Mikhail Svetov is a well-known blogger from the heyday of LiveJournal and a longtime activist of the Libertarian Party of the Russian Federation. Gradually, he gained more media influence than the party itself, after which he decided to implement reforms according to his own taste, leading to a split of the LPR into two. Subsequently, he attempted to promote an umbrella organization called Civil Society instead of the LPR, but he did not succeed. He then opened the “New Sincerity” club in Moscow, but the Russian authorities closed it fairly quickly, which was damn expected. He now lives in Rio and is primarily engaged in his media project, SVTV.
Throughout the lifetime of Montelibero, our activists periodically reached out to Mikhail during his streams with paid comments and asked about his attitude toward Montelibero. At first, Mikhail replied that he viewed it negatively (I analyzed his take in one of the Montelibero news episodes), but after the start of mobilization, he said that people should leave the RF even if it’s to the middle of nowhere, or even to Montelibero—anything is better than staying. In short, I was somewhat surprised when our guys said that Svetov immediately agreed to come to the fest. True, he wanted to simultaneously organize a large tour of the concentration centers of the anti-war Russian diaspora; however, a criminal case was then opened against him, it became unclear which countries he could safely visit, and his arrival at the fest became questionable.
Only when a targeted donation for Svetov’s ticket to Montenegro occurred did he give final consent. It was necessary to recoup the money as much as possible, so Mikhail was scheduled for two presentations at once, plus a bonus interview in the Montelibero podcast studio. Nevertheless, none of this guaranteed a decent media output: for example, I predicted that following the fest, Svetov would mention on his channel: “gave a cool lecture in Montenegro, definitely listen to it”—and not a word about the fest or Montelibero. Fortunately, the prediction did not come true.
The final version of the presentation is still not posted; I am providing a timestamp for the general broadcast from the point where the sound starts.
The main theses of both of Svetov’s presentations were as follows:
I don’t want to say anything bad about Montelibero, you’ve done well, but generally, trying to run away from the state and build your own little ancap on the fringes is a failing idea; you need to get into politics, not be afraid of populism, and come to power. I recall that the topic of the presentation was “what a Russian libertarian should do in emigration,” so an idea relevant to some Argentines or even Montenegrins was completely irrelevant specifically for Russians.
Libertarians are natural individualists who have no clue what is happening beyond their own fence, and we need a libertarian international. Here, there are essentially no objections—it is needed, so we are doing it. The fest is, among other things, about this very international. Now, within the framework of the international, we will be able to demand that Svetov cover the problems and successes not only of the “busty laborites” but ours as well.
You need to speak to people in the language of love; put away your logic, it gets in the way. And in general, read more leftists; they understand politics, don’t obsess over this economics of yours, the public finds it boring. He said this and then went to give an interview to Rabfak, to the leftists—commendable consistency. Unfortunately, by following leftist recipes, Mikhail managed to alienate quite a few like-minded people during his political career, and this slightly demotivates one from studying what those guys advise. At the same time, one really shouldn’t alienate sane leftists; cooperation with them is established perfectly. The criterion for sanity is that the leftist’s dislike for the state must be stronger than their dislike for inequality, private property, and similar leftist bugbears.
So, my prediction did not come true: Svetov was not just satisfied with the organization of the fest and the project participants he managed to talk to—he changed his opinion about the project as a whole and declared it publicly on several platforms: that he was wrong, they are good people, it’s a good project, and he feared for nothing. Respect. He worked off his ticket by about one hundred and twenty percent.
Of course, we would very much like to have a speaker of such a level in our ranks, but generally, our path is decentralization. Therefore, it makes more sense to strive for the emergence of a dozen speakers of Soz’s level and a hundred of my level than to look for a single champion.
I recently happened to listen to a debate between two Russian emigrants about how to behave toward the Russian people. As it turned out, they sparked a heated discussion in one of the Montelibero chats, so I decided to join in with my own opinion.
