On April 30, the Kakha Bendukidze Forum took place in Tbilisi — organized by the same committee that previously held the Adam Smith Readings in Moscow. Judging by the photos, about a hundred people attended, but it seems that such a modest number was due to the room’s capacity limit; there likely could have been more. The broadcast was of very poor technical quality, with the sound dropping out periodically. The 26 people who gathered to listen to the broadcast in Budva, I assume, had the opportunity to fill this tedious silence by discussing what they had managed to hear. I hope a normal recording, without glitches, will appear soon.
Eight reports were presented, of which two were of the greatest interest to me: an overview of Russian economic trends by Natalia Zubarevich (in short — don’t hope, at this rate it won’t collapse on its own for a long time, this fat one will take a long time to wither) and an overview of private city development trends by Vera Kichanova (in short — it’s too early to bury Prospera, and there is also a project called Montellibero). I don’t even know why I’m highlighting these two reports specifically — let’s just call it sexism.
Also around the same time in Montenegro near Tivat, at a two-month event with the strange name Zuzalu, Montellibero was presented by one of our project’s activists. One of the event’s sections was entirely dedicated to charter cities and network states. There was a broadcast, but I found out about it after the fact. The recording hasn’t been uploaded to the archive yet, so I’ll have to wait. Once I do, I’ll try to make a brief overview of the interesting things Titus Gebel, Patri Friedman, and other less-known guys managed to tell — of whom I only happened to chat with Peter Young at the Montellibero club.
Meanwhile, in Russia, there is complete stability: recently, the police snatched two members of the LPR; one was robbed and put in a cellar for 12 days, and nothing is known about the second one at all. I continue to consider the position of the LPR leadership a crime. Instead of organizing the evacuation of libertarians from Russia, they continue to hang around there pointlessly and at risk to their lives, and recently even decided to hold another party congress in September. I urge my readers remaining in the RF to leave these idiots in their hopelessly miserable state and finally complete their relocation to where libertarians are much more needed. After all, the conquest of the world is in full swing here.
It has been, dare I say, six months since the previous issue, so this will be less of a news update and more of an overview of the project’s current state.
Montelibero has entered a fairly mature phase where many previously intuitive practices are being codified. If you browse through the Sunday posts in the main Montelibero Telegram channel (by searching for the #sundaypost tag), you’ll see constant updates like “offer for such-and-such token published,” “terms of such-and-such program changed,” and so on. The project has gathered the low-hanging fruit from when people invested based on raw enthusiasm and is now refocusing on more thoughtful investors who require conventionally formatted documents, without which investments look dubious.
Construction in MTL-City is moving slower than planned—in the last issue, I wrote that the first multi-apartment building was promised by the New Year; well, now they promise it by summer. It is fully built and is currently being finished. Four apartments owned by the fund have already been promised for rent to two families of project participants (what can you do, these are very small apartments, which is why two were taken per family), and a fifth apartment has been put up for sale to settle with equity investors—after all, one cannot hand them half a square meter of housing in kind. Additionally, the construction company began buying back tokens, from the sale of which it funded the construction, at 40% above the placement price. This leaves me with mixed feelings. Of course, it’s good that investors were allowed to make a profit, but it’s lousy that housing is becoming quite expensive for the end consumer. Because of this construction boom and the Bitcoin dip, I no longer have the opportunity to build for myself.
Each studio here will cost the end buyer more than 30 thousand euros (and these are fully market prices, which is the most annoying part)
Concrete road, drainage gutter, electricity, lighting. Fiber optics are also hanging on these poles now; the photo is just older
Nevertheless, news that all utilities in MTL-City are fully completed, down to the provision of fiber optic internet, cannot help but be pleasing. By May, they also promise to finalize a large reservoir, which will allow water to be purchased in bulk and distributed throughout the settlement. All utilities are promised to be tokenized, with meter readings almost being written to the blockchain.
A tank with a capacity of 60 cubes; something similar exists in the ruins of Old Bar.
