I liked the analysis: the pros, cons, pitfalls, limitations, prospects, and so on are listed. I will separately note the point that not everyone practicing counter-economics methods is an agorist. For example, North Korea earns from counter-economics, but they are not our bros.
It seems to me that for agorism to succeed, two factors must coincide. First, there must be an anocracy in the country (I would even say a failed state, but this term has many negative connotations because that state is mainly associated with contempt for private property). Second, agorism must be fashionable. Ideally—on the level of the movie Alongside Night. And if we can do little in terms of weakening the state, then as for the second condition, the cards are in our hands.
I want to recommend a pretty good video from the “Unknown Economics” channel, run by Ukrainian economist Boris Yurovsky. His channel features many detailed theoretical reviews of economic theory—I didn’t even notice how I gradually switched to him from Pavel Usanov’s channel, who is more of an economic historian. But not long ago, Boris Savvich started a series of videos on the topic of libertarianism, which is outside his primary field, and in my opinion, he handled it quite достойно.
The video I’m recommending is the final one in this series and is dedicated to the transition from etatism to libertarianism. As usual, it is a review of other authors’ ideas, quite clear and benevolent. If you like it, check out the other videos in the libertarianism series, and from there, you might reach the economic theory reviews; it happens as unobtrusively as becoming addicted to male approval.
To accomplish this task, it is not enough to simply, for example, give communities the right to keep most of the taxes: such rights are easy to give and easy to take away. It is important that the reforms be very difficult to reverse. In other words, they must improve people’s lives very quickly and very significantly.
How do you quickly improve people’s lives in the poorest country in Europe? Only by opening the country to a very wide flow of investment. So, the literally first package of proposed reforms is a serious reduction of state intervention in the regulation of the economy.
Right off the bat—the first thing—the abolition of customs, along with duties. If other states want to restrict the export of goods to Ukraine or the import of goods from Ukraine, that is their right. But in Ukraine, there is no one to deal with this nonsense; if people want to trade, they trade.
Second—granting communities the right to take any state functions under their own jurisdiction. If they wish to collect all taxes themselves and set their rates—be my guest. After that, let them negotiate with the center on how much money they are willing to provide as a dowry for those issues they cannot handle on their own. If they do not wish to decide anything themselves—be my guest; the center will appoint people, set the tax rates, and carry out full administration until the citizens gather for a meeting and declare that they have had a nice rest and are ready for self-governance again.
How to choose a president? You don’t need to choose him; sell this unpaid position at auction, for one year without the right of extension, and as for the powers, leave only the right to veto laws passed by the Verkhovna Rada. But that is not urgent; that is already ornamentation. If you don’t want to make money by selling the presidential office, do as they do in Switzerland—it’s not bad there either.
And what about the south-east? There, a Donetsk Sich is created. Since the country is decentralized, few communities will dare to maintain serious armed forces, but here is a region where it is vitally necessary. This means a safari park is needed, where everyone interested in hunting separatists will go, as well as representatives of volunteer organizations who will ensure that the hunt is conducted without poaching. You arrive, pay for a trip—and off you go. Whatever you capture is yours. The task of the Sich leadership is to organize coordination so that they don’t shoot each other; that’s what the money is collected for. And to promptly conduct the demarcation of those districts whose residents have decided to reclassify themselves from hunting grounds to a full-fledged territory of the Sich, handed over their separatists for trial, and elected representatives to the Sich self-government—and that’s it, the residents of the territory have regained their status as human beings. I don’t know how effectively this will reduce the size of the hunting grounds, but the question was about what measures are needed to ensure decentralization. Well, without a decentralized volunteer army, you will not hold a decentralized country.
It turns out I didn’t even invent this term. I wouldn’t be surprised if all the other advice also turns out to be sheer banality.
Should we actively promote actions that contribute to PNBP within the framework of current law? For example, the acquisition of hunting rifles or gas pistols, martial arts training (and which ones?), the creation of voluntary militias to counter criminal violence, etc.? In general, does it mean that every “ideological” libertarian should possess at least some weapon or combat skills?
