Тег: Panarchy

Interview with Oleg “Laxy Catal” Tarakanov

Oleg Tarakanov (Laxy Catal) is a fairly well-known libertarian theorist in Russia, whom I have already referred to repeatedly in my channel, until I finally managed to get in touch personally. The interview was conducted over several evenings via Facebook correspondence, so it later had to be quite thoroughly cleaned of incidental off-topic tangents and some repetitions of theses inevitable in such a prolonged correspondence. I present for your attention the final result.

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  • Ancap-tyan
  • Laxy Catal
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    • Ancap-tyan

    As far as I know, in the Russian-speaking internet, you were the first to start promoting the idea of contractual jurisdictions, albeit under a different name. Conventionally, Paul Émile de Puydt is considered the first to mark himself in this field. How did you come to this concept?

    Yes, I am probably the first in modern Russia to have thought it through completely in my head, but Alexei Shustov did beat me to writing a text where, in my view, a strange and not fully thought-out hybrid of an ordinary territorial state with contractual jurisdictions inside it is described. Shustov’s text slightly accelerated the writing of my own text, which is more consistent in getting rid of the traditional state and, most importantly, has an “insurance paradigm” of the state within itself. Shustov lacks insurance. Furthermore, I am much harsher in my terms; I am not shy about calling a racket a racket and I leave the classical idea that “the state is the result of the institutionalization of racket” untouched, simply adding insurance and nuclear weapons to it, which make territorial entities large, stationary targets (by the way, this phrase is from Heinlein’s “Friday”).

    I first encountered the term “contractual jurisdictions” in a short article by Anatoly Levenchuk, “Providers of Cellular Statehood,” in Computerra magazine. I was also familiar with the views of Gustave de Molinari through a short article in Libertarium titled “The Production of Security.” I also knew a bit about how the racket was organized in the nineties, and that often the tribute to the “roof” (protection racket) was less than taxes, while the roof provided protection from the tax authorities and actually protected those under its wing. So the idea of contractual jurisdictions is not only as old as the idea itself but has been implemented in practice many times. My contribution was in conceptualizing it as an insurance service and interpreting “roofs” as states competing on a shared territory.

    Could you describe in more detail the intellectual community you interacted with back then? What ideas were prevalent, how was your idea perceived, what were the objections and alternative concepts?

    Back in the early 2000s, I was an ordinary demo-liberal in the spirit of Gaidar-Chubais. But generally, I wasn’t very interested in politics, having stepped away from it after the victory over the communists in 1991. A turning point was the failure of the SPS (Union of Right Forces) in the Duma elections in the autumn of 2003 (I think). Then, over the winter, I swung toward pure ancap, and after turning it over in my head, I couldn’t make all the gears mesh. You could say that’s when I started thinking about contractual jurisdictions, although I didn’t know that’s what they were called. Essentially, I wanted to construct a political world-order in my head that fits together without contradiction. This was simmering in my head for about five or six years, probably, before it clicked. Over those five years, much was adopted and much was discarded. Contractual jurisdictions, insurance, racket protection, nuclear weapons—these are the main points, of course. My subconscious sorted and combined everything on its own; eventually, it all fit together (though I don’t remember the exact moment), and it only remained to put it into words. I rushed to write my text, “Insurance States,” for the Lebedev Readings, which took place in May 2009; there I presented the text without retelling it in detail, as it is quite long. The people at the readings are knowledgeable—the “libertarian crowd,” the older generation of Russian libertarians. I published the ideas I discovered in my LiveJournal as I found them. The “insurance paradigm of the state” that I found greatly impressed Anatoly Levenchuk, and he wrote a note about it, and almost everyone read him. A year earlier, Shustov had presented the idea of contractual jurisdictions at the readings, so I didn’t cause any sensation at the readings themselves, except that my prediction—that seven to fifteen years remained until the implementation of the idea—impressed the people.

    By the way, I stand by this prediction; although ten years have passed, I think in a few years everything will start to crumble.

    Do you observe any intellectual continuity between those old libertarians of the 2000s and the current activists who are joining the libertarian movement en masse? Which of the opinion leaders from a decade ago remains relevant for the new generation, in your view?

    I’m afraid I’m not the one who can competently answer this question. I am not well acquainted with the younger generation coming into libertarianism. I consider myself part of the middle “generation” that came to libertarianism in the 2000s. The older generation came in the 90s, the younger in the 2010s. Now, while I know the older generation well, I know the young ones poorly. I am slightly disappointed in the older generation, though not deeply. Those who are not minarchists (there are few minarchists in the older generation anyway), in private conversations or separate comments on FB and LJ, almost always explicit themselves (coming out :)) as supporters of ECU, extraterritorial states. But! None of them has ever said this publicly, not even in a separate post. I see a kind of duplicity in this, hypocrisy perhaps, as if being a supporter of CJ (contractual jurisdictions) is something shameful or something not customary to talk about. In essence, libertarians have no constructive ideas about what needs to be built (rather than what needs to be destroyed), except for ECU. Of course, if they don’t want to be hamsters in the wheel of history. That is, I see an almost complete victory of the ECU idea, but a kind of semi-secret one.

    You mentioned that there are few minarchists in the older generation, however, around the same time you described, a libertarian party appeared in Russia with a purely minarchist program. So it seems there were plenty of ideas about what they wanted to build; they were clearly inspired by the Georgian reforms and other liberal concepts. Did you have contact with the LPR (Libertarian Party of Russia) at any stages of its formation and development, or did your circle of intellectuals shun politics?

    As a member of the middle generation of libertarians, I communicate with both the old and the young. I know the founders of the LPR—they aren’t the ones running things there now; they are people from St. Petersburg. They are not in the LPR now; Muscovites took the party from them, which was predictable. The St. Petersburg people are quite sympathetic to ECU, and the Muscovites are too. BUT! Again, no one says this openly. A paradox!))

    LPR was created by Oleg Khrienko and several other people from St. Petersburg; they later created RLN radio, where Alexander Kitchenko is now the head. Oleg initially led the LPR and, it seems, funded it, but later focused on business and left politics. All these people are sympathetic to ECU, which I know from personal conversations. In the current LPR, I know Boyko, Shalnev, Svetov, and a couple of other people. Shalnev is too much of a practitioner; he burns with the desire to do something, regardless of what, without thinking about the futility of the hustle; thinkers like me are alien to him. Sergey Boyko is more balanced in this regard. Boyko and Svetov are supporters of ECU. Last autumn at the Adam Smith readings, I asked Svetov if he knew about the insoluble problems of minarchism and ancap, to which he, not knowing who he was talking to, immediately referred to ECU as a reasonable alternative, sending me to my own text. That was funny. That’s how we met in person. It seems like a clean victory for ECU, but people online, like hamsters in a wheel, continue to obsess over minarchism and ancap, as if my “terminal texts” about their fundamental problems don’t exist.

    In the case of a world of contractual jurisdictions, how do you see the position of a person who does not wish to enter into such contracts and, consequently, does not have a “roof”?