And just to fully touch the hearts of tech novelty enthusiasts, one of the project participants, Ralf, who, by the way, represents us in the German diaspora (the second largest after the Russians), has started producing hot water using a Bitcoin miner. The prototype has already been assembled; scaling is expected next. There is hope that, as a result, hot water can be obtained cheaper than if heated independently with a standard domestic boiler.
Boiler prototype
The club, which I wrote about a lot in recent issues and which has become the center of life for all Bar-based project participants, has also been tokenized. Buying club tokens allows anyone to support the project and provides access to a closed chat where further development paths are discussed. The club has not yet reached break-even, but at least the creator managed to recoup a significant portion of their initial investment through the sale of tokens.
On March 20, the club celebrated its anniversary. About fifty people attended the buffet in honor of the event, and we had a wonderful time; I even won a free cocktail in a quiz on the club’s history, sharing the victory with another Montelibero elder, eleven-year-old Saveliy, who arrived in Montenegro just three days after me.
More black balloons than gold ones, that’s about me
As I feared in the last issue, the flow of Russian emigrants to Montenegro has slowed down. Moreover, Montenegro itself continues to complicate the conditions for obtaining a residence permit, which also does not contribute to optimism. And just today, the old president lost the elections (actually, it is very correct when an incumbent loses an election), and the new one strongly wants to pull the country into the EU, which inevitably should lead to increased regulatory pressure. It is a pity that Milo Đukanović ran in the elections personally, unable to entrust it to some sufficiently popular like-minded person. What, there are none? Well, then they deserve it, however bitter that may sound from the lips of foreigners. However, Montenegro is a parliamentary republic, and parliamentary elections will be in a couple of months. We will see then what the ruling coalition looks like; I hope it’s a fragile one.
Minarchism is an extremely unstable state, where the cancerous tumor called the state has just been pushed into maximum remission by stripping it of as many functions and resources for their execution as possible, leaving only what simply cannot be taken away—either because officials resisted strongly, the people cannot understand how to manage without it, or something else.
Therefore, I understand the question roughly as follows: under which form of government will a minarchist state expand its powers most slowly? My answer: shareholder democracy. Historically, trading republics, such as Venice, were quite close to this method of management.
The point of this form of government is that the right to vote in the administration of the republic belongs to those who contribute to its functioning, and exactly to the extent to which they contribute. Modern technologies fully allow for quite complex voting with share packages, including options for delegating votes and revoking that delegation.
When people allocate their own money, they tend to maximize savings and are least inclined to give anyone the right to forcibly seize citizens’ money. This is precisely what makes them vigilantly monitor any potential abuses by authorized officials, which works more reliably than a simply formally drawn scheme of checks and balances.
One might wonder, how is this worse than a scheme with a benevolent dictator who unilaterally pays for all state functions out of their own pocket, providing state services to others? The problem is that everyone else must be guided by his sole conception of the common good, which can change unpredictably and rapidly. Simply compare the pace and amplitude of changes in the structures of Bitcoin and Ethereum.
At Montelibero, we are implementing exactly this form of government: both in the eponymous fund and in the land cooperative building the village. (These are two different entities with slightly different vote-counting mechanisms: in the village, we simply vote by square meters, and in the fund, a logarithmic formula for calculating vote weight currently applies so that no one can obtain a controlling interest.) So, I am not only reasoning theoretically about the best form of government, but I am also participating in the field testing of the one I consider to be the best.
Enrico Dandolo, Chairman of the Board of the Most Serene Republic of Venice
The Libertarian Band studio released a fairly dense ten-minute video explaining the specifics of mobilization in the RF for those who still believe that it is actually possible to do something according to the law in the RF. By the way, this is actually possible, because “according to the law” in the RF is one of several competing systems of concepts, and where there is competition, there is an opportunity to win that competition. The thing is, the main tool to ensure that things are handled “according to the law” with you is a loud and dirty public scandal or a credible threat of one. The video also speaks quite clearly about this.