Briefly, the positions of the parties:
Mikhail Svetov. The people must be loved; the people are victims of the regime; speaking out against the regime now is pointless, one must wait for the right moment; the people need a leader, a kind master, who will take power and rule guided by love.
Mark Feigin. We have no time to coddle the people, they have already squandered every opportunity; if the people do not overthrow Putin themselves, then there is no reason to be offended if others continue to decide everything for them; reparations will be taken, and the country will be dismantled; by the way, if it is dismantled, that’s not bad—there is a chance for the emergence of a Russian Taiwan, where Mark himself could settle his weary bones.
What causes the greatest repulsion in me throughout all this rhetoric is that everyone talks about some “Russian people.” But the right of nations to self-determination is not about some outsider labeling a particular community of people as a “nation” and allocating a piece of land for them. It is about people defining themselves as a nation, beginning to behave as a nation, and achieving their recognition as a nation. People have such a right—to self-determine as nations.
The people of Montelibero, for example, have already self-determined. Any person can affiliate themselves with our people, ensure that the people recognize them as one of their own, and in time decide on an “aliya”—physically relocating to the home of their people. If they are truly ours in spirit, a warm welcome awaits them.
Mark Feigin, with his dreams of a Russian Taiwan, unexpectedly turned out to be closer to us in spirit than Mikhail Svetov with his dreams of a kind Moscow master. But Mikhail possesses a very valuable ability to pique people’s interest in libertarianism, even if they previously had no clue about it. Later they will figure out the subject and gradually move away from Mikhail’s position, but as an appetizer, Svetov is good.
Therefore, we are very glad that Mikhail Svetov is planning to visit us at the end of September for the Montelibero festival (the website has just been created, please bear with us, it will be updated). And since he is coming, he will, of course, give a presentation. The topic has not been decided yet.
I will also be speaking, providing a brief overview of what the people of Montelibero have managed to achieve in a little over two years, and what still lies ahead for them.
But such presentations are only a small part of the program; after all, it’s not a conference, but a festival. Let’s have some fun—it motivates one to live.
Mikhail Svetov has released another introductory video about libertarianism.
Apparently, the very first video on the SVTV channel, “Five Minutes About Libertarianism,” through which many people indeed first learned about this ideology, had ceased to satisfy him in some way.
Let’s compare what has changed.
The old video is a tongue-twister of tightly edited libertarian talking points, weakly linked into a single logical line. Key points: libertarianism is about the fact that the end does not justify the means, about the victim’s right to protection from violence, and about the right to love and hate. Libertarianism is a moral compass. The video contains mentions of Mikhail’s personal tastes, which are unrelated to the topic.
The new video is read in the measured tone of a storyteller, equipped with simple but quite captivating animation, and is far more logically precise.
I, of course, do not like the very beginning of the video, where self-ownership is presented as something inherent and given by someone unknown, while the non-aggression principle is for some reason called a contract. Why not the other way around: a contract on self-ownership and an inherent natural right to resist violence? This is, in general, important, because according to Mikhail, violating the non-aggression contract removes a person from the legal field, and here the question arises: what exactly is the legal field?
By the way, the visuals in this part directly contradict the text. An aggressor threatens violence, thereby supposedly exiting the legal field; an external defender appears, and what does the aggressor do? He drops the knife and surrenders. That is, he resorts to a legal procedure! He demonstrates that he is no longer an aggressor, and that shooting him from all barrels is no longer so attractive in the eyes of an outside observer. In other words, the aggressor does not exit any legal field. Or rather, he exits it precisely at the moment of aggression, when it is permissible to pump him full of lead. At least, that is how it can be understood from the video.
In short, Svetov has never been distinguished by the rigor of his conceptual framework, but for a politician, this is an excessive requirement; his job is to attract an audience. The video should presumably handle this quite well, and I can boldly recommend it for distribution.
