After all, if I am just a small entrepreneur, a local gang could seize everything I have. And there would be an unthinkable number of such gangs due to the crude nature of humans and an unwillingness to work. Am I supposed to rely only on a gun in my pocket?
Tigrenok
I analyzed this topic in great detail in the script for the Libertarian Band video on the conditions for the stability of anarchy; you can even skip reading further and just watch the video instead.
If you happen to find yourself in an impoverished society where robbery is significantly more profitable than peaceful labor, then you, as a small entrepreneur, will indeed have to rely on both your gun and a good “roof” (protection)—you will spend a very significant share of your income on protection in one form or another, and the cost of your distrust toward everyone will be factored into the price of the goods you sell, which consumers will have to pay for. Thus, your life will be poor and dangerous, and you will be seriously outperformed in labor productivity by your peaceful neighbors—and it will remain this way until a certain critical mass of people in society crawls out of the swamp of poverty: money provides confidence in tomorrow, meaning it expands people’s planning horizon. In this way, they unlearn the principle of “you die today, and I’ll die tomorrow” and switch to a “let’s let each other live” mode.
In any case, regardless of your starting conditions, you will not be able to transition to a peaceful, stable, stateless society until you are personally ready to defend your individual freedom. That is, as you quite correctly noted, rely on the gun in your pocket. A gun in a safe that you do not dare use, regardless of what happens, will not help you at all.
With this article, I would like to summarize the cycle of previously published notes concerning the NAP—from discussions on the relevance of the topic to various approaches to its dissemination in society. Most of the ideas are taken from Bitarch and have been thoroughly reworked. Links to earlier materials expanding on certain theses are generously scattered throughout the text; if desired, you can refresh them in your memory.
What is unsatisfying about the status quo? Without eliminating aggressive violence from the life of society, it is impossible for any somewhat libertarian model of the country’s socio-political structure to emerge (even healthy federalism, let alone ancap or panarchy). Furthermore, the habit of solving problems through violence creates powerful negative externalities in society—it reduces the quality of life and economic well-being, slows down scientific and technical progress, and even creates a risk of the extinction of all humanity.
What is the non-aggression principle (NAP)? There are many interpretations of the non-aggression principle, but we will limit ourselves to the most minimalistic version. Let us assume that the NAP prohibits only direct physical violence against a person’s body and property that is under their immediate physical control (for example, the house where a person lives and the phone in their pocket). According to this minimal interpretation of the NAP, the use of violence for self-defense is permitted only in the form of counter-violence against the aggressor at the moment they attack and only in the minimal amount sufficient to make them cease the aggression. To seek revenge, punish, or recover compensation using violence would already be going beyond such an NAP. Psychological influence, due to the ambiguity of perception, should also not be considered violence. Following the NAP in this form already ensures freedom of association, and further, within voluntary associations, additional rules can be used that are not derived from the minimal NAP but are convenient for the comfortable interaction of the association’s members. A violation of the NAP itself or the established additional rules within an association can be settled through conciliation procedures or simply lead to a refusal of further cooperation, whether temporary or lifelong.
Why this specific minimal NAP? It inherently corresponds to the notions of justice of the vast majority of people, even if they have no complex concepts of property rights other than those inherited directly from animal ancestors. There is a well-known study by biologist Konrad Lorenz, who described the evolutionary mechanism for the emergence of innate inherited morality regarding intraspecific non-aggression in many animal species, such as hedgehogs, porcupines, echidnas, venomous snakes, and insects. In those periods of human history when society lacked functioning institutions to counteract individual violence, natural selection quickly led to the recognition of the NAP in roughly this minimal form. A similar understanding of the NAP can also be found in international relations, that is, between states, especially developed ones capable of employing deterrent weapons.
Who will be responsible for maintaining the NAP in society? Volunteers. Look at the distribution of the Bitcoin network’s hash rate across mining pools. Bitcoin has existed for over 10 years, and there is still no global dominant pool. People do not spend their efforts gathering statistics and warning miners about the risks of centralization for no reason. It even reaches the point where mining pools that approach a dangerous threshold of dominance, under public pressure but without violent coercion, stop accepting new miners, voluntarily depriving themselves of potential profit. All these people perfectly understand the value of decentralization and that it is better to spend a little of their own effort or give up part of their profit than to have people lose faith in the reliability of Bitcoin during a “51% attack,” which would cause the coins to lose value and the losses to be far higher. The same will happen with the maintenance of the NAP. Volunteers will certainly be found for whom the opportunity to live in a society with a low level of violence and to “enjoy the freedoms we have” are not empty words, and who are ready to exert effort to maintain it.
The methods for fighting aggressive violence described below can be used by anyone and in any combination, depending on the preferences and abilities of the volunteers. Their effectiveness and, accordingly, the appropriateness of their application in each specific case vary. All described methods do not contradict the NAP and do not imply the use of aggressive violence even against the most hardened maniacs. The list is not exhaustive and leaves room for human creativity.
1. Moral pressure
This method involves expressing condemnation toward those who practice aggressive violence themselves, as well as toward all those who approve of it. People are uncomfortable when they are considered villains; they seek justifications for themselves, and the task of moral pressure is to debunk these justifications.
For instance, it is important to convey to people the idea that the state is a stationary bandit, and that political methods of management are, in essence, robbery. Justifying such things is either a manifestation of Stockholm syndrome or evidence of complicity in robbery, and therefore is also subject to condemnation. Few are capable of openly admitting they are a violent criminal and a robber; this is the lot of only a minority of people who see nothing wrong in it, while for others, the very concepts of violence and robbery are primarily associated with something immoral. Let a person first begin to state, even if only under public pressure, that they condemn state violence, and then grow accustomed to such rhetoric and believe in it themselves.
