancap, private territory is not everywhere, but only where someone has privatized it. However, since we are talking about a specific game, it is clear that we are primarily talking about a city, and there, every little scrap of land belongs to someone.

As I have already written in response to the classic question about roads, and later expanded upon when responding regarding traffic regulation, the goal of a land owner is to derive profit from it. To make a profit from land in a city, one must provide the infrastructure so that a customer with money can easily and conveniently arrive specifically at their location and spend their money there. Or, so that workers and materials can reach a real estate object just as easily, if it is a production site rather than a point of sale.

It is clear that if the owner of a certain object wants to attract the widest possible circle of customers, it is completely impractical for them to filter out those from the general flow who wish to catch a tasty Pokemon on their territory and to hinder them in doing so. Quite the opposite: if such a game is popular at the moment, those wishing to ensure a flow of customers should compete to order the best Pokemon assortment for their specific location from the Pokemon producing company, and ideally, one or two should be completely exclusive. Thus, giving wine to every successful Pokemon catcher in a synagogue is cool, but it’s even cooler if one can obtain a unique Jewish Pokemon there, who refuses to fight on Saturdays and always answers a question with a question.

Similarly, those who would prefer that Pokemon not be caught on their territory could simply contact the Pokemon producing company with a demand to remove the entire zoo from a specific location. For example, there are all the grounds for Pokemon not to inhabit a theater, since switched-on phones disturb the actors and other spectators.

I will not venture to predict in detail exactly how the legal battles will unfold between the producers of such games and their clients on one side, and the owners of various establishments on the other. It is clear that if a requirement to turn off or hand over a phone is hanging at the entrance for some reason, it will be quite difficult to contest in court the soft coercion to comply with this requirement and being escorted off the territory in case of refusal.

However, all of this is exotic, since Pokemon are more often found in parks and other public spaces, as one of the goals of the game was simply to get people to go for a walk. I doubt that staring at a phone while walking would be prohibited in a private park; they would likely not even prohibit sex there—why would they, when instead they can sell condoms and rent out blankets?

Shalom!

How will things stand with abortions under ancap?

анонимный вопрос

I have already answered the question regarding the legitimacy of abortions from a libertarian perspective, but now the topic is slightly different.

Despite the fact that most libertarians see nothing blameworthy or punishable in a woman having an abortion, there will clearly be significantly fewer abortions in a society dominated by anarcho-capitalism than there are now.

It is very simple. An abortion is not a benefit for a woman. It is always a kind of forced evil that a woman resorts to because she views continuing the pregnancy as an even greater evil. But under ancap, she will have far more alternatives to abortion.

Judge for yourself. One could place an advertisement stating that a child is being carried, the approximate birth date is such-and-such, and she is ready to sell guardianship rights and waive her parental rights. Of course, this advertisement could be phrased using various euphemisms, but the essence would be roughly the same: I am willing to endure pregnancy and childbirth if I am sure that my problems end there, although I would also like compensation for the costs incurred.

Of course, a commercial surrogate motherhood contract can be concluded now, although in a number of countries this practice is prosecuted by law. But even where it is legal, the subject is fraught with a heap of regulations, which greatly increases the costs of the procedure; consequently, many women will still prefer abortion as something more guaranteed and less troublesome. Moreover, processing paperwork is a lengthy matter, and the sooner an abortion is performed, the less damage is done to the woman’s body.

Finally, there are also medical grounds for abortion, such as when the pregnancy threatens the mother’s life, or the child is proven to be a carrier of a hereditary disease. Removing bioethical barriers to research could somewhat accelerate the resolution of problems in this area compared to current reality, but that is already starting to be guesswork.

The picture is blissful, like Jehovah’s Witness brochures. Choose ancap, save the children!

In whose interests, besides the parents’, is it to conduct research on the genetic modification of humans to increase their abilities?

After all, these investments might not pay off by providing a skilled workforce in the future—if the person does not want to work for the company that “created” them.

анонимный вопрос

Indeed, an interesting topic. One entity invests funds and effort to create another entity, while the created entity has no debt to the creator, except perhaps a moral one. The question arises: what would compel the creator to invest resources into their creation?

