Тег: Shulmann

The Best Anime Crossover of 2018

This was probably the most anticipated video of the year: Ekaterina Schulmann had promised to give Mikhail Svetov an interview back when I was just starting my channel; six months passed, and the recording finally came out.

The stature of the participants in the conversation is practically equal. Both are popular video bloggers (Mikhail has a couple of tens of thousands more subscribers on YouTube, Ekaterina has a more promoted Facebook). Both are popular public lecturers (Mikhail has visited more provincial towns, Ekaterina speaks more often and is more embraced by the media). Behind Ekaterina are scholarly articles, co-authorship of a textbook, and numerous press publications. Behind Mikhail are two sizable rallies. Ekaterina holds a teaching position and membership in the Human Rights Council. Mikhail holds a leadership position in a rapidly gaining popularity political party and has a ten-day stint in detention. Both are political scientists by education, which means, theoretically, they should, if not speak the same language, at least understand each other well. Finally, both have a loyal army of supporters.

It is clear that the conversation was not a direct clash, otherwise I simply wouldn’t have known what to do with myself or who to root for. On one hand, Mikhail is closer to me ideologically, although we have many disagreements. On the other, Ekaterina is my role model, and it is terribly difficult for me to analyze her words impartially. But these were not debates, but a respectful communication between political allies about various subtleties and nuances, so I could root for Ekaterina without a guilty conscience.

Mikhail prepared magnificently for the conversation and also demonstrated an ability to think at least as fast as Ekaterina speaks, so he managed to interject with instant remarks during the pauses in her speech (anyone who has listened to Schulmann can imagine how tightly packed the words are in her phrases).

The most interesting part began in the last fifteen minutes of the conversation, when they moved from a dialogue about interesting topics to a targeted discussion of disagreements. Here, Mikhail surprised me again. He managed to pierce the armor of his interlocutor’s unwavering optimism by painting a not-entirely-fantastical scenario of clashes between Caucasian ethnic groups in the middle of the RF capital. Then Ekaterina quite skillfully regained her lost advantage during the discussion of Svetov’s signature topic—lustration—which she considers equally unlikely and unhelpful, while seeing more realistic alternatives to it.

After the conversation, Mikhail summarized the interaction on his Twitter roughly like this: Ekaterina is very useful in her place, specifically because the near-Kremlin public listens to her. Moreover, it’s not that she can facilitate a soft liberalization from above, but that she lulls the authorities with her sweet speeches, and when the thunder of revolution strikes, it will come as a complete surprise to the regime. This moment was also quite unexpected for me—exactly when Mikhail turned from a singer of libertarianism into a fervent revolutionary. He really spent the entire conversation unsuccessfully trying to get Ekaterina to agree with the thesis that Russia is about to explode and there will be a bloodbath; he did not succeed (with the Chechen caveat), and as a result, concluded that fine, let the authorities listen to Schulmann, but you, my little friends, listen to Svetov, he knows how it should be.

How does anarcho-capitalism view the actual situation in Russia?

анонимный вопрос

Here, I really want to start with an extended quote from a source I constantly refer to—our Political Science-chan, Ekaterina Schulmann:

As for the actual state of affairs, generally speaking, the Russian person is a spontaneous libertarian, but does not know it and would never call themselves such. In reality, they are very inclined toward libertarian values, namely: they do not trust the state, state institutions, or law enforcement agencies. In general, they trust no one except personal acquaintances. They tend to rely only on themselves and their closest relatives. Accordingly, they would like it if no one messed with them, if they were left in peace and not told how to live. In other words, these libertarian values are very strong in Russian people.

Ekaterina Schulmann

At the same time, the opposite view is entirely justified: Russia is a country of ingrained social-democratic values, and the ideal state for the majority of Russians is the Scandinavian countries, with low levels of inequality, comfortable prisons, officials on bicycles, and broad public discussion of all issues—in short, a proper Soviet government as it should be, according to the project documentation. The high taxes and strict regulations attached to this model are perceived as a fully justified price for this paternalistic paradise.

And finally, it would be strange not to mention the viewpoint that the Russian person is a sucker and a doormat, burdened by Stockholm syndrome and learned helplessness. Their motto is “initiative is punishable”, and not “punishable by being ordered to implement the initiative”, as in the ideal Confucian China, but literally punishable by a blow to the head so that they don’t stick their neck out. They harbor no illusions about the benevolence of state power, but justify the actions of officials by believing that they themselves would behave the same way in their place.

The first category—these are our natural allies. They might not provide active support because they are busy with their own peaceful anarcho-capitalist affairs, but at the very least, at the right moment, they will look away and not snitch on people for their peaceful anarcho-capitalist affairs.