The more hardened the statist, the harsher the methods of criticism permissible toward them. They can be compared to pedophiles (a comparison that favors the pedophiles) and totalitarian dictators, for whom the price of a human life is zero. The strategy of Western fighters against homophobia and racism, utilizing the ostracism of such individuals, which has proven its effectiveness, would also be appropriate. All these methods can be amplified by proliferation through specialized online services.
A powerful strategy that is potentially possible is the use of existing left-wing activism to promote the NAP. The alarmist protest, the face of which became Greta Thunberg, succeeded because many beneficiaries of the agenda Greta transmitted were found within the establishment. Now, when many countries are shaken by protests against police aggressive violence, the idea of riding this theme and beginning to transmit a general refusal of aggressive violence looks quite realistic. The same corporations that sponsor this protest will fit into a new expanded discourse. The public loves apocalyptic predictions, and we have them.
2. Transparency
Psychological research shows: people, if they believe their identity is hidden, find it much easier to cause suffering and pain to others. Any situation in which people feel anonymous, when no one knows who they are or does not want to know, reduces the sense of personal responsibility and thereby creates an opportunity for atrocities. The violent effect of anonymization can be amplified by the effect of an upward spiral of emotional arousal, which creates a feeling of power. The Milgram experiment also showed that personal face-to-face contact increases the likelihood that people will not carry out inhuman orders from authority to cause suffering and pain. Anonymity promotes the commission of violence.
Accordingly, the threat of publishing unsightly facts always works as a deterrent to violence. To prevent people from resorting to this method of protection, proponents of aggressive violence usually use shame. You are told that “airing dirty laundry” is shameful. That informing is “snitching.” That the victim of violence, not the perpetrator, will be smeared because they were at fault. This is a serious obstacle that can be overcome precisely through the moral pressure described above. Never condemn the victim, even if it seems to you that they could have been less careless, more modest, or followed cultural norms that you personally like rather than their own.
Technically, it is not so difficult today to find all the data about a person, knowing their appearance, voice, or other clues. Big data is a powerful tool that can also work in the interests of civil society. De-anonymization services, hidden audio and video recording, trackers and the like are actively developing. If you know promising teams working on this—support them. If you know of ready-made useful products that help people uncover the identities of criminals—tell others about them.
3. Balancing the potential for violence
The more evenly the potential for violence is distributed in society, the fewer opportunities a potential aggressor has to commit violence for their own benefit. With a completely even distribution of the potential for violence, the attacker always receives exactly the same damage as the object of the attack. If, at the same time, the potential for violence is not only evenly distributed but also quite high, then even uniting ten people to attack one may seem like a bad idea: one-tenth of the damage received by the victim would be more than enough for each attacker.
Thus, there will be less aggressive violence in society the more evenly the potential for violence is distributed, the greater the potential for violence of the individual, and the more readily they are willing to use force for their own defense, that is, to practice the doctrine of deterrence.
In essence, the presence of a sufficiently large potential for violence in each individual makes an exact parity of forces redundant: it is enough to have the necessary minimum to inflict unacceptable damage on the attacker. A classic example of such a necessary minimum is a firearm: a standard rifled short-barrel weapon. With minimal skill and determination, it allows one to fight off a small group of aggressors or keep at a distance an ill-motivated crowd in which no one wishes to be the first victim. However, a pistol is simply an example of a convenient modern technological solution to the problem of balancing the potential for violence. As shown by the example of the technologically backward Senoi tribe, even blowguns with poisoned darts are quite sufficient to deter aggression, provided they are guaranteed to be used when aggression is directed at them.
One might object that individual self-defense works poorly against the state, but this assertion is refuted by practice. The well-known science fiction author Alexander Rozov expressed himself well on this matter in his blog:
“A completely different matter is in Sweden (with a comparable and very high level of economic well-being). There, a person is, in general, also powerless before the state. But this powerlessness affects almost exclusively the LAW-ABIDING person—he is easier to find and punish for something. But an armed bandit, although also powerless, is harder to punish (since he must first be found, and then detained—and he may offer armed resistance). Therefore, the Swedish police prefer to hunt law-abiding citizens.”
“A completely different matter is in Sweden (with a comparable and very high level of economic well-being). There, a person is, in general, also powerless before the state. But this powerlessness affects almost exclusively the LAW-ABIDING person—he is easier to find and punish for something. But an armed bandit, although also powerless, is harder to punish (since he must first be found, and then detained—and he may offer armed resistance). Therefore, the Swedish police prefer to hunt law-abiding citizens.”
Of course, the state can spend a disproportionate amount of resources on opposing a specific individual, inherently exceeding any of their spending on defense. An individual can oppose this with two tactics.
First, the price of an effective frontal attack by the state on a private person usually turns out to be several dozen times higher than the price the person spent to counter this attack; in other words, in an arms race, the defending individual has the advantage. Having firmly decided to sell their life dearly, they are capable of causing a lot of trouble even after death.
Second, transparency and moral pressure provide a very unfavorable background for large-scale state violence, whereas a large number of people may come out to defend the victim because they decide for some reason that it also concerns them. Despite the fact that the firepower advantage in such situations still remains with the state, mass civil disobedience is often enough for the state to hush up the conflict.
4. Non-violent upbringing of children
The most humane and unobtrusive thing a person can do to fight aggressive violence in the world is to pass values of non-violence to children. Of course, this means the need to act by personal example, that is, first and foremost not to apply violence to children oneself, so the task may not be easy. Nevertheless, the effort is worth it, for in the long run, this is the strongest means of influencing the world. A person who grew up understanding that they can trust people and not look for a catch, that people are benevolent and inclined to negotiate, will carry these values into adult life, and will react to stories about the realities of the beginning of the 21st century as we react to stories about public executions: with incomprehension and disgust.
Even if the state is not rejected by humanity for its inefficiency, being led by people who absorbed non-violent practices from childhood, it will become humane and unobtrusive in its methods, not even remotely resembling the gang of robbers from which it once grew.
