So verfasste ich den ersten Artikel meines Lebens. Als ich fertig war, redigierte ihn Simone de Beauvoir. Sie war eine strenge Frau. Bevor sie ihn an Les Temps Modernes weitergab, hatte sie noch meinen Vornamen gestrichen und durch Jean ersetzt. „Hans“, sagte sie, „das ist doch kein Name!“

So I wrote the first article of my life. When I had finished, Simone de Beauvoir edited it. She was a strict woman. Before passing it on to Les Temps Modernes, she had removed my first name and replaced it with Jean. “Hans,” she said, “that’s not a name!”

– “Interview mit Jean Ziegler”, Die Zeit, Nr. 1, 2011 (archive)

His first article written, baptized by the communist Simone de Beauvoir herself, little Hans’s loathsome career – now under the name Jean – could start: a whole life dedicated to the most murderous of all ideologies, socialism.

Socialist obedience and infiltration

“Communist at heart”, after the Stalinist PCF, he joins the same sinister party as Lenin – the Swiss Socialist Party. Of course he would. Fittingly, he also published a book whose title is a quote from Lenin, Retournez les fusils ! Choisir son camp.

Born in 1934, he is 30 when his next communist mentor, Che Guevera, orders him to remain in Switzerland:

In 1964 Jean Ziegler chauffeured the then legendary Che Guevara at a conference in Geneva. Enthusiastically, he wants to set off for Cuba with the revolutionary. But Guevara refuses. Jean Ziegler should fight against the “head of the capitalist monster” here in Switzerland, where he was born.

The very same year that Che Guevara was proudly defending his regime’s executions of opponents before the General Assembly of the United Nations – Ziegler’s future employer.

In a 2022 interview², Ziegler himself recounted the encounter:

I was his driver for a while, in Geneva. The day before he left, I mustered up my courage and said to him, “Comandante, I want to go with you!” He then showed me the illuminated buildings in the center of Geneva and said: “The brain of the monster is here. This is where you have to fight.” Che told me the strategy of the fight to lead: subversive integration. The goal was to break into the institutions and use their power for my purposes. This is how I became a university professor, parliamentarian and even special rapporteur for the United Nations.

Surprisingly candid interview…

And yet, in forty years, capitalism has lifted 800 million people out of poverty in China, mainly after the reforms of Deng Xiaoping in the 1970s. Isn’t this proof of the effectiveness of capitalism?

The capitalist mode of production is certainly the most vital and creative that humanity has ever known, but it escapes the control of the state and the unions.

Of course: It was never about feeding the hungry. It was all about control: power, it’s always about power. That is what socialism is all about:

Si, en définitive, j’avais à trouver une formule générale pour exprimer ce que m’apparaît le socialisme dans son ensemble, je dirais que c’est une nouvelle formule de la servitude.

[If, in the end, I had to express what socialism is overall, I would say that it is simply a new form of serfdom.]

– Tocqueville, Œuvres complètes, IX, p. 541 [ Tocqueville’s Critique of Socialism ], 1848

Socialist famines and dictatorships

Another interview, in Swiss German this time (Hans’s mother tongue), in which he is asked whether he likes Lenin:

Aber den Lenin, den findest du gut, oder?

Far from denying it, he jumps to the Marxian monstrosity of “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!”(“Jeder nach seinen Fähigkeiten, jedem nach seinen Bedürfnissen!”).

Lenin, who, in 1921, decided that the “needs” of millions of Ukrainians did not include the need to eat; a communist logic which was repeated a decade later by his successor, Stalin: the Holodomor, in which perished 13% of the Ukrainian population, deliberately murdered by the famine of the Great Stalin.

Given that, of course, knowing the “needs” and “abilities” of others is impossible, the only remaining possibility is, as the socialist Oskar Lange suggested when claiming to address the demonstration of Ludwig von Mises of the impossibility of economic calculation in the socialist commonwealth, to “[establish] [them] by the judgment of the authorities administering the economic system”. Which is exactly what Lenin and Stalin did, and certainly no Ziegler ever offered any other solution, any answer to Kołakowski’s Enigma. Let us bear that in mind as we cover his career. Speaking of Stalin:

Bei der Wahl seiner Bündnisgenossen war der Schweizer Kapitalismusgegner Jean Ziegler noch nie wählerisch. So hat er – offenbar ahnungslos – auch eine deutsche Politsekte unterstützt, die bis heute Stalin und Mao Zedong verehrt.

Kim Il Sung, Muammar Ghadhafi, Fidel Castro, Robert Mugabe: Die Liste der Diktatoren, die Jean Ziegler in seiner schillernden Karriere als Autor, Kapitalismusgegner und SP-Politiker allzu eifrig verklärt hat, ist lang – und sie wird immer länger. So steht der 84-Jährige derzeit ebenso stur wie standesgemäss zu den linkspopulistischen, venezolanischen Despoten Hugo Chávez und Nicolás Maduro, die ihr Land innerhalb von wenigen Jahren heruntergewirtschaftet und die Demokratie faktisch abgeschafft haben.

The Swiss anti-capitalist Jean Ziegler has never been choosy when picking his allies. He also supported a German political sect that still worships Stalin and Mao Zedong, apparently without knowing it.

Kim Il Sung, Muammar Ghadhafi, Fidel Castro, Robert Mugabe: The list of dictators that Jean Ziegler has glorified all too eagerly in his dazzling career as an author, opponent of capitalism and Socialist Party politician is long – and it’s getting longer. The 84-year-old is currently as stubborn as is befitting of the left-wing populist Venezuelan despots Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro, who have run down their country within a few years and effectively abolished democracy.

– Lucien Scherrer, “Jean Zieglers Stalinisten-Connection”, NZZ, February 4, 2019

Ziegler, who supported the worst regimes his whole life, often condemning their crimes only very belatedly, naturally never offered the slightest outline of a solution to Kołakowski’s Enigma, his whole career being marked by this contradiction:

Mais Dieu se rit des prières qu’on lui fait pour détourner les malheurs publics, quand on ne s’oppose pas à ce qui se fait pour les attirer.

God laughs at the prayers we make to him to avert public misfortunes, when we are not opposed to what is being done to attract them.³

– Bossuet

Indeed, he supported them all, the worst famine-generating regimes, “de la Corée du Nord de Kim Il-sung à l’Ethiopie de Mengitsu, du Zimbabwe de Mugabe au Cuba de Castro [from Kim Il-sung’s North Korea to Mengitsu’s Ethiopia, from Mugabe’s Zimbabwe to Castro’s Cuba]”:

• “Mengistu’s government is estimated to be responsible for the deaths of 500,000 to 2,000,000 Ethiopians, mostly during the 1983–1985 famine in Ethiopia.”,

• “Mugabe’s famine”,

• “somewhere between 240,000 and 3,500,000 North Koreans died from starvation or hunger-related illnesses”,

• “« Nicolás Maduro hat in Venezuela keine Diktatur errichtet »”, 

• “Jean Ziegler: « Le décès de Chavez est tragique pour toute l’Amérique latine »”,

• “Jean Ziegler: « Du sang cubain coule dans mes veines et je me porte à merveille »” (Castro’s victims, conversely, are not doing so good, while Castro himself has Cuban blood on his hands),

• “Venezuela: l’insupportable déni de réalité de la gauche radicale”,

• etc.: “Entre Ziegler et les droits de l’homme, il faut choisir” [Ziegler or human rights, pick one].

Now imagine the irony in having someone like that hired by the United Nations as… Special Rapporteur on the right to food. A classic instance of the antonym fallacy, and a good example of how fake rights only serve to trample on real rights: as with any socialist proposal, such as the “right to housing” discourages construction, therefore reducing housing opportunities, or as “public services” consist precisely in exempting nationalized companies from actually having to serve the public in order to survive. Perhaps the biggest sad joke on hunger since the Ministry of Food of National Socialist Germany, was, like the Ministry of Plenty in the novel 1984, responsible for organizing famines.

In both interviews, Ziegler refers to the Paris Commune as the only example of “real” communism. He forgets the Taborites, obviously, but never mind.

Relevant here is that there’s a reason these primitive systems never held for long: they can work in a tiny, close community, for some time, producing specific basic goods (such as the kibbutzim – but even these were not that successful, see Johan Norberg: “The rise – and disastrous fall – of the kibbutz”). But feeding billions of people by coordinating the actions of billions of individual actors with no relationship to each other? (I “need” chocolate today, let’s hope someone on the other side of the world had the “ability” to plant cocoa 5 years ago, and someone else had the “ability” to design and operate a cargo ship to get it to me, etc, etc. See Leonard E. Read’s classic: “I, Pencil”.) Only global capitalism can achieve that.

Incidentally, if only the Paris Commune was real communism, and all those other socialist regimes were not, why did he support them nevertheless? Why was he not busy building real communism, perhaps on a small, voluntary scale to actually, finally, prove the world it works? Instead of wasting time visiting the bloodthirsty dictators of the alleged pseudo-communists or pseudo-socialists of Cuba, North Korea, Iraq, etc? You can’t have it both ways, Hans: we reach, as usual with socialism, Kołakowski’s enigma (which, so far, only libertarianism has answered).

In the same candid interview:⁴

We fight hunger. We fight against the omnipotence of multinationals. We fight global warming. But what will be born from the ruins of this system? Nobody knows, because that’s how history works.

Revolution for Revolution’s sake, as usual. Pretending to fight against hunger, by destroying a system that feeds billions, with no guarantee it would be replaced by a system that feeds more, or even as many (and every historical and logical indication it would not) – or that indeed, billions would not die through the revolutionary process itself.

Socialist lies and dubious friendships (terrorists, islamists, Holocaust-deniers)

But would that really have been an issue for Ziegler?

• “Jean Ziegler a facilité un accord secret entre la Suisse et l’OLP”

• “Révélations : la Suisse a lâchement prêté allégeance à l’OLP”

• “Geheimdeal schützte Schweiz vor PLO-Terror”

• “Schweizer Abkommen mit PLO enthüllt” (archive)

• “Jean Zieglers geheime Mission” (archive)

So, in 1970, thanks to Ziegler, a secret and despicable deal with terrorists:

Un accord oral que l’ancien conseiller fédéral Pierre Graber, socialiste lui aussi [quelle coïncidence !], a passé à l’automne 1970 à Genève et à l’insu du Conseil fédéral avec le chef de la politique étrangère de l’OLP, Farouk Kaddoumi. Marcel Gyr révèle qu’au travers de ce moratoire officieux, l’OLP s’engageait à épargner la Suisse d’actes terroristes et à contrôler en ce sens ses factions les plus virulentes. En échange, Pierre Graber s’engageait à faire tout son possible pour que l’OLP puisse avoir pignon sur rue à Genève, siège des Nations-Unies.

An oral agreement that the former Federal Councilor Pierre Graber, also a socialist [what a coincidence!], made in the fall of 1970 in Geneva and without the knowledge of the Federal Council with the head of foreign policy of the PLO, Farouk Kaddoumi. Marcel Gyr reveals that through this unofficial moratorium, the PLO undertook to spare Switzerland from terrorist acts and to control its most virulent factions in this sense. In exchange, Pierre Graber undertook to do everything possible so that the PLO’s voice could be heard in Geneva, at the seat of the United Nations.

– “Jean Ziegler a facilité un accord secret entre la Suisse et l’OLP”

In 1970, therefore, as a reward for the murder of 47 people, by these same terrorists, in Switzerland. Graber, what a fitting name for a grave digger.

Now, who claimed responsibility for the attack?

Marxist–Leninist and revolutionary socialist organization… the second-largest of the groups forming the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the largest being Fatah

– Wikipedia, “PFLP”(Like for Fatah, a glance at its logo is enough to know what exactly they stand for, and that everything else are just lies and deceptions)

So! Yet another bunch of socialists... What a coincidence!

And since we mentioned 1984, let’s remember this other scene: do it to her, not me. Except that Ziegler was not tortured: it was of his own free will that he helped the terrorists.

By the way. Among the infamous dictators supported by Ziegler, let us not forget Muammar Gaddafi, of the “Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya”. Special mention for his “International Prize for Human Rights”, founded and received by Ziegler:

“Le prix Kadhafi ? Comment pourrais-je l’avoir créé ? C’est absurde !”

“The Khadafi Prize? How could I have created it? It is absurd!”

– Jean Ziegler, quoted in Michel Jeanneret, “Nations Unies: Jean Ziegler au cœur d’une nouvelle polémique”, Le Matin, April 24, 2006

The same Ziegler who supported the PLO terrorists, and who, in totally unrelated news, has since been regularly spitting on Israel at every chance⁵; it is in the company of Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy that he received the Al-Gaddafi International Prize for Human Rights⁶. A member of the nefarious French Communist Party, like him. And a friend he just had to support, of course:

Ziegler has also helped to promote and protect the careers of several European intellectuals with questionable if not disturbing reputations. In April 1996, for instance, he came to the defense of Roger Garaudy, a former French Stalinist and convert to Islam whose book The Founding Myths of Modern Israel denies the Holocaust. In response to the public controversy provoked by the book, Ziegler wrote a letter of support to Garaudy, which the Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust (CODOH)—a group dedicated to the promotion of Holocaust denial—published in full on its website:

“I am outraged at the legal case they are making against you…. All your work as a writer and philosopher attests to the rigor of your analysis and the unwavering honesty of your intentions. It makes you one of the leading thinkers of our time…. It is for all these reasons that I express here my solidarity and my admiring friendship.”

– Hillel Neuer, “Ziegler’s Follies”

Why this preposterous prize?

Most striking, however, is Ziegler’s role in co-founding, co-managing, and eventually winning the Muammar al-Qaddafi International Prize for Human Rights. In April 1989, just a few months after Pan Am flight 103 was blown up by Libyan intelligence agents, killing all 259 people on board, Ziegler announced the prize’s creation. It was widely believed to be a transparent attempt to change Libya’s damaged international image as a terrorist state.

– Hillel Neuer, “Ziegler’s Follies”

Co-founded by Ziegler in 1989, the prize will be received among others by Castro and Chavez, other friends of Ziegler... The list of his friendships with dubious characters – whenever they are, like him, socialists (or at least anti-capitalism, anti-Western, anti-Israel, anti-US, etc.) – is long⁷:

Besides being one of Europe’s most successful celebrity activists, Ziegler is also one of the continent’s most industrious anti-American and anti-Israel ideologues as well as a prominent apologist for a rogues’ gallery of Tird World dictators, including Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi, Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, and Cuba’s Fidel Castro. During Ziegler’s tenure as Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, the cause of world hunger consistently took a backseat to the promotion of his anti-Western ideology. At a time when the UN is heralding the reform of its human rights apparatus, replacing the discredited Commission on Human Rights with a new council which it has described as the “dawn of a new era,” the case of Jean Ziegler casts grave doubt on the possible success of this reform and reveals the precipitous and accelerating decline of the UN human rights system and the international human rights movement as a whole.

– Hillel Neuer, “Ziegler’s Follies”

Socialist death

Socialism is the single major cause of the slowdown of progress. No one should ever die, but also, as a precondition, no one should ever be socialist. It is thanks to socialists like Ziegler that people, including himself, still die needlessly today: in famines, in political purges, in terrorist attacks, or, simply, of old age or possibly curable diseases, because of the slowdown of economic growth which their idiotic policies cause.

It is why we refer to them as useful (or useless, the void has no use for them) idiots of the void: the ideology they think they serve is devoid of morality, of meaning and of purpose, it is mere nihilism. Their only real master, whether consciously or not, is therefore destruction (including their own), evil, death, nothingness. And now Ziegler met his end, the ultimate cause he so diligently served his entire life.

Your room in hell is ready, Mr Ziegler. Well heated, it has been awaiting you for a long time already. You’ll be in good company, most of your great friends and mentors, with their socialist hands still dripping from the blood of their victims, are already there, expecting you.

Meanwhile, we, the capitalists you fought so resolutely, will keep on building a better world, with you, against you, or, henceforth, without you.

Hans Ziegler, Thun, Bern, April 19, 1934 – Jean Ziegler, Geneva, Geneva, June 10, 2026: Useful idiot of death.

¹ The “Great” Stalin, responsible for 43 million deaths.

L’Humanité, official organ of the French Communist Party until 1994. Both the party and the newspaper having been financed by the Soviet Union: “Until 1990 the PCF and L’Humanité received regular subsidies from the Soviet Union”. Stalin would die in 1953, to the utter sorrow of his useful idiots. The PCF, more catholic than the Pope, would stick to Stalinism, even after Khrushchev’s Secret Speech – for them, Kołakowski’s Enigma has not been an issue. ↩

² PT EN DE FR ES – for some reason the original version, and the only full length, unabridged one, is the Portuguese one, despite that not being, most likely, the language the interview was conducted in. ↩

³ A literal example of that: Ziegler’s friend Maduro saying in a speech that “God will provide”. ↩

⁴ Ibid. note 2.  ↩

⁵ Blatantly abusing his position as UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food to obsessively attack Israel, for some reason:

by the UN’s own standards, the food situation in the Palestinian territories has never come remotely close to the “catastrophe” Ziegler described, nor has it ever been ranked as one of the world’s food emergencies. In fact, when the UN Standing Committee on Nutrition compared nutritional risk in selected refugee populations in November 2003, the West Bank and Gaza ranked lowest.

– Hillel Neuer, “Ziegler’s Follies”

↩

⁶ Ziegler denied for years having received the prize.

↩

⁷ We could go on...

His affinity for the radical and violent side of politics is more than aesthetic. Ziegler has actively supplied political and diplomatic aid to some of the most brutal regimes in recent memory. Ethiopian dictator colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam, accused of widespread human rights violations and of bringing his country to starvation, handpicked Ziegler in 1986 to be one of five experts who prepared a constitution calling for one-party rule— Ziegler was the only one from outside the Soviet bloc. Ziegler has also paid visits to Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Kim Il Sung in North Korea, and in 2002 he fawned over Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe—then in the midst of engineering mass famine through violent land seizures— saying, “Mugabe has history and morality with him.” Regarding Hezbollah, Zeigler has stated that “I refuse to describe Hezbollah as a terrorist group. It is a national movement of resistance.”

– Hillel Neuer, “Ziegler’s Follies”

Did you say Hezbollah? It is with Thierry Meyssan, who works for them (“déclare travailler aujourd’hui pour Al-Manar, la chaîne de télévision du Hezbollah”) that Ziegler co-signed the foreword of the French edition of Fortunate Son…

And finally, let’s mention Tariq Ramadan, another infamous Genevan, another friend of Jean Ziegler:

Tariq Ramadan failed his 1998 PhD review. Jury found he whitewashed antisemitism of Muslim Brotherhood—founded by his grandfather. But Ramadan’s friend #JeanZiegler–longest-serving @UNHumanRights official–pressured Geneva university to graduate him anyway.

– Hillel Neuer

Muslim Brotherhood? An islamist organization, whose

self-stated aim is the establishment of a state ruled by Sharia law

Wikipedia, “Muslim Brotherhood”

Ramadan used his political connection to Ziegler to push for the acceptance of his PhD thesis:

L’Université constitue alors un second jury – et la thèse est acceptée après la suppression de certains passages. Un membre du second jury fait pourtant part de son malaise : « Beaucoup de choses dans la thèse me paraissent désagréables, le côté apologétique, les faux-fuyants sur la violence des Frères musulmans, par exemple. » Ainsi, la thèse évoque les « cinquante demandes » présentées par les Frères en 1936 mais ne mentionne pas leur contenu : entre autres, « multiplier les phalanges de jeunes en les éduquant à la guerre sainte », « considérer tout contact mixte en tête-à-tête comme un crime susceptible d’être sanctionné », « réprimer tous ceux qui ne respectent pas les préceptes de l’islam » et « interdire la danse ». Elle n’évoque qu’en passant le vœu des Frères que l’Egypte soit libérée des Anglais par l’Allemagne nazie.

– “Tariq Ramadan, genèse d’une star de l’islam”

La thèse, intitulée « Aux sources du renouveau musulman. D’al-Afghâni à Hassan al-Banna, un siècle de réformisme islamique », explique, sans rire, que les Frères musulmans, qui considèrent « tout contact mixte en tête à tête comme un crime susceptible d’être sanctionné », ont bien apporté un réel renouveau à la pensée islamique… Le jury fait le « job » et accepte la thèse en 1999, mais il ne lui accorde même pas la mention « très honorable », ce qui signifie en langage universitaire que les portes des facultés de Suisse sont fermées à Tariq Ramadan.

– “La vérité sur la thèse universitaire de Tariq Ramadan”

↩

Le principe de la répartition des richesses était réduit par Marx à cette formule parfaitement creuse : « À chacun selon ses besoins »¹, source de chicaneries et d’ergotages sans fin si par malheur on avait tenté de la mettre en pratique, heureusement cela ne s’était jamais produit, dans les pays communistes pas davantage que dans les autres, l’argent allait à l’argent et accompagnait le pouvoir, tel était le dernier mot de l’organisation sociale.

[ For Marx, the principle of wealth distribution was reduced to this entirely hollow formula: “To each according to his needs”¹, an endless source of carping and quibbling if by some misfortune someone tried to put it into practice. Luckily that had never happened, no more in the communist countries than anywhere else; money went to money and kept company with power, that was the final word in social organization. ]

– Michel Houellebecq, Sérotonine, [Serotonin]

“Communism is a utopia!”, “Communists failed, but at least their intentions were good!”, “The Soviet Union was not real communism!”, “We have never had real communism!”, “Socialism was not efficient, sure, but…”, “Communism is good as long as it’s voluntary/democratic/etc.”, etc., etc., ad nauseam.

We’ve all heard those a million times. Communists and socialists concede something, but you’re supposed to concede that communism is still a noble idea, an ideal to keep striving for, a worthy experiment to keep attempting, again and again, no matter the cost².

We disagree on all counts: communism and socialism must be rejected in extenso. Communism is a rotten idea that failed because it had to fail. If “real” communism was never realized, then “luckily that had never happened”. The intermediate steps were bad enough already.

We are being sold this cartoon-version of communism as something maybe slightly less wealth-generating than capitalism, less consumerist, but more egalitarian, less stressful, with more happiness and solidarity, if not in past practice then certainly possible in theory. No excessive abundance, but concern for the environment (lie). No greed or needless riches, but peaceful stability and job security (all lies). The lie that if we adoped socialism, sure, you couldn’t get the latest iPhone 17, maybe, but everyone would get a slightly slower iPhone 16 — not the dark reality of millions starving to death in the streets, or being worked to death in gulags, or sharing a collective apartment with twenty other people, with no phone at all, not a little bit poorer but a billion times poorer.

Communism and socialism are frauds, but not only that: they are fraudulent promises of something which itself is a fraud: worse than a simple fraud, communism is a sophisticated one, a fraud on at least four distinct levels.

Communism and socialism

But what is socialism?

[Socialism:] a policy which aims at constructing a society in which the means of production are socialized.

[Socialism:] not an alternative to capitalism; an alternative to any system under which men can live as human beings.

– Ludwig von Mises

Socialist regimes adopted a somewhat twisted version of Marx’s slogan:

Труд в СССР является обязанностью и делом чести каждого способного к труду гражданина по принципу: «кто не работает, тот не ест».

В СССР осуществляется принцип социализма: «от каждого по его способности, каждому - по его труду».

[ In the U.S.S.R. work is a duty and a matter of honor for every able-bodied citizen, in accordance with the principle: “He who does not work, neither shall he eat.”

The principle applied in the U.S.S.R. is that of socialism: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his work.” ]

Constitution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, 1936, Article 12

Forced to work and not allowed to leave the country or even, in the Soviet Union, the region: A new form of serfdom.

Si, en définitive, j’avais à trouver une formule générale pour exprimer ce que m’apparaît le socialisme dans son ensemble, je dirais que c’est une nouvelle formule de la servitude.

[ Were I to attempt to sum up what socialism is, I would say that it is simply a new system of serfdom. ]

– Tocqueville, Œuvres complètes, IX, p. 541 [ Tocqueville’s Critique of Socialism ], 1848

Marx himself, in the same spirit of “from each according to his ability”, demanded mandatory work for all:

8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.

– Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party

A somewhat euphemistic translation really, the German original is clearer:

8. Gleicher Arbeitszwang für alle, Errichtung industrieller Armeen, besonders für den Ackerbau.

– Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei

Communism is defined here as the forced-labor-for-all alleged Marxist utopia (or dystopia, you decide) that communists strive to achieve. Socialism is the regime they establish in order to, supposedly, achieve it at some point.

Socialists wish to establish a socialist regime (in which the means of production are socialized), not necessarily with the aim of the communist utopia (or dystopia), when not simply a synonym for communists.

Social-democrats and “democratic socialists”(sometimes called simply “socialists” depending on the country and language), usually wish to establish a somewhat moderate, mixed-economy socialist regime (in which some of the means of production are socialized, not necessarily all of them), and do so through democratic means (and/or while maintaining an otherwise democratic regime), without establishing a dictatorship of the proletariat, at least not immediately.³

Socialism is a double fraud

Hence, Nikita Khrushchev, member of a communist party, leader of a socialist state, could proclaim:

Исторические рамки проекта Программы – 20 лет. Почему мы остановились именно на этом сроке? В ходе обсуждения проекта Программы некоторые товарищи спрашивали: не слишком ли большое время отводится для осуществления этой задачи? Нет, товарищи. Для того, чтобы подготовить обще ство к принципам коммунизма, надо добиться гигантского раз вИтия производительных сил, создать изобилие материальных и духовных благ. А для этого нужно определенное время. Чаша коммунизма – это чаша изобилия, она всегда должна быть полна до красв. Каждый должен вносить в нее свой вклад и каждый из нее черпать. Было бы непоправимой ошибкой декретировать введение коммунизма, когда не со зрели все необходимые условия. Если бы мы объявили, что вводим коммунизм в условиях, когда чаша еще далеко не nолна, то пришлось бы черпать не по потребностям. Мы бы только скомпрометировали идеи коммунизма, подорвали ини циативу трудящихся и задержали движение к коммунизму. Мы руководствуемся строго научными расчетами. А расчеты показывают, что за 20 лет мы построим в основном коммунистическое общество. (Продолжительные аплодисменты).

[ The historical framework of the Program project is 20 years. Why did we stop at this time? During the discussion of the draft Program, some comrades asked: is not too much time allotted for the implementation of this task? No, comrades. In order to prepare society for the principles of communism, it is necessary to achieve a gigantic development of the productive forces, to create an abundance of material and spiritual goods. And this takes some time. The cup of communism is a cup of abundance, it must always be full to the brim. Everyone should contribute to it and everyone should draw from it. It would be an irreparable mistake to decree the introduction of communism when all the necessary conditions are not ripe. If we announced that we were introducing communism in conditions when the cup was still far from full, then we would have to draw on things that were not necessary. We would only compromise the ideas of communism, undermine the initiative of the working people and delay the movement towards communism. We are guided by strictly scientific calculations. And calculations show that in 20 years we will build a mostly communist society. (Prolonged applause.) ]

— Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 1961

Communist-established socialism is not just a fraud, it’s a double fraud. Of course, by 1981, communism had not been achieved, and less than 10 years later the whole socialist system would collapse entirely under the weight of its own corruption and contradictions. That’s the first fraud. The second fraud is that the system it establishes in-between is itself horrible, not only because it goes nowhere towards achieving the communist goal, but in and of itself, as a dictatorship failing miserably at providing even basic economic needs while trampling on everyone’s basic human rights as well.

Whatever the flaws of capitalism or accusations against it, socialism replaces it with something much, much worse⁴, and promises communism without ever having the slightest hope of reaching it.

And what’s more, it is necessarily so. The fraud goes deep and socialism is fraudulent on all levels: practical and theoretical, philosophical and economic, the whole collectivist idea is a fraud whereas its destruction of Law should scare anyone with the slightest concern for human rights.

Communism was the regime for the privileged elite, capitalism the creed for the common man.

– Margaret Thatcher, The Path To Power

By 1968, even Czech communists (two months before the Soviet invasion) started to openly notice that socialism was a fraud: even the workers were much better off under capitalism! How could this be?⁵ The alleged communist utopia was such a far-away prospect that Czech comics even joked about it, despite censorship⁶.

Chavismo is what happens when socialism succeeds, not when it fails: repression, poverty, corruption, and looting by elites. The “promises to lift millions out of poverty” are a scam to take total power, then the real program is unveiled.

– Garry Kasparov

Communism is a quadruple fraud

La supériorité du capitalisme sur le communisme, c’est qu’il n’a pas été nécessaire de l’inventer.

[ The superiority of capitalism over communism is that it was not necessary to invent it. ]

– Coluche

Socialism is a double fraud, it never achieves communism, instead establishing a corrupt, inegalitarian system of exploitation much worse than capitalism. But what if it did? Well, communism itself wouldn’t work either, nor could it work or should work.

Sorry, communist “idealists”: your dream is not only a nightmare, but an impossible nightmare, an idiotic nightmare, a nightmare in which everything is a lie. It’s not a utopia, it’s a dystopia. To the socialist double fraud, it adds two more frauds, making it a quadruple one: it’s logically inconsistent, impossible to establish or to function in practice in any reasonable manner, and not a desirable or ethical system either.

The root issue are the concepts, or anti-concepts, of needs and abilities: who decides what is a need? Who measures what your ability is? Ayn Rand illustrated this very well with the Twentieth Century Motor Company, the one John Galt works for before quitting, where workers get together to decide who needs what instead of getting fixed wages and managing their own budget.

Voluntary communism is still bad

And note that Ayn Rand’s example in Atlas Shrugged was a voluntarily implemented “communism” in a private company, not the brutal, expropriating, genocidal Soviet one which she addressed in We The Living. Another example of such “voluntary communism” often mentioned is the kibbutz:

Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell are part of a breed of socialists who argue that this time will be different. Socialism never failed, they insist: only the walls, barbed wire and jackboots did. So what they plan for Britain, while radical, is bound to work! True, it’s more radical than anything done in any European country today. Comparisons with Venezuela or Cuba or Soviet Russia are unfair, they say. [...] So in the kibbutz, as in everywhere with socialism, the problem was not that brutal means corrupted beautiful ends. It was that those ends were not compatible with human nature in the first place.

Johan Norberg, “The rise – and disastrous fall – of the kibbutz”, The Spectator, November 30, 2019

Being voluntary doesn’t make it escape the impossibility of interpersonal utility comparisons, nor the economic calculation problem identified by Ludwig von Mises a century ago. Nothing to do with voluntary nature or not; it’s just a system that cannot produce any sort of relevant, non-hierarchical human organization beyond a tiny, tight group, on a primitive level, for a short time before inevitable conflicts and inefficiencies arise. And no, families are not examples of working “communism,” just as charity or Christmas gifts aren’t: none of these models introduce the egalitarian needs-abilities based-model that communism implies, nor aim to define the whole of social organization.

Yes, libertarians will argue that being voluntary makes it not a crime and therefore acceptable — just as shooting yourself in the foot is not as bad as mass murder, except in this case children are involved and the life expectancy of billions of people is at stake.

Communism is perpetual poverty

For communism is also a hopelessly outdated model, devised for primitive subsistence societies, by silly communists with no knowledge, no imagination, no ambition for mankind:

Sowie nämlich die Arbeit verteilt zu werden anfängt, hat Jeder einen bestimmten ausschließlichen Kreis der Tätigkeit, der ihm aufgedrängt wird, aus dem er nicht heraus kann; er ist Jäger, Fischer oder Hirt oder kritischer Kritiker und muß es bleiben, wenn er nicht die Mittel zum Leben verlieren will - während in der kommunistischen Gesellschaft, wo Jeder nicht einen ausschließlichen Kreis der Tätigkeit hat, sondern sich in jedem beliebigen Zweige ausbilden kann, die Gesellschaft die allgemeine Produktion regelt und mir eben dadurch möglich macht, heute dies, morgen jenes zu tun, morgens zu jagen, nachmittags zu fischen, abends Viehzucht zu treiben, nach dem Essen zu kritisieren, wie ich gerade Lust habe, ohne je Jäger, Fischer, Hirt oder Kritiker zu werden.

[ For as soon as the distribution of labour comes into being, each man has a particular, exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him and from which he cannot escape. He is a hunter, a fisherman, a herdsman, or a critical critic, and must remain so if he does not want to lose his means of livelihood; while in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic. ]

– Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Die deutsche Ideologie [ The German Ideology ], 1845

Relevant here is that there’s a reason these primitive systems rejecting the specialization of labor never held for long: they can work in a tiny, close-knit community, for some time, producing specific basic, simple goods, such as the kibbutzim doing collective farming, but even that with very limited efficiency as we’ve seen. Collectivized farming in the Soviet Union was notoriously extremely inefficient.

In fact, not only was this already an absurd thing to say for Marx and Engels in the industrializing society of the mid-19th century, it wasn’t even true for the primitive societies of hunter-gatherers. Yes, even hunting or fishing requires specialized skills. Did Marx ever have a real job, any job?

And now, today, in the 21st century? Feeding billions of people by coordinating the actions of billions of individual actors with no relationship to each other? Doubling life expectancy from 40 in Marx’s time to 80 now (and we’re just getting started)? Producing high-tech innovation, highly-specific medical research or years-long investment and complex production involving hundreds of extremely specific, specialized products? Of course not.

I “need” an MRI today, let’s hope someone had the “ability” to invest millions in designing one twenty years ago? I “need” chocolate today, let’s hope someone on the other side of the world had the “ability” to plant cocoa 5 years ago, and someone else had the “ability” to design and operate a cargo ship to get it to me, etc, etc. See Leonard E. Read’s classic: “I, Pencil”. Only global capitalism can achieve that, and even discussing a communist alternative to a free market trading system coordinating the production of billions should be recognized as preposterous by now.

Communism has no redeeming qualities

Whether it’s called socialism or communism, whether it’s voluntary or not, it’s a fraud on multiple levels. There is no need to give those ideologies credit for anything when criticizing their deadly consequences. They should instead be rejected entirely and definitely thrown in the dustbin of history.

¹ The full text by Marx:

In einer höheren Phase der kommunistischen Gesellschaft, nachdem die knechtende Unterordnung der Individuen unter die Teilung der Arbeit, damit auch der Gegensatz geistiger und körperlicher Arbeit verschwunden ist; nachdem die Arbeit nicht nur Mittel zum Leben, sondern selbst das erste Lebensbedürfnis geworden; nachdem mit der allseitigen Entwicklung der Individuen auch ihre Produktivkräfte gewachsen und alle Springquellen des genossenschaftlichen Reichtums voller fließen – erst dann kann der enge bürgerliche Rechtshorizont ganz überschritten werden und die Gesellschaft auf ihre Fahne schreiben: Jeder nach seinen Fähigkeiten, jedem nach seinen Bedürfnissen!

[ In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life’s prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly – only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs! ]

– Karl Marx, Kritik des Gothaer Programms, Randglossen zum Programm der deutschen Arbeiterpartei [Critique of the Gotha Programme]

² “Oh no! I burned the soufflé again!”. The death toll of communism is by now beyond dispute, and on a scale beyond comprehension. See for instance R.J. Rummel, “How Many Did Communist Regimes Murder?”, and of course The Black Book of Communism (Le Livre noir du communisme).

³ And anarcho-communists strive to achieve the communist utopia (or dystopia) but without the intermediate step of a statist, socialist dictatorship.

⁴ Socialism solves none of the accusations against capitalism, not even the exploitation or inegalitarianism:

Le capitalisme, c’est l’exploitation de l’homme par l’homme. Le syndicalisme, c’est le contraire !

[ Capitalism is the exploitation of man by man. Syndicalism is the opposite! ]

– Coluche

In fact the inegalitarianism, one of power and money instead of only money, was arguably much worse:

While the province had basic subsistence problems, Moscow was supplied lavishly. As a result, much of the country went to shop to Moscow, from hundreds or thousands of kilometres away on the so called “sausage trains” … Sausage trains demonstrate that the key aspect of the “centrally planned economy” is the word “central”. Centrally planned USSR was a hierarchical society of extreme inequality. It was your assigned status rather than cash that determined if you’re allowed to buy food or not.

– Kamil Galeev, “Die Fürstenstadt”

There are many more examples, in basically every socialist society, of extreme exploitation and wealth inequality, made worse by power inequality, lack of political freedom, no exit options, or even no legal rights whatsoever: Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, etc., etc. At some point, everyone was probably aware of the whole thing being a fraud, both the leaders and their victims.

⁵ Czech economist Ota Šik compared the real 1968 prices (in terms of real purchasing power based on hours of work needed) to purchase some basic goods such as radios or TVs, socialist Czechoslovakia vs capitalist West Germany, acknowledging the huge difference in quality of life for the average worker. For an even more stunning example, compare what kind of car an average worker could get in East Germany vs the United States, at the same time: Trabant or Corvette, what do you prefer, comrade?

The Trabant Was an Awful Car Made by Communists: In 1985, a Trabant (produced until 1990) cost roughly one year of an average salary — and was available only after a waiting list of 10–15 years.

For the same annual average wage, an American worker could buy a Corvette C4 (see U.S. Census data from the period and the purchasing power of the East German mark)).

Put another way, using approximate black-market exchange rates of the time:

• An average American worker exploited by evil capitalism could theoretically afford 50–100 Trabants for one year’s salary;
• An average happily egalitarian East German worker would have needed 50–100 years of salary to buy a Corvette, were he permitted to import it and were he or she lucky enough to live that long.

⁶ Attempting “socialism with a human face” was met with a military invasion and subsequent occupation until the Velvet Revolution, but these two comics mocked communism and survived:

Toho dne totiž v naší čtvrti otevřeli samoobsluhu. Otec nevěřil svým očím. Viděl bohatství v přihrádkách, rozměrné ošatky a žádný pult. „Bude všeho hojnost, otvírá se ráj,“ volal otec, „můj bratr Josef, sezónní dělník, dobral se komunismu!“ a velebě bratra a jeho bratry přikvačil domů. Za jediné odpoledne rozprodal všechen majetek. „Kolik jsme stržili?“ ptala se matka, když se večer vrátila z haldy, kde přebírala uhlí, vidouc prázdný byt. „Neboj se, máš muže chytráka,“ řekl otec a pyšně ukázal 16,20. Maminka začala plakat. „Neplač, družko moje,“ konejšil ji otec, „není nám třeba peněz. Vlast je již bohatá. Sezónní dělník i sezónní úředník se přičinili. Samoobsluhu nám postavili. Stoleček se prostřel.“ Ještě dlouho hovořil otec o ráji, a ač sám nikdy nedal se přemluviti k práci, nyní velebil dělný lid, symbolicky líbal jeho mozoly a trousil slzy dojetí. Pak nás zavedl na zaslíbené místo. Rozdal košíčky, přívětivě pozdravil anděla v bílém plášti a polaskal ho po pleci se slovy: „Správně, každému podle jeho potřeb!“ Pak nás vybídl, abychom své košíčky naplnili zbožím. Sám pak začal regály probírat od kraje. Vida cenovky, na chvíli se zarazil, ale pak se obrátil se širokým úsměvem na bílého anděla a slavnostně prohlásil: „Ano, je dobré připomenout staré časy, soudruhu,“ a vložil do košíčku martell. Maminka zatím zlikvidovala regál s masem. Po chvíli byly veškeré košíky v ráji plné. Tu na nás děti otec zakřičel, abychom přinesly káru. Bílý anděl zbrunátněl a zeptal se hlasitě otce, jestli se zbláznil, nebo zda se nám narodil kluk čipera zvaný Otesánek. Otec, který právě krtkovitými pohyby rozrýval pytle s moukou, se napřímil a trochu nervózně opáčil: „Jsem člověk potřebný? Jsem. A ty hleď raději krámek znovu naplnit. Přijdu zas.“ Bílý anděl se usmál. „Když máte čím platit…“ „Kdo mluvil o penězích,“ rozzlobil se otec, „ty doby, které nám zde nechal kapitalista jako ponuré dědictví, jsou již tytam. A není vhodné, že o tom žertuješ.“

[ That day they opened a convenience store in our neighborhood. Father couldn’t believe his eyes. He saw the riches in the compartments, the big racks, and no counter. “There will be an abundance of everything, paradise is opening,” called the father, “my brother Josef, the seasonal worker, has achieved communism!” and, praising his brother and his brothers, hurried home. In a single afternoon, he sold off all our possessions. “How much did we get?” asked the mother when she returned from the mine where she was collecting coal in the evening, seeing an empty apartment. “Don’t worry, you have a smart man,” said the father, proudly pointing to 16.20 crowns. Mom started crying. “Don’t cry, companion of mine,” father comforted her, “we don’t need money. The homeland is already rich. Both the seasonal worker and the seasonal clerk were involved. They built a self-service for us. The table set itself.” For a long time, my father talked about paradise, and although he himself never allowed himself to be persuaded to work, he now praised the working people, symbolically kissed their calluses and shed tears of emotion. Then he led us to the promised place. He handed out the baskets, greeted the white-robed angel amiably and patted him on the shoulder, saying, “Right, to each according to his needs!” Then he invited us to fill our baskets with goods. He then began to sort through the shelves himself. Seeing the price tags, he was taken aback for a moment, but then he turned to the white angel with a big smile and solemnly declared, “Yes, it’s good to remember the old days, comrade,” and placed the bottle of Martell in the basket. Mom had disposed of the meat shelf so far. After a while all the baskets in paradise were full. Here the father shouted at us children to bring the cart. The white angel blushed and asked our father loudly if he was crazy or if we had a chipper boy called Otesánek. The father, who was tearing open the sacks of flour with mole-like movements, straightened up and replied a little nervously: “Am I a needy person? Yes I am. And you better fill the shop again. I shall come again.” The white angel smiled. “If you have enough to pay for it…” “Who is talking about money,” the father fumed, “the times that the capitalist left us here as a grim legacy of the past are gone now. And it’s not appropriate for you to joke about it.” ]

– Miloslav Šimek, Jiří Grossmann, “Jak mne otec vedl k šetrnosti” (stand-up comedy, Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, 1960s-1970s)

Liberalism … is concerned mainly with limiting the coercive powers of all government, whether democratic or not

— Friedrich Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty (emphasis added)

La democracia responde a esta pregunta: ¿Quién debe ejercer el poder público? La respuesta es: el ejercicio del Poder público corresponde a la colectividad de los ciudadanos.

