Тег: PRB

How are ecological problems solved in an anarcho-capitalist society?

I was arguing with a buddy; he says that in the PRB (Beautiful Russia of the Future), you can’t just take and distribute state land (which is 92% of it) as homesteads, because people will take it, cut down all the forests, sell the wood to China, and then leave. How realistic is this? Will an ecological catastrophe occur?
How are environmental problems solved in an anarcho-capitalist society? I heard there are several books on this topic.

Anonymous Ancap (question accompanied by a donation of 0.00021605 BTC)

If state land were distributed in modern Russia, then after some time, those who invested enough in this land and built a profitable business on it would start having that business squeezed out of them. Foreseeing these obvious consequences, people would be interested in squeezing as much as possible out of the obtained land as quickly as possible, and conducting more or less intensive farming only on a very modest scale, below the radar.

If the same were done in the Beautiful Russia of the Future, where judicial reform has already been carried out, property rights are protected, and there are several precedents of the successful protection of these rights, then it’s a different story. One could clear part of the forest, selling the logs to China, and use the proceeds to purchase wood processing equipment, gradually scaling a normal business, without forgetting to plant new forests to replace those cut down.

Thus, the optimal strategy for an entrepreneur will depend on their planning horizon, which is further the greater their confidence in tomorrow. Confidence, in turn, is strengthened by the presence of institutions that protect property rights.

Now about environmental problems. Ecology is a complex of knowledge and technologies for organizing a comfortable living environment for humans. The greater the solvent demand for such an environment in a specific territory, the higher the probability that the owner of the territory will prefer to invest in increasing the ecological attractiveness of the plot, even to the detriment of the existing business on that plot—because the demand for ecology also allows one to make money.

As for emissions, there is no fundamental difference between a simple garbage dump on someone else’s plot and, say, releasing harmful substances in the form of smoke into the atmosphere. This activity will meet opposition from neighbors, which will be more pronounced the greater their desire to have a healthy ecological environment right here. Were the polluter’s business somewhere on the internet, they could avoid responsibility for a long time, but land cannot run away; it is a large, stationary target. Therefore, anyone who, at their own risk, sets up a smoking factory that bothers the neighbors risks soon being left without a factory, and realizing that it is cheaper to install a filter on the smokestack, they will do so.

One might object, saying that in Africa, the compliance with environmental standards by enterprise owners is not very good. This is because the balance of violence there is not very stable. As long as it is cheaper to protect a factory from an attack than to re-equip it according to the latest word in ecological science, the owner will invest in protection. But in the absence of a state, under conditions of a sufficiently stable and sufficiently wealthy local community, the balance of violence can be maintained for a very long time, which means everything will be OK with the ecology as well.

I know that a huge number of pseudo-libertarians have appeared in our movement

Pro-lifers advocating for the ban of abortions, pedo-hysterics advocating for the ban of consensual intercourse with minors, and there are even freaks pushing for a “new Russian Pinochet.” The second class is the most delusional, of course. And it is the most numerous. While the first and third can be dealt with by simply distancing oneself from them, here we have a situation where the hydra of pedo-hysteria has embedded itself so deeply into the womb of the libertarian movement that it is practically impossible to extract. What are your options for action?

Inglikament Artzebantovsky-Bukht

You have listed three categories of people, of which the first and third would like to change the status quo (currently abortions are legal, and communists are not being thrown from helicopters into the ocean), while the second would wish to maintain it (voluntary intercourse with minors is already restricted). Libertarians are conducting a public campaign to change many things in society, and therefore need very broad public support. But the preferences of different people will inevitably differ, and the more actively you fight for the purity of the ranks, the less support you will have.

In this regard, I would like to recommend reading a post in an interesting channel run by anarchists who clearly have leftism in their history but have somewhat outgrown it (subscribe, by the way, the channel is good). The post analyzes behavioral strategies in conflict for a broad expansive social movement versus a hermetic sect. It notes a curious feature: expansive expansion is usually accompanied by fairly peaceful rhetoric, whereas sectarians are extremely aggressive in their rhetoric, even though their composition and numbers remain stagnant.

The libertarian movement is currently on the rise, so it will inevitably attract various freaks. There is no need to waste energy on internal sectarianism; it is more useful to focus on the unifying traits of your worldview. As for the pedo-hysteria, you can shrug your shoulders and say that personally you do not understand how one can distrust the personal preferences of teenagers so much and approve of state violence for victimless crimes, yet you are ready to cooperate with conservatives on the topic of lowering taxes and many other issues. This is a callback to my recent post, where I fantasized about how hypothetical American libertarians, without having a majority in Congress, nevertheless set the agenda and pass their laws by exploiting the contradictions between socialists and conservatives.