Of course, when instilling values of non-aggression in a child, it is also important to instill a readiness to oppose it: starting from ways to nip a conflict in the bud through constructive negotiations, and ending with the use of means of self-defense, as described in detail in the previous point.
The idea of non-aggression leads directly to the idea of legal equality, so much attention will also need to be paid to instilling this idea. First of all, it manifests in the small things. For example, a society in which adults address children using the informal “ty” while demanding to be addressed with the formal “vy” is already instilling the idea of inequality. Meanwhile, there are situations of natural inequality of opportunities due to different ages and experience, and usually, it is more appropriate for adults not to participate in many children’s games on equal terms with children in order to preserve their dignity.
A good illustration of this thesis is the approach to adolescent sex. In Carl Sagan’s book “The Demon-Haunted World” (or “Science in Search of God”), the results of a statistical study by sociologist James Prescott are described, who compared the customs of hundreds of cultures in human history.
“…the fundamental differences relate to whether it is customary in that culture to hug children and whether premarital sexual intercourse is permissible for youth. He considers these parameters to be key and concludes that all cultures where children are hugged and adolescents are allowed to engage in sexual intercourse ultimately do without a pronounced social hierarchy, and everyone is happy. Whereas those cultures where certain social prohibitions prevent hugging children and a strict taboo is placed on premarital adolescent sex develop a strong hierarchy of dominance and wallow in violence and hatred.”
“…the fundamental differences relate to whether it is customary in that culture to hug children and whether premarital sexual intercourse is permissible for youth. He considers these parameters to be key and concludes that all cultures where children are hugged and adolescents are allowed to engage in sexual intercourse ultimately do without a pronounced social hierarchy, and everyone is happy. Whereas those cultures where certain social prohibitions prevent hugging children and a strict taboo is placed on premarital adolescent sex develop a strong hierarchy of dominance and wallow in violence and hatred.”
At the same time, as noted in the study, the prevalence of sex between adults and adolescents again proves to be a pretext for the development of dominance relationships.
Of course, if you practice non-violent upbringing of children, you will have to face violence from others directed toward them. You will have to be ready to counteract this, even if they are other people’s children; otherwise, you will simply instill in the child the idea that the main thing is personal well-being and it is better to turn a blind eye to everything else to stay safe. Depending on the situation, means of protection, public disclosure of facts of violence, and the creation of moral pressure may be useful here.
5. Freedom of Association
Modern people too often have to be part of various involuntary associations. This could be compulsory schooling, a conscript army, imprisonment, an orphanage, certain family-clan relations in archaic societies, and even the institution of citizenship itself.
It is precisely where leaving a community is impossible or associated with high costs that a phenomenon such as bullying appears, including the use of physical violence. Involuntary association with anyone develops in a person the ability to endure, to act covertly, hiding one’s interests and motivations, and sharply reduces empathy—in short, it makes them a rather unpleasant type. Spending energy on intrigues and survival in society, a person loses the opportunity for development and self-realization.
What can be done to develop freedom of association in society?
First, of course, it is important to recognize the problem itself, to speak publicly about its existence, calling things by their names: prison as prison, slavery as slavery, dependence as dependence.
In many cases, the exit from an involuntary association is not actually closed, and many people remain in them simply by tradition. Having found the exit, one should use it and learn to enjoy life in conditions of freedom, destroying with one’s own example the myths about the troubles awaiting those who leave the cozy cage. Thus, those who leave school for self-education will arouse envy rather than pity if they not only rid themselves of the pressure of the educational system but also achieve the life success for which the entire educational system is presumably built.
Similarly, it makes sense to flee abroad immediately upon the threat of criminal prosecution—or even simply in a situation where the political regime in the country becomes particularly unpleasant, and one can choose something less repulsive.
It is important to promote and publicly approve leaving toxic, abusive personal relationships—it is also desirable to provide support to victims of such relationships afterward so that they can find another support in life and not fall back into something similar.
Finally, it is not enough to know how to exit involuntary associations; it is important to learn how to enter voluntary ones, gaining pleasure, benefit, and security from this. This could be any interest-based group on social networks, membership in public organizations, or establishing a network of known service providers. Finally, one can simply become a regular at bars, clubs, children’s or sports grounds. Even such elementary habits as greeting neighbors in the building and talking with taxi drivers or hairdressers are already an important step toward building a civil society. When people evoke sympathy and interest in each other, it promotes the spread of the values of non-aggression.
6. Working with Heredity and Biochemistry
Biologist Konrad Lorenz proposed a model describing the appearance of innate morality of non-aggression toward representatives of one’s own species in many animal species (those possessing innate weaponry—hedgehogs, porcupines, echidnas, venomous snakes, and insects). The higher the ability of the species’ representatives to destroy their conspecifics, the faster the genes responsible for the tendency toward intraspecific aggression are washed out of the population during lethal conflicts. A strong animal may have a strong morality of non-aggression, and a weak one—a weak one. In its natural history, humans are very poorly armed animals. Therefore, in humans, instinctive prohibitions are initially weak, and natural morality is weak. Innate prohibitions in humans correspond to this state of affairs. However, reason has provided humans with the ability to significantly improve their tools for killing humans in timeframes that are negligible by evolutionary standards; therefore, an innate morality of non-aggression toward other humans never had time to appear in humans during natural selection.
It has been established that a tendency toward increased and pathological aggression can be either inherited or acquired (due to brain damage and hormonal imbalances). A single gene or even a precise list of genes responsible for the tendency toward intraspecific aggression has not been found to date, so this is a promising direction for applying effort if you specialize in the relevant biological disciplines.
Several approaches can be proposed for washing out the hereditary tendency toward intraspecific aggression from human society, which differ both in ease of application and in the speed of achieving results.
