Тег: Officials

What to do with people who currently work for the state or receive aid from it?

Voluntarist

A significant portion of the population consists of so-called “budgetniki”—employees of government structures and corporations. According to various estimates, about 30% of the working-age population in Russia are budget employees. A very reasonable question may arise: what happens to them in the event of achieving a free society? After all, they are accustomed to working according to state standards, which often lag behind the requirements of the private sector. For example, the professionalism of government teachers or medics is very often inferior to that of private workers. If the state ceases to exist, these people will not be able to realize themselves in a private environment, as it is unlikely that anyone will need them given their relatively low qualifications, and thus their poor ability to attract clients and generate income for an organization. Moreover, undergoing additional qualification is a rather difficult task for people who have been working at the same pace for many years without any changes.

Will all budget employees find themselves on the street in an instant? But that would lead to a catastrophe, as they constitute too large a part of the population. Most likely, they would demand the return of the monopolistic and coercive power they are used to, because under it they at least had no problems with survival; the state provided them with funds even if they brought relatively little benefit to other people. According to Hirschleifer’s criteria, a stable free society requires that there be no people driven beyond the edge of survival, because having nothing to lose, they will do anything, including acts of violence; the more such people there are, the more violence there will be, potentially reaching scales that threaten the preservation of a non-violent social order.

Besides budget employees, we must also remember the people who receive assistance from the state without which they simply cannot survive. The disabled, pensioners, orphans—can they really be deprived of the benefits they receive for survival, thereby condemning them to a short, impoverished life on handouts or death altogether?

However, there are at least two solutions to this issue, which, of course, cannot cover absolutely all the problems of civil servants and social assistance recipients, but should handle the vast majority of them.

The first solution will arise on its own in the process of practicing agorism. The creation of alternative social institutions to the state while the state’s monopolistic power still exists is very important so that people are not left with nothing, but have the opportunity to switch at a pace convenient for them from state work to work in similar independent organizations. This mitigates the problem, as budget employees will not be put in a position where only immediate dismissal and the need to find an alternative right away await them. No, they will be able to seek alternatives while having the ability to continue their accustomed life for some time, without worrying about their own survival.

Also, in the process of practicing agorism, various interest-based communities will emerge, and budget employees can use them to organize mutual aid systems. This same answer applies to socially vulnerable layers of the population; they too can find a place in such systems.

If this answer seems unconvincing to you, then there is another option. Achieving a free society does not consist of eliminating the state as an organization; no, this process is aimed only at destroying its power structure, which allows it to impose a monopolistic order on everyone through the threat of violence, and at equalizing the Balance of Violence Potential among all subjects of society, so that no one can simply recreate power by force. This is also called the non-violent state scenario. In this way, we only achieve the appearance of alternatives to the state organization, which anyone wishing can use, but not its complete destruction.

Naturally, many people accustomed to the state will remain. Even without coercion, they will pay it for the services provided to them. Many people are simply used to state schools, clinics, and other institutions, so they will continue to use them even under conditions of freedom. This means budget employees will not lose their jobs. Likewise, the socially vulnerable layers of the population will not lose their social payments.

Of course, for a non-violent state to survive in conditions of freedom, it will have to become an efficient and competitive organization. It can be expected that the officials managing it will succeed, as they will now have the necessary market tools to evaluate the effectiveness of their activities, since it will make sense to compare income with expenses (currently such a comparison is pointless, as any expenses can be covered by taxation and the use of monopoly privileges). Moreover, they will have to work honestly, without deception, corruption, or theft; otherwise, the state-organization will go bankrupt, and they will find themselves on the street in poverty and debt. It is also quite expected that the leadership of the state, once it becomes a competitive organization, will quickly be replenished by people who know how to work in a market environment, as, again, this is also a very good way to avoid bankruptcy.

But even if the state does not become efficient in conditions of freedom, it will still be able to hold on for some time thanks to the people who are accustomed to it. An analogy can be drawn with the fear of progress. Some people fear that new technologies will lead to crowds of displaced workers who have become obsolete. However, it doesn’t work that way; if, for example, a sufficiently good autopilot is invented that can replace human taxi drivers, it will still take many years, if not decades, for its widespread implementation. The taxi driver profession will disappear gradually, allowing current taxi drivers to work out their careers; there simply won’t be a demand for new taxi drivers, and people currently choosing their professional path will simply look at other, more relevant options.