    The position of such a person is like that of an animal in the forest. An animal is free, of course, but it can be shot. Such people will have no rights, but “right” and the general concept are dubious, cut away by Occam’s razor. As Svetov likes to say, “where there is no law, there is no crime.” Since people without a roof have not bound themselves by any contracts imposing obligations to behave decently, one can behave however one likes with them. However, I think roofs will forbid their clients from offending the roofless, in order to minimize the number of insurance cases, but the roofless will be able to have shootouts and other things among themselves without consequences for the winner. Moreover, Barr shot Hamilton in a duel without consequences when there was still freedom in the States. It is exactly these people, being in the Lockean “natural state of freedom,” who can build pure ancap without extraterritorial states. I hope there will be many such people, just as there are many small countries that could be conquered by large neighbors but live on because they are of no interest to anyone.

    Thus, it turns out that insurance roofs may be market-demanded if people in society are aggressive enough (for example, experiencing a serious lack of resources)—or not particularly demanded under conditions of relatively peaceful practices (this usually correlates with material abundance). Could it be that increasing abundance will simply make insurance roofs unnecessary, and a pure ancap will become the sustainable model of relations?

    Insurance roofs, also known as extraterritorial states, can become an intermediate stage on the way to quasi-pure ancap, but I find it hard to imagine how one could somehow bypass this stage. This is due to the inevitability of the painful collapse of the current world order, during which hell and chaos will be no joke, and roofs in this chaos will be centers for the emergence of a new order.

    That is, the problem is not that ancap is completely impossible (a domestic situation can look very much like ancap, and an ordinary person may think they live under ancap)—but that somewhere behind the scenes, which few think about, somewhere at the level of reinsurance or even re-reinsurance, there will always be power players with nuclear weapons, aircraft carriers, and satellite groups, and it is hard not to consider them extraterritorial states. It is exactly they who will make large conflicts unlikely, threatening to inflict unacceptable damage on the aggressor. Such players will break away from traditional states and be independent, like pirate fleets or merchant guilds once were. Racket protection on such a scale is a good business; private individuals will master it.

    One can imagine at least two more paths to quasi-pure ancap.
    1. Through minarchism, that is, the gradual privatization of state functions through reforms from above, but without abandoning the territorial sovereignty of the state until the point where only the name of the state remains, and nothing stands behind it.
    2. Through agorism, where ancap grows through the state until it dies from banal lack of demand—and again, bypassing the stage of multiple extraterritorial roofs, which impose more or less permanent relationships on people through the carrot or the stick.
    Minarchism is the path of the conventional LPR; agorism is the path of the conventional Zolotorev and Sherstnev.

    Ha, don’t make me laugh. This has never happened, and here we go again—as Chernomyrdin used to say. I am no great expert in history, but at least in the 20th century, there has been no large-scale decline in the role of the state without an accompanying catastrophe. Losing a war or the collapse of an empire led to the reduction of the state. And that’s probably all. To imagine that one can de-statize quietly and without catastrophe—no, that’s some kind of utopianism; that’s not for me, I don’t believe in fairy tales.

    Regarding the movement toward minarchism, even from a purely cybernetic point of view, it is impossible to go far on a path where, as one moves forward, the incentives for further progress fall and the incentives to move backward grow. It is impossible to reach minarchism through reforms, only through catastrophe.

    In a sated society of abundance, people are more loyal to various projects of helping their neighbors and plundering for these purposes. Abundance is excellent soil for building a social state, and certainly not ancap.

    I believe a bit more in agorism as a tactic for moving toward ancap, since history knows examples of the victories of informal practices over state prohibitions. The impossibility of defeating drugs eventually led to their gradual legalization in many countries, and the same happened earlier with prohibition. But these were all problems that were not critical to the existence of the state, and prohibition was actually harmful to state finances, diverting huge sums of money from the budget. I would not underestimate the state’s ability to fight threats that are critical to it. Officials of different countries easily find a common language when it comes to money: they defeated offshore zones that were beyond the control of large states, and even forced Switzerland to liquidate bank secrecy, as improbable as it seemed. If Bitcoin becomes seriously dangerous, states will physically destroy the infrastructure that supports it, up to rocket attacks on mining farms or cutting communication lines. And they won’t care that this is the case in many countries—they will agree on joint actions. And you cannot go entirely into the network: as long as you are even slightly in reality, you are vulnerable to the state, especially regarding the possession of weapons. Here, the “deterrence doctrine” gives me optimism, although it is not part of agorism. But imagine that the successes of agorism led to the total bankruptcy of the state: eight million Russian “siloviki” (security forces) are left with nothing. What will they do? Peacefully go home? No, not all, but some of them will create hell in reality, they will simply engage in looting, we will have to buy them off, and again we come back to the roofs.

    You indicate that not much time is left to wait. Can you outline in broad strokes how the transition to the ECU system will occur?

    Yes, alright. In my text “Insurance States,” this section exists, but it is unfinished and has probably become outdated over 10 years; now, in short, my thoughts on this are as follows:

    1. Traditional territorial states have many beneficiaries: intelligence services, the army, the police, the entire military-industrial complex, politicians, civil servants, budget employees, pensioners—it is impossible to imagine that they will “surrender without a fight.” Therefore, all realistic scenarios look catastrophic, meaning they are accompanied by chaos—from which a new order will emerge. How roofs appear, how “natural selection” occurs among them, how their scale grows, and how a hierarchy of roofs emerges is absolutely clear. The top-level roofs will likely be nuclear aircraft carriers, managing satellite groups from on board in continuous motion. These will be “roofs of roofs,” operating through Lloyd’s; private individuals will not deal with them and often will not even know they exist. It remains for us to find out how and why the “slide into chaos” will occur.

    2. At the most general level, the reasons for the slide into chaos are not difficult to describe. In all times, elites try to “rake in all the material values they can reach, then fold the space, cocoon themselves and stop time” (Strugatsky brothers). That is, being satisfied with their position, they try to freeze the situation in which they achieved success, i.e., to stop progress. Progress, however, does not wish to stop, since it is a side effect of entrepreneurial activity—the eternal and indestructible desire to get rich. Plus the desire to become part of the elite, plus the unwillingness to give up assets. That’s it.

    3. The devil is in the details. Life-extension technologies and medical successes in general will destroy state pension systems, which are already cracking under the retirement of baby boomers. Alternative energy sources, especially renewables, thermonuclear fusion, but also new designs of nuclear power plants (currently stalled by regulators) and shale—they drop the prices of oil and gas, bringing down the countries that produce them (especially important for the Middle East, which is potentially very conflict-prone). New (non-centrifuge) technologies for uranium enrichment (laser isotope separation, nanotechnology).

    4. Not just technology. Territorial states presume a certain uniformity of the subject population, ideally: one language, one nationality, one culture, one religion. Almost none of this remains. National diasporas, landsmanshafts, ethnic districts, and even cities. Leftists, by encouraging “otherness,” abolished the “melting pot” concept. Diversity is growing in the world, and traditional states are not designed for it. Riots in Britain and Germany showed that authorities can already barely cope with Muslims, and sometimes they simply surrender (recall the mass rape of German women by migrants in Cologne and Merkel’s appeal not to provoke the “guests”). In other words, the state has already discredited itself as a protector of law and order; it only remains to discredit itself as a “source of benefits” (pensions, subsidies, etc.), and it will become useless to everyone except politicians and soldiers.