6.1 Forcing Natural Selection
When armed self-defense is available and welcomed in society, aggressors quickly exit the population. Thus, the implementation of the methods outlined in section 3 can ensure a long-term reduction of aggressiveness in society, although natural glitches and mutations will still not allow the complete and final elimination of intraspecific aggression; therefore, it will be necessary to constantly maintain a uniform BPN (Balance of Power/Non-aggression) so that pathological aggressors appearing by chance as a result of mutation are washed out of the population.
6.2 Sexual Selection
As historian Martin van Creveld said,
“the true reason for the existence of wars is that men have always loved to fight, and women have always loved warriors.”
“the true reason for the existence of wars is that men have always loved to fight, and women have always loved warriors.”
As women increasingly prefer caring partners over aggressive ones, carriers of genes with low aggressiveness get more chances to have offspring—after which aggressive individuals go off to squander their lives and manage perfectly well without reproducing.
In addition to these methods, which are suitable for application already now, the development of science may allow for more direct methods of influence in the future.
6.3 Embryo Selection
A DNA sample is taken from the fetus and analyzed for pathological hereditary diseases, including those related to a tendency toward aggression; in the event of a positive analysis result, the pregnancy is terminated. More obvious hereditary diseases, such as Down syndrome, are already fought in this way. Convincing a mother not to deal with problems she does not need and simply make another attempt at conception later is a solvable task, provided there are not too many cultural constraints in society prohibiting the termination of pregnancy.
6.4 Genetic Modification in Adults
A virus is created that integrates into human DNA and either switches off the genes responsible for the tendency toward aggression or reduces their expression. The technology of genetic modification itself has already been created and is actively developing, but exactly which genes and how exactly should be corrected still needs to be studied thoroughly. The direct switching off of genes most obviously linked to aggression so far leads to many undesirable side pathologies in experiments, so the technology is yet to be refined.
6.5 Genetic Modification at the Embryonic Stage
The method is the same as in the previous point, but it introduces changes into the genome that will subsequently be inherited. The task is much easier, since changes need to be introduced into literally one cell, rather than into an already formed organism.
6.6 Supportive Medication Therapy
Since the tendency toward aggressive violence is regulated by the hormonal background, it is not strictly necessary to delve into the genome if the hormonal background itself can be regulated. Currently, this is done with medications, but in the future, implanted hormonal regulators could be used for this purpose.
Some of the described methods can be practiced by everyone; some require qualification. In any case, speaking of methods 6.4 or 6.6, there can be no question of coercion. Even if someone committed aggressive violence under the influence of pathological tendencies, they should be left with a choice: ridding themselves of the pathology or bearing full responsibility for the act committed. In the latter case, this, again, should not be associated with violent punishments—only compensation for damages and restriction of communication opportunities.
Conclusions
Maintaining a low level of internal aggression in human society is a complex and multifactorial task. There is no single universal solution here; instead, there is room for initiative in a wide variety of directions, some of which are outlined above. It is important to realize the existence of the problem itself, not to hush it up, and to discuss it freely, as if it were a problem of cardiovascular diseases. One manifestation of strong intraspecific aggression in humans became such an institution as the state, with its tendency to sacrifice countless victims on the altar of its own greatness, or simply to poison people’s lives in peacetime. As humanity realizes the tendency toward violence as a problem, this toxic institution will go into the past—either completely, or it will transform into a harmless set of voluntary services. As ideas about the necessity of transitioning to non-violent interactions penetrate, they will find increasing support both in funds and volunteers, but for now, a great responsibility for its rooting in society lies with the few adherents of the idea.
In discussions with subscribers, I occasionally encounter the opinions of “moral monsters” who believe that morality does not exist, that it is all “talk for the poor,” and that only a fool would forgo such an effective tool as physical violence. Such people, of course, deserve the harshest condemnation and ostracism, following the example of how anti-racism and anti-homophobia activists do it in the USA. But to convince the general public, it is still necessary to outline utilitarian arguments regarding the inadmissibility of aggressive violence in society. After all, deontological morality does not appear “out of thin air”; it is the product of repeated interactions between subjects in society.
To begin, let us note that a morality of non-aggression exists even in many animal species. As proven by the famous biologist Konrad Lorenz, an innate, inherited morality of non-aggression toward members of one’s own species is present in all animals with “innate armament” (for example, hedgehogs, porcupines, echidnas, venomous snakes). It became fixed in their DNA through natural selection, as individuals prone to aggression died in clashes without leaving offspring.
When do you think a moral prohibition on a certain behavior emerges in society? I assume the answer is obvious—when such behavior causes inconvenience, reduces the quality of life, or creates excessive risks for the majority of society members. In economic terms, the behavior of one subject creates enormous negative externalities for all members of society, even though such behavior may be very profitable for that specific subject.
We can find plenty of examples of such negative externalities if we look at world history. Here are some examples of such externalities:
1) Various environmental challenges (the ban on leaded gasoline, the insecticide DDT, freons in refrigeration units, and in recent years—internal combustion engines in some countries).
2) Problems of socially unacceptable risk (the closure of nuclear power plants in many countries after the Chernobyl and Fukushima accidents, the limitation of carbon dioxide emissions to reduce the risk of global warming).
3) Child abuse (the ban on the use of violence against children has already been introduced in most countries of the world). It has been proven that this leads to an increase in cases of drug addiction, alcoholism, and suicide, reduces their chances of success in life, and also leads to an increase in the average level of violence throughout society.
4) Animal cruelty—leads to an increase in the average level of violence throughout society.
As we can see, in all these cases, there is a conflict between the individual, for whom selfish dangerous behavior is profitable, and the entire society, which will bear the costs of that behavior. For example, for negligent parents, spanking a child is much easier than explaining in words why they should behave in a certain way, but the consequences of this act will be spread across society as a whole. The same applies to the use of a diesel car—it is cheap and convenient for the owner, but for other city residents, it means poor air and various diseases. Such externalities only begin to be seriously discussed when the harm from them becomes noticeable to a significant part of society.
