When I was writing the book on ancap, you could observe the results of the creative search process in real-time. After publication, the material was restructured; as a result of discussions in the comments, personal communication, and simply rereading the text, serious revisions to the wording were introduced, and a couple of chapters were discarded entirely, after which the second part of the book started over in a different vein. And this was while I was navigating relatively familiar territory: libertarian doctrine has long been and repeatedly laid out, and all that was required of me was its reimagining and a brief retelling.
As for the libertarian theory of war, this is uncharted territory, so I am not attempting to write a book right away, but am simply recording separate considerations for now. The only support I currently have are the questions laid out in the first part of the sketches that a libertarian theory of war should answer. These are the points I will go through.
How to determine when it is worth starting a war?
As a reminder, I define war as a class of conflicts in which, for at least one side, the survival of the opponent is not a deterrent factor. That is, to be strictly precise, the party to a conflict that is prepared to kill is waging war, while the party to a conflict that is not prepared to kill is not waging war, even if they are currently being attempted to be killed. Thus, even if someone is attacked with the intent to kill, they do not automatically find themselves in a state of war, but are free to choose for themselves whether to wage war or to evade it in some way.
Evasion can be direct: using passive defense, fleeing, hiding—something along those lines. Or it can be indirect: resorting to someone else’s protection. This immediately raises the problem of fuzzy boundaries. On one hand, even if a subject feeds and equips their protector, as well as pays them a salary and promises to recognize their ownership of captured trophies, they themselves are still not directly fighting. On the other hand, take a drone operator: they might be sitting a thousand kilometers from the target, sipping coffee and having nothing against the target of liquidation in general: should this operator be considered the one waging war—or their client, who feels enough antipathy toward the target of liquidation to shell out for the hire of an operator? How, fundamentally, does a drone operator differ from the drone itself? By the fact that they make the decision to kill? And what if the drone is controlled by AI and makes that decision itself?
In short, in conditions where there is a deep division of labor everywhere, finding someone who wages war completely independently is as easy as finding someone who lives entirely on subsistence farming.
By the way, this circumstance also complicates the precise determination of who started the war and, consequently, who the aggressor—that is, the initiator of violence—is. Parties can spend a long time inventively doing nasty things to each other, primarily through other people’s hands, and then some particular nasty act, for some reason, begins to be interpreted by observers as the start of a war and a legitimate reason to respond to aggression with all their military power.
What is my point in all this? That in the libertarian theory of war, it is not enough to simply say “NAP.” This is an abstract principle that can be applied to any interpersonal interaction to decide: in this specific elementary action, Vasya is the aggressor and Petya is the victim of aggression. And before that was an action in which Petya was the aggressor and Vasya the victim. And even earlier… and so on, until one grows tired. The aggressive IDF bombs Hamas. Well, yes, it bombs. If we take October 8, 2023, as the starting point, then the IDF is the aggressor. If October 7, 2023, then Hamas is the aggressor. Let’s wind further back into the past—and we slide into questions about land property rights, the content of sacred texts, and so on. In other words, the NAP as a criterion for when to start a war is inapplicable, at least in its pure form. At least when it comes to collective conflicts, rather than elementary situations like “you are just walking, someone lunges at you with a knife, and how to determine at what moment to shoot the attacker.”
With that, I conclude the second part of the notes; I didn’t even manage to fully analyze the first question, but it is better for me to post small notes more often, as the overall speed of work will be higher. In addition to sequential numbering and links to previous pieces of text, I will also use the tag LTV (libertarian theory of war) for these notes.
Not long ago, I was listening to one of Vladimir Zolotorev’s Saturday sermons on the Libertarian.site channel (I’m too lazy to search for the specific sermon—the channel’s navigation is very mediocre), and he noted that the theory of war is poorly developed within libertarianism. This observation seemed fair to me, which means it is worth thinking in this direction.
