The translation of the book was started by Dima Kovalenko under the editorship of Vladimir Zolotorev. Then, several chapters were translated by me independently. Finally, the translation was completed by order of the Socium publishing house. On the publisher’s website, you can purchase both the paper and electronic versions of the text. About six months have passed since the translation was published—plenty of time to sell a certain number of copies and recoup the project. So now I am publishing on my own page the original version of the translation, before its editing by the publisher. The translation is available for reading online; I will not be making an epub, as a downloadable version is already on sale.
The book is not about libertarianism, but about the competition of legal systems, and about the fact that no ideal legal system exists—there are many different conflicts occurring in many different circumstances, and inquisitive human thought invents very interesting ways to resolve them.
I also remind you that I still have a couple of translation projects remaining: “Libertarianism” by Eric Mack and “Practical Anarchy” by Stephan Molynieux. I think it’s time to finish these texts, and the best way to speed up the process is through your donations. By the way, Stephan Molynieux’s film was shown at the MTL-Fest 2024 pre-party, and after it ended, the viewers had the opportunity to chat briefly with the author; those interested can watch the recording of this conversation on the MTL-TV channel.
I don’t think there is a clear typology anywhere, but the question is interesting; let’s reason through it.
The Rothbardian version: it is derived from natural rights, and therefore presupposes a certain unified ethical-legal system described in “The Ethics of Liberty,” or derived in some other way on the same methodological basis (for example, Molliqneux expresses his views in this same vein in his Practical Anarchy). Consequently, questions arise regarding it: who will force everyone to be guided by a single legal system?
The Friedmanite version is based on the economic analysis of law, specifically on the basis of the Chicago School of Economics, which implies the possibility of engaging in interpersonal utility comparisons to a certain extent. Accordingly, in the Friedmanite version of anarcho-capitalism, different legal systems are traded on the market, capturing those segments where they prove to be the most efficient.
Nevertheless, both versions of social organization imply, as a kind of successor to the key state function of enforcing its own decisions, certain law enforcement agencies, as in the case of Friedman and the Tannahills, or strictly non-violent dispute resolution agencies, as with Molliqneux, which nevertheless possess truly totalitarian regulatory power—in short, some “larvae” of the state, about which one must somehow explain what reasons will prevent these larvae from growing into full-fledged states.
Following Vladimir Zolotorev, I adhere to a praxeological approach to the analysis of law and, quite independently of him, predict that in an anarchic society with developed market relations, the effect of the division of labor will push cumbersome monsters—those attempting to gather completely diverse functions, which are currently appropriated by the state, under one roof—out of the market. There are no grounds to believe that the services of detectives, forensic experts, or blockchain analysts must necessarily be provided by the same firms that offer security services, debt collection, resolve economic disputes, maintain cadasters, insure life and property, or issue certificates stating that a person knows how to drive a car or, for instance, shoot a pistol.
The practice of living in the libertarian community of MonteLibero further strengthens me in my originally purely theoretical views that people do not need detailed, written-out legal institutions all that much. On the contrary, in an anarchic society, people tend to resolve conflicts on the spot, forming situational coalitions if necessary. The need for complex specialized services in the field of legal protection arises quite rarely; therefore, in a free market, this need will likely be met by relatively small companies that nevertheless have a wide geographical reach—otherwise, a sufficient client base cannot be gathered.
Returning to the question, we see that different descriptions of ancap mainly boil down to how conflicts will be resolved in such a society—because regarding issues such as the functioning of a free market, libertarian theorists have no particular disagreements. Accordingly, if some previously undeveloped idea occurs to you about how law could otherwise function—congratulations, you will add another version of ancap to the collection of existing ones.
So, the fifth chapter of the book, on Islamic law, has been translated. As expected, it turned out to be similar to a refined version of Jewish law, and due to its inherent decentralization, libertarians can borrow quite a lot from it for their own purposes.
Please don’t forget to donate to this and all other translations, and I will try not to drag out this process too much.
Having had my fun with Iceland: The Age of Sagas, I continued the translation of Friedman’s book on legal systems that differ greatly from our own, proceeding in order, so the fourth chapter is next. It is perhaps the longest in the entire book, as it is dedicated to the law of the chosen people, who have accumulated an absolute abyss of various legislative material throughout their long history.
As usual, I will deal with the translation of the footnotes and the final formatting of this chapter for e-books later; for now, I want to present what I have to your attention as is, without polishing it. As usual, I am transparently hinting that it would be nice to donate.
Next up is Islamic law, and I am curious in advance what place well-known practices, such as apologizing without trousers, hold within it.
Today I came across a translation of an article by Zolotorev regarding the differences between the approaches of the Chicago and Austrian schools of economics. The author refers to a certain discussion about these differences that he conducted via correspondence. I suspect that this discussion was largely triggered by an article by David Friedman, in which he discusses this very difference in approaches in detail. He linked to it on his Facebook, and later returned to this topic several more times there. And this (I don’t rule it out) started with my question about what exactly he finds unsatisfactory about the ASE – in an online interview that he gave to Russian-speaking readers to mark the release of the Russian translations of The Machinery of Freedom.
In short, if there is public interest, I can translate Friedman’s article, as well as individual more or less substantive reactions from the Austrians. I will, of course, measure this interest by the number of donations received in the near future. There is also an interest for me here, because I am very interested in Friedman’s economic analysis of law, on which I plan to base much of the second part of my book about ancap, and I want to have a clearer idea of how compatible all these considerations are with the ASE.