The use of aggressive violence as a tool for achieving any goals (usually coercion and punishment) carries the greatest externalities that exist on Earth. Far, far greater than even the use of Chernobyl-type reactors or a coal-fired power plant without any filtration systems in a city. Here are just a few utilitarian arguments as to why aggressive violence is bad:
1) The average level of violence in society increases. If a stationary bandit (the state) uses cruel methods of coercion against its “serfs,” they quickly become hardened and no longer consider it shameful to beat a wife and child or take money and a phone from the weak. Constant shootouts and police chases lead to frequent injuries of accidental (unrelated) persons. The stress level of many people increases, leading to an increase in mental illness, suicides, drug use, a decrease in creative abilities, and a slowing of economic growth. For these reasons, in Scandinavian countries, the state now sends people to prison only for intentional murder, and the prisons themselves are more like health resorts.
2) The risk of a man-made global catastrophe or even the self-destruction of humanity. With the development of technology, the total harm that one person can inflict is constantly growing. If aggressive violence in society is the norm (especially state violence, as it is the hardest to escape), then sooner or later a person driven to despair will decide to use some dangerous technology as a doomsday weapon (DDW)—threatening to blow up a nuclear reactor or release a deadly virus. When a stationary bandit threatens to lock you in prison forever, there will be no talk of humanity; any means are good to be left alone, even the threat of causing a global pandemic. For society, even an infinitesimally small probability of such an event is unacceptable, as the potential damage would be simply catastrophic and could even lead to the extinction of humans as a species.
3) The productive development of the economy and quality of life stops because violence becomes the “objective function” of societal development. Instead of developing technologies and producing goods and services that benefit the majority of the population, society’s resources are spent on creating tools of violence. There is a common misconception that the “arms race” drives scientific and technical progress. This is true, but only over a very short period of time. The potential for violence can be viewed as an analogue to the concept of an “objective function” in mathematics. It strives toward a very specific value that practically does not change over time (or rather, is constantly decreasing)—inflicting unacceptable damage on the opponent (tolerance for violence has a constant tendency to decrease; accordingly, the threshold of unacceptable damage also decreases). This distinguishes violence from all other areas of human activity, in which the goal is the improvement of human life. Human needs constantly grow, and this provides a stimulus for scientific and technical progress, the emergence of new niches in the economy, and the growth of quality of life. However, a society that develops through an “arms race” comes to collapse, as already happened with the USSR. When the ability to inflict unacceptable damage on each other became available to all developed states, technological development slowed down sharply.
4) The formation of a military hegemon, a hierarchy of dominance, and, as a result—the collapse of the birth rate and the extinction of humanity. In Jack Hirshleifer’s research, a proven assertion is presented that the disruption of the uniform distribution of the balance of violence potential (BVP) in society leads to the emergence of a hierarchy of dominance (the state in human society is one example of this), and if the unevenness of BVP continues to increase—a global “military hegemon.” The danger of the long-term existence of a rigid hierarchy of dominance was identified in various animal experiments, such as “Universe 25.” The population simply died out due to a decrease in the birth rate. You will probably say now that “the conditions are different,” “a human is not a rat,” “an analogy is not an argument,” but look the truth in the eye and at the statistics of the total fertility rate in various countries of the world: in most countries, it is already below the replacement level (averaging 2.1 children per woman). There is also a certain dependence between the birth rate and the actual degree of state interference in a person’s life. In Africa and India, there may formally be many regulations in various spheres of life and high taxes, but in reality, the state is physically unable to reach every resident. But in Singapore, with exit visas and caning for dissent, the population for some reason is in no hurry to reproduce, despite even a high level of income. As in South Korea, where the level of personal freedoms, if viewed impartially, is not much higher than in the North.
Conclusions. As we can see, the morality of the inadmissibility of aggressive violence is not just someone’s “wish,” but a banal condition for the survival of civilization and even humans as a biological species. The rejection of this morality essentially means exactly one thing: “I am the boss here and I don’t care if all of humanity dies.” All normal people should have a corresponding attitude toward such a person—as toward the worst scoundrel, a new Hitler or Pol Pot.
In the entire developed world, society has accepted the inadmissibility of using leaded gasoline, DDT, the operation of nuclear power plants, and violence against children for utilitarian reasons. Next in line is violence by the stationary bandit (the state).
An interesting study by biologist Konrad Lorenz shows how natural “armament” in animals leads to the emergence of morality against aggressive violence. Similarly, restoring the balance of violence potential (BVP) in human society will lead to the adoption of the non-aggression principle (NAP).
There are many species whose armament is so devastating and whose methods of application are so lightning-fast that a real combat clash between rivals would end with the death of one of them, or even both. Take, for example, venomous insects and snakes. Therefore, it is not surprising that natural selection develops a prohibition against using weapons in intra-species clashes for such species. Ethologists, following Lorenz, call this system of instinctive prohibitions that limit animal behavior “natural morality.” It is stronger the more powerfully the animal is armed by nature. During a territorial clash, venomous snakes exaggerate their size by stretching out to see who can stand taller, swaying, and pushing each other, but they never bite, nor do they even demonstrate their weapons. Some species even threaten each other with their heads turned away. It is no wonder that not only ordinary people but also many zoologists mistook the tournament battles of snakes for mating dances.
Well-armed animals can threaten each other for a long time, and when one of them grows tired, it abruptly changes posture, exposing its most vulnerable spot to the opponent for a decisive combat strike. The moral prohibition acts on the winner like an electric shock: all their angry fervor evaporates, they turn away from the opponent and hide their weapon. Similarly, a proud boy, feeling that he will lose a fight, suddenly puts his hands behind his back, lifts his face to the victor and shouts: “Go on, hit me!” Unlike a wolf or a snake, a human may actually strike in response.