At the same time, for some reason, you have no doubt that there won’t be a problem with parents; they will certainly be interested in investing in the creation of children who are more advanced from their point of view. But why, exactly?

For example, I am thinking about having a child and reading the price list for genetic modifications that can be made. Remove the predisposition to cancer and AIDS? Of course, I’ll take it; it’s much more reliable than health insurance and, if spread over a lifetime, far cheaper. We clean out hereditary diseases. Is it necessary? Of course. Tendency toward obesity? I’ll probably correct that; it will also pay off. Height? Eye color? Why bother? Well, only if these settings come in a general package, as not every parent will buy these modifications separately.

In other words, parents will primarily be interested in those modifications that save them—the parents’—expenses on raising the child. Secondly, those that in the long run could increase the child’s chances of success in life, although you can never guess what will be in market demand. Lastly, any matter of personal taste.

Why does a parent have a child and invest in them at all? For the joy of the upbringing process and satisfaction from the results of that upbringing. A child is a creative project that, if the devil doesn’t joke, might even bring commercial success.

Could such a creative project be undertaken, for example, not by a parent, but by a large company? Why not, but the motivation for the company’s founders would be the same: to get maximum satisfaction from the results of the upbringing. At the same time, in order for the free people produced by this company to also bring it some monetary profit, they must do so voluntarily. This means loyalty must be cultivated in them.

If a gene for blind love can be found, then perhaps the loyalty problem can be solved this way. But for some reason, I have a strong suspicion that this gene will turn out to be linked to genes responsible for intellectual development, meaning the overall life success of such a child would be small (especially since a child-production plant is unlikely to provide every graduate with significant starting capital).

Please leave the fantasies about growing competent specialists and subsequently keeping them in forced slavery to the communists; we are considering ancap here, and ancap is self-ownership.

So, if we are talking about market models for such enterprises, I would rather suggest looking toward existing private schools and universities. There, likewise, a gifted student can enter a school for free and even have a scholarship, while the institution is funded by an endowment fund. Former students who have succeeded in life contribute to the fund entirely voluntarily. The only difference in our case would be that gifted children are not sought out initially, but produced.

It seems to me that this is a quite pleasant future in which children are predominantly wanted, and they will be far less likely to disappoint those who invested in them.

Sweet children, but that’s not how it works under ancap

Hi, I wanted to find out how quality control will work (so as not to eat poisoned food, for example) under ancap?

анонимный вопрос

At the moment, in the field of product quality control, as in everywhere where the state controls something, there is more of a security theater than actual protection. Seeing a certificate from yet another “blah-blah-oversight” body stating that a product has passed inspection, the end consumer never knows: perhaps the product really was thoroughly checked, perhaps it was checked half-heartedly, perhaps the certificate was forged, or perhaps it was bought. The reputation of the certifying body may be as low as possible, but the manufacturer will still be obliged to crawl to them and obtain the paperwork if they operate legally. Thus, compulsory state quality certification always degenerates quite quickly into a fiction, which, however, costs some money, and the consumer will pay that money in full.

In the absence of compulsory quality control, the customer initially has no trust in the product manufacturer. What does this lead to? The most elementary quality check, which instantly arises in any bazaar: the consumer tastes the product before buying. This is a phenomenon of a relatively poor market, where no more expensive methods of control are affordable for either the seller or the buyer.

As prosperity grows and more complex goods appear, demand arises for more sophisticated control, such as chemical analysis and other instrumental research. What does “demand arises” mean? People start wondering to what extent the numbers and words on the packaging correspond to the truth. Next, for example, some video blogger (while this is more often television for now, but we are considering pure, unadulterated ancap) conducts a study and sees an increase in audience from its demonstration. Then a store may refer to this study, stating that their product is perfectly fine. In addition, consumer associations and producer associations may appear (it is also not in their interest for someone to slap “sausage” labels on crap and have people think that any sausage is crap), as well as the insurance companies constantly mentioned by ancap theorists—in short, many people will be willing to earn money by satisfying the market demand for product quality verification.