Pero en esa pregunta no se habla de qué extensión deba tener el Poder público. Se trata sólo de determinar el sujeto a quien el mando compete. La democracia propone que mandemos todos; es decir, que todos intervengamos soberanamente en los hechos sociales.

El liberalismo, en cambio, responde a esta otra pregunta: ejerza quienquiera el Poder público, ¿cuáles deben ser los límites de éste? La respuesta suena así: el Poder público, ejérzalo un autócrata o el pueblo, no puede ser absoluto, sino que las personas tienen derechos previos a toda injerencia del Estado. Es, pues, la tendencia a limitar la intervención del Poder público.

[ Democracy answers this question: Who should exercise public power? The answer is: the exercise of public power corresponds to the community of citizens.

But in that question there is no mention of what extension the public power should have. It is only a matter of determining the subject to whom the command belongs. Democracy proposes that we all rule; that is, that we all intervene sovereignly in social events.

Liberalism, on the other hand, answers a different question: whoever exercises public power, what should be its limits? The liberal answer is: public power, whether exercised by an autocrat or by the people, cannot be absolute, rather people have rights previous to any interference by the State. Liberalism is, therefore, the tendency to limit the intervention of Government power.]

— José Ortega y Gasset, “Ideas de los castillos: liberalismo y democracia”, Obras completas, Tomo II, El Espectador, 1916-1934 (emphasis added)

Not so for Hans-Hermann Hoppe.

Sunset Towns and Clan Structures

Hoppe’s ideal government is some sort of... anarcho-feudalism?

Hoppe doesn’t understand the civilizational importance of the City, embracing the rural world instead – and embracing the authoritarian rule of a pater familias:

However, even if all of this does not give much hope for the future, all is not lost. There still remain some pockets of civilization and culture. Not in the cities and metropolitan areas, but in the heartland (country-side). In order to preserve these, several requirements must be fulfilled: The state—a judicial—monopoly must be recognized as the source of decivilization: states do not create law and order, they destroy it. Families and households must be recognized as the source of civilization. It is essential that the heads of families and households reassert their ultimate authority as judge in all internal family affairs. (Households must be declared extraterritorial territory, like foreign embassies.) Voluntary spatial segregation, and discrimination, must be recognized as not bad but good things that facilitate peaceful cooperation between different ethnic and racial groups. Welfare must be recognized as a matter exclusively of families and voluntary charity, and state welfare as nothing but the subsidization of irresponsibility.

– Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Democracy: The God That Failed, p. 185

as well as “traditional, hierarchical clan and tribe structures”:

DAILY BELL: It has been suggested that the only way to reorganize society is via a return to the clans and tribes that characterized Homo sapiens communities for tens of thousands of years. Is it possible that as part of this devolution, clan or tribal justice could be reemphasized?

HOPPE: I don’t think that we, in the Western world, can go back to clans and tribes. The modern, democratic state has destroyed clans and tribes and their hierarchical structures, because they stood in the way of the state’s drive toward absolute power. With clans and tribes gone, we must try it with the model of a private law-society that I have described. But wherever traditional, hierarchical clan and tribe structures still exist, they should be supported; and attempts to “modernize” “archaic” justice systems along Western lines should be viewed with utmost suspicion.

– “The [ Sick ] Mind of Hans-Hermann Hoppe” interview

“Voluntary spatial segregation, and discrimination” is especially important for him, to take the form of racist, homophobic “covenant communities”:

As soon as mature members of society habitually express acceptance or even advocate egalitarian sentiments, whether in the form of democracy (majority rule) or of communism, it becomes essential that other members, and in particular the natural social elites, be prepared to act decisively and, in the case of continued nonconformity, exclude and ultimately expel these members from society. In a covenant concluded among proprietor and community tenants for the purpose of protecting their private property, no such thing as a right to free (unlimited) speech exists, not even to unlimited speech on one’s own tenant-property. One may say innumerable things and promote almost any idea under the sun, but naturally no one is permitted to advocate ideas contrary to the very purpose of the covenant of preserving and protecting private property, such as democracy and communism. There can be no tolerance toward democrats and communists in a libertarian social order. They will have to be physically separated and expelled from society. Likewise, in a covenant founded for the purpose of protecting family and kin, there can be no tolerance toward those habitually promoting lifestyles incompatible with this goal. They—the advocates of alternative, non-family and kin-centered lifestyles such as, for instance, individual hedonism, parasitism, nature-environment worship, homosexuality, or communism—will have to be physically removed from society, too, if one is to maintain a libertarian order.

– Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Democracy: The God That Failed, p. 218

such as Sunset Towns:

In distinct contrast, a society in which the right to exclusion is fully restored to owners of private property would be profoundly unegalitarian, intolerant, and discriminatory. There would be little or no “tolerance” and “open-mindedness” so dear to left-libertarians. Instead, one would be on the right path toward restoring the freedom of association and exclusion implied in the institution of private property, if only towns and villages could and would do what they did as a matter of course until well into the nineteenth century in Europe and the United States. There would be signs regarding entrance requirements to the town, and, once in town, requirements for entering specific pieces of property (for example, no beggars, bums, or homeless, but also no homosexuals, drug users, Jews, Moslems, Germans, or Zulus), and those who did not meet these entrance requirements would be kicked out as trespassers. Almost instantly, cultural and moral normalcy would reassert itself.

– Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Democracy: The God That Failed, p. 211

And yes, for Hoppe, discrimination is not just something that should be tolerated in a libertarian legal order, that could happen on a limited scale (as any libertarian would agree); no, it’s something essential, it’s something that should be actively, obsessively pursued:

Moreover, true conservative libertarians—in contrast to left-libertarians—must not only recognize and emphasize the fact that there will be a sharp increase in discrimination (exclusion, expulsion) in a libertarian society wherein private property rights are fully restored to the owners of private households and estates; more importantly, they will have to recognize—and conservatives and conservative insights can be helpful in achieving this—that this ought to be so: that is, that there should be strict discrimination if one wants to reach the goal of a private property anarchy (or a pure private law society). Without continued and relentless discrimination, a libertarian society would quickly erode and degenerate into welfare state socialism. Every social order, including a libertarian or conservative one, requires a self-enforcement mechanism. More precisely, social orders (unlike mechanical or biological systems) are not maintained automatically; they require conscious effort and purposeful action on the part of the members of society to prevent them from disintegrating.

– Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Democracy: The God That Failed, p. 213, emphasis original

Needless to say, a local clan ruler “physically removing” you from town based on racial criteria is not a libertarian utopia model.

All-powerful tsar

But it gets even worse with Hoppe’s “second-best” proposals – just as illogical as Hoppe’s calls for the state to restrict immigration¹.

“There can be no tolerance toward democrats and communists in a libertarian social order.” But tolerance towards fascists² and monarchists is fine?

Indeed, Hoppe’s second choice is monarchy:

If one must have a state, defined as an agency that exercises a compulsory territorial monopoly of ultimate decisionmaking (jurisdiction) and of taxation, then it is economically and ethically advantageous to choose monarchy over democracy.

– Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Democracy: The God That Failed, “Introduction”, p. xx.

But to fit his model of “privately-owned government”,

In short, monarchical government is reconstructed theoretically as privately-owned government, which in turn is explained as promoting future-orientedness and a concern for capital values and economic calculation by the government ruler.

– Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Democracy: The God That Failed, “Introduction”, p. xix.

not just any limited or constitutional monarchy will do; in direct opposition to classical liberalism...

In view of what I shall say later on in favor of the institution of monarchy, Mises’s liberal opposition to the ancien régime of absolute kings and princes is worth noting here.

– Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Democracy: The God That Failed, p. 78

... it has to be an absolute monarchy, where the ruler has absolute power and is considered the absolute owner of everything – in stark contrast to centuries of efforts by liberals to emphasize the exact opposite, such as Juan de Mariana: “In Regis arbitrio non esse privata civium bona. Non ergo aut universa aut partem decerpet nisi ex eorum voluntate, quorum in iure sunt.”:

present-day “monarchies” such as Great Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, or Spain are clearly monarchies in name only. In fact, they represent examples of what is here and in the following referred to as democracies. The term “monarchy,” as here defined, applies instead most appropriately to the form of government that characterized Europe through the end of the eighteenth century: the ancien régime

– Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Democracy: The God That Failed, p. 18

In other words, not just monarchy but “patrimonialism” or “sultanism”, in particular, tsarism. The best example of which being... tsarist Russia³.

Is it “economically and ethically advantageous” to choose North Korea over South Korea, or Tsarist Russia over the Swiss Confederation? Should a Swiss, American or South Korean libertarian move to North Korea or Russia⁴, or campaign for Switzerland or the USA to change to a monarchy⁵? Obviously not – at least for libertarians.

This article is part of our Contra Hoppe series.

Footnotes

¹ With or without a state, Hoppe pushes for his white supremacist preferences:

What should one advocate as the relatively correct immigration policy, however, as long as the democratic central state is still in place and successfully arrogates the power to determine a uniform national immigration policy? The best one may hope for, even if it goes against the “nature” of a democracy and thus is not very likely to happen, is that the democratic rulers act as if they were the personal owners of the country and as if they had to decide who to include and who to exclude from their own personal property (into their very own houses). This means following a policy of the strictest discrimination in favor of the human qualities of skill, character, and cultural compatibility … with the predictable result of a systematic pro-European immigration bias.

– Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Democracy: The God That Failed, p. 148-149

Notice the “not very likely to happen” too, which makes Hoppe’s opinions on this, by his own admission, completely irrelevant (see Jan Krepelka, “A Pure Libertarian Theory of Immigration”), just as the supposed theoretical superiority of monarchy over democracy (which he merely proclaims “ceteris paribus” and refuses to consider empirical disprovements of, see Hans-Hermann Hoppe, “On Theory and History. Reply to Benegas-Lynch, Jr.”) has absolutely no actual practical implications whatsoever for libertarians.

None of this, indeed, makes any sense from a libertarian perspective. Hoppe’s strange mix of ideas (anti-immigration, anarcho-feudalism, monarchy as a second best, praise for the alt-right, surrender to authoritarian regimes, German/American nationalism, etc.) make no sense on their own, and especially not when put together – from a libertarian perspective.

On the other hand, it all fits much better if we recognize Hoppe as a proponent of a completely different, illiberal, ideological family, who’s merely engaging in pathetic mental gymnastics in order to try to sell his anti-libertarian ideas as libertarian.

Hoppe’s actual goals and values:

America was –and should be– a white-European-Christian-male dominated civilization

– Hans-Hermann Hoppe, “From Nation to Household”

To protect and restore a national American identity, the present egalitarian and cultural ’non-discriminatory’ immigration policy, which has transformed some parts of the U.S. into tax - Middle American - funded foreign lands occupied and spoiled by human refuse from around the globe, would have to be ended at once. All illegal immigration, in particular across the Mexican border, would have to be made physically impossible.

– Hans-Hermann Hoppe, “From Nation to Household”

² Hoppe tries to distinguish between monarchy and dictatorship (see quotes in next note), however still seems to prefer a dictatorship to a democracy:

Cases can be easily cited where dictatorships were preferable and an improvement. Think of Italy and Mussolini or Spain and Franco.

– Hans-Hermann Hoppe, “The Paradox of Imperialism”

³ Hoppe mentions tsarist Russia as an example of what he means by “monarchy”, several times:

In distinct contrast to Kaiser Germany or Czarist Russia, Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Russia were decidedly democratic republics.

– Hans-Hermann Hoppe,“On Theory and History. Reply to Benegas-Lynch, Jr.”

Just think of Lenin or Stalin, who were certainly more democratic than Czar Nicholas II; or think of Hitler, who was definitely more democratic and a “man of the people” than Kaiser Wilhelm II or Kaiser Franz Joseph.

– Hans-Hermann Hoppe, “The Paradox of Imperialism”

Note that to a large degree Russia follows the same tsarist model up to this day:

In this respect Russian state didn’t change much since 1654. As Putin’s deputy Kirienko told in 2017, “Russian state is not based on treaties”. Treaty is a restraint on the Tsar’s power, a condition he abides to commit. That’s a dishonour and he breaks treaty at the first chance

– Kamil Galeev

They view integrity as blasphemy to the idea of an all-powerful Czar.

– Roman Skaskiw

92.4% of the land is state-owned in Russia, in contrast to the USA: “Sixty percent is privately owned, 29 percent is owned by the Federal Government, 9 percent is owned by State and local governments, and 2 percent is in Indian reservations”.

The ruler is sometimes referred to as tsar, de facto rules for life or until he chooses a successor, and appropriates immense wealth.

RFE/RL: Let’s move on to the person who, at least in this century, is most commonly associated with the word tsar. Has Vladimir Putin become a tsar in everything but word? An absolutist monarch?

Zorin: Yes, most definitely, yes. And I would say that, more or less, for the first 20 years of his reign, he proved himself to be the true tsar. I’m not saying this as a compliment. I was never mildly his fan, never voted for him, and so on and so forth…. But yes, he managed to prove that he is the true tsar by winning the Second Chechen War after they lost the first one.

– “Interview: Is Putin A Modern-Day Tsar?”

Unrelated, see also: “Hoppe, Putin-Versteher”.

Another good example of “Hoppean Monarchy” is Belgian Congo, see Jacek Sierpiński, “A Critique of Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s Thesis on Lesser Harmfulness of Monarchy than Democracy”.

⁴ Lew Rockwell, on whose website Hoppe publishes his articles, does in fact also publish articles from dubious Russian websites telling his readers to move there…

⁵ No, this is not a straw man:

What if Clinton were to become hereditary king of the U.S.; wouldn’t this make matters worse than they are now with him as president? The answer is a decisive No.

– Hans-Hermann Hoppe,“On Theory and History. Reply to Benegas-Lynch, Jr.” (published in 1997, when Bill Clinton was president; presumably, the same argument could now be applied to Joe Biden)

Today, one of the most popular theories of history is that of Karl Marx, the 19th-century thinker who inspired the Russian Revolution and Soviet Union, among many other socialist movements, and whose ideas remain popular in Western academia. Is the Marxist theory of history “essentially correct”? Yes, according to Hans-Hermann Hoppe. Hoppe studied under Marxist intellectual Jurgen Habermas in his native Germany, before discovering Austrian economics. Hoppe is quite influential amongst many who consider themselves hardcore members of the “paleo-conservative” or “paleo-libertarian” movement.

Marxism is based upon the labor theory of value, but that theory was widely discredited by economists in the late 19th century, and replaced by marginal utility theory instead. Thus, Hoppe doesn’t defend the labor theory of value, of course, but says that Marxism is still right about what he calls the “hard core of the Marxist theory of history.” To summarize:

1. History consists of a struggle between ruling and oppressed classes, in which the rulers economically exploit the oppressed;
2. The ruling class acts as a unified group in its class interest;
3. Ruling class competition centralizes and concentrates State power;
4. Ruling classes thus tend towards world domination and economic stagnation, until the oppressed finally achieve class consciousness and act in their own class interest by overthrowing their rulers in violent revolution¹.

What Hoppe means by “ruling class” differs from Marxism, whose class theory is based on the social distribution of economic inputs. For Marxism, those with capital are “capitalists,” those who only have labor are “workers,” etc. Instead, he implicitly adopts classical liberal class theory based on whether wealth is acquired coercively or not². The ruling class gets its wealth by force and/or fraud from the oppressed, who get their wealth by non-violent, non-fraudulent economic activity. This is unlikely to be persuasive to those who adhere to Marxist definitions of “class” or “coercion.” However, it may be valid to analyze society by means of the classical liberal definition of “rulers” and “the oppressed,” as Weberian ideal types, to the extent that they approximate reality. In reality, of course, individuals may get their wealth by a mixture of these methods, both coercive and non-coercive, and determining which of these methods is predominant may vary greatly from person to person.

One major problem shared by both Hoppe’s and Marx’s account of the ruling class is that they both have it acting as a unified group, in its class interest, instead of in the self-interest of each of its individual members. Each individual member of the ruling class has both his own self-interest, and his class interest, and supposedly acts in the latter, not the former. As Ludwig von Mises, the great Austrian economist, said:

What has to be shown is how the individuals are induced to act in such a way… Marx answers that consciousness of the interests of their class determines the conduct of the individuals. It still remains to be explained why the individuals give the interests of their class preference over their own interests. We may for the moment refrain from asking how the individual learns what the genuine interests of his class are. But even Marx cannot help admitting that a conflict exists between the interests of an individual and those of the class to which he belongs.³

Both Marx and Hoppe assume that members of the ruling class have a class interest, know what it is, and act according to it. In practice, however, there are plenty of disagreements between members of ruling classes about what is in their class interest, and a mixture of rewards and punishments are always in effect to prevent defection by dissenters so that ruling class members do not act in their own self-interest instead. Or, as is often the case, the rulers at the top of the hierarchy may be acting only in their own self-interest, getting the rest of the ruling class to go along with them in various coercive ways. E.g., ruling class members or their families may be locked up, killed, tortured, taken hostage, they may be banned from engaging in non-coercive economic activity (or given monopolies over it), they may be required to perform service for the ruler, they may be given land, money, or titles, it may be illegal for them to criticize or oppose their rulers, etc. Such measures would not be required if ruling classes tended to act in their own class interest instead of their self-interest, but history is littered with so many examples of such measures that they are the rule, not the exception.

The reason for these measures is that belonging to a ruling class is a private good, but doing anything to establish or maintain a ruling class is a public good. Any member of the ruling class gets the benefits of membership, regardless of whether they do anything to establish or maintain it or not. This is the well-known “free-rider” problem in economics. History is full of examples of how actually-existing ruling classes solve this problem, either by excluding some from ruling class membership, or by granting higher or lower statuses to those within the ruling class. Traditional aristocracies have all sorts of titles of rank such as lords, earls, dukes, barons, knights, princes, monarchs, emperors, etc., to the point where it is difficult to remember which are higher and lower than the others, and each member of the ruling class may hold more than one such title. Bureaucracies and military chains of command have similar systems. These ranks have often meant different levels of wealth, income, and even different legal privileges and immunities enjoyed by those within each ruling class. This would be completely unnecessary if members of ruling classes actually acted in their class interest instead of their own self-interest. A more fruitful way to analyze ruling classes would be to assume that all of its members act in their own self-interest, then see how that might lead them to act as a group, how much, and what effect that has on society. The economic school of thought known as Public Choice Theory tries to do that, but Hoppe is completely dismissive of that school of thought, without even attempting that sort of analysis.

Next, Hoppe simply asserts without evidence that ruling class competition leads to the centralization and concentration of power. First of all, the very fact that such competition exists is yet more proof that ruling classes do not act in their class interest as a united front. History is full of examples of internal competition within ruling classes (e.g., civil wars), as well as external competition between different ruling classes (e.g., international wars). Secondly, why should we assume that the effect of such competition upon the power of the ruling class only goes in one direction? Why would it never go in the opposite direction, that of the decentralization and de-concentration of power? While it’s possible that ruling class competition would only have this one-way effect, it’s equally possible in theory that it could go in the opposite direction at least some of the time. Additionally, even if the effect is only one-way, it may not proceed at the same pace or in the same ways in different societies, and Hoppe provides no way to tell how fast it might be, how far it might go, nor what forms this centralization and concentration of power might take.

While some such competition certainly has resulted in centralization and concentration of power, some of it has also gone in the opposite direction. When centralization and concentration of power has taken place, it has been faster and gone further in some societies, while being slower and going less far in others. And the forms of centralization and concentration of power have varied, as well. E.g., in political science, distinctions have been made between different “paths of State-formation,” the “Continental,” the “Constitutional,” and the “Coalitional” paths. The Continental path is the one that most closely fits Hoppe’s account, but it still deviates significantly from it:

The first rudiments of modern government originated in the course of the fifteenth century in a littoral triangle of the North Atlantic encompassing contemporary France, Spain, and England. A series of wars both within and among the three countries provided the catalyst for the emergence of the earliest state structures. In France, the centralizing effect of the Hundred Years’ War favored the monarchy over regional power centers; it also gave rise to the first standing army in Europe, which subsequently enabled Louis XI to triumph over his aristocratic rivals. In England, the Wars of the Roses reduced the authority and depleted the resources of the nobility, enabling Henry VII to fill the resulting power vacuum to his advantage. In Spain, civil wars devastated Castile and Aragon prior to the joint accession of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile; the resultant anarchy facilitated centralization by the strong-willed couple. The subsequent conquest of Moorish-ruled Grenada then became the decisive event in the emergency of the Renaissance state in Castile. A century later, Francis Bacon eulogized Henry VII, Louis XI, and Ferdinand of Aragon as the ’three Magi of kings’ of their age. Later historians would refer to them as the New Monarchs. By building up military force and asserting royal authority, they reversed a long-term trend toward political decentralization across Western Europe.

With important variations from country to country, the process by which war stimulated state formation in the Renaissance consisted of five interrelated steps:

1. An internal power struggle between the center and the periphery of a given state;
2. A shift in favor of the center due to developments in military technology and organization that increased the cost and administrative complexity of waging warfare;
3. A revolution in taxation, as the rising fiscal demands of warfare, both internal and external, caused governments to make intensified efforts at revenue extraction;
4. The rise of central bureaucracies in response to the fiscal and administrative challenges of warfare;
5. A feedback cycle in which the increasing fiscal and bureaucratic power of states enabled them to field larger and more powerful armies, which meant larger and more destructive wars, which drove the whole process in a circular spiral upward.⁴

The Continental path thus differs from Hoppe’s theory in several significant ways:

1. It reversed a pre-existing trend away from centralization, which is completely missing from Hoppe’s account. Per Hoppe, we should expect to see nothing but rival empires throughout history, each claiming as much territory as they possibly can, and ruling it all from one power center such as ancient Rome, Egypt, Persia, China, etc. Events like the collapse of the Roman Empire are completely unexplained by Hoppe.
2. Technological changes that raise the cost of warfare are another factor influencing centralization of power which Hoppe misses, but this is a well-known factor influencing the distribution of political power at least as far back as ancient Greece, as seen in Aristotle’s Politics. If the most effective weapons technology is cheap and easy to use, then political power gets distributed widely, as with firearms in modern Europe and America. If the most effective weapons are expensive and difficult to use, then political power gets highly concentrated and reserved to those who can afford them as well as professional experts in using them, as with heavy armored cavalry in the Middle Ages, or artillery in more recent European history, as indicated by the French kings who had their cannons inscribed with the Latin motto: “Ultima Ratio Regis” - the “Final Argument of Kings.”
3. Centralization and concentration of power requires ongoing wars, which lead rulers to continue the process of military escalation, requiring them to raise more taxes, mobilize more people, buy more supplies and weapons, hire more bureaucrats, etc. The possibility of a stable equilibrium in which a ruling class has reached the limits of what its “ecosystem” can support, then ceased to expand to a point of unsustainability, is also missing from Hoppe’s account. However, history is full of empires which have lasted hundreds or thousands of years such as China, Egypt, Rome, etc. Even when those empires have fallen either to external conquest or civil war, they have often reconstituted themselves soon after, with so much continuity as to be readily identifiable as being the same empire under a different ruling dynasty. If Hoppe’s theory that ruling class competition can only result in centralization and concentration of state power were true, then we would not see such long-lived “universal empires” in history. Or, at least, Hoppe provides no explanation for their longevity and stability.

Another path of state-formation, the “Constitutional path,” is even more different from Hoppe’s theory:

…England diverged in several critical points from the continental path of state formation. It pursued instead what we will call the constitutional path, in which the bureaucratic and centralizing effects of war were muted, and no revolution in taxation occurred. One reason for this was the existence of a well-established middle class with which the English monarchs could ally in their efforts to counter the landed power of the nobility. Middle-class representation in the Commons meant that the constitutional arrangement of the medieval era actually facilitated monarchical efforts to counter this landed power–hence the Crown had no incentive to crush the Estates. … The second factor that preserved constitutional government in England was its insular isolation. Secure behind the Channel, England had no engine of constant war to drive the process of centralization and state formation⁵.

This brings up yet another historical factor missing from Hoppe’s theory: Geographic barriers such as the English Channel, an instance of what has been called “the stopping power of water”⁶. Geographic barriers that raise the cost of offense and lower the cost of defense include rivers, lakes, marshes, deserts, seas, oceans, and mountain ranges. Indeed, such barriers have been included in a theory of primary state-formation, in which they are said to constitute a form of “social circumscription,” which make the cost of leaving territory so high that its inhabitants choose not to flee after being defeated by invaders. This was Robert Carneiro’s improvement upon the classic “conquest” theory of primary State-formation, by Franz Oppenheimer⁷. Throughout history, geographic barriers are the most common borders between territories ruled by different rulers. Since Marxism is a theory of historical materialism, such material factors as geographic barriers (and weapons technology) are remarkably absent from Hoppe’s defense of the Marxist theory of history.

A third path of State formation has also been identified, the “Coalitional path”, typified by Switzerland:

The Swiss Confederation was a unique phenomenon in late medieval and Renaissance Europe. It was the antithesis both of the New Monarchies, where centralizing forces held sway, and its fellow Germanic principalities in the Holy Roman Empire, which were still mired in feudal disarray. The Confederation had neither a central bureaucracy nor a state administration at the national level during the first five hundred years of its existence. Yet it not only fielded effective armies, but displayed an internal cohesion and stability that set it apart from the more transient military leagues of the era. Politically decentralized but socially cohesive, it was a sovereign state without a state apparatus, ’an asylum for republican ideas in the midst of monarchical and feudal Europe.’ The success of its formula is seen in its survival as an independent state to the present day.

The formation of the Swiss confederation and its emergence as an independent state followed a radically different path from that of the Atlantic monarchies. Its path of state development might be termed the coalitional path of state formation. It had five essential elements:

1. The absence of a serious internal power struggle between centralizing and local forces;
2. A war of independence from a larger empire that forged a military alliance between geographically linked provinces;
3. The formation by these provinces of a representative assembly responsible for foreign and military affairs;
4. A decentralized approach to administration, with taxation not centralized but remaining the responsibility of the provinces;
5. The existence of long-term threats to security that molded a sense of national unity and helped maintain the coalition even in peacetime.⁸

The Coalitional path of state formation shows that a long-term invasion threat and the need to remain prepared and united to defend against it can lead to a stable equilibrium of power in which centralization and concentration are low. Such coalitions would include the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), in which each country’s membership is voluntary and can be rescinded unilaterally at any time, the consent of all existing members is required for any new members to join, and which has no independent tax or legislative powers of its own. Unity of NATO membership was maintained by the Soviet threat throughout the Cold War and by the threat of Russian aggression afterwards, as evidenced by the Russian invasions of Moldova, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine, Syria, etc. The current Russian invasion of Ukraine is said by many to have only strengthened NATO’s unity. Thus, absence of war and military preparedness is not the only way to prevent continuous centralization and concentration of power.

Hoppe’s theory does have a mechanism for thwarting centralization and concentration of power, just like Marxism: The development of class consciousness by the oppressed, which then act as a group in its class interest, overthrowing the ruling class in violent revolution. While there certainly have been many examples of violent rebellions, revolutions as well as other forms of both violent and non-violent resistance to oppression, these examples have not fit the theory of class consciousness. Additionally, Hoppe and Marx share the unexplained contradictory assumptions that while the ruling class does act in its class interest, the oppressed do not. The objections to rulers acting in their class interest apply equally to the theory of the oppressed acting in its class interest instead of each individual member of that class acting in his self-interest.

Before going into the details of how the historical examples of resistance to rulers have differed from Hoppe’s account, we need to remember what Hoppe says about it:

The gradual abolition of feudal and absolutist rule and the rise of increasingly capitalist societies in Western Europe and the United States–accompanied by unheard of economic growth and increasing population–was the result of a growing class consciousness among the exploited, who were ideologically molded together through the doctrines of natural rights and liberalism⁹.

In other words, the idea of resistance gets widespread adoption by the oppressed, who then take it upon themselves to start resisting their rulers. In the rise of Western liberalism, this resulted from widespread adoption of the ideology of Western liberalism. This process was a gradual one, resulting in the abolition of absolutism and feudalism. Every part of this description is false. The abolition of absolutism and feudalism were not gradual, and the rise of Western liberalism was not the result of the widespread adoption of the ideology of Western liberalism by the oppressed. Nor did the oppressed act as a unified group in its supposed “class interest” to achieve these goals.

In England, royal absolutism was abolished when king Charles I started the English civil war, and was then overthrown by Parliament and executed for treason against the English people. The English civil war was one of the bloodiest wars in British history on a per-capita basis, not rivaled until the First World War. Then it was followed by the dictatorship of Cromwell, who ruled until his death, only to be replaced by the restoration of the Stuart dynasty under king Charles II. When Charles II died, his successor king James II was widely suspected of secretly conspiring to re-impose Catholicism upon Protestant England, so he was overthrown in the Glorious Revolution, in which William of Orange came over from the Netherlands at the head of a large invasion force, which fortunately didn’t have to fight because James II fled the country. Parliamentary sovereignty was thus established in England instead of absolutism, and England has remained a constitutional monarchy ever since.

This process was not one of gradual reforms, but of violent oscillations between theocrats, “Republican” dictators, Parliamentarians, and constitutional monarchs. Its motives were largely religious (Catholic vs Protestant), nationalistic (English vs Scottish/Irish/French/etc.), and regional (the “Court” and “Country” parties). Lastly, there was no widespread adoption of classical liberal ideology by the oppressed. Rather, splits within the ruling class led to alliances with elements of the lower classes along the aforementioned lines of division, which didn’t strictly follow either Marxist or classical liberal class theory. There was a proto-libertarian ideological movement within Cromwell’s army, the “Levellers,” led by John Lilburne, but they were not the dominant ideological element within even their side of the English Civil War, much less within England as a whole. It wasn’t until after the Glorious Revolution that John Locke wrote and published his classic statement of classical liberal political theory, refuting the defense of absolutism that had been made by Sir Robert Filmer. Even then, Locke’s theory of popular rather than Parliamentary sovereignty was considered dangerously revolutionary for a long time afterwards in Britain, only becoming the basis of the American Declaration of Independence about a century later in British America, not England itself. If anything, classical liberalism was a consequence of the demise of absolutism in England, rather than a cause of it.

Meanwhile, in France both absolutism and the remnants of serfdom were abolished in the French Revolution, which began with widespread support within the ruling class, not just the oppressed. It was also quite violent and sudden, not gradual and peaceful, involving both civil and international war, the rise of Napoleon as emperor, the French invasions of Germany, Italy, Russia, Spain, Egypt, etc., as well as the “Quasi-War” between the French and US navies in the Atlantic. France abolished serfdom in many of the countries it invaded. Slavery was first abolished, then Napoleon attempted to restore it in Haiti as the wildly profitable sugar plantation colony it had once been, only to give up, leading Napoleon to sell the Lousiana Territory to US President Jefferson. While the French Revolution was motivated in part by the classical liberal ideology of “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité,” it was also motivated by anti-clericalism and nationalism. Wars were fought between France and England, and France and America, despite all three of those countries being supposedly motivated by classical liberalism. Napoleon abandoned the attempt to restore slavery in Haiti because the military cost was too high along with all the other wars he was fighting, and he sold the Louisiana Territory to the USA to get the money he needed to keep fighting the rest of his wars, not out of any sense of solidarity with another liberal regime. The Haitian Revolution itself wasn’t animated by the love of classical liberalism by the illiterate slaves who revolted against the evils of slavery–which was indeed evil–and slaughtered their masters, and its result was not a democratic republic, but a dictatorship that lasted for a long time after. Compared to the rest of the Western world, Haiti remains politically and economically backwards to this day.

In Prussia and Russia, serfdom was abolished by the existing monarchs, in “revolutions from above.” In some other countries, it was abolished as a result of peasant rebellions which were sudden and violent, not gradual and peaceful, and came well before the advent of Western liberalism as an ideology. None of these examples fit Hoppe’s description of the oppressed achieving class consciousness by widespread adoption of classical liberalism, then overthrowing their rulers after economic stagnation brought on by ruling class centralization and concentration of power. Analysis of the actual history of how freedom came to be confirms the wisdom of the great classical liberal historian, Lord Acton, who said:

At all times sincere friends of freedom have been rare, and its triumphs have been due to minorities, that have prevailed by associating themselves with auxiliaries whose objects often differed from their own; and this association, which is always dangerous, has been sometimes disastrous, by giving to opponents just ground of opposition, and by kindling dispute over the spoils in the hour of success.¹⁰

As an heir to the classical liberal tradition, Hoppe ought to show greater familiarity with its greatest historical thinkers such as Lord Acton. As Acton rightly said, the true supporters of freedom have always been rare, not whole social classes, and, in order to succeed, they have had to join coalitions with others whose motives have differed from their own.

There is much more that could be said about the rise and fall of freedom in history, and many sub-topics that could be addressed, such as the collapse of the Roman Empire, the separation of Church and State, the demise of slavery, the causes of the Industrial Revolution, the rise and fall of free trade, the emancipation of religious minorities, etc. However, that would be a much greater task, and the primary purpose here is to refute Hoppe’s rehashed Marxist theory of history. In conclusion, to indicate what a proper theory of history would entail, consider what was said by another historian who made an effort in that regard:

Conventional social theory errs in supposing that historical change is caused by changes in basic social, economic, and political conditions alone. There is, in fact, no such thing as social, economic, and political conditions (or forces) alone; they are always part of a context of perception and feeling. Nor are their values, ideas, beliefs – alone; as a social matter, they are always interconnected with ’material interests.’ Power is also an idea; justice is also a force. Neither causes the other, in the physical-science sense of that word.

To understand why a great historical change occurred, one must go beyond the interrelationships between ideas and material conditions to the times and circumstances themselves, not only to recount them but also to show their historical significance, their meaning for the past and the future. Such legal institutions as the corporate character of the city, the alienability of urban property, and the liberties of the citizen are to be understood partly as manifestations of ideas and values and partly as instruments of economic and political power, but they are also to be understood as significant historical events and as parts of significant sequences of historical events. They were not merely ’manifestations’ and ’instruments’; they ’happened’; and knowing when and how they happened, and as part of what larger happenings they happened, helps one to understand why they happened. Indeed, the legal institutions of the Western city cannot be explained satisfactorily in any other way. In addition to the objective materialist ’why’ and the subjective idealist ’why’ there is a historical ’why’–a ’why’ that adds to the outer and inner dimensions of the inquiry both a past and a future dimension.¹¹

This article is part of our Contra Hoppe series.

Footnotes

¹ Hans-Hermann Hoppe, “Marxist and Austrian Class Analysis”, The Journal of Libertarian Studies, Vol IX, No. 2, 1990.

² On classical liberal class theory, see Charles Comte and Charles Dunoyer.

³ Ludwig von Mises, Theory and History, ch. 7.

⁴ Bruce Porter, War and the Rise of the State, pp. 27-28.

⁵ Ibid, p. 39.

⁶ John J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. Mearsheimer gets a great many other things wrong, but is right about this.

⁷ Circumscription theory; Franz Oppenheimer, The State.

⁸ Porter, pp. 50-51.

⁹ Hans-Hermann Hoppe, “Marxist and Austrian Class Analysis”, The Journal of Libertarian Studies, Vol IX, No. 2, 1990.

¹⁰ Lord Acton, “The History of Freedom in Antiquity”, February 26, 1877.

¹¹ Harold J. Berman, Law And Revolution: The Formation of the Western Legal Tradition, p. 403.

Solid pro-invader start with the title: it’s a war on Ukraine, not in the Ukraine. From the outset Hoppe already shows his disrespect for Ukrainians and denial of Ukraine’s sovereignty (Russia’s, of course, is never questioned), a classic among Putinverstehers¹. He continues in the first paragraph by calling Ukrainians “useful idiots” and denying them all agency.

German nationalist Hans-Hermann Hoppe spells Zelenskyy the German way (“Selenskij”, 29 times in the article), as if he’s never read a single article on this topic in English (or in Ukrainian or Russian, for that matter), so let’s use an appropriate German term to describe him: Putinversteher.

German nationalism

German nationalist Hoppe (like in his idiotic speech) is particularly concerned about Germany (“its [US’s] various European vassals and in particular Germany”). Illuminating here is to read for instance the German introduction to his infamous Democracy: The God That Failed:

Das besiegte Deutschland wurde nicht nur besetzt, sondern auch umerzogen. Deutschlands Schulen und Universitaeten, unter nahezu totaler Kontrolle des Staates stehend, und die staatlich lizensierten Massenmedien verkuendeten und verkuenden bis heute die offiziell-offizioese amerikanische Sicht der Geschichte und insbesondere des 20. Jahrhunderts als eines Triumphs des Guten ueber das Boese. Und doch werden nach mehr als fuenfzig Jahren Besatzung und Umerziehung in Deutschland wieder Themen und Sachverhalte oeffentlich eroertert, die nicht oder nur schwerlich in das amerikanische Weltbild passen und darum lange tabuisiert waren (im besiegten Deutschland mehr noch als in den siegreichen USA)

Defeated Germany was not only occupied, but also re-educated. Germany’s schools and universities, below almost total control of the state, and the state-licensed mass media announced and continue to announce the official American view of the world to this day History and especially the 20th century as a triumph of good over the evil. And yet, after more than fifty years of occupation and re-education Germany is again publicly discussing topics and issues that are not or only hardly fit into the American world view and were therefore taboo for a long time (in defeated Germany even more than in the victorious USA)

Add some dog whistles to nazis and Holocaust deniers and remember that Hoppe’s teacher Rothbard literally endorsed the nazis’ excuses for starting World War II (“Hitler was put in the wrong in the eyes of Europe and the world, when he was eminently in the right, and all because the British refused to pursue its goal of rational appeasement quickly and single-mindedly”, “The Cold War, as well as World Wars I and II, has been launched by the Western democracies”) while praising Holocaust deniers for their dedication to “the cause of peace and justice and historical truth”, and that Hoppe’s article is published on a website which publishes Holocaust deniers and articles from Holocaust-denying websites, when not directly promoting articles by neo-nazis.

Hoppe is now walking straight in Rothbard’s disgraceful footsteps: just like Rothbard didn’t directly say he was on Hitler’s side – he was merely blaming World War II on anyone but the fascist genocidal invaders – now we have, for the largest war in Europe since World War II, his successor Hoppe not directly endorsing Putin either, but likewise blaming the invasion of Ukraine on anyone but the fascist genocidal invaders. And just like Rothbard happily embraced Holocaust deniers because acknowledging the Holocaust (and the nazis’ other planned genocides) would have weakened his anti-American, pro-appeasement, pro-nazi narrative, Hoppe today ignores the genocidal actions and intents of the Russian invaders, for the same reasons. Indeed, Hoppe eagerly embraced Rothbard’s grotesque anti-Americanism² – adding a specifically German nationalist resentment on top of it.

Hoppe laments Germany as US-occupied since World War II³. For him that’s something to cry about apparently (“Growing to Understand Contemporary Germany and Weep”), in particular if it involves Jews (!) and “the so-called Holocaust industry” (another dog whistle):

There are hard indicators of this US domination. The constitution of West Germany and now of all of Germany had to be okayed by the occupying forces. Parties, newspapers, media, schoolbooks required a license by the occupiers. There was an implementation of de-Nazification programs and campaigns, a so-called Charakterwaesche, character wash. There was a promotion of a new orthodox history. Victors always write the history.

And this retraining and re-education, de-Nazification, etc. was developed and supervised very often by imported or re-imported Germany emigrees [sic], mostly Jewish, and the introduction of the field of political science that did not exist before; it is a typical American discipline that did not exist previously.

