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How will bankruptcy work under ancap?

anonymous mouse Bazhenova

During the Adam Smith Readings, I was live-tweeting individual theses of the presentations, and I specifically noted the report by Artem Seversky, which was dedicated to the phenomenon of bankruptcy from the perspective of economics and normative philosophy. Artem was also kind enough to publish a text version of his report on Liter (I have advertised it before; it is a blog dedicated to libertarian theory under the auspices of the LPR—the one of the two LPRs that includes Fedyukin, Bazhenov, and, in fact, Seversky).

In short, the report boils down to the following. Bankruptcy is a situation of simultaneous claims of legitimate entitlements to a single mass of assets that is insufficient to satisfy them. Such a situation can arise even if all the transactions that led to it were voluntary and libertarian principles were not violated—and yet, there is legal uncertainty: it is impossible to satisfy all claims simultaneously, which means a certain procedure for their satisfaction must be developed.

Next, Artem points out that for the procedure of satisfying such claims to not violate libertarian principles itself, it must follow certain rules. One must account for the possibility that different claims may have different priorities because they arose from different legal relationships. It is one thing to have an obligation to pay wages or pay for the delivery of equipment, and another to settle with an investor. It will also be necessary to reconcile the different time preferences of creditors: some are willing to accept installment payments if they can get more, while others are eager to recover the debt as quickly as possible. In effect, for libertarians, this means the necessity of recognizing common property, however much they may wish to reduce everything to private property alone. Finally, it should be considered that legitimate claims to the debtor’s property are held not only by those who have already demanded payment, but also by those who have not yet done so—however, if the bankruptcy procedure affects their interests as well, it will also draw them into the general conflict. For example, if a house is seized for an unpaid business development loan, the interests of not only the debtor but also his household members will suffer, and they will have legitimate claims against the creditors. In other words, Artem argues that to develop a bankruptcy procedure, libertarians will inevitably have to arrive at the concept of legal entities, however much they may want to reduce everything to personal responsibility without unnecessary red tape.

So how will bankruptcies work under ancap? Naturally, by using all the theoretical developments created back during estatism, but filtering out at least those norms that imply state intervention. Bankruptcy law currently differs from state to state; similarly, under ancap, it will differ across various societies—some nuances will be in use in some places, others in others, while maintaining certain general framework principles. If the counterparties have not agreed in advance on which norms to apply, they will have to improvise, which will likely mean that in settling the conflict, the court will first need to determine which specific bankruptcy law would be most comfortable for all participants in the process, as well as for the judge’s notions of justice.

Of course, under ancap, some communities may retain norms that violate libertarian principles. For example, in the village of Tatarkovo, it might be accepted that a debtor is liable for a debt, no matter what it is, with all their property and even their own body as part of that property. This circumstance will simply have to be kept in mind by potential counterparties of the residents of Tatarkovo village. We can only assume that as greater trust is established in society and as time preferences decrease, business practices—including in conflict situations such as bankruptcies—will evolve toward greater leniency, at least toward honest entrepreneurs who misjudged the risks.

New video from Libertarian Band – about education

The Libertarian Band team has released another video — about private education.

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.

Readings of Adam Smith, recording

While the Adam Smith Readings were taking place, I was commenting on them via text on Telegram and Facebook, but now the organizers have uploaded the final recordings to their YouTube channel, so those interested can watch specific lectures targetedly rather than watching a continuous recording of the broadcast.

Personally, I found the lectures by Lyudmila Petranovskaya on the ethical aspects of COVID discussions, as well as Evgeny Varshaver’s on the integration of migrants, to be the most interesting. Let me know in the comments what you enjoyed.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuhWCrj1ep6EW8b7AG13bqnFNMHho-Gjz

Adam Smith Readings 2020

It is no secret that Mikhail Svetov dismantled the LPR with a single goal: to rid himself of the burdensome obligation to participate in organizing the Adam Smith readings and to conduct his stream dedicated to the US elections without interference. Therefore, the 2020 readings will take place in a strange format, where lecturers will speak before a giant audience of as many as thirty people, and the main emphasis will be shifted to the online broadcast.

Historically, there have always been some problems with the broadcast of the readings. And even now, although they start tomorrow, the links to the stream are still nowhere to be seen. They promise to provide it an hour before the broadcast begins to those who perform an additional pointless action—registering on the event’s Timepad. Of course, this is not required— here is the link. However, we love the readings not for their strange streaming policy, but for their interesting program. Let’s see what they have prepared for us this time.

