I edited the fourth chapterof Practical Anarchy by Stephan Molneux. The text is an impressive exercise in rhetoric. The author continues to motivate us to abandon the state in favor of anarchy using the following logical construct: the state is absolutely horrific, therefore, the absence of a state could be cool; if it turns out that coordination in a society without a state is possible in principle, then we should go for it. If this creates minor inconveniences, they can be tolerated, but the whole point is that no, it won’t, but on the contrary, it will only be better, and then it turns out that you endured the evil, ugly state just so that life would also be inconvenient—aren’t you idiots?
I have edited the first three previously posted chapters of Practical Anarchy by Stephan Molinari. However, these are only formally three chapters; in terms of meaning, it is first a foreword, then an introduction, and finally some boundary conditions. I suspect that Molinari must be a very skilled lover, given such an approach to foreplay.
The style of the book is very lively and emotional, but somewhat overloaded. I tried to make it readable enough, and I hope I succeeded.
In the foreword, the author apologizes to the reader for daring to publish the book in open access, and for having the audacity to assume that the reader, having paid zero money, will devote more than zero time to reading it.
From the introduction to the first part, dedicated to methodology, the reader finds out that they are actually dealing with the second book of a trilogy, and also receives a new portion of authorial apologies—this time for the fact that the book will most likely cause some “butthurt.”
In the chapter on limitations, the author explains that he does not intend to describe in detail what color robes judges will wear under ancap, and generally would prefer the book to be perceived as a textbook rather than a handbook. Let us immediately apply this knowledge to the previously published chapters on dispute resolution organizations and stateless prisons.
There is still work to do on the previously translated chapters, but the completion of the draft translation is still far off, and your financial support could encourage the process. All details are before the table of contents.
Critics of ancap constantly cite the well-known argument from Robert Nozick’s 1974 book Anarchy, State, and Utopia regarding the impossibility of ancap. Its essence is that different protection agencies may reach contradictory decisions regarding a particular case, enter into an armed conflict when attempting to execute them, and ultimately, one strongest agency will remain, becoming an ordinary mini-state with a territorial monopoly. In his work on the conditions for the stability of anarchy, Jack Hirschleifer demonstrated the conditions under which this occurs, leading to a war for hegemony instead of a state of anarchy.
But this argument applies exclusively to models of a stateless society where the use of violence is still permissible for certain purposes (enforcement of contracts, collection of compensation). For example, this position is partially held by Murray Rothbard and fully by David Friedman (the book The Machinery of Freedom). For a fully voluntarist society, the problem of conflict between protection agencies, as well as the determination of a higher court instance (which makes the final decision), is completely absent.
In any model of a voluntarist society, conditions are created where the initiation of violence is impossible or instantly extinguished (there is a uniform balance of violence potential (BVP) “everyone has weapons” and a deterrence doctrine (DD), i.e., the readiness of the majority of society to use counter-violence to stop aggression). Counter-violence can only be applied during a direct attack, but one cannot start a war to “punish a violator” or “collect compensation.” An offender, if they are not initiating violence at that moment, can only be boycotted—that is, no business is conducted with them. By the way, this is standard behavior between all subject players with BVP, such as stationary bandits (SB, “states”) in their relations with each other.
Under ancap, a trial (as is currently the case in relations between SB) can occur only by the mutual consent of both parties. The parties also agree in advance on the conditions for appealing the court’s decision if it does not satisfy them. And what if one party does not want to go to court? In a voluntarist society with BVP, no one can force them to go, but the refusal may be viewed as an admission of guilt, leading to a demand for compensation for the plaintiff, and in case of refusal—a decrease in reputation and possible ostracism. If the violator does this constantly, the severity of the ostracism will increase; eventually, they will simply stop being provided with utility services and sold goods in most stores, and they will be forced either to agree to cooperate or to move far away, to where their reputation is not taken so close to heart. Although with a ruined reputation, entry into all more or less decent jurisdictions will be closed to them.
As we can see, there is absolutely no room for the conflict described by Nozick.
Commentary by Ancap-chan
Nozick shows how a system of competing protection agencies can turn into a system of minimal states without violating the gentlemanly principle of compensating damage to clients affected by their activities, as well as to third parties. Bitarkh shows that if we take away from protection agencies this convenient pretext to coerce anyone for their own good, the problem of the state’s renaissance is resolved. Then the question arises, “well, how do we actually coerce if we really want to,” and to this Stefan Molinier answers. Which scenario is less realistic—the emergence of ultra-minimal states based on protection agencies or the emergence of a voluntarist society based on universal armament and readiness to actively counteract violence directed at oneself—we leave for the reader to judge.
I recently published a selection of interesting quasi-libertarian channels, and among them was Artyom Seversky’s channel Life with Others. I specifically recommended checking out the series of posts on monetary policy, but digging through a Telegram channel’s history can be inconvenient. Fortunately, the author was kind enough to compile these posts into a single article and post it on the website. At the same time, you can browse the site; there are some interesting things there as well, for example, an article on classical liberalism and libertarianism by the same Eric Mack, whose book we are currently translating.
The Libertarian Band channel, where I write scripts for a series of educational videos, has started its own separate news section and today released a pilot episode with a new charismatic host. Please take a moment to leave a comment about what you think of the presentation to help improve it.