When the marketlet decided

Residents of the “Pravy Bereg” residential complex in Khimki are outraged that the developer deliberately filled the courtyard with old cars to occupy all the parking spaces. As an alternative, people are forced to buy spaces in the underground parking lot, with prices starting from 800K. How can this problem be solved under ancap?

Dmitry

What you described is a variation of the tragedy of the commons, where insufficiently clear property rights lead to a situation where it is profitable for everyone to exploit a shared resource as intensively as possible, leading to its rapid degradation.

As can be easily guessed from the introduction, the simplest remedy lies precisely in a clearer definition of property rights, for which ancap is quite well-suited. Let’s look at the details.

What do we have now? The developer obtains a permit from the municipality to build a house, reaches some agreement with the previous land owners, builds the house, sells apartments and underground parking, but has no right to take ownership of the land; the land under and around the house is the collective property of the residents because that is how the state decreed it.

How can residents who wish to park near the house and do not want to buy expensive underground parking spaces from the developer defend this right in the current situation? They would have to organize a homeowners association (HOA) and grant it the right to establish paid parking near the house, which must be voted for at a general meeting by a certain number of apartment owners holding at least half of the total residential square footage. After that, it would be costly for the developer to occupy the paid courtyard parking with his cars, and he would consider other ways to monetize his unsold property, for example, by renting out the spaces instead of selling them.

The scheme is not bad, but it is organizationally very complex, and as a result of its application, car owners will be forced to shell out for parking rent, which is clearly not what they would want, as it is much more pleasant to use a resource for free.

Under ancap, there is no external regulator requiring that the land under the house belong to the homeowners, and the developer will be interested in keeping it for himself, renting out both the apartments and all types of parking spaces to the residents. Or, as an option, selling the apartments and renting out the parking spaces. Or selling the apartments and the underground parking while renting out the above-ground ones. Or not creating one of the types of parking at all.

Fans of the HOA form would be able to either buy the land and build a house together by pooling funds, or buy apartments from the developer along with the land, should he be so inclined.

One way or another, in the absence of an external regulator acting as a force majeure, people will not have to perform strange and unnatural roundabout maneuvers when their interests can be stated and defended directly.

Maxim Katz’s nightmare…

Если вы пришли сюда по ссылке из других соцсетей, напоминаю, что на мой канал можно подписаться в телеграме, а для обсуждения деятельности канала там же, в телеграме, создан уютный чатик.

If, for example, people were given the opportunity to take revenge for one night, as in “The Purge” — it would be a very useful practice for reducing crime. How does ancap view this?

анонимный вопрос

As a reminder, the purge night is a concept from the movie of the same name, according to which the state designates one night a year during which it refuses to prevent any violence of citizens toward one another, but at the same time does not remove itself from the scene, and even reserves the right to apply completely arbitrary violence against citizens on this night, for which no claims are accepted.  

Let’s agree right away that the non-violent implementation of the specified institute under ancap in this particular form is impossible, simply due to the absence of a state. So, I would rather reason through how I would act to implement a purge night under ancap.

  1. The “Founding Fathers” corporation buys a large plot of cheap land somewhere in Nevada.
  2. A Purge-city amusement park is built there.
  3. Throughout the year, the amusement park makes money by renting out sets for film shoots, paintball, airsoft, hardball, and other innocent shootouts.
  4. One night a year, volunteers from all over the world gather in the city to shoot at each other with live weapons. Before purchasing a tour, they sign a detailed contract, including a waiver of claims against the company in the event of death or injury at the hands of other players, as well as a waiver of claims against other players for any of their actions that do not violate the rules of the “Purge Night” attraction. The contract also provides for the company’s obligation to pay participants an agreed-upon bonus for the fact of survival, and a bonus of the same amount for each frag obtained. In addition, of course, the company undertakes not to kill players themselves, including by entering into any special agreements with any players. The rules also specify the permitted classes of weapons, as well as a number of other nuances that I will omit here for brevity.
  5. The costs of conducting the purge night are perfectly offset by income from advertising placed on the sets, from the sale of broadcasting rights, from merchandise, and so on.