War is a type of conflict in which the necessity of the opponent’s survival is not a deterrent factor for at least one party. If one of the parties to the conflict is destroyed, it means that the conflict, for all intents and purposes, has been resolved. Granted, this may give rise to new conflicts—with those who consider such a manner of resolving conflicts by the winner as a reason to assert claims against them.
To minimize such claims, humanity has developed certain customs of war. For instance, if a reliable casus belli is presented before entering a war, and collateral damage is minimized during the war by attempting to destroy only legitimate military targets, then according to these customs, such a manner of conducting war should not entail any sanctions, and may even help in acquiring allies.
However, this is all empiricism operating with collective subjects such as states, armies, peoples, and so on. Libertarianism, on the other hand, is about methodological subjectivism and individual responsibility. The fact that some collective imaginary entities are in a state of war does not create any moral obligations for a specific person to enter the war on either side. At the same time, libertarian morality suggests entering conflicts on the just side, which means that libertarians may not be foreign to wars, even those where they are not the party subjected to a direct attack.
Vladimir Zolotorev proposes using the standard legal approach of peacetime to describe war within libertarianism: a lawsuit is filed against the party that caused the damage; in the case of collective actions, the lawsuit extends to the entire collective proportionally to their contribution; courts make decisions, the assets of the party that caused the damage are seized and sold on the market, and the proceeds are transferred to the plaintiff—and so on. Unfortunately, this model, which would have worked perfectly for a tribal society from the Icelandic sagas or, adjusted for capitalist realities, in some conditional Wild West, begins to stall heavily in a society where the system of kinship ties and personal obligations has been replaced by a system of formal hierarchy and various group identities, such as religion or nation.
Obviously, in this situation, an obvious solution suggests itself to a libertarian—to simplify the task. In other words, let’s abolish states and all other imaginary collective entities, and then the analysis of conflicts will elegantly be reduced to a simple and clear basis of property disputes. Abolishing these mental parasites in reality is, undoubtedly, a boon for all humanity; however, if we close our eyes to their existence right now and analyze reality as if these entities did not exist, they will not instantly disappear because of it.
This was simply a pointer to some difficulties in considering such a phenomenon as war; naturally, it is far from exhaustive.
A viable theory of war in libertarianism must answer several diverse questions:
How to determine when it is worth starting a war?
How to determine the just side in a war?
How to determine the appropriate degree of one’s own participation in a war?
How to determine that a war is being waged against you?
How to determine who is waging war against you?
How to determine what collateral damage is permissible?
How to determine appropriate compensation for direct and collateral damage?
How to determine when it is time to end the war?
How to determine on what terms the war should be ended?
I do not yet have the sought-after theory; I want to think about the necessary formulations in my spare time. Your comments may prove to be very useful. I hope to be able to share the results of these reflections soon.
Did it turn out that way? Is it easier to explain to liberals with remnants of religious consciousness? Are there some non-obvious pitfalls with liberties that aren’t present in an explanation through rights?
Λ (taken from the chat)
Freedom is the natural state of a human being outside of society. Robinson is free on a deserted island until Friday appears, and he has no rights, because there is no one to whom he can make claims, and no one to whom he must yield. When society emerges, it means the restriction of liberties and the appearance of rights. Since the book on ancap is dedicated specifically to life in society, it discusses rights rather, as they are generated by society itself.
A free person before the emergence of the need for ancap
In my book about ancap, there is a chapter that I have to reference most often—the one about conflicts, morality, and law. And it looks like I will be correcting it slightly soon.
You know, for a long time now, I have been bothered by the tendency, well-known among libertarians, to call those who initiate violence “NAP violators.” Especially, of course, those who call the NAP a contract.
Let me recall my formulation of the NAP: no one has the right to initiate violence with impunity. This principle is primarily about the fact that there are no privileged individuals who have the right to initiate violence with impunity. So, who violates it? It is violated by those who give people such a right.
