Тег: Salvador

Salvador: From Prison of Gangs to Prison of the State

Perhaps you have heard about a man such as Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador. He looks cool: he rolled Bitcoin into the country, reduced crime almost to zero, destroyed the gangs. Sounds like success, right? But there is one major problem: in the process, he essentially transformed the entire country into one enormous prison.

Briefly: since March 2022, a “state of emergency” has been in effect in El Salvador. Sounds formal? Well, imagine that the police can arrest you right on the street simply for appearing suspicious. And this is not an exaggeration. Over two years of such a regime, more than 85 thousand people have been arrested. That’s 1% of the entire population. Imagine, one in every hundred families has lost someone close to them behind bars. Justice? Let’s forget about it! Courts take place in groups of 500 people, where you are given a sentence of 15-20 years in just 5 minutes. Guilty or not, nobody really figures it out. Orwell is smoking on the sidelines.

Incidentally, you can also end up in this “wonderful” statistics for criticizing the regime. Journalists and human rights activists regularly face threats, phone hacking through the Pegasus spy program (a greeting to Israeli intelligence services) and even have to flee the country because they don’t want to spend 15 years in jail for a report about a gang.

Instead of fighting violence like in developed countries (strengthening courts, working on education, creating jobs) or taking an innovative technological path (in the direction of treating violent criminals with means to strengthen the mechanism of inhibiting violence), Bukele chose the shortest way – mass repression and force suppressing all who impede him. Crime has decreased, yes. But now all of El Salvador is one huge zone of fear, where criminals have been replaced by the military and police.

Incidentally, let’s remember old Benjamin Franklin: “Those who sacrifice liberty for temporary security do not deserve either one.” In El Salvador, they sacrificed literally everything for an illusory stability. What comes next? Today the troops come for gangs, tomorrow they will come for the opposition, and after tomorrow – for you if you happen to become inconvenient.

History has already shown us time and again: a state, once it feels limitless power, never voluntarily relinquishes it. Of course, we all want security and order. But the price shouldn’t be equal to destroying civil liberties and turning society into a herd of frightened sheep. And you know what’s the worst thing? Bukele destroyed practically all independent institutions under the guise of fighting the Bukele gangs. Courts? Now completely controlled by the president. Parliament? It stamps out any laws, even the most absurd ones. Freedom of speech? Forget about it. Any mention of gangs or criticism of the government now can end with charges of “supporting terrorism.” And don’t forget about the “foreign agent” law, which El Salvador copied from Russia and Nicaragua. NGOs and independent media are required to pay huge taxes if they receive money from abroad. All in order to drown out uncomfortable voices and destroy any dissent.

Speaking of such “freedom” of business: under Bukele, police can easily confiscate your phone, money or car if you don’t please them. And there are no courts – because the judicial system simply stamps out decisions that suit the president. But Bitcoin is legal! True, who will buy it if your money can vanish without a trace? And this will certainly happen if you buy crypto on legitimate exchanges with KYC, revealing your identity and thus becoming vulnerable to raids by security forces who already know where to come.

Bukele assures us that he’s protecting people from bandits, but instead he simply replaced criminal lawlessness with the state. Suppressing rights and freedoms, power only sows new seeds of violence and resentment, which inevitably will give their poisonous fruits in the future. Therefore, remember that a state machine, once it tastes absolute power, usually turns into a monster that devours its own citizens, even the most loyal ones. And El Salvador is a striking example of this.

Voluntarist, Bitarch

Digital gold of El Salvador

El Salvador now has a second national currency alongside the US dollar — bitcoin. Thus, since the autumn of 2008, in just under 13 years, bitcoin has grown from a project posted by an anonymous person for open discussion into a currency equal to the dollar. Although, so far, only in one country.

Now the world should wait for El Salvador to implement something like Estonian e-residency: then anyone wishing to do so will be able to remotely open a business in El Salvador and conduct completely official settlements in Salvadoran currency, because Salvadoran laws will mandate it.

To mark this giant step in bitcoin adoption, discounts have been announced: some lucky individuals managed to buy in today at a price of around 43 thousand US dollars per bitcoin. But it is still not too late: at the time of this post’s publication, bitcoin costs only 47 thousand dollars.

Vladimir Milov is preparing to make the first bitcoin transaction of his life: a hairdresser is telling him how to install a Lightning wallet

Salvador and the BPN

Everything is fine with the right to bear arms in El Salvador (ownership from age 21, carrying from 24, a test and a criminal record check are required for a license), freedom of activity for private security companies, a government sector share of only 7.6% in the economy, and the lowest tax burden in all of the Americas. Now they are even giving permanent residency for three bitcoins. It’s not exactly ancap, but much has been successfully implemented. At the same time, El Salvador is one of the most violent countries in the world: robberies, murders, etc. Where is the notorious BPN (Balance of Violence Potential) if any law-abiding citizen can be armed no worse than any gangster?

Anonymous question

The Balance of Violence Potential (BPN) is a concept once used by Bitarch as a universal recipe against violence (later he abandoned such a vulgar interpretation), which he drew from Auzan, who in turn recounted Hirschleifer’s model regarding the conditions for the stability of anarchy. However, in the original model, everything was by no means reduced to the BPN alone. For the stability of anarchy according to Hirschleifer, low conflict intensity, high resource dispersion, and a sufficiently high income from peaceful activities are required.

The intensity factor is a sort of integral indicator consisting of the characteristics of military technologies, the motivation of the parties, and so on. It cannot be calculated directly, so it is rather understood through comparison between different conflicting societies. Resource dispersion ensures the difficulty of achieving hegemony through control of the economy. High income from peaceful activity reduces the motivation for war.

What do we have in El Salvador? Its history includes a war with Honduras in 1969, followed by a civil war that lasted until 1992, meaning one can assume a certain habit of solving issues by force—something institutionalists trace back to ancient colonial times and which is quite characteristic of Latin America in general. Resources are distributed very unevenly: in a tiny, densely populated agrarian country, there is a severe shortage of fertile land, and it is all concentrated in mountainous areas. Poverty and unemployment levels are very high, meaning there must simply be a large number of cheap fighters in the country who will inevitably dispose of themselves while terrorizing businesses, thereby further increasing poverty and unemployment.

What factors should lead to a decrease in the level of violence in El Salvador? First, the notorious second demographic transition. Fewer young people mean less banditry. Second, because a significant share of the economy consists of remittances from abroad, this increases resource dispersion. Recognizing bitcoin as legal tender will reduce remittance fees, which will increase income from peaceful economic activity. Finally, the country has recent experience with a truce between gangs and the government, during which the murder rate dropped sharply. If they wish, they can repeat this, which would not only reduce the level of violence but also increase the decentralization of power.

Why might the government in El Salvador be willing to decentralize? Because there is neighboring Honduras, a former military adversary. And Honduras is implementing panarchic projects, such as the Prospera charter city on Roatan island and a couple of smaller ones. Small El Salvador cannot afford the Russian Federation’s tactics toward neighbors attempting liberalization because it lacks the strength. Instead, it will have to catch up to their level. And wealthy citizens are a far more significant factor in reducing violence than any mythical BPN.