    5. In summary, the softest realistic scenario: Muslims in the West, through mass riots and with the support of the left, achieve the abolition of local state jurisdiction over them, create their own courts and police, and stop paying taxes to the state, after which the local whites, under the slogan “why are we any worse?”, begin to fight for something similar for themselves, and from there everything spirals out of control. A precursor to this was the Archbishop of Canterbury, who proposed giving Muslims the opportunity to litigate in their own courts—he was forced to resign; he was ahead of his time.

    6. Slightly more likely is that certain non-state Middle Eastern groups (state borders there are completely arbitrary, all groups there are transborder), using new technologies and disregarding the “non-proliferation regime,” acquire nuclear weapons and begin to demand their own “piece of power” (most likely a revision of borders, but not necessarily). Everyone is against everyone there: Shiites against Sunnis, everyone against Jews and the USA—something will inevitably explode somewhere, especially against the backdrop of declining revenues from oil and gas exports. Then, millions of refugees in Europe, and see paragraphs 4 and 5.

    7. It is slightly different in the USA. Of course, there are many Latinos and Blacks there just waiting for an excuse for mass riots (recall the flood in New Orleans). But the main conflict is brewing between Democrats and Republicans. Social networks stimulate the clustering of people by beliefs; everyone seeks support for their point of view and finds an echo chamber—a place where a crowd echoes them, reinforcing the confidence in their own rightness, which leads to the polarization of society. On any controversial issue, everyone is divided into camps; people are like they are in trenches, dialogue is practically impossible, everyone is sure of their own rightness and considers the opponent either an idiot or a malicious scoundrel. And these people pay taxes to one government. Can this continue for long? Either it’s a civil war or they go under different “roofs”—I won’t venture to predict the details, but chaos is inevitable. For now, the situation is saved by a certain abundance; everyone has enough of everything. If disruptions in pensions and benefits begin, each side will blame the other, and it’ll be off. Chaos in the USA would instantly lead to the collapse of the “non-proliferation regime.” The States are currently the main keeper of the Westphalian peace; any serious weakening of them will lead to the collapse of the current world order. But their aircraft carriers are also ready top-level “roofs.” Deprived of funding during a crisis, I hope they will go freelance and become the backbone of a new world order.

    Can I say something optimistic? Yes. Current territorial states are disgusting; they enslave people in the territories under their control and domesticate them like cattle—shearing them, and sometimes slaughtering them. The widespread proliferation of WMDs will make territorial entities impossible, because no one wants to be a large, stationary target. Exterritorial states, at the very least, will not enslave, and they have no reason to exterminate anyone en masse; it is costly and scares away clients. The future world will not be as disgusting as the current one. Not everyone will survive, but they will cease to be slaves. That is good.

    That was powerful)

    In their time, Marxists were faced with a complaint: if history is driven by objective economic laws, why do you fuss and try to outrun your time and arrange a revolution where society is not yet ripe for it? A similar question arises for libertarians, who assume that the radical restructuring of society will happen on its own, under the influence of objective contradictions embedded in the construction of the territorial state, which does not correspond to modern realities. So why conduct any propaganda of libertarian values and develop the theory at all, if it is enough to follow in the wake of changes and adapt to them?

    Bravo! You have answered the question yourself as to why I hardly write new texts and hardly discuss anything with anyone. I see no point in it. One would have to be an utterly enthusiastic romantic optimist to believe that the few thousand smart, active libertarians in the world (there are far more passive ones, but they are of no use) can seriously change such powerful and fundamental historical processes. On the other hand, Russia is the armpit of the world; one cannot rule out that something special is possible on the periphery. After all, there is Somalia. That is, I do not rule out the possibility that somewhere apart from the rest of the world, libertarians might achieve something. The Bolsheviks are not an analogy here, because back then Russia was among the top three world powers and was not the armpit of the world.

    Another reason why theoretical and practical developments may make sense is that when a new order begins to form from the chaos, the costs will be lower if the players know what they are striving for, what should eventually result, and do not make unnecessary movements.

    If one is to be a complete optimist, one could assume that the experience of the periphery will show the world a path by which catastrophe can be avoided. I don’t believe it, but I don’t rule it out; there is still a one-in-a-thousand chance.

    So isn’t that the secret of why people prefer not to publicly acknowledge your theory? Once you acknowledge it—that’s it, intellectual honesty forces you to stop fussing and start calmly waiting for the nuclear aircraft carriers to arrive and take your “roof” under their “roof.” But if you don’t acknowledge it, you retain an incentive for active action and the propaganda of your views. Minarchists need this to conduct louder political campaigns, agorists to build a trust network and arrange life around themselves according to ancap principles—and panarchists have to hope for a deus ex machina…

    Now, whether the “deus ex machina” will happen on its own, or whether one must fight for it, is not part of the theory. Part of the theory is the analysis of stability, the analysis of incentives acting on actors, the analysis of evolution. This is a theoretical-sociological study of a possible world. Minarchism, however, does not include a theory of its achievement. Neither does ancap. Agorism, by the way, is not a separate branch of libertarianism, but a tactic for achieving ancap. So the hypothesis about the link between public non-recognition and the supposedly resulting inaction is incorrect. Moreover, one can simply disagree with me that the “deus ex machina” will fall upon us on its own and that we don’t need to fight for it. The doctrine of deterrence is quite appealing in itself; I even think it is implementable somewhere on the periphery. I repeat, Somalia exists; there is quite a territorial “roofing” system there—Zolotorev describes it roughly in my terms.

    In recent years, you have become much less active. Perhaps this is because you have already formulated and published most of what you had to say. Unfortunately, it turns out that you conveyed your thoughts to your own generation, but with those who became interested in libertarianism recently, old libertarians find a certain communication gap.

    Perhaps there is a gap; I don’t really know what the youth are thinking. But my sizable circle of communication does not show any gap. Well, I don’t know, the admins of a ten-thousand-member public page Freedom Pride know who I am, the leaders of the LPR know that I’m the “main man,” Svetov sometimes quotes me almost verbatim, although he doesn’t mention me. My “Insurance States” (I post a compiled single-file collection of all texts on this topic from the author’s LiveJournal – Ancap-tyan) is the most detailed Russian text on the “deus ex machina,” and everyone interested in the topic finds it. Or so it seems to me. To be honest, I don’t care; I am indifferent to fame, and the “deus ex machina” is not the only thing I deal with. I am probably the main Russian critic of democracy from the right. I wrote “terminal” texts about the problems of minarchism and ancap, after which it is difficult to take them seriously. I have a dozen other favorite topics. I am interested in truth, not fame or the number of readers.

    As for the decrease in activity… Do you know who Leonid Nikonov is?

    I just found him on Facebook; there is nothing interesting on his wall.