In 1955, that’s the next indicator of American domination, Germany became a NATO member under US leadership, of course. And thus, Germany became enlisted and involved in the Cold War. Beginning also at that time was the European integration, which ended ultimately with the EU and the European Central Bank, with the purpose to control and weaken the defeated Germany as a potential rival economic power.

The promotion of the so-called Holocaust industry and of the uniquely German guilt complex was to cement Germany’s position as eternal paymasters and with any, even the slightest criticism of the official narrative, you would be punished by prison sentences, up to this day. There are plenty of Germans for telling slightly deviating stories to sit in prison.

Notice also that Hoppe’s lamenting of the much needed education about the Holocaust and denazification of a country whose regime had just murdered 6 million Jews (and caused dozens of millions dead overall through their invasions) doesn’t stop Lew Rockwell, on the very same website, from endorsing Putin’s imaginary “denazification” of a country with a Jewish president and the lowest antisemitism in Europe, used, ironically, by a fascist regime as a preposterous pretext for a genocidal invasion, against protests of Jewish Ukrainians, and executed in part by russian-government funded terrorist organizations such as nazi-inspired Wagner, neo-nazi Rusich, etc.

While lamenting the “occupation” of Germany, the prospect of an actual, genocidal, Russian occupation of Ukraine, conversely, does not seem to preoccupy German nationalist Hoppe at all⁴.

Surrendering to evil

Rapes, castrations, deportations, genocide? Nothing to worry about, Ukrainians: It’s merely a different gang ruling over you! Hoppe has absolutely no awareness of what has been going on – or willingly denies reality when it doesn’t fit his preferred bothsidesist narrative:

only one corrupt gang is exchanged for another corrupt gang

Anti-American obsession and paranoia about a hypothetical US “hegemony and world domination” make Hoppe downplay Russia as merely “one of only two major stumbling blocks remaining on the way toward global hegemony”, instead of recognizing it as a regime much, much worse than Ukraine or the US, and a threat not only for other gangs but for everyone. This is also similar to Kremlin propaganda about a “multipolar world order”, as if somehow Russian concentration camps would contribute anything to keeping the wrongs of the US government in check⁵.

And too bad for those born under these regimes – Hoppe won’t even grant them the possibility to choose the oh-so-terrible oppression of the USA or Germany instead.

Not one word, not one single word in Hoppe’s long article/speech about the atrocities of Russian occupation. Atrocious bothsidesism, to put it politely, or maybe spoiled Westerner who thinks the summum of oppression is reached when his taxes go up by a few bucks, German children are taught about the Holocaust, or his government is too “woke” or something. And for the life of him just can’t imagine anything worse than that:

it is difficult to imagine how matters could possibly get worse under foreign rule. An invasion may even bring some benefits or improvements. Who knows?

Hoppe, who was sooo offended by Nazi Germany being occupied by the US, now proclaims he couldn’t care less if liberal democratic Germany were invaded and occupied by someone else.

In Hoppe’s simplistic, childish fantasy world, war bad, but all forms of “peace” are morally equivalent, including genocidal occupation:

With local or regional decision-making, many places in these regions would have peacefully surrendered to Putin’s gang, and thus been spared the ravages of war, rather than being defended by Selenskij [sic] and his gang. One gang-rule would have been replaced by another.

Business as usual cynicism:

the best of outcomes a Ukrainian libertarian could hope for is a widespread public call for peace and a return to normal, to business as usual.

Hoppe even dares ask:

So why not go with Russia?

Maybe he should ask the slaughtered civilians of Bucha, Izyum, etc...

Still others may have fought the invading Putin gang with other weapons and by different means (e.g. peaceful resistance).

Even Rothbard was not that stupid.

Is the Mises Institute’s motto still “Do not give in to evil, but proceed ever more boldly against it”?

Neutrality for thee but not for me

We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.

– Elie Wiesel⁶

In previous articles, Hoppe has argued that states should stay “neutral” if they don’t want to be invaded by other states: The myth of neutrality.

And yet Liberland was invaded last month: who did they “provoke”? Were they not strictly neutral? Finland, conversely, is doing fine after joining NATO: no Russian invasion.

Hoppe’s description of the reasons and events leading to the 2022 full-scale invasion (he doesn’t even mention the 2014 invasion) is pure fantasy – ignorance at best, deliberate Kremlin support at worst. Hoppe writes “the Selenskij [sic] gang has successfully externalized a significant part of the cost of its war”: its war, as if Zelenskyy had any responsibility whatsoever for Russia’s invasions of 2014 and 2022 – planned by Soviet Union nostalgic Putin since at least 2003.

Ukraine (“The Selenskiy [sic] gang”), in particular, is blamed for being invaded for having committed some unspecified “provocations”. Hoppe doesn’t even bother to offer a theory of what constitutes a “provocation” justifying aggression (perhaps because such a theory would be too obviously anti-libertarian?), basically leaving it up to Putin’s whims to decide what is and what isn’t one and thus justifying whatever war of conquest Russia decides to initiate. (The real root “provocation” for Putin is of course the mere existence of an independent, not-Russia-occupied-anymore Ukraine, a non-Russia which Putin considers as an “anti-Russia”.)

And if states are all merely equally bad gangs, why should Russia have a right to a neutral Ukraine next to it, but not Ukraine or Poland a right to a neutral Belarus or Russia? “Neutrality” here means simply “remaining defenseless so that Russia can invade you whenever Russia decides to”. For Hoppe everyone is supposed to be neutral – except Russia, of course (“And this vision, I venture to say, should be that of a neutral Ukraine (or Poland), i.e., of an Eastern European Switzerland, independent, outside of both NATO and the EU, and yet wealthier than any and all of its neighbors.”).

Where is the call for a neutral Russia that would have nothing to fear from NATO? Why is Hoppe not touring Russia asking them to surrender? Why should Russia not be the one refraining from “provoking” anyone? The implication is accepting Kremlin propaganda on all counts: that Russia would never invade anyone (the Kremlin: “Russia has never attacked anyone throughout its history”), and accepting Kremlin propaganda that the USA, conversely, would invade Russia for no reason. This is even worse than bothsidesism or neutrality: Hoppe doesn’t offer any general, consistent, theory of neutral states, he simply supports the imperialist expansion of the Russian side: by asking Russia’s victims (countries previously occupied by Russia) to be disunited against Russia’s invasions, to submit to every Russian demand, and to immediately surrender whenever Russia invades them⁷.

Hoppe also claims libertarians should stay “neutral”:

As a libertarian living and locked up in Selenskij-gang [sic] land, then, and faced with an invading Putin gang that has in store for you another collective security deal, you try to stay equidistant from both parties, you avoid provoking either side and you listen and are always open to talks with both sides.

Once again, Hoppe’s ignorance (at best) completely sidesteps the genocidal intents and actions of the Russian invaders.

Hoppe himself, of course, is not neutral here (and not libertarian, either): by asking only one side to surrender, by putting the blame on the victim and not the aggressor, and by taking the genocidal invader’s side by pushing their narrative – just like Rothbard pushed Hitler’s, Stalin’s, etc.

He [a Ukrainian libertarian] should draw inspiration from and align himself to voices that call for immediate peace-talks with the Putin-gang (and in particular also with Putin himself) .. he should seriously consider even the possibility of regional surrender as a viable path to peace. There may be regions whose inhabitants do not care whether they are ruled by the Putin or the Selenskij [sic] gang, or who even prefer the Putin gang, and who are willing to peacefully surrender in order to be spared the ravages of war. Why not? Must we wage war against such people, as traitors or Russian collaborators? As a libertarian, I fail to see why.

Of course.

Warmongering and support for conquest

the greatest harm done to the Ukrainian people, in terms of death and destruction, is the result of the all-inclusive support coming from the US-American gang, the world’s most powerful gang of all. Without this support, the Selenskij gang and the rival neighboring Putin gang would have long ago reached an armistice or come to some compromise-peace, which could have saved many lives and much real estate.

No, the “support coming from the US-American gang” saves lives every day.

Regarding “armistice”:

“Ceasefire”. A ceasefire, truce, or armistice rarely ends the conflict for good unless both sides are worn out, and mutually agree that neither can win and the war is thus regrettable—a rare phenomenon in military history. More often, ceasefires are mere breathers for one or both sides to frantically resupply and rearm for rounds two, three, four… Ultimately, wars—even those that last decades—end when one side loses and the other wins (often most clearly via ‘unconditional’ surrender), or both suffer such calamitous losses that each believes victory is unachievable and will in the future continue to be so. Unless the antithetical political agendas that lead to war are resolved, then breathers and truces and time-outs eventually ensure lengthy or multiple wars. Victory leading to the loser’s abandonment of political agendas more often leads to lasting peace.

– Victor Davis Hanson

It is no coincidence that Russia has been pushing for a cease-fire through its “peace” stooges, ever since it annexed parts of Ukraine and started losing territory instead of gaining it: to fortify their position, rebuild their forces, and attack again later.

Whether one views some or all states as generally benevolent, necessary actors or as intrinsically criminal “gangs” is in fact entirely irrelevant for a correct assessment of war and peace. Some gangs are still much worse than others, and being occupied by them is tremendously worse. Some gangs are still clearly the aggressors in some conflicts, and fighting them is legitimate, even for rival gangs. Hoppe’s use of the word “gang” (122 occurences in the article) does not, in fact, “[clear] up immediately” any “mental fog and confusion” – it is completely irrelevant to the issue at hand and is nothing but a pseudo-clever distraction appealing but to the most superficial of “libertarians”, while revealing Hoppe’s own “mental fog and confusion”⁸.

States (“gangs”) have in fact mutually recognized borders, internationally recognized borders, and in particular border treaties – such as the Treaty between Ukraine and the Russian Federation on the Ukrainian-Russian State border, ratified by Putin himself, not to mention the Budapest Memorandum. Putin himself thus recognized Ukraine, including Crimea, as not disputed territory. The borders being clear, peace is generally preserved when states keep their tanks, troops and warplanes on their own side of them⁹.

Justifying territorial conquest through war is the very definition of “warmonger”. Having Ukraine surrender or cede internationally recognized (and previously Putin-recognized!) Ukrainian territory to Putin would not, in fact, “save many lives”. Besides delivering disarmed Ukrainians to Putin’s armies’ rapes, castrations, tortures, deportations, and massacres, it would strenghten the aggressor, weaken Ukraine, and encourage both Russia and other genocidal dictatorships such as China to start new wars. Hoppe’s view here is pure appeasement, cowardice, and shortsightedness, if not outright siding with evil: absolutely contrary to the libertarian concerns for true, long-term peace, justice, and non-aggression.

This article is part of our Contra Hoppe series.

Footnotes

¹ The most caricatural expression of this has probably been by Roger Waters (“I called Putin a gangster – that may have been unfair”):

“The Ukraine” – he’s punctilious about that “The” – “is a deeply divided country. In fact, it’s not really a country at all, it’s only been there since Khrushchev (sic), 1956 (sic). So it’s a patchy sort of vague experiment.”

In Hoppe’s Putinversteher circles, there is also the Ron Paul Institute, calling Ukraine (and never Russia, of course) a “fake nation”. But then again, the Institute’s Executive Director has openly proclaimed:

I’m with Russia. 100%. Let the “libertarians” lose their shit over this: I’m with Putin!

“OMG you admire Putin”!!! Yes no shit! I absolutely admire Putin! Suck on that, NAFO! Putin is right. He actually protects his own national interest as opposed to Biden, who only protects his crackhead son. Putin! Daily Putin!

See also our series “Libertarianism is against aggression”.

² “The facts, by the way, provide us with two rules-of-thumb that work remarkably well in virtually all disputes through modern history: 1. the United States is always wrong (or more wrong); and 2. Great Britain is always wrong.” — Murray N. Rothbard, “Oh, Oh, Oh, What a Lovely War!”, Libertarian Forum, Number 4, May 1982

³ In fact, the USA supported German re-armament, pushed for a strong, reunified Germany, and helped Germany become the biggest economy in Europe. This is in sharp contrast to Russian plans for a occupied Ukraine, of course…

Hoppe seems to be confusing the Marshall Plan with the Morgenthau Plan.

⁴ Likewise, while paranoid about US influence in Germany, Hoppe is completely unaware (at best) about the massive Russian corruption of German politicians from the far-left to the far-right:

• Schröder faces growing scandal over job with Russian gas giant
• Merkel defends 2008 decision to block Ukraine from NATO
• Russia duped Europe into energy dependence by funding ’rabid environmental groups’: experts
• Pekka Kallioniemi, “In today’s #vatniksoup, I’ll introduce a German right-wing and populist political party, Alternative für Deutschland, or AfD (@AfD). The party is best-known for their Euroskeptic and pro-Kremlin politics, and for having strong political and financial ties to the Kremlin.”
• Kremlin-Linked Group Arranged Payments to European Politicians to Support Russia’s Annexation of Crimea
• Für Klage gegen deutsche Waffenlieferungen: AfD-Mitarbeiter warb in Moskau um Geld
• Exclusive: Far-Right German Parliamentary Aide Tasked by Russia with Stopping Leopard Tanks to Ukraine
• Kremlin tries to build antiwar coalition in Germany, documents show
• Putin built a pipeline into German politics
• Germany’s big Russian mole scandal gets worse — and involves America
• German Die Linke delegation visits right-wing terrorists in Eastern Ukraine
• Pro-Putin operatives in Germany work to turn Berlin against Ukraine

⁵ This pro-Russia narrative is embraced more openly by for instance the Director of the British “Libertarian” Alliance (who published the transcript of Hoppe’s anti-libertarian, pro-alt-right speech ): “Russia or the New World Order”, “Therefore, I hope the Russians will win.”

⁶ Rothbard, by the way, mocked Elie Wiesel as “the professional Holocaust survivor”.

⁷ Likewise, Hoppe repeatedly calls for the splitting up of Europe into tiny, indefensible micro-states (while other “libertarians” of Hoppean persuasion call for “national divorce” of the United States), both of which, what a coincidence, would be tremendously in the interests of an aggressive Russia (and such secessionist movements are therefore actively financed by Russia), but no such calls for the deimperialization of the largest “gang” of all, the one whose immense territory is based on genocidal colonialism, the one who’ll send you for years to the gulag merely for proposing it.

⁸ Rothbard, in fact, while consistently applying it wrong, did understand this:

The libertarian, in particular, knows that states, without exception, aggress against their citizens, and knows also that in all wars each state aggresses against innocent civilians “belonging” to the other state.

Now this kind of insight into the root cause of war and aggression, and into the nature of the state itself, is all well and good, and vitally necessary for insight into the world condition. But the trouble is that the libertarian tends to stop there, and evading the responsibility of knowing what is going on in any specific war or international conflict, he tends to leap unjustifiably to the conclusion that, in any war, all states are equally guilty, and then to go about his business without giving the matter a second thought. In short, the libertarian (and the Marxist, and the world-government partisan) tends to dig himself into a comfortable “Third Camp” position, putting equal blame on all sides to any conflict, and letting it go at that. This is a comfortable position to take because it doesn’t really alienate the partisans of either side. Both sides in any war will write this man off as a hopelessly “idealistic” and out-of-it sectarian, a man who is even rather lovable because he simply parrots his “pure” position without informing himself or taking sides on whatever war is raging in the world. In short, both sides will tolerate the sectarian precisely because he is irrelevant, and because his irrelevancy guarantees that he makes no impact on the course of events or on public opinion about these events.

No: Libertarians must come to realize that parroting ultimate principles is not enough for coping with the real world. Just because all sides share in the ultimate state-guilt does not mean that all sides are equally guilty. On the contrary, in virtually every war, one side is far more guilty than the other, and on one side must be pinned the basic responsibility for aggression, for a drive for conquest, etc. But in order to find out which side to any war is the more guilty, we have to inform ourselves in depth about the history of that conflict, and that takes time and thought – and it also takes the ultimate willingness to become relevant by taking sides through pinning a greater degree of guilt on one side or the other.

⁹ Extreme circumstances possibly justifying war in some cases, such as stopping a genocide worse than war, are outside of our scope here: when the genocider happens to also be the invader such as Hitler or Putin, and the invading regime is much worse in terms of recognition of individual rights than the invaded one, the case is morally crystal-clear. (And no, there was no genocide from the Ukrainian side, not to mention the fact that Russia is razing whole cities of the very people they were pretending to protect.)

Hayekian respect for others should be a given for libertarians

First of all, we should emphasize that libertarians are the most guilty of it, as they should be the first to know better:

… the knowledge of the particular circumstances of time and place. It is with respect to this that practically every individual has some advantage over all others because he possesses unique information of which beneficial use might be made, but of which use can be made only if the decisions depending on it are left to him

– Friedrich Hayek, “The Use of Knowledge in Society”

The agency denial approach denies both of Hayek’s points: that the local people know better (through agency denial, they are not even consulted) and that the decisions should be left to them (the agency denialist is willing to decide in their stead, “for their own good”, in a paternalism that again should be alien to any libertarian).

An example of the former:

I have respected and looked up to some of these authors for a long time. I corresponded with several of them. You’d think they’d consider me an asset. I’m Ukrainian and have lived in Ukraine for two years [ ten now ]. I know the people, the culture and the historical context. My libertarian credentials are easily verified. I’ve written for the Mises Institute since 2010, the Daily Anarchist since 2011. I’ve spoken at the Property and Freedom Society and elsewhere. Appealing to them was like speaking to a brick wall. I was either ignored or lectured and scorned for my “blindness.”

– Roman Skaskiw, “Putin’s Libertarians”

An example of the latter:

Noam Chomsky is totally wrong. Our government request heavy weapons. Our civil society leaders request heavy weapons. I personally request heavy weapons. Sorry, we don’t want to die and want to be able to defend ourself. Maybe it’s a surprise for some western intellectuals

– Oleksandra Matviichuk

Libertarians should be the first to know this. Others should understand this too, but libertarians should be the ones teaching them, not the first guilty of ignoring it.

Isolationism is implicitly a form of racism

There’s more. Libertarianism is the only true Humanism: libertarianism is the only philosophy which takes seriously the identity of rights of all agents. Libertarianism is the only true non-collectivism, and, as such, should never fall into collectivist group-thinking traps such as hypostatization (Mises) or racism:

Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism.

– Алиса Зиновьевна Розенбаум aka Ayn Rand

Yet racism is all over the agency denial trope. It’s implicit in every single one of the statements of its proponents: racism, nationalism, collectivism, polylogism (Mises again!), the anti-libertarian idea that borders or citizenships matter, that somehow something that is bad for “us” is good enough for “them”, that somehow “we” should care more about “our” government and “our” countrymen. Again, an extremely unbecoming attitude for libertarians: libertarians should be the first to denounce the arbitrariness of borders and citizenships; stopping one’s (anti-)political concerns at the end of one’s “own” state’s territory is utterly absurd for a libertarian. This is what Rothbard’s French translator, utterly appalled by his “foreign policy” views, described as “the fallacy of borders”:

The fallacy of borders means to believe that the laws of politics are different once the border has been crossed: Whereas he knows better than anyone that if you do not care about politics, that will not prevent politics from dealing with you, the Rothbardian isolationist believes that, on the other side of the border, things change, and there are no aggressors among foreigners:

“if we leave them alone, they will leave us alone”

Anthropology could suffice to dispel this illusion by refuting its racist underlying assumption that non-Westerners have no power of agency and can only react to the initiatives of the West – who, in the anti-white version of this kind of racism, could be the only ones who ever commit aggression.

– François Guillaumat, “Rothbard’s foreign policy errors” (emphasis added)

Even more importantly, according to Said, the “East” was (is) constantly portrayed as an invariably passive subject, unable and unworthy of being an active subject in its own way. Western colonial and post-colonial stereotypes see it as a sleeping, passive entity, subject to the action of a West believed to be the one and only entity worth of the dignity of an active subject.

– Fabio Belafatti, “Orientalism reanimated: colonial thinking in Western analysts’ comments on Ukraine”

Leftists should be careful not to talk to Libyans about Libya, or if they do, to hold their hands over their ears. Because Libyans keep giving the wrong answers concerning Qaddafi’s glorious anti-imperialist dictatorship.

Among the worst of leftist idiots are those who warn that if there’s any military action to stop Assad killing Syrians, ‘Syria will become another Libya’. Syria under Assad is incomparably worse than Libya in post-dictator chaos.

In order to keep their ‘proxy war’ and western ‘regime change’ stories going, they have to totally erase the agency of many millions of Arabs. This is because they are racists, these people so convinced of their radical progressivism.

Many of them are just as racist to Ukrainians. Ukrainians who are giving tens of thousands of lives and dedicating all their time and energy to fighting off genocidal invasion. Then leftists decide Ukrainians are the passive/stupid victims of a proxy war.

– Robin Yassin-Kassab

American exceptionalism upside down is still American exceptionalism

5. Pretend that you are not infantilizing every other nation except the US: only the US can make actual choices for which it is responsible — everyone else, including Russia, is forced to do what they do. The only thing that moves in the universe is the US, the rest is a reaction
6. Pretend that #5 does not mean you are deeply US-centric.

– Arturas Rozenas, “Six tips to academics who want to do original takes on how US/NATO/West is responsible for Russia invading Ukraine”

Indeed:

it’s a mischaracterization of the world to suggest millions upon millions are brutalized by the US war machine. It denies the agency of pretty much any entity on the world other than the US, to which it assigns almost supernatural power.

– @richarddjordan

What’s more, [Chomsky’s] perception of America’s role has developed from a provincial Americentrism to a sort of theology, where the U.S. occupies the place of God, albeit a malign one, the only mover and shaker. Understandably, such a perspective raises questions about the autonomy of other actors […]

– Yassin al-Haj Saleh, “Chomsky Is No Friend of the Syrian Revolution”

He is writing about Chomsky, but this applies equally to Raimondo or anyone else at ProWarDotCom:

We American libertarians know who and what is the main danger to peace and freedom in this world

– Justin Raimondo, “Ron Paul Is Right About Crimea”, March 26, 2014 (Ron Paul’s endorsement of the Russian invasion through fake referendum was, of course, denounced by European libertarians who know better than him, which caused hysterical, vulgar and condescending reactions from American pseudo-libertarians. Of course.)

… where Chomsky himself, of course, is also close to occupying the place of a living God:

Professor Noam Chomsky, believed to be the greatest living intellectual of our time.

The same Justin Raimondo, who was Editorial Director of “antiwar.com”, condescendingly scolding a Russian libertarian for daring to oppose the Russian occupation of Crimea:

You can go pick up your check from Uncle Sam now. I’m sure you need it.

– Justin Raimondo

The very existence of an international libertarian movement seems alien to them. Atlas Network, Students for Liberty, Liberty International, all those great libertarian organizations, they just can’t understand their purpose:

A form of libertarian universalism is behind the creation of international organizations like the Atlas Network, just as it is behind the impulse to argue for western “tolerance” and constitutionalism before the nascent Iraqi National Assembly.

– Jeff Deist

Unbelievable as it seems, for Jeff Deist, president of the “Mises Institute” (poor Lviv-born Ludwig, what have they done with his name), this is a bad thing.

Apparently everything happening in the world must be orchestrated by the CIA – an American agency –, even if it’s half a million Ukrainians protesting in the streets for months against a corrupt government. Right.

Whether or not Euromaidan was a coup is also completely irrelevant given Ukraine has had multiple free and fair elections since then.

Notice how agency denialists are desperately sticking to the “CIA coup” narrative eight years and two free elections later, because, well, for them between Russians, Ukrainians and Americans, the only ones with agency are the Americans, so an American action is the only possible explanation to anything. So if half a million Ukrainians go to the street in Euromaidan protests, well surely the only explanation is they were lured there by Victoria Nuland’s American cookies (poor girl must have been up baking all night to bake half a million cookies) and then did her bidding like good little obedient puppies (they can’t be humans with agency, obviously):

It is a sad moment when “leftists” decide that massive popular street protests against reactionary capitalist rulers are a bad thing; they thereby reject everything they have claimed to stand for throughout their lives. Unless they think that people have no agency (and no rights to agency) and that these kinds of numbers can all be manipulated [by] the CIA, Victoria Nuland, Hunter Biden etc. Were all these hundreds of thousands of people in the streets, and every member of parliament, personally bribed? …

‘Coup’ … is simply a term used for ‘popular uprising’ when it is one disapproved of by this sub-set of western lefties who assume they know what’s best for other peoples …

– Michael Karadjis, “Ukraine myths used to justify Putin’s terror”

Agency is even denied... to libertarians. By ipso facto fake libertarians:

Foreign Libertarian parties are likely CIA operations.

– “Libertarian” Party of Kentucky

Because, of course! How else could us dumb non-Americans be libertarians?

Obviously, Russians can’t have agency either. Neither those who are libertarian and oppose Putin, nor those who decide, of their own free will, a murderous invasion: for the Kremlintarian Mao Tse Tung Institute, if an invasion happens, it must be because the poor Russian bear was trapped by evil USA:

Frankly, it was a trap, and Putin finally fell in.

Likewise, NATO expansion gets criticized through the same agency denial logic; isn’t it fascinating, how, for American Kremlintarians, NATO “expansion” is a purely american act of will? It’s like none of us poor devils in the rest of the world have any agency, at all. The Russians don’t have agency, they get “provoked” into senseless wars, no matter how counter-productive and self-destructive, like a mindless “bear” being poked. And the citizens of the 30 NATO members (and prospective members like Ukraine) don’t either – if the US decides they shall be part of NATO, that’s it, they get swallowed by it!

NATO kept creeping, sometimes jogging, in an eastward direction

– Walter Block

NATO is “jogging” like an entity (nevermind the 85% of Hungarians who approved joining!), as if it had agency, as if the so-called expansion were not simply the legitimate outcome of voluntary, legitimate and entirely justified choices, as if NATO were not, precisely, the libertarian solution to the question of how small states can efficiently defend themselves against larger ones:

This leads us to the second point: NATO did not expand into “Eastern Europe.” Czechia, Poland, and Hungary in 1999 and the Baltic countries among others in 2004 actively sought membership in the alliance. This is not just semantics. For the historical reasons mentioned above, the West has been a desired political direction associated with prosperity, democracy, and freedom—despite the limitations of Western liberal capitalist democracies and the implementation of that model in Eastern Europe. Being at the receiving end of Russian imperialism, many Eastern Europeans looked forward to membership in NATO as a means of securing their sovereignty. NATO, in other words, would not have “expanded” into Eastern Europe if the Eastern European nations had not wanted it and actively pursued it.

As 2020 Pew Research Center data show, Eastern European members generally see NATO favorably. Fifty-three percent of Czechs have a positive opinion about NATO, as do 77 percent of Lithuanians. NATO’s most enthusiastic supporters are Poles, with 88 percent supporting the alliance. Fifty-three percent of Ukrainians view NATO favorably, compared to 23 who view it negatively. …

In the westsplaining framework, the concerns of Russia are recognized but those of Eastern Europe are not. This, again, mirrors the Russian line that “Ukraine’s current regime lacks any sovereignty,” which of course also operates within a framework inherited from the bipolar world of the Cold War. Eastern Europe is something that can be explained but isn’t worth engaging with.

– Jan Smoleński, Jan Dutkiewicz, “The American Pundits Who Can’t Resist “Westsplaining” Ukraine”

There is no such thing as “our own government”

A related fallacy is assuming that someone necessarily has more control on their “own” government than others, in particular, an obsession with what the US government should have done, should do, or should not do. Writing as if one somehow had a very selective magic wand that would allow them to change the course of action of “their” government, instantly, on a specific point, but on no other, and of no other government. This gives rise to such pathetic titles as “Joe Biden, What the Hell?”.

Variation: a selective time machine that would allow to travel in time to change the actions of one government, but of no other. In such Kremlintarian writings, there is no mention whatsoever of what the Russian government could have done differently (e.g., not invade their neighbors), or indeed can do at anytime:

For all those saying it’s wrong for the West to supply Ukraine with heavy arms, let me remind you these simple words:

If Russia stops fighting, there’ll be no more war. If Ukraine stops fighting, there’ll be no more Ukraine.

– Kateryna Kruk

The “your own government” fallacy leads straight to anti-libertarian nationalism, such as Hoppe’s endorsement of the alt-right, arguably a logical next step after his famous yet erroneous rejection of free immigration:

Let it be America First!, England First!, Germany First!, Italy First!, and so on, i.e., each country trading with one another and no one interfering in anyone else’s domestic affairs.

Note that the most vitriolic part of his awful speech is directed towards Students for Liberty, who dare organize libertarian conferences around the world and/or with participants from around the world (horresco referens!), something completely alien to the perverted view of “self-determination” as equal to nationalist, nihilistic polylogism.

It leads to the “Charbonnier est maître chez lui” (allegedly said by Goebbels¹) principle of omnipotent governments doing whatever they want with “their” populations – and indeed, Kremlintarians would have been perfectly fine with letting Hitler do just that, indeed invade and exterminate the whole world, as long as “their” own hamlet were exterminated last.

“Anti-imperialism” of idiots and “westplaining” are wrong

Aspects of this agency denial have been described as “anti-imperialism” of idiots and “westplaining”.

How many would consider their own elected government legitimate if it began carrying out mass rape campaigns against dissidents? It’s only the complete dehumanization of Syrians that makes such a position even possible. It’s a racism that sees Syrians as incapable of achieving, let alone deserving, anything better than one of the most brutal dictatorships of our time. […]

Syrians are not seen as possessing the sophistication to hold a diverse range of views. Civil society activists (including many amazing women), citizen journalists, humanitarian workers are irrelevant. The entire opposition is reduced to its most authoritarian elements or seen as mere conduits for foreign interests. […]

Everything that happens is viewed through the prism of what it means for westerners – only white men have the power to make history. […]

In this vein, leading western anti-war organizations hold conferences on Syria without inviting any Syrian speakers.

– Leila Al-Shami, “The ‘anti-imperialism’ of idiots”, April 14, 2018

Replace Syrians with “Ukrainians” or “Belarusians”, and the description of the American-centric anti-imperialism would still be hundred percent accurate. Idiots indeed.

It was Jeremy Corbyn flying to New York City to attend forums discussing “the real path to peace in Ukraine” without a single Ukrainian among the panel to talk about their country’s future.

– Rodrigo Aguilera, “A breakup letter to the Left”, January 17, 2023

During the Q&A session of the event, I stood up to express my disagreement with the speakers’ position. I started with an important disclaimer, saying that I am from Russia.

I expressed my belief that everything they said was bullshit and that it seemed to me they were not well-informed about the situation in Russia or Ukraine. I suggested that their sources of information were limited and that they were not interested in the opinions of real people. …

After this, Yanis Varoufakis called me a fascist, and they turned off my microphone. My wife (the only Ukrainian citizen in the hall) and I were forcibly removed from the event without being allowed to say another word.

– Artem Temirov, Russian and Ukrainian activists silenced at Greek MeRA 25 party event

Ever since the beginning of the Russian invasion against Ukraine, we have seen statements by anarchists, communists and leftists not from Ukraine, on how Ukrainian anarchists, communists and leftists should not defend themselves against attack of Putin

– Antti Rautiainen, “Misconceptions about imperialism, and anarchist collective traumas”

Skrze symetrizaci je konflikt prezentován jako střet dvou rovnocenných, supermocných partnerů, nejčastěji jako střet Rusko vs. NATO, případně Rusko vs. USA, méně častěji pak Rusko vs. EU. V takovém pohledu je třeba za vším hledat nějakou velkou hru supervelmocí, střet impérií o sféry vlivu na globální šachovnici a Ukrajinu redukovat na loutku, kterou ovládá vyšší moc. Je to pohled vlastní nejen řadě politických organizací, ale i prominentních západních intelektuálů a politiků – od Jeremyho Corbyna po Noama Chomskeho. Takový postoj, který přiznává historické aktérství jen impériím a supervelmocím, je na západě tak častý a opakovaný, že dostal svůj název – někdy se mu říká imperiální narcismus, jindy západní exceptionalismus, nejčastěji však westplaining. Westplaining byl již mnohokrát kritizován – většinou různými autory z CEE regionu (viz např. text Zosie Brom). Hlavním nebezpečím westplainingu je připisování schopnosti konat výlučně západu a USA, což vede v kritizování války k sebestřednému antiimperialismu, který přehlíží působení nezápadních aktérů, jejich potřeb a postojů. Britsko-syrská autorka a aktivistka Leila Al-Shami přišla v trochu jiné souvislosti s termínem antiimperialismus idiotů, aby zkritizovala pozici těch, kteří vidí jen roli USA, ale přehlíží kroky Ruska, Iránu či Asada v Sýrii. …

A právě hlasům z Ukrajiny je dnes třeba přednostně naslouchat, být s nimi plně solidární a brát jejich slova vážně. Jak k tomu podotýká český novinář Ondřej Bělíček: “Ve všech těch geopolitických debatách o NATO a Rusku bychom neměli zapomínat na Ukrajince a jejich právo vybrat si svou budoucnost. Jejich země byla po desetiletí hřištěm geopolitických ambicí soupeřících imperiálních bloků. Měli bychom podporovat jejich boj na obranu vlastní nezávislosti.”

Aby bylo jasno, neříkáme naslouchat ukrajinským oligarchům. Neříkáme ani naslouchat ultranacionalistům typu Pravý sektor, jejichž vliv na Ukrajině je, ku prospěchu Putina, značně přeháněn a nedá se např. srovnávat s vlivem parlamentních stran typu AfD v Německu, Jednotné Rusko v Rusku či politiků typu Orbána v Maďarsku či Le Pen ve Francii. V tomto ohledu plně souhlasíme s autonomními antifašisty z Ukrajiny, kteří říkají “Několik tisíc nácků s minimální podporou voličů v zemi se 40 milióny obyvatel nepředstavují ani hrozbu, ani důvod k invazi… Ano, na Ukrajině jsou náckové, tak jako jsou v jiných zemích. Ne, nepotřebujeme pomoc Putina či jiných autoritářů, abychom si s nimi poradili. Poradíme si s nimi sami.”

Říkáme naslouchat primárně hlasům obyčejných lidí a organizovaných aktivistů, kteří se prakticky, tiše, bez fanfár médií zapojili do ozbrojené obrany Ukrajiny i sítí vzájemné pomoci, jdou zdola, proti autoritám, antifašisticky a v duchu odhodlaných ukrajinských anarchistů jakými byl Nestor Machno.

Through symmetrisation, the conflict is presented as a clash between two equal, superpower partners, most often as Russia vs Nato, or Russia vs the US, and less often, Russia vs the EU. In this view, one has to look for some great game of superpowers behind everything, a clash of empires over spheres of influence on the global chessboard, and reduce Ukraine to a puppet controlled by a higher power. This is a view shared not only by many political organisations, but also by prominent Western intellectuals and politicians – from Jeremy Corbyn to Noam Chomsky to Yanis Varoufakis. This attitude, which ascribes historical agency only to empires and superpowers, is so common and recurrent in the West that it has been given a name – sometimes it is called imperial narcissism, sometimes western exceptionalism, but most often westsplaining. Westsplaining has been criticised many times – mostly by various authors from the CEE region (see, for example, Zosia Brom’s text). The main danger of westsplaining is the attribution of the ability to act exclusively to the West and the US, which leads to a self-centred anti-imperialism in the critique of war that overlooks the agency of non-Western actors, their needs and attitudes. In a slightly different context, British-Syrian author and activist Leila Al-Shami came up with the term “anti-imperialism of idiots” to criticise the position of those who see only the role of the US but overlook the actions of Russia, Iran or Assad in Syria. …

And it is to the voices from Ukraine that today we need to listen as a priority, to be in full solidarity with them and to take their words seriously. As the Czech journalist Ondřej Bělíček points out, “In all these geopolitical debates about Nato and Russia, we should not forget the Ukrainians and their right to choose their future. For decades, their country has been the playground of the geopolitical ambitions of rival imperial blocs. We should support their struggle to defend their independence.”

To be clear, we are not suggesting to listen to the Ukrainian oligarchs. Nor are we suggesting to listen to ultra-nationalists like Right Sector, whose influence in Ukraine, to Putin’s benefit, is greatly exaggerated and cannot be compared, for example, with the influence of parliamentary parties like the AfD in Germany, United Russia in Russia or politicians like Orban in Hungary or Le Pen in France. In this respect, we fully agree with the autonomous anti-fascists from Ukraine who say “Several thousands Nazis, with minimal electoral support in a country of 40 million, are neither a threat nor a reason to invade… Yes, there are Nazis in Ukraine, same as in other countries. No, we don‘t need the help of Putin or other authoritarians to deal with them. We‘ll do it on our own.“

We suggest that you listen primarily to the voices of ordinary people and organised activists who have practically, quietly, without media fanfare, joined the armed defense of Ukraine and mutual aid networks, going from below, against the authorities, anti-fascist and in the spirit of committed Ukrainian anarchists like Nestor Makhno.

– “Všichni jsme Ukrajinci: antifašistický vzkaz ze stínů střední a východní Evropy” [ “An anti-fascist message from the shadows of Central and Eastern Europe” ] (emphasis added)

You, the Westerners, will never get it. Partially because most of yous have a completely different experience of history, and it is that of living your life in a dominating country. Partially because you can’t be arsed to listen, and you never were. It is just simply inconvenient for you to give an idea that won’t fit to your already established view of the World a thought, and let’s face it, deep down most of you think that your ideas and your concepts are better, and more legit. Western exceptionalism is a worm in your brain, a worm you pretend to escape, only to parade your yankee, Queen of England ignorance around. You are better and more legit. You have better insights. You are used to being listened to. You not gonna use Google translate, because how come things are not in English, the terror! …

Your lack of knowledge on the issues of Russia and the rest of the world formerly behind the Iron Curtain is, frankly, astonishing, surprising and the lack of curiosity – shameful. In London and the wider UK, you got comrades coming from all these countries that joined the EU since 2004 and apparently you have never bothered to even attempt to understand what we are about. We were good for some things, mainly, in the leftist reflection of the mainstream trope of a “Polish builder” or “Lithuanian cleaner” (good, hard-working, simple people), we were good for more hands-on stuff. But never good enough for actually having opinions: apparently even about the stuff we grew up with. The unique version of Orientalism that you hold towards us, seeing as either simpletons, or racist, primitive, but honourable – you know exactly what we mean, admit it. …

in your heads, NATO and other Western organisations are always on the wrong side, and always perpetrators of everything bad in this world. You could, ofc, google it, but who would bother if you have such intellectual figures as Noam Chomsky with his disgraceful, relativising stances to tell you what to think.

– Zosia Brom, “Fuck leftist westplaining”

It’s really to the point now that if someone has anti-imperialist in their bio I assume they support the Russian invasion of Ukraine and a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

– Kareem Rifai

Same with anti-war. Nothing good comes from people who call themselves that.

The astonishing condescendence of “anti-imperialist” Westerners towards Ukrainians:

Non, rien. Juste la gauche décoloniale et anti-impérialiste qui explique aux “aborigènes” comment il faut (poliment) parler à l’ancienne puissance coloniale à propos de leur résistance à un empire.

No nothing. Just the decolonial and anti-imperialist left explaining to the “aborigines” how to (politely) talk to the former colonial power about their resistance to an empire.

– Marianna Perebenesiuk, commenting on Putinist-communist Jean-Luc Mélenchon saying:

Je pense que les Ukrainiens ne devraient pas nous parler comme ça

I think Ukrainians shouldn’t talk to us like that

Isn’t it fascinating how so-called American anti-imperialists will claim that NATO/the US is exploiting simple Ukrainians without caring about what they actually want, and then IMMEDIATELY shut up any Ukrainian who dares to disagree with them in the replies?

– Oleksandra Povoroznyk

It annoys me to no end, as it implies Ukrainians have no agency. They’re some shapeless mass that any power can manipulate however they wish. All the while the people of Ukraine keep on fighting for their independence and freedom. For years now

I just LOVE prominent western leftists who talk about “proxy wars” and “Ukrainians being denied agency by the bad, bad West” and then proceed to silence and gaslight every single Ukrainian who tells them about the horrific damage inflicted by Russia.

– Oleksandra Povoroznyk

Rejecting dehumanization and the zoo mindset

Even more insulting than westplaining and, of course, utterly antinomic to methodological individualism is the recurring use of dubious animal analogies:

What sort of culpability do I have in mind? It’s on the order of setting a trap and loading it with bait in order to lure a target. Russia had to choose to step into it, but those who set the trap did not have to do what they did. Hence, they contributed to a terrible situation.

– Sheldon Richman, “Shades of Gray in the Russia-Ukraine War”, April 18, 2022

Kremlintarian logic!

the national-national-security establishment simply went into the Middle East and began poking hornets’ nest

– Jacob G. Hornberger, “Terminate NATO”

If you are hiking in the woods and come across a wild animal, you should always give it a way to escape. Once cornered, the animal will attack you. The same advice applies when dealing with a dangerous country. Never corner it. Unfortunately that is exactly what this administration has been doing with Russia.