Let me recall my definition of rights: rights are claims that have been accepted. In other words, NAP violators are those who have accepted the claims of certain individuals to initiate violence with impunity. To put it bluntly: it is not Putin who violates the NAP, but those who believe that he has the right to give orders for killings.
The only one who has the right to cancel punishment for the initiation of violence without any judicial proceeding is the victim of the violence. Only the victim can forgive the attacker—after compensation for damages or simply so. But even the victim of violence cannot, without violating the NAP, claim that the attacker had the right to attack. Yes, they attacked, and then a reconciliation between the parties occurred. This does not create a precedent. The next attack will similarly require punishment. From everyone who agrees with the NAP.
This is precisely where the roots of libertarian morality lie.
In a friendly project Libertarian State (formerly called Anti-State, which sort of hints at the evolution of thought), a translation of Aviezer Tucker’s article Panarchy: State 2.0 has been released. The article is not particularly remarkable, as it outlines the main ideas in defense of panarchy established by the originator of the term, Émile du Châtelet.
Following this, Wed Neuman, who actually runs this channel, released his own article on state 2.0, where he begins with a critique of Tucker and then develops his own theoretical constructs, moving from the original ideas of panarchy to the concept of charter cities.
To start, Wed redefines the concept of the state. Instead of the representation of the state as a monopolist of legitimate violence, which repels libertarians, he proposes to define the state as a stably maintained infrastructure for human habitation on a certain, not necessarily strictly fixed, territory. This is a far more “herbivorous” understanding of the subject, which brackets out all sorts of discussions about stationary bandits and other journalistic rhetoric, focusing instead on the actual organization of life.
The main prediction of the article is that as charter cities spread, state 1.0 will increasingly be reduced to the role of a concierge, receiving a fixed payment for this.
Regarding strategy, Wed still sees Paul Romer’s approach as the most optimal: on clean, uninhabited territory, from scratch, preceding construction by obtaining firm guarantees from the state, and detailing their own charter, on the basis of which further interaction between state 2.0 and its citizens will be built.
It is not hard to see that we, in Montelibero, are acting suboptimally according to Wed: we haven’t officially notified the state that we are conducting political experiments on its territory, but instead try to seep through stealthily and, if necessary, legalize ourselves only after we have developed. I don’t know, it seems to me that this is actually more reliable: it is much easier to gain factual recognition than prior permission. Imagine if Satoshi-sensei had asked someone if he could launch Bitcoin…
Shortly after my summary of Konstantin Morozov’s article stating that libertarians must either accept moral realism or give up the idea of proving that their ideology is the best, I began reviewing materials from the recently held “Capitalism and Freedom” conference in St. Petersburg. There, I came across Sergey Sazonov’s presentation, “Entrepreneurial Theory of Property.”
It seemed to me, and Valery Kizilov confirmed my suspicion in the Facebook comments, that the topic of this presentation echoes Morozov’s article.
The presentation showed that, purely philosophically, the concept of property can be based on two opposite foundations: deep private property (initially all property is the domain of individuals, and they can subsequently delegate their rights to society) and deep public property (initially everything belongs to everyone, and subsequently society may agree to allocate something into individual ownership).
It was further explained that the idea of deep private property in the most widely accepted Lockean interpretation has an insurmountable flaw—which is exactly what Konstantin Morozov points out. The basis for primary appropriation is the universal right of non-exclusive use of any ownerless resources, but everyone who appropriates them thereby deprives all others of their right of non-exclusive use. Deep public property, however, is devoid of such a logical flaw.
Although both concepts of the origin of property rights allow for the derivation of similar worldviews, there is a serious difference between them. By deriving property rights from deep private property, we must prove the extreme necessity of any state intervention. By deriving them from deep public property, conversely, we must prove any of our own authorizations to dispose of certain things—whether this will indeed be a socially beneficial use of property.