After analyzing many species, Lorenz reached a conclusion of stunning simplicity more than 50 years ago: a strong animal has strong morality, while a weak one has weak morality. In terms of its natural history, a human is a very poorly armed animal; unlike monkeys, humans cannot even bite properly. Therefore, humans initially have weak instinctive prohibitions and weak natural morality. An unarmed man cannot cause significant damage to another in a clash: one will tire of hitting, and the other can always run away. Innate prohibitions in humans correspond to this. But subsequently, humans began to create and improve weapons and became the most armed species on Earth. Morality, however, has hardly changed.
Shareholder Viktor Rafaelevich “Ethological Excursions to the Forbidden Gardens of the Humanities”
The artificial isolation of citizens in their apartments has already led to a surge in domestic violence. And while this is happening haphazardly and spontaneously worldwide—one cohabitant beating another—in Russia, the state is taking over the organization of domestic violence; it is seriously intent on defending its monopoly on violence, as it understands it.
For example, it recently organized armed robberies with breaking and entering targeting several members of the “Association of People’s Resistance,” as well as Vladimir Vorontsov, the lead of the Telegram channel Police Ombudsman. The former were released after being robbed and beaten. The latter was kidnapped and is still being held. The criminals chose an opportune time, while the entire country is locked in their homes and people cannot provide serious mutual support—aside from informing each other of danger and providing situational assistance in dealing with the aftermath.
However, classic non-state domestic violence has not disappeared either, and here civil society has slightly more opportunities, provided, of course, that the state does not throw a wrench in the works, as it loves to do. The Civil Society movement announced the launch of the Fortress project, under which it will provide temporary shelter for victims of domestic violence (alas, not from the cops), and the Open Russia movement announced that it would provide Fortress with organizational and legal assistance (which would include protection from the cops).
Bitarch’s Column (with editorial edits by Ancap-chan)
When you want to achieve a certain goal, you choose one of many available tools. Suppose a hostel has opened in your house, which constantly creates noise and a criminogenic environment near your home. What can you do? The simplest option at first glance is to force the owner to close their business by using physical violence.
But what if they have at least a pepper spray? Now, in the event of your attack, your potential costs have increased. Violence as a tool no longer looks as profitable as it seemed initially. So, willy-nilly, you have to look for other ways to influence them—persuading, explaining the situation to the property owner so they terminate the lease, giving the hostel a one-star review on online resources, and calling on other residents of the building to do the same. In short, you have a incentive to act civilly.
Initially, the simplest tool of coercion, physical violence, quickly loses its effectiveness when the potential victim is capable of applying counter-violence, even in the smallest amount. The former Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, once praised violence as a tool of extremely high efficiency. But for this to be the case, he had to introduce some of the strictest rules for purchasing and owning weapons in Singapore, even for self-defense—because even a slight leveling of the balance of violence potential in society leads to a sharp decrease in the effectiveness of violence as a tool of coercion.
I can propose a hypothesis well-supported by facts: the costs of aggressive violence increase exponentially as the possibilities for counter-violence by the victim increase.
Suppose a stationary bandit (the state) wants to use violence to force someone to comply with its demands. If the victim of state aggression has no lethal weapon, a small operational group is sufficient for the arrest. But what if the victim has a pistol? Police special forces must be sent. For a minor reason, such as unpaid fines or the retail sale of psychoactive substances, no one will send special forces. In Alexander Rozov’s blog, there is a post with confirmation of this fact using the example of Sweden.
Suppose the potential victim of state aggression is not some tax delinquent, but a more significant target—for example, a clan leader in Somalia. He doesn’t just have a pistol, but a thousand fighters with Kalashnikov rifles, albeit poorly trained. As history has shown, the damage even from such “bandits” proved unacceptable for the US government.
Imagine that the followers of the Branch Davidians sect, who took refuge at the Waco ranch in 1993, had anti-tank grenade launchers in addition to shotguns and rifles. As we know, the FBI decided to use tanks at the time to ram the walls and release tear gas. If the defenders had anti-tank weapons, such an option would have had to be rejected as excessively risky.
In such a situation, the state could either turn the assault on the ranch from a police operation into an army operation, using mortars or other lethal indiscriminate weapons, or starve the ranch out, with the prospect that these fanatics would indeed all die of hunger. Both options in a democratic state are fraught with significant political damage, which for politicians is even more important than economic damage to the state. For more details on such factors, I recommend reading Martin van Creveld’s book The Rise and Decline of the State.
Finally, we have already analyzed a potential situation where a potential victim of state violence threatens the use of weapons of mass destruction. Currently, this is perceived as something extremely unlikely—not because the state effectively prevents the creation of WMDs by private individuals, but because people who have enough skills to create WMDs also have strong internal moral convictions that preclude the use of indiscriminate mass violence, including against innocent people. If a democratic state sets an example by being the first to use WMDs against its own citizens, this moral prohibition will be weakened, and over time will disappear altogether. No official in a relatively civilized state is ready to allow such consequences.
Conclusions can be drawn:
1) The costs of coercion by the state or any other aggressor increase exponentially as the means of counter-violence by the victim are strengthened. Minimal self-defense weapons, therefore, sharply raise the price of an attack, and against a cheap dirty bomb made from nuclear waste, even the nuclear arsenal of a superpower will be ineffective.
2) In order for a free society (a territorial or extraterritorial contractual jurisdiction) to protect itself from conquest by the state, it is more profitable for it not to invest in a single “wonder weapon,” but to provide incentives for clients to acquire personal weapons, skills for their use, and the readiness to use them for defense. This will also help society protect itself from its own coordinating bodies, should they decide to become a state, since it will ensure an even distribution of the potential for violence. This is discussed, in particular, in the previously translated work by Jack Hirshleifer, Anarchy and Its Dissolution.
