Тег: Tizun

The Effectiveness of Ancap

Arguments about the possibility of ancap often arise, and in theoretical terms, ancap is doing fine. Until recently, I was a confident ancap myself, until I thought about one idea of classical conservatism: in theory, just as people find the most profitable paths in a free market, society finds the most effective social institutions for itself. Thus, can it be said that the state is the most effective and natural way to combat crime, without which things would be bad? Preferably without Hoppean gimmicks: his theory is mainly devoted to Western Europe, and besides, centralized states like the Roman Empire existed in Europe even before feudalism.

anonymous question

Of course, the free market leads to the most effective solutions. However, the basis of the processes occurring in the market is freedom of activity and agreement. Any solution arising in the market cannot contradict these principles; it operates precisely as long as the agents involved agree to conduct their activities based on the terms of the agreement established between them. This solution ceases to operate in relation to anyone if the subject decides to break the agreement and refuse further cooperation. Thus, in the market, no one can forcibly compel someone to be a client of a particular organization, buy its products and use its services, or participate in any jurisdiction or any other form of collective of people. Indeed, market solutions do not use coercion.

Suppose that such a form of social management as centralized political power is, at a certain point, accepted by people as the most effective solution. However, living conditions gradually change, and people’s interests change as well. Naturally, no single solution can be effective forever. In the market, ineffective solutions are usually replaced by other solutions that are effective relative to the new conditions. A solution such as the “state” establishes itself as an eternal and indestructible solution, which no one has the right to challenge under any circumstances, and even less so to replace it with some other solution. Therefore, even if we assume that the state could have arisen through a market path of voluntary agreement, this in no way makes it an effective solution at any point in time other than the one in which it was accepted by everyone, since subsequently living conditions and people’s interests changed, yet the state provided no right to challenge it.

However, I would not even be quick to assume that states arose through a market path. Most likely, they arose through violent coercion. This is indicated to us by the theory of the stationary bandit, which states that states arose as a result of the settling of nomadic bandits who decided to subjugate the population of a certain territory and collect a regular tribute from it. You can read more about this theory here. Furthermore, history is known for numerous conquests and subjugations; therefore, even if one of the centralized territorial formations did arise through agreement, it ceased to be a market solution as soon as it was either forcibly subjugated by someone or decided to engage in the subjugation of others.

The state is not the most effective option for social relations simply because it consists of violence against people, as well as prohibits the implementation of any alternative solutions and establishes itself as an unshakeable and eternal truth.

Vitaliy Tizun

States are not private organizations

Vitaly Tizun’s Column

When criticizing the state, it is very common to hear that if you don’t like it, you should just leave for another “pen.” The argument is that states are also private competing organizations; they survive on funds paid by their clients (meaning citizens), and every person has a choice among many states, which means we already live in a free society. In reality, this is a very inadequate explanation of what the state is and how it works. Why? Let’s find out!

What does replacing one private agent with another usually mean? You need to terminate the old contract and enter into a new one with another agent. Of course, this process can sometimes encounter some difficulties, but overall it does not carry any unacceptable burdens. In this matter, you most likely will not even have to change your place of residence. And if you do (for example, you decide to change residential complexes or find a job in a neighboring city), the environment surrounding you still will not change fundamentally.

What does changing a state mean? You need to renounce your culture, your language, your loved ones and acquaintances, your familiar living environment, incur significant monetary expenses, fulfill a series of conditions regarding the termination of your previous citizenship (sometimes difficult to fulfill; I know one person who could not renounce Russian citizenship due to the need to “pay the debt to the Motherland”), and also fulfill a series of conditions to obtain new citizenship (you cannot move to another country simply by buying housing or finding a job—meaning, while getting the approval of some local residents, you still need permission from the state), and so on.

The process of changing states faces significant costs. An ordinary person will not move to another country simply because they have a poor knowledge of the local language and lack sufficient funds. Most people will flee their country only if the government starts simply shooting everyone indiscriminately (however, such governments usually also close the borders). In any other situation, no matter how bad it is, the majority of the population remains where they were.

One might say that you simply should not belong to the majority, that you need to develop yourself, strive, learn other languages, accumulate funds for relocation by all possible means, prove your reliability and usefulness to another state, and then everything will work out—and if you don’t do this, it means you don’t really want to change anything in your life.

However, even if you strive and successfully move to the territory of another state, this still provides no guarantees regarding the policy of the new sovereign. Regardless of the circumstances, the majority of the population of any state (the very ones who will never move) will not escape paying taxes and obeying state regulations. The state has the ability to use these people and their resources to pursue its own goals. This gives it the opportunity to make mistakes in its policy, or even adopt very inadequate and irrational decisions, since it always has the means to cover the resulting costs.

A private organization needs to function as efficiently as possible because it lives entirely on the sale of its goods and services. Any manifestation of inefficiency is unacceptable for it, as this would lead to the goods it provides being either more expensive or of lower quality than those of its competitors; it would thus lose clients and its income.

The state, however, does not need to strive for maximum efficiency. A specific government only needs to conduct a policy that is efficient enough to keep citizen indignation below a certain critical level. But no more than that.

