Yesterday’s spontaneous post about how Ukraine has finally waited for a libertarian president caused a number of comments from actual Ukrainian libertarians, such as, for example, Vladimir Zolotoryov. The comments boil down to the fact that there is nothing to rejoice about; Zelensky is as much a libertarian as Zolotoryov himself is a communist, so he will ruin everything no better than Balashov.
Indeed, Zelensky’s statements are quite contradictory: he simultaneously quotes Reagan, with his “government is not the solution to the problem; government is the problem,” immediately proposes the concept of government as a service, and then promptly reports that it would be a good idea to imprison more people for tax evasion and introduce total income declaration. So, Zelensky is certainly not a convinced libertarian; he is an obvious populist trying to guess the demand of the target audience to gain maximum support.
What do I see as the merit of Zolotoryov, Balashov, Yurovsky, and even the—heaven forbid—late Sherstnyov? It is that they, and many other Ukrainians, broadcast the libertarian agenda so loudly and convincingly that the populist Zelensky believed: this is the people’s demand, and this is what I will latch onto. Zelensky, having no distinct program of his own, is an amplifier of someone else’s agenda. Yes, his microphone captures noise along with the signal, introduces its own distortions, and then delivers something close to a cacophony to the public. But he draws attention to the libertarian doctrine itself, and after that, interested people can already bend the ears of others and explain that taxes are theft, the state is a gangster, and this is how ancap works—take it and use it.
In Russia, however, Vladimir Popov asks an interesting question in his channel. Generally, the channel is mostly dedicated to weapons, and I love it dearly, but opinions on a wide variety of topics are found there. Vladimir asks: how is it that when Enteo says he is a libertarian, everyone brushes it off as something you’d expect from a fool. But when people say Zelensky is a libertarian, everyone rejoices wildly that Ukraine succeeded. What is the libertarianism of Zelensky, how does he differ from Enteo, and what did Ukraine succeed in?
Zelensky, unlike Enteo, does not practice direct aggressive violence, declares a desire to end the war, and defends the desire of Ukrainians to live their own private lives. And if the statement “Enteo is a libertarian” evokes nervous laughter and a response of “why don’t you call the Tsapkovs libertarians too,” here it is more of a shrug and a thoughtful “well, in some ways—yes.”
So, it makes sense for Ukrainian minarchists to express joy and start broadcasting something like “Hooray, Zelensky is a libertarian, which means he must lower taxes, reduce regulations, carry out decentralization, and privatize state enterprises. Show us the scoundrel who dares to hinder our beloved Mr. President in these libertarian endeavors, and we will cover them in shame.”
The same applies in Russia: if Putin says he is a libertarian, the reaction will be like it was for Enteo. If Navalny says he is a libertarian, it makes sense to express joy and bring the good news to the city and the world: finally, we have reached Navalny, he has become imbued with libertarianism, renounced the minimum wage and other leftism, and will now change the economic block of the program—forward, Navalny to the Duma, and so on.