Sergey then demonstrates a justification for deep private property that is devoid of the aforementioned flaw. The transformation of a simple object into a resource that can be turned into property occurs not at the moment of the Lockean “mixing of labor with land,” but at the moment of making an entrepreneurial judgment about them. One sees how something unwanted by anyone can be applied—and that’s it, it’s appropriated. The Lockean contradiction is resolved because a simple object is transformed into a resource instantaneously, and no one is deprived of their non-exclusive right of use in the process. In contrast, within this approach, the idea of deep public property develops insurmountable problems.
In short, I highly recommend getting acquainted with the presentation; it’s a great mental workout. As for me, I will need to think about whether to include this material in my book, and if so, in what form.
While a vast number of readers watched as election commission employees in neighboring Belarus performed dangerous pirouettes on step ladders and other feats for the glory of the current dictator, a truly important event took place in this country. Alexei “Kamendant” Tereshchuk published an essay Catallactic Theory of Money. By internet standards, it is, of course, a long-read, but overall the text is quite concise, and despite the roughness of the presentation, the work deserves to be read by anyone who is even slightly interested in economics. Although, of course, those unfamiliar with Mises’s monetary theory will find the essay quite difficult to read, as it is a direct development of it, using Mises’s own conceptual framework.
For Mises, money is a special category of goods used as a medium of indirect exchange. This good acquires its value through a historical process that can be mentally traced back to the time when money was an ordinary consumer good (the so-called regression theorem).
Kamendant generalizes the concepts of indirect exchange and money. He defines indirect exchange as interpersonal exchange in which goods are acquired for their exchange value. Thus, money becomes just one of the possible goods used for indirect exchange. What is its fundamental characteristic that distinguishes it from other goods? Or put this way: what properties allow a certain good to become money?
Kamendant provides a definition of money that contains the answer to this question. Money consists of goods used to reduce costs in indirect exchange. It is precisely about the reduction of costs. If the exchange of one good for another is carried out directly with lower costs than when using some intermediary commodity, then the need for money does not arise.
Mises derived indirect exchange strictly from direct exchange. However, there is rich anthropological material showing that in primitive societies that do not use money, the economy is nonetheless not barter-based. Instead, there are usually various forms of mutual obligations, which gave rise to the debt theory of the origin of money. Kamendant points out that the only condition under which the demand for money as such could disappear is the equality of costs when exchanging any goods for each other. However, it is quite difficult to imagine such a society; that is exactly why societies with a pure barter economy do not exist.
Also quite interesting is the part of the essay dedicated to the so-called functions of money: scarcity, durability, divisibility, and so on. Kamendant indicates the role of these functions. From his point of view, these are simply different aspects of saving when using money. At the same time, only part of the saved costs relates to exchange itself. But beyond that, there are savings on storage costs, change, and so on.
Perhaps I will not try to briefly summarize Kamendant’s entire essay in one post; it turns out muddled and unclear. Read it yourselves.
My only complaint about the text is that it is written in rather poor language and needs editing. The author claims that this is only part of a future treatise on economic theory, and I hope that before the publication of the treatise, it will be proofread a bit better.
Nevertheless, I am terribly glad that Austrian economic theory remains alive and evolving, rather than being reduced to a retelling of treatises from the middle of the last century.
The texts are extremely pseudo-scientific, full of fluff and appeals to authority, so I will give you a brief summary; you can check the original for reference.
Article Summary
First, the articles formulate an observation that is obvious to anyone with a minimal grasp of the conceptual apparatus of the Austrian School of Economics: that when attempting to use methods of natural sciences to describe the interaction of subjects, the researcher faces inevitable failure, because the actions of subjects are not determined, as they possess their own interests and free will.
Next, a step forward is taken, and it is said: look, quantum mechanics—there is no determinism there either, observation directly affects the result, and in general, it is very similar to the behavior of acting subjects. Why not apply the apparatus of quantum mechanics to praxeology?