Continuing regarding self-organized people’s militias. If their goal is to apprehend actors of unorganized violence (hooligans, bandits, etc.) and hand them over to the state, can they be considered a successful example of a first step toward PNBP under statism?
Muscovite
In short, yes, we should, and yes, they can. Now, in more detail.
The key condition for maintaining anarchic social orders is a mass readiness to personally exercise one’s rights and an unwillingness to delegate them to anyone without serious benefit. Therefore, naturally, skills for ensuring both personal and public security through cooperation greatly help to push out of one’s head the idea of the state as something vitally necessary.
Now let’s go through specific activities.
Martial Arts — I am not particularly well-versed in them, but the main benefit is removing the psychological block before inflicting pain on another, and the fear of having pain inflicted on you. So, contact martial arts are preferable; otherwise, it’s just a variety of gymnastics, which, however, is also useful.
Knife. The most effective tool for kitchen disputes, and doubtfully effective on the street in an equal fight. It is intended, essentially, for a surprise attack or improvised self-defense with whatever is at hand. Therefore, specifically training with a knife is unlikely to be very relevant if the readiness to strike can be developed in some other way.
Pepper Spray. In conditions of a ban on rifled short-barreled firearms, it is the primary means of street self-defense; it works, as we saw on January 23, even against a buffed OMON officer. The skills for use are simple. The effect is easily verified even on oneself: the consequences are instant, and there is no long-term harm to health.
Civilian Firearms. They cannot be used on people, and one cannot train on people, so the only thing they are good for is developing skills on targets, assuming these skills might come in handy at the moment when you stop caring about what is “forbidden.” An additional downside to owning legal weapons is that they are seized after two administrative offenses, which can be received for literally anything; thus, the possession of a weapon motivates one to stay quiet and not stir—and this particular skill is rather harmful to train for building an ancap society.
Militias. An excellent legal way to develop skills in team power interaction, without serious risk to health, without a drop in income, while earning real authority among neighbors. If militiamen catch real aggressors rather than violators of public morality, then such associations are certainly worth joining. Again, in far from every case does it make sense to hand detainees over to the state. Judging by certain publications, self-proclaimed law enforcement associations in those remote corners where cops were last seen in the last century are usually inclined to resolve matters on the spot, and legal norms will inevitably emerge from this tradition. Ancap is the decentralization of law, so militias are exactly what the doctor ordered.
The obvious downside of militias is the disgusting smell of officialdom already emanating from the phrase “voluntary people’s militia.” Here, of course, it would be good to organize everything so as to practice doublethink less, but that is difficult to guarantee.
I read Vladimir Zolotorev’s book Can something that wasn’t broken be fixed? In it, Vladimir develops his cycle of previously published articles on the nature of the state, shows that it works perfectly in its normal mode, performing exactly what it was created for, and reflects on realistic options for its reduction or abolition.
In effect, he has created something like Rothbard’s For a New Liberty, but using a different conceptual apparatus: Rothbard analyzed the state primarily from legal positions, while Zolotorev does so from the perspective of praxeology, spontaneous orders, and social evolution.
A fairly large section of the book is devoted to explaining how society works (one might not even need to add the adjective “stateless” to it, because that is its natural state; rather, for the current state of affairs, it would be more appropriate to speak of “society with a state”).
The last part of the book presents considerations on the abolition of the state. The key to this is to stop viewing the state as an organization. From this, it becomes clear why political methods of fighting the state do not yield results under normal conditions; rather, they strengthen it, making it more efficient. Ridance of the state in its modern form lies more in the sphere of losing social consent for legalized robbery. At this moment, power is lost, and the state disappears de facto.
Next, a small window of opportunity opens for political methods that allow for the reformatting of the political process itself. This can be done in two directions.
First, the subject of political bargaining can be shifted from budget expenditures to budget collections, that is, turning taxes into fees. Alexander Rozov writes extensively about this in a colorful fictional form in his Meganesian cycle.
Second, the state can be turned into a joint-stock company, not in a figurative, but in a literal sense. Subsequently, the management of this newly formed JSC will optimize the company’s structure within a market paradigm and will join the ranks of all other existing corporations in the world.
