Following protests, the Georgian parliamentary majority withdrew the foreign agents bill that had been passed in its first reading. Is this like a victory? Well, not exactly. Over these few days, many people were beaten, arrested, and their property was damaged. We can talk about a tactical victory after all the detainees are released and all the victims are paid compensation. But generally, of course, it would be great to achieve the dissolution of parliament and new elections—what trust can there be in the creeps who allowed such bullshit to happen?
In Montenegro, the seizure of assets (so-called nationalization) of businessmen who acquired pieces of property under the previous administration is in full swing. Moreover, this is being done by a technical prime minister whose government has already been issued a vote of no confidence. This has already led to one city being almost completely cut off from the rest of the country, and if the government cannot solve the problem before the start of the tourist season, I very much hope that this will finally paralyze the government, the prime minister will be exiled back to Ulcinj, or wherever he crawled out from, and they won’t be able to form a new government at all.
Everything has long been clear in the RF and Belarus: the opposition there is either in prison, has fled abroad, or has kept its mouth shut and is waiting to be imprisoned or drafted into the army, which is nearly the same thing.
It’s the same in Ukraine, except you can’t even leave the country due to martial law—on the other hand, the government has the full support of the international community.
I won’t speak for the USA and the rest of the world, since I’m not particularly interested in the details, but there is also a feeling there that politics is becoming radicalized, and it is becoming increasingly difficult for people to reach compromises within the state as part of the political process.
This can lead to various consequences.
In states with developed federalism, people can cluster by interests, reducing the degree of political confrontation within the federal subjects and increasing it between them. In this case, central decisions will be increasingly sabotaged. This is conditionally the US scenario.
In unitary states or fictitious federations like the RF, regimes will either gravitate toward dictatorship (the Belarusian scenario) or lose the ability to make any decisions at all—since any decision in favor of one side of a political confrontation will lead to massive and increasingly radical protests from the opposing side. This is conditionally the Georgian or Israeli scenario.
As a result of the processes described, we will get the following picture.
In the world, on one hand, there will be an increase in the number of authoritarian dictatorships, as well as democratic political entities with the dictatorship of the overwhelming majority. On the other hand, there will be an increase in the number of anocracies, where state power is paralyzed, and real decisions are made outside the legal political process.
And besides all this splendor, there will be a huge number of expats who have no political rights but live in countries whose politics suit them even slightly more than the countries they migrated from, and who play an important role in the economy of the countries where they live, and therefore their silent demand of “just don’t meddle in our affairs” will also have to be taken into account.
I, of course, urge all my readers to contribute to increasing the number of the latter in every way. Political power is evil. To become an expat—that is, to voluntarily renounce political power over others in favor of self-governance—is the most libertarian path in the current situation.
This is the Prime Minister of Montenegro, Dritan Abazović; he was burned in effigy at the Kotor carnival last Sunday. You should burn your politicians too.
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.
Democracy in Russia has not yet been formally destroyed completely. No one can be elected to any legislative body above the municipal level without permission from the current regime, because they will not even let you get onto the ballot. But at the municipal level, independent candidates are still able to get on the ballot. For this very reason, a fairly large number of opposition figures have been elected as municipal deputies over the last few years.
This has had very little impact on the decisions made at the municipal level. Independent deputies are usually in the minority. They are typically not allowed into even remotely important commissions. They are not given the floor at meetings. In practice, they can only achieve something in the districts they were elected from, but the powers of deputies at this lowest level are completely negligible. To top it all off, as a result of every sufficiently large protest action, deputies are collectively sent behind bars, because they either participated in it, called for participation, or could have called for participation.
Today in Moscow, municipal deputies from over fifty regions gathered for the “Municipal Russia” forum to get to know each other, socialize, and discuss possibilities for horizontal interaction. Now, instead of a conference hall, they are carrying out the planned program in police vans and at police stations.