The same applies here. If the state, having become a private organization, gradually falls apart, then current budget employees and social assistance recipients will be able to live their lives as they planned; it is simply that new employees and needy people will seek work and receive help from alternative organizations. In the non-violent state scenario, that day when everything collapses in an instant is unlikely to occur.

Why you shouldn’t work for the state

Many people see nothing wrong with cooperating with the state in every possible way, taking grants from it, working as a civil servant, or even building their entire career within the state sphere. Some may believe that there are certain prospects in this field, others think the state will help them, and still others believe they are working for the good of society. But let us look at what it actually means to tie oneself to the state.

1) You are easily framed

By working in the state sphere or even simply associating yourself with the state in any way, you automatically sign up for the risk that the crimes of other, more influential state officials will be pinned on you, or that you will be thrown behind bars simply because you displeased them in some way. Politics is characterized by cases where some bureaucrats shift their sins onto other bureaucrats, subordinates, or agents otherwise connected to them, and send those people to prison. In the private sphere, an attempt to set someone up can cost significant reputational and legal expenses. In the case of the state apparatus, a frame-up costs nothing, especially considering that the judicial system is under the patronage of the state itself.

The “Seventh Studio” case provides a good example of this phenomenon. In the end, state grants backfired on the founder of this theater troupe and some of his colleagues. This is a good example of why one should not get involved with the state, even if it promises help.

2) You will achieve nothing

If you decide to train for a profession in a field of activity that is either strictly regulated and subordinate, or entirely monopolized by the state, it is unlikely that anything good will come of it. In the private environment, different organizations compete with each other for employees. They have an incentive to raise wages and improve working conditions. But in the case of the state sphere, there are no alternative competing agents. That is why there are no economic incentives to raise wages and improve working conditions. Ordinary workers in the state sphere have nothing to gain!

Although, of course, a certain group of employees can lobby for their interests and get what they want, but in this situation, we move to point No. 3.

3) And if you do achieve something – at what cost and who will you become?

Suppose you were able to achieve something in the state sphere. Using your social skills, connections, bribery, and other corrupt methods, you either obtained certain privileges for yourself or occupied an important post in the state apparatus. In this case, you seem to be doing well. But this “well” is the same as the “well” of a thief who has robbed other people, or a rapist who torments their victims.

Unlike the market environment, where everyone within their private framework can promote their ideas without conflicting with other subjects, politics is always a conflict. And by winning this conflict, you only obtain benefits through the forced subordination of other subjects. Here, your interests are important, and the interests of others can be brutally ignored.

If you like this state of affairs, it is obvious what conclusions can be drawn about you. You are a robber, a rapist, and a maniac! And do not try to justify yourself by saying that you work for the good of society as a whole. You have certain beliefs and programs that require the implementation of specific ideas regarding the entire society at once, disregarding the desires of those who disagree and would want something else. Again, in a market environment, everyone can try to implement their ideas without a violent struggle against those whose ideas are completely opposite; no one needs to subordinate other people to their ideas for them to work (politicized ideas, however, cannot work without this).

Furthermore, let us not forget point No. 1. No matter what privileges you have now, it is unknown where they will lead in the future. Perhaps the highest state officials will dislike you for some reason, and you will have to prepare for the worst. Or perhaps power will change, and you will also be sent far away as a supporter of the wrong ideas.

Getting involved with the state is harmful to oneself. You may become a victim of a frame-up, you are unlikely to find anything good in the state sphere if you are an ordinary worker, and if you do achieve something, it will only be through robbery and violence against other people. Obviously, it is not worth it!

Vitaliy Tizun

De-anonymization service as a destroyer of etatism

Bitark’s Column

Ancap-chan, in her post about LPR and security forces, lamented that in a direct confrontation with the state, the libertarian party behaves not in accordance with its public rhetoric about what ought to be, but like ordinary peaceful law-abiding citizens. One can talk as much as they want about the state being a bandit, about the aggressor’s sanction that allows for the removal of government officials without trial or investigation, and so on, but as we see, this does not translate into a real program of action and likely will not.