All the material and specific recipes are given using the example of Ukraine, so the book should not be perceived as a completely literal manual for action in Russian realities, but it is still more relevant material than recipes based on American material.
Zolotorev’s work was released as part of a collection of works by three different authors. I am posting it in full, but if someone extracts only Zolotorev’s part from the general PDF and translates it, for example, into epub, I would be very grateful, as it would be more convenient to read.
My favorite Telegram channel, Libertarian State, published a brief set of principles they promote in two parts. Part 1. Part 2. I have read them. Short, clear, and concise; I find much of what is presented to be useful, but there is only one serious problem: the channel’s target audience is incapable of implementing these principles.
In this regard, I believe it is useful to outline my own approach to building a libertarian future, which is something every one of my readers is actually capable of implementing. This is, of course, agorism. Even before I became acquainted with Konkin’s ideas on counter-economics, I called this approach counter-cultural, contrasting it with the political one. What is wrong with the political approach?
There is no point in spending effort trying to change the political course of the state. First, you would have to start with the support of a negligible minority. Second, politics is a path of inevitable compromises, and in the best case, your ideas about reducing the state will be implemented only partially. Third, just as it shrinks, it will grow back: there is not a single example where liberal reforms were not followed by a reversal, and in general, the trend is toward further strengthening the role of the state. And finally, for successful political activity, you need to build complex associations, but any organization united by a simple interest is incredibly easy to destroy. You will endlessly bog down in internal conflicts over whose version of Rothbard is truer, and who violated which point of the charter at what moment.
Instead, it is proposed: first, remove the state from your head; second, remove it from your life; third, remove it from the lives of your loved ones; and fourth, expand the circle of these loved ones.
The most important is the first. At this stage, you firmly understand that there are no tasks for which a decent person would need the state. You have to turn to it out of necessity, for some silly permit, but you certainly should not expect to succeed by cooperating with it.
After serious progress in the first stage, you will inevitably begin to progress in the second. You will always wonder: can it be done under the table? Can it be done without a permit? Can it be done without reporting? Your competencies will develop in this specific area, rather than, for example, in the area of collecting certificates to receive social benefits.
If you are successful in bypassing state hurdles, you will inevitably help your loved ones do the same. Thus, you will become a useful person for a small circle of people. And, naturally, this circle will expand over time, and you will acquire interesting connections and influence.
At some stage, you might, for example, be imprisoned. An activist acquaintance might also be imprisoned. So might an honest state loyalist. Or a security official who lost an internal power struggle. The state devours everyone; you will not be its priority target. But it will have fewer chances of reaching you. You know the detours. You will flee abroad, change your identity, lie low, or in the worst case, dismantle the case.
Admit it, this prospect is more interesting than spending several years becoming, for example, a municipal deputy, sitting in meetings as part of a minority, and managing to achieve nothing during your term of office.
Due to the incident near Krasnoyarsk, Bitarch has resumed his reflections on balancing the potential for violence and published an article BitTorrent for Weapons, where he states that one of the most obvious ways to achieve almost complete armament is to make the cost of weapons zero. Since this is unrealizable at today’s level of technology, it should at least be as low as possible, so that volunteers could literally distribute weapons to anyone who wants them without spending too much.
He considers the following technological families:
Compact projectile weapons, where weak shot energy is compensated for by chemistry. Exactly how to deliver the toxin-charged striking element is a matter of taste and technological fantasy.
Dazzling lasers
Neutralizing the opponent with a jet of liquid or a spray (gas canisters, water pistols, etc.)
In a subsequent note, he provides a simple schematic for a flamethrower based on a water pistol, although he does not specify how functional, long-range, accurate, or safe the design is. A video showing the assembly and testing of such a device would be much more effective, and I hope such videos will also be found.
What can I say regarding the proposed mechanism for balancing the PV (Potential for Violence)?
Non-lethal self-defense weapons are a sufficiently developed industry where solutions can be found for every taste, budget, and legal framework. In particular, for Russia, gas canisters are almost without alternative as the optimal choice in terms of safety and price. They combine the advantages of compactness and cost—but most importantly, their use does not carry any serious state sanctions.