Any attempt to engage in unauthorized political activity in the legal or illegal field today in Russia is interpreted by the regime as a crime against the regime and is punished quite arbitrarily—from preventive detentions without a formal report to killings. For a reason I do not understand, many opposition figures claim that if they had not heroically held back the advance of the Leviathan, things would be even worse now. This assertion is in blatant contradiction with the observed reality, in which the tightening of the regime occurs strictly in response to protest demonstrations. The suppression of grassroots activity is a resource-intensive activity, and those who would prefer to spend resources on palaces rather than batons hire the baton-bearers strictly as needed. In the absence of protest, they would spend roughly the same on palaces, but they would not breed so many security officers and so many laws allowing those officers to commit any kind of robbery.
The best thing we can do in this situation is to leave the country and succeed in a new place. This will not bring down the regime in Russia in any way. A submissive Uzbek will be brought in to take your place—there are eighty million of them, and they have it even worse; that will be enough to fill the vacating positions. But that is not important. If you are behind the wheel, you follow the principle of giving way to the fool. Give these fools the road in politics. If you honk your horn, they will run you over and keep driving. We only have a chance if we are the majority. Therefore, we need to concentrate where that majority is easier to secure. That is exactly why we chose the sparsely populated Montenegro.
From now on, I will regularly report on how the project to create a libertarian outpost in the Balkans is doing. Forgive me, but this seems much more important to me than attempts at political activity in Russia.
As time goes on, I am more and more surprised that there are still people convinced that the state benefits citizens by creating norms, thereby increasing the predictability of life. But if there is anything one can be sure of, it is that the state constantly violates its own norms, and from time to time changes them to legalize these violations. The game can also be played in reverse: if people massively and consciously violate a norm, it will eventually be softened or abolished—but until then, it will ruin the lives of a vast number of people, and when the norm changes, they won’t even bother to offer a fleeting apology.
You are constantly constrained by absurd, impossible norms handed down from above, and you either tolerate it or fight it (the latter is called “engaging in politics”). If you fight, the norms constrain you even further. It doesn’t matter whether you are a cog in the state machine or a completely private individual: there will be absurd norms for everyone. Simply depending on your weight in the class hierarchy, you will have to exert different efforts to evade the execution of some inconvenient norm with impunity or to get it abolished.
Today, the most convenient way for the state to introduce arbitrary restrictions is, of course, covid. Any business can be closed, any offline activity banned, arbitrary expenses can be imposed on people, or passport control, detention centers, and courts can even be merged into one. Millions bear the costs of covid itself; billions bear the costs of covid-related bans. But the suffering of billions in no way helps to save millions; they simply suffer along for the ride.
You have read three paragraphs of whining, which means that the situation with Navalny has left me stunned. I need to at least outline an answer to the question “what to do.” Navalny claims that taking to the streets works best. And how does it work? You go out. You get beaten. You go out. You are fined. You go out. You are imprisoned. Everyone around discusses the failure of the protest. The country becomes a pariah, the economy crashes, and those who are beaten, fined, and imprisoned become poor even faster. This goes on for about twenty years, then a miracle happens, and the regime becomes loose enough to collapse. By this time, only the most inert and incompetent remain in the country, while the clever ones have long since settled abroad.
Of course, any oppositionist would prefer everything to be resolved more quickly. A peaceful rally suddenly turns unpeaceful, the National Guard is driven from the squares, the order to bring in tanks is sabotaged, and suddenly the Prime Minister announces that the President has passed away suddenly and invites the opposition to jointly form a government of national reconciliation. But for now, it is not customary to call for such a thing aloud: the level of bitterness is insufficient. For us, a refusal to authorize a rally is still considered a valid reason to cancel it.
If you count on changing the situation in the country through rallies, at least expand the circle of protesters. Is the person already a regular? Leave them alone, look for a newcomer. It is pleasant to see familiar faces in the crowd, but it is far more useful to see new ones. If authorization was denied due to covid, that is a reason to rally not only for that but also for the abolition of covid restrictions. But it is better, of course, to fundamentally not notify the authorities of the intention to take to the streets. Let them monitor social networks instead of hoping that everything will be told to them voluntarily.