    About seven years ago, he was a bright libertarian from Barnaul who swept through our circles like a meteor. He organized the first Adam Smith readings in St. Petersburg, dragged me there, held events in Moscow, wrote texts, and then somehow burnt out, I guess, in a couple of years, stopped his activity, and pursued an academic career. And I’ve been writing for fifteen years—even if it’s just a couple of texts a year, I write; I haven’t burnt out. No one can write like I do: briefly, point by point, closing the topic. The main character of “The Bison” said that books are written about incomprehensible things, but when everything becomes clear, a short article is enough. I think so too. Some topics spin in my head for five to seven years until they become clear. Perhaps I’m just slow.

    I don’t understand why one should write texts without novelty, long ones that don’t close the topic. Propaganda of ideas? That’s not for me. It must be boring to engage in propaganda for many years; you’d get tired, your spirits would sink, you can’t outperform the state system of indoctrination (schools and media). In Russia, it’s generally impossible to convince anyone of anything because everyone is sure they have discovered the truth themselves. A country of people who have grabbed God by the balls. Although Russia is not the only one; this is a consequence of egalitarian ideology and democracy, where the opinion of Joe Blow is no less important than the opinion of Einstein. I look at many overly active people and doubt that they won’t burn out in a couple of years, like Leonid.

    As for burnout, it’s easier for me; I’m anonymous. Having lost taste for the project, I’ll simply hand it over to someone else.

    Many value panarchy (more in the Shustov version than in yours) because it allows for a peaceful separation based on values, instead of trying to ensure the dominance of one’s own group and subjugating the opposition. In connection with this, a rapprochement with left-wing anarchists has even begun to emerge (yes, I’m leaning towards the commies)—specifically around the idea of protocols for horizontal interaction, without attempting to eat each other. In your idea of insurance “roofs,” the possibility of ideological diversity is not indicated at all; they look like homogeneous objects, a simple set of firms in the market. Is the absence of this layer in the description a simplification, or a postulate that only one type of jurisdiction will survive?

    I touched upon this question somewhere. Of course, there will be competition between the “roofs,” as a result of which they will begin to diverge into niches, that is, specialize in clients of different religious and other convictions.

    I will quote my “Insurance States”: To speculate on what “tariff plans” the roofs will have and what “service packages” will be included—I won’t undertake that; I think they will be very diverse and will be determined by the imagination of producers, consumer preferences, and the level of competition. Currently, in countries with developed insurance, up to a quarter of family income goes toward buying insurance, plus taxes to the state, so there will be considerable money in this business. Which “niches” insurance companies will drift into—I don’t know either; I don’t even rule out religious or “ideological” ones, and we may observe the construction of, say, communism not in a separate country, but in a separate contractual jurisdiction. (My feeling is that the differences will not be that strong, but I cannot deny the existence of extremes, which will probably be as marginal as kibbutzim in Israel or punk communes in the USA).

    The Libertarian band team, with whom I collaborate, released a series of videos on YouTube as an introduction to libertarianism. Could you take a look at five short clips, about five minutes each?

    In the scripts for them, I tried to show that there are three different paths to ancap, and there is no need to limit oneself to only one while rejecting the others. I would like your review of this concept, which, it seems to me, develops both your ideas and those of many others.

    Gorgeous videos, I watched all five. But I’m already in the loop; I’m not the target audience, and I don’t know how people far removed from the topic will perceive them. I think for marketing purposes it’s worth mentioning the terms “exterritorial state” and “contractual jurisdictions” more often, so that people get used to them and Google them. And insurance companies capable of protecting against Vova P. are not just companies. Nuclear weapons are not mentioned once. There is no comparison with the Churches, which also once lost their territorial monopoly, and nothing happened—the world didn’t collapse. But overall, everything is good there; you can’t fit everything important into four minutes.

    In your old posts, you write that Hoppe deals with the critique of democracy in the book “Democracy: The God That Failed,” but the book was not translated, and you had not read it. Since then, the book has been translated. Have you had a chance to read it, and if so, what could you say about it?

    And as it happens, during our conversations, after reading the introduction to my “Insurance States,” I remembered that Hoppe was translated and decided to read him, so I’m reading him now, but slowly—10 pages a day. So far it’s fine, but I’ll review it later.

    This autumn Hoppe is coming to Moscow. What would you like to ask him?

    I’ll think about what to ask Hoppe; is it similar to the Smith Readings, will he come for that?

    No, Mikhail Svetov is organizing a solo lecture for him on October 6th.

    Good, we’ll both go read Hoppe, maybe there will be a reason to discuss him in more detail later. Thank you for the interview!

    The Russian state has learned the word “panarchy”

    In Tyumen, three schoolchildren decided to distribute leaflets advertising panarchy. They ordered a print run from a printing house; the printing house tipped off the police, the print run was seized, and the leaflet is now being checked for extremism. If it is found, a criminal case will be opened. If not, it is presumed they will return the people’s property and leave them alone.

    Let’s help the experts make the right decision and explain to as wide a circle of people as possible that:

    1. The stationary bandit theory is scientific mainstream
    2. Panarchy is a fully academic direction of political thought
    3. The transition to panarchy can only be peaceful

    So far, only znak.com has written about the incident. If anyone has contacts in the media, please use them to spread this information. I would also be happy to talk about panarchy to any publication that decides to educate its readers on this matter.

    As for those who wish to use such a tool as leaflets to educate the public, I recommend using a printer; furthermore, it is better to distribute materials not by pasting them on bulletin boards or putting them in mailboxes, but by handing them out person-to-person at political events.

    The object of the Tyumen police’s curiosity

    Anarchy, panarchy and etatism

    John Zube (John Zube), 1986

    Summary by Aegis Mirijam

    The full English text is taken from the website panarchy.org – the largest library of texts on panarchy.

    Anarchy and Panarchy are not two opposing forms of social organization. In fact, Panarchy is primarily a method of solving the problems of social organization, and through these methods, anarchy, as well as statism or communism, or any possible social model, can be realized and implemented by those who share the idea.

    Panarchists call for freedom of action for statists, as well as for all others. Everyone could have the regime and conditions they chose; in that case, they would no longer need to fear or fight one another. No more forced “marriages” with any government, army, trade union, or school. Every individual should be free to secede from any of them by making a unilateral declaration and to join or establish any alternatives they may like, always at their own expense and risk.

    Panarchism is nothing other than the freedom of disconnection and connection, consistently applied in spheres where it has not yet been realized, namely in political, economic, and social relations.

    Libertarians say: Let those who believe in religion have religion; let those who believe in government have government; but let those who believe in freedom have freedom and do not force them to accept a religion or government they do not want.

    Charles T. Spreading

    Anarchists should not threaten their faith with destruction, but they may try to convey it to them through their words or their own joint and competing examples of living.

    There is no difference between consistent libertarianism and anarchism. Their common foundation is voluntarism, self-reliance, natural rights and freedoms, individual sovereignty, and free choice. It is only a matter of consumer sovereignty in relation to so-called “government services.”

    Full suffrage includes the right to vote for oneself outside of any compulsory political, economic, and social system and in any system that corresponds to one’s own individual choice or invention, and to have, in addition, all other electoral powers you wish to have — but only among like-minded volunteers.

    The opposition of party politics to party power does not require the opposition of political, economic, social, and military policy to individual separatism, but rather requires such consistent opposition to territorial statism and extraterritorial autonomy. Only complete extraterritorial autonomy for all dissenters can establish peace, justice, and freedom for all.