– Thomas Gale Moore, “Cornering the Russian Bear”, September 17, 2008

As we see, the US state has revived the prospect of nuclear armageddon, as it keeps poking the Russian bear, hoping for a showdown.

– George Ford Smith, “Let’s Boycott Them!”

Seriously? These are merely a few examples, but the Russian Bear (variant: the Chinese Panda) analogies pushed to absurd lengths are all over the Kremlintarian cesspools… (Also, nevermind the insanity of claiming the largest state on earth, by far, with the largest nuclear arsenal, is somehow “cornered” by anything… Again, why are Russia’s whims so preposterously sacrosanct for them?)

There’s this pernicious assumption in the West about both Russia and China that they can’t help but react aggressively, and this is normal and to be expected, and it’s on others to placate them. It’s a strange form of orientalism as @KuldkeppMart put it… and if you dig a bit further down it reveals a deeply colonial mindset (yes even among anti-colonialists) that the West makes all the choices while others just mechanistically react

– Seva Gunitsky (emphasis added)

Thinking about countries as organisms is not just non-libertarian, it is in fact part and parcel of national socialist theory. Notice how “buffer zones” simply replaced Lebensraum... Russia being such a tiny and defenseless country and all. (Notice, again, that only Russia should be allowed buffer zones in that Russocentric view, no one is ever considering the concerns of say Poles or Slovaks to not have a Russia-aligned Ukraine or Belarus right on their doorstep, or indeed the right of Finns for a buffer zone between them and Russia...)

Or indeed, as (even) Dworkin noted:

Once we personify the society so as to make the social choice an individual choice, there is no longer anything to be considered under the aspect of justice. An individual cares about the distribution of benefits or experiences over the days of his life. But he does not care under the aspect of justice.

– Ronald M. Dworkin, “Is Wealth a Value?”, The Journal of Legal Studies, Vol. 9, No. 2., March 1980, pp. 191-226

If a “country” is an animal, an entity, then its constituent parts have no more rights than cells. Justice becomes irrelevant. Who cares about the opinion of a bear’s left paw?

How does any sort of political dissent within a “foreign” country exist in this worldview? It does not. Kremlintarians refuse to consider that Russians could be opposed to Russian Imperialism, could be, in fact, some of its best critics, such as the Russian Libertarian Party:

An appeal to western libertarians about the war in Ukraine

The Donbas and Crimea, of course, must be unanimously pro-Russia. Never mind that the last time a real referendum was held, a majority approved joining Ukraine. Never mind that Russia brutally represses any attempt at secession, and were they to change their mind again, well, tough luck (or indeed, were there a secession-from-the-secession right from the start). Never mind that no matter how strong a majority would favor Russia, there would always be a minority, with individual rights, who would not approve being rounded up in concentration camps and deported to the other side of Asia, when not kidnapped and used as cannon fodder.

Never mind that the whole “secession” was started by Russian agents, in other words, what any honest person would call an aggression and an invasion, not a secession. Never mind that the Russian invaders are not welcomed with flowers there:

Pundits on Russian state TV begrudgingly acknowledge that Russian-speakers in Ukraine they supposedly came to “liberate” are actually fighting against invading Russian troops.

– Julia Davis

Of course the Russian leadership doesn’t care one bit about the inhabitants of Donbas and the casualties of the war it caused, Russian or not. Only the Kremlintarian useful idiots choose to believe that:

The idea that Putin had to invade Ukraine to protect Russians from Ukrainian nazis is absolute garbage. It was purely a land grab. There are many places where Russians are genuinely oppressed, like Turkmenistan. Putin doesn’t care about them one bit.

– Mikhail Svetov, 2018

Never mind that if Putin really wanted to help Russians in the Donbas, instead of ruining Russia in order to destroy their cities, he could have helped them at a much cheaper cost in any other way.

Ukraine, conversely is to be treated as one nazi batallion. Nevermind that a batallion is only a few hundred people, that it’s not even nazi, that Ukrainian far-right is not even in parliament, that Ukraine has far less far-right problems than other countries, including Russia. Nope, one nazi entity. Because the Bear says so and it’s convenient to believe it. Whatever happens in the wild abroad is none of our business anyway, right?

In this racist worldview, and let’s bring the animal analogy full circle, foreign cultures are to be treated like animals in a zoo. They pose no real threat to “us”. They have a homogeneous, simple, collective identity. And their cultures are to be preserved under glass; if they are living under communist oppression or abject poverty, well it must be their culture, how quaint. Let’s save us from this threat, but surely the Russians, Cubans, North Koreans etc. can stay communist. So we can travel there and visit, enjoy the sights of “an alternative”. As long as there is no (immediate? but surely these savages could never be a real threat!) threat to the US, the rest of the world can remain as a zoo, so that spoiled gringos can visit it when they get bored of their first world problems:

The visitors don’t bother to ask the Mayan women why many of them don’t wear traditional clothing, but my friend does. The women tell him that they don’t wear their handmade clothes because they have become too expensive. Now, what does it mean for handmade clothes to become too expensive? It means that the labor of a Mayan woman has become more valuable. Instead of spending hours and hours at a hand loom making a shirt to wear, she can spend that time making the same shirt to sell to a lady in France and use the proceeds to buy three outfits—and eyeglasses, or a radio, or medicine against dengue fever. Or women can make something else and still be able to buy more of the things they value.

They’re not being robbed. They’re becoming wealthier. And from their perspective, that’s not a bad thing. But from the perspective of what my friend calls the anti-globalization “poverty tourists,” who like to take pictures of colorful poor people, it’s a big disappointment.

– Tom G. Palmer, “Globalization Is Grrrreat!”

Cuba is not a zoo where you pay an admission ticket and you go in and you get to watch people living in cages to see how they are suffering

– Marco Rubio Rips U.S.-Cuba Travel: “Cuba Is Not a Zoo” (of course, zoo visitors are treated differently than the caged victims)

Libertarianism is not for a multipolar world where half of mankind is kept in prisons and poverty as some sort of zoo, so that privileged Westerners can see “something different”, an “alternative” to the capitalist opulence or “American hegemony”, whenever they get slightly bored. Indeed, if you agree with KGB agent Putin that the fall of the Soviet Union was a catastrophe, do not expect any more respect than him.

No Amnesty for Amnesty International

In my experience, those who suffered under tyrannies are the first to morally distinguish between democracies that have blots on the system and totalitarian regimes where the blot is the system, and Amnesty International activists born and raised in democracies are the last.

– Hillel Neuer

The perfect example of agency denial has been provided recently by none other than Amnesty International: they published an awful report about Ukraine… without and against its local Ukrainian branch:

Сьогодні на англомовному сайті Amnesty International вийшов матеріал, у якому критикувалися дії Збройних Сил України. Його створили на основі даних, які зібрали іноземні дослідники та дослідниці Департаменту реагування на кризи глобального офісу нашої організації.

Український офіс не був долучений до підготовки чи написання тексту публікації. І, на превеликий жаль, уже на початковому етапі розробки цієї доповіді ми зайшли у глухий кут, де аргументи нашої команди щодо неприпустимості і неповноти такого матеріалу не були враховані.

Зі свого боку представники і представниці українського офісу зробили все, що могли, аби цей матеріал не було оприлюднено. Коли на наші неодноразові заперечення ми отримали у відповідь безкомпромісне «ні», ми також зробили все, що могли, аби мінімізувати поширення матеріалу. Ми просили в авторів та авторок надіслати нам завчасно всі версії матеріалу (на жаль, цього не відбулось), ми переконали їх попросити офіційний коментар від Міністерства оборони України, але при цьому вони, на жаль, не надали достатньо часу на отримання відповіді і опублікували це дослідження без їхнього коментаря. Ми також категорично відмовилися публікувати цей прес-реліз на нашому сайті чи перекладати його на українську, через його, на нашу думку, односторонність. Нам дуже прикро, що навіть після всіх можливих аргументів «проти» нас усе одно не почули.

Кожна людина з українського офісу Amnesty знає, що саме рф відповідальна за злочини агресії проти України. Більше того, значна частина нашої команди – це люди, які особисто вимушені були рятувати себе і близьких від війни з росією, лишаючи все позаду. Дехто з нас уже двічі стали переселенцями чи біженцями.

Із 24 лютого ми з українськими колегами без упину працювали над тим, щоби всі воєнні злочини були верифіковані та зафіксовані для міжнародної спільноти. Ми випустили понад два десятки матеріалів про злочини, вчинені російською федерацією на території України. Багато матеріалів мали міжнародний резонанс і будуть неодноразово використані в міжнародних інституціях у процесі відновлення справедливості.

Але ви маєте рацію, бюрократія, нерозуміння локального контексту, негнучка система роботи, ігнорування думки української команди та позиції правозахисної спільноти в Україні, – усе це завадило нам зупинити сьогоднішній реліз іще на стадії ідеї, як би це мало бути. Тим не менш, із усіма згаданими явищами ми боролися до останнього. І будемо продовжувати боротися надалі в різних формах і на різних позиціях, чого б це нам не вартувало.

Я та команда українського офісу віримо у права людини, ми віримо в перемогу України, ми віримо в те, що всі винні у воєнних злочинах повинні бути притягнуті до відповідальності.

Today, the English-language website of Amnesty International published a material criticizing the actions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. It was created on the basis of data collected by foreign researchers of the Crisis Response Department of the global office of our organization.

The Ukrainian office was not involved in the preparation or writing of the text of the publication. And, unfortunately, already at the initial stage of developing this report, we reached a dead end, where the arguments of our team regarding the inadmissibility and incompleteness of such material were not taken into account.

For their part, representatives of the Ukrainian office did everything they could to prevent this material from being made public. When our repeated objections were answered with a firm no, we also did everything we could to minimize the distribution of the material. We asked the authors to send us all versions of the material in advance (unfortunately, this did not happen), we convinced them to ask for an official comment from the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, but at the same time, unfortunately, they did not give us enough time to receive an answer and published it research without their comment. We also categorically refused to publish this press release on our website or to translate it into Ukrainian, due to its, in our opinion, one-sidedness. We are very sorry that even after all possible arguments “against” we were still not heard.

Every person from the Ukrainian office of Amnesty knows that Russia is responsible for crimes of aggression against Ukraine. Moreover, a significant part of our team is people who were personally forced to save themselves and their loved ones from the war with Russia, leaving everything behind. Some of us have already become displaced persons or refugees twice.

Since February 24, my Ukrainian colleagues and I have been working non-stop to ensure that all war crimes are verified and recorded for the international community. We have released more than two dozen materials about crimes committed by the Russian Federation on the territory of Ukraine. Many materials had an international resonance and will be repeatedly used in international institutions in the process of restoring justice.

But you are right, bureaucracy, misunderstanding of the local context, inflexible work system, ignoring the opinion of the Ukrainian team and the position of the human rights community in Ukraine - all this prevented us from stopping today’s release at the idea stage, as it should be. Nevertheless, we fought all the mentioned phenomena to the last. And we will continue to fight in the future in different forms and in different positions, no matter what it costs us.

I and the team of the Ukrainian office believe in human rights, we believe in the victory of Ukraine, we believe that all those guilty of war crimes should be brought to justice.

– Команда Amnesty International в Україні, August 4, 2022

She resigned the next day:

Я звільняюсь з Amnesty International в Україні. Це – ще одна втрата, яку мені принесла війна. Улюблена робота, 7 років життя, плани на мабутнє, а останні 5 місяців – ще і рятівний круг у вигляді правозахисної роботи на благо рідної країни під час війни. Все розбилося об стіну бюрократії та глухого мовного бар’єру. Справа не в англійській, а в тому, що якщо ти не живеш у країні, в яку вдерлися окупанти та рвуть її на шматки, тобі, напевно, не зрозуміти, що ж тут такого – засудити армію захисників. І немає слів у жодній мові, які здатні це донести до того, хто не відчув цього болю.

I am resigning from Amnesty International in Ukraine. This is another loss that the war brought me. Favorite work, 7 years of life, plans for the future, and the last 5 months - a lifeline in the form of human rights work for the benefit of the native country during the war. Everything crashed against the wall of bureaucracy and a deaf language barrier. It’s not about English, it’s about the fact that if you don’t live in a country invaded by invaders and are tearing it to pieces, you probably don’t understand what it’s like to condemn an ​​army of defenders. And there are no words in any language that can convey this to someone who has not felt this pain.

– Oksana Pokalchuk - Head of Amnesty International Ukraine, August 5, 2022

The same Amnesty International we mentioned in part 3 of our series for their antisemitism, in a previous report, which, oh surprise, was also done against the locals’ opinion:

In February, Amnesty published yet another report on Israel, this one claiming that it is an apartheid state. Typically, it was riddled with errors, both of fact and law. And who led the opposition to it? As in Ukraine, Amnesty’s own staff. Amnesty Israel’s executive director Molly Malekar described the Israel report as a “punch in the gut”, while its CEO Yariv Mohar said he was “shocked and angry” when he heard about its conclusions.

In other words, the central command of a hard left NGO produced propaganda that owes more to ideology than fact, only to be criticised by its own people on the ground - who understand the reality.

– Stephen Pollard, “Amnesty is now utterly morally bankrupt” (Archive)

Taking both sides seriously

Mere weeks before Ukraine’s parliament adopted an act declaring the country’s independence, Bush declined to support the country’s right to self-determination, warning instead of “suicidal nationalism based upon ethnic hatred.” … he privileged a carefully managed Soviet decline over the wishes of Ukrainians, who would go on to overwhelming vote for independence in a referendum at the end of the year…. Bush’s speech in Kyiv was an ignominious start to the U.S.-Ukrainian relationship that could have easily been avoided. Bush could have stuck to platitudes about the promotion of peace, democracy, and self-determination and omitted the patronizing warning about civil conflict. …

By freeing itself from its Russocentrism, Washington will also be better able to engage with and listen to its partners in Eastern and northern Europe, which have greater proximity to and more clarity on national security threats from Russia. Their knowledge and expertise will be critical to Ukraine’s victory over Russia, future Ukrainian reconstruction, the prosecution of war crimes, prosperity in Eastern Europe, and eventually, the establishment of thriving democracies across Eurasia.

Beneath the United States’ misplaced aspirations for a positive relationship with Russia lies immense hubris. Americans tend to believe they can accomplish anything, but perpetually discount the agency of their interlocutors.

– Alexander Vindman: “Stop Tiptoeing Around Russia: It Is Time to End Washington’s Decades of Deference to Moscow”, August 8, 2022 (emphasis added)

Respect for agency means taking both sides seriously.

Ukrainians, for example, have been tearing down statues of Lenin, presumably because they did not appreciate all that much his genocide against them.

The Russian invaders, conversely have been building fresh statues of Lenin in conquered cities.

They love Stalin, too, who also starved to death millions of Ukrainians. Why should it be so hard to understand that the Ukrainians cannot accept being invaded by Lenin and Stalin fans?

Libertarians, again, should appreciate demonstrated preference.

Take both opinions, both actions seriously, and draw moral and practical conclusions from it. For instance, when a Russian embassy openly wishes humiliating deaths on those who resist them, or when Russian pundits openly threaten Italy and Poland after Putin admitted territorial expansion as his real goal.

This brings us to a second major shortcoming of Mearsheimer: the lack of basic empathy. And I don’t mean the emotional empathy with Ukrainians, God forbid. I mean the cognitive empathy with Putin. You must empathise with Putin to get what he’s doing and why Mearsheimer refuses to analyse what we know of Putin’s worldview. Look how he casually dismisses Putin comparing himself with Peter I. Meanwhile, this is the key to understanding Putin’s motivation. He doesn’t see himself as a conqueror. Not at all. He thinks he is a REconqueror… Invasion of Ukraine is not some random, capricious move of Putin. Plenty of politicians had been talking of what Putin did for decades. They had been using the same arguments which Putin would use later. Ignoring this fact reflects total disinterest in Russian public imagination

– Kamil Galeev

Agency denialists listen to neither side – only to their own preconceptions. While Russians pundits openly claim they aim “to squeeze out the democratization” in both Syria and Ukraine, agency denialists don’t listen and instead stick to their own narrative of the good Russian bear fighting an undemocratic Ukrainian “coup”.

Likewise, claiming “both sides are wrong” (implied: “I’m better than everyone”!) or “both sides are right” (or, the Kremlintarian variant: both governments are equally bad, why should it matter which one wins! so just let the aggressor win: nihilism, as always, in practice means rule by the worst brute force) is simply intellectual cowardice, again implying a dehumanizing identity between right and wrong actions and moral irrelevance of other actors’ claims and actions.

Westerners born in places at a safe distance from conflicts and dictatorships have the luxury of that easy posture; too bad for Ukrainians or Syrians who don’t and have to deal with imperfect choices in the real world:

Staying in the position of ultra-privilege, being carefully sheltered from the real world consequences of their actions, @amnesty dares to preach to those who face existential risks daily and indeed risk losing everything, should they miscalculate only once

– Kamil Galeev

Dealing with “you should’ve voted him out” crowd is beyond frustrating. Things like poisoning opponents, beheading vocal critics, rigging election results is just not possible. Yet, instead of broadening their outlook they just project their little cozy uneventful world (emphasis added)

How about, then, reading some opinions of good authors born in/having lived in Ukraine, Russia, and neighboring countries?

• Михаил Светов / Mikhail Svetov: “An appeal to western libertarians about the war in Ukraine”

• Екатерина Юнг / Cathy Young: “Russia’s Global Anti-Libertarian Crusade”

• Вера Алексеевна Кичанова / Vera Kichanova: “My family are from Russia and Ukraine, here’s what I think about this war”

• Roman Skaskiw, “Putin’s Libertarians”

• Agnieszka Płonka, “Do not say ’Russia’, say ’the gang’”

• Александр Семёнович Виндман/Alexander Vindman: “Stop Tiptoeing Around Russia: It Is Time to End Washington’s Decades of Deference to Moscow”, August 8, 2022

We will not shut up. Not anymore. For too long, the Ukrainian perspectives were silenced by Russia and pro-Russian sentiments around the globe. Like many other nations colonized by Russia, Ukraine had to shut up and, at best, politely debate whatever Russians had to say.

This colonial legacy has stayed long after 1991. Ukrainians were consistently denied agency: their pro-EU and pro-NATO choices were explained through conspiracies about the “US and NATO aggressive expansion.” Discussions about Ukraine often happened without Ukrainians themselves but with well-established carriers of the Russian colonial views on Ukraine.

All of this must remain in the past. We will not shut up and listen to another round of Russian imperial bullshit, casual tone-deaf Westsplaining, or another Russian state-sponsored gaslighting campaign.

As the genocide against our people continues, we will remain unapologetically Ukrainian – and we will make sure our voices are loud and clear from now on.

– Stas and Maria, Ukrainians, “9 things people still don’t get about Ukraine”

Anatoliy Dubovik (A.D.): … I was born in Kazan (Russia) and have been living for over 30 years in Ukraine, in the city of Dnipro (formerly Dnepropetrovsk, formerly Ekaterinoslav). This is the eastern part of Ukraine.

Sergiy Shevchenko (S.Sh.): … I was born and lived for most of my life in Donetsk, the centre of Donbas. …

Russia’s geopolitical goal is not at all to stop Western imperialism, but to make Russia an empire again, more powerful, aggressive and inhuman than the conventional “West”. The Russian state, having suppressed freedom and independence at home, cannot bring any freedom and independence to other countries.

The pro-Russian “Left” does not see this. To use the analogy of George Orwell’s novel 1984, such “leftists” side with the Big Brother of Eurasia against the Big Brother of Oceania.

Such “leftists” are idiots. …

We recall that Ukraine was not the first victim of modern Russian imperialism. There were Russian invasions of Georgia and Moldova in the 1990s. There was a colonial war in the Caucasus that continued until the 2000s. Russian tanks re-entered Georgia in 2008. Russia has been intervening in Syria since the early 2010s. Russian troops were used to suppress the uprising in Kazakhstan in January 2022. The war in Ukraine is simply a new scale of violence by Moscow, which has not happened in Europe for a long time, but not something fundamentally new to Moscow’s policy of murder, destruction and occupation.

– “Leftists” outside Ukraine are used to listening only to people from Moscow: Interview with anarcho-syndicalists in Eastern Ukraine

Why are they negotiating Ukraine’s future without Ukraine? Why do they continue to try to cut secret deals with the Kremlin? And why won’t they support Ukrainian victory publicly and fully, not only in words but in deeds?

– Гарри Каспаров (Garry Kasparov), “A History of Betrayal: Biden’s Team Keeps Negotiating About Ukraine Without Ukraine”

In conclusion, from us non-Americans:

• We’re humans, too. (Individuals, responsible for our actions, good or bad)
• We have agency, too. (We make our own decisions, good or bad.)
• We all have the exact same individual rights as you. (You can’t just use us as “buffer zones” and “appeasement” or zoos.)
• What happens to us is relevant for you (If someone is a threat to us, don’t naively or arrogantly assume they cannot threaten you right after.)
• And, specifically for kremlintarians, from the libertarians among us: We’re libertarian, unlike you.

¹ “Gentlemen, each is lord in his manor”. It is not in Goebbels’ actual speech of the time, however he did express very similar ideas:

Eine politische Bewegung, die darauf ausgeht, einen ganzen Erdteil dem Wahnsinn unterzuordnen, alle Bindungen moralischer und politischer Art zu zerstören, mit Brand und Terror die Völker in Schreden zu verletzen, um dan in der allgemeinen Verwrrigung die Dinge an sich zu reissen, verdient die Vernichtung; und wenn die deutsche Regierung unter Volk vor dem Schicksal der chaotischen Anarchie bewahrte, wenn sie ihre asozialen Träger aus der Gemeinschaft des Volkes ausschloss und sie in Konzentrationslagern wieder zu brauchbaren Mitgliedern der menschlichen Gesellschaft zu erziehen versucht, so ist das ein Akt der Notwehr, der in Unbetracht der Grösse der akuten Gefahr doch noch mit den humanisten Mitteln durchgeführt wurde.

Es steht jedem Ausländer frei, deutsche Konzentrationslager zu besuchen, um sich ein Bild davon zu machen, dass hier alles andere als Grausamkeit und Brutalität obwalten. Wie segensreich sich unsere Massnahmen für die Sicherheit und den inneren Frieden des deutschen Volkes ausgewirft haben, mag man daraus ersehen, dass in ihrer Auswirkung Deutschland den inneren Frieden wiedergefunden hat, dass die Atomisierung des deutschen Volkes durch eine politischen Parteien beendigt wurde und damit die Stabilität der deutschen Machtverhältnisse nach innen und nach aussen gewährleistet ist. Der Nationalsozialismus steht wie deje echte politische Willensbewegung auf einem totalitären Standpunkt. Entweder ist er davon überzeugt, dass seine Weltanschauung und ihre praktischen Auswirkungen richtig sind, dann kann er niemanden neben sich dulden, oder er ist das nicht, dann verdienet er gar nicht, dass er die Macht besitzt. Er ist das. Und aus dieser Überzeugung heraus musste er einen Zustand im Ziele führen, in dem er ausser ihm keinen ernshaften Konkurrenten in der Inhaberschaft der Macht geben konnte. Nachdem die marxistischen Organisationen von Staats wegen aufgelöst waren, haben die bürgerlichen Parteien sich selbst aufgelöst. Der Nationalsozialismus übernahm damit die ganze Macht und die ganze Verantwortung. [pp. 238-239]

Einer der am häufigsten gegen das nationalsozialistische Deutschland erhobenen Vorwürfe isst der, dass seine Behandlung der Judenfrage den Gesetzen der Humanität zuwiderlaufe und deshalb in der ganzen Welt auf Verständnislosigkeit gestossen sei. Auch darüber sei mir ein offenes Wort gestattet, vor allem im Hinblick darauf, dass die Judenfrage an sich ja die ganze Weltöffentlichkeit auf das Tiefste bewegt und in ihrer parteiischen Darstellung vielfach von vornherein die Verstehensmöglichkeit für das junge Deutschland verbaut. Dass wir Gegner der jüdischen Vorherrschaft übar Deutschland waren, durfte auch vor unserer Machtübernahme bereits bekannt sein. Man vergegenwärtige sich, dass damals die Juden in Deutschland das ganze geistige Leben massgebend beeinflussten, dass sie Presse, Literatur, Bühne und Film absolut und uneingeschränkt in der Hand hatten, dass sie im grossen Städten, wie beispielsweise in Berlin, manchmal 75% des ganzen Ärzte- und Juristenstandes stellten, dass sie die öffentliche Meinung machten, die Börse massgeblich beeinflussten, das Parlament und seine Parteien unter ihrer Obhut hatten, und man wird verstehen, dass die Gegenwehr dagegen ebenso spontan wie zwangsläufig war. [p. 242]

Ich brauchte nichts zu verheimlichen und nichts zu beschönigen, denn dieses junge Deutschland hat das Urteil der Welt nicht zu scheuen. [p. 247]

– Joseph Goebbels, Signale der neuen zeit, “Das nationalsozialistische Deutschland und seine Aufgabe für den Frieden”, speech from September 28, 1933.

At the time, while “only” putting “its own” populations into concentration camps, Nazi Germany was also already, more or less secretly and illegally, rebuilding the army which would allow it to conquer most of Europe a few years later (plans that were openly exposed already in Mein Kampf, published in 1925, available in English by the end of 1933... But who could have known, right?)

As Kremlintarian Rothbard would surely concur, in his twisted nationalist logic, there was no need to intervene as Nazi Germany was, like he would wrongly claim about the (arguably equally evil) Soviet Union, “confining itself” to preying on “its own people”, whatever that means:

Many dictatorships have turned inward, cautiously confining themselves to preying on their own people.

Kremlintarians argue that the US and UK should have stayed out of World War II:

Our unwise entry to the Second World War had brought economic dislocation and a large mass of debt, and it required us to rethink our status as an imperial power.

– Alan Bickley, Director of the LibertarianKremlintarian Alliance, Editor’s Note to Sean Gabb, “Elizabeth II: Seventy years a Rubber Stamp”

Should we have stayed out of World War II? The answer is clear. Yes, we should have

– Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., “Playing the Hitler Card”

But instead of Americans learning the lesson they should have from World War I, they succumbed to the war propaganda once more and got involved again — going to war in Europe after being attacked by an Asian country. …

Hitler never wanted war with Britain. He wanted absolute power in Germany. He wanted to be a great German historical figure like Bismarck. He wanted to overturn the injustices of the Versailles Treaty [wrong]. He wanted to restore German lands and people. He wanted to enlarge the German empire to the east. He wanted to cleanse Germany of Jews and other inferior races [sic]. He wanted to destroy Bolshevism. He wanted Germany to achieve economic self-sufficiency in Europe. Whether these things were right or wrong is immaterial. Hitler never wanted war with Britain [so what?!], and certainly not with the United States. He never wanted a two-front war [obviously! all the more reason to give him one...], let alone a world war. He wanted Germany to be a world power, not the ruler of the world. He wanted a friendly or neutral Britain, not a hostile or rival Britain.

– Laurence M. Vance, “Rethinking the Good War”, “Mises” Caucus (reposted from The Lew Rockwell Cesspool) [Note the caring concern for what Hitler wanted. By what twisted logic should that be relevant? Why care about granting the murderous wishes of a genocidal dictator, yet ignore completely the legitimate desires not to be murdered or invaded of Jews, Czechs, etc?]

“Hitler never wanted war with Britain, and certainly not with the United States”?

According to Albert Speer’s book, Spandau: The Secret Diaries, Adolf Hitler was fascinated with the idea of New York City in flames. In 1937, Willy Messerschmitt hoped to win a lucrative contract by showing Hitler a prototype of the Messerschmitt Me 264 that was being designed to reach North America from Europe.

– Wikipedia, “Amerikabomber”. See also: “Hitlers Zweites Buch”.

As if, moreover a Nazi regime conquering the world and murdering its Jewish population (“and other inferior races”, sic), would in itself constitute no moral, economic or military concern for the inhabitants of the United States or the United Kingdom:

the March 1939 occupation of Czechoslovakia made a pivotal difference in German rearmament. Historian Williamson Murray forcefully argues this case in his 1984 book The Change in the European Balance of Power, 1938–1939: The Path to Ruin. Financially, Hitler acquired $28.3 million in gold when he overran Czechoslovakia. Economically, in combination with the March 1938 annexation of Austria, the absorption of Czech industry raised Germany’s percentage of world industrial production to 15 percent, equal to that of the United States. Militarily, Germany also acquired two major arms complexes, particularly the world-renowned Skoda Works.

– “What If: Britain and France Had Not Appeased Hitler in 1938?”

Bear in mind that Germany had a very limited army following WWI and Versailles. Stopping the Nazis at the time of the above speech would have been cheap. Stopping them in 1938 would still have been relatively easy. But no, the short-sighted selfishness of “appeasement” prevailed.

Surely a coincindence that those same brilliant authors now root for the Russian fascist invaders, too:

I hope the Russians will win.

– Alan Bickley, Director of the LibertarianKremlintarian Alliance, “Russia or the New World Order”

The saddest part of this whole manufactured crisis is that it should make absolutely no difference to us whether Russia controls Ukraine. How is that a threat to the United States?

– Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr., “Why Die for Ukraine?”

Putin’s campaign against this Nazi revival and his defense of the independent Russian areas in the beleaguered Donbas region deserve our admiration, not our condemnation.

– Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., “Exposing Some Myths About the Ukraine War”

If Russia killed every person in Ukraine—men, women, and children—razed every building, destroyed all the infrastructure, and turned the whole of Ukraine into a parking lot, then it would still not be the business of the U.S. military to intervene. … Whether the Ukrainian or Russian flag flies over Kiev is not worth one drop of American blood nor one penny from the U.S. treasury.

– Laurence M. Vance, “What Americans Should Do if They Are Concerned About Ukraine”

The Ukrainian flag flying over Kyiv, over a peaceful grain-exporting country, or a heap of ruins and dead bodies with, not even the Russian, but the Soviet communist flag flying over it, a difference not worth a penny from the US $6 trillion budget, none of the rest of the world’s business?

Nothing captures more the essence of the Russian invasion into Ukraine like this image of Russian forces waving a Soviet flag - the most genocidal regime in history - on a destroyed building of a city they just “liberated” from its inhabitants.

Notice again the racist notion of “American blood”. Ukraine has a population of 44 million, yet saving them from genocide would not be worth risking one drop of “American blood”? But if saving Ukrainians is not worth American blood, why should saving Americans? Russia is already threatening Alaska, why should Alaska be worth one drop of New Yorker blood? (Indeed, the “Libertarian” party is already calling for an end to the United States.)

And indeed, why should the police ever do anything, why should stopping a murder in Brooklyn be worth risking one drop of blood of a policeman from Queens? Etc… According to the same logic, the police driving anywhere to save lives or apprehend murderers and rapists should not be worth “one penny from the U.S. treasury” due to gas costs.

Needless to say, this is not libertarianism nor anarchism, this is crass nationalism, nihilism, or worse.

Indeed, the same crowd happily uses the Nazi “blood and soil” slogan:

In other words, blood and soil and God and nation still matter to people.

– Jeff Deist, president of the Mises Institute (previously worked as chief of staff to Ron Paul), “For a New Libertarian” [sic]

Right in the footsteps of their previous president Lew Rockwell, who linked to The Daily Stormer: “What the US Government Has Done to Normal People”.

↩

Libertarianism is definitely not submission to might makes right. Libertarianism is the most consistent philosophy of human rights: libertarianism is the only non-nihilism.

Libertarianism is the opposite of nihilism

А психология урки очень проста, очень доступна к усвоению:

1. Хочу жить и наслаждаться, на остальных на…!
2. Прав тот, кто сильней.
3. Тебя не <дол>бут - не подмахивай! (т. е. пока бьют не тебя, не заступайся за тех, кого бьют. Жди своей очереди.) Бить покорных врагов по одиночке! - что-то очень знакомый закон. Так делал Гитлер. Так делал Сталин.

[And the psychology of the urki was exceedingly simple and very easy to acquire:

1. I want to live and enjoy myself; and fuck the rest!
2. Whoever is the strongest is right!
3. If they aren’t [beat]ing you, then don’t lie down and ask for it. (In other words: As long as they’re beating up someone else, don’t stick up for the ones being beaten… Wait your own turn.) Beat up your submissive enemies one at a time! Somehow this is a very familiar law. It is what Hitler did. It is what Stalin did.]

– Александр Солженицын, Архипелаг ГУЛаг, “Глава 16. Социально-близкие” [ Chapter 16: The Socially Friendly ]

About the speech of Duda, which infuriated me to the bottom of my soul, perhaps Poland should remember its borders of 1939. He says, ‘if we fear Russia’s nuclear weapons, we might as well surrender. Should we get scared and obey Putin’s directives, and fulfill his political goals in Europe just because we fear nuclear weapons?’ Here’s what I would say to Mr Duda. You know, it’s very cynical, but if you live with wolves, learn how to howl. I would respond that yes, you should. Yes, you should. That’s how this world works, that’s life.

– Каре́н Гео́ргиевич Шахназа́ров

Нет, Россия не белая и не пушистая. Россия такая, какая она есть. И мы не стыдимся показывать себя такими, какие мы есть

Russia is not squeaky clean. Russia is what it is. And we are not ashamed of showing who we are.

– Сергей Викторович Лавров, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, “Меня глаза Запада не интересуют вообще”, [“Lavrov: Russia is not squeaky clean and not ashamed”]

Умом Россию не понять, Аршином общим не измерить: У ней особенная стать — В Россию можно только верить.

Russia cannot be understood with the mind alone, No ordinary yardstick can span her greatness: She stands alone, unique – In Russia, one can only believe.

– Фёдор Иванович Тютчев, “Умо́м Росси́ю не поня́ть” [“Intelligently you cannot understand Russia”] (in images)

The West isn’t completely innocent when it comes to truth telling, but while Western propaganda attempts to construct a narrative and convince people of it, Russia propaganda often seems to strive for contradiction and dissonance…. The dissonance is part of their strategy. They need chaos and confusion, and actively strive for it.

– Roman Skaskiw, “Nine Lessons of Russian Propaganda”, March 27, 2016

Chaos for the sake of chaos. Destruction for the sake of destruction. Can anyone still pretend, given the enormous cost of the war for Russia (strategic – rearmament and unity of their enemies, diplomatic – sanctions, economic – sheer cost of it, military – sheer number of lost men and tanks, etc), that the Donbas, even assuming they do get it, was worth all that? “What’s the cost of war for Russia, and what could be done with this money?”

At a rough estimate of 7 billion USD per day, at 100 days of war, the cost is already at about 3,000 $ per inhabitant of the Russian federation… Or 90,000 $ per ethnic Russian in Ukraine.

If concern for the Russians in Ukraine were the goal, certainly there would have been cheaper ways to help them. If preventing Ukraine from joining NATO were the goal, there were cheaper alternatives as well. What reasons, then, remain?

As with all crime, making it more costly to prevent it is always a good idea. There is such a thing as rational selfishness. Nihilism is not just morally wrong. It’s suicidal. Certainly “continuing to arm Ukraine” that is, making the invasion even less appealing from a cost-benefit analysis, is not what caused it.

To explain - and predict - Russia’s actions, it is useless to ask what would be rational.

What you need to ask is what they did before.

– Amram Leifer

But some crimes are irrational, in which case having the means to stop them is also a good idea. In other words, whether the Russian leadership is rational or not, arming Ukraine was and is the right thing to do. Again, libertarians understand this when it comes to individual self-defense.

Previously we mentioned socialism as the common thread. But it goes deeper. Socialism, properly understood, is merely a form of nihilism. This is why, for the Russian KGB leadership, abandoning Marxism was not heart-breaking. They stayed true to their real (non-)ethos.

в его последней стадии коммунизм представлятся не как победа социалистического права, а как победа социализма над правом вообще.

[In its final stage, communism doesn’t represent a victory of socialist law as much as a victory of socialism over Law itself.]

– Пётр Иванович Стучка, President of the Supreme Court of Soviet Russia, Энциклопедия государства и права, Vol. 3, 1927, p. 1593.

The destruction of Law, revolution for revolution’s sake:

What made Che such an heroic figure for our time is that he, more than any man of our epoch or even of our century, was the living embodiment of the principle of Revolution.

– Murray N. Rothbard, “Ernesto Che Guevara, RIP”

The principle of Revolution being the principle of permanent chaos and destruction. This is what Rothbard stands for when he admires the communist murderer. That’s what socialism is all about: destruction of values, destruction of wealth, destruction of ethics, destruction of civilization, destruction of life on earth. Destruction for destruction’s sake. Che Guevera, in the foosteps of Lenin, himself in the footsteps of Robespierre: conquest of power and rule by random murder.

The means are the ends, comrade Rothbard: the revolutionary means’s destructiveness is consistent with their true goal. Anyone not grasping that, is, well, their useful idiot.

Libertarianism is the opposite. “Revolutions” that bring about worse regimes are no progress for freedom, obviously. Revolution for revolution’s sake is not a “principle”, it is pure nihilism. Nihilism is the ideological justification for the life-threatening menaces we’ve discussed.

Indeed, in practice, nihilism leads to a very pragmatic rule: might makes right. We see this today, exposed: Russia’s sphere of influence, buffer zone, security feelings, etc... but where is the concern for Poland’s? Or Liechtenstein’s, for that matter? Nihilism is plain submission to destruction, to brute force. That same nihilism we already denounced as blaming Ukraine (the victim) for Russia’s nuclear threats (the aggressor).

The negation of values, the negation of Law…. leads only to the Führer principle. Rule by brute force. Reliance on a random dictator – and utter chaos when his rule ends. And barely contained chaos during his rule. National socialism, as a form of socialism, itself a form of nihilism, was not order, it was chaos. And, contrary to what Hannah Arendt said, it was, of course, not logical.

Truth is a value. Logic is a value. Truth and logic are preconditions for libertarianism, for non-nihilism, for Law. The contradictions and lies, therefore, are part of the (non-)“logic” of opposing ideologies. Their rejection of values in favor of sheer destruction should not surprise us.

Truth, logic, Law, would be unbearable constrains on the Führerprinzip:

It’s difficult to negotiate a with a civilization that does not believe in rules, and considers treaties blasphemous to their religious devotion to the idea of an all-powerful Czar.

Thus we have the whole farce of a “denazification” executed by nazis, and supported by chairmen of think tanks named after Ukrainian Jews, happily linking to websites actually supporting nazism:

Putin’s campaign against this Nazi revival and his defense of the independent Russian areas in the beleaguered Donbas region deserve our admiration, not our condemnation.

– Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., “Exposing Some Myths About the Ukraine War”, April 18, 2022

“What the US Government Has Done to Normal People” By Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

December 2, 2021

Click Here:

Daily Stormer

The Daily Stormer? Ah yes:

The Daily Stormer is an American far-right, neo-Nazi, white supremacist, misogynist, Islamophobic, antisemitic, and Holocaust denial commentary and message board website that advocates for a second genocide of Jews

Imagine being chairman of an Institute named after a Jew, and linking to websites advocating for a second genocide of Jews. And claiming to be libertarian.

Oh, this one was removed?

There’s still these:

• “Where LRC Stands” – LRC posting a listing where it is itself alongside The Daily Stormer…

• Ron Unz, “Racial Politics in America and in California”, where the Daily Stormer is referred to as an “energetic right-wing website” (sic).

Also:

In other words, blood and soil and God and nation still matter to people. Libertarians ignore this at the risk of irrelevance.

– Jeff Deist, president of the Mises Institute, “For a New Libertarian”, July 28, 2017

And then there’s LRC contributor Paul Craig Roberts.

I admire the Kremlin’s restraint and disinclination to resort to violence.

– Paul Craig Roberts, “Decision Time Has Come for Russia in Ukraine”, June 2, 2022

The reality, being of course:

• “Retreating Russian soldiers routinely leaves booby traps for returning civilians - such traps have no military value and are designed simply to inflict maximum carnage”

• “Russia has incited genocide in Ukraine, independent experts conclude”

• “‘The Killings Didn’t Stop.’ In Mali, a Massacre With a Russian Footprint.”

• “Some Russian war crimes in Chechnya 1994-2009”

Libertarianism is (real) self-determination

Das Selbstbestimmungsrecht, von dem wir sprechen, ist jedoch nicht Selbstbestimmungsrecht der Nationen, sondern Selbstbestimmungsrecht der Bewohner eines jeden Gebietes, das gross genug ist, einen selbständigen Verwaltungsbezirk zu bilden. Wenn es irgend möglich wäre, jedem einzelnen Menschen dieses Selbstbestimmungsrecht einzuräumen, so müsste es geschehen.