In short, if you have signed up for politics, be more flexible; unite around common interests, and you will have plenty of time to fight once you are in the parliament of the Beautiful Russia of the Future discussing a bill to abolish the age of consent. If you manage to gain broad enough support on this issue, you won’t need a helicopter.

How do you assess the prospects of building a libertarian society, similar to the Free State Project, within some small constituent entity of the RF (for example, Pskov or Novgorod region)? Both in conditions of modern autocracy, and in conditions of the PRB.

Mesh Enok

In order to quickly build a strong community from scratch within a limited territory, the following are required:

  1. Agreement among the community residents regarding the rules of interaction
  2. Agreement from the external environment to tolerate the creation of a community with its own internal rules in their neighborhood

To create a libertarian community on the scale of a full-fledged federal subject, even if it is a small one, it is necessary to have the ability to extend one’s own order to that federal subject. The population of the Pskov region is roughly half that of New Hampshire. If we assume that the mechanisms for spreading influence in the RF and the USA are the same, this means that for the stable success of a Russian FSP, 10,000 freestaters must relocate to the Pskov region.

Of course, in the RF, the project will face far more difficulties than in the USA because, although both are formally federations, the states have far more rights than the Russian federal subjects. Regions cannot change very many norms. While a region can reduce regional taxes, firstly, these are very small compared to federal taxes, and secondly, the region’s budget is deeply in deficit.

The Pskov region has one huge plus: it borders three countries: Estonia, Latvia, and Belarus; I cannot even say offhand if any other federal subject can boast anything similar. With a sufficiently wide network of trust formed by freestaters, this means the possibility of corrupting the structures that control the cross-border movement of goods and people, and consequently, international trade. This is something to think about.

In the Beautiful Russia of the Future, it is envisioned that a large number of powers will be transferred to the regions and taxes will be redistributed in their favor. This, combined with electoral deregulation, significantly simplifies the task of turning a conditional Pskov region into a kind of libertarian showcase.

Currently, most Russian libertarians are, of course, Muscovites, as they are on average wealthier, better involved in the information agenda through various offline actions, and simply understand that far more depends on them in our hyper-centralized country. Will they want to trade their significance in the capital for widespread fame in a small region? It is far from a fact, and certainly not all of them. After all, New Hampshire was already a fairly wealthy state at the very start of the FSP; I doubt the project would have been as successful if an absolute backwater, like American Samoa, had been chosen for it.

But did I publish articles about panarchy here for nothing? Territorial attachment matters less and less, so we are by no means obliged to obsess over clustering in one poor agricultural community, but can instead establish our own order around ourselves wherever we are, and on a global scale, this may mean more than one bright beacon of freedom against a backdrop of universal slavery.

How is it with female genital mutilation in the Beautiful Russia of the Future?

анонимный вопрос

Answered by Alex Murin

Female genital mutilation, like any forced medical procedure performed without necessity, is a crime against a person. The main problem is that it is most often committed by relatives against a legally incompetent girl. In Russia, cases of female circumcision have been recorded in Dagestan. If we try to analyze this from the perspective of the NAP, it is an assault on a person with the intent to cause injury, putting their life at risk. Circumcision is most often performed at home by people who lack even basic medical knowledge.

The non-aggression principle presupposes the protection of a person of any age. Consequently, in the Beautiful Russia of the Future, the girl’s relatives will be held accountable: either in the form of compensation for damages or via deductions from income earned in a private prison.

I believe that the position viewing a child as the property of their parents is untenable; the child and parent are in a guardianship relationship. The intentional infliction of harm on a ward is a more terrible crime than aggressive violence against a person who could fight back. At the same time, it would be logical for a court to declare the guardianship of such relatives illegal. The victim, unable to support herself, has the right to choose a more worthy guardian or to live and study in institutions maintained by private funds.

Over time, the tradition will fade into the past. Currently, it is sustained by the impunity of those performing the operation. The reason for this impunity is total nepotism in the regions where the practice is widespread. There, a child simply has nowhere to turn for protection. The police will not accept a report of grievous bodily harm because that’s just how things are done there. An independent municipal court or an arbitration court is more likely to side with the victim to maintain its reputation.