    Panarchism proposes providing the possibility of conscientious objection to military service, compulsory taxation, trade unions, school attendance, and other specific compulsory practices, but also an overarching objection against all compulsory, exclusive, territorial, political, economic, and social systems, institutions, and practices. The practice of panarchism implies individual secessionism and personal or non-territorial legal organization on a voluntary basis, regardless of whether the secessionists and voluntary partners are anarchists or statists.

    Panarchists will also be mistaken and repeat mistakes. But they will do so with a decisive difference:

    Their mistakes will be made only at their own expense, not at the expense of politicians, bureaucrats, and ruling parties, largely at the expense of other people, even dissenters.

    Panarchy also relies on the full recognition of all individual rights — to the extent that they are known, publicized, and understood. Since individual rights offer only options or spheres of free action, no matter how natural they may be for fully adult and enlightened people, they do not obligate people to use them to the full extent.

    The goals and means of panarchists could be summarized with statements such as: statism for statists, anarchy for anarchists, free trade for traders, protectionism for protectionists, non-violence for pacifists, defensive force for those who see its justification against initiated aggression, capitalism among consenting adults, and any type of socialism for those who desire it for themselves.

    Panarchy, once realized, will give anarchists the opportunity to enjoy anarchic relations with each other, right here and now, without interference from statists. Moreover, once anarchists accept panarchist tolerance, they will have a common platform with statists and all other minority groups who wish to maintain or implement various ideals among themselves, following panarchy.

    Blitz

    Last time, I enjoyed responding not with one large text to a single question, but with short answers to a series of questions. A number of such topics that do not require detailed answers have accumulated in the queue.

    Ancap-chi, it seems to me that it is better to promote the term “polystate” rather than “panarchy,” because the latter sounds too much like “anarchy,” and ordinary folks, as I think you know, are very triggered by that word.

    It’s a matter of habit. Legend has it that the first libertarians in Russia were often mistaken for vegetarians. Minarchists, naturally, are mistakenly read by many as monarchists. As for the possibility of confusing panarchists with anarchists, at least that is not offensive, because panarchy is one of the paths to anarchy. It seems to me that terms like polystate make sense to be used as auxiliary for now. For example, “I am a panarchist, meaning I advocate for a polystate, or more accurately, for multiple governments within one country” (as Alexey Shustov correctly notes in one of his interviews, in the Russian language, the state is a subject, not a system, which creates inconvenience in political discussions, and it is better to use “country,” “government,” or “regime” depending on the context instead of the overly vague “state”).

    I saw an ad for agorists here; they have an article about obtaining an anonymous debit card by forging appearance and a passport. Apparently, there is only administrative liability and a fine of up to 80 thousand for this, but perhaps you know better ways to remain anonymous when making purchases in fiat?

    This refers to this post, where at the end I referred to an article from the Cryptoagora channel. By the way, in the post, describing crypto-ATMs, I wrote that they work only in one direction: buying bitcoins with fiat. Later, in Georgia, I verified that the reverse is also possible; there, I actually had to sell bitcoins. I just want to note that for greater anonymity, when approaching a crypto-ATM, you should wear dark glasses, pull something with a wide brim over your head, raise your collar—in short, hide your face as much as possible to shield yourself from cameras. Cameras can be located both in the crypto-ATM itself and around it. Also, of course, when you go to a crypto-ATM, it makes sense to take a phone with a “left” SIM card. All these paranoid measures are intended to complicate operational-investigative actions if you suddenly become their target for some reason.

    Is it true that under anarcho-capitalism, intellectual property is not provided for?

    Maxim

    Any person has the right to monetize any of their intangible assets by any non-violent means. They have the right to use violence only in the case when they are attempted to be deprived of this asset entirely, but not when some information they possess is copied. Even if someone copies the private key to their bitcoin wallet, that is not yet theft. Theft is the use of the key to move bitcoins out of that wallet.

    I just cannot understand who will act as the guarantor of compliance with the rules? What happens if some hypothetical Ramzan Akhmatovich in the role of a night watchman decides not just to guard the peace, but to start explaining a bit how people should live?

    Noob

    Any gatekeeper is inclined to increase their significance at the expense of those they are supposed to serve, i.e., the residents of the guarded facility. The only argument that can bring them to reason is the threat of monetary sanctions, and ultimately, dismissal. For the threat of dismissal to be real, there must be Ivan Petrovich, Ravshan Jamshutovich, Jet Li, and Sigurd Olafson standing behind the gates waiting to be hired. That is exactly why panarchism looks like a more sane idea than minarchism in terms of the possibilities of limiting power.

    Unresolved Questions of Panarchy

    In the book “After the State”, published in 2008, Alexei Shustov provides (pp. 66-67) a list of questions that remain unresolved in the panarchic model he proposed. Since then, thought has not stood still, and the Bitarch and I propose brief outlines of solutions to these issues.

    1. How to organize border security? How to build and fund armed forces designed to protect the country from external force attempts?

    As a reminder, the Shustov model is the construction of a panarchy within Russia as a single entity without dividing it into territorial units; therefore, the problem of external borders in such a poly-state remains relevant.

    Border security in peacetime is quite pointless. It is impossible to block or levy duties on the cross-border movement of goods in a poly-state—the existence of a single ECU offering free trade is enough, and the entire flow will go through this internal offshore. The same applies to visa regimes. Individual ECUs may enforce boycotts of certain goods, people, and information for their clients, but this is carried out at the consumer level, not through border control.

    Regarding protection from military invasion, the most important thing in the defense doctrine is the presence of citizens who have something to defend. The example of Ukraine shows that even under very unfavorable starting conditions, the self-organization of citizens works wonders. If free arms circulation exists in a number of the country’s jurisdictions, this significantly simplifies the task. However, such a militia plus private military companies are capable of handling territorial defense tasks rather. Meanwhile, a doctrine of preventing an attack by creating a personal threat to the leaders of the aggressor country can further reduce risks. With minimal coordination capabilities, governments will be able to agree on joint funding for a corresponding project of high-precision non-nuclear medium-range weapons, or some other surprises of the same sort.

    2. How to organize international relations? Who and on what basis will represent the country in interaction with foreign states?

    International relations consist of border demarcation, the procedure for extraditing criminals, visa regimes, and various duties.

    Regarding borders, territorial states will find it difficult here, as their citizens will likely also begin to enter into agreements with ECUs—and it would be good if only with those attached to the corresponding territorial jurisdiction, because they might just as well agree with transnational ECUs. Cellular communication works in the border zone in both directions; similarly, regulations in the border zone will interpenetrate, further blurring the concept of the territorial state.

    The procedure for extraditing criminals is relevant only in a situation of noticeable differences in legal systems and especially in law enforcement. Bargaining is inevitable here, in which more influential jurisdictions will have an advantage, but influence is an unstable substance and is distributed unevenly. In general, it will be the same as it is now, only more dynamic. At least, in situations of clear injustice, public outrage will be of greater importance for contract jurisdictions than for current democracies.

    Duties, as shown above, if they exist at all, will only be unilateral, from the side of monopoly territorial entities; a poly-state cannot afford customs.

