I am posting three more chapters The Machinery of Freedom by David Friedman.

Is William F. Buckley a Contagious Disease? William Buckley is a conservative who ran a loud but unsuccessful campaign for mayor of New York City in 1965, wrote a book about it, and in it, while discussing the city’s problems, mentioned drug addiction using an epidemic metaphor. Polemicizing against this view, Friedman advocates for legalization from ethical and utilitarian positions.

This Is My Life. In this chapter, Friedman advocates for deregulation in pharmacology and the food industry, pointing out that caution kills far more lives than untested treatments or low-quality products.

Children’s Rights. Here it is shown that it is pointless to prevent the early emancipation of a child, and that in conditions where parental upbringing has proven unacceptable for the child, freedom may prove to be the best educator.

I am posting three more chapters of Mechanics of Freedom.

The First Step. It discusses the optimal approach to the decentralization of governance in large cities.

Counterattack. This chapter is dedicated to private arbitration—why it is better than state courts, how it works under current conditions, and how it could work without a state.

How It Could Have Been. A fascinating fantasy about private space and what it could have been like if not for the foolish space race with the USSR.

Merry Christmas to everyone! If I maintain the current pace, I will finish the entire second part of the book by the New Year, leaving only a tiny bit—four more parts.

I’ve fallen slightly behind on publishing the translation of The Machinery of Freedom, so I need to catch up. I present to you a couple of fresh chapters.

The chapter 99% Readiness is more of a historical interest. In it, David Friedman in the late sixties invented something halfway between BlaBlaCar and a shared shuttle to solve specific public transport problems in American cities with their powerful commuter migration from the suburbs to the business center and back.

Now, the chapter Anarchist Politics: On the Libertarian Party may seem quite interesting specifically in modern Russia, since the local libertarian party is also beginning to experience processes that resemble, in miniature, what Friedman described. Sorry that they are not in order: that’s just how it happened.

In another chapter of The Machinery of Freedom, which I would like to present to you today, David Friedman puts forward a number of proposals that clearly run counter to the urban planning ideas of both his time and the present, but are quite capable of solving many problems of city traffic. Of course, for Russia, the mentioned problems were completely irrelevant in 1969 due to the lack of private transport in quantities that would cause traffic jams, but now we are experiencing them in full, and therefore the book should be quite timely.

Hans-Hermann Hoppe gave a lecture in Moscow today. They say about one and a half thousand people attended, which is very cool: soon stadiums will be gathering for libertarian lectures. As for me, I am posting the translation of another chapter of The Machinery of Freedom by David Friedman.

In the chapter titled Opening the Gates, Friedman argues that the US should immediately return to a policy of unrestricted immigration (of course, while abandoning welfare and the minimum wage). Thus, he directly opposes the aforementioned Hoppe, who supports the right of citizens to self-isolate from unwashed foreigners.

I would love to see a debate between these two feisty old men. It could even be in a ring, for added spectacle. Hoppe, an immigrant advocating for closed borders, against Friedman, a native-born American advocating for open ones. The world is full of paradoxes, which is what makes it beautiful!

I am posting the translation of two more chapters “The Machinery of Freedom” by David Friedman, dedicated to the criticism and constructive proposals for the reform of universities (spoiler: universities are being “Uberized,” although, of course, such a word had not yet been invented in the seventies of the last century).

I also slightly revised the numbering structure of the chapters in the second part of the book, as previously my epigraph had the number 2-1, as if it were a separate chapter. Now it is page 2-0.

So.
Chapter 3. The Unsolvable Problem of Universities
Chapter 4. Adam Smith’s University

After a long break, I finally got around to editing the accumulated translations of individual chapters of “Mechanics of Freedom”.

The second part of Mechanics of Freedom, “Libertarian Deriban, or How to Sell Off the State Piece by Piece,” is dedicated to various ideas of liberal reforms that do not require the abolition of the state to be launched, but significantly reduce its role.

The poem “Paranoia”, which serves as the epigraph to this part of the book, was quite difficult for me due to its nightmare of a meter. Of course, from an academic standpoint, I should not have used a profane rhyme there, but rather left an ellipsis, as the author did, rhyming the necessary word with “bed,” for example. But, being a feminist, I limit the use of the word “yebat” [fuck] only to idioms, like “yebat vola” [to waste time] or “yebat mozg” [to mess with someone’s head]; as for voluntary sex between people—only “yebat’sya” [to fuck], and nothing else. That doesn’t fit the meter, so the word was tucked into the middle of the line, which, in turn, required its use in an explicit form. Thus, political correctness defeated propriety)))

In the chapter “Selling Schools”, Friedman presents the concept of school vouchers, which since its original utterance has been quite widely publicized, entering, in particular, the program of the Libertarian Party of Russia, but seems to have never been fully implemented anywhere—the state desperately clings to its right to fuck children’s heads.

In the chapter “Radical Critique of American Universities”, Friedman took the easy way out and entrusted the critique entirely to the famous 18th-century economist Adam Smith. Smith, having subdued time and space, condescended to the request and thoroughly blasted mid-20th-century American universities.

The “Daily Friedman” column is back with you! I am publishing the final tenth chapter of The Machinery of Freedom “I Want for Nothing”. In it, David Friedman discusses the harmful idea of designating a special class of needs that have infinite value, as this invalidates the entire concept of freedom.

A compiled file of the first part of the book in epub format will be ready in a while, but for now, the most impatient can read the text on the website.

I am posting the ninth chapter of The Machinery of Freedom, “Exploitation and Interest”. Here, David Friedman briefly explains what is wrong with the Marxist teaching about the exploitation of workers’ labor by capitalists, why charging interest is legitimate, and why an inheritance should go to the heir rather than being distributed equally to everyone.

Only one chapter remains until the end of the first part; its translation has already been sent and only needs to be edited. Then, the first part will be posted as a single file for download, and we will move forward. The process is moving briskly; send your money to the wallet 1AFkD2bazCs5YZBBrSD7HsRMWLmRbg6QBo so that it continues cheerfully as well.

If anyone has a publishing house in mind to release a small print run of The Machinery of Freedom on paper, you can start making inquiries in advance to discuss the details, so that upon completion of the translation, no time is wasted on negotiations about publication.