Finally, I will provide a good quote from the book The Liberal Archipelago by Chandran Kukathas.
Take gamblers and casino owners. Their activities may be alien or even repulsive to us. However, would the fact that gambling takes place in another country be sufficient grounds for invading it?
Take “monopolists.” They may set prices for their products that we consider unfair. However, would we consider the fact that a country supplies its goods too expensively a sufficient ground for declaring war on that country?
But why are we ready in similar cases to send armed men (police) to our fellow citizens, take them captive (prison), and take tribute from them (fine)? Probably because, unlike a neighboring state, they cannot defend themselves.
Recently, I published a post in Bitarch’s column stating that current trends in technological development are easily extrapolated into the near future, and based on them, we see that the capabilities of private individuals to carry out indiscriminate mass killings continue to grow and could well reach the level of a global threat. From this, the author concludes that to eliminate this threat, not only the institution of the state must be rejected, but also any other factors that potentially place people in a desperate position where there is no particular difference for them whether to die alone or to take all of humanity with them.
Bitarch then expanded on the topic on his VKontakte page, responding to a number of objections. The response boiled down to the idea that the threat is closer than one might assume and that, in general, we need to be more responsible. Unfortunately, this rhetoric added few substantial arguments—how is such a call for responsibility different from Greta Thunberg’s appeals? She also threatens global consequences if we do not all wake up right now.
After that, Bitarch released a third article, and this time proposed a more specific case for consideration. Imagine a dangerous asshole (Harvey Weinstein is used in the example) or an organization (let’s say, for example, ELF) who are given a severe punishment, and instead of accepting it humbly, they demand immediate pardon under the threat of releasing some unpleasant virus according to the dead hand principle. The virus would not kill humanity, but as we see from current events, it is capable of seriously damaging the economy.
Will the emergence of such threats lead to state power beginning to bend? Yes, of course. We have a great experimental state, Israel, which over time moved from the doctrine of “we do not negotiate with terrorists” to the doctrine of “we exchange one of our prisoners for a thousand of yours.” Thus, in states where there is a possibility of holding leaders politically accountable, they will bend to the demands of terrorists; and when the threats of terrorists acquire a global character, whether or not to negotiate with terrorists will cease to be the choice of a specific dictator, and even Putin, in such a scenario, would have to bargain. “I, for instance, agree to make certain concessions to the terrorists, but you, dear Western partners, should lift sanctions on me for such compliance, because as you know, terrorism is so unpredictable.”
Under ancap, this problem is simplified. The terrorist loses a subject for negotiations. Yes, he may be ready to indiscriminately exterminate several million people if his conditions are not met. But what conditions? To whom will he address them? There is no state. He could address, for example, the management of some corporation. Let’s say the same “elves” demand that the management of an oil company stop oil production, otherwise, there will be a coronavirus. After this, the board of directors resigns, and the subject of negotiations disappears again. Of course, this will not prevent the elves from launching an epidemic, but the goal of the terrorist act was slightly different.
Of course, means of protection against such threats will also be improved. For example, total transaction transparency could allow for the rapid location of a terrorist network and the neutralization of the dead hand threat. Or it might be possible to change the terrorist’s motivation. Or even local time-stopping. The debate over whose fantastic assumption will be realized first is quite fruitless. Bitarch claims that defense technologies develop significantly slower than attack technologies. Nevertheless, for some reason, the general level of violence is steadily declining, and if state-initiated violence is excluded from the statistics, it becomes practically negligible.
Therefore, it is not that I disregard the threat being discussed. I simply believe it is not very relevant to ancap, and as for postulating the necessity of outgrowing states, I have other sufficient arguments.
There is one currently not very well-known argument as to why humanity will sooner or later have to accept the impermissibility of initiating aggression: the simple survival of our civilization. After all, with the development of technology, the conditional total harm that one person can inflict is constantly growing.
For example, now even a poorly educated fanatic in a truck can knock down a hundred people, and if they try very hard and load a mixture of fertilizer and diesel into it, they can kill a maximum of a thousand.
Now imagine the world in 30 years. Gene engineering equipment has become cheaper; biohacking has become a popular hobby for schoolchildren. Genomes of pests such as natural smallpox, plague, and influenza A/H1N1 are available on the darknet. A psychopath could trigger an epidemic, killing, say, 1 million people.
Another 50 years pass. Flying cars with compact nuclear reactors have appeared. And along with them, ways to overload such a reactor, creating a new Chernobyl in New York or Moscow. 10 million people are now at the mercy of a psychopath.
The distant future. Space ships for flights to Alpha Centauri have begun to be built. Antimatter is used as fuel. If someone doesn’t value their own life, they can take the entire population of planet Earth with them, turning it into a stream of neutrinos.
As can be seen, the population that one person is capable of destroying grows exponentially with the development of technology. Just like the trendy COVID-19 coronavirus. In such conditions, there cannot even be a thought of using violence against a person, because essentially each of us will possess not just a deterrent weapon, but a Doomsday Weapon (DDW). Humanity simply will not survive if it does not recognize the universal NAP, even toward the most unpleasant individuals like child killers.
I anticipate in advance the cries of etatists about the usefulness of the state. For example, they will say: “Look, you’ve just described the hell it will be without control by government bodies.” Only in reality, the state only increases the risks of uncontrolled use of DDWs—both by creating incentives for people to use it as a deterrent against aggressive violence from a stationary bandit (the state), and by spurring the development of such dangerous things in inappropriate conditions even without the goal of using them as DDWs.
The US government, of course, can limit biohacker experiments, but they will be gladly welcomed in some Mumbo-Jumbo, where they will work much more covertly from public control and possibly intentionally help in the creation of DDWs for the Mumbo-Jumbo government. Look at the ban on stem cell experiments in the US, which simply pushed developments to China and other countries, where they were carried out without any public notification.