States in no way resemble private organizations; they do not compete for people, but exploit the population belonging to them. The state is always slavery. To say that states are market and competing organizations is nonsense!

Ancap-chan’s Comment

Any analogy should not be taken completely literally. Of course, states compete for people, although this does not at all negate the thesis that they strive to exploit them for the purpose of obtaining income—if there were no such goal, there would be no sense in competing. Citizenships of different states have different values, although, of course, different people value different advantages provided by one citizenship or another.

But with equal success, we could consider the preferences of slaves regarding which master it is better to be owned by. It is known that some slaves successfully changed masters according to their preferences, although the bulk of them were unable to do so, or did not even perceive it as a need.

In short, the slogan “if you don’t like it—leave” should never be dismissed. In this regard, I want to remind you of an excellent article by Savva Shanaev, Mathematics in the Service of Libertarianism, as well as my brief comment on this article.

Progress, the State, and the Survival of Civilization

Vitaly Tizun, edited by Ancap-tyan

Supporters of the state often claim that scientific progress is impossible in a free society, and that only the state is capable of providing science with the resources necessary for its development. There are several objections to this thesis.

In Theory of a Free Society, I described in detail from an economic point of view how the state hinders the realization of any ideas. The state implements ideas in the least efficient way, as it can pour unlimited money into their embodiment without thinking about profit, while simultaneously restricting private initiative in the same field. Science is a typical example of such an approach.

But right now we are interested more in political rather than economic incentives, for it is on their basis that the state steers science.

Let’s take a classic example of conservative policy. Such a policy often prioritizes certain values (such as family, traditions, customs, nation, etc.). I will not say that these values mean nothing; for many people, they are very, very important. However, the state and political conservatives often justify absolutely any measures that they believe can protect these values, including measures that negatively affect other values and social spheres. Thus, we often encounter extremely absurd arguments stating that we must control progress and not allow it to be too rapid, as this could disrupt the traditional way of life of society. This not only sounds delusional but also does not work in practice, instead contributing to the destruction of the traditional way of life, which we will discuss below.

I will provide a couple of examples of how the politicization of science harms scientific development.

Nobel laureate James Watson was branded a racist and stripped of several honorary titles for asserting a link between the intelligence quotient and racial origin. Thus, a simple scientific observation was equated with calls for racial discrimination. Naturally, under such conditions, research into the influence of genetics on intelligence becomes hindered.

An even more egregious example is GMO-phobia. Hysteria, maintained at the level of political decisions, makes life extremely difficult for many potential players in this promising market, while a few corporations with serious lobbying capabilities reap superprofits thanks to politicians clearing the market.

But if this were only about transgenic plants, it would be half the battle; however, research related to the genetic modification of humans is also being slowed down. Conservatives thus attempt to protect human nature, but by obstructing small and gradual changes, they only ensure that when science advances enough to no longer be containable, the application of new technologies to change human genetics will become avalanche-like. The difference between enhanced and traditional humans will become too sharp, and this is exactly the scenario that conservatives fear so much.

Thus, the original thesis that the state, unlike a free society, is the only entity capable of ensuring scientific progress turns out to be fundamentally wrong; instead, we see that it is perfectly capable of hindering it.

If a free society proves to be insufficiently strong, and the doctrine of limiting the pace of scientific development remains influential enough, it will lead to humanity simply exhausting the resources currently at its disposal without ever gaining access to new ones, whether through an extensive path of development, such as space expansion, or an intensive one, through a radical increase in humanity’s energy capacity. This would mean the fading of civilization.

However, this is a very unlikely scenario. People usually mobilize quite well in the face of an obvious threat, and when the state itself acts as such an obvious threat, all the worse for it.

Turbulent emotions have a violent end; do not provoke turbulent emotions

Persuading Statists

Vitaly Tizun, whose brochure Theory of a Free Society I recently reviewed, has released a short video in which he discusses how to promote ancap. I am also working in a similar direction and hope to please you soon with a fresh video from Libertarian band, but Vitaly beat me to it.

https://youtu.be/pnpCDuMVaUE

If the video caught your interest, you can download the leaflet for independent distribution — it briefly summarizes the main message of the video. Of course, this is for the future — who needs leaflets now, while people are staying at home. For security reasons, the leaflet should not be ordered from a professional printing house — print in small quantities, on a printer, and pay in cash.

Psychological strategy for fighting against state support

Vitaly Tizun’s Column

We are all familiar with the specifics of how the state functions. Its foundation is compulsory and indisputable power over its citizens. This particularly concerns the ability to regulate their activities, apply violence against them, and seize their funds through taxation.

Regardless of how the government system and political mechanisms are implemented, many people are always dissatisfied with the current state of affairs to some extent. And while in a market environment dissatisfaction is resolved simply by renegotiating agreements or switching from one service provider to another, it is not so simple with the state. A person cannot change one state for another as easily, since economic, cultural, linguistic, and other barriers will stand in their way. Because of this, such a change is completely pointless, as for the majority of the population of any state, these barriers are insurmountable, which makes states organizations that compete for people only to a very small degree. This fact confirms the monopoly position of states and all the resulting negative aspects.