Next, the conceptual apparatus is applied as an example to describe context-dependent choice (one of the objects of study in the currently fashionable behavioral economics), and it is shown that, look, it was successfully described, so now we will prove any subjectivism and irrationality to you using algebra.
Then the next step is taken. Now, quantum mechanics gave us the laser. Since we have applied the terminology of quantum mechanics to society, let’s construct a social laser. A regular physical laser produces a beam of coherent radiation; a social one should produce directed coherent social activity. A regular laser requires pumping to excite a coherent launch, and society requires pumping too. All that remains is to figure out how to correctly pump society, and then, by skillfully sending it a series of signals, one can obtain the desired action for the initiator at the output. It’s just a matter of funding, and those who hurried to act are already slicing up grants.
Furthermore, a grant is being sliced for some kind of “anti-laser,” whose task is not to excite society, but to calm it down by selecting signals in anti-phase or something of that sort.
Discussion
Now let’s talk about what is wrong with the proposed model of society and the possibilities of managing it.
A person constantly receives sensations through their sensory organs, interprets them, and draws conclusions. New sensations are interpreted taking into account previously drawn conclusions. When receiving information that is easier to interpret, or that helps the subject achieve their goals, they will be inclined to consider this source of information more authoritative in the future and try to verify things with it. Thus, everyone inevitably forms a set of preferred information sources for themselves.
When receiving information that sharply diverges from previous experience, or which led to unpleasant consequences when attempted to be used, a person tends to mark the information source as harmful and try to ignore further signals from it.
In principle, a person can be irrational (from the perspective of an external observer). They will believe in the absurd, do things that harm them, and put others’ interests above their own. But they will similarly form a certain picture of the world for themselves, which in this case means preferences for information sources, a set of prejudices, and behavioral patterns.
Saving mental effort, a person always gravitates toward information sources that are easiest to interpret. Therefore, they will prefer a popular science brochure over a scientific treatise, a journalistic article over a brochure, and a meme over an article.
Because of this, it is hardly surprising that the key source of the freshest and most trustworthy knowledge for humanity has always been gossip. With the era of social networks, gossip has made a qualitative leap, and now its influence compared to any other sources has grown even further.
So, a hypothetical Mr. Kiselev wishes to build a social laser and fire a coherent beam of social enthusiasm somewhere. He appears on a popular TV channel with a message that “Khokhols” want to feed Russians in Novorossiya to the lard. Prigozhin’s factory starts writing about lard on social networks, commenting and reposting each other, commenting on everyone who mentions anything about Ukraine, lard, any settlement in the region designated as Novorossiya in the manuals, or simply popular bloggers. Then, according to the author’s design, calls begin to go to Novorossiya to drive the “Khokhols” out of their moonshine. A certain number of people actually gather and go, where they are processed into black soil. The topic is discredited, and the channels exposed in this topic are too. The next attempt to build a laser using these tools will fail; a new topic must be invented.
Or another example. A hypothetical Mr. Navalny releases an exposé film about the Prime Minister; the latter ignores the signal, and then the pumping begins: people are urged to take to the streets and demand a public investigation of the facts highlighted in the film. Hype, millions of views, people go out, get hit on the head with batons, and disperse. The movement becomes even wider, yellow ducks disappear from stores, Navalny’s circle of support grows manifold, and he begins a presidential campaign.
What is the difference between the two cases? The difference is that it is not enough to convey information to a person—the information must be confirmed by direct sensations; this is precisely what strengthens the authority of the information source. One could try to turn on an anti-laser and instill in people ideas about the successes of import substitution, but this information will be very poorly confirmed by direct data from the refrigerator. But a laser where the pumping focuses on the theme “everything was stolen” is perfectly confirmed by an empty refrigerator.