I am also very surprised by the position of some libertarians who seriously consider the possibility of enforcing court decisions through physical violence. In reality, not only violence, but even harsh ostracism that puts the violator on the edge of physical survival (for example, refusing to sell food in a store) can provoke them to use a DDW (dying of hunger is no better than dying from a bullet, therefore complete ostracism can be perceived by the violator as physical violence). It is not for nothing that Kim Jong Un is not blocked from the sale of vital items, but is only forbidden from receiving luxury items like Ferraris and Swiss watches. And he doesn’t even have a DDW, but rather a fairly weak deterrent weapon.
So think about what is better for you: 1) A world with the enforcement of court decisions through reputation and soft forms of ostracism, which turn out to be sufficient in most cases. 2) A world with a slightly higher probability of enforcing court decisions through physical coercion, but with a tangible “bonus” chance of becoming one of the characters in George Stewart’s science fiction novel “Earth Without People.”
Ancap-chan’s Commentary
Morals are formed more by practice than by theoretical constructs. Trying to limit oneself now in legitimate means for the sake of possible consequences in half a century is roughly the same kind of panic-mongering as the desire to abandon carbon dioxide emissions to prevent global warming.
People indeed regularly face the question of conflict between tactical and strategic goals. The longer the planning horizon, the greater the probability that the issue will be resolved in favor of strategy. But it is unrealistic to influence someone else’s time preference with exhortations. So, either we gradually develop a stable ancap, with a habit of defending our rights and not permitting systemic violence, and then the planning horizon for people will be sufficiently distant—or we will continue to languish under the state, captive to purely short-term tasks, and watch with horror the increase in the potential for terror—both private and state—up until the collapse of humanity.
Well, let’s say, in Somalia, Micronesia, and other failed states, since it is easier there to achieve a more or less even balance of the potential for violence with relatively small resource expenditures (conventionally speaking, buying a Kalashnikov) due to the absence of an overwhelmingly powerful agent enforcing a monopoly on violence in that territory, as well as the culture of servility and economic structure that has formed around it?
I will remind the readers that the balance of the potential for violence is one of the criteria for the stability of a stateless society according to Hirschleifer. Other criteria are a stable community composition and the absence of a significant number of people pushed to the brink of survival. Indeed, some secluded tropical paradise where coconuts fall right at your feet and where peaceful, smiling natives with Kalashnikovs live can easily build an anarchic society. But it is not enough to have anarchy; what is desired specifically is anarcho-capitalism.
And anarcho-capitalism requires a bit more than the absence of a state. It requires capitalism, which means commodity-money relations. So our imaginary tropical paradise will need a full-fledged commodity economy integrated into global trade. But international trade requires international recognition, and that is a serious limitation.
While composing his Meganesian cycle, Aleksandr Rozov particularly emphasized that the stateless society in the Pacific Ocean is being built not by real natives, but by outsiders. In reality, they are full-fledged white people with the notions of property, freedom, and law appropriate for white people—they simply deny the state. They only pretend to be natives in order to legitimize their claims in the eyes of the international community and avoid becoming pariahs leading a miserable existence under economic sanctions.
In real life, a similar project of anarcho-colonialism was attempted by the Seasteading Institute, but it encountered numerous legislative and technological restrictions, and now, judging by the website, it has degenerated from a libertarian project into something smelling of eco-activism.
So it is hard to say what is easier: to ensure the transition to anarchy in a capitalist state, to ensure the transition to capitalism in a failed state, or to organize a “freedom landing” in some toy state in Oceania. One thing can be said for sure: the matter is not limited solely to the balance of the potential for violence.
A white man with an automatic rifle in a tropical paradise
The notion that the state is a product of a social contract is an important factor in legitimizing the state; therefore, etatists cling to this theory with all their might, despite the fact that, for instance, the stationary bandit theory explains reality far more accurately. A bandit indeed behaves like a bandit, whereas no one has ever seen a social contract, nor can anyone produce its text.
You may have heard about the laws against sexual violence recently adopted in several European countries, known as “No means no.” Their essence is that sexual abuse (violence) is now considered not only the commission of “lewd acts” amidst active physical resistance by the victim (when she uses all possible strength to fight back), but any resistance where she unambiguously makes it clear that she wants to leave. Among Russian social media users, these laws were received ambiguously and were mainly used as an excuse to once again mock “Gayrope” for having lost all traditional values. Nevertheless, there is common sense in these laws. All criticism should be directed at the states in these countries, which, as always, will distort the essence and apply these laws with bias.
Let’s return to the state. I think a significant portion of people, most likely more than half, would similarly like to say “no” to the state. However, the bureaucrats in power are not fools either; they intuitively understand game theory and do everything possible to ensure that for an individual, any expression of discontent carries the highest possible costs, while the benefit from such a request should be zero! Look, even a request as trivial for the state as building waste processing plants instead of simply dumping trash in landfills remains unanswered. The authorities understand—if you concede such a trifle, in a couple of years they will demand the recognition of the right to create their own sovereign jurisdictions. The cattle must clearly know that they will get nothing, while the costs will be enormous (sleeping in tents near Shies in the freezing cold and constantly being hit on the head with clubs is not exactly like going to a picket line once).
It is exactly the same with the “social contract”—every person understands perfectly well that they alone can do little to change the status quo (depriving the state of its territorial monopoly on governance), but they will get into deep trouble if they start complaining. And so they nod along with the stationary bandit, like a fragile girl with a rapist, even though in their soul they fiercely hate him!
Therefore, I suggest that fans of the “social contract” stop mincing their words and say it straight: “They are raping you, and you aren’t resisting? Then how is that violence; it’s completely voluntary!”