The Libertarian Band studio released a fairly dense ten-minute video explaining the specifics of mobilization in the RF for those who still believe that it is actually possible to do something according to the law in the RF. By the way, this is actually possible, because “according to the law” in the RF is one of several competing systems of concepts, and where there is competition, there is an opportunity to win that competition. The thing is, the main tool to ensure that things are handled “according to the law” with you is a loud and dirty public scandal or a credible threat of one. The video also speaks quite clearly about this.
At the end of the video, it was also mentioned that a great way to avoid mobilization would be physical relocation to Montenegro and joining the Montelibero project.
Mikhail Svetov held a rather thin six-hour stream with the powerful title “Run,” where at the end he also mentioned that he strongly recommends fleeing, including to Montenegro, where one can join the Montelibero project if desired—despite Mikhail’s own skepticism regarding the project’s goals, as it’s not the time for luxuries.
I regret to state that the suggestions from both respected channels were slightly belated, and now the priority is to flee not specifically to Montenegro, but anywhere abroad at all, as long as you aren’t turned back at the border—then you can figure out how to survive in the new conditions, and perhaps you’ll manage to make it to Montenegro after all, who knows. For example, one of the project participants lived with us for a month in August; he liked it, then he returned to the RF to pack the rest of his things and move for good—and now he’s stuck in Kazakhstan, where he managed to get with considerable difficulty after the mobilization decree. “Packed his things,” my foot…
Nevertheless, we still declare that we will help with settling in those who make it to our remote area, from some Georgia, Armenia, the same Kazakhstan, or, why not, even from Russia. If you can—mobilize all your resources—and come join us.
Six months ago, Mikhail spoke in Latin America and said that the state has no incentives to “leave you alone and let you live as you wish,” but it does have economic and power-based incentives not to do so.
And at the end of the lecture, he stated directly that libertarianism is a revolutionary ideology. And if you are not an extremist-revolutionary at heart, then you are not a true libertarian.
How do you feel about this statement and the lecture as a whole?
Anonymous question
With a feeling of slight nostalgia, I reread my post about the conversation between Svetov and Shulman. I noted that neither Svetov’s premonition of a civil war nor Shulman’s premonition that the government would continue to lose ground during elections came true. Instead, we have a hecatomb that Putin is orchestrating for his own voters by the hands of the AFU, which, of course, almost no one predicted back in 2018. I suppose this means that these voters are not actually that necessary to him.
In the Latin American lecture you mentioned, Svetov launched an interesting take: that we do not resist the state not because it has the biggest club, but because deep down we actually believe in its legitimacy, even if we position ourselves as ancaps. This corresponds with Belkovich’s well-known take that we already live under ancap; it’s just that all the territories have been divided among bandits, and people mostly endure their subordinate status without complaint, although, in general, they are not obliged to.
As justification for his thesis, Svetov brings onto the stage a poor Afghan with a Kalashnikov, who first drove out the Soviet and then the American “civilizers” because his belief that he alone knew how to live correctly was far stronger.
Since Svetov spent the entire first part of his lecture savoring how he was beaten and humiliated by representatives and henchmen of the state while he was organizing the coolest events in Eastern Europe, it can be concluded that he, too, believes in the legitimacy of the state deep down. After all, a proper, sincere ancap with a bunch of bitcoins would surely have found a way to personally avenge those miserable lackeys who dared to violate the NAP against him, and thus set a good example of how to deal with violators of the non-aggression principle.
As you may have noticed, my tone was always quite extremist even in Russia, and once I left the RF, it became completely unrestrained. In practice, however, my activism very rarely goes beyond tax evasion. Perhaps I am simply waiting for a talented libertarian revolutionary who will raise the people to the barricades for freedom and the market—so that I may stand under his banner. But for now, while the fiery libertarians limit themselves to looking reprovingly at the Latin American audience in search of radicals, I must also limit myself to purely peaceful activities in building my own village ancap.
Before answering the question of what would happen in the event of a victory, it is important to understand under what conditions such a victory could occur at all.