At the end of the video, it was also mentioned that a great way to avoid mobilization would be physical relocation to Montenegro and joining the Montelibero project.
Mikhail Svetov held a rather thin six-hour stream with the powerful title “Run,” where at the end he also mentioned that he strongly recommends fleeing, including to Montenegro, where one can join the Montelibero project if desired—despite Mikhail’s own skepticism regarding the project’s goals, as it’s not the time for luxuries.
I regret to state that the suggestions from both respected channels were slightly belated, and now the priority is to flee not specifically to Montenegro, but anywhere abroad at all, as long as you aren’t turned back at the border—then you can figure out how to survive in the new conditions, and perhaps you’ll manage to make it to Montenegro after all, who knows. For example, one of the project participants lived with us for a month in August; he liked it, then he returned to the RF to pack the rest of his things and move for good—and now he’s stuck in Kazakhstan, where he managed to get with considerable difficulty after the mobilization decree. “Packed his things,” my foot…
Nevertheless, we still declare that we will help with settling in those who make it to our remote area, from some Georgia, Armenia, the same Kazakhstan, or, why not, even from Russia. If you can—mobilize all your resources—and come join us.
About two months have passed since the previous newsletter, which means it’s time for the next one. Last time, there was a lot about the First Montelibero Club, which has become the main center of activity for project participants. So, once again, I’ll start by talking about the club.
Since only those who have explicitly agreed to abide by the NAP become club members, it is much easier to count them than the participants of the Montelibero project; today there are 81 people, half of whom I haven’t even seen once because I don’t visit as often now.
Currently, an English club, a movie club, and a discussion club coexist under its roof; lectures are held from time to time, and a coworking space and bar — with cocktails and the best coffee in Montenegro — are permanently operational.
Additionally, a podcast recording studio has been created there. Those interested can subscribe to the channel where they are posted. For now, the content consists of introductions to various project participants, but over time, I hope other materials will appear.
And I would like to say that this is a photo from a typical MTL breakfast, but no, it’s an ML assembly
The project’s tokenomics is becoming increasingly mature. For instance, for the MTL token — Montelibero’s main investment fund — a public offer has appeared, which finally describes in a dry but accessible manner what it is, what it is used for, and how it works. Previously, the tokens themselves were sold directly by the fund in unlimited quantities at a fixed price, but this sell order has now been liquidated. Issuance at a fixed price is still possible, but only in large portions and by prior request. It is expected that this will have a positive effect on the token price and on the activity of the secondary token market.
For the first time in a very long while, I didn’t start the news summary with the MTL City settlement, but that doesn’t mean construction has failed or even stopped. The concrete frames for a residential building with eight apartments and a non-residential building, which will house various technical services for the future settlement, are completely ready. Wall laying is finishing, then comes the finishing work; the buildings are promised to be completed by the end of the year.
Meanwhile, in Russia, general mobilization and the closing of borders are underway. This means that the main source of new recruits for the project is under threat of exhaustion, and we may soon need to reorient ourselves entirely toward other markets. I doubt we will suddenly start catering to Western European libertarians. Rather, we will work more actively with the already established Russian-speaking diaspora.
In the previous issue, I talked about how we recovered from the initial shocks of the start of the war and continued a quite steady development. Since then, this trend has continued without any new shocks.
Traditionally, I’ll start with the MTLCity settlement. Two months ago, I posted a photo of the pouring of the first two foundations. Now, the residential building already has one and a half floors, and the adjacent administrative building has one.
ApartmaniPoslovni prostor
These buildings are planned to be completed by the end of the year, and the fund is already looking for a person to manage them.
In this regard, I want to immediately mention the recent speech by Mikhail Svetov on Radio Vera, where he was asked about our project, and he stated that he does not like the idea because libertarians should not live together; on the contrary, they should have the opportunity to live separately, drawing boundaries between themselves, while remaining libertarians and political allies.