This tradition is unlikely to find support among insurers. Infection is very often introduced during female circumcision. The most common complications of such a procedure are inflammation, scarring, and difficulties with urination and the discharge of menstrual fluids. Insurers would have to pay for the treatment of every unsuccessful case. Another motive deterring relatives would be a manifold increase in insurance costs.

The damaged reputation of those practicing such atrocities could also influence the eradication of the tradition. While we currently cannot influence the security forces and clan leaders of the North Caucasus, without state support, they will have to reckon with the general law enforcement practice across the country; otherwise, people will not agree to live in their jurisdictions.

And yes, an exception is possible. If a woman wishes to obtain a certain status or respect among Muslims who adhere to such a tradition, she has the right to go to a clinic and undergo the procedure voluntarily. It is quite difficult to stop her; she is the owner of her own body.

Addition from Ancap-chan

In a situation where such a practice is widespread throughout a community (and circumcision can also be male, which is no less of a piece of filth), it is pointless to try to take the victimized child away from the parents through a court and hand them over to other relatives, as they most likely hold similar views. It is even more pointless to try to fine the parents, as they share a budget with the child, and the child, in addition to the mutilation, would be punished financially.

But upon growing up and gaining independence (and in the BRF, even a traditional society will be forced to grant a woman this independence), the woman can then pursue her parents in court for her mutilation, be branded an ungrateful beast, but uphold the version of justice that she herself shares.

The state, of course, also knows how to deal with traditional society, but such a medicine is worse than the disease. In a libertarian environment, traditional society will erode much faster and more reliably through the rebellion of individuals.

Which industries/spheres will remain in the hands of the state in the Libertarian Russia of the Future? Or will everything be private?

Anonymous question

The question itself already contains part of the answer. Since we are talking specifically about a Libertarian Russia, this already implies a minarchist scenario. Within this scenario, diplomacy, the protection of citizens from external aggression, and the enforcement of court decisions remain in the hands of the state.

Why diplomacy is the easiest to explain. If there are states in the world, it means there can be interstate agreements, and therefore it is necessary to maintain a certain state structure that will prepare and sign these agreements.

In a similar way, one can understand why the protection of citizens from external aggression becomes a matter for the state. It is easy and pleasant when external aggression is carried out by some bandits who are not part of the privileged club of state bandits. A private company can handle them without any diplomatic consequences. However, it would be difficult for a private company to explain to someone like Kim Jong Un that he is wrong: to him, they would look like some terrorists with whom negotiations cannot be conducted, if only because there is no one to talk to: the state considers only another state as a counterpart.

The most questionable justification is why the state should be allowed into the sphere of enforcing court decisions. But even here, one can refer to possible incidents with foreign companies, who might perceive violence against them by private actors as lawlessness and run to complain to their own government.

In any case, this is how minarchists envision the desired future, and I, generally, am not against it — but only until non-state practices begin to be actively implemented in these three areas as well.

How do you feel about Navalny? Does he have a chance to change anything?

Anonymous question

Imagine if I had hung a huge poster of Svetov on my wall and constantly discussed with my boyfriend what a cutie he is. In the best-case scenario, my boyfriend would have decided I was a cultist and got far away from me. In the worst-case scenario, it would be like RB-tyan. She has a poster of Navalny on her wall, a Navalny t-shirt on her chest, a Navalny sticker on her phone… As a result, instead of a beautiful Russia of the future, she and her boyfriend constantly discuss how cool Navalny is and what new video he has released. Now, as long as they do this, Navalny has no chance of changing anything: he himself becomes more interesting than his agenda. When RB-tyan starts being asked which books to read, that’s when the chance will appear.

But he is such a cutie!

And will we be exterminating niggers in the beautiful Russia of the future?

Anonymous question

I have a female acquaintance who constantly changes her nickname, and just recently she started calling herself Russia of the Future. RB-chan and I often argue about this. She believes that a visa regime should be introduced for niggers, churkas, and other various inferior peoples, and a government official should be entrusted to decide which nigger to let in and which not to. But I, of course, object, saying that I will somehow decide for myself whom to let onto my land, without an official. And if someone shows up uninvited, they will indeed risk being exterminated. But if they are willing to sell me what I need, or buy what I want to sell, and are polite and courteous in doing so, then they will, of course, be a welcome guest, and I will then somehow ensure their protection from everyone who for some reason wants to exterminate them.