[However, the right of self-determination of which we speak is not the right of self-determination of nations, but rather the right of self-determination of the inhabitants of every territory large enough to form an independent administrative unit. If it were in any way possible to grant this right of self-determination to every individual person, it would have to be done.]

– Ludwig von Mises, Liberalismus [ Liberalism: In the Classical Tradition ]

A man who chooses between drinking a glass of milk and a glass of a solution of potassium cyanide does not choose between two beverages; he chooses between life and death. A society that chooses between capitalism and socialism does not choose between two social systems; it chooses between social cooperation and the disintegration of society. Socialism is not an alternative to capitalism; it is an alternative to any system under which men can live as human beings.

– Ludwig von Mises, Human Action: A Treatise on Economics

Live free or die… unless you’re in Ukraine, in which case, please get used to the boot stomping on the human face forever

– Cathy Young (Екатерина Юнг), commenting on “Libertarian” Party New Hampshire (a state with “live free or die” as a slogan)

Whatever one thinks of self-determination, the Russian referenda were not it. Not in Chechnya, not in Crimea, not in LPR or DPR. In fact, the last time a real referendum was held, the Ukrainians regions voted to go with Ukraine. Incidentally, bear in mind that a referendum to join Russia is a very one-way road.

• “Pundits on Russian state TV begrudgingly acknowledge that Russian-speakers in Ukraine they supposedly came to ‘liberate’ are actually fighting against invading Russian troops.”
• “How Russia Rigged Crimean Referendum”
• “Ukrainian Rebel Commander Identified As Russian GRU Military Intelligence Colonel”
• “local militia fighters”: Russian soldiers in unmarked uniforms, the Little Green Men

As in Crimea, the “referendum” in DPR was a complete lie:

The pseudo-referendum on the creation of these “people’s republics” was conducted in just a few towns and cities located mostly around the Donetsk metropolitan area, using only a small fraction of the polling stations that would normally operate during a vote. What proportion of the population actually took part in the referendum is simply unknown because there was no external verification of the count (not that any was even proposed).

– Nikolay Mitrokhin, “‘For Eight Years They Sat There in Cellars Under Fire!’ — On One False Narrative About Ukraine” (Russian original)

Note, also, that “The fighting in the Donbas began on Russia’s initiative.” Russia started the war, not Ukraine. And today’s Kremlintarians regularly use the casualties of that war, started by Russia (14,000 dead from both sides, including civilians), to somehow justify the next one, started by Russia as well… Kremlintarian logic.

Self-determination is not occupation soldiers voting. Self-determination is not invasion, in the first place. Kremlintarians, meanwhile:

• “Ron Paul: Crimea secedes. So what?”
• “Ron Paul Is Supporting Russia’s Illegal Occupation of Crimea”

The article “Ron Paul Is Supporting Russia’s Illegal Occupation of Crimea” has the subtitle “useful idiot” for a good reason.

See replies:

• “We are classical liberals and we do not support Ron Paul”
• “Ron Paul Gets It Wrong When He Speaks about Secession and Crimea”

And why do Kremlintarians professing to love decentralization into micro-states (when it’s about weakening the relatively liberal Europe or USA), at the same time applaud violent expansion of the territory of the largest state on earth (when it’s about strenghtening an oppressive, totalitarian dictatorship, which itself violently represses any idea of secession)?

And why are Kremlintarians so enthusiastic about blatant Russian imperialism and expansion through brutal murder, while at the same time calling for a weakened, defenseless Europe and USA, and hysterically shrieking at voluntary, peaceful, “expansion” of NATO?

And why are Kremlintarians so eager to find excuses for the actions of a brutal, authoritarian dictatorship, in which they would be the first to be arrested (and actual libertarians are)?

Ah yes: because they are Kremlintarians. Modern day Walter Durantys. Useful idiots of chaos, destruction and socialism.

Libertarianism is a universalism

At no point do these so-called “libertarians” blabbering about “self-determination” consider alternative opinions of Russians or Ukrainians, especially not of libertarian ones.

Isn’t it fascinating how so-called American anti-imperialists will claim that NATO/the US is exploiting simple Ukrainians without caring about what they actually want, and then IMMEDIATELY shut up any Ukrainian who dares to disagree with them in the replies?

– Oleksandra Povoroznyk

It annoys me to no end, as it implies Ukrainians have no agency. They’re some shapeless mass that any power can manipulate however they wish. All the while the people of Ukraine keep on fighting for their independence and freedom. For years now

Noam Chomsky is totally wrong. Our government request heavy weapons. Our civil society leaders request heavy weapons. I personally request heavy weapons. Sorry, we don’t want to die and want to be able to defend ourself. Maybe it’s a surprise for some western intellectuals

– Oleksandra Matviichuk

Paradoxically, these alleged anti-interventionists are as arrogant as the caricatured Western interventionism they despise so much, in thinking that only they, Americans, know what’s best for the whole world, whether that be “America”, or “non-America”:

We American libertarians know who and what is the main danger to peace and freedom in this world

– Justin Raimondo, “Ron Paul Is Right About Crimea”, March 26, 2014

When some of the local libertarians dare offer a different opinion, they are hysterically insulted (sic¹), accused of “russophobia” or “hating their country” (sic²), being wannabe Stalins (sic³), threatened with lawsuits (sic⁴), accused of being paid by the CIA (sic⁵) or called nazis and told to go kill themselves (sic⁶).

Apparently for these American “libertarians”, allegedly so keen on fighting “American exceptionalism”, only Americans are allowed to criticize the government that oppresses them, be libertarians (in Europe, we’d never heard of liberty until Rothbard invented it, there’s not even a word for it in French!), own firearms (we have no gun culture in Switzerland! No gun owners whatsoever in France, nor libertarians… Actually, the French, armed libertarian in the video comments on the Paris attacks: what if all those who filmed it with their cellphones had had guns instead?) and defend themselves against aggression:

While libertarians can universally condemn slavery, or authoritarian collectivism, it’s quite another thing to suggest how other societies ought to organize themselves politically. Yet consistent universalism requires this. Gay rights in America means gay rights for Saudi Arabia⁷, open borders for Germany means Monaco also must open its doors to refugees, and Texas-style open carry is the prescription France needs to prevent another Bataclan.

– Jeff Deist, president of the Mises Institute (successor to the infamous Lew Rockwell), “Self-Determination, not Universalism, is the Goal”

If libertarianism is anything, it is the identity of rights of all human beings. Indeed, this is the whole basis for libertarian criticism of government agents and their pretense at dictating others’ lives. Those who deny these very basics are not libertarians and we need to clearly dissociate from them. For a true libertarian, gay rights in Russia or Saudi Arabia are as legitimate as in America (and, Biden’s contradictory actions and statements notwithstanding, women rights are as important in Afghanistan as in the US), and the right to keep and bear arms is as essential in France, Israel, Ukraine, etc. as it is in Texas. This should not have had to be said.

Luckily for the world, luckily for freedom, there are real libertarians and courageous people fighting for their rights all around the world, who did not wait for permission from these fake libertarians to exercise and defend their universal human rights.

Героям слава!

This article is part of a series about libertarianism and foreign policy, with a particular focus on the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

1. Libertarianism is against aggression (1)
   1. Libertarianism is deontological, not consequentialist
   2. Libertarianism is about non-aggression
   3. Libertarianism is rational
2. Libertarianism is against aggression (2)
   1. Libertarianism is about a beautiful vision of a free society
   2. Libertarianism is not aggressive-war-militarism
   3. Libertarianism is about the right to live in a free society
3. Libertarianism is against aggression (3)
   1. Libertarianism is against socialism
   2. Libertarianism is against socialism (collectivism, terrorism, wars)
   3. Libertarianism is against socialism (its famines)
   4. Libertarianism is against socialism (its lies)
   5. Libertarianism is against a new Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
4. Libertarianism is against aggression (4)
   1. Libertarianism is the right to defense
   2. Libertarianism is the right to keep and bear arms
   3. Libertarianism is against nuclear terrorism
5. Libertarianism is against aggression (5)
   1. Libertarianism is the opposite of nihilism
   2. Libertarianism is (real) self-determination
   3. Libertarianism is a universalism
6. Agency denial is not libertarian

Footnotes

¹

.. lady skunks … And now we have this SFL Ladies Troika pissing on the great Ron Paul.

– Robert Wenzel, “Troika Seeks To Purge Ron Paul”

Replying to “We are classical liberals and we do not support Ron Paul”.

Robert Wenzel incidentally makes the fascinating claim that “Russia did have a contract with Ukraine to maintain forces in the area” as justification for Russia annexing Crimea… The same lunacy is repeated by Daniel McAdams (“Did Students for Liberty Leader Really Attack Ron Paul?”, replying to “Ron Paul Gets It Wrong When He Speaks about Secession and Crimea”):

How can you annex and invade a territory in which you are already legally present?

One wonders how these authors would react if say the USA started annexing all the territories in which it is “legally present”. To any reasonable person, conversely, the fact that Ukraine had authorized a Russian military base on its soil, all the way until 2042, should make the subsequent invasion more treacherous and more absurd. Incidentally, the “legality” of it is also questionable. And the treaty was terminated by Russia, not Ukraine. ↩

²

longtime Russophobe Cathy Young – herself an immigrant from Russia

– Justin Raimondo, “Russophobia Hits the Libertarian Movement”, July 10, 2017

So what really motivates Cathy Young to hate Russia - the land of her birth - so much?

– Daniel McAdams, “CATO Hires a Neocon Bigot”

“Hate” being an usual accusation from them… are these people merely projecting on others their own emotions and irrational approach to policy decisions? Every single one of these articles is hysterical, hateful, vulgar, while every single one of the ones they attack is calm, polite and measured. Which side is driven by hatred now? ↩

³

These wannabe Stalins demand that the two Cato scholars toe the party line or be sent off to gulag.

– Daniel McAdams, “Regime ‘Libertarians’ Call for Cato Blood”

Replying to the timely (4 February 2022) “A letter to the Cato Institute on Ukraine and Russia”.

Most of the signatories are from Europe, dozens of them from Ukraine. Some from Russia, some from both, such as Vera Kichanova: “My family are from Russia and Ukraine, here’s what I think about this war”.

There is something particularly sickening in calling Ukrainian libertarians (or any Ukrainians, for that matter) “wannabe Stalins”, precisely for daring to remember Stalin’s genocide against them:

The Ukrainian famine—known as the Holodomor, a combination of the Ukrainian words for “starvation” and “to inflict death”—by one estimate claimed the lives of 3.9 million people, about 13 percent of the population. And, unlike other famines in history caused by blight or drought, this was caused when a dictator wanted both to replace Ukraine’s small farms with state-run collectives and punish independence-minded Ukrainians who posed a threat to his totalitarian authority.

Now add to this open calls for genocide by the Russian side, and rehabilitation of Stalin by the current Russian government:

• “Alexander Dugin calls for Genocide of Ukrainians”

• “Russian state-owned propaganda outlet RIA published the new programmatic article with the title ‘What Russia must do with Ukraine’. The article reveals a detailed plan for a genocide, starting from full elimination of Ukrainian state.”

• “Amid ‘Quiet Rehabilitation Of Stalin,’ Some Russians Honor The Memory Of His Victims”

And you understand why Ukrainians are worried – and rightfully so – about a Russian invasion. (Incidentally: the fascist Dugin is also published on the Lew Rockwell Cesspool.)

It seems that the threshold for being called a Stalinist is rather low for the Ron Paul Infamy for War and Poverty – unless of course it’s a real authoritarian regime actually rehabiliting Stalin and walking in his footsteps in aggressing Ukrainians. No, they would never call Putin a Stalinist, indeed, they even claim that “he is not a dictator” and is “a rational statesman, with legitimate security interests”.

Instead, let’s compare to Stalin:

• The Toronto Symphony Orchestra: “Toronto Symphony Orchestra Goes Full Stalin” (hysterical as usual, the RPI’s executive director). Somehow we doubt that the Toronto Symphony Orchestra committed genocide against 13% of the Ukrainian (or Canadian) population but please do let us know if we’re mistaken on that. Incidentally, don’t expect them to comment on that:

Un opéra russe a annoncé jeudi avoir annulé un concert de la célèbre soprano Anna Netrebko prévu en juin. La cantatrice austro-russe avait pris position la veille contre l’intervention militaire de Moscou en Ukraine. Anna Netrebko, âgée de 50 ans, a «expressément condamné» mercredi l’offensive en Ukraine, après avoir été vivement critiquée en Europe et aux Etats-Unis pour son silence, de même que nombre d’artistes russes pressés de s’exprimer publiquement. «Ma position est claire», a-t-elle ajouté.

En réaction, l’Opéra de Novossibirsk, en Sibérie, a annoncé l’annulation d’un concert prévu le 2 juin de la soprano qui vit à Vienne. «Vivre en Europe et avoir l’opportunité de se produire dans des salles de concert européennes s’est révélé être plus important (pour elle) que le sort de la patrie», a-t-il dénoncé dans un communiqué. «Nous ne devrions pas avoir peur des figures culturelles qui tournent le dos à leur patrie. Notre pays est riche en talents et les idoles d’hier seront remplacées par d’autres ayant une position citoyenne claire», a-t-il ajouté.

– “La soprano Anna Netrebko déprogrammée pour avoir critiqué la guerre”

• The Canadian government (?): “I wondered how a freedom-loving people could allow themselves to be abused by these mini-Stalins without a peep.” (“Saint” Paul). Likewise, calling Canada a “tyranny” and “authoritarianism” (that would explain the “Toronto Symphony Orchestra Goes Full Stalin”…) and Australia and New Zealand “totalitarian”, words he would, of course, our Saint, never ever use against dear dear Putin or his regime.

• And, last but not least: “The little Stalinist Mayor of Palm Beach County, FL, Dave Kerner” (“The New Rules of Golf in the USAR (Union of Soviet American Republics)”)

Dave Kerner, who apparently is Stalinist, for… regulating golf. Really? Talk about first world problems. The millions of Russian and Ukrainian victims of the GULag and Holodomor must be feeling brotherly compassion for those poor, poor, Americans suffering the oh so similar fate of being deprived of a game of golf during a deadly pandemic.

The unbelievable arrogance of ignorant Americans, from the safety of their US mainland where their main concern seems to be whether they can play golf, scolding European libertarians for daring to worry about the threat of a Russian invasion… Now one can understand why Ron Paul and his ilk are always eager to defend authoritarian regimes around the world – they just have no clue what real tyranny is and are therefore utterly incapable of grasping that some governments are much more dangerous than others. Believe it or not, governments can do worse things to you than make you follow some rules while playing golf.

↩

⁴

Each of these signatories should feel the wrath of the scholars they have shamefully maligned.

Let the lawsuits fly!

– Daniel McAdams, “Regime ‘Libertarians’ Call for Cato Blood”

Replying to the timely (4 February 2022) “A letter to the Cato Institute on Ukraine and Russia” in which the signatories politely suggested:

We invite the Cato Institute to become intellectually diverse on foreign policy issues and offer more balanced positions on the matters which influence countries’ stability.

Who’s libelling and trying to silence who here?

The two “brilliant scholars” mentioned in the letter, far from digging a hole and sitting in it in shame following the premonitory letter, far from, at the very least, having been fired or demoted from their “senior fellow” positions, have since been continuing to commit, on a regular basis, such masterpieces of Kremlintarianism as:

Doug Bandow:

• Doug Bandow, “Russia’s Attack on Ukraine Is Criminal and Wrong: The War Still Isn’t America’s Fight” (Cato), March 2, 2022. Ah yes, the perfunctory denunciation of Russia, before proceeding merrily to repeat the Kremlin narrative…

• Doug Bandow, “Washington War Party Edges US Ever Closer to Russo-Ukraine War (Cato)”, March 16, 2022

• Doug Bandow, “Russia’s Aggressive War Illustrates Importance of US Foreign Policy: Ukrainians Are Latest Victims” (Cato), April 4, 2022. Of course: “However, the US and its European allies set the stage for the war, engaging in behavior that clearly yet needlessly antagonized Russia. For contributing to the horror now engulfing Ukraine Washington should be held responsible and its officials held accountable. Otherwise more people will keep dying because of Uncle Sam’s foolish hubris.”

• Doug Bandow, “Prosecute Vladimir Putin for War Crimes? Yes, Alongside MbS, MbZ, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Other Unworthies” (Cato), April 11, 2022. Where is he going with this? Ah yes, protecting Putin. Of course: “before treating Putin as uniquely culpable Western leaders should take a long, hard look in the mirror” (emphasis added). Classic whataboutism.

• Doug Bandow, “Americans Don’t Want War With Russia” (Cato), May 11, 2022 . What a straw man: nobody does! And avoiding a Russian direct threat to the USA is exactly why the USA should help Ukraine win the war!

• Doug Bandow, “Are Americans Prepared to Fight a Nuclear War over Taiwan?” (Cato, linked from Antiwar.com, too), May 25, 2022

Ted Galen Carpenter:

• Ted Galen Carpenter, “The U.S. and NATO Helped Trigger the Ukraine War. It’s Not ‘Siding With Putin’ to Admit It”, March 7, 2022 (yes it is)

• Ted Galen Carpenter, “Whitewashing Ukraine’s Corruption”, April 6, 2022

• Ted Galen Carpenter, “This Time, NATO Better Take Putin’s Ukraine Warnings Seriously” (Cato), May 3, 2022

• Ted Galen Carpenter, “The Closer Ukraine Gets to Victory, the Closer the World Comes to Nuclear War” (Cato), June 7, 2022. See “Pro-war is the new anti-war”.

• Ted Galen Carpenter, “Washington Is Making the Same Blunder Regarding Taiwan That It Did in Ukraine” (Cato), August 2, 2022

etc. etc. ad nauseam, most of them posted/linked both on ProWarDotCom and Cato.

Oh, we haven’t mentioned Cato yet? Well, if they republish pro-war articles from “antiwar.com”, they’re no better than them:

“People around the world have every reason to sympathize with the plight of the Ukrainian people, but the least bad outcome of the war would be a Russian victory and a negotiated settlement in the near future.”

Imagine writing on a website called antiwar.com and shamelessly rooting for the aggressor to win their criminal war of aggression.

Amazing that this prescient letter was writen six months ago, and yet these authors just keep on proving it right with every single one of their awful articles.↩

⁵

Foreign Libertarian parties are likely CIA operations.

– “‘Libertarian’ Party of Kentucky”

See for instance the February 24 statement by the Russian Libertarian Party.

An earlier example:

You can go pick up your check from Uncle Sam now. I’m sure you need it.

– Justin Raimondo, accusing Russian Libertarian Mikhail Svetov for daring to oppose the Russian occupation of Crimea

↩

⁶

@Roman_Skaskiw Go kill yourself, Nazi.

– Scott Horton, Director of the Libertarian Institute, Editorial Director Antiwar.com

Roman Skaskiw is a libertarian who lived ten years in Ukraine and runs the blog Roman in Ukraine. See his excellent articles:

• Nine Lessons of Russian Propaganda
• Putin’s Libertarians
• When your former libertarian hero calls you a Nazi
• The Latest Libertarian Shillery for Russia

↩

⁷ Note that Saudi Arabia has the death penalty for homosexuality, which incidentally is something explicitly advocated for the USA as well by Jeff Deist’s former colleague Gary North...

↩

Мы руководствуемся строго научными расчетами. А расчеты показывают, что за 20 лет мы построим в основном коммунистическое общество.

We are strictly guided by scientific calculations. And calculations show that in 20 years we will have mostly built a communist society

– Никита Хрущёв, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 1961

Владимир Путин was born in 1952. In the early years after that speech (he was 9 in 1961), little Vladimir was busy reading Marx, Engels and Lenin. By the time the alleged communist utopia was supposed to have been built (1981), Putin, aged 29, was a member of the Communist party, and a spy for the KGB.

He would stay in the KGB for 16 years (1975 – 1991), rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel.

He would stay in the Communist party for 18 years (1973 – 1991):

Но я был все-таки почти 20 лет – 18 лет – был членом Коммунистической партии Советского Союза. Был там, честно говоря, рядовым, но, можно сказать, идейным членом партии. И многие из этих ценностей левого характера мне нравятся и до сих пор. Равенство, братство – чего ж здесь плохого? Это сродни христианству на самом деле. Труднореализуемое в реалии жизни, но, тем не менее, они являются очень привлекательными

I was almost 20 years – 18 years – a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. I was, to be honest, an ordinary, but, one might say, an ideological member of the party. And I still like many of these left-wing values. Equality, fraternity – what’s wrong with that? It’s like Christianity really. Difficult to implement in real life, but, nevertheless, they are very attractive

– “Путин вспомнил, что он был идейным членом компартии”, October 8, 2020

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics ended in 1991; since then, chekist Putin has been regularly lamenting that end:

Прежде всего следует признать, что крушение Советского Союза было крупнейшей геополитической катастрофой века.

Above all, we should acknowledge that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a major geopolitical disaster of the century.

– “Послание Федеральному Собранию Российской Федерации” [ “Annual Address to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation” ], April 25, 2005

Путин объяснил, почему считает распад СССР крупнейшей катастрофой XX века

Putin explained why he considers the collapse of the USSR the biggest catastrophe of the 20th century

– “Путин объяснил, почему считает распад СССР крупнейшей катастрофой XX века”, June 13, 2017

That same regret was picked quickly by his propagandists as the invasion of Ukraine started…

Россия восстанавливает свое единство — трагедия 1991 года, этой страшной катастрофы нашей истории, ее противоестественный вывих, преодолены.

Russia is restoring its unity – the tragedy of 1991, this terrible catastrophe in our history, its unnatural dislocation, has been overcome.

– Петр Акопов, “Наступление России и нового мира” [ “The new world order” ], February 26, 2022

Like his predecessor, Putin has been making regular promises of a better future:

Невнимание государства к этим проблемам вообще считаю аморальным. Не может страна с такими резервами, полученными за счет нефтегазовых доходов, мириться с тем, что миллионы ее граждан живут в трущобах

In general, I consider the state’s inattention to these problems to be immoral. A country with such reserves, obtained from oil and gas revenues, cannot put up with the fact that millions of its citizens live in slums.

– “Путин считает аморальным существование в России трущоб”, April 26, 2007

Нам нужно решать первоочередные задачи, самые острые — с аварийным жильем. Из трущоб людей вытащить — вот что нужно сделать.

We need to solve priority tasks, the most acute - with emergency housing. Getting people out of the slums is what needs to be done.

– “Путин: надо людей из трущоб вытащить, а не сваливать все в одну телегу”, May 31, 2013

В конце года я уже говорил о том, что нужно вытаскивать людей из аварийного жилья, из трущоб. Как идёт работа в этом направлении?

At the end of the year, I already spoke about the need to pull people out of dilapidated housing, out of the slums. How is work progressing in this direction?

– “Путин призвал «вытаскивать людей из трущоб»”, January 5, 2021

Imagine having ruled over the country for 22 years, yet managing to ask that question with a straight face. Meanwhile, of course, Putin enjoyed his super-yachts and palaces, and poured huge amounts of money into senseless military destruction. Of course.

Culminating, in 2019, by an allusion to Хрущёв’s promise:

Людей, кроме того, не обманешь. Они остро чувствуют лицемерие, неуважение к себе и любую несправедливость. Их мало интересует бюрократическая волокита, бумажная текучка. Для людей важно, что реально сделано и как это улучшает их жизнь, жизнь их семей. И не когда-нибудь, а сейчас. Мы не должны повторять ошибок прошлых десятилетий и ждать «пришествия коммунизма». Нужно сейчас менять ситуацию к лучшему. …

Уже в ближайшее время, в этом году люди должны почувствовать реальные изменения к лучшему.

Besides, you cannot fool the people. They are acutely aware of hypocrisy, lack of respect or any injustice. They have little interest in red tape and bureaucratic routine. It is important for people to see what is really being done and the impact it has on their lives and the lives of their families. And not sometime in the future, but now. We must not repeat the mistakes of the past decades and wait for communism to arrive. We have to change the situation for the better now …

Very soon, this year people should feel real changes for the better.

– “Послание Президента Федеральному Собранию” [ “Presidential Address to Federal Assembly” ], February 20, 2019

At the exact same age (67) as Никита Хрущёв when he promised communism in 20 years, same vain promises… The latest one:

«Через десять лет Россия будет жить лучше», заявил Путин

“In 10 years Russia will live better”, Putin declared

– “Через десять лет Россия будет жить лучше, заявил Путин”, June 9, 2022

Hopefully, yes: much better, without him.

• “Свобода России!”
• “Libertarianism is against aggression 3”: “Libertarianism is against a new Union of Soviet Socialist Republics”
• “Russian Criminal Code”
• Wikipedia, “Chekism”
• Agnieszka Płonka, “Do not say ‘Russia’, say ‘the gang’” and “The Cold War has never ended–it just went bankrupt for a while”

Today’s Russia is an extremely oppressive regime, the dismal continuation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics*. It should be obvious to any libertarian, that, like for all socialist, authoritarian and totalitarian states, the less people it is allowed to oppress, the better.*

We also wrote earlier that:

The Russian leadership can, and should, at any time, the sooner the better, recall their invading force, resign, apologize, stand trial and start paying reparations for their crimes.

But what if they don’t? Libertarianism, obviously, has something to say on that too.

Libertarianism is the right to defense: Ukraine has the right to defend itself against aggression

They are fighting for our future, not just their own. And they deserve all our support. And they will win.

– Vera Kichanova (Вера Алексеевна Кичанова), “My family are from Russia and Ukraine, here’s what I think about this war”, March 7, 2022

Have you noticed that libertarian support for Russia increases in proportion to how far the libertarian lives from Russia? Libertarians from Finland to Ukraine are all appalled at the betrayal. Libertarians in Russia (those who dare speak) feel similarly. Here is an appeal by the Libertarian Party of Russia.

– Roman Skaskiw, “The Latest Libertarian Shillery for Russia”

This holds true even for Mises, Lviv born, who “by the age of 12, spoke fluent German, Russian, Polish and French, read Latin and could understand Ukrainian”, writing from Austria (before moving to Geneva and then the US), compared to Rothbard, writing from the US (we found no indication anywhere that Rothbard ever lived outside the US or spoke any language besides English).

the knowledge of the particular circumstances of time and place. It is with respect to this that practically every individual has some advantage over all others because he possesses unique information of which beneficial use might be made, but of which use can be made only if the decisions depending on it are left to him

– Friedrich Hayek, “The Use of Knowledge in Society”

In a somewhat Hayekian way, the closer to the issues people are, the better they understand them and know what’s best for them. More on that later.

Thus, fortuitously, from a mixture of theoretical and practical grounds of their own, the Soviets arrived early at what libertarians consider to be the only proper and principled foreign policy.

– Murray N. Rothbard, “A Soviet Foreign Policy: A Revisionist Perspective”, 1978

Nur ein grosses Volk gibt es heute, das unentwegt an dem militaristischen Ideal festhält: die Russen.

Gewiss gibt as auch im russischen Volk Elemente, die der Denkungsart, die in ihrem Volke vorherrscht, abhold sind; das Bedauerliche ist nur, dass sie sich unter ihren Volksgenossen nicht durchzusetzen wussten. Seit Russland auf die europäische Politik einen Einfluss auszuüben in der Lage ist, steht es zu Europa immerfort in der Stellung des Räubers, der sprungbereit auf den Augenblick wartet, in dem er sich der Beute bemächtigen kann. Niemals haben die russischen Zaren eine andere Grenze für die Ausdehnung ihres Reiches anerkannt als die, die ihnen durch den Zwang der Verhältnisse diktiert worden ist. Nicht um ein Haar anders ist die Stellung der Bolschewiken zu dem Problem der räumlichen Ausdehnung der russischen Herrschaft. Auch sie wissen es nicht anders, als dass man soweit in der Eroberung gehen darf und gehen muss, als man es im Hinblick auf seine Kräfte wagen darf. Der glückliche Umstand, der die Zivilisation vor der Vernichtung durch die Russen gerettet hat, war der, dass die europäischen Staaten so stark waren, dass sie dem Ansturm der russischen Barbarenhorden mit Erfolg standhalten konnten. Die Erfahrungen, die die Russen in den napoleonischen Kriegen, im Krimkrieg und im türkischen Feldzug 1877-1878 gemacht hatten, zeigten ihnen, dass ihre Armee trotz grosser Zahl der Streiter nicht fähig sei, die Offensive gegen Europa zu ergreifen. Der Weltkrieg hat das bestätigt.

[Today there is only one great nation that steadfastly adheres to the militaristic ideal, viz., the Russians.

Of course, even among the Russian people there are some who do not share this attitude. It is only to be regretted that they have not been able to prevail over their compatriots. Ever since Russia was first in a position to exercise an influence on European politics, it has continually behaved like a robber who lies in wait for the moment when he can pounce upon his victim and plunder him of his possessions. At no time did the Russian Czars acknowledge any other limits to the expansion of their empire than those dictated by the force of circumstances. The position of the Bolsheviks in regard to the problem of the territorial expansion of their dominions is not a whit different. They too acknowledge no other rule than that, in the conquest of new lands, one may and indeed must go as far as one dares, with due regard to one’s resources. The fortunate circumstance that saved civilization from being destroyed by the Russians was the fact that the nations of Europe were strong enough to be able successfully to stand off the onslaught of the hordes of Russian barbarians. The experiences of the Russians in the Napoleonic Wars, the Crimean War, and the Turkish campaign of 1877-78 showed them that, in spite of the great number of their soldiers, their army is unable to seize the offensive against Europe. The World War merely confirmed this.]

– Ludwig von Mises, Liberalismus [ Liberalism: In the Classical Tradition ], 1927

Eastern Europeans know all too well the dangers of Russian imperialism. And they know all too well their options, and the only way to stand up to it. “Libertarians” – or shall we say kremlintarians – especially American ones, don’t.

The myth of neutrality

Modern war is merciless, it does not spare pregnant women or infants; it is indiscriminate killing and destroying. It does not respect the rights of neutrals. Millions are killed, enslaved, or expelled from the dwelling places in which their ancestors lived for centuries.

– Ludwig von Mises, Human Action

According to Hoppe, neutrality is the solution:

And in order to achieve this goal and avoid war or minimize the risk of war, there is only one promising recipe: neutrality. One does not interfere in the internal affairs of the great power, and one does not threaten or provoke it. Even a great power cannot simply invade another country. For this always requires justification to its own population, which has to bear the burden of a war. And the smaller a state, the more difficult it is to portray its behavior as a threat or a provocation. (Who feels threatened by Liechtenstein?!) And this imperative of neutrality applies all the more when, as in the case of Ukraine, you are faced with two major powers with rival claims at the same time and taking the side of one means an additional threat for the other. The current war is the result of multiple violations of this rule by the government of Ukraine. If the government that came to power in a US-orchestrated coup in 2014 had expressly refrained from joining NATO and the EU, like Switzerland did, and the two then breakaway Russian-speaking provinces in the east of the country would have been let go instead of bullied and terrorized, the potential threat to Russia would have been reduced and the present catastrophe would almost certainly not have occurred. Under sustained US pressure, combined with their own audacity, the Ukrainian ruling clique did nothing of the sort and continued to demand NATO membership. This would have extended the US military presence right up to the borders of greater Russia, which had been declared an enemy state. Therefore, no one could doubt that the behavior of the Ukrainian government would be perceived by the Russian side as a tremendous provocation and a serious threat. The actual result of this provocation, which is now available, was not foreseeable, but it was quite foreseeable that one’s own behavior would also make a Russian reaction like the one that actually took place more likely.

– Hans-Hermann Hoppe, “Decentralized and Neutral”

Hoppe… what if reality doesn’t fit your childishly naive theory? Well, you alter the facts, throw in a lot of hypothetical “if”s of which you don’t know anything, pull an “almost certainly” out of thin air, and voilà: you were right all along!

In another similar article, Hoppe suggests for Europe to split into thousands of micro-states, which, of course, should be neutral:

Therefore, one must advise small states to pursue a strict policy of neutrality.

– Hans-Hermann Hoppe, “My Dream Is of a Europe Which Consists of 1,000 Liechtensteins”

There are, of course, several issues with this:

• The first is, of course, the reliance on falsehoods regarding the actual reasons and “provocations” for the invasion (the usual false claims about U.S.-orchestrated coup, NATO threat, etc., more on that below). Also, didn’t Putin himself change his tune on that since then? Perhaps Hoppe should investigate how Russia grew to its current size: are we to assume none of the victims of the expansion of Ivan the Terrible, Peter “the Great”, or, earlier, Genghis Khan, were neutral? All had “provoked” the greater power? Also, never mind that Ukraine was pretty much neutral before Russia invaded it – except for a Russian base on its soil;
• Second, even assuming Ukraine were a threat, and it being a threat were the reason for the invasion (again, many ifs), why would a great power not invade other, smaller nations just because it can? What guarantee would Ukraine have had even were it no threat to anyone?  Naive, misinformed, or dishonest Hoppe seems to be entirely unaware that “might makes right” is precisely the official policy of the Russian regime (and that even if it were not, no one could guarantee Ukraine that it would not change, or that some other ill-intentioned state would not threaten it);
• Third, the very notion of “perceived threat” relies on two elements on which the average citizen has very little control: his “own” government’s actions, and their perception by every other state on earth.

So basically if you are a citizen of one of those thousand Liechtensteins, you need to pray every day that your government doesn’t say something silly, or worse, doesn’t say something that a bigger state will perceive as such. Ukraine was in no way a threat to Russia, but regardless of the veracity or not of the accusations, imagine your Liechtenstein at risk of being invaded every day whenever a bigger state proclaims that your President started taking drugs, or that your Jewish and Native-Russian-speaking President is a threat to Native-Russian-speakers and a Nazi, or that a hypothetical future membership in a defensive alliance, which could have been prevented in any number of other ways, suddenly makes you a legitimate target… What exactly are you supposed to do?

Conversely, a citizen of a big state can be pretty safe that their government can do any number of wrong things without an invasion happening. In fact their government can make any number of outrageous claims and demands and many will be bending over backwards to accomodate it – e.g. a surprising number of people seems to consider perfectly reasonable that the largest state on earth (again, by what mysterious process did it become such?) “needs” more Lebensraum, err, “neutral” states “buffer zone” around it just to be safe (as if its nuclear deterrence were not enough…). Interestingly, no one ever considers any similar concerns from any other states (say Poland’s right to a neutral Belarus).

Do we even need to comment on “justification to its own population, which has to bear the burden of a war”? Is Hoppe not aware of the amount of Russian oppression and propaganda, and the penalties for dissenting from it? Is he not aware of the huge financial cost of the war, the lack of prospect of any benefit from it for the average Russian, and yet it happened?

Also, Switzerland (and Austria) can happily enjoy being “neutral” while (together) 100% encircled by NATO (large, nuclear-armed states) and thus enjoying free security against any other big states, while spending less than half of the NATO’s 2%-GDP-baseline on military… that might not be the best example to prove how neutrality alone ensures safety from invasion.

As a sidenote, “had explicitly renounced joining NATO and the EU, as Switzerland did,” is not even accurate, as for EU Switzerland applied in 1992 and cancelled the application in 2016 (would we be threatened if we hadn’t?), and there’s no commitment not to reapply or apply to NATO. Indeed, while we would still oppose joining the EU, joining NATO would be a good idea, and public opinion might be warming up to it:

So spricht sich eine Mehrheit – 56 Prozent – für eine «engere Zusammenarbeit» mit der Nato aus.

This follows a similar shift in public opinion in traditionnally neutral Finland and Sweden.

We, Switzerland, are not safe because we’re “neutral”. We’re safe because we’re armed (more on that below), and, because we’re actually surrounded by NATO. Yes, we are, Russia is not.

If Putin was worried about NATO expansion, he just created his own problem.

As for Switzerland, it is not safe from Russia because it’s neutral. Obviously, when Lew Rockwell blabbers on about Russia’s “encirclement” by NATO (“the US and its NATO satellites had Russia surrounded”, “… to free Russia from encirclement”, “…end its encirclement of Russia and disband NATO”... )… it’s obvious he’s never seen a map of Eurasia. It seems also that even German-born Hoppe, while being interviewed by a Swiss MP, has no clue about where Switzerland is… the fact that it’s at a safe distance from Russia, and the fact that it’s 90% surrounded by NATO, in fact entirely surrounded together with Austria…. Isn’t it nice that we can free-ride on the safety offered by NATO, while happily keeping our military spending below 1% of GDP? Maybe Russia should wish for more borders with NATO, not less: “The growing transatlantic alliance kept the peace in Europe for decades and actually made Russia safer.”

Ah, neutrality! Whole lot of good it did to neutral Iran, for instance:

The invasion was a surprise attack described by Allied forces as rapid and conducted with ease … Following the invasion, Sir Reader Bullard and Andrey Andreyevich Smirnov, the British and Soviet ambassadors to Iran, were summoned. The Shah demanded to know why they were invading his country and why they had not declared war. Both answered that it was because of “German residents” in Iran. When the Shah asked if the Allies would stop their attack if he expelled the Germans, the ambassadors did not answer. The Shah sent a telegram to US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, pleading with him to stop the invasion. As the neutral United States had nothing to do with the attack, Roosevelt was not able to grant the Shah’s plea but stated that he believed that the “territorial integrity” of Iran should be respected.

– Wikipedia, “Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran”

Ah yes, where did we hear that last one before?

The hopelessly naive Hoppe doesn’t understand that “neutrality” is no guarantee. Switzerland is not safe because it’s neutral, but because it is, horresco referens, surrounded by NATO.

Indeed the only real solution that Hoppe himself suggests is: “The other variant is that small states enter into a series of alliances with the possibility of acting together against an enemy.”

It does appear that Hoppe just made the case for either big states, or being part of NATO (as libertarians, we prefer the latter). In fact, obviously, if it’s an alliance of 1,000 states as small as Liechtenstein, for logistical reasons it would probably need a single common army, probably making it much more unified than NATO states are – again, the current setup of independent states joined in a loose defensive alliance seems as the more libertarian alternative.¹

The madness of surrender

Ukraine will not surrender, because when the choice is between dying in combat and being slaughtered like pigs, any nation will choose the first course of action

– Amram Leifer

We wrote early on that surrender was not a good option. Well, everyone should be aware now that it was and is simply not an option:

• “‘I can do whatever I want to you’ Russian soldiers raped and murdered Ukrainian civilians in the village of Bogdanivka”

• “‘The Russians said beatings were my re-education’”

The Ukrainians, with their past experience of Russian invasions, were painfully aware of it. The hopelessly naive Hoppe still doesn’t get that basic fact:

Nevertheless, if you know there is no chance to win a war against a foreign power, you have to consider surrendering, because you see that only one corrupt gang is exchanged for another corrupt gang.

Because, of course, in his naive mind (or shall we say: spoiled, privileged? more on that later), nothing worse can happen to you than one corrupt gang replacing another. Just pray again that the new gang is merely corrupt, and not genocidal as well, and you’ll be fine. In fact, that assumes somewhat naively the surprisingly strong claim that all corrupt gangs are equally oppressive (see below).

Bear in mind, on top of that, that Hoppe advocates for micro-states, who, of course, would stand no chance against larger ones. Neutral Switzerland is too big for Hoppe already. His model being Liechtenstein (a mere 40,000 souls), which doesn’t even have an army. So according to genius Hoppe, Europe’s relatively small states should split into tiny, undefensible micro-states… which should then simply surrender the moment a bigger state invades them (and why wouldn’t it!), thus resulting… in big state(s) again? Smart.

A Russian libertarian translated Hoppe’s “Nationalism and Secession” into Russian (“Национализм и сецессия”). This is what she had to say about Hoppe’s “surrender” suggestions:

Хоппе заявил, что у украинцев «нет шансов победить в войне» с превосходящей по силе российской армией, поэтому им лучше «сдаться» … Высказывания же Хоппе в очередной раз вызывают, мягко говоря, недоумение и стыд.

– “Что говорят ведущие либертарианские теоретики о войне, которая идет в Европе уже почти три месяца?”

Speaking of shame...

And the Alt-Right also laughs off as hopelessly naïve the programmatic motto [“Peace, Love, and Liberty”] of so-called libertarians such as the Students for Liberty (which I have termed the “Stupids for Liberty”)

– Hans-Hermann Hoppe, “Libertarianism and the ‘Alt-Right’” (transcript)

Well:

we will strive for the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine,” Putin said during an address on state television… Putin urged Ukrainian servicemen to “immediately put down arms and go home.”

– “Attacking Ukraine, Putin calls for ‘denazification’ of country with a Jewish leader”, February 24

According to Hoppe, they should have listened and surrendered. According to Students for Liberty, they were right in fighting:

What is not surprising to me, though, is the bravery which Ukrainians show as they react to the invasion. Ukrainians are now doing the job that we started over ten years ago — trying to put an end to probably the ugliest regime Europe has seen since 1945. They are fighting for our future, not just their own. And they deserve all our support. And they will win.