I am far from gloating over how poorly and biasedly Mikhail works with sources, given that even now, after more than a year of the Montelibero project’s existence, he is convinced that it is exclusively about creating a small settlement of libertarians. A small settlement is for those who want to have libertarians as neighbors. For those who prefer to have other people as neighbors—there is the rest of the country. Mikhail’s speech talks about what is visible (libertarians may not agree on lifestyle preferences and therefore will not get along side by side), but it does not mention what is not visible (it is just as easy to disagree on lifestyle views and have mutual friction with other people—except if your neighbors are statists, then you face the additional danger of the state getting involved in your neighborly disputes). This is a classic mistake of a bad economist.
In any case, Montelibero is by no means only about the MTLCity settlement, and in the future, I will try to mostly talk about our other projects and activities.
A much greater influence on the project today is exerted not by some construction in Dobry Vody, but by a club on the outskirts of Bar, which has already become a point of attraction not only for the libertarian active core, but also for a broad core of those sympathetic to this ideology. To make it clearer for Mikhail—this is our New Sincerity, just without Rospotrebnadzor and in a less pretentious building.
On June 25, a small IT conference was held at the club with about three dozen listeners, featuring an introductory speech on the history of money and a detailed account of how Bitcoin Lightning works.
On July 15, project participant Valery Utrosin held a meeting at the club to discuss his startup for receiving cashback in cryptocurrency during fiat payments with bank cards. He received a lot of feedback, which he hopes will greatly help him in developing the company.
The club has a mini-coworking space for two to three people, a decent kitchen, a cinema room, and many board games, but for Mikhail, I will highlight the main feature: freedom of association. To enter the club, you literally need to sign a non-aggression pact. New members fall only under the responsibility of those who brought them. If a person is uncomfortable to be around, they may be denied access to the club, and such a precedent has already happened once. In short, there is no need to worry: libertarians know how to handle private boundaries and set them where it is convenient for them.
But, of course, we are not cocooning ourselves among our own in a single location, but continuing our expansion. For example, on Wednesdays in Bar, breakfasts are held in various establishments in the city, where participants of the Montelibero project are guaranteed to be present, and where anyone interested can join—to ask their questions and resolve their doubts about us. At first, these were just informal conversations at the table, but recently, pre-selected topics for table discussions were added.
Project participants have already managed to create several businesses in the service sector, mainly oriented toward the Russian-speaking diaspora, but not only. These include car and yacht rentals, currency exchange, and organizational and legal assistance in obtaining Montenegro residence permits.
Although the main vector of our efforts to promote the project has shifted offline, people who discovered Montelibero on the internet continue to visit us. Recently, we posted an English translation of a Libertarian Band video about Montelibero. It’s not that we expected an immediate influx of English speakers; it’s more about accumulating a certain amount of English-language information about ourselves for the future, which will be periodically needed by those for whom perceiving Russian-language information is not very comfortable.
A small IT conference took place at the Montelibero club on June 25. I suggest those interested watch the recording of the most interesting presentation – Anton Gusha talked about how the Lightning Network works and what interesting tools can be built on its basis.
Specifically, he created a startup called StandardSats, which allows anyone to download a specialized Lightning wallet application where the balance in satoshis is floating and pegged to the exchange rate of a particular asset. For example, here in Montenegro, we use the Euro rate as a peg, and thus we can settle payments between each other in fiat without having to convert Bitcoin to Euros first.
I wanted to write about this in the third part of the series on Montelibero tokenomics, but while I was pondering how to present it, the project author came to Montenegro himself and gave a presentation, making my task easier.
In the first article, written a long time ago, I explained what tokenomics is and how it is applied in Montelibero. Also, not long ago, I published a post where I shared my observation that a functioning tokenomics is exactly the unique feature today that distinguishes our community from other offline projects—both libertarian ones and those not concerned with ideology (except, perhaps, Kolionovo, but nothing has been heard from there for a while). Now the time has come for the long-announced second article—about how to enter our tokenomics and how to navigate it.
If you have already moved to Montenegro, the best way is a personal meeting, where everything will be shown to you, they will help you install it, and make sure everything is working. Therefore, the following text is for those who have not yet moved here, which is by no means an obstacle to entering the tokenomics.