Therefore, the room for maneuver for representatives of the regime who do not wish to stop the looting is quite small—they will have to find some external or internal enemies responsible for the current dire situation. However, this is a very slippery slope:
Propagandist to the crowd: – If there’s no water in the tap, it means the Jews drank it! Beat the Jews, save Russia! And the crowd responds: – Hey, brothers, look at him, his face is washed, which means there is water in his tap! Beat the Jew!
Summary
What is referred to in the articles under the fancy word “laser” is a completely ordinary hype-building campaign. Describing a social campaign in the language of quantum-like mathematics will not provide new understanding and will only confuse those who have to work on the campaign, because they will be working not with vaguely fixed “info-fields” and “social energy” measured in unknown units—but with themes, meanings, and concrete people. In short, pure humanities.
But let the grant-eaters in institutes with big windows try to calculate the vector of social tension and model a cascade of info-waves in media fields, and let the officials in offices with high ceilings wait for results from them that provide a magic key to managing the subordinate people—meanwhile, people will continue to go about their urgent affairs relatively calmly.
A quantum-like model for describing cognitive distortions during the sequential scratching of the right ear with the left heel and picking the left nostril with the right pinky
For a long time, it was believed that the state is a natural and even god-given condition of society. Later, the roots of the state were traced back to some mythical social contract, or to the immutable laws of economic development. However, modern historical and anthropological data show that all or practically all states are the result of the conquest of a peaceful stateless society by an external enemy—usually a relatively small number of nomadic bandits who were lucky enough not only to carry out a successful raid but also to establish their permanent power over the conquered society. This is the so-called stationary bandit theory, proposed by economist Mancur Olson.
Old pre-state practices of interaction in society have not disappeared; they still work and are perfectly compatible with modern high technologies. The abolition of the state will only free people, and in order to continue living a free and peaceful life, they simply need to avoid attempting to recreate a regime of political power anew.
Introduction
Much has been discussed regarding the origin of the state, and several clever theories have been devised on the subject. Before presenting one of them, I would like to understand the purpose of such studies.
Why is a theory of the origin of the state needed at all? This is a simple question. A theory is needed to base one’s actions upon it and to examine new facts from its perspective. But for actions based on a theory to be successful, the theory must be functional. A functional theory, first, is capable of explaining existing facts no worse than other theories. Second, it must explain a series of facts that do not fit into previously created theories; otherwise, why invent it at all if the old ones managed? Third, a theory can be used to predict new facts. If the facts predicted by the theory are actually established, this is strong evidence that the theory is functional.
Divine Right
The oldest and most venerable theory of the origin of the state was the theory of divine right, according to which the person who became the head of the state did so by divine will. Additionally, this person could be a god themselves. The theory aligned perfectly with the prevailing views of the time that gods generally determine the fates of people: reasoning purely logically, rulers in this case had to be declared either rivals of the gods or executors of their will. The theory had the flaw that it only explained the past and predicted no new facts. Any usurpation of power within the framework of the divine theory came as a complete surprise, and thereafter one had to search for traces of providence on the brow of the new ruler. Furthermore, the model of distribution of power inherent in polis democracies was completely inconsistent with this theory.
For what purpose was this theory actively promoted? To reduce the costs of suppressing people’s resistance to the ruler’s power. It is difficult to argue with divine authority if the deity is responsible not only for the figure of the ruler but also, for example, for the harvest. However, this could also become an inconvenience for rulers, as crop failures became evidence of the gods’ punishment and a sign that the ruler ought to be overthrown.
Social Contract
The next theory of the origin of the state was the social contract theory. The idea is that in a state of nature, there is a war of all against all, and to end this war, a certain government is established to regulate violence. Obviously, even the founding fathers of the theory did not explicitly state that people gathered in a meadow and agreed to establish a state. It was only said that people behave toward the state as if they had agreed to its establishment.
This theory explained both the states that the divine right theory explained, as well as polis democracies, the Roman Republic, and the like. A logical consequence of the social contract theory was the consideration that if people once established a certain form of government, nothing prevents them from repeating this once the current form ceases to satisfy them. This consequence is explicitly contained in the US Declaration of Independence, and indeed, the USA became a vivid example of the practical application of the social contract theory.