Economic Section “The Wealth of Nations”

12:05 — 12:45 Grigory Bazhenov, economist, Friedrich von Hayek’s Sensory Order. He previously spoke at the IX readings with a report on whether an ethically neutral economic science is possible. He currently runs the YouTube channel Furydrops.
12:45 — 13:30 Valery Kizilov, economist, The Economics of the Corona-crisis: Old and New. I don’t know if he has spoken at the Adam Smith readings before, but here is an example of his lecture at last year’s “Constitution of Freedom” conference.
13:30 — 14:10 Farid Khusainov, economist, The Railway Industry and the Invisible Hand of the Market. Here is an example of his previous presentation: How the State Took Over the Railways – IX readings.

Ethical Section “The Theory of Moral Sentiments”

14:30 — 15:10 Lyudmila Petranovskaya, psychologist, Ethical Aspects of Discussions Around COVID-19. She doesn’t seem to have spoken at the readings before; the web mostly contains videos about child psychology.
15:10 — 15:50 Alexey Raksha, demographer, Truth and Mortality in the Age of Covid. Here is an example of his yesterday’s presentation on Echo of Moscow. I suspect it will strongly echo the theme of the lecture.
15:50 — 16:30 Anton Kuznetsov, philosopher, Free Will and Science. His presentations regarding the problem of consciousness are mostly available online. Here, for example, is last year’s.

Political Section “Political Rhetoric”

16:50 — 17:30 Alexander Filippov, sociologist, The Revival of Leviathan as a Challenge and a Problem. Here is an example of his presentation within the Open University project on the meaning of the state.
17:30 — 18:10 Daniil Tsygankov, sociologist, author of the telegram channel Commission on Regulatorics, The Russian Frontier: The Birth of the Political Field from the Regulatory Oppression of the State? As an example of his presentations, I can suggest an interview with Tsygankov on the SVTV channel— from those times when Mikhail Svetov knew how to cooperate with Sergey Boyko.
18:10 — 18:50 Evgeny Varshaver, sociologist, Integration of Migrants in Russia: Theory and Practice. Here is an example of his presentation on PostNauka—specifically about the integration of migrants.

In general, if you get a bit bored during the election night on Svetov’s stream (or on the competing stream from Leonid Volkov), you will have the opportunity to get acquainted in advance with the lecturers of the upcoming Adam Smith readings. As for me, I will be commenting on the readings in text format in my telegram channel (remarks in twitter are possible along the way, although I don’t really know how to use Twitter).

https://youtu.be/2THFHEq0aoA

Monopolies-2, review

On November 4, I was very sad. I am used to watching the broadcast of the Adam Smith readings held in Moscow every year, but this year the organizers deprived me of this opportunity for the first time, so I wish them a speedy removal and replacement. As I understand it, although the Adam Smith Center is formally responsible for this, in fact, the organization was entrusted to the same team that organized the summer debates between Shulman and Solovyov, as well as the lecture by Hans-Hermann Hoppe. These guys always disregard the broadcast and insist that no one else should conduct it. Monopolists, for goodness’ sake. Monopoly is expensive and bad. Always. Even if it is a monopoly on libertarianism or on organizing libertarian conferences. (Update: as I have been told, the team is actually different. Nevertheless, in my opinion, the refusal to provide a live broadcast remains a wrong move)

Fortunately, the Adam Smith Center does not have a monopoly on organizing libertarian conferences. On November 10, the second conference in the TED Talks format dedicated to monopolies took place in Moscow. The conference is conducted by the Moscow branch of the Tea Club. It is known that the LPR has rather strained relations with the Tea Club, but it is precisely thanks to their competition that we have more high-quality educational content online, so we can only welcome their rivalry.

Alas, the Tea Club also failed to provide a broadcast, but on the other hand, they began publishing recordings of the speeches on November 16 and finished on November 27. The recordings are collected in a playlist; I watched them all at once today and, as per tradition, will briefly go through all of them.

