Тег: Новогодние

Debunking the myth: the “black market” is not a Hollywood action movie, but simply a free market underground

It is amazing how laypeople sometimes imagine the “black market” or the darknet. Thanks to Netflix, crime reports, and government scare stories, most people picture something out of “Mad Max.” Constant chaos: brutal cartels, automatic weapon shootouts over distribution points, gloomy sociopathic hackers trading uranium and contract killings, and absolute brutality.

But let’s come down to earth and see how it looks in reality. Imagine a typical transaction on the “terrible and horrible” black market:
– Psst, man, did you bring the goods?
– Yes, here. Here is some farm cheese made from unpasteurized milk, freelance design without paying an exorbitant tax, crypto bought without KYC humiliations, and medication from abroad that our Ministry of Health decided to ban for some reason.

Sounds less bloodthirsty already, right? Because 99% of the so-called “black” market is an absolutely peaceful, voluntary exchange between people who simply want to live their lives. It is the reaction of a healthy organism to the suffocating grip of a stationary bandit. Therefore, it is worth understanding where the shadow economy comes from in the first place and why it has nothing to do with violence:

First, it is protection against financial striptease (AML/KYC). Today, to transfer your own honestly earned money, you have to turn yourself inside out. “Anti-money laundering” procedures have turned banks into branches of intelligence services. “Where did these 500 dollars come from? Prove it! Bring a certificate! We will freeze your account pending investigation!”. People move to crypto and the darknet not because they are laundering millions of dollars from cartels. They do it because they want to reclaim the basic right to financial privacy.

Second, it is an escape from the over-regulation of every single breath. The state loves to create monopolies and feed bureaucrats. Want to start a business? Get 150 permits, pass the fire inspection (which requires a bribe), buy a license. For many small entrepreneurs, this is simply unaffordable. The shadow sector consists of garage masters, tutors, home bakers, and IT freelancers who simply say: “Leave us alone, we want to work, not feed an army of inspectors.”

Third, these are goods banned by the whim of the Leviathan. The state constantly decides what we can read, watch, eat, and how we should treat ourselves. Banned the import of decent antidepressants? They will appear on the gray market. Blocked convenient subscription services? People will appear to help bypass this. Banned vapes or certain types of plants? Welcome to the darknet. Demand does not disappear just because a man in a suit banged a wooden gavel on a table.

But what about violence? What about the mafia? Now, this is the most interesting part. Violence on the black market is a direct consequence of state intervention, not a property of the free market. Remember Prohibition in the USA. Before the alcohol ban, brewers fought in courts or competed on price. As soon as alcohol was banned, Al Capone, shootouts, and Tommy guns appeared. Why? Because legal dispute resolution mechanisms vanished, and risks skyrocketed. The state itself creates crime by pushing entire industries outside the legal framework.

By the way, the darknet itself is a brilliant example of how the free market solves the problem of trust without any state. There is no police there and you cannot sue. But there is a system of reputation, reviews, and escrow accounts (where money is frozen by a guarantor until the goods are received). Sellers on darknet marketplaces tremble for their rating more than a legal restaurant does for Michelin stars. If a shop cheats a customer or sells low-quality goods, it will simply be destroyed by reviews and lose its business. Pure reputation economics and agorism in action.

So next time someone tells you horror stories about “illegal” markets, remember: the largest and most dangerous gang, which regularly employs violence and takes money from people, is not in the darknet, but collects taxes.

Voluntarist, Bitarch

Fighting the state without risking one’s own hide

Bitarch

The main problem for any socio-political movement opposing state power is the threat of repression against its participants. This applies first and foremost to libertarians, as from the authorities’ point of view, we are nothing other than the most “non-systemic” opposition (i.e., those who refuse to adjust their positions according to the state’s directives). The risk of repression severely limits movement participants in conducting effective actions, and this is quite explainable: if one can receive a heavy fine just for distributing leaflets, then engaging in more serious activism is fraught with the risk of “sitting on a bottle.” There are very few passionate libertarians ready to create new ideas and promote them to the masses; therefore, the arrest of even one of them can significantly weaken the entire movement. Understanding the situation, they are forced to severely restrain themselves in their words, avoid participating in actions, and generally live in constant fear.

It is entirely realistic to get rid of this problem — all real-world activity must be outsourced, while remaining 100% online, beyond the reach of the stationary bandit (“the state”). Libertarian activists should ideally not show their faces in the real world at all and perhaps not even disclose their views, but upon opening a virtual machine with a VPN, they should not hesitate in anything, for the FSB is absolutely powerless in the fight against the virtual! You can boldly post any calls on social networks, publish the personal data of convinced etatists, and organize the most radical actions — from distributing leaflets and hanging banners on houses and bridges, to the open harassment of active etatists (for example, writing “A maniac lives here” on an etatist’s front door and posting flyers in their residential area with a photo and information about their tendency toward aggressive violence).

All real-world actions must be carried out by people who are in no way connected to libertarianism. We receive donations from anonymous sponsors in cryptocurrency and pay “Vasya-types” from the darknet in bitcoins—people who normally place drug stashes and paint asphalt and house walls with advertisements for “pharmacies.” They are skilled at hiding from the police and know what to do in case of arrest. That is why they take their money for this risk, which, to be honest, isn’t even that much. Even if one of the executors is caught by the cops, he will only give up an anonymous online contact, where the FSB will be met with a VPN service’s refusal to provide a real IP address (or TOR, if you are a complete paranoid). Thus, the true passionaries, whose arrest could weaken the movement, become absolutely invulnerable to repression, while the arrest of depoliticized executors in the real world does no harm to the movement — in place of one arrested graffiti artist, ten new ones wishing to make some extra money will appear.

Skeptics will probably say now that online anonymity is a myth and the FSB will deanonymize you in a minute. I have already written why this is not the case and will never be: since the very emergence of states, according to the theory of the stationary bandit, every state is in constant confrontation with others. Of course, there are temporary alliances, but in the long run, one state is always a competitor and enemy to another! The authorities of any given state are usually always interested in helping the opposition weaken their competitor; therefore, they will not only refrain from disclosing the personal data of oppositionists but will even help in the development of anonymization tools (for example, the TOR network was created with the support of the US federal government). Do you think it is accidental that the laws of most countries in the world contain clauses prohibiting the disclosure of personal data and the extradition of people accused in their homeland for political reasons?! It is not accidental at all, and this must be utilized; as Mikhail Svetov says — maneuver between different states to carve out your own freedom. Given the current geopolitical layout, by living in Russia and using a VPN in Switzerland, the USA, Great Britain, Sweden, and Norway, you are completely safe. Provided, of course, that you do not personally carry out any actions in the real world.