    3. How to organize an effective rebuff to attempts by external forces of the financial-economic sector to heat up contradictions between different governments [ECUs] and exhaust the country by playing on this?

    One can imagine a hypothetical foreign Putin sponsoring conservative ECUs in Russia that advocate for spiritual values, and it becomes more profitable to become a client of such an ECU. Meanwhile, he might, for example, deny visas to clients of liberal ECUs and prohibit investments in his lucrative raw-material economy. Usually, this leads to the “market deciding” to create imitative structures that demonstrate to the outside the traits for which people are willing to pay, but ignore the internal content: first, it is cheaper, and second, there is no internal demand for it.

    Moreover, the world does not revolve around a single foreign Machiavelli, so those ECUs that he dislikes will cooperate with someone else.

    4. How to solve environmental issues?

    Each jurisdiction solves these issues in its own way. A liberal one leaves it to the owners, who, in turn, insure risks with insurance companies. A socialist one supports supervisory organizations that live for issuing fines or shaking down larger bribes (a bribe will not be more expensive than an insurance policy, otherwise the subject will flee to the liberals). Greens may found their own jurisdiction where consumers will support eco-friendly producers with money and boycott those who ignore the environment.

    As for negative externalities arising from environmental disasters, they are compensated much more effectively through court in the presence of competing jurisdictions than under a monopoly burdened by a conflict of interest in the form of state ownership.

    5. What to do with objects of cultural and historical heritage of the people to guarantee their preservation?

    Objects of cultural and historical heritage bring profit because they are interesting to tourists. For them to be preserved, it must be profitable to preserve them. For this, in turn, the owners of these objects must benefit from tourism. This is typical liberal logic, thanks to which the owner of each specific potentially interesting object decides whether it is more profitable to try to earn from the flow of tourists or to use the object in some other way, for example, to demolish it and build something else. As a result of such an approach, a quite diverse building landscape is formed, where antiquity neighbors modernity.

    Other ECUs may introduce regulations that prohibit the destruction of historical monuments, but they will have to somehow compensate the owners for this inconvenience, otherwise they will flee to the liberals. Thus, in ECUs for lovers of antiquity, taxes for the maintenance of monuments are inevitable. As a result, through third-party funding, monuments whose direct monetization is difficult can be preserved.

    Organizations like UNESCO will also contribute to solving the problem, as they are capable to a certain extent of influencing tourist flows by labeling: this is a world heritage site, and this is not. However, I suspect that soon UNESCO’s influence on the tourism business will become lower than that of a hypothetical TripAdvisor, and there will be no need to sponsor this bureaucratic dinosaur at the state’s expense.

    6. How to regulate relations in the field of natural resources, especially specific ones such as water, air, marine biological resources (which move across the territory and are therefore not tied to coordinates in space)?

    In its time, hunting and gathering lost the economic competition to farming and animal husbandry due to their low efficiency. Similarly, as free fresh water, free sea fish, and free clean air become more expensive, the industrial production of these resources near the places of their consumption will become profitable. In short, this is not a question of jurisdictions at all, but a purely technical-economic question.

    7. How to regulate relations in places with a high concentration of immovable property, where the actions of one owner can affect the essential characteristics of a neighboring owner’s property (for example, the construction of buildings that block existing ones)?

    Of course, such issues are more conveniently solved within functional jurisdictions, such as homeowners associations. This is not provided for within the Shustov model, so the issue falls into the sphere of disputes between different jurisdictions, and it is difficult to predict what practices will emerge here.

    8. How to organize effective protection against cartel agreements by the strongest players of various markets that have a predisposition to monopolization?

    In a free market, a monopoly is formed only if the overall size of the market is comparable to the optimal size of a company in terms of labor productivity. In all other cases, monopolization is unprofitable, and it can either be an entrepreneurial error that will quickly bankrupt the company, or this monopoly is imposed by means of violence, which no longer has anything to do with a free market. Thus, the effective protection against monopolization is precisely the free market, and in a situation of competing jurisdictions with free entry and exit, the prerequisites for the market being free are far greater than under the current state of affairs.

    9. How to counter attempts by socially maladjusted individuals (those currently called criminals) to undermine the public safety system, built on the principle of equal rights agreements, and achieve a chaos profitable for them?

    Freedom of gun ownership and the right to self-defense work wonders in this regard. Individual ECUs that do not recognize their clients’ right to independently offer armed resistance to violence will be forced to indeed make every effort to suppress armed violence using professional police; otherwise, they will lose the loyalty of their clients, who will move to jurisdictions that at least do not get in the way.

    Furthermore, a potential offender cannot always immediately determine which jurisdiction their potential victim belongs to, and consequently, whether they are ready to fight back. Thus, even a single ECU that allows its clients to arm themselves becomes a positive externality for the others.

    Alexei Shustov

    Panarchy for Grandmothers

    Hooray, we did it! The most anticipated video of this summer has been released on the Libertarian Band channel, where I tried to explain panarchy in the simplest terms possible.

    Panarchy for Grandmothers

    In my opinion, this is the most successful of my scripts so far, and all the other project participants did a great job.

    A bit of behind-the-scenes

    In the spring, the team from this channel, with whom I had previously had sporadic experience collaborating, approached me with a request to write a script for a video so they could hold auditions for a new host. I decided that since all sorts of people would be auditioning, the text should be as simple as possible and aimed at the widest audience—an introduction to libertarianism. That’s how the script for “Libertarianism for Grandmothers” came about. During the auditions, they went through about five people, and as a result, the channel got a wonderful new face—Anton. Of course, it’s a bit a pity that the girl didn’t pass the casting; it would have been easier for me to prepare scripts for her, but I really like how it turned out.

    Libertarianism for Grandmothers

    The video spread quite well across various public pages and has received over 1,700 views to date, which already exceeds the audience of my own Telegram channel.

    Then Bitarch approached me and suggested creating something equally accessible, but about panarchy. I had to disappoint him and reply that I wanted to create a cycle linked by the internal logic of the narrative, and the next one would be a description of minarchism. The video was released relatively recently, but for a reason I don’t understand, it wasn’t received as favorably by the audience. This is a bit strange because, on one hand, the entire agenda of the Libertarian Party in our country today is based on a minarchist platform, and on the other hand, the LP has never once explained its platform in video format, so the video on minarchism is almost the first of its kind. Please share it if you find it useful.

    Minarchism for Grandmothers

    Now the long-awaited panarchy is out. Following panarchy, there should be a “for grandmothers” description of such an interesting strategy as agorism. The text is already ready; all that’s left is to film and edit. There are many other interesting things planned, so please subscribe to Libertarian Band and recommend the channel to your friends.

    Discussion on Panarchy and Libertarianism

    A detailed question from Vasily, to which a donation of 0.00008257 btc was kindly attached for urgency.