An individual also lacks the ability to effectively influence the policy the state pursues toward them. In a market environment, they are able to resolve many issues privately, whereas in the political sphere, their own interests mean nothing; they are obliged to submit to the interests of others. And even if a politician whose plans coincide with their wishes wins an election, or if they themselves become a politician, this only provides the opportunity to support their interests at the expense of infringing upon the interests of other people.

As we can see, the institution of statehood and political methods of management, in contrast to voluntary and market relations, are designed such that the forced and compulsory submission of some people by others is simply inevitable. In fact, the activity of the state is equivalent to the activity of a rapist and a robber. Indeed, it emerged precisely as a nomadic robber who decided to settle in a certain territory and impose his power on the local population through violent methods, as told to us by the stationary bandit theory. The essence of the state fully corresponds to its origin.

What do we get from this? We get that any person who supports the institution of statehood and political methods of management is, in fact, a rapist and a robber themselves. For how else can one call someone who justifies the use of violence and robbery, who considers them natural phenomena? Of course, whether violence and robbery are bad or good phenomena is a purely ethical question, and none of the answers to it can be defined as an objective truth. However, we do not need that; we only need to clearly define who is a supporter of peaceful and voluntary relations, and who supports forced submission and robbery.

Naturally, in current conditions, most people are passive assistants to violence and robbery, since they perceive the state as a natural social institution. It is the revelation of this fact that will allow the positions of the currently existing system to be shaken. For it is one thing when people support violence and robbery without realizing it. However, few are capable of openly admitting themselves to be rapists and robbers; this is the lot of only a minority of people who see nothing wrong in such things, while for the rest, the very concepts of violence and robbery are primarily associated with something immoral.

Using all the above arguments, we can form a psychological strategy for promoting the ideas of freedom. The first stage is the revelation of the fact that the state is a criminal organization specializing in violence and robbery. Next, it is necessary to establish a link between the state and its supporters. Since the state is a rapist and a robber, the people who support it are accomplices in the crimes it commits. Few truly want to be criminals and are capable of declaring (at least to themselves) without any remorse that they are rapists and robbers. The facts mentioned above, since they reveal the link between the criminal state and the person who is at least its passive supporter, are capable of causing psychological discomfort and perhaps even a sense of shame for one’s own complicity in anyone who considers violence and robbery immoral. Thus, in any peace-loving and benevolent person, associations of “state – bandit” and “supporter of the state – also a bandit” should develop. After this, there can be no question of such a person supporting the state; it will be, at the very least, unattractive to them, and possibly even repulsive.

Ancap-chan’s Commentary

Rhetoric addressed more to emotions than to logic does not appeal to me, and I see little value in such argumentation, but value is subjective. I fully admit that some well-meaning statist might indeed be unsettled by these arguments. However, even while sharing the belief that the state is an evil, a statist will believe that the state is the lesser evil. The logic of statists is that without the state, we would get not a peaceful market order, but a rampage of banditry, and only unpleasant types in police caps somehow restrain this very rampage. Yes, they themselves are prone to banditry, but checks, balances, public control and other blah-blah-blah.

What seems far more important to me is the ability to demonstrate the functioning of peaceful market mechanisms in those areas that are weakly subject to state influence, or where the state fails to meet the obligations it has undertaken and for which substantial budgets are spent.

In general, I would soften the premises presented in the text. Not “every accomplice of the state is a bandit,” but “one who defends the right of the state to continue spending money knowingly inefficiently in a sphere where there is a working non-state alternative — that person is truly a conscious accomplice of bandits.”

Well, it’s something…

Theory of a Free Society

I read the essay “Theory of a Free Society,” which was recently released by Vitaly Tizun. I was pleased that for a relatively small volume—only 80 thousand characters—the text is very substantial.

Vitaly dedicates the first part to a critique of the state, demonstrating the incompatibility of this institution with the needs of the individual, regardless of the form the state takes.

The second part briefly describes the principles of organizing a free stateless society. I particularly liked the clarity of the section explaining the interconnectedness of subjects—there is a fairly original argument, which is encountered quite rarely, that many of the perceived weak points of ancap are linked to viewing a single transaction in a vacuum, while in reality, there is an entire network of contractual interactions. It is a pity that the section on the institution of reputation does not address the factor of the cost of applying reputational sanctions. Propaganda is propaganda, but it is also useful to analyze the potential weak points of ancap; otherwise, after reading the text, one is left wondering: why is it that such a wonderful social system, which is completely natural, fits everyone perfectly, and is capable of self-maintenance, nonetheless does not dominate anywhere to this day.

The third part explains which factors will contribute to the stability of ancap and prevent the return of the state, whether through market mechanisms or by means of military seizure. The section on the doctrine of deterrence was clearly strongly influenced by the ideas of Bitarch, and you have already read something similar from me.

The fourth part outlines the main strategies for achieving ancap, and here as well, much echoes the videos of Libertarian Band.

Overall, the work is very solid, and I readily recommend it to those who want to get a fairly confident understanding of ancap in a very modest amount of time.

Download in epub fb2 mobi pdf