Bitarch’s fantasies are geared more toward non-lethal offensive weapons, such as the aforementioned dazzling lasers. It makes sense to use them from a distance against a crowded opponent, which is why they are used during street protests. Similarly, huge gas cylinders from fire extinguishers, various homemade flamethrowers, and so on are needed specifically for street protests. All sorts of ballistae and catapults would also fit here, though they are more of a way to amuse the imagination than to win a street skirmish.
In the Krasnoyarsk incident, the attackers’ main ally was the suddenness of the attack. Weapons would not have helped. Had the victims possessed a serious numerical advantage, or had they a couple of trauma pistols at hand, the opponent could have simply waited for them to fall asleep and then set fire to the tents. So, if such clashes occur in some remote taiga corner, protection lies either in publicity or in identifying the client and intimidating them instead.
The idea of distributing weapons for free via volunteers is an attempt to start from the wrong place. Weapons are already cheap, and practically anyone can afford them. It is a matter of priorities. What is needed instead are inspiring examples of weapon usage—and only then, on a wave of hype, should the idea of arming oneself be pushed to the masses. People do not value what they get for free.
This is already my third post about Belarus. In the first one, I gave obvious recommendations that turned out to be practically a forecast. In the second, I gave non-obvious recommendations, and, naturally, reality diverged from those recommendations. Therefore, instead of giving my own advice now, I want to express my happiness for the recommendations that Belarusians themselves are exchanging.
I am talking about a text on Telegraph with the proud title Victory Plan. It proposes a continuation of Sharp’s non-violent transformation from a dictatorship into a freer society. In brief, the plan includes:
organizing the main directions of resistance (fronts): protest actions, economic strangulation of the state, propaganda, political pressure, including at the international level, and moral and legal pressure on specific executors.
building parallel coordination structures (ministries): non-state economic services, insurance funds to compensate for the costs of state violence, the collapse of state social services, and strikes.
This is a very good plan because, during its implementation, society will receive a practical course in agorism, and there is a great chance that it will get a taste for it. When it turns out that non-state coordination is more efficient and the dictatorship eventually withers away, there is a chance that the new state, which will inevitably be built in place of the old one, will acquire the best traits of liberal laxity and will avoid meddling in things that are not its business for quite a long time. And if it does start to meddle, people will have ready-made recipes on exactly how to put the state in its place.
Is there a chance that after the old regime leaves, a new one will not be built in its place? It is very small, because libertarian ideas are not yet widely distributed in society, and the thought that everyone is better off without a state does not seem obvious to people. They are more likely to repeat the mistake of thinking, “this was a bad state, it’s gone now, now we will build a good one.”
When I read about Navalny’s poisoning, I felt completely hopeless. This year, ruling regimes all over the world have finally gone off the rails and have already managed to cause an unimaginable amount of damage to people. And it’s only August! And there is no reason to believe that 2020 is just an anomaly and that things will settle down later. In short, I wanted to fully retreat into internal emigration. To a place where there are no political news, where you have no idea what new orders the disposers of other people’s lives are giving, where there is only a market around—peaceful, cozy, and benevolent. To the place where all decent people actually belong.
I beg you: please, do not feed yourselves to the Leviathan. Stop with these pickets of yours, for which you will be fined—one; jailed for a day—two; given a criminal case—three. Stop the performances with Putin dolls and other risky nonsense. This will not shame the bandits in power. This does not help the victims of the bandits. It simply forces the security forces to turn their extremely unfriendly attention toward you, with a predictable result. You cannot be proud of being a victim of the regime. You should be proud of causing damage to the regime with impunity. But be proud in silence, otherwise, the impunity will turn into a failure.
One should act openly only when backed by power. Until then, we are partisans in this war declared upon us by the state. We must not be visible. Only grotesque rumors should be known about us—that we are everywhere, that 90% of the country’s economy is in the shadows, that no one follows the regime’s orders except for completely naive weirdos, that only suckers keep their money in fiat while the right people keep it exclusively in crypto, that official employment for a normal person is just a smokescreen for shadow earnings, that a normal person has contacts for every occasion, and it is thanks to them, not the state, that he peacefully prospers.