Part 1. Before the elections
One could devise many scenarios of varying degrees of implausibility, but they would all share one common premise: both Putin and Navalny are physically removed from the race before the elections. That is, they do not simply decline to participate for one reason or another, but they have no possibility of influence whatsoever. Simply put, they die. Let us assume a rather crude scenario: Navalny dies in colony from COVID, and Putin dies of a stroke. Thus, we are not inventing any terrorist organizations or lone wolves, but leaving the realization of this historical coincidence to the will of Mother Nature. Mishustin becomes the Acting President; he tries to seize the reins, fails, and the Federal Assembly unexpectedly passes a law that explicitly prohibits the acting president from running. Mishustin is smart enough not to veto it.
New elections are announced. They are preceded by a broad public campaign to repeal the law that strips those involved in the activities of extremist organizations of their passive voting rights. The campaign yields no result, and Navalny’s associates, from Volkov to Guriev, find themselves ineligible—some due to extremism, others due to residence permits. The opposition holds primaries, where the remaining old democrats easily drop out, and in the second round, Svetov defeats Yuneman by a slim margin. Putin’s associates also struggle, and they too have to organize primaries in which Sobyanin loses to Shoigu; dirty scandals break out about how municipal workers voted for one candidate in formation, and conscripts for the other. Things are no less dirty for the Communists, where Zyuganov still hasn’t dared to let anyone run instead of himself. To top it all off, Patrushev is nominated for some reason from Rodina, and Prilepin from A Just Russia. Thus, by the time the signature collection campaign begins, the largest systemic parties are in total disarray, huge public attention is fixed on the elections, and the CEC lacks the political will to cut Svetov off at the start. He receives generous funding from both liberal business emigrants, like Chichvarkin, Durov, and Khodorkovsky, and from certain entrepreneurs who did not flee under Putin, starting with Potapenko. This proves sufficient to collect signatures and get on the ballot.
But is such a setup enough for a libertarian to win the presidential election in Russia? No. Therefore, let’s add two more factors. First, extremely successful liberal reforms—for example, in Kazakhstan—which, a couple of years before the Russian elections, provided him with a serious leap, and his successes are currently very well known. Second, Svetov announces a left turn, telling a tale that the super-rich are to blame for all the people’s woes and explaining how he will strip them of their levers of political influence. He also promises to transfer state corporations to a pension fund and pledges to introduce a progressive income tax by abolishing personal income tax for everyone earning less than two minimum wages, while leaving the previous rate for others minus the aforementioned two minimum wages from the taxable base. Furthermore, he announces a 30% reduction in military spending by abolishing the entire conscription system and a 90% reduction in spending on special services—transferring the savings to social budget items. In short, there is plenty of room for libertarian fantasy when writing a radically left program.
Against this backdrop, Zyuganov’s promises of nationalization look not only unconvincing but bland, and reasonable doubts creep in regarding Shoigu’s ability to reduce the army—what stopped him before? To top it all off, for the first time in many years, all candidates participate in debates, and this is where Svetov crushes everyone, demonstrating the highest level of discourse in Eastern Europe. This is how grandmothers on television learn about him, and it secures his victory.
Part 2. After the elections
Svetov comes to power, but he is a president without a party. Elections to the State Duma will not take place until 2026, but he needs to show at least some results. By the way, regarding the State Duma. In 2021, a very small cross-factional group of deputies was formed who managed to get in thanks to smart voting and did not condemn Navalny for it, but instead worked, however poorly, for the voters. After Svetov’s victory, their informal influence increases significantly, and they become conduits for a large number of bills that materialize Svetov’s program. Nevertheless, all these bills progress with difficulty and slowly.
On the other hand, measures where the president can rely on his own orders as Commander-in-Chief are carried out very quickly. Thus, Russian security forces begin to leave Donbas even before the Duma approves a new prime minister. By the way, that becomes Dmitry Potapenko—he didn’t start sending money to Svetov’s headquarters first for nothing. Navalny’s followers demand Milov and Guriev in the government. Milov gets the post of Minister of Energy, and Guriev is appointed to run the pension fund. Kudrin triumphantly returns to the post of Minister of Finance, which ensures that the State Duma becomes slightly more cooperative. Ekaterina Schulmann becomes the Minister of Education. There are many ministries in Russia, and even more worthy people; I am too lazy to fantasize about other posts, but one way or another, the government will soon be updated. The president also introduces a bill for broad amnesty for all political articles, as well as for Article 228. The bill stalls, so Svetov simply issues pardons for the political prisoners. The Federal Agency for State Property Management is transferred to the jurisdiction of the pension fund.