The second category—these are our natural allies. They understand the importance of jointly solving local problems, the ability to negotiate, and the desire to unite around common interests, rather than simply on the principle of “us versus them.”

The third category—these are our natural allies. Gradually, it dawns on them that an official is not some inexorable force, omnipotent and omniscient. An official is a ridiculous idiot who doesn’t dare take a step without instructions, yet treats orders according to the principles of “wait to execute—they’ll cancel it” and “if you can shift the responsibility—shift it.” Finally, these people realize that an official immediately loses all their superior arrogance when facing a crowd one-on-one. And then officials can be peacefully pelted with snowballs, as in Volokolamsk, or subjected to “garbage lustrations,” as in Ukraine, but if things get really heated, it can even lead to defenestrations, which our Slavic brothers in the Czech Republic loved to use.

mm, lustrations!

Of course, sometimes with allies like these, you don’t even need enemies. Of course, such allies are too easily lured by communist slogans, and then they will go beat up the liberalists and the bourgeois. Therefore, as unpleasant as it may be, it is necessary to perform the important work of creating the correct image of the enemy in these people’s heads. This is precisely why Mikhail Svetov, with his propaganda of hatred toward the nomenklatura, is also doing important work; I couldn’t do it, I find it much more pleasant to tell various optimistic tales about how we can organize ourselves.

How did you get acquainted with Libertarianism? What is your story?

анонимный вопрос

Many people say that they came to libertarianism imperceptibly; simply one fine day, their more erudite acquaintances informed them that the set of views they were projecting is called libertarianism.

It happened a bit strangely for me. I knew the word itself, but I interpreted it purely phenomenologically—that libertarians are supporters of removing the state from the economy and the private lives of citizens. Then, I mentioned to a friend that I was a libertarian; she heard an unfamiliar term and looked it up on Wikipedia. At the time, it wasn’t the current, relatively balanced article, but right from the start it stated that libertarians are guys who advocate for the rejection of aggressive violence. I was like: what? What does this crap even have to do with my interest? And so I started digging into the matter in detail. Since then, like that Shulman who doesn’t understand what could be more fascinating than parliamentarism (except perhaps British literature, but best of all, British literature about parliamentarism), I don’t understand what could be more fascinating than economic theory and libertarian law, although the abbreviation NAP and its many derivatives still make me cringe a little.

I sincerely believe that selling libertarianism to people through the NAP is methodologically incorrect and provokes people to view us as some kind of strange freaks. Purely aesthetically, the NAP can only be convincingly advocated by a person with a weapon, ready to use it at any moment for self-defense, because the non-aggression principle is the ethics of armed people, not the whim of the unarmed. If you are a clumsy lady, a pampered girl with manicured nails, or a slender metrosexual, advocate for something else.

Sorry, I got carried away, but you asked for personal stories, and I have them.

“Remember, children: NAP is when everyone has everyone else in their sights, but no one shoots”
For variety, I decided to record an audio version of the story; perhaps some will prefer the voice format

What do you think about Mikhail Pozharsky’s article

“The Conservative Owl and the Libertarian Globe”

anonymous question

I have already touched upon this topic approximately in the post dedicated to the dispute between Mikhail Svetov and Vera Kichanova.

Then I was asked to clarify Svetov’s position regarding borders with peaceful and prosperous countries—does he really propose closing off from them as well? I had to devise a logical twist that makes Svetov’s proposal relatively acceptable for a minarchist society, and quite universal in the sense that no official is given the right to rank countries: these ones are good, and we are welcome to no one from here.

Mikhail Pozharsky’s article from July 1st is clearly inspired by the same dispute, but he dug deeper, while also addressing Hoppe’s concept that the transition from monarchy to democracy is social regression and a departure from libertarian ideals. Of course, the democratic state is terrible, as is any other state, but the claim that autocracies are generally healthier reveals Hoppe to be a person not very familiar with life under an autocracy.

I would bring another party into this dispute—political scientist Ekaterina Schulmann, who has repeatedly mentioned in her presentations such a characteristic of society as the degree of citizen involvement in decision-making.

If we plot the volume of redistribution carried out by the state on one coordinate axis and the degree of citizen involvement in decision-making on another, and map existing states onto this grid, we will see that the resulting cloud of points is fairly uniform; that is, movement along each axis is generally quite independent. Therefore, both the demand for a reduction in state redistribution in the most direct democracy and the demand for the democratization of authoritarian states are equally justified. There is no need to necessarily link the reduction of taxes and regulations with a transition from democracy to authoritarianism; this assumption seems unfounded.

conservative owl

Raising the same topic for the third time, I begin to remind me of that very Ekaterina Schulmann, who also sings seemingly the same thing, but always in a different tune. And yes, here is my usual chorus about donations: 1A7Wu2enQNRETLXDNpQEufcbJybtM1VHZ8