– Vera Kichanova (Вера Алексеевна Кичанова), “My family are from Russia and Ukraine, here’s what I think about this war”, March 7, 2022

According to Ukrainians themselves:

I’m in touch with one of the last defenders of Mariupol. He’s wounded. After Bucha massacre, he says, “surrender is not an option.” He feels their stand accomplished its mission. They tied up so much Russian firepower it gave other cities a chance to survive.

– Simon Shuster

Now who’s the hopelessly naive here? Perhaps Hoppe should create his own organization, Stupids for fascism, with the motto “surrender, hatred, serfdom”.

NATO expansion is a good thing

We can insist our own state stop provoking other regional powers through blunders like continued North Atlantic Treaty Organization expansion.

– Ryan McMaken, “Yes, the US Has Its Own ‘Sphere of Influence.’ And It’s Huge.”

Isn’t it fascinating, how, for American Kremlintarians, NATO “expansion” is a purely american act of will? It’s like none of us poor devils in the rest of the world have any agency, at all. The Russians don’t have agency, they get “provoked” into senseless wars, no matter how counter-productive and self-destructive, like a mindless “bear” being poked (sic). And the citizens of the 30 NATO members don’t either – if the US decides they shall be part of NATO, that’s it, they get swallowed by it! And the Ukrainians... More on that later.

Nevermind the years of begging from those countries to join, nevermind their referenda. Nope: in the Kremlintarian, American-centric-yet-American-hating fantasy world, it all comes down to Joe Sixpack, Mises-dot-org or Antiwar-dot-com writer, to decide the fate of the world by ordering his Joe Biden President what to do.

The Russian regime view potential Ukraine membership in NATO as a real threat to Russian sovereignty. Consider, for example, how the US would react if the Mexicans signed a mutual defense pact with China.

– Ryan McMaken, “The Usual Suspects Are Pushing War with Russia”, January 28, 2022

Again, viewed from Switzerland, how exactly is your neighbors’ joining NATO a threat to your sovereignty? And what is his point, would he support American invasion of Mexico in that case? Incidentally, yet again, are they really totally unable to grasp the difference of degree between criminal dictatorships and relatively liberal democracies? Being a country in NATO is not the same as being a country in “Union State”. Being a non-NATO country neighboring NATO ones (or indeed being encircled by them, such as Switzerland and Austria) is not the same as having a Union State member as a neighbor. The inhabitants of those countries get it – American Kremlintarians don’t.

Ron Paul, Lew Rockwell, Walter Block, all have an issue with NATO expansion… and its very existence:

American [sic] should end its encirclement [sic] of Russia and disband NATO.

– Lew Rockwell

Decent men hope for … NATO to stop its ceaseless march to the east.

– Walter Block

NATO kept creeping, sometimes jogging, in an eastward direction

– Walter Block, “Nuclear War?”

Again, “march to the east”? “jogging”? Do these people have any awareness at all of what NATO even is?

The fact is that NATO should never have been established in the first place.

– Jacob G. Hornberger, “Terminate NATO”

NATO should be disbanded, not expanded.

– Ron Paul

Who goes as far as to proclaim: “NATO Expansion Is Aggression”. Some libertarian.

Ron Paul is not just against NATO expansion, he’s not just against NATO still existing after the end of the Soviet Union, he’s not just against US being in NATO, he’s against NATO itself (nevermind the opinions of the 29 other member states). Consistent in his ignorance, he makes it clear he’s as wrong about Russia and NATO in the past as he is about them in the present.

As he reminds us, NATO was created in 1949. As he forgets, in 1949, the Soviet Union was ruled by Stalin. 1949, that’s a mere 10 years after 1939, when that same Soviet Union, under that same Stalin ruler, started WW2, allied with Nazi Germany, by together invading Poland. Five years after the Warsaw Uprising, in which that same Stalin deliberately tricked Poles and let 250,000 of them be massacred by his former Nazi allies. Poland was finally allowed to join NATO in 1999. Complete mystery why they would be interested.

Not just that: Germany was not supposed to have a large army nor airforce after WWI. It was the Soviet Union who secretly helped Nazi Germany rebuild its army, thus making WWII possible. That same Stalin, ruling the same Soviet Union, is also responsible for the Shoah-scale (4-7 million dead) genocide through famine of Ukrainians. Is it so surprising that Ukraine, unlike Russia, does not miss the Soviet Union all that much…?. Up to this day, Russia openly embraces its Soviet Socialist legacy, including statues of Lenin. Lenin, also responsible for a starvation-genocide against Ukrainians. Really surprising why Ukrainians want to join NATO instead of being occupied by Russia again.

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were all invaded by the Soviet Union in 1940. They joined NATO in 2004 (incidentally, they should and would have been founding members were it not for the Soviet occupation). Czechoslovakia was invaded by the Soviet Union in 1968. They joined NATO in 1999 (Czechia) and 2004 (Slovakia). Hungary was invaded by the Soviet Union in 1956, they joined NATO in 1999, by a 85.3% yes in referendum.

Finland was invaded by the Soviet Union in 1939. It shall join NATO, let us hope, in 2022.

Now somehow we are supposed to believe that creating NATO to defend against that very Soviet Union, in 1949, was a bad idea, and that those same countries invaded by it, joining NATO as soon as they could, while being threatened by the very regime that succeeded the Soviet Union and laments its end, constitutes “aggression”? A regime whose politicians, generals and pundits/propagandists, on government media, regularly threaten another invasion of those same countries it invaded previously? A regime who raises flags and statues of that same Soviet Union in invaded territories?

I think people should reflect on the debate on why is it that Russia’s neighbours, time and again, want membership of NATO to get security guarantees?

– Anders Fogh Rasmussen, NATO’s secretary-general 2009–2014, “Unless Russia stopped, Putin will reach Baltic states, says NATO’s former chief”

As for Walter Block… he’s merely repeating word for word the errors of Rothbard here… with even less excuse for it.

Walter Block, in this bizarre article, seems (if we understand this mess correctly at all), to merely repeat Rothbard’s blatant mistake:

Suppose that Brazil had invaded a relatively peaceful United States several times in the last century… Apart from some missiles placed in Cuba, at a time when the US surrounded Russia in many places, the latter country has confined itself to protecting itself from yet another invasion emanating from west of it.

Again, the phantasmagoric claim of Russia being “surrounded” by NATO…

We already mentioned this strange article from Block… Through some sheer rewriting of history, he puts blame of the invasion on NATO: “where lies the primary blame for this unhappy occurrence? Obviously, with the US and NATO.”

Yes, the USSR, was not a nice place, internally. Russia, too, has its problems in this regard, as do many other nations. However, all too many commentators who really should know better deduce from this fact that this country is expansionist, externally…. Great Britain was for many years one of the best countries to live in … Yet, to say it was intent upon world domination … would be a vast understatement.

the exact same argument as Rothbard:

Many dictatorships have turned inward, cautiously confining themselves to preying on their own people. … On the other hand, such an indubitable democracy as Great Britain spread its coercive imperialism across the globe during the 19th and earlier centuries.

Worse, Block:

Apart from some missiles placed in Cuba, at a time when the US surrounded Russia in many places, the latter country has confined itself to protecting itself from yet another invasion emanating from west of it.

Rothbard:

Thus, while imperialist and deplorable, Soviet foreign policy is basically cautious and defensive; Russia has been invaded three times from Eastern Europe in this century, and therefore its concern with avoiding anti-Soviet governments there is understandable.

What are these “invaded three times from Eastern Europe in this century”/“yet another invasion emanating from west of it”? Napoleon, in 1812? In the 20th century (when Rothbard was writing), there is the Nazi one, but surely that was not unrelated to a not-so-cautious foreign policy… World War I, maybe?

Wikipedia (a source of information unavailable to Rothbard, but surely not so to Block) lists dozens of conflicts Russia was involved in both this and the previous century… How many of them were mere defense against invasion?

Going forward, the good news is everyone seems to have got the message now, even the majorities in previously “neutral” countries like Finland and Sweden: join NATO as soon as possible. Everyone, that is, except the useful idiots “libertarians”.

Lastly, if Russia really wanted to stop NATO expansion… it could simply have asked nicely. Every new admission requires approval of the now 30 states (For instance, currently: “Turkey threatens to block Finland and Sweden Nato bids”.). Surely Russia could have convinced one of them, through either open or covert bribes, to veto the expansion, for a fraction of the cost of its war of aggression. Or indeed, the even simpler solution: be nicer to its neighbors and offer them real security guarantees, instead of regularly threatening them.

Biden says that Putin is about to invade Ukraine. We can’t let this happen because that would be “aggression.” … But the neocons who control American foreign policy are the real aggressors … If Ukraine does get a pro-Russian government, this would not be Russian “aggression.”

– Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr., “Why Die for Ukraine?”, January 31, 2022

So in Mr Rockwell’s world, an invasion is not “aggression”… What is “real aggression” then?

we have expanded NATO towards Russia’s border. Make no mistake—Russia considers the expansion of NATO as a direct military threat.

Apparently Mr Rockwell is so incompetent as a libertarian, that he cannot recognize blatant aggression himself (such as an invasion) but must base his assessment of what constitutes aggression on what “Russia considers” as such instead. Of course: why think for yourself and apply libertarian principles when you can just ask the Russian government.

What else? “The United States promised not to expand NATO”… Ah yes, so apparently (it’s far from proved²) one politician made a verbal promise to another (neither of which are still in power), thirty years ago, and that somehow should bind the whole world, provide valid reasons for breaking actual signed treaties, committing invasions and war crimes, committing aggressions against people who have nothing to do with either of the supposed parties? Seriously? And that’s coming from… a libertarian? (What would Spooner think of that…)

a US-backed coup overthrew a government friendly to Russia

More on that below. Besides, is Mr Rockwell aware that this was eight years ago and that Ukraine has had several elections since then? Or does he believe these were all bought as well?

it should make absolutely no difference to us whether Russia controls Ukraine

“apathy, selfishness” indeed... And it’s not even rational selfishness. The US, as a neighbor of Russia, is of course part of those it directly threatens:

• ‘Alaska Is Ours!” Billboards Appear in Russia After Threat to Reclaim State
• Russian House Speaker Threatens to ‘Take Back’ Alaska
• Russian cadets vow to grab Alaska from the US and say they’re ‘ready to die for Putin’ in propaganda video (video)

That would of course be bad enough, but… does it really make no difference to him? Or would he actually prefer for Russia to control Ukraine?

If Biden doesn’t want Putin to invade Ukraine, he should remove the NATO bases around Russia and take away the missiles. If he won’t do this, a Russian invasion can still be stopped. All that’s required is that a pro-Russian government take power in Ukraine.

“around Russia” ? “the missiles”? What parallel world does Mr Rockwell live in?

NATO ballistic missile defence is not directed against Russia and cannot undermine Russia’s strategic deterrence capabilities. It is designed to protect European Allies against missile threats from outside the Euro-Atlantic area.

The Aegis Ashore site in Romania is purely defensive. The interceptor missiles deployed there cannot be used for offensive purposes. The interceptors contain no explosives. They cannot hit objects on the Earth’s surface – only in the air. In addition, the site lacks the software, the hardware and infrastructure needed to launch offensive missiles.

“NATO-Russia relations: the facts”

That’s not that reassuring actually… They should be directed against Russia, obviously.

Turkey is hosting a US BMD radar at Kürecik; Romania is hosting a US Aegis Ashore site at Deveselu Air Base; Germany is hosting the command centre at Ramstein Air Base; and Poland is hosting another Aegis Ashore site, whose construction is nearing completion at the Redzikowo military base.

– NATO, “Ballistic missile defence”

Nonetheless, the fact remains: a few missile defenses in Romania and (not even ready yet) in Poland hardly constitutes “the missiles” or “NATO bases around Russia”.

“The United States and Ukraine Started the War—Not Russia” By Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., April 9, 2022

Linking to CovertAction Magazine.

In which article we will learn for instance that “Because Kyiv knows NATO has their back and they want to remove Russian-speakers from Ukraine.”

Zelensky being, of course, a native Russian speaker. As for Kyiv?

Russian is used at home by 43–46% of the population of the country … Russian language dominates in informal communication in the capital of Ukraine, Kyiv … 83% of Ukrainians responding to a 2008 Gallup poll preferred to use Russian instead of Ukrainian to take the survey

Wikipedia, “Russian language in Ukraine”

Well… The bigger the lie… Ukrainians are of course mostly bilingual Russian-Ukrainian.

The article can’t even seem to decide whether the conflict in the Donbass is a civil war, or an Ukrainian invasion of a foreign country. But of course, no explanation as to what exactly started the conflict in the first place (surely Russia could not be involved… must be a purely Ukrainian decision to start waging war on part of their own country for no reason!)

Oh, and remember in part 3, Rothbard’s involvement with the leftist Students for a Democratic Society? Well, here is the author of this beautiful piece:

Richard was a founding member of the Students for a Democratic Society at the University of Maryland, College Park. He accumulated ten arrests for equal accommodations with the Congress of Racial Equality and was resident printer for the D.C. Black Panther Party.

Richard, Richard, Richard… Black Panther Party? “The Black Panther Party (BPP), originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, was a Marxist-Leninist black power political organization”. Aha. There we go again: marxists peddling Russian propaganda, rothbardians swallowing it hook, line and sinker, surprise, surprise.

Logically, the same website published an article by “A Socialist In Canada”: “Calls By Western Socialists For A Russian Retreat From Ukraine Amount To De Facto Support For NATO Aggression”.

(Not sure if those brave socialists actually understand how socialist Russia is, or are merely defending it out of habit for their beloved Union of Soviet Socialist Republics…)

An article being indignant at those socialists who dare show some sort of consistency by opposing both “east or west” imperialisms… No, even daring to speak of “Russian imperialism” is an outrage for “A Socialist In Canada” (if only he were the only one there indeed…)… (Would he prefer “Russian Colonialism”? We’re fine with either term…). The term “Trotskyist” being dropped more and more frequently in the article raised our suspicions (the article is mainly about a French communist postman, who actually “eschews the Trotskyist label: ‘I’m neither Trotskyist nor Guevarist or Luxemburgist, I’m a revolutionary. And revolution needs to be reinvented, for no revolutionary experiment has ever succeeded. Some of them ended up as bloody caricatures.’”)… until the author links to an article on his own website, “The myth of ‘Russian imperialism’: In defense of Lenin’s analyses.”. Aha. Hence the “Trotskyist”. (The article’s concluding title is “Conclusion: the necessity for Leninist analysis”.)

It’s always “fun” to follow Rockwell’s links: one never knows whether one will end up in a cesspool of antisemitism, of calls for holy war, of employees of terrorist organizations, or of hard-core Leninist communism. Either way, plan for hazmat suit and decontamination shower after your dip.

The exact same errors are repeated on Antiwar.com, unsurprisingly:

the US and NATO continued to surround Russia with the most threatening weapons, placing antiballistic missile bases

“antiballistic missiles” are obviously not “the most threatening weapons”, and a dozen of them in Romania and Poland is certainly not “surrounding” the largest country on earth (yet again, they should start by learning some basic geography…).

removal of US and NATO troops and missiles from Ukrainian soil

Of course, there are no US troops in Ukraine, as the few dozens US advisors that were there earlier were all recalled on February 12: “Pentagon orders departure of U.S. troops in Ukraine as Russia crisis escalates”. The article is from March 16. Missiles? Well, yes, if one counts the anti-tank missiles that started flowing into Ukraine after the invasion started…

Russia’s imperialism and support for other dictatorships and terrorist regimes (Syria, Iran…) is a global threat. A Russia allowed to conquer Eastern Europe is surely more of a threat to US security, directly or indirectly, than a Russia with neighbors protected from its aggressions by NATO membership. A strong NATO is good for the US and good for the world.

Providing military aid to Ukraine is right

… badmouthing any American ally who is unenthusiastic about starting new wars …it’s once again Paris and Berlin who are trying to defuse the potential for a wider war… Germany’s sin, it seems, has been to purchase natural gas from Russia and to resist calls for facilitating weapons transfers to Ukraine.

– Ryan McMaken, “The Usual Suspects Are Pushing War with Russia”, January 28, 2022

Yes, that is Germany’s sin, and the article referred to as “attacking the German government for being insufficiently bellicose toward Russia” is in fact, unfortunately, still accurate four months later: “Is Germany a Reliable American Ally? Nein”. As for Paris (he means Macron – this Mises Institute writer really has trouble with some Misesian basics), well, let’s just say Ukrainians have come up with a new verb based on Macron’s name. Incidentally: Merkel defends 2008 decision to block Ukraine from NATO. (Someone should tell Walter Block because he seems a tad misinformed regarding Germany and Russia, to put it politely...)

Beyond mere defense, what about just wars? What about “interventions” by other states? What about merely providing weapons?

In short, libertarians and other Americans must guard against a priori history: in this case, against the assumption that, in any conflict, that state which is more democratic or allows more internal freedom is necessarily or even presumptively the victim of aggression by the more dictatorial or totalitarian state.

– Murray N. Rothbard, “A Soviet Foreign Policy: A Revisionist Perspective”

Rothbard, as usual, misses the point: by definition, any victory of the state that “allows more internal freedom” will mean that more people will enjoy more freedom. Conversely, any victory of the state that allows less internal freedom, means by definition an expansion of oppression. Therefore any invasion, any expansion, by the less free state is always wrong. Any invasion, any expansion, conversely by a freer state against a less free one, is by definition ambiguous: some people will be liberated, but some people will get killed. How to solve this (or not) is outside of our scope here. But what is unambiguous, is that an invasion by a less libertarian regime against a more libertarian one, can unequivocally be condemned by libertarians, and defense against it can be unambiguously supported. And in any ongoing war, historical or other considerations pale in comparison to the question of which regime is freer – and whose victory, therefore, will be a gain for liberty.

More generally, the legitimacy of an action is a somewhat different question than that of the means used to finance it:

У потребителей этих услуг нет выбора компании, которая бы оказала их за добровольную плату, дешевле и качественнее. Реальный выбор сейчас в том, будет ли оказана какая-либо услуга вообще или нет. Монополия не позволяет гражданам делать или покупать танки и отправлять их в Украину самостоятельно, точно так же как она не позволяет им полноценно заниматься самообороной.

– “Мне стыдно быть либертарианкой”

Surely government schools, hospitals, and policemen, perform good deeds everyday. A thief can use the stolen money to either do a good action, a neutral action, or an evil action. National defense, should, of course, be financed voluntarily. Whether it is or not, it is, in itself, a legitimate service. Likewise, saving Ukrainians from invasion, and ensuring a weaker Russsia (that is, a safer world from Russian aggression), is a legitimate end, both from a selfish (it is good for me if the world is safer, wealthier, freer) and moral (it is good to save others’ lives and help them live safer, wealthier, freer lives) perspective:

As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has transformed into a grinding war of attrition with no meaningful peace deal in sight, the US and its allies have begun to convey a new, longer-term goal for the war: to defeat Russia so decisively on the battlefield that it will be deterred from launching such an attack ever again.

– “Austin’s assertion that US wants to ‘weaken’ Russia underlines Biden strategy shift”

It should be acknowledged that the Russian regime is a threat and that it is wrong to ignore that. As the Heritage Foundation summarizes:

1. First, Putin’s Russia is a regime that combines a lack of respect for political, civil, and economic rights with a dysfunctional economy.
2. Second and most dangerous for the United States, Russia poses a series of worldwide strategic and diplomatic challenges, including buildup of its nuclear arsenal and military.
3. Third, Russia poses threats to discrete U.S. friends, allies, and interests around the world.
4. Fourth, Russia’s cooperation with bad actors and its increasing tendency to play a spoiler role pose another set of threats.

Foreign policy matters

Incidentally, those very libertarians so very wrong on foreign policy are those who claim foreign policy is the most important. By their own standard, we can therefore hardly consider this a minor disagreement.

Block, for instance:

of the three, foreign policy, economic policy and person liberties, the former is the most important. As Murray Rothbard and Bob Higgs have demonstrated over and over again, US foreign policy determines what occurs in economics and in the field of personal liberties … And, very importantly, who is the one candidate who went out of his way so as to not antagonize Russia and Premier Putin? It is the Donald, that is who.

– Walter E. Block, “Libertarians for Trump”, March 15, 2016

(Amazing that they make this connection… Which they so happily deny for other states, see above)

Speaking of whom:

what we have now appears to be an impeachment process largely driven by the desire to punish a president for not provoking a war.

– Ryan McMaken, “This President Was Impeached for Being Insufficiently Pro-War”, December 31, 2019

Isn’t their logic fascinating? The same authors who correctly defend the libertarian position on gun rights… Now seem to imply that a country being armed for defense… is “provoking a war”. Is it that hard to comprehend that, in the same way as more guns, less crime holds true, had Ukraine been more armed, had Ukraine been in NATO, the Russian criminal regime would have thought harder before invading it? How can they be advocating such a childishly naive (let’s be charitable) form of pacifism?

Incidentally, this story wouldn’t be complete without, of course, the usual connection to the common thread, socialism:

However, I confess, I find “Libertarians for Bernie” intriguing. Were Donald not in the race, I would choose Bernie over any of the other Republican contenders … I supported Barack Obama against John McCain in 2008 … Similarly, I was in favor of our Nobel Peace Prize President in 2012, vis a vis Mitt Romney

– Walter E. Block, “Libertarians for Trump, Revisited”, March 29, 2016

As usual. (And is he actually being unironic about Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize??)

Incidentally, even Bernie is smarter than Block. And that’s saying something.

Oh, by the way, here’s Block two years later:

I’m disappointed, mainly, in your foreign policy … Please reverse your course in all these matters.

– Walter E. Block, “Is Donald Trump a disaster for libertarianism? Open Letter to the Donald”, January 31, 2018

You can’t make these people up. Poor Donald must have trouble sleeping at night knowing that Walter is disappointed by his foreign policy.

Note, also, that this disappointment did not prevent Mr Block, two years later, from calling “stupid” libertarians who dared vote for the Libertarian Party instead of for his dear Donald.

Regime change is a good thing

После неминуемого поражения путинизма именно эти силы при активном взаимодействии и содействии всего международного сообщества заново учредят Россию как правовую демократическую страну и неотъемлемую участницу диалога цивилизованных стран и народов.

– Либертарианская партия России (ЛПР), “Правда и свобода — на стороне мира”

One should also recall here the position of Ayn Rand (Алиса Зиновьевна Розенбаум), a Russian who emigrated to the United States and advocated, in politics, for minarchist libertarianism in all but name (she called it “capitalism”: “a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned”):

What about force in foreign policy? You have said that any free nation had the right to invade Nazi Germany during World War II …

Certainly.

… And that any free nation today has the moral right—though not the duty—to invade Soviet Russia, Cuba, or any other “slave pen.” Correct?

Correct. A dictatorship—a country that violates the rights of its own citizens—is an outlaw and can claim no rights.

Would you actively advocate that the United States invade Cuba or the Soviet Union?

Not at present. I don’t think it’s necessary. I would advocate that which the Soviet Union fears above all else: economic boycott. I would advocate a blockade of Cuba and an economic boycott of Soviet Russia; and you would see both those regimes collapse without the loss of a single American life.

Would you favor U.S. withdrawal from the United Nations?

Yes. I do not sanction the grotesque pretense of an organization allegedly devoted to world peace and human rights, which includes Soviet Russia, the worst aggressor and bloodiest butcher in history, as one of its members. The notion of protecting rights, with Soviet Russia among the protectors, is an insult to the concept of rights and to the intelligence of any man who is asked to endorse or sanction such an organization. I do not believe that an individual should cooperate with criminals, and, for all the same reasons; I do not believe that free countries should cooperate with dictatorships.

Would you advocate severing diplomatic relations with Russia?

Yes.

– “Playboy Interview: Ayn Rand”, 1964

Not caring about totalitarian dictatorship A invading liberal democracy B, is not (just) selfishness, certainly not in the Objectivist sense. It’s insanity.

In the Czech movie Tmavomodrý svet, a German officer comments on the Czechoslovak surrender and German overtaking of their equipment following the infamous Munich Agreement:

Prohlédli jsme si ty vaše pevnosti. Perfektní. Jak jste je mohli opustit bez výstřelu? Tomu jako voják nerozumím. […] Rád bych viděl letadla.

We had a look at your border fortifications. Perfect. How could you abandon them without a shot? As a soldier, I can’t understand this. … Now, I’d like to see the planes.

Indeed, History should teach us:

But what if the British and French had held firm at Munich? Two basic responses were possible. The less interesting answer is that Hitler actually preferred a war over Czechoslovakia to a diplomatic settlement, that the Germans had a detailed plan—Case Green—for such a war, and that if Chamberlain and Daladier had rebuffed Hitler, he would probably have executed that plan. But this prospect terrified Hitler’s senior generals, who believed that Germany was not yet ready for a major war. In all probability they were correct. The Czech army alone could have fielded 19 active and 11 reserve divisions against 37 active German divisions. Assuming that the British and French launched a full-scale assault against German defenses along the Siegfried Line, which in 1938 barely existed, the result would have been a prompt defeat for Germany. Even a more limited military response by the Western Allies would have resulted in a war of attrition that Germany would have eventually lost. To military historians this result is practically self-evident, which is why it is less interesting.

The more interesting answer centers on what would have occurred if Hitler had held off on executing Case Green: more interesting because good counterfactuals illuminate aspects of a historical event that might otherwise be overlooked. In this scenario, Hitler would have continued to rearm, wary of launching Case Green until the Wehrmacht could defend western Germany successfully while overrunning Czechoslovakia. The problem, Hitler would have discovered, was that Germany lacked the financial, economic, and military resources to rearm to the level that it historically reached by September 1939 (the campaign in Poland) and May 1940 (the invasion of the Low Countries and France).

This is because historically, the March 1939 occupation of Czechoslovakia made a pivotal difference in German rearmament. Historian Williamson Murray forcefully argues this case in his 1984 book The Change in the European Balance of Power, 1938–1939: The Path to Ruin. Financially, Hitler acquired $28.3 million in gold when he overran Czechoslovakia. Economically, in combination with the March 1938 annexation of Austria, the absorption of Czech industry raised Germany’s percentage of world industrial production to 15 percent, equal to that of the United States. Militarily, Germany also acquired two major arms complexes, particularly the world-renowned Skoda Works.

Czech arms plants began to churn out weapons for the Wehrmacht, and by occupying Czechoslovakia, Germany acquired 1,502 aircraft, 469 tanks, 500 antiaircraft guns, 43,000 machine guns, a million rifles, three million rounds of artillery ammunition, and a billion rifle rounds. In theory this was enough to equip 30 German divisions, though in practice the Germans sold much weaponry to countries such as Romania, further enriching themselves.

Even so, Murray estimates that “approximately 10 German divisions received either a portion or all of their arms as a direct result of the occupation of Czechoslovakia.” The Germans also dismantled Czech fortifications for reuse in the Siegfried Line and, later, to augment the Atlantic Wall.

The de facto annexation of Czechoslovakia thus made the difference between a Nazi Germany with the resources to win decisively against Poland and the western Allies—as it did historically between September 1939 and June 1940—and one able to achieve, at best, limited gains on a path to defeat. The failure to stand firm at Munich was thus even more calamitous than most students of World War II appreciate.

– “What If: Britain and France Had Not Appeased Hitler in 1938?”

For Lew Rockwell, chairman of the Mises Institute (poor Ludwig...) conversely, stopping Hitler was wrong:

Should we have stayed out of World War II? The answer is clear. Yes, we should have, and in seeing why, our best guide is the great Murray Rothbard.

Note that this is the same author who enthousiastically approves Russia invading Ukraine... because of the Nazis there. Of course!

Moral high ground is neither necessary nor likely

Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.

– Mark Twain

Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.

– H. L. Mencken

Of course, every state on earth violates the rights of its citizens. In fact, actual libertarians (unlike Rand) know that a state violates them by definition. And in most of the world, people are not even surprised at states acting like gangs of thugs. This is obvious, most likely, to a lot of plain-sense people around the world too, especially in corrupt-poor countries who don’t expect the government to be anything but a gang of thugs. Has anyone actually believed they can, do and should be anything else, ever since starry-eyed Ayn Rand (“the United States of America is the greatest, the noblest and, in its original founding principles, the only moral country in the history of the world.”)?

All states are criminal, it is only a matter of degree, but that degree matters

Most people around the world, mostly, don’t care about the moral difference. What they do care about is the difference of degree, because it’s huge. And American libertarians, such as Hoppe (see above) and others, seem to not understand this, at all.

A more correct analysis, therefore, would focus on the relative degree of oppression. Some criminal gangs are worse, much, much worse, than others. Living in North Korea is not the same as living in South Korea. Differences of degree matter. And again, non-libertarians voting with their feet or begging for a less evil, albeit imperfect, regime, understand that.

Libertarians know that all governments are inherently wrong. A libertarian, therefore, should not expect a government to have the “moral high ground” or to be perfect. That government X also did something is irrelevant for judging government Y. South Korea does not need to be perfect for any territorial gain over North Korea to be a good thing. Ukraine does not need to be perfect, nor the US, for the Russian invasion to be wrong and the US being right in helping Ukraine to resist it. NATO does not need to be flawless for Czechs, Poles, Hungarians, Lithuanians, Ukrainians etc. to wish to join it and have every right to do so.

Likewise, we mentioned the strange attacks on Ukraine’s conscription, as if this were somehow a world novelty (viewed from Switzerland: it is not).

Yes, states are criminal organizations. They are corrupt, infefficient, lying, etc. But there are differences of degrees. And these differences are huge, a life or death matter for millions of people.

Just because the government police is committing the war on drugs does not mean we can’t call the police to stop a murder. Just because Liechtenstein has an income tax doesn’t mean you should not emigrate there from North Korea.

Hypocrisy of governments is irrelevant

US posturing today seems to China wildly hypocritical and nakedly self-serving: having gotten what we want, we want to call the game … the unpleasant fact is that when the US was in Beijing’s relative geostrategic position, it behaved no differently than Beijing is now behaving and would behave no differently were the situation reversed.

– Joseph Solis-Mullen, “US Foreign Policy Has Always Been Aggressive”

But perhaps the most important first step from the American perspective is to stop deluding ourselves about the US being some sort of uniquely virtuous nation that would never, ever stoop to imposing its own sphere of influence on its neighbors.

– Ryan McMaken “Yes, the US Has Its Own ‘Sphere of Influence.’ And It’s Huge.”

Likewise, what are we to make of libertarians still writing as if they were somehow disappointed in governments and politicians? Case in point: “Joe Biden, what the hell?”.

Joe Biden, of all people? Seriously? What exactly can a libertarian expect from Joe Biden? What is more pathetic, Sheldon Richman expressing disappointment at Biden’s actions, or Lew Rockwell systematically insulting him? And yet both somehow write as if the man were reading them and would alter his behavior accordingly? (“Oh no Sheldon Richman is sad at my speeches! Oh no Lew Rockwell doubts my intelligence! What now?”)

Is this naivete? Arrogance?

For once, a good quote by Rothbard:

If you wish to know how libertarians regard the State and any of its acts, simply think of the State as a criminal band, and all of the libertarian attitudes will logically fall into place.

– Murray Rothbard

Too bad he didn’t practice it himself. Indeed, if States are criminal bands, then we should not care about their consistency or hypocrisy. It is irrelevant. Ayn Rand made the same mistake, but the most extreme form seems to be the childish, brainless contrarianism of the current “Libertarian” Party, after its hostile takeover by the “Mises” Caucus:

The world is full of blood-soaked, war-making tyrants that must be stopped, say US politicians who shamelessly backed their own wars of aggression overseas.

Following in the tradition of Ron Paul and Harry Browne, we oppose their hypocrisy and promote military non-intervention!

– @LPNational, June 6, 2022

As if the existence of tyrants, or their need (or not) to be stopped were somehow dependent on the opinion of US politicians. As if “hypocrisy” were the issue to be opposed. What does this even mean?

Spheres of influence are neither equal nor sacred

Second, if NATO expansion was a manifestation of American empire, it was a remarkably benign and consensual form of empire. When Clinton decided to pursue enlargement, he did so at the urging of the Poles, Czechs and Hungarians. The Baltic countries and others were soon banging at the door. The states of Eastern Europe and the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics were desperate to join America’s sphere of influence, because they were desperate to leave Moscow’s.

– “Putin’s Biggest Lie: Blaming NATO for His War”

Indeed, all spheres of influence are not equal. Which ones had higher standards of living, more individual rights, etc? Which one would be chosen in free elections? Surely it should not be a surprise that now that those same countries, finally given the chance to choose, chose NATO over Russia? And surely it should not be hard to understand, for a libertarian, that the US expanding its “sphere of influence” to the detriment of one dating back to Stalin is a good thing?

Czechoslovokia (not even in the percentages agreeement between Churchill and Stalin at the source of all this), and partially liberated by the US, would certainly have been better off had Patton finished the job. In 1968, even Czech communists (two months before the Russian invasion) started to openly notice that communism was a lie: “the workers” were much better off under capitalism!

Furthermore, state boundaries are not sacred either – in fact they don’t mean anything, except in the obvious case where crossing them equals massive rights violations, such as an invasion. And to be clear (why does this even need clarifying, especially for anti-state libertarians, is astonishing), immigration for instance, is not an invasion – another topic where LVMI, LRC etc choose nationalism over libertarianism). And definitely not, either, is financing think tanks in another country:

At first glance, $5 billion is a hefty sum of money – but is it hefty enough to buy an entire revolution? The money flowed from 1991 to 2014. Most of it from the U.S. State Department, which handles foreign affairs, and its development arm USAID … The agency’s funds come from the U.S. federal budget. In 2016, USAID will have $22.3 billion to spend worldwide … America has supported many projects with the money since then with the intention of helping strengthen democracy: Anti-corruption groups, election monitoring, parliamentary expertise. Much more money was spent on health projects, environmental projects and economic development.

But the expenditures have decreased substantially over the years. It was still $195.6 million in 2011, but that had shrunk by 2014 to just $86.1 million. Only in 2015 did that figure rise a little.

Could such amounts have led to people risking their lives during the long weeks of struggle at Maidan?

Mr. Putin seems to think so. He sees the foreign money as interference in the domestic affairs of a country. That’s why NGOs in Russia that receive money from abroad are now subject to the country’s foreign agent law. American NGOs are no longer allowed to operate there. The foundation of the U.S. investor George Soros had to shut down its HIV and methadone projects, helping contribute to Russia’s increasing HIV infection rate.

“Haben die Amis den Maidan gekauft?” [ “Did Uncle Sam buy off the Maidan?” ], Die Zeit, Nr. 19/2015, May 17, 2015

You read that right: the US spent 5 billion dollars over 23 years. And it spent them on financing some pro-democracy think tanks. Spending a few billions, over 23 years, towards pro-democracy think tanks: This is what gets called “invasion” or “sweeping in and taking Kyiv” or “a US-Backed Coup” on The Lew Rockwell Cesspool and the Mao Tse Tung Institute:

The proximate cause of the coup was Yanukovych’s taking of what was essentially a large Russian bribe to eschew an EU association agreement. In a country ranked 122nd in corruption [in transparency], literally the most corrupt country in Europe [nope, that would be Russia, surprise], none of this was a surprise. But what was a surprise was the US move to sweep in and take Kyiv—something US foreign policy insiders publicly bragged about in the immediate aftermath.

The “bribe” in question being “Russia reaches deal with Ukraine on $15 billion bailout”. Frankly, if Russia can’t maintain its sphere of influence with a 15 billion bribe in one go, while the US expands its with a mere 5 billion over 23 years, several other conclusions could be drawn from this (even if the US “interference” somehow magically were the reason for the spontaneous protests of 400,000–800,000 Ukrainians), such as:

• Seems someone’s much better at this…
• one could wish the US had been willing to spend as much as the Russians then: if revolutions can be bought at a 5 billion apiece bargain nowadays, they should have bought Russia and Belarus too… Indeed, were it accurate, it would be a shame the US government had not been equally successful in financing a direly needed regime change in Russia and Belarus as well.

Mr. Putin, on the other hand, has invested heavily in a number of NGOs meant to increase Russia’s influence abroad since the Orange Revolution in 2004. Starting in 2012, $130 million has flown each year into organizations operating in post-Soviet countries and the Balkans, but particularly in Ukraine.

The overall amount is growing, according to a soon-to-be-released study from the respected London-based think tank Chatham House, which is predominately funded by international corporations. The study shows a huge network in service of Russian interests using fear-mongering and manipulation to influence a country’s populace and attempt to bias it against the West. The biggest difference to the American soft power concept is that Russia isn’t trying to win anyone over with the attractiveness of its own model, but rather makes use of economic pressure and political intimidation.

“Haben die Amis den Maidan gekauft?” [ “Did Uncle Sam buy off the Maidan?” ], Die Zeit, Nr. 19/2015, May 17, 2015

Again: not all spheres of influence are equal. Why do Western “libertarians” have such a hard time getting that?

… The Americans, however, are hesitant. They want to avoid at all costs any semblance of meddling. …

Because Mr. Obama wants to avoid an escalation of the conflict, he’s continued to speak out against arms shipments. Anyone supplying weapons would simply fuel the logic of an arms race. Mr. Putin wouldn’t watch idly, he would send more weapons into eastern Ukraine. That’s why Mr. Obama has up until now ignored those in Washington demanding a more hawkish course of action against Russia.

“Haben die Amis den Maidan gekauft?” [ “Did Uncle Sam buy off the Maidan?” ], Die Zeit, Nr. 19/2015, May 17, 2015

Well, surprise: far from being involved too much, the US was not involved enough. If you wish to blame the US for something, blame them for that – or indeed, be more specific, and blame Obama:

	Lavrov: “ha ha ha, all is forgiven? well, we’ll do it again then!” Clinton: “ha ha, yes, we’re that stupid!” See for instance: Natia Seskuria,“Russia Is Reenacting Its Georgia Playbook in Ukraine”, February 22, 2022 (!) (archive). Note that the “reset” was right after the Russian invasion of Georgia.

Besides... how exactly is any of this relevant, when a dictatorship simply decides to expand its territory?

• “Putin undermined his own rationale for invading Ukraine, saying that the war is to expand Russian territory”

• “Shakhnazarov described Russia as an empire, the rightful descendant of the Golden Horde Mongol dynasty”

13 years later, the same Lavrov:

Нет, Россия не белая и не пушистая. Россия такая, какая она есть. И мы не стыдимся показывать себя такими, какие мы есть

Russia is not squeaky clean. Russia is what it is. And we are not ashamed of showing who we are.

– Сергей Викторович Лавров, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, “Меня глаза Запада не интересуют вообще”, [“Lavrov: Russia is not squeaky clean and not ashamed”]

What should happen now?

Each one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last. All of them hope that the storm will pass before their turn comes to be devoured. But I fear-I fear greatly-the storm will not pass. It will rage and it will roar, ever more loudly, ever more widely.

– Winston Churchill

Pacifism is objectively pro-Fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side you automatically help that of the other. … The idea that you can somehow remain aloof from and superior to the struggle, while living on food which British sailors have to risk their lives to bring you, is a bourgeois illusion bred of money and security. …

But though not much interested in the ‘theory’ of pacifism, I am interested in the psychological processes by which pacifists who have started out with an alleged horror of violence end up with a marked tendency to be fascinated by the success and power of Nazism. Even pacifists who wouldn’t own to any such fascination are beginning to claim that a Nazi victory is desirable in itself.

– George Orwell, “Pacifism and the War”, 1942

Situation extérieure. Allemagne. Vous la connaissez. – Je la résume. – Par les victoires foudroyantes des armées allemandes en France, les Puissances de l’axe sont maîtresses de la situation. Demain, ce sera l’attaque de l’Angleterre. Celle-ci ne peut plus reculer sans abdiquer du même coup sa puissance impériale. Elle lutte aujourd’hui contre l’omnipotence hitlérienne comme jadis contre l’impérialisme napoléonien. Elle devra lutter jusqu’au bout, jusqu’à la victoire ou la catastrophe. [Et après ce sera nous, sous une forme ou sous une autre: exigences politiques, pression économique et militaire. Il y a quelques jours le Führer, répondant à des journalistes, disait avec un geste énergique: « Ne me parlez pas de la Suisse, son tour viendra ! »] …

Notre seule sauvegarde est notre volonté de nous défendre jusqu’au bout …

Préparation morale. On ne se rend pas assez compte dans le pays de la gravité de la situation. L’armistice n’est pas la paix, ce n’est qu’un épisode de la guerre. …

Impressionnés par les récits que nous rapportent les témoins des batailles livrées à l’étranger, beaucoup se demandent: « A quoi bon résister? » et ils concluent: « Quoi que nous fassions, nous ne serons pas en mesure de nous défendre ! »

Raisonner ainsi, c’est faillir au devoir, c’est méconnaître notre raison d’être. C’est méconnaître la force naturelle du Pays, la possibilité de résistance incomparable que nous offrent notre terrain boisé, accidenté, riche en obstacles et en couverts, notre réduit national en particulier.