What manages to be done in the Duma?
First, changing the election law once again, continuing the good tradition of not holding two elections under the same rules. The bill is written by “Golos” and introduced by the president. Election deposits are restored, the entry threshold for parties is lowered to 3%, signatures for candidate registration are permitted to be collected electronically via Gosuslugi accounts, electronic and multi-day voting are abolished, the rights of observers are expanded, and, of course, lustration norms for convicts, holders of foreign residence permits and dual citizenship, and those involved in extremism are abolished.
Second, the president guarantees a veto on any law passed in violation of regulations. No more accelerated consideration in three readings at once.
Third, the share of secret budget items drops sharply. Serious public battles take place in the Duma over the budget. Reducing the budget for security agencies is only partially achieved, and the savings are indeed redirected to education and healthcare. Spending on state propaganda is radically cut, and this becomes a problem—as in Yeltsin’s time, the president begins to be attacked via private channels, and he counters them with his own streams.
What is not achieved? Naturally, all lustration plans fail. It is impossible to abolish personal income tax for the poor. It is impossible to abolish even the transport tax, despite it being such a small thing, so it would seem.
After this, in 2025, the president dissolves the Duma and announces early elections. About fifteen parties enter the Duma, including one libertarian party. The largest faction belongs to the Communists—twelve percent. The pace of reforms accelerates after this, but only slightly, because the team of reformers effectively has to form their own coalition for every new bill. Towards the end of his first term, Svetov manages to achieve the adoption of a constitutional norm stating that every new federal law or other regulation, except constitutional ones, must contain an expiration date, which cannot exceed ten years. If the norm is not extended or modified before the end of its term, it automatically ceases to be in effect. At the same time, since the constitution is being amended, a second important edit is adopted: from now on, the president may serve for only one six-year term.
What manages to be done in foreign policy?
The issuance of loans to other countries ceases. All troops are withdrawn from abroad. Ukrainians rejoice, Armenians are sad. Crimea is declared a free economic zone, which has the right to choose in any matter which legislative norms to follow—Russian or Ukrainian. Ukrainian citizens receive the right of free settlement in Crimea, with the granting of voting rights in elections of all levels up to the presidential. Ukrainian political parties receive the right to operate in the territory of Crimea. Residents of Crimea with Russian citizenship receive the right to participate in parliamentary and presidential elections in Ukraine. The border between Russia and Ukraine in Donbas is handed over to Ukrainian control. Ukraine receives a long-term headache in the form of former people’s republics, which must be brought back to a human state. Thanks to this compromise, Russia gradually emerges from most foreign sanctions—all except restrictions on the supply of high-tech weaponry. Its own sanctions, of course, are lifted immediately.
The market for external hydrocarbon supplies is liberalized. The buyer purchases them on the Russian exchange or directly from the producer, after which they choose the exact method to ensure delivery. Thus, the volume of oil and gas pumped through Ukraine is now determined only by how competitive the transit tariffs set by the Ukrainian side are.
Results of the rule
Russia entered a peaceful path and stopped acting foolishly in foreign policy. Internal policy was also rid of the dictate of the security forces. A strong left opposition in parliament did not allow a serious reduction in the tax burden and state spending, however, their character changed to be more social. Under Svetov, Russia remained a country with a low level of public debt and a budget surplus.
In 2030, Mikhail Svetov leaves the post of President and in the same year is elected to parliament, where he leads the libertarian faction. In 2035, he leaves parliament, buys a house in Kamchatka, settles there with his young wife, and leads a private life.