A serious flaw of the theory is that it is based on the rather dubious assertion that a war of all against all is an indispensable attribute of the state of nature. Anthropological research has shown that this assertion does not correspond to reality, and that relations of cooperation precede the appearance of power relations in human communities. Thus, the assertion about the voluntary nature of such an institution as the state turns out to be baseless—no less baseless than the assertion of the divine right of kings to the throne.
Class Theory
Class theory
takes into account the views on anthropology
of the 19th century and one of the directions of political economy
of the same time. The theory indicates that
the state arises as an inevitable
consequence of economic stratification,
which, in turn, is
an inevitable consequence of increased
labor productivity and, accordingly,
the accumulation of surpluses. The state within
the framework of class theory is
an instrument of oppression of subordinate
classes by the ruling class.
Thus, for the first time
in the history of views on the mechanisms
of state formation, it is pointed out
that the state is fundamentally
antagonistic to the vast majority of the
population, and must be abolished.
This is a major plus of class theory,
explaining many observed
facts of people’s oppression by representatives
of power, which both previous
theories failed to handle.
The downside of class theory was that it was based on the labor theory of value, the theory of exploitation, and similar premises later rejected by economic science. Meanwhile, these false premises dictated to the adherents of class theory methods of opposing the state that only reinforced its repressive nature. Many political regimes established by adherents of class theory attest to this: all of them led only to widespread repressions among the population and usually ended in economic collapse.
Thus, although the state is indeed an enemy of its own people, it was not formed through economic actions; therefore, the path to the abolition of the state does not lie through the abolition of natural economic mechanisms.
Stationary
Bandit Theory
When it became clear that the state is not formed through economic oppression but by means of pure violence, a theory was proposed in the 20th century which asserted that the state arose from the confrontation between peaceful sedentary producers and nomads, who preferred to practice looting as a means of increasing their wealth. As long as sedentary residents successfully resisted raids, the bandit remained nomadic. As soon as they weakened, the nomads imposed a regular tribute on them, and then gradually strengthened their power, establishing rules for the taxable population that allowed them to maximize tribute and minimize the population’s opportunities for rebellion. In particular, the divine right of the conquerors to exercise their power over the captured was proclaimed for this purpose.
This theory explained
many historical examples where
the state arose specifically as a result
of external capture, after which the former
nomads became the hereditary
nobility of the people formed in this way.
The theory also asserted
that for the conquered, in a number of cases,
the presence of one stationary bandit
turned out to be more beneficial than a situation
in which they were surrounded by many
nomads who did not limit
their violence in any way. Thus, the famous legend
about the calling of the Varangians to bring
order among the Slavs and rule them fully
corresponds to this conclusion from the
stationary bandit theory. To some extent,
such a mechanism of conditionally voluntary
acceptance of the state converges with the
social contract theory.
However, although for many
it is more beneficial to fall into slavery than to perish,
this does not rehabilitate the slave owner,
for were he not to exist at all, there would be no
reason to choose between death and
slavery when one could remain
free. Thus, even with the caveat that the stationary
bandit could turn out to be more beneficial for peaceful
residents than the nomadic one (and could not be),
this in no way
indicates the undesirability of completely
getting rid of the bandit.
The Great Fiction
A small number of conquerors are unable to maintain their power over the conquered for a long time if their power rests only on the threat of violence. Or, in the words of Talleyrand, bayonets are good for everything except one thing: you cannot sit on them. The longest-term project of purely forceful retention of power in the history known to us is Lacedaemon, better known by the name of its capital, Sparta. The citizens of Sparta collectively owned helots—residents of the areas of Hellas they had conquered—for approximately five hundred years. By the end of this period, the Spartans simply ran out physically, and their state ceased to exist.