Le seul moyen d’être respecté, c’est d’affirmer notre volonté de nous défendre jusqu’au bout et de vendre chèrement notre peau. Voilà ce que notre peuple doit comprendre, ce qui fera hésiter notre adversaire éventuel. …

Je me séparerai sans hésitation désormais, de tous les officiers, quel que soit leur grade, qui se laisseront aller à des propos défaitistes, faisant ainsi le jeu de la propagande étrangère d’intimidation.

Il y a, en effet, deux formes de défaitisme:

1. celui qui vise ouvertement à saper la force de résistance, et qui est le fait de nos ennemis, extérieurs ou intérieurs ;

2. celui qui s’exprime par cette question: « À quoi bon nous défendre? Nous avons beau faire : nous ne tiendrons pas plus de quelques jours. »

Cette allégation est fausse et, si nous le voulons, nous pouvons offrir une résistance qui soit efficace, digne du pays et de nos traditions. Ensuite, j’affirme que même si notre défense devait être désespérée, elle se traduirait par un sacrifice qui, [un jour ou l’autre,] s’avérerait plus tard comme un succès.

– « Rapport d’Armée (projet de discours) Au Rütli, 25 juillet 1940. » (« Il y a 80 ans, le général Henri Guisan s’adressait aux officiers de l’Armée suisse lors du Rapport du Grütli. », « Vor 80 Jahren: General Guisan hält den Rütli-Rapport », « 80 anni fa il generale Guisan tenne il “Rapporto del Grütli” »

Surrender is not an option, and resistance is to be encouraged, no matter how desperate: the longer it takes Russia to conquer Ukraine, or any part thereof, the bigger the Russian losses, the harder it will be for them to threaten anyone else. And of course, if the invasion is a total failure and the Russian army is decimated, the whole world should be safe from Russia for a while. A Russian defeat is in everyone’s interest. Every Ukrainian effort, every act of resistance, no matter how desperate, is a favor done to the rest of the world.

Hoppe writes: “Large states, on the other hand, which emerged from successful earlier small wars, are generally more warlike and wage not only small but also larger wars against large opponents.” Yet he still doesn’t get that this is exactly how Russia got there, and why it must be stopped?

• Sergey Radchenko, “Why Russia needs to be humiliated in Ukraine”
• Anne Applebaum (the author of Gulag: A History, of course gets it), “The War Won’t End Until Putin Loses”

How could the invasion really have been avoided?

Meanwhile, he [Anders Fogh Rasmussen, NATO’s secretary-general 2009–2014] said the alliance made a mistake during the 2008 summit in Bucharest that paved the way for Russia’s wars against Georgia and Ukraine. By stating that the two countries would become members of the alliance but not providing the so-called roadmap NATO “sent the wrong message to Putin, who attacked Georgia a few months after in August 2008”.

– “Unless Russia stopped, Putin will reach Baltic states, says NATO’s former chief 69“

From a real libertarian perspective, the problem isn’t that NATO was expanding too much… the problem is that it wasn’t expanding fast enough.

The help that NATO countries are providing Ukraine is welcome, but it’s still too little, too late:

A few months ago, the Ukrainians asked the United States for tanks and missile defense systems. They received instead 300 American military advisors, off-road vehicles and night-vision equipment. That was all the help for a country at war. Anyone attempting to measure the gap between the Ukrainian wishes and American response will see that there hasn’t been anything more than gestures and symbolism so far.

“Haben die Amis den Maidan gekauft?” [ “Did Uncle Sam buy off the Maidan?” ], Die Zeit, Nr. 19/2015, May 17, 2015

Were Ukraine already a member of NATO, there would probably not be a war right now. In fact NATO should have rushed their membership, or made some sort of partnership with Ukraine, and stationed troops and defenses there to prevent this war. There should have been stronger reactions after the 2014 invasion.

And the US should have made clear its own “redlines” – instead of doing the exact opposite.

And Ukrainians should have better armed themselves.

Libertarianism is the right to keep and bear arms: Ukrainians have the right to defend themselves against aggression

Как потом в лагерях жгло: а что, если бы каждый оперативник, идя ночью арестовывать, не был бы уверен, вернется ли он живым, и прощался бы со своей семьёй? Если бы во времена массовых [[посадок]], например в Ленинграде, когда сажали четверть города, люди бы не сидели по своим норкам, млея от ужаса при каждом хлопке парадной двери и шагах на лестнице, - а поняли бы, что терять им уже дальше нечего, и в своих передних бодро бы делали засады по несколько человек с топорами, молотками, кочергами, с чем придется? Ведь заранее известно, что эти ночные картузы не с добрыми намерениями идут - так не ошибешься, хрястув по душегубцу. Или тот вороно’к с одиноким шофёром, оставшийся на улице - угнать его либо скаты проколоть. Органы быстро бы не досчитались сотрудников и подвижного состава, и несмотря на всю жажду Сталина - остановилась бы проклятая машина!

Если бы… если бы… Не хватало нам свободолюбия. А еще прежде того - осознания истинного положения. Мы истратились в одной безудержной вспышке семнадцатого года, а потом СПЕШИЛИ покориться, С УДОВОЛЬСТВИЕМ покорялись. (Артур Рэнсом описывает один рабочий митинг в Ярославле в 1921 г. Из Москвы от ЦК к рабочим приехали советоваться по существу спора о профсоюзах. Представитель оппозиции Ю. Ларин разъяснял рабочим, что профсоюз должен быть защитой от администрации, что у них есть завоёванные права, на которые никто не имеет права посягнуть. Рабочие отнеслись совершенно равнодушно, просто НЕ ПОНИМАЯ, от кого еще нужна им защита и зачем еще нужны им права. Когда же выступил представитель генеральной линии и клял рабочих за их разболтанность и лень, и требовал жертв, сверхурочной бесплатной работы, ограничений в пище, армейского подчинения заводской администрации - это вызывало восторг митинга и аплодисменты). Мы просто ЗАСЛУЖИЛИ всё дальнейшее.

[ And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand? After all, you knew ahead of time that those bluecaps were out at night for no good purpose. And you could be sure ahead of time that you’d be cracking the skull of a cutthroat. Or what about the Black Maria sitting out there on the street with one lonely chauffeur-what if it had been driven off or its tires spiked? The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt!

If … if … We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more-we had no awareness of the real situation. We spent ourselves in one unrestrained outburst in 1917, and then we hurried to submit. We submitted with pleasure! (Arthur Ransome describes a workers’ meeting in Yaroslavl in 1921. Delegates were sent to the workers from the Central Committee in Moscow to confer on the substance of the argument about trade unions. The representative of the opposition, Y. Larin, explained to the workers that their trade union must be their defense against the administration, that they possessed rights which they had won and upon which no one else had any right to infringe. The workers, however, were completely indifferent, simply not comprehending whom they still needed to be defended against and why they still needed any rights. When the spokesman for the Party line rebuked them for their laziness and for getting out of hand, and demanded sacrifices from them-overtime work without pay, reductions in food, military discipline in the factory administration-this aroused great elation and applause.) We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward. ]

– Александр Солженицын, Архипелаг ГУЛаг, “Часть первая. Тюремная промышленность”, “Глава 1. Арест” [ Chapter 1: Arrest ]

the call to arms should come from the people and not from their government.

If there is a real danger, the danger is one which the citizens will recognize. Having recognized it, they will do what they can to defend themselves.

Our problem is not to find a way to compel men to defend themselves. This they will always do gladly and voluntarily if defense is truly needed.³

– Robert LeFevre, “The Nature of Man and His Government”

If a politician isn’t perfectly comfortable with the idea of his average constituent, any man, woman, or responsible child, walking into a hardware store and paying cash – for any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything – without producing ID or signing one scrap of paper, he isn’t your friend no matter what he tells you.

– L. Neil Smith, “Why Did it Have to be … Guns?”

Der Staat hat nicht zu fragen, warum jemand eine Waffe will.

– Simonetta Sommaruga, former Swiss President

I need ammo, not a ride

– Володимир Зеленський

We will give weapons to anyone who wants to defend the country. Be ready to support Ukraine in the squares of our cities.

– Володимир Зеленський

Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence now states that 18,000 assault rifles and corresponding ammunition have already been distributed to citizens in Kyiv.

A Jew must learn to defend himself. He must forever be prepared for whenever threat looms.

– “Menachem Begin on the Lessons of the Holocaust”, May 1981

“As a German I don’t understand what guns have to do with freedom” – Sidney W.

– “As a Jew, I do.” – David Harsanyi

– “As a Ukrainian, I do.” – Melaniya Podolyak

Zelensky – who is Jewish⁴ – should have pushed for this much sooner.

We’ve stated this many times, and so have libertarians in Ukraine and elsewhere:

• Roman Skaskiw, “I’ve been in print and on Ukrainian Television arguing for gun ownership as a means of security since 2014 – As I’ve said before, Ukraine can be an armed society, or a Russian society”

• Stephen P. Halbrook, “Ukraine War Reintroduces U.S. Politicians to the Second Amendment”, The Washington Times, March 29, 2022

• Jan Krepelka, “Les armes sont dangereuses là où elles sont interdites”, Bilan, July 26, 2006; “Plus jamais ça”, May 11, 2017; and more on “Droit des armes”

Ukraine should have done that much earlier. And it should not be registering the guns:

When Nazi Germany overran France in 1940, Nazi military officials posted notices that all who failed to turn in their firearms within 24 hours would be executed. French police had gun registration records, making it convenient for the Germans to find the “legal” gun owners. But many Frenchmen had not registered their guns and, despite daily reports of executions, hid them. The arms would be used by the Resistance.

I can’t be sure if Mr. Putin’s invaders have been posting similar notices, but now would be a good time for Ukrainian police to burn their gun registration records.

– Stephen P. Halbrook, “Ukraine War Reintroduces U.S. Politicians to the Second Amendment”, The Washington Times, March 29, 2022

More generally, government registration, census, etc, are inherently dangerous:

German officials identified Jews residing in Germany through the normal records created by a modern state. They used census records, tax returns, synagogue membership lists, parish records (for converted Jews), routine but mandatory police registration forms, the questioning of relatives, and from information provided by neighbors and municipal officials.

In territory occupied by Nazi Germany or its Axis partners, Jews were identified largely through Jewish community membership lists, individual identity papers, captured census documents and police records, and local intelligence networks. Germany’s racial laws identified a “Jew” as anyone with three or more Jewish grandparents, regardless of their religious identity or practice. Conversions to Christianity were pronounced illegitimate going back two generations, formalizing and instituting Nazi racial theories.

– “How did the Germans know who was Jewish?”, “About Holocaust”, World Jewish Congress

See: Stephen P. Halbrook, “Registration: The Nazi Paradigm”.

An armed population, with no gun registration, is necessary for at least three reasons:

1. Deter an invader by making an invasion more costly;
2. Actually fight an invasion, were it to happen regardless;
3. Were it to be successful, actively resist occupation.

• Ukraine is getting it now.
• Taiwan is getting it now.
• Poland is getting it now.
• Lithuania is getting it now.
• Czech Republic gets it. (“Občané České republiky mají právo nabývat, držet a nosit zbraně a střelivo k naplňování úkolů uvedených v odstavci 2.”)

Libertarianism is against nuclear terrorism

Anastastia Radina, another member of Ukraine’s parliament, said that Ukraine is looking for “workable security guarantees and not just another Budapest Memorandum.” “Let me just remind you that under the Budapest Memorandum, Ukraine destroyed parts of our nuclear arsenal, but quite a bit has been passed to Russia,” Radina said. “Where did that get us? Hearing now that the world can do nothing to Russia because it has the world’s largest nuclear arsenal. But we were pushed to contribute to that arsenal.”

– “The US and its allies are weighing security guarantees for Ukraine, but they’re unlikely to give Kyiv what it wants”, April 1st, 2022

Or any kind of terrorism, for that matter.⁵

Ideally, no State should have nuclear weapons. But especially not Iran, nor (its ally...) Putinist Russia (who only has them because it inherited them from the Soviet Union, who only had them because it stole both the technology and the uranium: the uranium needed to build them was stolen from Germany, Czechoslovakia, etc., the technology to build them was stolen from the US).

No state should ever have had nukes, from a libertarian perspective. We should pause for a moment to consider that: this incredible threat is only possible through the existence of states. In the long run, libertarians should strive to address this huge issue. See our “Transhumanism: the next step of civilization”, section 2.4.1: “Life vs mass murder”. States, especially socialist, totalitarian ones, are pure destruction, of men, of nature. That is the the main danger to mankind.

Given that there are nuclear weapons, we should at least strive to not have them in the hands of terrorist regimes. And no, giving in to nuclear terrorism is not acceptable: negotiating with terrorists is never a good idea. Wrong from a deontological perspective, it is also wrong from a consequentialist one, as it would merely encourage further terrorism. If your philosophy consists of merely obeying the most dangerous criminal, call it what it is: nihilism, cowardice, etc. Not libertarianism.

• Françoise Thom, “Putin: Flirting With Armageddon”

• “Meanwhile on Russian state TV: hosts and panelists giggling uncontrollably, while discussing nuclear strikes against the continental territory of the United States.”

• Pierre Haffner, “L’État français protège le terrorisme”

• “Qui est Maria Katasonova, la fan N°1 de Marine Le Pen en Russie?”

• “Russia warns it will deploy nukes near Finland, Sweden if they join NATO”, April 14, 2022

• “More apocalyptic predictions and nuclear threats on Russian state TV. Some of the Kremlin’s propagandists argue that the world is descending into a nuclear abyss, but the Russians should be happy about it.”

Washington has no more a “right” than Moscow to dictate what kind of missiles or bombers are hosted by Cuba. Yet this is just typical great power politics exercised by all states in the usual fashion.

– “Yes, the US Has Its Own ‘Sphere of Influence.’ And It’s Huge.”

This is certainly an interesting question especially for libertarian theory. What constitutes aggression, at what point does it start, whether it’s your neighbor or neighboring state? One could argue that deliberately stationing nuclear missiles near a border does constitute a threat – depending on the regime that does it.

However it’s disingenuous to equate Russia’s demands to the Cuban missile crisis. Ukraine was nowhere near about to join NATO, let alone have nuclear missiles there (NATO did not station them in any of other recent joiners, either, contrary to the lies spread by Rockwell and others, see above). If it was hosting any foreign army before Russia started annexing its territory, in 2014, it was… Russian (!), not US troops, the Sevastopol Naval Base, leased until… 2042.

Indeed, asking for no nuclear missiles near one’s border could be a reasonable demand. Of course, in exchange, Russia could agree to do the same on its side.

And indeed: “US offered disarmament measures to Russia in exchange for deescalation of military threat in Ukraine”, El Pais, February 2, 2022

Conversely: “Belarus approves hosting nuclear weapons, Russian forces permanently”

Libertarianism is creation, not destruction, life, not death, existence, not void. Libertarianism is a necessity for the prosperity and survival of mankind. Libertarianism recognizes the absolute right to self-defense, both group and individual. Libertarianism is not pacifism⁶. Libertarianism is, ultimately, about arming individuals while disarming all states, not about giving in to terrorist threats from the worst ones of them. Libertarianism is definitely not submission to might makes right. Libertarianism is the most consistent philosophy of human rights: libertarianism is the only non-nihilism.

continued in “Libertarianism is against aggression (5)”

This article is part of a series about libertarianism and foreign policy, with a particular focus on the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

This part (4) has been published on June 30th, 2022, as Russia retreated from Snake Island.

1. Libertarianism is against aggression (1)
   1. Libertarianism is deontological, not consequentialist
   2. Libertarianism is about non-aggression
   3. Libertarianism is rational
2. Libertarianism is against aggression (2)
   1. Libertarianism is about a beautiful free society
   2. Libertarianism is not aggressive warmongerism
   3. Libertarianism is the right to live in a free society
3. Libertarianism is against aggression (3)
   1. Libertarianism is against socialism
   2. Libertarianism is against socialism (collectivism, terrorism, wars)
   3. Libertarianism is against socialism (its famines)
   4. Libertarianism is against socialism (its lies)
   5. Libertarianism is against a new Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
4. Libertarianism is against aggression (4)
   1. Libertarianism is the right to defense
      1. The myth of neutrality
      2. The madness of surrender
      3. NATO expansion is a good thing
      4. Providing military aid to Ukraine is right
      5. Foreign policy matters
      6. Regime change is a good thing
      7. Moral high ground is neither necessary nor likely
         1. All states are criminal, it is only a matter of degree, but that degree matters
         2. Hypocrisy of governments is irrelevant
      8. Spheres of influence are neither equal nor sacred
      9. What should happen now?
      10. How could the invasion really have been avoided?
   2. Libertarianism is the right to keep and bear arms
   3. Libertarianism is against nuclear terrorism
5. Libertarianism is against aggression (5)
   1. Libertarianism is the opposite of nihilism
   2. Libertarianism is (real) self-determination
   3. Libertarianism is a universalism
6. Agency denial is not libertarian

Footnotes

¹ Note also that the NATO baseline of 2% of GDP on military spending is not at all unreasonable from a classical liberal perspective, of a government consisting, unlike the current social-democracies at over 50% (!), of less than 5% of GDP (as in the times of John Locke for instance).

Of course, the more nations join, the lower it could be.

In addition, were the member states to adopt more libertarianism and reduce their government spending other than military, with compound economic growth, ultimately, both the 50%-5% and the 2% figures should go down, not up.

Note that expecting, for instance, Switzerland, to split up into smaller units is completely unrealistic (that is to say, it is not an any more attainable goal than other, better solutions). Reducing government intervention and spending should be understood as a gradual, long term strategy to ensure survival and prosperity of every country, including enhancing its long-term military strength through superior wealth and technology* – not as a naive daydreaming about thousands of undefensible micro-states while anti-libertarian regimes threaten World War.

* For an example in fiction, see (somewhat) libertarian Zoltan Istvan’s The Transhumanist Wager. ↩

²

“Claim: NATO promised Russia it would not expand after the Cold War”

Fact: Such an agreement was never made. NATO’s door has been open to new members since it was founded in 1949 – and that has never changed. This “Open Door Policy” is enshrined in Article 10 of NATO’s founding treaty, which says “any other European State in a position to further the principles of this Treaty and to contribute to the security of the North Atlantic” can apply for membership. Decisions on membership are taken by consensus among all Allies. No treaty signed by the United States, Europe and Russia included provisions on NATO membership.

The idea of NATO expansion beyond a united Germany was not on the agenda in 1989, particularly as the Warsaw Pact still existed. This was confirmed by Mikhail Gorbachev in an interview in 2014: “The topic of ‘NATO expansion’ was not discussed at all, and it wasn’t brought up in those years. I say this with full responsibility. Not a single Eastern European country raised the issue, not even after the Warsaw Pact ceased to exist in 1991. Western leaders didn’t bring it up, either.”

Declassified White House transcripts also reveal that, in 1997, Bill Clinton consistently refused Boris Yeltsin’s offer of a ’gentlemen’s agreement’ that no former Soviet Republics would enter NATO: “I can’t make commitments on behalf of NATO, and I’m not going to be in the position myself of vetoing NATO expansion with respect to any country, much less letting you or anyone else do so… NATO operates by consensus.”

The 2014 interview:

“Mikhail Gorbachev: I am against all walls”

RBTH: One of the key issues that has arisen in connection with the events in Ukraine is NATO expansion into the East. Do you get the feeling that your Western partners lied to you when they were developing their future plans in Eastern Europe? Why didn’t you insist that the promises made to you – particularly U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s promise that NATO would not expand into the East – be legally encoded? I will quote Baker: “NATO will not move one inch further east.”

Gorby: The topic of “NATO expansion” was not discussed at all, and it wasn’t brought up in those years. I say this with full responsibility. Not a singe Eastern European country raised the issue, not even after the Warsaw Pact ceased to exist in 1991. Western leaders didn’t bring it up, either. Another issue we brought up was discussed: making sure that NATO’s military structures would not advance and that additional armed forces from the alliance would not be deployed on the territory of the then-GDR after German reunification. Baker’s statement, mentioned in your question, was made in that context. Kohl and [German Vice Chancellor Hans-Dietrich] Genscher talked about it.

Everything that could have been and needed to be done to solidify that political obligation was done. And fulfilled. The agreement on a final settlement with Germany said that no new military structures would be created in the eastern part of the country; no additional troops would be deployed; no weapons of mass destruction would be placed there. It has been observed all these years. [emphasis added]

And in exchange:

Baker’s main aim was to allay Soviet fears of a larger, unified Germany by offering assurances that neither NATO command structures nor NATO troops would be transferred to the ‘territory of the former GDR’. Yet Baker’s ‘not one inch eastward’ formula would have made it impossible to apply NATO security guarantees (especially Article 5) to the whole of Germany. Bush therefore suggested to Chancellor Helmut Kohl that he should, in the future, speak of a ‘special military status’ for the GDR. A meeting in Camp David on 24/25 February 1990 confirmed this wording. Special provisions and obligations as regards the GDR territory were subsequently included in the text of the Two Plus Four Treaty (under Articles 4 and 5), which formally re-established German unity. This treaty placed significant restrictions on the deployment of foreign NATO troops and nuclear weapons on East German soil. In return for his willingness to compromise on these points, Kohl granted Gorbachev, in bilateral talks, a financial package totalling around DM 100 billion [inflation-adjusetd, almost the same in USD], in the form of loans and economic aid, which financed the withdrawal of the Red Army soldiers. [emphasis added]

“Exposing the myth of Western betrayal of Russia over NATO’s eastern enlargement”

↩

³ Switzerland, with a population of 8.6 million, has a conscription army of 140,000 – paradoxically approved by 1.8 million in referendum.

Russia’s neighbors, conversely:

• Lithuania, population: 2.8 million, volunteer militia of 12,000, “Since the first days of the Ukraine war, the number of new recruits seeking to join each month has risen from 10 to 12 to more than 100.” Incidentally: “Lithuania allows members of Riflemen’s Union to keep automatic guns at home”
• Estonia, population: 1.3 million, volunteer militia of 30,000 (proportionately more than Switzerland)
• Poland, population: 38 million, has a volunteer militia of 35,000, in addition to a volunteer army of 120,000.

Conscription is neither justified nor necessary for defense. ↩

⁴ Incidentally, so were Rothbard, Rand, and Mises. ↩

⁵ As another form of terrorism, let’s mention indiscriminate use of mines and booby traps:

• “En Ukraine, le cauchemar d’un futur miné”

• “The price of this year’s bread in the South of Ukraine. People are blown up by mines in the fields, trying to cultivate agricultural land.”

• “Retreating Russian soldiers routinely leaves booby traps for returning civilians - such traps have no military value and are designed simply to inflict maximum carnage”

Or even the burning of fields...

↩

⁶ True pacifism, however, should not be an issue: if pacifists don’t initiate violence to stop libertarians from defending ourselves, they are no threat to us. On pacifism in the more common sense, see Liberpedia. ↩

The political process was moving in the early 1970s, not swiftly enough for advocates of quick, complete change, but majoritarian institutions were listening and acting. Heavy-handed judicial intervention was difficult to justify and appears to have provoked, not resolved, conflict.

– Ruth Bader Ginsburg, “Some Thoughts on Autonomy and Equality in Relation to Roe v. Wade”, North Carolina Law Review, 1985

A libertarian who actually cares about “unborn babies” is not a “right libertarian”, advocating for special rules that favor some “unborn babies”: he’s a libertarian who’s spending his time and money improving the lives of these unborn babies, by supporting their teen or destitute mothers, adopting one such baby, educating potential parents to avoid unwanted pregnancies, etc.

– François-René Rideau,  “‘Right-’ and ‘Left-’ Libertarians are (oxy)morons”

You know, someday, we’re gonna get enough people on the Supreme Court to change that law.

– A character in Seinfeld, about Roe v. Wade, 28 years ago

Abortion is one of those difficult questions for political philosophy, as it’s not so much about rights as it is about the very definition of who has rights. If the status of sentient, rights-bearing human being begins at birth, abortion must be permitted up until birth. If it begins at conception, then the prohibition of abortion merely repeats that of murder.¹

Neither philosophy nor biology, so far, appear to have solved the question in a satisfactory manner. Religion has answers, but they only convince the believers.²

The failure of judicial intervention

To solve it by a highly politicized judiciary did not seem like a good idea already to Ruth Bader Ginsburg 12 years after Roe v. Wade, but 49 years later it becomes obvious: Roe v. Wade failed as of today, while the topic remains more divisive than ever.

If the preservation of a right must rely on a fragile majority of a group of nine people, depending on voting calendars or the unfortunate passing away of one of them, elected for life by a system which itself relies on temporary majorities according to arbitrary rules decided by a few men centuries ago, then perhaps one should question the system itself.³

For decades, lobbies from both sides have been trying to influence the composition of the Supreme Court, spending amounts by the dozens of millions:

The battle may near $40 million in spending and will help define the end of the presidential race, even if Democrats are unlikely to be able to stop the Supreme Court confirmation.

– Political Groups Begin Dueling Over Barrett in a Costly Clash

Ironically, planes full of pro-abortion women have been flying regularly to Washington D.C. in order to protest against the risk of a political majority which could end Roe v. Wade (as of today: in vain), as this would imply that, were they to become pregnant, without wishing to be pregnant, in one of the States where abortion would be illegal, and decided to have an abortion nonetheless, they would then... need to fly to another state.⁴

The failure of voting

Indeed, Roe v. Wade had only forbidden to the States of the Federation to prohibit abortion. Without Roe v. Wade, the legal status of abortion depends on the political decisions of each of the fifty states – which are all democracies, with women having the right to vote, and women being the majority.

If politics were the solution, why not, then, try to convince one’s neighbors of one’s opinions, instead of hoping to overrule them by a decision forced upon them by the federal government?

Of course, one can naturally wish for one’s chosen state of residence to adapt to one’s preferences in matters of legislation, and not the other way around (“voting with your feet” by moving in another state).

The failure of lobbying

But still: in 49 years, if that goal was not achieved through state laws (or indeed, an actual, stable, federal law or amendment?), was there really nothing else that could have been done?

Social progress, educational awareness, parental advices and personal choices, minimizing the risk of needing abortion in the first place? In 49 years, we’re talking about several generations: the women concerned about Roe v. Wade today are not the same ones as in 1973.

The time and the millions spent in political activism, could it not have been better used, over half a century of technological progress, in research of better contraception means? In funds of financial support ensuring access to abortion, by travelling to other states if needed? Or even: in financial support for the pregnant women to not need abortion in the first place, if their financial situation was the reason?

Same question, of course, for the other side: if the goal were to reduce the number of abortions, was there really nothing else to do but 49 years of lobbying? Could the money and energy not have been used instead, likewise, on contraception research, financial support for renouncing abortion, enhancing adoption possibilities, or even anti-abortion advertising?

The failure of control

Indeed, if the goal is to discourage abortion, let us not forget that any law is but one imperfect means (some laws are even clearly counter-productive, making worse any issue they intended to solve), inefficient and with unintended consequences (“Evidence shows that restricting access to abortions does not reduce the number of abortions”).

Illegal abortion, whether at state or country level, does not make abortions disappear. There can be illegal abortions and women and doctors fined or jailed instead of saved fetuses – or simply, more trips to other states or countries. Controlling miscarriages or regulating abortion means as simple as abortion pills would be either unrealistic or totalitarian, or both.

Abortion is but a primitive solution to an old problem: surely it is not an ideal solution.⁵ Forcing someone to continue an unwanted pregnancy is not pretty either. Besides the obvious coercion involved, the more one thinks of abortion as murder, the less that solution makes sense, either: if abortion is murder, then surely forcing someone intent on committing it to carry the potential victim, and expect them to act responsibly towards it, is a strange and abhorrent idea.

The failure of politics...

Govern­ment cannot create anything; its orders cannot even evict anything from the world of reality, but they can evict from the world of the permissible. Government cannot make man richer, but it can make him poorer.

– Ludwig von Mises

Politics is a negative sum game: all lose. It is therefore the worst and the least enduring solution for any issue that can be solved differently.

Resources spent on politics are a sheer loss: one side spends half a century fighting to overturn a ruling, the other one half a century to defend it. And now, switch the roles, and redo the same for the next fifty years? To the primitive solutions we can add a third one: spend our days debating it forever, distracted by politics, like the Ancients.

Meanwhile, of couse, we will not have moved one inch closer to the real goals and any real solutions. Political discussion is sheer loss for a problem that can be solved differently. The resources wasted on lobbying on this particular issue are but one aspect of a more general, graver, twofold problem: governments divert resources from production to destruction, and governments hamper technological progress.

... and the solution is technology

Can’t we do better, in 2022, than either of these primitive solutions?

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

If easy solutions are not affordable for everyone, it is because governments make us much poorer than we ought to be. If a magical solution to the abortion problem is not available yet, it is simply that our technology is not advanced enough. If our technology is not advanced enough, in 2022, it is because politics and governments have been impoverishing and slowing us down for centuries.

If the State had been abolished a century ago, we’d all have robots and summer homes in the Asteroid belt.

– Samuel Edward Konkin III

... and magical solutions for Covid or any other pandemic. And magical, affordable, safe, widespread and morally satisfactory solutions for abortion. And and and...

If you want to win against politics, you cannot play the game and win, you need to change the game. And that’s technology.

– François-René Rideau, “Passivism: To Save the World, Start with Yourself”

Adapted, updated and enhanced from the French version published in October 2020.

¹ The “evictionist” position of Rothbard, Block, etc. considers abortion legitimate even if the embryo has full human rights. However, see the strong rebuttals by Jakub Bożydar Wiśniewski, for instance.↩

² On the biology side, Dawkins for instance acknowledges the question, but offers no real answers.

The religious side might include the non-arguments of the randroids. ↩

³ As our friend Christian Michel correctly notes, it is not reassuring either to have the definition of a person set at an arbitrary number of weeks by each state with all sorts of numbers in various jurisdictions:

Il est intolérable pour un libéral, parce que follement dangereux pour nous tous, qu’un gouvernement quelconque puisse décider à son bon plaisir qui est un être humain et qui ne l’est pas.↩

⁴ Even if we take the most straightforward (while far from ideal) solution of travelling to another state, here’s the math:

• “Pro-abortion rights groups to spend $150M on midterms?”
• 600,000-800,000 abortions per year in the USA
• US population is 330 million
• “Access to legal abortion could soon end for more than 100 million Americans”
• Which would mean around 180,000-240,000 abortions would now need an interstate trip
• average price for a domestic roundtrip flight: $330
• The amount spent in lobbying could therefore pay 450,000 roundtrip flights – more than enough.↩

⁵ Technology should, for instance, render obsolete the distinction between evictionism and departurism.↩

Article 280 – Public calls for extremist activities – up to 5 years:

Статья 280 УК РФ. Публичные призывы к осуществлению экстремистской деятельности

(в ред. Федерального закона от 25.07.2002 N 112-ФЗ)

1. Публичные призывы к осуществлению экстремистской деятельности - (в ред. Федерального закона от 25.07.2002 N 112-ФЗ) наказываются штрафом в размере от ста тысяч до трехсот тысяч рублей или в размере заработной платы или иного дохода осужденного за период от одного года до двух лет, либо принудительными работами на срок до трех лет, либо арестом на срок от четырех до шести месяцев, либо лишением свободы на срок до четырех лет с лишением права занимать определенные должности или заниматься определенной деятельностью на тот же срок. (в ред. Федеральных законов от 08.12.2003 N 162-ФЗ, от 20.07.2011 N 250-ФЗ, от 07.12.2011 N 420-ФЗ, от 03.02.2014 N 5-ФЗ)

2. Те же деяния, совершенные с использованием средств массовой информации либо информационно-телекоммуникационных сетей, в том числе сети “Интернет”, - (в ред. Федерального закона от 28.06.2014 N 179-ФЗ) наказываются принудительными работами на срок до пяти лет с лишением права занимать определенные должности или заниматься определенной деятельностью на срок до трех лет или без такового либо лишением свободы на срок до пяти лет с лишением права занимать определенные должности или заниматься определенной деятельностью на срок до трех лет. (в ред. Федерального закона от 07.12.2011 N 420-ФЗ)

Telling the truth about Russia’s history is illegal

Article 354.1  – up to 5 years

Secession (merely suggesting it) is illegal

Article 279 – armed rebellion to violate the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation – 12 to 20 years:

Статья 279 УК РФ. Вооруженный мятеж

Организация вооруженного мятежа либо активное участие в нем в целях свержения или насильственного изменения конституционного строя Российской Федерации либо нарушения территориальной целостности Российской Федерации - наказываются лишением свободы на срок от двенадцати до двадцати лет с ограничением свободы на срок до двух лет. (в ред. Федерального закона от 27.12.2009 N 377-ФЗ)

Article 280.1 – Public calls for the implementation of actions aimed at violating the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation – up to 5 years:

Статья 280.1. Публичные призывы к осуществлению действий, направленных на нарушение территориальной целостности Российской Федерации

1. Публичные призывы к осуществлению действий, направленных на нарушение территориальной целостности Российской Федерации, совершенные лицом после его привлечения к административной ответственности за аналогичное деяние в течение одного года, - (в ред. Федерального закона от 08.12.2020 N 425-ФЗ) наказываются штрафом в размере от двухсот тысяч до четырехсот тысяч рублей или в размере заработной платы или иного дохода осужденного за период от одного года до двух лет, либо принудительными работами на срок до трех лет, либо арестом на срок от четырех до шести месяцев, либо лишением свободы на срок до четырех лет с лишением права занимать определенные должности или заниматься определенной деятельностью на тот же срок. (в ред. Федеральных законов от 21.07.2014 N 274-ФЗ, от 08.12.2020 N 425-ФЗ)

2. Те же деяния, совершенные с использованием средств массовой информации либо электронных или информационно-телекоммуникационных сетей (включая сеть “Интернет”), - наказываются обязательными работами на срок до четырехсот восьмидесяти часов с лишением права занимать определенные должности или заниматься определенной деятельностью на срок до трех лет либо лишением свободы на срок до пяти лет с лишением права занимать определенные должности или заниматься определенной деятельностью на срок до трех лет. (часть 2 в ред. Федерального закона от 21.07.2014 N 274-ФЗ)

Article 280.2 – Violation of the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation – 6 to 10 years:

Статья 280.2. Нарушение территориальной целостности Российской Федерации

(введена Федеральным законом от 08.12.2020 N 425-ФЗ) Отчуждение части территории Российской Федерации или иные действия (за исключением делимитации, демаркации, редемаркации Государственной границы Российской Федерации с сопредельными государствами), направленные на нарушение территориальной целостности Российской Федерации, при отсутствии признаков преступлений, предусмотренных статьями 278, 279 и 280.1 настоящего Кодекса, - наказываются лишением свободы на срок от шести до десяти лет.

Now why is Russia so afraid of secession?

Ah yes:

• “Russia bans Siberia independence march – Moscow also threatens to block BBC Russian service after it carries interview with march organiser on its website”
• From Siberia to Kaliningrad: the fledgling independence movements gaining traction in Russia
• “According to president Vladimir Putin, those in Crimea who voted to secede from Ukraine were simply exercising their right to self-determination, and the Kremlin continues to condemn Kiev’s military operation against separatists in eastern Ukraine. But that hasn't stopped Russia's parliament from toughening punishments for separatist ideas in its own country.”
• How ‘separatists' are prosecuted in Russia
• Russia toughens up punishment for separatist ideas – despite Ukraine

Telling the truth about Russia’s wars is illegal

Article 280.3 – public actions aimed at discrediting Russia’s Armed Forces – up to 5 years:

Статья 280.3. Публичные действия, направленные на дискредитацию использования Вооруженных Сил Российской Федерации в целях защиты интересов Российской Федерации и ее граждан, поддержания международного мира и безопасности или исполнения государственными органами Российской Федерации своих полномочий в указанных целях

1. Публичные действия, направленные на дискредитацию использования Вооруженных Сил Российской Федерации в целях защиты интересов Российской Федерации и ее граждан, поддержания международного мира и безопасности, в том числе публичные призывы к воспрепятствованию использования Вооруженных Сил Российской Федерации в указанных целях, а равно направленные на дискредитацию исполнения государственными органами Российской Федерации своих полномочий за пределами территории Российской Федерации в указанных целях, совершенные лицом после его привлечения к административной ответственности за аналогичное деяние в течение одного года, - (в ред. Федерального закона от 25.03.2022 N 63-ФЗ) наказываются штрафом в размере от ста тысяч до трехсот тысяч рублей или в размере заработной платы или иного дохода осужденного за период от одного года до двух лет, либо принудительными работами на срок до трех лет, либо арестом на срок от четырех до шести месяцев, либо лишением свободы на срок до трех лет с лишением права занимать определенные должности или заниматься определенной деятельностью на тот же срок.

2. Публичные действия, направленные на дискредитацию использования Вооруженных Сил Российской Федерации в целях защиты интересов Российской Федерации и ее граждан, поддержания международного мира и безопасности, в том числе публичные призывы к воспрепятствованию использования Вооруженных Сил Российской Федерации в указанных целях, а равно направленные на дискредитацию исполнения государственными органами Российской Федерации своих полномочий за пределами территории Российской Федерации в указанных целях, повлекшие смерть по неосторожности и (или) причинение вреда здоровью граждан, имуществу, массовые нарушения общественного порядка и (или) общественной безопасности либо создавшие помехи функционированию или прекращение функционирования объектов жизнеобеспечения, транспортной или социальной инфраструктуры, кредитных организаций, объектов энергетики, промышленности или связи, - (в ред. Федерального закона от 25.03.2022 N 63-ФЗ) наказываются штрафом в размере от трехсот тысяч до одного миллиона рублей или в размере заработной платы или иного дохода осужденного за период от трех до пяти лет либо лишением свободы на срок до пяти лет с лишением права занимать определенные должности или заниматься определенной деятельностью на тот же срок.

Article 207.3 – Public dissemination of “deliberately false” information about the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation – up to 15 years:

Статья 207.3 УК РФ. Публичное распространение заведомо ложной информации об использовании Вооруженных Сил Российской Федерации, исполнении государственными органами Российской Федерации своих полномочий

(в ред. Федерального закона от 25.03.2022 N 63-ФЗ) (введена Федеральным законом от 04.03.2022 N 32-ФЗ)

1. Публичное распространение под видом достоверных сообщений заведомо ложной информации, содержащей данные об использовании Вооруженных Сил Российской Федерации в целях защиты интересов Российской Федерации и ее граждан, поддержания международного мира и безопасности, а равно содержащей данные об исполнении государственными органами Российской Федерации своих полномочий за пределами территории Российской Федерации в указанных целях, - (в ред. Федерального закона от 25.03.2022 N 63-ФЗ) наказывается штрафом в размере от семисот тысяч до полутора миллионов рублей или в размере заработной платы или иного дохода осужденного за период от одного года до восемнадцати месяцев, либо исправительными работами на срок до одного года, либо принудительными работами на срок до трех лет, либо лишением свободы на тот же срок. Ч.2 статьи 207.3 УК РФ

2. То же деяние, совершенное: а) лицом с использованием своего служебного положения; б) группой лиц, группой лиц по предварительному сговору или организованной группой; в) с искусственным созданием доказательств обвинения; г) из корыстных побуждений; д) по мотивам политической, идеологической, расовой, национальной или религиозной ненависти или вражды либо по мотивам ненависти или вражды в отношении какой-либо социальной группы, - наказывается штрафом в размере от трех миллионов до пяти миллионов рублей или в размере заработной платы или иного дохода осужденного за период от трех до пяти лет, либо принудительными работами на срок до пяти лет с лишением права занимать определенные должности или заниматься определенной деятельностью на срок до пяти лет, либо лишением свободы на срок от пяти до десяти лет с лишением права занимать определенные должности или заниматься определенной деятельностью на срок до пяти лет. Ч.3 статьи 207.3 УК РФ

3. Деяния, предусмотренные частями первой и второй настоящей статьи, если они повлекли тяжкие последствия, - наказываются лишением свободы на срок от десяти до пятнадцати лет с лишением права занимать определенные должности или заниматься определенной деятельностью на срок до пяти лет.

