Тег: Practical Anarchy

Stéphane Molinier. Practical Anarchy. Chapter 17.

It’s been a while since I worked on the translation of Molynieux’s “Practical Anarchy,” but from time to time, even those texts that don’t receive donations need to be posted, otherwise the public forgets they exist.

In chapter 17, The Stateless Society: An Exploration of Alternatives, the author examines several groups of typical arguments put forward by supporters of the state in defense of the state’s right to exist, and for each group provides a brief justification of their invalidity. As usual, he maintains a brisk polemical style, but, of course, the orientation of the arguments toward a Western reader is evident.

As a reminder, I am continuing the projects to translate several books into Russian:

  1. Libertarianism by Eric Mack – 20 out of 23 chapters translated
  2. Practical Anarchy by Stephan Molynieux – 18 out of 29 chapters translated
  3. Legal Systems Very Different from Our Own by David Friedman – 9 out of 22 chapters translated

I am also about to finish writing my own book about ancap.

And all of this is much easier to work on when there are donations.

Stefan Molyneux. Practical Anarchy. Editing of chapters 13-15.

I am posting the edits of three more chapters of The Practical Anarchist by Stephan Molneux.

Anarchy, Violence, and the State – this section analyzes the economic incentives for violence (which in some ways echoes a chapter from Friedman’s The Machinery of Freedom about the economics of vice and virtue) and shows that the best way to exponentially increase the amount of violence is to establish a state, because it is precisely the state that most successfully combats the economic factors that prevent the widespread use of violence in private life.

War, Profit, and the State – here the thesis is further sharpened, and explanations are provided as to why involving the state is the only way to make modern warfare profitable; a private individual has no chance of waging war effectively and remaining in the black.

Successful Operation (Dead Patient) – here the author discusses the tragedy of the commons and how, in most cases, it is perfectly resolved through privatization rather than the regulation of public goods. But even if one assumes that in some cases the tragedy of the commons cannot be cured by privatization, the state in any event cannot be the remedy, since it is itself the clearest example of that very tragedy.

Stefan Molyneux. Practical Anarchy. Editing of chapters 10-12.

Last time I promised to announce the final editing of six chapters at once, but for some reason the process dragged on (maybe due to insufficient motivation?), so for now, here are three.

In the second part of Practical Anarchy, Molynneux proceeds to argue why anarchy is better than the state. In the introduction, he lists six main questions that make sense to ask when analyzing any critique of anarchic solutions from the perspective of statism. Next, in a fairly extensive FAQ on anarchism, he answers the most typical objections (roads, national security, and all that). And in the chapter on four arguments against the state, he actually provides not four arguments, but four possible ratios between “bad” and “good” people in society, showing why, regardless of the ratio, the emergence of the state only makes things worse. I am not fond of the idea of dividing people into good and bad, and it is entirely possible to put forward a coherent system of objections against the state based, for example, on the analysis of economic incentives—but preachers of moral systems have their own audience, and Molynneux knows best how to work with them.

Stefan Molyneux. Practical Anarchy. Translation of Chapter 9, again on collective defense.

Chapter 9 concludes the first part of Stephan Molneux’s Practical Anarchy, which is dedicated to methodology; following this will be the second part on argumentation, a considerable portion of which has already been translated and published in draft form by volunteers. Therefore, in my spare time, I will refine the next six chapters slightly and will report back once they are done, to avoid making too many small updates.

While in the eighth chapter Molneux explains why collective defense against external invasion is more effective under anarchy than under a state, in the ninth he uses several historical examples to show what is wrong with the state’s so-called defense.

Unlike the translation of Eric Mack, which is funded by Alex Dvoretsky, and David Friedman, which is funded by Dima Kovalenko, a permanent sponsor for the translation of this particular book has not materialized. Bitarch was involved here, but he seems to have lost interest; I would be glad if someone else takes the initiative.

Stéphane Molinier. Practical Anarchy. Translation of Chapter 8, on collective defense.

Alex Dvoretsky kindly sponsored the translation of another chapter by Eric Mack, but the donation caught me in the process of translating another chapter by Stephan Molinari, which I was crafting according to the dictates of my own soul (and in the hope that donations would follow post factum). So, I finished with Molinari first, and now I will switch to Mack.

In the chapter Collective Defense: An Example of Methodology, Molinari analyzes the third most popular question about ancap, after courts and roads: how ancaps will defend themselves against an attack by an evil neighboring state. The book was written before Putin loudly enough declared his claim to be the world’s number one villain, so Germany is used as the model villain instead of Russia, and the dictator there faces a difficult choice: whether to conquer statist Poland or ancap France. I would say that in his fantasies about how the defense problem is resolved, Molinari appears more overconfident than Friedman, who, at least, considers the problem serious, and even admits that for this specific need he would, grimacing and wincing, agree to feed the state.