What is the circle of primary potential participants?

  1. Adrenaline junkies. Meet John Watson, a former paramedic and three-time Purge Night individual champion!
  2. Teams from poor warring states. Meet Team Congo, a two-time Purge Night team champion!
  3. Betting enthusiasts. Meet David Loser, who is participating in the Purge Night because he lost a bet to Carol Winner, having predicted that the bitcoin rate would fall to ten ounces of gold in August!
  4. Duelists. Meet Najib Gasan-ogly and Samvel Budumyan, who decided to fight in a duel on Purge Night and defend the honor of their people!
  5. And various random party-goers who decided that this is cool. Meet Fyodor Konyukhov, who decided to cross Purge-city on Purge Night without a weapon from west to east and meet the sunrise at the edge of the desert with a cup of Nescafe!

What social consequences will such a business lead to? None in particular. What social consequences does the existence of the no-rules fighting industry in today’s reality lead to? Well, there are fights, and that’s fine. Some people go, pay money; others fight, get money; others make fun movies about it. It’s the same in our case.

Will the level of violent crime in the world decrease in the intervals between purge nights? Unlikely; most likely, it will continue to gradually decrease as people’s wealth grows. Will my business take off? Maybe it will. Will I remain a monopolist in this market? Only if it is very narrow; otherwise, competitors will likely join in and take some market share.

The market will decide!

That’s not how it’ll be, not at all!

Lustration

Thanks to the activities of Mikhail Svetov, a topic as exotic for libertarian discourse as lustration has become an important component of the public rhetoric of Russian libertarians. Indeed, there is no other libertarian party in the world that pays such attention to this issue. Some advocate for the liberalization of the psychoactive substances market, others for the liberalization of the weapons market, some for tax cuts, and others are even forced to speak in favor of abolishing price regulations on essential goods, but no one demands the mass removal from power of officials of the current regime simply by virtue of holding their current position.

Arguments for lustration

  1. Lustrations are the gentlest way to remove those who have demonstrated their professional incompetence from power. If they were to be tried instead, it would be long, expensive, dirty, and crude; it would be better for them to accept that they will simply be pushed out of the area where they are incompetent and be given the freedom to engage in anything else.
  2. Without lustrations, nothing will work at all. Any number of wonderful laws can be passed, but functionaries of the former regime will sabotage the reforms, distort and discredit them, and this will lead to the liberal government, failing to achieve quick successes, losing public support. Therefore, lustrations are important specifically as a tool for rapid cleansing, in contrast to numerous individual proceedings, so as not to lose the pace of transformation.
  3. Post-Soviet countries that carried out decisive lustrations are now in a much better position than those that did not, and former Soviet leaders there have not returned to power.
  4. Lustrations are populism, and populism means votes in elections; there is no need to fear populism—on the contrary, one should fear remaining marginal.
  5. (point added based on the results of the discussion in the comments) A law on lustrations has a psychotherapeutic effect. Long existence under conditions of a de facto estate society requires compensation, and the restriction of rights of representatives of the old upper estate, thereby transferring them to a conditionally lower one, is a good bloodless recipe that allows people to feel like full-fledged citizens.