    I do not believe that panarchy is libertarianism

    Yes, a panarchist structure of power will most likely be freer than a centralized one. But the ideas of panarchy resemble a tool for state or social organization more. There is nothing in them about traditional libertarian self-ownership, and nothing is clear even regarding the freedom to exit a jurisdiction. Most academic articles acknowledge the need for an additional jurisdiction that ensures the legal capacity of people and their freedom from the oppression of panarchist jurisdictions. Panarchism as a tool could well be used by a quasi-statist regime: transforming the power of oligarchs into actual serfdom jurisdictions where corporate slaves have no right to exit. This results in the classic cyberpunk scenario that sci-fi writers warned about. For real freedom, we still need classic libertarian works: the concept of self-ownership, the NAP, and their political implementation, whether it be ancap or minarchism. And only then, if people need FOCJs, the market will decide. In short, there is no guarantee that panarchy leads to libertarianism, and I see no libertarian value in the idea of FOCJs itself.

    Proof from your own translation of FOCJ:

    One condition is fundamental for the correct functioning of FOCJs: the guarantee of political and economic competition. This means the openness and freedom of markets, specified in the “four freedoms”—the free movement of people, goods, services, and capital—all of which must be protected. At the same time, the political markets of FOCJs must be competitive, meaning that human rights and basic democratic rights must be guaranteed. This includes the right of people to use direct democracy as a tool.
    Like states, FOCJs will by nature strive to undermine any competition, following their commercial interests by attempting to build cartels or monopolies. This requires the existence of a “competition oversight board” responsible for ensuring compliance with the rules. This body will also regulate the limits of fees for entry contributions and exit penalties.

    In other words, this article explicitly acknowledges that what they call “jurisdictions” must exist within a single legal regime. What the authors call “jurisdictions” looks less like jurisdictions in a political-legal sense and more like providers of certain services; their jurisdictional nature lies only in the fact that they obtain the right to “collect taxes.” A libertarian minimal state does not solve the problems the authors propose handing over to FOCJs, but rather the problems that allow FOCJs to exist and function.

    Restricting trade is locally beneficial, which is why historically, people who gained power over a jurisdiction began introducing various fees, penalties, fines, and so on. One could say this was only possible because there was no exit from jurisdictions (and there wasn’t). The thing is, every jurisdiction will be interested in restricting exit, which is exactly what is discussed in the area of the FOCJ article excerpt I quoted above. That is why the authors themselves introduce some minarchist or ancap—it doesn’t matter which—body that stands above and before the FOCJ. And this is exactly what libertarians propose to implement. As for the FOCJs—let the free market decide.

    Answer from Ancap-chan

    You correctly noted the main shortcomings of the idea of functional overlapping competing jurisdictions proposed by Eichenberger and Frey: it is a certain optimization of existing government functionality without eliminating the key flaws of the state and without guarantees that a management system reformed in this way will not revert over time to a level of oppression as high as it is now. The internal protection against abuse in the FOCJ system is not much higher than in modern states.

    The advantage of the FOCJ system is not that it offers the best solution, but that it offers a solution implementable within the specific framework of the European Union. In conditions where, due to flaws inherent in this political Frankenstein, one of the largest European economies is already separating from it, a political force that raises FOCJs on its banners has some chance of success. Moreover, FOCJs can be implemented locally first, and only then can the experience be extended to wider territories.

    FOCJ is not panarchy. “Competing,” although it starts with the same letter as “contractual,” is not necessarily contractual, meaning there is no talk of voluntary entry into one jurisdiction or another. As a control mechanism, the authors propose good old representative democracy, which forms the corresponding bodies, as well as direct democracy, allowing local decisions to be made at the level of a particular FOCJ. I have written about the flaws of democracy, so I will not repeat myself.

    You suggest the option: “first pure ancap, and then let the market decide if FOCJs are needed.” This brings us closer to Nozick’s speculations: let’s imagine we have pure ancap, and now I will demonstrate to you how it will over time transform into an ultra-minimal state without contradicting libertarian principles. Similarly, based on certain assumptions about human nature and what is just, one could probably derive that pure ancap will inevitably mutate over time into panarchy, i.e., a system of FOCJs.

    Either way, for such reasoning to become relevant, one must first achieve pure ancap. Meanwhile, both minarchism and panarchy are ways of reducing state oppression that may or may not lead to pure ancap, and putting the cart before the horse here makes sense only as a thought experiment to determine how stable pure ancap is.

    The remaining question is whether the FOCJ system can turn into panarchy over time, and whether that would then turn into ancap. If yes, then it makes sense to support it. If not, then it is a dead end, and FOCJ is as much an obstacle for a true ancap as a regular big state.

    Here, as with any forecasts, I step onto the shaky ground of conjecture. My conjecture is that it is easier to bring sparkling cleanliness where it isn’t already heavily soiled, than where the initial cleaning requires bringing the waters of Alpheus and Peneus to the Augean stables. Switzerland, Singapore, North Korea, and Somalia are all far from ancap. For pure ancap to appear there, one must, first, abolish the state, and, second, ensure non-state institutions for the protection of private property. Of course, in Somalia it is easier to abolish the state, and in Switzerland it is easier to ensure the protection of private property, so choosing which of these countries is easier to establish ancap in may prove difficult. But comparing North Korea and Singapore, it is quite obvious that building ancap is easier in Singapore: the state is slightly weaker there, and property is much better protected. Likewise, it is sufficiently obvious that building ancap is easier in a Europe built on the basis of FOCJs than in the current European Union.

    So I would wish the esteemed authors of the article on FOCJs a swift adoption of their ideas by European politicians. Even if FOCJ is not libertarianism, with FOCJ, libertarianism has a better chance.

    Let Reiner and Bruno dig the canal, and we will come through with the broom afterward.

    How does panarchy differ from ancap?

    Alexander

    I don’t need to answer at length here, because the “Antistate” channel did it for me in a post titled “Why Panarchy is Ancap”. In general, this is the reason why I, being an ancap, write quite a lot about panarchy.

    To what is stated in the article, I can only add the following consideration. Panarchy as a system where everyone is under their own governments, but governments compete for citizens, and entry and exit are free, is an unstable state of society. Quite quickly, a significant number of people will accumulate who have not entered into client agreements with any governments at all. They cannot be forced to go under someone’s wing; all that remains is to try to sell them some services. Thus, panarchy will gradually become pure ancap for many, where absolutely all goods and services are offered on a free competitive market. I would say that this could lead to the development of government service aggregators, where everyone can pick an option for themselves, or perhaps do without it entirely.

    Shut up and just give me that insurance!

    Panarchy

    The State is a Complex Thing

    It is believed that the state is something absolutely necessary for people, without which there would be chaos, banditry, and ruin. Yet, in different eras, the perception of what the state is and what it should be has differed radically. No matter which government textbook you look at, it always says that in the past, the state was very bad, oppressed people, and they rebelled. But now, the state is good, it does not oppress people, and stability is very important to us all. At the same time, the structure of the state in different countries also differs greatly, and the greater the difference between what is there and what is here, the more “incorrect” the model there is, and the better it would be for those unwise people to do as we do here. Meanwhile, we need to defend ourselves so they don’t do here what they do there.

    Why the National State is Needed

    Strong national states formed as a response to the constant threat of foreign invasion, as well as as a tool for such invasion. But although territorial seizures continue to this day, this is becoming less justified in the eyes of residents of other countries and less popular among their own citizens. The globalization of the economy has made trade wars far less effective. In other words, the unified national state is becoming less in demand—tasks simply cannot be found for this expensive and inconvenient tool.