Of course, it is not like that now. But such rumors and beliefs have the power of a self-fulfilling prophecy, which is why it is useful for us to broadcast them. This is a far more effective struggle against the regime than rallies or, Lord forgive me, anti-corruption investigations. Against any regime, not necessarily Putin’s. Against the phenomenon of political power as such.
What I love about libertarians is the flourishing diversity of their ideas. This is especially true, of course, for those who maintain anonymity and are therefore less constrained in their intellectual explorations. At the same time, I consider the most dangerous of possible trends in the libertarian movement to be the use of such an ancient technology of dominance as “excommunicating” people from the movement.
Libertarians may disagree with one another on the issue of intellectual property, and that’s normal: some quote Kinsella, others Rothbard. They may argue about the acceptability of a minarchist state, drawing arguments on one side from Mises, Rand, and Nozick, and on the other from the same Rothbard or, say, Zolotorev. They may simply be fond of one particular doctrine because it is most interesting to them—for example, Alexander Elesev focused on non-violent child-rearing, Bitarh on the idea of outliving aggressive violence through a multitude of non-trivial ways, Svetov on lustration, and my favorite, Artem Ferier, on contractual slavery. This entire array of ideas is the direct realization of one’s own freedom, without restricting that of others.
The idea of encouraging intellectual diversity is often opposed by the idea of intellectual purism. It has its own obvious appeal, because it is always exclusively pleasant to be in an echo chamber, and knowing that your ideas are in demand and supported is usually very inspiring. One could also quote Lenin and his famous “Before uniting, and in order to unite, we must first decisively and definitely demarcate ourselves.” In other words, you clearly state the theses that constitute the essence of your teaching, give it a specific term, anathematize everyone who tries to call themselves by the same name while having a different set of postulates—and then launch a media campaign promoting precisely this purified product. Resources that were previously spent on searching for ideas and internal discussion are redirected toward missionary work, and the teaching begins to capture the masses.
The obvious problem with such an approach turns out to be fragility. Not only do heresies regularly form within the teaching when someone reinterprets the original set of theses in their own way, but attracting allies who have their own relatively coherent doctrine also becomes problematic. For example, Svetov has a teaching very closely related to what Elesev or Bitarh bring to the masses, but he is unable to attract them to himself except at the cost of their renouncing their own perspective on the issues. And why would they want to do that? Decisive demarcation remains self-sustaining until some teaching begins to occupy a dominant position. Only then can people unite: yesterday’s intellectual rivals join you, first repenting for their blindness and renouncing everything in their early views that deviated from the current canon. This trick worked for Lenin. Today we see similar mechanisms in the advance of the ideology of political correctness. Could the same thing work with libertarianism? Easily. It is just a word, and one can embed however narrow and dogmatic a content into it, having nothing to do with freedom itself.
We have a fork in the road. On one hand, the possibility of growing a rigid but successful teaching that will capture many minds. On the other, the freedom to dwell in a swamp of fruitless intellectual rambling. The preference for the lesser evil suggests itself, and for many, this turns out to be joining the ranks of the “Witnesses of NAP” or something of that sort. Fortunately, this fork is a false dilemma.
Only fans perceive music as whole albums. Usually, someone appreciates a specific song, someone gets attached to a couple of phrases from the chorus, someone remembers a little tune. It is the same with ideologies. Ideas are gathered into teachings for logical consistency, which is important to those who are deeply interested in understanding them. However, indoctrination occurs through the spreading of individual ideas, or even practices based on ideas—not through large-block constructions. Therefore, it is far more important that ideas of freedom take the most diverse forms and presentations, and that they grow into practices with the most varied styles. Some will appreciate cryptocurrency as “free money.” Some will like autonomous energy. Some will prefer coordination structures parallel to the state. Some will promote homeschooling. And some will go into politics, advocating for economic deregulation from elected positions.
Ideas spread unnoticed. Also, ideas can be born independently. You look at a person who doesn’t even know the word “libertarianism”—yet they are internally free and project a highly attractive pattern of action to others. There is no need to immediately examine them for compliance with a given talking-point memo. Just rejoice aloud: oh, one of us!