I read my first saga by mistake when I was about twelve. I was sure that this plump volume would contain tales of gods and heroes, something like the legends and myths of Ancient Greece. Everything turned out to be completely different and far more interesting, and it clearly influenced why ancap seems like a perfectly natural and reasonable system to me. David Friedman also relied heavily on the material of the sagas when constructing his proposals for a stateless system of law under capitalism. And finally, in his book about legal systems that differ from those we are used to, he also began specifically with the section on Iceland.
Therefore, when it became clear that simply translating this book as a commissioned work at a fixed rate didn’t work out, I decided to continue the translation using my traditional donation scheme, and to perk myself up, I grabbed a chapter out of order, and the most delicious one right away.
I will finish the chapter notes later; that’s already a bit tedious. In the meantime, I will be very glad for your money, by the volume of which I can judge how interested you are in this specific translation and how briskly I should tackle the next chapter.
On Boosty, I created a separate goal for this translation, but you are, of course, free to use all the other tools listed on the donations page. By the way, there is another innovation there: since we have developed all sorts of local tokenomics here in Montelibero, I will gladly accept donations in our own internal tokens.
The video is well-made, even a bit pedantic: featuring a historical overview, a demonstration of the state’s lack of involvement in the emergence of most educational practices, and a list of key ideas for removing the state from this sphere.
I’ll throw in a few more links regarding ideas on how to organize this very education. David Friedman on the reform of schools, universities, and on unschooling.
And tomorrow, we move from theoretical reflections on private education to practice. The readings of Adam Smith are a bit late this year, and they didn’t surprise us with anything on Guy Fawkes Day, but they will take place tomorrow after all (without Shulmann, as you might imagine!). I’m really counting on a proper broadcast on YouTube; in that case, I will likely provide prompt commentary on what’s happening on my Twitter, and then post my summary impressions to my other channels.
To mark the release of the Russian edition of his book The Machinery of Freedom, David Friedman promised to answer questions from the Russian-speaking audience. Questions were collected on several libertarian online platforms in early 2021, but for several months, David was unable to find the time to answer everything at once due to a heavy workload. However, the saga has finally concluded, and the interview is posted on the publisher’s website: the Russian and English versions.
True to my principle of copying interesting things for myself, I am also posting the interview on my own site: the Russian and English versions. I added a link to a pirated copy of the translation of Friedman’s The Machinery of Freedom (since he mentions it—might as well make use of it)—and scattered a few more links, as well as made a number of editorial corrections.
The English version remains somewhat unfinished; I hope to polish it later.
I have returned to Montenegro from a three-week trip to Albania; during this time, a lot of unread and unwatched material has accumulated, so I will go through it briefly.
Kapelyushnikov – a good introductory lecture introducing listeners to Hayek and his main achievements.
Nureev – an introduction to the problems of implementing Hayek’s idea about the introduction of certain abstract universal rules of fair behavior (did I translate Eric Mack’s book on libertarianism for nothing – there is a chapter about all of this).
Sazonov – a similar report with a presentation on the entrepreneurial theory of property; he had already given it earlier in St. Petersburg, and I summarized it briefly, and even the listeners’ questions partially overlap. At the time, I was wondering whether to include elements of the presented theory in my book – and in the end, I decided not to. Not because I disagree with the author, but simply because I don’t dig that deep into the philosophical foundations of property rights in the book.
Bystrov – republicans trolling libertarians, funny, but not very substantive.
Bazhenov – a minarchist trolling ancaps and agorists, plus an exposition of those same Hayekian principles stating that uniform universal legal norms are necessary for the efficient functioning of a free market. Also, some excursion into the classification of goods by alienability and exhaustibility.
Travin – a talk primarily about the subject of historical sociology, as well as an explanation of why there is room to apply Hayek even in this field.
Zemtsov – a talk about how democracy is understood and valued differently in different places, while there is a clear inverse correlation between the development of democracy and its declared value, for which political science provides no unambiguous explanation, so we are offered to choose from six different explanations.
A video titled Inhibition of Violence was released on the Libertarian Band channel. It completely repeats numerous materials on the same topic posted by Bitarkh on my channel, specifically, the one from literally yesterday. So, it can be recommended as a brief explication of the ideas put forward by Bitarkh, and at the same time, it is an opportunity to admire the cool print on the presenter.
A competing translation of David Friedman’s book titled Mechanisms of Freedom has finally been made publicly available, although only in the pdf format, which is not the most convenient for reading. I skimmed through it and can say that, except for the poems, it is quite good. If I were more of a perfectionist, this would be a reason to go through my own translation again and polish certain parts, but perhaps it would be more appropriate for me to spend time on more urgent tasks.
An article by Alexey Korshunov on the current state of affairs in Honduran charter cities was posted on the Libertarian State channel. Following that, he also posted an analysis of the initiative to create a charter city in Somaliland, where he wonders about the violation of their creation principles without specifying the reasons why this is being done. In our Montelibero, of course, the scale is more modest, but things are moving forward as well; I plan to post a fresh digest of project news soon.
I continue translating Friedman’s latest book. This time, I’ve gone in order. I translated the introduction and the first chapter, regarding law in the Chinese Empire. An attentive reader may notice that I haven’t fully completed the work, and about half of the footnotes are missing from the text. That is the case; I got exhausted. Tomorrow, I plan to quietly upgrade the text—both for online reading and in the ebook. I also still hope that someone will take on creating a Russian-language cover for the book.
What I like in the book are the constant comparisons: look, here’s how it was for the Chinese, exactly like in modern America. And this—just like in 18th-century England. And then there are attempts to show for what purpose the legislation was made exactly this way, what worked, and what didn’t quite.