    The main threat to the state today is not external aggression, but the lack of civil consensus. In democratic states, candidates who rely on the people’s dislike of the political establishment are coming to power one after another. This means that people are not dissatisfied with individuals—they are dissatisfied with the system itself.

    Problems of Democracy

    Why is democracy providing civil consensus worse and worse? Because it is a dictatorship of the majority. If power stably belongs to the same political force, a stable dissatisfied minority forms, convinced that its interests are not being observed by the government, and therefore completely unmotivated to maintain any loyalty to the government. If the government and opposition regularly switch places, it results in an endless tug-of-war where policy becomes a compromise. Regulations are loosened, then tightened; taxes are decreased, then increased. No political program is implemented, and the voter’s frustration grows.

    A minority is ready to obey the majority if it sees the need to unite in the face of external danger. But when there is no external danger, people realize there is no reason to tolerate it. And if external danger is fabricated, in our age of informational transparency, this causes even more irritation and distrust toward the establishment. The “make it the same for everyone” approach is rapidly losing popularity also because in all other sectors, a person easily receives individual service according to their requests—and only in those spheres for which the government is responsible must they somehow put up with unification. The future lies in transferring the individual approach into the political sphere.

    For now, the individual approach in politics manifests in how the same candidate is tried to be sold to different categories of voters under different sauces before elections. In other words, political technologists already see the demand of the voters, but, unable to satisfy it, they try to at least give the dish different shades of flavor. But such a marketing strategy cannot work for long. More and more people want to somehow unite with those who share similar views and somehow peacefully separate from those to whom these views are offensive.

    Separation

    The simplest way of separation within the existing legal political tools is spatial separation. Chechens pushed all Russians off their land and now demonstrate a touching national unanimity to the outside world. American libertarians are moving to New Hampshire—and the state is rapidly deregulating its legislation.

    However, physical relocation is only one way of changing conditions. If you don’t like the water company, you have to change your place of residence, but if you don’t like the mobile operator, it is enough to change operators without any moving. Government services have more in common with the services of a mobile operator than with utility infrastructure. At least, most government services look quite mobile.

    Panarchy

    Today’s state, through taxes, provides citizens with benefits such as education, healthcare, pension provision, law enforcement, control over fire, sanitary, ecological and a bunch of other safety measures, courts, and other small trifles—as well as that for which a strong central government was actually established: border protection against foreign invasion and services for seizing other states. Practically all these services can be perfectly provided on a competitive basis. After all, each of you calls your own insurance company when you get into an accident, so why can’t everyone contact their own police when protection is required?

    Market solutions have already been invented and have a practice of successful implementation for absolutely all services that people need. Need, in this case, is determined by the willingness to pay for these services. A system of social relations in which all goods and services are supplied on a free competitive market is called anarcho-capitalism, and this is the liberal ideology brought to its logical limit.

    However, such fine fragmentation of government service providers may not seem convenient to everyone, otherwise we would have long lived in such a fully competitive society. There is indeed a demand for a paternalistic state that cares for a person from the cradle to the grave, and it is even quite large. The entire twentieth century passed under the banner of armed struggle between socialism and liberalism, and despite the loud fall of odious totalitarian regimes, it must be admitted that both sides lost in this struggle: classical liberal states have also mostly vanished into oblivion. Therefore, the main challenge facing humanity today is the peaceful separation of socialists and liberals without violating the integrity of national entities (clustering by nationality, having one language and similar cultural norms, is also convenient for people). In fact, we are talking about the simultaneous coexistence of one or several socialist and liberal governments on the territory of one country or block of countries. Such a system is called panarchy, and this idea is being actively developed by intellectuals worldwide, in both developed and developing countries.

    Transition Scenarios

    Of course, the simplest path to embodying major social transformations is dictatorship. A coup or revolution is not mandatory. It is enough for a populist to come to power, concentrating a constitutional majority in parliament in their hands, subordinating the courts and, most importantly, having broad popularity among the people. A hypothetical Lee Kuan Yew or, conversely, Chavez.

    The simplest path, however, also carries the greatest danger. Over time, someone else will replace the dictator and begin to repeal everything that was adopted.

    A more complex but more reliable path is a broad public campaign. When very many people demand reforms—loudly, demonstratively and at every convenient opportunity—eventually their inevitability becomes obvious. Once they occur, they are much harder to repeal.

    There is also a very simple and familiar path for Russia—catch-up development. Wait until panarchy works in the European Union and the USA, in China and Korea, in South Africa and Brazil—and then finally carry out the necessary transformations, while the lag behind Nigeria still doesn’t look completely hopeless.

    And finally, those citizens who require separation can simply present the rest of the state with a fait accompli. Here is your state, here is ours. One territory, different norms. We pay taxes to our government according to the agreement, and we do not pay them to yours. Will you try to use force to return us to your jurisdiction? Guys, a civil war is not budgeted for, and in general, let’s live in harmony, because we have already charged the batteries of our drone. As the famous political scientist Ekaterina Schulmann states, the motto of our time is becoming “What, was that allowed? Yes, it was.”

    And if there is no transition?

    Well, what will happen if no transition to panarchy occurs?

    A couple of inertial scenarios are possible. In the first, Russia sluggishly democratizes, the screws are loosened little by little, and the country gradually turns into something quite decent in Eastern Europe, no worse than some Moldova. In the second, Russia just as sluggishly tightens the screws, pushing particularly active opposition figures abroad, and gradually turns into something bleak in Eastern Europe, like Belarus.

    It is also possible that what today exists more in journalistic articles than in regulatory documents will finally take shape. The sovereignization of regions, state corporations, and special services will occur, and the country will slide into clan feudalism. The tendencies for this exist, and as the current president weakens, they may become stronger.

    But as long as the state, without reforming in the proper key, continues to somehow degrade, society may simply, by a process of attrition, begin to transition to alternative means of coordination—alongside the state, in spite of the state, and remaining invisible to the state. When people make deals under the table, using private money, resolve their conflicts in a private court, use the services of private security companies and so on, then from a certain moment, the uselessness of the state becomes obvious to literally everyone. In this case, Russia will transition to anarcho-capitalism, bypassing the stage of panarchy.

    What to do?

    So, you have encountered a fairly long text where unfamiliar terms are introduced, an unusual social structure is described, and strange predictions are made. What to do with this next?

    Even if you are a supporter of the status quo, it is still useful for you to know that such a discourse exists and is gaining popularity. You can warily observe the penetration of these ideas into the masses or actively oppose them—but one way or another, it won’t hurt you to familiarize yourself with them, just as it is useful for liberals to know the basics of socialist doctrine, and for atheists—the New Testament.

    If you are a convinced democrat, then perhaps you have simply never eaten any fruit sweeter than a carrot. Take a look at what is being proposed to replace modern liberal democracy; it’s possible you will find a grain of truth in these proposals.

    Finally, if you like what has been presented, then it is all the more worth studying the texts on this site, discussing them with acquaintances—and from there, it may lead to gradual implementation.