Mikhail Svetov has released the long-announced video on methods for disappearing from radars and setting up anonymous and pseudonymous identities. The disclaimer states that tech-savvy people are unlikely to learn much new from it. I am not a techie; I learned something.
My pseudonymous identity was created with many vulnerabilities, so I do not expect it to withstand any close scrutiny, and I view my activity more as an intellectual game. If I suddenly need to create a new pseudonymous identity from scratch, I will use Mikhail’s advice. To the extent that I already apply the methods he proposed, I have no complaints: it really works. Therefore, one can cautiously assume that there will be no serious holes in the parts I haven’t tried.
I am glad that Svetov has reconsidered his position regarding the extent to which anonymous sources can be trusted. It is a pity that he had to make many mistakes and lose a lot of money to reach this conclusion, but what can you do—that is the price for excessive snobbery and the desire to keep one’s cloak white for as long as possible.
P.S. Viewers noted that in his tutorial, Svetov did not finish typing the command to update packages in the terminal, and as a result, only updated their list. The correct command looks like this:
This is my fourth text about Belarus (others can be found via the hashtag #Belarus), and this time it was prompted by watching a conversation between Mikhail Svetov, Roman Popkov, and Elena Borovskaya, as well as Roman’s post summarizing the stream on his channel.
Roman Popkov’s account of the current state of Belarusian civil society was very informative and explained why things are going the way they are, but right now I want to talk about something else.
During the conversation, Roman reproached “Moskals” for their excessively technological mindset. Ponasenkov took the brunt of it with his Die erste Kolonne marschiert, die zweite Kolonne marschiert, but Svetov, who agreed with Ponasenkov, also got hit. I, for one, although I live separated from Moscow by a considerable distance and the Ural range, am still one of those very same “Moskals,” and therefore I also have a purely technological approach to this political science problem: how to ensure the transit from an illegitimate dictatorship to a transitional government, constitutional reform, and a new legitimate government. And I see exactly two options.
Option one. Do you want it to be like in Ukraine?
If the dictator previously had enough strength to weed out combat organizations (hello to Roman Popkov and his NBP) by the root, then now, with constant street protests occurring, it is quite easy to disguise combat coordination training as episodic spontaneous coordination. Tens of thousands of people daily search for the most effective ways to exhaust the opponent’s resources, get to know each other, find out what everyone is capable of, and if the degree of anger continues to rise, then at some point the hundreds of corpses mentioned by Roman will stop seeming like a serious restriction on the path to overthrowing the dictatorship.
Of course, they don’t charge head-on toward administrative buildings, but, as we saw in Ukraine, they seize military warehouses and armories in police stations. After that, a transition to the hot phase of street fighting is inevitable, even if no one is injured during the seizure of weapons. And street fighting will inevitably end with the overthrow of the dictator.
Option two. What is the name of the President of Switzerland?
What follows is a fantasy story; do not take it as a forecast.
Tikhanovskaya arrives for Biden’s inauguration. This is an excellent pretext to discuss exactly how to overthrow Lukashenko. The invasion option is dismissed, and a cheaper one is proposed. Lukashenko is placed on an international wanted list, and a serious reward by Belarusian standards is set for his capture, dead or alive—say, a conventional hundred million dollars. Simultaneously, a second very important person enters the fray; his name is Guy Parmelin. He is the Vice President of the Swiss Confederation, who by the time of Biden’s inauguration will be the new president (hello to Mikhail Svetov and his constant rhetorical question about the name of the President of Switzerland). Switzerland is a neutral country with a very stable political system. Only it can give Lukashenko a guarantee of lifelong political asylum (Russia or the USA cannot).
That’s it; now we start the clock and watch to see what happens first: one of Lukashenko’s guards presents his head and demands the reward—or Lukashenko seeks guarantees from Mr. Parmelin and leaves the country immediately after they are confirmed.