And, of course, if you intend to become regulars at protest actions, you will have to get rid of real estate, cars, and bank accounts—everything that can be seized for refusing to pay a fine. Or do you intend to pay the fines? Really? Do you want to overthrow the regime or feed it? In a while, they will start trying to fire protesters on a mass scale. This is a reason to get ahead of the game by asking employers to fire you and hire you in the same position under the table.
You can do none of this, of course, and just quietly grumble and keep a low profile. Then the inertial scenario described in the paragraph about twenty years will work.
I make a poor politician; I have never known how to motivate people to perform heroic deeds…
When the legal is illegal, it’s better to look to the shadows
Civil society in Russia has been trying to rock the boat and change the government for something more human-like for quite some time now, in order to stop the country’s slide into an authoritarian hole. Alexei Navalny has long and firmly been the frontman of the Russian protest.
The core of Navalny’s agenda is the exploitation of the public demand for justice. Lawlessness, corruption, and the looting of the state budget—covering all these topics ensured Navalny’s well-deserved popularity. Nationalists tried to speak out against the infringement of the rights of the Russian-speaking population, but this aspect of justice proved not to be particularly in demand among the masses. Old-regime democrats peddled the theme of Russian foreign policy aggression, the tightening of civil liberties, and the escalation of political repression—but they only earned the label of “demshiza” (democratic crazies). Libertarians protested against increased regulation and higher taxes—they were completely ignored. Everything flowed in its own way until Svetov arrived.
In the eyes of the average citizen, Navalny’s agenda boiled down to the idea that once he comes to power, he will imprison all the crooks and thieves, thereby restoring justice. Svetov increased the level of populism even further, adding: those we don’t imprison, we will fire without severance pay and strip of their political rights. Such a demand for revenge, due to the use of the sophisticated word “Lustration,” did not resonate with people immediately, but aggressive advertising did its job. The Libertarian Party received a huge influx of fresh blood and rightfully took its place in the protest pantheon to the right of Navalny himself.
An interesting situation emerged where the theme of freedom practically vanished from the public discourse of the LPR, replaced by that very theme of justice, since this rhetoric brings more political points. The main task of the LPR now, judging by the rhetoric, is to overthrow the regime together with its allies; after that, they can distance themselves from Navalny and other fellow travelers and begin advocating for their own specific agenda of reforms. To what extent the Libertarian Party will preserve libertarian values within itself by that time is not yet very clear; however, it is becoming obvious that libertarianism is much broader than what the party does (and what is generally appropriate for a political party to do).
Previously, the activities of the LPR consisted not so much of politics as of education; now the situation has changed, and politics has come to the forefront. This is wonderful, as the division of labor usually contributes to greater efficiency of that very labor. At the same time, of course, it should be expected that those who are not interested in political activity at all, and who were members specifically for the sake of education, or who viewed it as a hobby club, will leave the party. This is logical, since many ancaps fundamentally believe that engaging in politics is pointless, and it would be far more appropriate, for example, to promote a libertarian lifestyle.
I believe that minarchists and panarchists may also receive some indirect profit from the spread of ancap ideas among the apolitical masses, and ancaps are unlikely to lose from having a conditionally friendly political representation—after all, they have nothing against using the state’s weak points to weaken it. Therefore, I urge you not to interfere with libertarians getting into politics, not to quarrel with LPR members, but also not to believe that this party is the only beacon of hope, and that any libertarian activity must be somehow coordinated with this political organization.
However, entering politics under libertarian slogans outside of the LPR is already a serious claim that the libertarian market niche is large and capable of accommodating more than one libertarian party. Perhaps this is true, but here you will have to be ready for fierce competition, which may prove counterproductive, as it diverts resources away from competing with pro-government organizations.
Libertarians in Navalny’s right hand, and coffee in his left. That is how we shall conquer!