Thus, in order for the stationary bandit to maintain his dominance over the conquered for a longer period, he needed his rule to be based not only on the fear of violence, but to some extent on the consent of the governed (hello again to the social contract theory). In different cases, this consent was ensured by different means, but usually to obtain such consent, conquerors shared their power in measured doses. This expanded their social base. The limit of the development of this mechanism can be called modern social democracies. Economist Frédéric Bastiat called such a state a great fiction, in which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone. The oppressed and the oppressors have mixed to the point of indistinguishability; no one can say exactly how much they pay the state and how much they receive from it—in short, the modern state becomes like a sort of sadomasochistic orgy, where even those who do not experience particular pleasure are forced to simulate it so as not to stress other participants, because such are the rules of the game.
What to do?
First of all, you must
stop pretending that you are
enjoying the orgy. Violence for the purpose
of profit is not only immoral
but also unprofitable. The level of productive
forces (hello to class theory!) has
already grown so much that peaceful cooperation
ensures a much faster and
more stable increase in prosperity
than looting. You can continue to support
such rules of the game in which the state
will forcefully provide you with preferences at
the expense of others, but the state will just as
surely provide others with preferences at the expense
of you. Cooperation turns out
to be more beneficial and predictable, and market
competition is safer than war, even if
you are stronger than your competitors.
And when you stop
relying on the state, you will
undoubtedly develop a desire to stop
sharing your resources with the bandit.
There are many recipes for this,
which work for many particular
cases, and your creative thought, of course,
will allow you to select methods
relevant specifically to you.
Finally, your urges
to get rid of the state will prove
much more effective if they are supported
by others. Therefore, it is in your interests to sow
distrust of the bandit in minds and ridicule
the readiness to support him without protest.
Everyone who evades taxes becomes your ally. Everyone who took a bit of property from the state and kept it for themselves is your potential ally, for they weaken the state, which means you too can snatch something. The state is a stationary bandit, and you are mobile, so it is high time to become that very nomad who is perfectly adapted to crushing such stationary constructions. In this way, you will set history in a spiral (hello to dialectical materialism!) and lead humanity to a new level of development.
I’ll start from the end. The channel you are asking about is called “Platinum Thoughts of Young Leftists.” The theses proposed for consideration are indeed the platinum thoughts of young leftists. So why should I think that the channel has gone downhill? On the contrary, it has finally achieved harmony of form and content; it is wonderful.
But seriously, one unsuccessful article or series of articles does not yet write off a channel, especially if it is the product of collective efforts.
On the channel PLUM-TV, several notes were published with examples of how cartel agreements harm consumers, and how state antitrust measures benefit consumers. At the same time, it is not difficult to provide examples of how cartels fail to comply with their own agreements for reasons obvious in terms of economic theory (it is profitable for each participant to break the agreement). It is also not hard to find examples of how state antitrust measures harm consumers.
PLUM concludes from this that the state is a quite viable tool if it is properly tuned. Proponents of AES conclude from this that facts are simply events interpreted through one theory or another, statistics are the result of processing many facts using a theory on how facts should be processed, and the results of statistical research are simply an emotional plea in a political struggle, but by no means an argument in a dispute over which theory is correct—since in selecting countless events into what is called a fact, a certain theory is already being applied, meaning that proving a theory using facts is a distortion. PLUM concludes from this that AES is a faith, not a scientific theory, insofar as it is so deaf to facts. Proponents of AES point out that mathematics is also deaf to facts, describes its own little models and generally doesn’t care whether perfect circles exist in reality. This, however, does not prevent it from being successfully applied to real life—though not to everything and not blindly.
In general, this is a long-standing dispute, many spears have been broken, and generally, it is clear that both induction and deduction should be applied carefully. As for whether the state should be given a chance to improve, or whether it should be razed to the ground, I have touched upon this repeatedly in my previous posts. For example, you can refresh your memory with the post on under what circumstances libertarians might consider their teaching a false idea.