Arguments against lustrations

  1. Lustrations are a diversion of forces toward a negative agenda. Instead of implementing the new, a significant portion of those coming to power will be occupied with settling old scores; moreover, any delays in reforms will inevitably be justified by claiming that not enough people are being lustrated and that enemies are conducting sabotage.
  2. It is easy to say now that lustration is a gentle tool, but it is difficult to say how gentle it will prove to be in practice. Formally, a person is deprived of their position, the right to hold government office, and the right to run for representative bodies of power. In fact, they will also receive the stigma of being “lustrated,” and it is impossible to say in advance what other restrictions of rights this stigma will lead to. The freezing of accounts, for example. “Here is your quota of 300 dollars a month for withdrawal, and full unblocking only after the results of a commission’s work to ensure that there are no funds on the account obtained from criminal activity under the previous regime.” Even if such measures are not in Mikhail’s current rhetoric, who can guarantee that they won’t be proposed, for example, by employees of the Anti-Corruption Foundation?
  3. A law on lustrations hits broadly. If a new government is formed as a result of a split among elites, the members of the new government will be interested in formulating the clauses of the law so that they themselves do not fall under it. It will turn out as it did in Ukraine, where many functionaries of the previous regime did not fall under the law, while the scapegoats suffered.
  4. Mass restrictions of citizens’ rights will inevitably create a large group of the population that harbors resentment toward the reformers. The more mass the lustrations are (and Mikhail has not set clear criteria for the end of the process, and intends to lustrate until he is stopped), the larger the group of victims will be. Since the active voting right of the lustrated will remain, candidates promising to roll back reforms and return the “good old days” will receive broad support in the next elections.
  5. Lustrations were popular mainly in countries with a developed national consciousness against the backdrop of Soviet occupation. In the former metropole, this idea will meet fierce resistance because the current government is perceived as one’s own, not as colonial.

Alternative to lustrations

Instead of announcing the mass restriction of rights for officials, one could promote the mass reduction of positions. There is no point in lustrating Medinsky, Kolobkov, or Oreshkin; there is point in abolishing the ministries of culture, sports, and economic development. There is no point in lustrating Zolotov; there is point in abolishing the Rosgvardia. There is no point in purging the gubernatorial corps; there is point in taking away the powers of the regions in favor of municipalities. As for the positions that are decided to be kept, it is not so important to conduct personnel purges manually; it is much more important to improve democratic institutions so that unqualified functionaries simply leave peacefully in the next elections.

If after the mass privatization of state property it turns out that a considerable portion of it was bought up by former government officials? Well, that’s wonderful! If the money was obtained as a result of aggressive violence and specific victims are found, then this can be gradually investigated, a lawsuit filed, and compensation recovered, and whatever remains will belong to them indisputably. If no one makes claims, it means this money was obtained by them from official salaries, bribes for bypassing state regulations, and other relatively harmless ways, so let this money now work in the free market.

It seems to me that libertarians have far more relevant topics in their agenda, for example, the reduction of the state, and a far more effective tool than the mass restriction of people’s rights—for example, the market. So, discussing lustrations purely in an academic vein as one of the possible tools of social transformation—why not. But to obsess over this meme oneself means turning from a sect of witnesses of the market into a sect of witnesses of lustrations, and from there, the label of “dem-shiza” [democratic craziness] is not far off.

What to do about epidemics?

Currently, the state can (forcibly, of course) isolate a region where an outbreak of a particular infectious disease has occurred, while also taking preventive measures such as the culling of livestock. Thanks to this, it is possible to significantly hinder the spread of infection and avoid a large number of human casualties. Could the market possibly handle something like this?

анонимный вопрос

The concept of ancap is often criticized for proposing a multitude of private borders instead of a single intra-state space, which any landowner has the right to close at any moment. This criticism is countered by the fact that such a closure is, first of all, not profitable for anyone, and second, if one person goes crazy and closes their territory to passage, there will always be another who will only benefit from the traffic being diverted through them.

And now we have the opposite situation: many private borders, and those wishing to cross them, moving from the epicenter of an epidemic, pose a clear and unambiguous danger to the owner of the transit territory. Naturally, the owners will be interested in setting up checkpoints. Who will come to their aid? Of course, insurance companies, for whom every epidemic is a heavy financial burden, and if it can be localized in some way, they will make every effort to do so. Finally, meat producers from uninfected territories are, on one hand, interested in ensuring that this epidemic does not affect their herds, and on the other, will be glad if their competitors’ livestock numbers decrease, as this will increase their profits. Therefore, they will also willingly finance quarantine measures, veterinary control, and the slaughter of infected livestock. To ensure that neighbors do not stubbornly resist or cheat, they will likely even agree to establish some kind of mutual aid fund to compensate them for part of the losses from the sanitary slaughter.

So the market, unlike soulless salaried bureaucrats, will react to such cataclysms far more vividly and diligently.