In this case, you will most likely need the tokens of our main investment fund MTL, as well as euro-stablecoins EURMTL (at least to receive dividends from the fund). If you intend to limit yourself to this, a special solution has been created for you that requires minimal effort: a wallet in the Telegram bot @MyMTLWalletBot.
Launch the bot and press “Create free account.” That’s it, you have a wallet with two open trust lines: to the EURMTL stablecoin and to the Montelibero investment fund token MTL.
By clicking the Receive button, you will see your public key, which you can use to receive tokens.
Now you just need to contact the fund representatives through another simple Telegram bot @mtl_helper_bot, agree on the purchase of MTL tokens using a payment method convenient for you, provide them with the address from the previous image—and the purchased tokens will arrive there. Subsequently, dividends in EURMTL will arrive at this same address every week.
Sooner or later, you may require more advanced functionality, and then it is definitely worth getting a more serious wallet.
If it is important to you that the wallet does not ask for unnecessary information and has open-source code, your choice is Solar. After installing and launching the application, you can add any number of accounts, although in most cases one will be sufficient.
Click Add account
Since you presumably have no existing account to import, click Create account
If desired, the account can be protected with a password
A key pair is generated. You are asked to ensure that no one is about to take a screenshot of your screen, after which you click Reveal key to see and save your private key, which is used to sign transactions.
Now you have an empty account. By entering it, you can click Receive and get your public key, which is also the wallet address where tokens can be sent to you.
When you have just created an account, it cannot be used yet because any operations require the payment of fees in the internal Stellar cryptocurrency, Lumens (XLM). It costs pennies, so just contact the fund representatives through the same @mtl_helper_bot, provide your public key, and they will give you some for free. Only when the first lumens arrive in your wallet will the account be considered created, and the person who sent these lumens will be recorded in the blockchain as the account creator.
So, the first lumens are received, and the account is working. By clicking the menu icon, you can see all the simple functionality of the wallet, in which we are currently interested in the “Assets & Balances” item.
To acquire any tokens other than XLM, you need to open trust lines to them. Click Add Asset To Your Account.
In the window that opens, type “mtl” and you will see the search results. We are interested in the MTL token issued by mtl.montelibero.org (fakes issued by someone else may be found; they should not be added). Click on it to see the token description.
All that’s left is to click ADD ASSET TO ACCOUNT, and the trust line to the token is open. In doing so, 0.5 XLM is frozen; they will be unfrozen if you decide to delete the trust line to the token.
In a similar way, add a trust line to EURMTL—again, choosing specifically the token issued by mtl.montelibero.org from the search results.
That’s it; you have now manually reproduced what was done with one button in the Telegram bot. However, this account is completely under your control.
The Solar wallet is convenient if you want to have several different addresses for different needs and are ready to independently organize the storage of those addresses to which you need to make transfers fairly regularly. Also, using this wallet means that you do not frequently require automatic token-to-token exchange. Otherwise, it makes sense to consider a wallet that is less aligned with advanced ideas of privacy but possesses some additional functionality.
This functionality is provided by the Lobstr wallet, which is used by most of the people who moved to Montenegro. This is a web wallet, which also exists as a mobile application. A simple account setup procedure:
Click Get Started
If desired, protect the account with a password
As you can see, the wallet requires an email address, which, in theory, is not necessary for working with crypto. After confirming the email, you can go to settings and save your keys: public (starts with G) and private (starts with S, not visible on the screen, opened by the “Reveal secret key” button). You can also set a Federation address, which is similar in syntax to an email and is therefore easy to remember.
Notifications of operations will then arrive by email, and tokens can be sent to your federation address as well as to your public key. Also, this wallet allows you to save your counterparties in a contact database under human names, which is why I personally value it.
Next, when sending tokens, you have the option to choose a recipient from the contact list.
Select which tokens you are sending and how many. If desired, you can add a short text comment, which will also be recorded in the blockchain. That’s it, you can press Send.