Alright, I admit, the Fed messed up. Let’s assume the Federal Reserve really did inflate financial bubbles during the war and even after, which led to the depression of 1930-39. But what about the panics of 1873 (and subsequently the long depression of 1873-79), the devastating 1893 and the prolonged depression until 1896, and the short-term 1908. There wasn’t even a hint of a Fed back then.
Moreover, I am placing more emphasis on the depression of 1893, as it was the most terrifying in scale and damage (surpassed perhaps only by the Great one). The unemployment rate reached 17-19% at its peak! And all this happened during the administration of Grover Cleveland, who is considered the most libertarian US president. He was for: low taxes and non-interference in the economy. And against: high tariffs (which were simply enormous at the time!), business subsidies, pensions and material aid to victims (for example, he refused to allocate $100,000 to farmers in Texas affected by crop failure in 1887). And he gave a f… that is, he vetoed unconstitutional (as he believed) laws that Congress wanted to push through. By the way, what do you think of him?
And as the older brother who explains everything in much more detail, but whom few will read, this time we have the book by Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960. I will be taking illustrations from there.
The Crisis of 1873-1879
We see that during this time, the decline in business activity was accompanied by a decrease in the money supply, a drop in prices and — attention! — an increase in real income. In other words, production grew at a frantic pace — and this despite deflation (the reasons for deflation are well known: the US was returning to full convertibility of dollars into gold after issuing a huge number of unsecured greenbacks during the Civil War years). Thus, deflation does not necessarily lead to a slowdown in production. In general, calling this period a depression is somehow strange; rather, it was simply a structural reorganization of the economy under conditions of rapid economic growth and a decrease in the money supply. In the twenties of the 20th century, there was also frantic economic growth — but it was accompanied by the inflation of the money supply, which I wrote about when answering the question about the Great Depression.
The Crisis of 1893-1896
The crisis was preceded by a significant increase in the money supply, from 210 to 308 million dollars in Treasury accounts over the period from 1879 to 1888. This was due to the growing number of supporters of “soft money”: the return of greenbacks, i.e., unsecured treasury notes, or the unlimited issuance of silver dollars (it was precisely at this time that silver began to depreciate sharply because its mining rates increased). Meanwhile, the bimetallic standard assumed a fixed ratio between the price of gold and silver. Anyone interested can read about what arbitrage opportunities this hides in popular form in chapter four of the fanfiction Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. What happens when the state persists in maintaining the bimetallic standard can also be read in Saifedean Ammous’s The Bitcoin Standard, which summarizes the experience not only of the USA, but also, for example, the Chinese Empire.
Add to this that, although the USA did not yet have the Fed at that time, there was unregulated banknote emission by approximately 8,000 banks under conditions of fractional reserve. Therefore, once all these factors of monetary expansion had worked for long enough, any shift in market conditions was sufficient to trigger a banking panic. This happened in 1893. Under fractional reserve conditions, this inevitably meant the bankruptcy of many banks. The money supply shrank sharply, followed by a decrease in the volume of investments.
At the same time, although unemployment grew to significant levels and incomes fell at the peak of the crisis, the market adjusted very quickly to the new conditions, and soon it fell again. So here too, we see a trend: the crisis passes quickly if the state does not twitch and does not try to cure it with regulation. The illustration shows a classic V-shaped crisis structure: a rapid decline, a rapid recovery. Real income recovered to pre-crisis levels as early as 1895.
The Crisis of 1908
The same thing: credit expansion (the money supply grew from 261 million dollars in 1897 to 339 million dollars in 1906), a banking panic, the V-shaped nature of the crisis, and just over a year to recover to pre-crisis indicators.
Grover Cleveland (President in 1885-1889 and 1893-1897)
As is easy to see from the dates of the presidency, the crisis of 1893 could not possibly be Cleveland’s fault, because he had only just taken over from his Republican predecessor, Benjamin Harrison. Thus, he should rather be credited with the rapid exit from the crisis, and the record number of vetoes he placed on bills passed by Congress contributed exactly to this: he prevented the inflation of government spending (Warren Harding reacted to the crisis of 1921 in exactly the same way later — and with the same success), advocated for the reduction of tariffs, killed a bill on the emission of additional silver dollars, and solved the problem of the Treasury’s gold reserve by attracting private capital — a syndicate of several financiers simply bought up a sufficient number of bonds.