Why does this happen? Most would probably say that people are “simply intimidated and afraid to push their luck,” “the state is stronger,” and other such nonsense. But the government of the Russian Empire was by no means a cute bunny and far exceeded Putin’s in terms of cruelty. Nevertheless, it was opposed by determined fellows with their own often suicidal doctrine of individual terror. This was an incomparably greater extremism than the behavior of modern Russian oppositionists, who do not even dare to do what is widely practiced in modern Hong Kong—for example, go out into the street in a mask, shine a weak laser in a policeman’s eye, and then flee unidentified.

Political scientist Ekaterina Schulmann constantly speaks of a global trend toward the reduction of violence and the strengthening of security values. According to Inglehart’s values map, Russians are particularly characterized by values of individualism and security; therefore, it is not surprising that their behavior is so different from that of the residents of Hong Kong, who embrace values of development. Thus, we will have to build our struggle strategies based on this fact. If we want to create a mass resistance movement against the stationary bandit, the methods it uses must be as non-violent as possible.

As we wrote in previous articles, the meaning of the deterrence doctrine is to increase the costs of initiating violence for the aggressor. In this regard, it does not matter exactly how the costs are increased for officials and security forces. But since we want to create a mass campaign (so that as many people as possible participate), the methods must be maximally non-violent, and the necessary actions for participants (the level of difficulty) must be the simplest.

Such a means, of course, is a service for the de-anonymization of officials and security forces. Alexander Litreev launched a project with similar goals called “Russian Elephant,” but only the first name, last name, and photo of security personnel who showed cruelty are added there. Not even a home address. Litreev positions his project as “absolutely legal” (which should be read as: “obeying all orders of the stationary bandit”), so it will have no serious impact on the state. It is foolish to hope for victory by playing by the rules of the bandits, which they write for themselves.

To truly increase the costs for stationary bandits, I envision a service roughly like this:

1) It is implemented as a website but operates under TOR, like all darknet sites such as Hydra. This provides maximum security while maintaining ease of use. The TOR browser is already installed for many people (enough to download and launch, everything works “out of the box”) on all platforms (Windows/Linux, Android/iOS). Despite known cases of .onion site hacks followed by the installation of malicious scripts for user de-anonymization, all of these were carried out by the FBI, CIA, and NSA. Uncle Sam, of course, is just as much of a stationary bandit as Pynya, but he will never help Pynya crush his opponents. Thus, even a bare TOR browser without additional anonymization tools (VPN, disk encryption, Linux instead of Windows, accessing the network via an anonymous phone and SIM card), TOR provides practically 100% anonymity against local guardians of stability, i.e., against the FSB. A low entry barrier will allow for the attraction of the maximum number of people, even those who are not technically savvy. This also greatly simplifies development (it is created as a regular website and then hosted on .onion).

2) The website collects a database of officials and security forces of all ranks, posting absolutely all information that could be found—first name, last name, residential addresses, phone numbers, social media profiles, the wife’s place of work, connections with mistresses, car license plate. We are deterring bandits, so obeying their own “law”/order “On the Protection of Personal Data” is the height of absurdity!

3) The site is populated by concerned users. The entire database is in open access, and its snapshot is posted daily for offline download (so it is not lost if the FSB manages to seize the server). Data appears on the site after verification by moderators to exclude the intentional entry of people not involved with stationary bandits.

4) Each profile of an official or security officer will have crowdfunding (like on Kickstarter) to conduct a campaign to “increase the costs of aggression” (retribution) against that person. People will contribute bitcoins, suggest options, carry out retribution, and send a report to the moderators. If everything is correct, the executor will receive all the money from the fund of that official/security officer. Similarly, one can motivate the collection of data on a specific official (home address, car number, mobile number, etc.).

5) Only non-violent methods of retribution are permitted (killing or causing physical harm to health is forbidden). It is forbidden to list the children of officials and security forces as objects of retribution. In this way, the creators of the service cannot be portrayed to the public as ruthless terrorists, and the bandit’s relatives will not be as enraged as in the case of his death, while those who would like to replace him will be pleased. Here are examples of permissible methods of retribution: posting flyers with photos in the entrance, writing on the door, filling the lock with glue, writing on the car, reporting something to the wife’s workplace, filling the apartment with odorant, splashing with zelyonka. Impermissible: smashing a head, breaking legs, splashing with acid, setting the apartment on fire. Always remember: deterrence is not war!

As you can see, this service does not require the use of violence and is easy to use, which gives good chances of attracting a large number of people.

The libertarian eagle is anonymized and safe; the bandit is deprived of such luxury