I have also posted the translation drafts of five new chapters of Practical Anarchy by Stephan Molneux. With this, my budget for incentivizing volunteers has completely run out, so I think the flow of drafts will now stall, and I can calmly focus on editing what has already been sent. However, you can contribute more money, and the volunteers will perk up. As a reminder, here is the wallet for financing the translation project: 1AFkD2bazCs5YZBBrSD7HsRMWLmRbg6QBo
I’ve fallen ill and my head isn’t thinking clearly, so I took on work that requires minimum intellectual effort: I laid out and posted the drafts of all the chapters already translated by volunteers Practical Anarchy by Stéphane Molinier — I don’t have enough energy for editing yet. Thus, the particularly impatient can familiarize themselves with the text without waiting for me to polish everything.
The volunteers picked up such speed that they devoured all the donations previously collected for translation, and after a few chapters, I actually owe them. So I very much ask you to replenish the funds so that they don’t stop halfway. Send money to the wallet 1AFkD2bazCs5YZBBrSD7HsRMWLmRbg6QBo. A crisis is a great opportunity to buy bitcoins on the cheap, don’t miss this chance. Translate some for a good cause, keep the rest as a stash.
We have begun translating The Practical Anarchist by Stephan Molinieu, and to start, we present to you the core essence — the chapters concerning courts under ancap (everyone loves to ask about courts under ancap, but there are as many views on this topic as there are ancaps) and private prisons.
Chapter 16, Dispute Resolution Organizations. The author shares anecdotes from the IT sphere, showing that the state is used not to help resolve conflicts with unscrupulous counterparties, but to threaten them with the very possibility of proceedings. This can, of course, also be used, but such application of the court institute looks utterly idiotic. Next are reflections on why contracts are needed and how to resolve inevitable disputes over them without the use of centralized violence.
Chapter 25, Stateless Prisons, paints us pictures of bleak existence for anyone who, having committed a violent crime, refuses to compensate for the damage in a situation where everything around is private. Next, a more or less lenient alternative is proposed, which any remotely rational criminal will not fail to use.
As a reminder, money is needed for the translation. We currently have approximately half of the amount on hand, so your donations to the wallet 1AFkD2bazCs5YZBBrSD7HsRMWLmRbg6QBo would be extremely appropriate.
I am still far from finishing the editing of Friedman’s translation, yet two more long-term projects have appeared in the Translations section of the website. I haven’t read either book yet and will do so only during the editing process of the translations; that is when I will form my own opinion about them.
Eric Mack, Libertarianism. The book itself was recommended for reading by Mikhail Pozharsky. No free access to the English text was found, so I had to buy it on Amazon and then pirate it almost as in the era of paper books: take screenshots of the screen and perform OCR on the images. Therefore, the English text cannot boast good formatting; we will polish the translation itself.
To speed up the work on the translations, your donations to the wallet 1AFkD2bazCs5YZBBrSD7HsRMWLmRbg6QBo will be a great help
I slightly supplemented the day before yesterday’s article with the response to Alexander Elesev. The supplement includes an advertisement for Alexander Litreev’s new project and a mysterious wish not to eat yellow snow.
I am also duplicating here from the article a mention of collecting ideas on applying the doctrine of deterrence to the state.
If you have fresh, interesting ideas regarding what non-violent threats and mechanisms for their implementation could be used by a citizen against government officials of various ranks, please share them in the comments or via private message. Authors of the most successful ideas can expect a reward in bitcoins.
Also, since the opportunity arose, I got to know the Dobroum project better, which turned out to be a quite interesting phenomenon, and I would like to tell you more about it.
Like my project, Dobroum is built around its own website, but it has significantly greater penetration into various social networks, of which the most developed and interesting is the YouTube channel (almost 20 thousand subscribers). The website states that Alexander was inspired to create the project by Freedomain Radio — a channel by Canadian blogger Stephan Molyneux, who is quite scandalous in the English-speaking world and is only occasionally mentioned by Mikhail Svetov in the Russian-speaking one. I am practically unfamiliar with the content of Molyneux’s ideas, except for a very laconic Wikipedia page, so I will not attempt to judge the continuity between Elesev and Molyneux in ideological terms.
Alexander himself pushes two main ideas in his videos and articles:
The root of state violence toward people lies in domestic violence. As violence in families is phased out, violence in society as a whole also decreases. Therefore, it is extremely important to raise one’s own offspring in a non-violent manner and spread this idea as widely as possible.
The rationality of society’s organization, its ability to develop and overcome prejudices, is directly linked to the average IQ in that very society. IQ, meanwhile, is far more determined by heredity than by education. Therefore, practices such as limiting immigration from disadvantaged countries, the absence of support for dysfunctional families, and encouraging birth rates among the intellectual elite are beneficial for society.
As his primary method, Alexander uses “reasoning from first principles,” in other words, deduction in the spirit of Rothbard. At the same time, as we see from the IQ case, he tends to trust research in the natural sciences and draw conclusions about the desired organization of society based on them, which is dangerously close to various scientistic social engineering practices so popular in the 20th century. Ideas of spontaneous orders and an evolutionary approach are not close to him, as far as I can judge.
Alexander lives in the USA, so this point should be kept in mind when he discusses Russian events. On the other hand, his videos concerning American problems specifically are very interesting.
In general, I subscribed to his YouTube channel, but I decided not to subscribe to the Telegram — there is too much ephemeral content there for my taste, and I am already close to the limit of my perception capabilities; I have to be very careful with subscriptions so as not to spend too much energy on scrolling. But of course, you decide for yourselves. In any case, among Russian-language channels, this is a fairly unique and quite pleasant example of such a slightly naive liberal-conservatism.
the title video on the Dobroum channel — apparently, it is intended that this should be watched first