Stefan Molinieu. Practical Anarchy. Chapter 7

After an indecently long break, I am returning to the translation of Practical Anarchy by Stephan Molinari. I have already begun to miss his style, so I decided to ignore the lack of donations and translated another chapter just because; you’ll have plenty of time to chip in later.

Chapter Seven continues the first part of the book dedicated to methodology — the author approaches the explanation of his subject quite thoroughly, yet quite vividly. In particular, here he shows where the main strength of the existing world order, in which everything is divided among states, lies — in the fact that we cannot imagine it being any other way, although if we were to start designing the best possible world order from scratch right now, it wouldn’t occur to anyone to voluntarily build all this crap. On the contrary, the solution we devised would likely resemble something anarchic — simply because these recipes work perfectly in private life. In short, give it a read; it is presented quite well and convincingly.

Next, I am switching back to the translation of Libertarianism by Eric Mack, because a donation of sufficient size has arrived for the translation of another chapter, from which we will learn what Hayek thought about economic justice.

Stephan Molynneux. Practical Anarchy. Chapter 6

Less than a year has passed since I returned to translation and to this book. Another chapter is modestly titled Just a Personal Confession and is a phantasmagoria of poetic metaphors, from which we learn a lot about cathedrals and shoulders, about fish and the desert, about kings and about cabbage…

Something similar — a description of the author’s personal feeling of the immense value of the knowledge gained — is found in many libertarian authors; I am not immune to this myself. And at the end of the chapter, it describes quite accurately why I am moving to Montenegro and what I want to build there.

This chapter was translated with the financial support of Bitarch in the amount of 0.00110501btc.

Practical Anarchy, Chapter 5

I was recently encouraged by a small donation for the translation of Stephan Molneux, so I continued the editing, and now I am posting the final version of the fifth chapter, The Apocalypse Argument.

First, to get things started, the author analyzes the Apocalypse argument itself, which does not require much intellectual effort, but then the interesting part begins. If in the previous chapter the anarcho-capitalist skillfully explained why roads are not that important, now he sets a new bar and just as skillfully explains why anarchy is not that important. Truly, among none of the critics of ancap have I previously encountered a critique of ancap as convincing as that of the person who consistently preaches that very ancap, and this, if you think about it, is quite logical.

How Molneux will answer this critique himself, I do not yet know: the end of the chapter caught Scheherazade, and she ceased her permitted speeches. So send your donations for the translation of the next piece of text. There is no rough translation there, so I will be working from the source, but I have become quite adept, and this will not particularly slow me down now, so I will put your donations directly into my own pocket. Nothing can be done, coronacrisis, there is less money.

Stéphane Molinier, Practical Anarchy. Chapter 4.

I edited the fourth chapter of Practical Anarchy by Stephan Molneux. The text is an impressive exercise in rhetoric. The author continues to motivate us to abandon the state in favor of anarchy using the following logical construct: the state is absolutely horrific, therefore, the absence of a state could be cool; if it turns out that coordination in a society without a state is possible in principle, then we should go for it. If this creates minor inconveniences, they can be tolerated, but the whole point is that no, it won’t, but on the contrary, it will only be better, and then it turns out that you endured the evil, ugly state just so that life would also be inconvenient—aren’t you idiots?

Practical Anarchy, Stephan Molynieux. Chapters 1-3.

I have edited the first three previously posted chapters of Practical Anarchy by Stephan Molinari. However, these are only formally three chapters; in terms of meaning, it is first a foreword, then an introduction, and finally some boundary conditions. I suspect that Molinari must be a very skilled lover, given such an approach to foreplay.

The style of the book is very lively and emotional, but somewhat overloaded. I tried to make it readable enough, and I hope I succeeded.

In the foreword, the author apologizes to the reader for daring to publish the book in open access, and for having the audacity to assume that the reader, having paid zero money, will devote more than zero time to reading it.

From the introduction to the first part, dedicated to methodology, the reader finds out that they are actually dealing with the second book of a trilogy, and also receives a new portion of authorial apologies—this time for the fact that the book will most likely cause some “butthurt.”

In the chapter on limitations, the author explains that he does not intend to describe in detail what color robes judges will wear under ancap, and generally would prefer the book to be perceived as a textbook rather than a handbook. Let us immediately apply this knowledge to the previously published chapters on dispute resolution organizations and stateless prisons.

There is still work to do on the previously translated chapters, but the completion of the draft translation is still far off, and your financial support could encourage the process. All details are before the table of contents.