Another advanced feature of this wallet is token exchange. Click Swap assets.
Next, choose which tokens you are selling and which you want to buy. The wallet searches for all open sell/buy orders for all tokens in the Stellar blockchain and tries to build a chain of exchanges that will give you the desired result.
Thus, you can freely exchange a wide variety of tokens. For example, as shown in the screenshot, buy my personal ANCAPCHAN tokens using EURMTL (after first opening a trust line to them). In doing so, firstly, you donate to me; secondly, you receive a collectible token in return; and thirdly, if at some point you decide to get your euros back, you can always sell the token back. Admit it, this is a more flexible scheme than simply sending money to my address.
So, you have chosen the most convenient Stellar wallet for you and mastered the basic operations with it. Now you have the opportunity, for example, to regularly invest part of your ruble earnings into the Montelibero fund (considering that, at the time of writing these instructions, the ruble has an artificially inflated exchange rate due to Russian Central Bank regulations, such a tactic looks very attractive). This is more meaningful than simply donating to the project’s needs because donations are just money, whereas with investments, we also get the minds of investors interested in multiplying capital, not spending it.
After buying your first MTL, you will be added to the token holders’ chat, where investment policy is discussed, and if you are lucky enough to be in the top twenty by share of ownership in the fund, you will gain the right to sign its decisions. Mainly, this means the obligation to certify the dividend payment transaction every Friday, but from time to time, more interesting issues must be resolved. Until a certain threshold of signatures is reached, a decision on a particular payment simply cannot be technically processed.
There is also an option to delegate your voting right to another project participant, and if enough of these accumulate so that their total ownership share puts them in the top twenty, the delegate becomes a signer (I am currently among them for this very reason; my personal ownership share is no longer enough). Our colleague Soz wrote a good guide on how to delegate a vote. Also, you might be interested in his guide on how to support a useful member of the community. Such support will mean more than just a symbolic gesture. The project participant you support becomes part of the distributed government of Montelibero—a collegiate body which, unlike the twenty fund signers, deals not only with the fund but with the project as a whole: where to go, where to advertise, and how to react to challenges.
And further, it is hoped that you will become sufficiently experienced in tokenomics, expand your portfolio from just MTL to tokens of specific businesses that interest you most, and look closely at the surrounding reality, estimating where tokenization could be useful. Ancap is expansive; there is no need to be shy about it. Here, you can admire the list of goods and services that you can already purchase using EURMTL. Your business may also soon find itself on this list.
Alex Rozov (an author of near-libertarian trans-utopias whom I rate quite highly) examined in his LiveJournal a set of concepts promoted by Bitarh and Voluntarist regarding the possibilities for radically reducing violence in human society.
The author believes that a one-time removal of aggressive individuals from the human population would likely be insufficient, and to consolidate success, a “culturocide” is also necessary—that is, the abolition from culture of patterns that encourage and heroize aggressive violence.
The author analyzes a series of articles on the violence inhibitor, noting that its appearance in humans is entirely evolutionarily grounded (the currently mainstream hypothesis of human self-domestication in scientific discourse), and also attempts to answer the question of to what extent it would be advisable to strengthen it (betrization is a term introduced by Stanisław Lem, referring precisely to the procedure of sharply increasing the violence inhibitor). The answer is discouraging: no single-step action will lead to the desired result, as society is regulated by mechanisms that are too complex. The author believes that the simple ability to defend oneself against immediate violence (which is ensured by the fact that the inhibitor’s action is temporarily weakened in a moment of immediate danger) does not provide sufficient feedback to bring society to the desired non-violent state; the readiness to retaliate stealthily is also important.
Thus, the difference in approaches is clearly highlighted. While Bitarh and Voluntarist, in exploring a mechanism that regulates human reactions, further speculate based on a fantastic premise about forcibly strengthening this mechanism in certain individuals, Alex Rozov considers natural human communities and the mechanisms that could lead them to the desired result (a society of free, prosperous individuals who highly value cooperation and development). His fantastic premises mostly lie in the technical sphere (technologies of war, information exchange, and organization) or boil down to the idea that the right people should gather in sufficient concentration and number.