  1. Dmitry Kornienko. How the state teaches history. This discusses specifically the experience of the Russian state, without invoking foreign examples. Mention is made of an important difference between Soviet education and modern Russian education: the monopoly on knowledge has disappeared, although the monopoly on education has remained. One can lie, but students will know that you are lying and have no reason to remain silent about it. Thus, the tasks of forming a unified understanding of history have become more difficult, and, in essence, the state monopoly is ceasing to cope with them.
  2. Igor Drandin. Monopoly on discourse. Igor has extensive experience in the unpleasant role of being the liberal punching bag on federal TV channels; he shares the secrets of this non-trivial profession and speaks about the pros and cons of appearing on television. The most compelling argument presented by Igor is that TV debates are a very tough school of debating, and it is foolish to refuse such training if enemies practice this exercise daily. For instance, Navalny lost in debates to Girkin, Svetov to Kagarlitsky and Roizman—they lack the skill, as blogging and lecturing train one for something entirely different. Meanwhile, in public politics, the skill of debating is just as useful as the skill of speaking at rallies. I will note, however, that television itself is unnecessary for acquiring such skills, and it would be great if Drandin himself could find a way to pass these acquired skills to those politicians who did not participate in TV debates.
  3. Vyacheslav Shirinkin. Monopoly on a favorite band. Not all monopolization processes are linked to the state. Vyacheslav talks about various psychological aspects related to people’s love for exclusivity, as well as how to break into a market with a high barrier to entry.
  4. Vadim Novikov. To be or not to be for antitrust in Russia? Unfortunately, the recording turned out to be ruined, and the sound is very poor. The main thesis of the report: there is no point in tackling complex cases until the simple ones are sorted out. First, defeat protectionism in foreign policy, then try to defeat it in the domestic market.
  5. Roman Yuneman. Electoral monopoly. A candidate who won the elections to the Moscow City Duma shows in detail how the tool used to take away his victory is unlike an engine for fair elections, and why it is now important not only to contest the election results of a specific district in court but also to prevent the flawed practice of electronic voting from spreading across the entire country. The report is especially useful for the heralds of technological progress as a sort of sobriety check: if the goal is to counter falsifications, then simple mechanisms are better than complex ones.

Lectures in Moscow and the regions

The peak of political activity among citizens in the country is coming to an end, for better or worse: the elections are over, the results are known almost everywhere, so Russian libertarians are habitually switching from politics to education, which, of course, always pleases me.

There are about a month and a half left until the annual Adam Smith Readings, but so far last year’s program is still on the Readings website. Those who are still deciding whether to go or not can watch the recording of the 2018 Readings. It is truly a non-trivial choice—between being physically present in the heat and crowd and watching a recording in comfort, but in terrible quality.

In general, it seems that many organizers of public lectures put maximum effort into ensuring there are no glitches during the performance itself—but they lack the strength to ensure a high-quality recording or, even better, a broadcast. Not long ago, I advertised a lecture by Fariza Rodriguez in St. Petersburg, and when the recording finally appeared, I was disgusted for a long time because it was unwatchable.

Mikhail Svetov decided to set a record and organize a large lecture tour across the regions: 29 cities in 34 days, from September 15 to October 18. The performance schedule is posted on his website; you can find out if your city is there and register on the same page. Registration should not be neglected because the first lectures have already shown that Svetov is no longer a “no-name” to the current regime; his activities are monitored and hindered whenever possible. So, at the last moment, you might receive a notification about a change of location or something similar. Of course, you cannot expect a high-quality recording of Svetov’s lectures, so come in person.

As you may have noticed in Svetov’s performance schedule, there is a mysterious three-day pause from October 4 to 7. No, it is not a day off. Mikhail felt that one challenge was not enough, and during this very time, he is bringing Hans-Hermann Hoppe to Moscow. The performance of the living classic of libertarianism is expected on October 6; details are available from Mikhail in his channel.

And for those who find it boring to receive announcements three weeks in advance, I have saved for last the announcement of a cool event that will take place in Moscow this coming Saturday, September 21. The organizers couldn’t decide whether to borrow the title of a Balzac book or a Terry Gilliam film for the event, so they took both. It turned out a bit long: The Splendor and Misery, Fear and Loathing of Monopolies. This is a full-fledged conference in the TED Talks format. Four speakers are mentioned in the channel, but in fact, as of today, agreements have already been made with five, and it’s not impossible that more will appear. You can read about the speakers and the topics of the presentations in the organizers’ channel or download the conference program.

I want to separately note that although the venue is Moscow, the conference organizer is the Tea Club. As we know, no network organization in Russia can claim federal status until it conquers the capital; this is especially evident in supermarket chains or, say, restaurants. So, I am watching this bold bid by the St. Petersburg club with great interest, because in this way, they might eventually reach me in the provinces. I hope they manage to organize a decent recording this time, and if you send them some donations, the chances of this increase. Donation details are provided in the same place, in the announcement on the club’s channel.