Cleveland turned out to be the only president in US history who managed to serve two non-consecutive terms — and this characterizes the intensity of the passions that prevailed at the time around the question of what is more beneficial: Laissez Faire or economic regulation. Unfortunately, Cleveland’s fight against the growth of statism ended up being lost: while under him the Democratic Party, in contrast to the Republican, remained practically libertarian, later the Democrats were consumed by the merging supporters of Mikhail Svetov the Populist party, and since then, instead of a choice between freedom and statism, US citizens choose between a giant enema and a shit sandwich.
As Mikhail Svetov, the creator of nap.world, claims, medium is the message. The one who speaks is part of the message. Therefore, it is not enough to examine the proposed text of the non-aggression pact; one must look at the person proposing it.
Mikhail’s rhetoric is hate speech. Even in his New Year’s greeting, he wishes torment and death to all “bad people.” It is important to understand: the proposal to conclude a non-aggression pact is not a declaration of peace. It is a declaration of war. A war against everyone who does not sign the pact. To Mikhail and his supporters, everyone outside the NAP agreement is not a legal subject.
Most likely, you are under no threat as long as you do not draw their attention. But if you initiate violence, or even publicly approve of someone else initiating violence, that’s it—you become a permissible victim. Lies will be told about you. Your counterparties will be discouraged from cooperating with you. If you have done something illegal, a report will be filed against you. But they will not physically lift a hand against you.
What does this remind us of? To me personally, it resembles the tactics of radical feminists or SJWs. They will find any instance of harassment or racism and broadcast it loudly. They will peck at you for any approval of such things. They will twist the facts about you and do everything in their power to make you persona non grata.
Feminists started before Svetov, and we can see where such tactics lead. They lead to the world becoming less sexist. Harassment turns out to be dangerous. Sexist jokes are laughed at less. Sexist advertising sells worse. The vile feminists, whom one wants to recoil from in disgust, make the world better. For them, it remains just as dirty, patriarchal, and unjust. It becomes better for us, the more moderate ones.
The Bitarch proposes using antifragile tactics (according to Taleb) to fight the state—that is, tactics that only grow stronger through opposition. If everyone whom the state prosecutes for victimless crimes declares that the state is a bandit and that they do not recognize its jurisdiction, it will undermine the legitimacy of the state, and the wider the repression, the stronger the delegitimization. Is this an antifragile tactic? Yes. The first such cases will receive wide publicity, and the prisoners will be seen as political. As the movement develops, attention will not be as intense, but this will be compensated for by the scale of the movement. However, such blatant disrespect for the court will more often lead to longer sentences, so it will be difficult at first to decide to bring politics into one’s case.
But what if an irreconcilable community actually forms around the idea of signing the NAP and intimidating everyone who hasn’t signed it? Let’s look again at Taleb, the book Skin in the Game. He shows how an inflexible, irreconcilable minority, evenly distributed in society, gradually imposes its rules on a flexible majority. In the US, political correctness became a norm recognized by the majority. In Russia, the example of implementing an accessible environment for the blind is more obvious. You won’t find a blind person on every street, but every traffic light beeps, and everyone trips over tactile paving: this is a norm imposed by an inflexible minority. Those who shame NAP non-signatories have a chance to achieve the same effect.
First, they will purge the ranks of decision-makers. Then they will intimidate the liberal opposition. Next, they will begin to harass those who approve of the actions of security forces—and then the security forces themselves. And at this stage, the idea of massively refusing to recognize the jurisdiction of state courts looks like a completely natural progression.
In short. The nap.world project as executed by Svetov is aesthetically repulsive to me, but if he gathers enough fanatics, the world around me really might become better. And after that, it would be good if they lusted themselves. Like the djinn from Andrzej Sapkowski’s story “The Last Wish.”