Nevertheless, all three are convinced that removing individuals prone to aggressive violence from a community produces a powerful positive effect. I will note for myself that not all lustration is the same, and if a community is cleansed in such a way that those removed become its enemies, it could lead to serious problems in the future.
In Montelibero, we see so far that selecting people for the community who share the principle of non-aggression leads to a high level of cooperation. The removal of those with whom it is uncomfortable in the community currently happens through fairly soft rejection. I would prefer not to test how capable such a community would be to resist external aggression if the occasion arose, but so far, based on the general mood, it is not apparent that the chances of successfully repelling aggression are significantly higher or lower than those of any other cohesive community.
In other words, for now, we are managing with Rozov’s methods. Bitarh’s methods might be in demand for correcting the external background, but they are technically unavailable today. Rozov’s methods for the interaction of a free society with the outside world (creating a decentralized environment for conducting special operations to expand the space of freedom) are currently available to us to a minimal extent, at the level of maneuvering between state regulations.
That’s how things stand.
opasan pas – Montenegrin localization of the libertarian snake
In a recent Montelibero news post, I mentioned that among the project participants, there are surprisingly few—not to mention active members—of either of the two Libertarian parties of Russia, or even people somehow connected to them. Perhaps this thought is worth expanding upon.
Of course, at the start of the project, no one could say exactly what it would turn into over time. One founder saw it as a center for agorism. Another as a platform for the future transformation of Montenegro along libertarian lines. For me, it was a platform for the evacuation of Russian political activists from the Putin regime. As a result, we do indeed have a center for agorism, and the strategic goal of transforming Montenegro is written in our project description, although we haven’t made much progress in that direction. As for the evacuation platform—we indeed became one, but more and more people joining us are not political activists, but ordinary libertarians who aren’t interested in any such politics.
And, you know, it seems that this is actually a good thing. Judging by what reached me during the period when I was still relatively close with political libertarians, the bulk of their party activity boiled down to bickering over the charter and dividing power within the party (which happened to be splitting in two at the time). Here, frictions occasionally arise regarding the coordination of joint activities, but there is none of this endless expelling of people from the movement. You approve of the market, you don’t approve of state intervention, you don’t practice coercion—well, great, we are on the same path, and you can get acquainted with the smart books in your spare time, if you get around to it.
I was recently asked what, exactly, distinguishes our community from any other hangout, since here in Montenegro, there are several other emigrant groups that likewise do not practice violence and fully approve of freedom. I had to think about it, and as a result of my reflections, I found the only fundamental difference: we have tokenomics. That is, essentially, we simply actively practice the formalization of our market relations and obligations in an explicit form, and it is precisely this that gives us the opportunity to develop very actively.
The question arises: what if some other community manages to implement tokenomics for themselves, how will they differ from us? And here I note with surprise that, in essence, they won’t. Tokenomics (unlike cryptocurrencies) operates on trust, because linking tokens to real-world objects is impossible without trust. And trust among community members is possible only because they share a common value, such as a love for the market—specifically, for voluntary transactions. Any inclinations toward ideas that it’s useful to deceive “suckers” will be immediately rejected by the community (along with the carriers of such ideas), because our mutual obligations are not secured by any state violence, and deploying the tools of private violence is expensive and troublesome, and just not worth it. If some other community manages to reproduce similar relations within itself, we can boldly recognize them as our equals, and at the same time recognize their tokens. Thus, a completely seemingly auxiliary tool unnoticedly turns out to be a unique feature and almost the basis of identity.
As for political methods of solving problems, it’s truly better to leave them to the parties. And for them, we are apparently doomed to remain a completely non-political project, whether for selling land or some other politically meaningless activity. Let’s wish these guys luck in their mission, but if any party member wants to move from politics to economics—our doors are open.