• Russia to punish 'fake' war reports with 15 years in prison
• Russia Criminalizes Independent War Reporting, Anti-War Protests
• The Legal Death of Free Speech in Russia
• Moscow councillor jailed for seven years after criticising Ukraine war

The new GULag

Condemnation meaning imprisonment, forced labor in a vast network of penal colonies, like the GULag:

• Putin restores the GULag by legalizing slave labor of convicts
• В Сибири предложили возродить трудовые лагеря
• Новосибирский бизнесмен предлагает формировать промпарки на базе исправительных колоний
• Ходорковский: Sent to the Gulag, Sent to Another Gulag, Prison Conditions
• Back to the Gulag: Where Are the Pussy Riot Convicts Being Sent?
• Электрошокеры, отравления, угрозы. Доклад правозащитников о пытках в тюрьмах Петербурга
• «Я не был уверен, что доживу до конца срока». Осужденные о пытках, избиениях и убийствах в петербургской ИК-7

And as once again the criminal Russian state exploits the forced labor of political prisoners, once again, the pro-Kremlin propaganda and denial reaches levels worthy of Gorky’s Беломорско - Балтийский канал имени Сталина: История строительства.

2022-07-07: It keeps getting worse since then.

• “New laws broaden treason statutes, expand limits on protests”

• “Russia has passed ‘100 new laws’ restricting press freedom”

• “New Laws In Russia: People ‘Can Be Imprisoned For Almost Anything’”

This old joke comes to mind:

– Тебе сколько дали?–спрашивает заключённый новенького.

– Десять лет!

– А за что?

– Да ни за что!

– Врёшь, паскуда! ни за что дают пять!

A new arrival to the GULag is asked:

– So, how much did you get?

– 10 years!

– And for what?

– For nothing!

– Don’t lie to us! Everybody knows nothing gets you five.

Worth mentioning as well:

• The deportation of Ukrainians as a new GULag network:
  • Russian filtration camps
  • Mariupol Mayor, Vadym Boychenko, says thousands of residents have been forcibly deported to distant regions of Russia. Residents of the Left Bank district were taken to “filtration camps” and many were later deported. He said it looks like the 1940s all over again.
  • “’You can’t imagine the conditions’ - Accounts emerge of Russian detention camps”
  • “There are 66 camps in russia, which hold 95,000 Mariupol residents. It’s hard to imagine what these people are going through there”
  • “Депортуй ближнього свого: як Російська православна церква разом із силовиками примусово переселяють українців до Росії” [ “The Russian Orthodox Church is involved in the deportation of Ukrainians to Russia — they are resettled in churches and monasteries”]
• The nostalgia of the Kremlin chief propagandists (such as Solovyov) for the main architects of the GULag:
  • Stalin
  • Beria

We have words for that: useful idiots of the void.

Libertarianism is against socialism

Thus, fortuitously, from a mixture of theoretical and practical grounds of their own, the Soviets arrived early at what libertarians consider to be the only proper and principled foreign policy.

– Murray N. Rothbard, “A Soviet Foreign Policy: A Revisionist Perspective”

the United States, not the Soviet Union, is the main menace to the peace of the world

– Murray N. Rothbard, “The Afghan Scam”

Che is dead, and we all mourn him.

– Murray N. Rothbard, “Ernesto Che Guevara, RIP”

Forget the Entrepreneur, forget the Industrialist, Rothbard’s libertarian role-model: the prison warden of a socialist dictatorship!

But first, some introductions:

• Ernesto “Che” Guevera, Communist Party of Cuba, murderer, Minister of Industries of the (Socialist) Republic of Cuba

• Fidel Castro, dictator, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, liar

• Mao Tse-tung, megamurderer, chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, People’s Republic of China

• Slobodan Milošević, “Butcher of the Balkans”, Socialist Party of Serbia, President of the League of Communists of Serbia, President of the Presidency of the Socialist Republic of Serbia, tried on charges of genocide and war crimes

• Bashar al-Assad, dictator, Secretary-General of the Central Command of the Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party

• Saddam Hussein, dictator, Secretary General of the National Command of the Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party

• Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein, dictator, Arab Socialist Union

• Nicolás Maduro, dictator, United Socialist Party of Venezuela

• Hugo Chávez, President of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela

• Muammar Gaddafi, dictator, Arab Socialist Union, “Brotherly Leader of the Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya”

• Jean Ziegler, politician, Swiss Socialist Party¹, co-founder of the Muammar Gaddafi Prize for Human Rights (1989), winner of the Muammar Gaddafi Prize for Human Rights (2002), liar (2006)

• Владимир Ленин, (Lenin), dictator, Swiss Socialist Party, Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, Bolshevik Party, Russian Communist Party, chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, megamurderer

• Иосиф Сталин, (Stalin), dictator, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, megamurderer

• Adolf Hitler, dictator, National Socialist German Workers’ Party, megamurderer

• Benito Mussolini, dictator, Italian Socialist Party, National Fascist Party

• Владимир Путин (Vladimir Putin), dictator, Communist Party of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, KGB lieutenant colonel

Quite the lovely bunch, aren’t they?

As for socialism (noticed the common denominator in the list?):

a policy which aims at constructing a society in which the means of production are socialized

not an alternative to capitalism; an alternative to any system under which men can live as human beings.

– Ludwig von Mises

Si, en définitive, j’avais à trouver une formule générale pour exprimer ce que m’apparaît le socialisme dans son ensemble, je dirais que c’est une nouvelle formule de la servitude.

[were I to attempt to sum up what socialism is, I would say that it was simply a new system of serfdom]

– Tocqueville, Œuvres complètes, IX, p. 541 [ Tocqueville’s Critique of Socialism ], 1848

Socialism is aggression by definition². Socialist regimes have committed and commit aggression – on a massive scale. Libertarianism is, therefore, very much against socialism.

Now then:

Assad did not share the US role as the world leader of capitalist globalization. Instead Assad was using Syria’s wealth for the benefit of the Syrian people, just as Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi.

– David William Pear, “Who Really Defeated ISIS?”

From Antiwar.com, a website (it regularly publishes LRC/LvMI/RPI authors as well) whose authors call themselves libertarians:

we do have a political affiliation; we are libertarians. Emphasizing non-intervention abroad and here at home, our opposition to war is rooted in the Randolph Bourne’s concept that “War is the health of the State.”

Justin Raimondo is [was] the editorial director of Antiwar.com and its principle columnist. […] He is [was] an Adjunct Scholar with the Ludwig von Mises Institute, […] a Senior Fellow at the Center for Libertarian Studies, and […] the author of An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard.

Q: How can I contribute financially to Antiwar.com’s cause?
A: As a non-for-profit group, we survive on generous contributions from our readers to keep the site active and growing. Please donate.

We’ll pass.

Jean Ziegler, member of the same political party that Lenin was in, fittingly published a book whose title is a quote from Lenin, Retournez les fusils ! Choisir son camp. In 1964, Che Guevera ordered him to remain in Switzerland, which he did, alas for us:

In 1964 Jean Ziegler chauffeured the then legendary Che Guevara at a conference in Geneva. Enthusiastically, he wants to set off for Cuba with the revolutionary. But Guevara refuses. Jean Ziegler should fight against the “head of the capitalist monster” here in Switzerland, where he was born.

The very same year, Che Guevara was proudly defending his regime’s executions of opponents before the UN General Assembly. “Communist at heart”, Ziegler is a longtime friend and apologist for most of the living dictators listed above: Castro, Chavez, Gaddafi… Ziegler co-founded the eponymous Gaddafi prize for Human Rights (sic), which was then awarded to Chavez, Castro, and… Ziegler himself. Even his name Jean (it was actually Hans) was given to him by the French communist Simone de Beauvoir (“Hans is not a name”, she decided, and like with the communist Guevera, little Jean obeyed).

On Antiwar.com, conversely, Ziegler is introduced as “a UN specialist on hunger” and “a recognized authority on international law and human rights from Switzerland”, with his report on Israel taken at face value… The same Ziegler who secretly negotiated with the PLO terrorists in 1970, right after they murdered 47 passengers of a Swissair flight, in Switzerland – international law and human rights, indeed. The terrorist attack was claimed by the PFLP, a “Marxist–Leninist and revolutionary socialist organization… the second-largest of the groups forming the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the largest being Fatah” Like for Fatah, a glance at its logo is enough to know what exactly they stand for, and that everything else are just lies and deceptions.

Notice: socialism, once again, the common denominator of all these abominations.

Libertarianism is against socialism (collectivism, terrorism, wars)

Indeed, the “peaceful” and “proper and principled” foreign policy of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics implied massive subsidies for terrorist and communist movements all around the world. Rothbard, apparently, was as ignorant in geography as he was incompetent in history:

Soviet foreign policy, since the days of Lenin, has had one guiding star: protecting its borders by dominating the nations on its periphery. And this “domination” is largely concerned with seeing to it that no anti-Soviet nations are contiguous to Russia.

So the Soviet Union must have had borders with Angola, Egypt, Cuba, Vietnam… How interesting!³

Israel’s peaceful neighbors

For a short history of Israel, read: “A Short History of Israel”.

We’ll limit ourselves to three points here:

• that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics bears a heavy responsibility in the ongoing conflict, contrary to Rothbard’s assessment of it limiting itself to defending its borders. Certainly a foreign policy that finances antisemitic terrorism in far-away lands⁴ is by no means “the only proper and principled foreign policy”;

• that Rothbard was also wrong in his assessment of the conflict in general;

• that he was wrong, in particular, by treating property rights in a collectivist way.

Socialism and terrorism

Czechoslovakia saved Israel by supplying weapons at a much needed time, then stopped… when ordered so by Russia, supplying Israel’s enemies afterwards (neither Czechoslovakia nor Israel are “contiguous to Russia”, of course):

The Soviet [socialist] dictator Josef Stalin’s general paranoia focused particularly on Jews, and now on Israel. While the 1948 war was still in progress, he ordered Czechoslovakia to cease supplying arms to Israel. In 1949 the Soviet press began an ‘anti-cosmopolitan’ campaign – ‘cosmopolitans’ being a code word for Jews. Many Jews were arrested on trumped-up charges, tortured, and executed or sentenced to long terms in labour camps. In 1953 Stalin ‘discovered’ a fictitious plot by a group of doctors, most of them Jewish, to overthrow the Soviet regime. Mass murder of Jews was probably averted only by Stalin’s own death a few weeks later, after which the new Soviet leadership disavowed the ‘Doctor’s Plot’ and posthumously annulled the fifteen death sentences already carried out on account of it.

However, the Soviet Union continued to persecute Jews, and its foreign policy stance became violently anti-Israeli. In 1955 it began supplying large quantities of arms to Egypt and Syria. Egypt signed a treaty with Syria and Jordan placing the Egyptian dictator Gamal Abdul Nasser [another socialist, who’d have thought!] in command of all three armies. This was one of the high points of the pan-Arab nationalist movement, led by Nasser, which wanted to unite all Arabs into a single nation.

In July, 1956, Egypt nationalised the Suez Canal [socialism, once again!], an international waterway owned by the British and French governments [socialism is stealing, as usual]. Israeli ships, and ships travelling to or from Israeli ports, were banned from using the Canal. Nasser ignored the UN’s perfunctory protest. He had already imposed a similar ban on another international waterway, the Straits of Tiran, thus blockading Eilat, the port that Israel was trying to develop at its southern tip.

Violent incidents on Israel’s borders increased. Jordanian and Egyptian soldiers and fedayeen crossed the border and attacked both military and civilian targets. The shelling of Israeli towns and villages within range of Egyptian artillery became almost continuous. Israel prepared for war against Egypt. It planned to lift the blockade of Eilat by seizing and holding Sharm-el-Sheikh, a town where a large military base had been built, dominating the Straits of Tiran. It also planned to retaliate for Egypt’s attacks, and impair Egypt’s ability to threaten invasion, by striking at its army, now deployed on the Sinai peninsula and in the Gaza Strip. To do all this, the IDF needed modern weapons. The United States would not supply any. Nor would any Soviet-bloc country including [socialist] Czechoslovakia (which was now supplying [socialist] Egypt).

... Within months of the end of the Six Day War, Nasser embarked on the War of Attrition – a series of attacks by land, sea and air, predominantly on Israeli military targets. These were designed to be sufficiently frequent and deadly to force Israel to remain in a constant state of war-readiness, but on any particular occasion to be insufficient to provoke all-out war. Some of the aircraft participating in the war were flown by Soviet pilots who were among the 20,000 Soviet ‘advisors’ (in reality, soldiers and military technicians) who were stationed in Egypt.

... In 1970, Egypt and Israel agreed to a ceasefire proposed by the US, one of whose terms was that nether country would build new military installations within 50 kilometres of the Canal. Egypt immediately began doing so, installing state-of-the-art surface-to-air missile sites, supplied by the Soviet Union and manned by Soviet ‘advisors’.

The [socialist] Soviet Union provided significant military hardware to [socialist] Iraq, such as military aircraft (including MiG fighter jets), tanks, and a surface-to-air missile system), as well as aid in the form of Soviet military and civilian advisers who provided technical assistance. In 1967, Iraq signed an agreement with the USSR to supply the nation with oil in exchange for large-scale access to Eastern Bloc arms.

The Baathist [socialist] regime “drew even closer to the Soviet Union, with relations hitting their peak from 1969 to 1973.” After 1972, Iraq soon became one of the Soviet Union’s closest allies in the Middle East. A fifteen-year Iraqi-Soviet “treaty of friendship and cooperation” was signed in April 1972. Iraq participated in the Yom Kippur War against Israel, and received Soviet military aid during the war. Soviets assisted the Iraqis in the development of the Rumaila oil field, and Soviet premier Alexei Kosygin participated in the ribbon-cutting ceremony. Soviet arms were also used by the Iraqis to crush the Kurdish uprising led by Mustafa Barzani, in 1975. Iraqi secret police received training from Soviet and East German agents.

– Wikipedia, “Iraq–Russia relations”

There’s more, of course: “Soviet Russia, Creator of the PLO and Inventor of the Palestinian People”.

Acknowledged leaders and pan-nationalism

the Arabs would have to overthrow all of their stagnant reactionary monarchies and form a united pan-Arab nation–for the splits into nation-States in the Arab world are the consequence of the artificial machinations and depredations of British and French imperialism.

– Murray N. Rothbard, “War Guilt in the Middle East”

What happened to secession and decentralization into small states? Is this only for Western countries, whereas for others “pan-Arab nationalism” is suddenly libertarian?

From at least the 1960s onward, Murray Rothbard regarded secession and what he called “radical decentralization” as central to libertarian ideology.

– “Why Rothbard Wanted ‘Radical Decentralization’”

And yet, these Arab brethren part of one great pan-nation somehow couldn’t integrate refugees from their own blood into their warm collective midst:

hapless Arab refugees, their ranks now swollen by natural increase to 1.3 million, have continued to live in utter destitution in refugee camps around the Israeli borders, barely kept alive by meagre UN funds and CARE packages“

– Murray N. Rothbard, “War Guilt in the Middle East”

Ah yes, those meagre UN funds!

According to World Bank data, for all countries receiving more than $2 billion international aid in 2012, Gaza and the West Bank received a per capita aid budget over double the next largest recipient, at a rate of $495.

Yes, they should definitely be given more taxpayer money. US policy today is much more “rothbardian”, paying the full amount of subsidies for terrorism:

Our government alone has been paying the Palestinian Arabs on the order of $400 million a year. The Jewish News Syndicate cites a report that the outlays for 2017 would come in at $363 million. JNS quotes Prime Minister Netanyahu as reckoning that the Palestinian Authority parlays something like $353 million a year to terrorists and their families.

– “Taylor Force Becomes Law”

Meanwhile, Israel successfully integrated all the refugees expelled from Arab countries, instead of artificially maintaining them in camps and poverty to be used as political tools. Incidentally:

The amount of land confiscated from Jews forced to flee Arab and Muslim countries amounted to 40,000 square miles, or five times the size of Israel in 1948. Recent estimates value the pan-Arab confiscations as worth $250 billion

– “Ignored by the UN, Mizrahi Jews survived pogroms and expulsions, too”, emphasis added

It gets worse:

The acknowledged leader of the Palestinian Arabs, their Grand Mufti Haj Amin el-Husseini, was summarily deposed by the long-time British tool, King Abdullah of Trans-jordan, who simply confiscated the Arab regions of east-central Palestine, as well as the Old City of Jerusalem.

– Murray N. Rothbard, “War Guilt in the Middle East”

Indeed, who needs individualism and decentralization when you’ve got pan-nations and “acknowledged leaders!” Also... did he say Haj Amin al-Husseini?

His historical importance may be found in the texts of his speeches and essays of the 1930s and 1940s. They offer abundant evidence of his impact on Nazi Germany’s Arabic language propaganda aimed at North Africa and the Middle East during World War II and the Holocaust. Before, during and after his presence in Berlin from 1941 to 1945, Husseini played a central role in shaping the political tradition of Islamism by offering an interpretation of the religion of Islam as intrinsically antisemitic and anti-Zionist and in connecting that version to the antisemitic conspiracy theories of modern European history.

– “Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Nazis and the Holocaust: The Origins, Nature and Aftereffects of Collaboration”

When the Nazis heard Mohammed Amin al-Husseini calling for Arabs to “kill the jews wherever you find them,” they knew they had found an ally in their terrible ideology.

– “The Nazis, with the help of an Arab cleric, used Islamic extremists as a tool”

During World War II he collaborated with both Italy and Germany by making propagandistic radio broadcasts and by helping the Nazis recruit Bosnian Muslims for the Waffen-SS

– Wikipedia, “Amin al-Husseini”

In 1944, at the behest of Husseini, Hitler ordered a five-man team to dump a lethal toxin in the water supply of Tel Aviv. Luckily, the unit, which comprised three Germans and two Arabs, was caught by police in Jericho before they had chance to execute their plan. It is estimated that a quarter of million people would have died if the plot had succeeded.

– “Hitler’s war against Jews continues in ’Palestine’”

Well. That sheds an interesting light on comments such as these:

Is there any difference at all between this kind of attitude and that of the Nazi persecutors of the Jews whom our press has been attacking, day in and day out, for well over twenty years?

– Murray N. Rothbard, “War Guilt in the Middle East”

Yes, why “attack” nazi persecutors of the Jews (was Rothbard even aware of the Holocaust?⁵), when the best thing for the world would be to have, instead of high-tech startup-nation Israel (nah, who needs entrepreneurs!), yet another oppressive islamist dictatorship, ran by an “acknowledged leader”, friend of Adolf Hitler no less!

Shorn of Western influence and Western imperialism, that harmony can reign once more.

– Murray N. Rothbard, “War Guilt in the Middle East”

Ah yes, this horrible Western influence, destroying the civilized non-Western world and its peaceful harmony! Ah, those poor Arab individuals suffering under Israeli rule as full citizens and suffering from democracy (Israel had about 4 elections in the last two years, when was the last time the “Palestinian authority” had one?), free markets, freedom of speech and now having to debate such issues as surrogacy for gay couples, when they could be “harmoniously” executing gays and jailing adulterers on “their” land living under “their” “acknowledged” leader!

Property rights, individual and collectivist

Zionism had succeeded in carving out a European Jewish State, over Arab territory in the Middle East.

– Murray N. Rothbard, “War Guilt in the Middle East”

It should be obvious for everyone that from a libertarian perspective, there is no such thing as “Arab territory”. There are only private properties owned by individuals. Private property, of course, includes the right to sell it to whomever you want, regardless of their religion, nationality, etc.

Finally, regarding the legitimacy of Israel as a state, even according to Israel’s most vociferous critics of which Rothbard was one, 7% of pre-1948 Palestine was purchased legitimately by Jews. Given that, would Jews have a right to set up a State on that limited territory, and if attacked, expand those lands in a defensive action? From the perspective of libertarians who recognize the right to set up a minimalist state for the purposes of security and defense only, certainly.

Our conclusion is that Israel is in fact built on both legitimate land purchases as well as legitimate land claims from the past, specifically the Roman period. Ideally, all land in Israel with obvious signs of previous Jewish homesteading dated to the Roman destruction should revert to Jews by shares of stock, i.e. to those Jews who descend from the original homesteaders. These include the Temple Mount (which we know was built by Jewish Kohanim) and the entire Old City of Jerusalem as well as most of modern day East Jerusalem and the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron.

While we do not encourage libertarians to take sides in this conflict, we suggest that if they wish to do so, they should side with Israel as the most (classically) liberal, and therefore the most relatively libertarian country in the region.

– Alan Futerman, Rafi Farber, Walter E. Block, “The Libertarian Case for Israel”

To say that an entire terrain is occupied (and also talking about “Arab land”) is an expression of unwarranted collectivism, something explicitly opposed in Rothbard’s work. He seems to be replacing homesteading (and therefore legitimate land ownership) by definition. And the definition of “occupied” would imply a previous homesteading of the land by Arabs, which was not the case.

– Walter E. Block⁶, Alan G. Futerman, Rafi Farber, “The Legal Status of the State of Israel: A Libertarian Approach”

Indeed, at the same time as Israel is accused of stealing land it bought at exorbitant prices… Selling land to Jews is punishable by death by the dictatorships oppressing the Arab populations:

• Jewish land purchase in Palestine
• Is it true that Israel stole Palestinian land?
• Palestinian land laws
• PA: Death penalty for those who sell land to Jews
• West Bank: Death Penalty for Land Sale

Even Amnesty International is using very strange and racist definitions of ownership:

Lazar Berman: If I go anywhere over the Green Line and I buy a house, am I now a settler living illegally in East Jerusalem?

Philip Luther: Yes.

– Lazar Berman, “Amnesty to ToI: No double standard in accusing Israel, but not China, of apartheid”

Is everyone buying a house over the Green Line (you, me, Philip Luther) a “settler living illegally” there? Of course not. So on which side is the apartheid, now?

Cuba’s property rights

Speaking of property rights, we have Jacob G. Hornberger (ah yes, the same one…):

there is absolutely nothing the Cubans can do to regain their property.

… A great place to start would be by giving Guantanamo Bay back to Cuba

– Jacob G. Hornberger, “Give Guantanamo Back to Cuba”

Which raises the question: which Cubans, exactly? And if the US finds them (the actual legitimate owners of that land) and returns the property to them, would the Socialist regime ruling over the rest of the island actually let them keep it? Of course not, this is not what Hornberger means: he means to give “back” Guantanamo Bay to the group of thieves who never owned it, who never legitimately owned anything, in fact, and who happen to be against property rights to begin with. Why? “The Cubans” and “Cuba” here being equated with “whichever socialist dictator happens to be oppressing the Cuban people right now”.

Rothbard was also wrong in his assessment:

we all knew that his enemy was our enemy–that great Colossus that oppresses and threatens all the peoples of the world, U. S. imperialism.

– Murray N. Rothbard, “Ernesto Che Guevara, RIP”

Ah, the old, and wrong, principle, the “enemy of my enemy is my friend”? “US imperialism”, in fact, did not oppress “all the peoples of the world” – many were, at the time, oppressed by Rothbard’s “friends” – and would happily have been “oppressed” by the US instead (while many others such as Western Europe were only oppressed by their own governments). To Rothbard – and we see the same error today committed by his followers –, it seems that the difference between living in America or in Russia was just a matter of theoretical policy, say like one might discuss the different tax rates or parking laws between Texas and Nevada.

McDowell: That is a great change from the Russians I have always known, and I have known a lot of them. Don’t they do things at all like Americans? Don’t they walk across town to visit their mother-in-law or somebody?

Ayn Rand (Алиса Зиновьевна Розенбаум): Look, it is very hard to explain. It is almost impossible to convey to a free people what it is like to live in a totalitarian dictatorship. I can tell you a lot of details. I can never completely convince you, because you are free. It is in a way good that you can’t even conceive of what it is like. Certainly they have friends and mothers-in-law. They try to live a human life, but you understand it is totally inhuman. Try to imagine what it is like if you are in constant terror from morning till night and at night you are waiting for the doorbell to ring, where you are afraid of anything and everybody, living in a country where human life is nothing, less than nothing, and you know it. You don’t know who or when is going to do what to you because you may have friends who spy on you, where there is no law and any rights of any kind.

– Ayn Rand’s testimony before the House of Representatives Committee on Un-American Activities (video)

Did Rothbard pause for a second to consider had “Che” been successful in, say, causing Revolution in the USA, how his life would have been affected by it? Useful idiot indeed:

And so, with tragic irony, Che Guevara, in his daring and courage, was betrayed by the very Bolivian peasantry whom he was trying to liberate [sic], and who barely understood the meaning of the conflict.

– Murray N. Rothbard, “Ernesto Che Guevara, RIP”

Seems that the Bolivian farmers were wiser than Rothbard: he hadn’t “understood the meaning of the conflict”, at all.

Venezuela’s democrats

Speaking of Cuba…

At 24 years of age, Maduro resided in Havana with other militants of leftist organizations in South America who had moved to Cuba in 1986, attending a one-year course at the Escuela Nacional de Cuadros Julio Antonio Mella, a centre of political education directed by the Union of Young Communists. During his time in Cuba, Maduro was instructed by Pedro Miret Prieto, a senior member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of Cuba who was close to Fidel Castro.

– Wikpedia, “Nicolás Maduro”

Under President Hugo Chávez, Venezuela enjoyed warm relations with Russia. Much of this was through the sale of military equipment; from 2005, Venezuela purchased more than $4 billion worth of arms from Russia.

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolás Maduro added to aggressive foreign policy initiatives sought by Chavez in saying that “the unipolar world is collapsing and finishing in all aspects, and the alliance with Russia is part of that effort to build a multipolar world.”

for 2011, Venezuela was the top customer for Russia’s arms for ground forces.

Maduro was re-elected for a second term in May 2018, but the result was denounced as fraudulent by most neighboring countries, the European Union, Canada and the United States. Russia, however, recognized the elections and Russian president Vladimir Putin congratulated Maduro.

In December 2018, Russia sent two Tupolev Tu-160 bombers to Venezuela. These jets are capable of carrying nuclear weapons. The Russian and Venezuelan militaries later conducted joint military exercises.

In January 2019, the majority opposition National Assembly declared that Maduro’s reelection was invalid and declared its president, Juan Guaidó, to be acting president of Venezuela. The United States, Canada, Brazil and several Latin American countries recognized Guaidó as interim president. Russia, however, continued to support Maduro. A month later, Russia, along with China vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for new presidential elections in Venezuela.

In February 2022, Russia launched an invasion of Ukraine. The invasion received widespread international condemnation; Maduro, however expressed his “strong support” for Russia in a phone call with Putin and condemned the sanctions Western nations imposed on Russia.

– Wikipedia, “Russia–Venezuela relations”

«Nous voulons remercier la Russie»: une fresque pro-Poutine dans un bastion chaviste de Caracas

Un Vladimir Poutine souriant à côté du défunt Hugo Chavez et, dans un coin, le «Z» de soutien à l’armée russe: des collectifs de gauche ont peint une fresque dans un quartier de Caracas, bastion chaviste, en soutien à l’invasion russe en Ukraine.

«Nous voulons remercier la Russie et son président pour tout le soutien qu’il nous a apporté», a déclaré à l’AFP Francisco Moreno, membre du groupe de gauche «zapatiste» qui avec ses camarades de «La Piedrita» a réalisé cette peinture dans le quartier de Catia. «C’est un message de solidarité avec le gouvernement russe qui nous a toujours soutenus: le premier vaccin que nous avons eu était le russe, ma mère a été vaccinée avec Spoutnik», a-t-il ajouté.

En haut à droite, au dessus du mot «Venceremos» («Nous vaincrons»), figure un avion de chasse russe Soukhoï, et en bas à droite un «Z», devenu un symbole du soutien à l’armée russe dans la guerre en Ukraine.

La Russie est un allié clé du Venezuela depuis l’époque de Chávez (1999-2013) et le reste avec l’actuel président Nicolás Maduro qui, grâce à cette relation, a pu contourner les sanctions imposées par les dans l’États-Unis et d’autres pays occidentaux contre son gouvernement.

Rothbard lamented in 1967 that the Venezuelans were not yet ready to embrace socialism:

In his head Che knew full well that he and a handful of Cubans, no matter how carefully trained, could never export revolution, could never impose revolution upon a Bolivian or a Venezuelan peasantry who were not ready for the struggle.

– Murray N. Rothbard, “Ernesto Che Guevara, RIP”

Well, a few decades later, alas, they were:

Dios proveerá

[God will provide]

– Nicolás Maduro, President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, in a speech quoted in “Venezuela, a la buena de Dios”, after the unsurprising utter failure of his socialist policies

Turning a country with the world’s largest proven oil reserves into an utter hellhole on the brink of famine is no small feat, yet socialism can accomplish anything. As Milton Friedman would say:

put them in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there’d be a shortage of sand

Quite literally actually.

Serbia’s non-genocide

Covering up the whole Yugoslav Wars and their coverage by “libertarians” would take another article. Relevant for us here is that, just as they repeat Russian propaganda now, the so-called “anti-war” libertarians then repeated the Serbian one. And now, they still stick to it, using the NATO intervention there as “proof” of NATO’s aggressiveness. On the Serbian (socialists’ – you guessed it) crimes, see for instance:

• “Srebrenica is a town in eastern Bosnia and was a UN ’safe area’ in the 1990s upon which the Serb Army forces imposed a siege and famine that, 27 years ago, culminated in the worst act of mass murder in Europe since World War II. This is my thread on the #SrebrenicaGenocide.”
• “The most important thing to know about #SrebrenicaGenocide is that it was not an isolated mass atrocity but a culmination of the Bosnian genocide that started in the Drina Valley & eastern Bosnia, spread to rest of the country & culminated in July 1995.”

On “Antiwar.com”, conversely, you would have read about:

• “Fuzzy Math and ‘Genocide’ [in quotes, sic]”
• “fake genocide in Kosovo”
• Justin Raimondo, “Slobodan Milosevic, RIP”

Raimondo himself, following up in the tradition of his mentor Rothbard of writing obits for socialist murderers. Of course.

Vietnam’s peaceniks

The Soviet Union supplied North Vietnam with medical supplies, arms, tanks, planes, helicopters, artillery, anti-aircraft missiles and other military equipment. Soviet crews fired Soviet-made surface-to-air missiles at U.S. F-4 Phantoms, which were shot down over Thanh Hóa in 1965. Over a dozen Soviet soldiers lost their lives in this conflict. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russian Federation officials acknowledged that the Soviet Union had stationed up to 3,000 troops in Vietnam during the war.

Some Russian sources give more specific numbers: Between 1953 and 1991, the hardware donated by the Soviet Union included 2,000 tanks, 1,700 APCs, 7,000 artillery guns, over 5,000 anti-aircraft guns, 158 surface-to-air missile launchers, and 120 helicopters. During the war, the Soviets sent North Vietnam annual arms shipments worth $450 million. From July 1965 to the end of 1974, fighting in Vietnam was observed by some 6,500 officers and generals, as well as more than 4,500 soldiers and sergeants of the Soviet Armed Forces. In addition, Soviet military schools and academies began training Vietnamese soldiers—in all more than 10,000 military personnel

– Wikipedia, “Vietnam War”

Conversely, not a word about all that in this LvMI article about Vietnam:

The Vietnamese experience should have cast both communism and interventionist foreign policy into the shallow grave they have unjustly avoided for so long. But subsequent intrusions in South America, Iraq, Afghanistan, and most recently Ukraine demonstrate that the United States continues marching into doomed, futile interventions on behalf America’s military-industrial complex and cronyist foreign policy. It’s time for us to put interventionist foreign policy to rest and let peace and markets do their work.

– “Vietnam Should Have Been the End of US Foreign Intervention. It Wasn’t, and the World Is Worse Off”

Indeed, this should be entirely rewritten:

The Vietnamese experience should have cast both communism and [its] interventionist foreign policy into the shallow grave they have unjustly avoided for so long. But subsequent intrusions in South America, Iraq, Afghanistan, and most recently Ukraine demonstrate that Russia continues marching into doomed, futile interventions on behalf [of] Russia’s military-industrial complex and cronyist foreign policy. It’s time for us to put interventionist foreign policy to rest and let peace and markets do their work.

Vietnam Should Have Been the End of Russian Foreign Intervention. It Wasn’t, and the World Is Worse Off.⁷

Libertarianism is against socialism (its famines)

No famine has ever taken place in the history of the world in a functioning democracy.

– Amartya Sen, Democracy as Freedom

В стране, где единственным работодателем является государство, эта мера означает медленную голодную смерть. Старый принцип: кто не работает, тот не ест, заменен новым: кто не повинуется, тот не ест.

In a country where the sole employer is the state, this means death by slow starvation. The old principle: who does not work shall not eat, has been replaced with a new one: who does not obey shall not eat.

– Лев Давидович Троцкий, “Преданная революция”, [ Leon Trotsky, “Revolution Betrayed” ]

Ukraine has suffered not one but three horrible famines, courtesy of socialism, courtesy of being occupied by Russia:

Man – not nature – was the cause of the first mass starvation in Soviet Ukraine. In this respect, the Ukrainian famine of 1921-1923 was very different from the contemporaneous Russian famine, but quite akin to the Ukrainian famine of 1932-1933. Since starvation in Ukraine was the result of a policy of plunder by Lenin’s government, the responsibility lies with the Soviet state.

Moscow’s treatment of Ukraine at the time of the famine was that of an imperial government with regard to a rebellious colony. By removing grain from starving Ukraine, the Bolsheviks accomplished several objectives at once: Ukrainian grain helped nourish hungry Russia; it provided a marketable commodity easily exchanged for hard currency in the West; finally, and not insignificantly, it physically weakened Ukrainian opposition to Russian domination. Bullets can miss their target; famines – never.

– Dr. Roman Serbyn, “The first man-made famine in Soviet Ukraine 1921-1923”

Since 2006, the Holodomor has been recognized by Ukraine alongside 15 other countries as a genocide against the Ukrainian people carried out by the Soviet government.

– Wikipedia, “Holodomor”

Sovereign states to have recognized Holodomor as genocide include Argentina, Australia, Canada, Colombia, Czech Republic, Ecuador, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Ukraine, and the Holy See in Vatican City.

– Wikipedia, “Holodomor in modern politics”

Conversely…

The Russian Federation officially says that the Holodomor is not an ethnic genocide. The State Duma passed a resolution in 2008 stating that the Holodomor should not be considered genocide,

On 17 November 2007, members from Aleksandr Dugin’s Russian nationalist group the Eurasian Youth Union broke into the Ukrainian cultural center in Moscow and smashed an exhibition on the famine. A Moscow Times article reported the event thusly: “The Kremlin argues that genocide is the killing of a population based on their ethnicity, whereas Stalin’s regime annihilated all kinds of people indiscriminately, regardless of their ethnicity. But if the Kremlin really believed in this argument, it would officially acknowledge that Stalin’s actions constituted mass genocide against all the people of the Soviet Union.”

It’s interesting to note here that our socialist “friend” Jean Ziegler, introduced at antiwar.com as “a UN specialist on hunger”, has systematically defended the very socialist regimes most responsible for causing famines… A specialist on hunger? Well… yes he is: a specialist on causing hunger through the regimes he supported, being best friends with every major socialist dictator: “de la Corée du Nord de Kim Il-sung à l’Ethiopie de Mengitsu, du Zimbabwe de Mugabe au Cuba de Castro”. (“Mengistu’s government is estimated to be responsible for the deaths of 500,000 to 2,000,000 Ethiopians, mostly during the 1983–1985 famine in Ethiopia.”, “Mugabe’s famine”, “somewhere between 240,000 and 3,500,000 North Koreans died from starvation or hunger-related illnesses” etc).

Bei der Wahl seiner Bündnisgenossen war der Schweizer Kapitalismusgegner Jean Ziegler noch nie wählerisch. So hat er – offenbar ahnungslos – auch eine deutsche Politsekte unterstützt, die bis heute Stalin und Mao Zedong verehrt.

Kim Il Sung, Muammar Ghadhafi, Fidel Castro, Robert Mugabe: Die Liste der Diktatoren, die Jean Ziegler in seiner schillernden Karriere als Autor, Kapitalismusgegner und SP-Politiker allzu eifrig verklärt hat, ist lang – und sie wird immer länger. So steht der 84-Jährige derzeit ebenso stur wie standesgemäss zu den linkspopulistischen, venezolanischen Despoten Hugo Chávez und Nicolás Maduro, die ihr Land innerhalb von wenigen Jahren heruntergewirtschaftet und die Demokratie faktisch abgeschafft haben.

– Lucien Scherrer, “Jean Zieglers Stalinisten-Connection”, NZZ

Ziegler co-wrote a preface to some translations of the book Fortunate Son with… Thierry Meyssan⁸. Meyssan wrote an article in the book Políticamente incorrecto, in good company with authors such as Noam Chomsky, and a postface by… Ziegler’s friend Fidel Castro. What a family!

Speaking of famines, surely we should mention Mao’s Great One: “It is widely regarded as the deadliest famine and one of the greatest man-made disasters in human history, with an estimated death toll due to starvation that ranges in the tens of millions (15 to 55 million).”

Yet Rothbard had no problem allying with Maoists:

Rothbard was attracted to the growing student movement and actually entered the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) with his small following. He broke with those libertarians still clinging to an alliance with the anti-New-Deal Right by opposing Barry Goldwater in 1964 and beginning publication of Left & Right in 1965. He actively attended New Left meetings, wrote for Ramparts magazine, and even formed tactical alliances at the Freedom & Peace Party conventions with Maoists against old-line socialists.

– Samuel Edward Konkin III, “History of the Libertarian Movement”

Strategy was always an issue of primary concern for Rothbard, and he always aligned himself with the anti-state forces of the moment, wherever they were. In the late 1960s, this was obviously the radical Left. It would have been insanity for anarchists to attempt an alliance with conservatives at the height of the Vietnam War, while the Cold War was still raging, and when virtually all right-wingers were cheering on police repression of the antiwar movement. Instead, the natural allies of libertarians for the moment were the antiwar protestors, student rebels, youth counterculture, the black power movement, and other popular radical strands of the time. Rothbard even participated in a coalition with Trotskyists and Maoists under the banner of the Peace and Freedom Party. These efforts worked remarkably well for a time, and the libertarian movement experienced much growth during the late 1960s and early 1970s, due in large part to an influx of countercultural radicals from the New Left.

– Keith Preston, “Rothbard’s Time on the Left”

Libertarianism is against socialism (its lies)

How enormously different is the conduct of the Cuban government from that of the government of the United States! The Revolution, based on truth, and the empire, based on lies!

– Fidel Castro, liar (on Thierry Meyssan’s website)

And of course I have said very clear [sic] that we are not communists; very clear [sic]

– Fidel Castro, founder of the Communist Party of Cuba

Niemand hat die Absicht, eine Mauer zu errichten.

[Nobody has any intention of building a wall.]

– Genosse Walter Ulbricht, First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, June 15, 1961 (Construction of the Berlin Wall started August 13, 1961. It stood until November 9, 1989.)

Я обращаюсь и к народу Украины. Искренне хочу, чтобы вы нас поняли: мы ни в коем случае не хотим нанести вам вред, оскорбить ваши национальные чувства. Мы всегда уважали территориальную целостность украинской державы… Хочу, чтобы вы меня услышали, дорогие друзья. Не верьте тем, кто пугает вас Россией, кричит о том, что за Крымом последуют другие регионы. Мы не хотим раздела Украины, нам этого не нужно.

[I also appeal to the people of Ukraine. I sincerely want you to understand us: in no case do we want to harm you, offend your national feelings. We have always respected the territorial integrity of the Ukrainian state… I want you to hear me, dear friends. Do not believe those who scare you with Russia, shouting that other regions will follow Crimea. We do not want the division of Ukraine, we do not need it.]

– Владимир Путин, “Обращение Президента Российской Федерации”, March 18, 2014

Of course we have no intention [of invading Ukraine], we have repeatedly said it all the levels … Nothing is happening, open your eyes.

– Dmitry Polyanskiy, Russia’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations, February 17, 2022

We remind you that Russia has never attacked anyone throughout its history. And Russia, which has survived so many wars, is the last country in Europe that wants to speak at all, even pronounce the word ‘war’

– Dmitry Peskov, Kremlin spokesperson, quoted in “Russia Never Attacked Anyone, Says Kremlin; Slams ‘war’ Narrative Set By West”, February 20, 2022

Россия не крала никакого зерна

– Песков

Вы знаете, что вчера Россия приняла решение признать суверенитет двух народных республик Донбасса.

Сразу же хочу сказать: мы видим и предвидели, можно сказать, спекуляции на эту тему – на тему о том, что Россия собирается восстановить империю в имперских же границах. Это абсолютно не соответствует действительности.

[ As you know, Russia decided yesterday to recognise the sovereignty of the two people’s republics in Donbass.

I would like to say right away that we can see, and we predicted speculations on this subject, that is, Russia’s alleged intention to reinstate the empire within imperial borders. This has absolutely nothing to do with reality. ]

– Владимир Путин, “Переговоры с Президентом Азербайджана Ильхамом Алиевым” [ Talks with President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev ], February 22, 2022

The corpses in Boutcha that didn’t exist before the Russian troops arrived … er, er, left, sorry - before they left …

– Russian ambassador to the UN, April 5, 2022 (see also)

Apparently, we are now at war with the whole world, as it was in the Great Patriotic War, the whole of Europe, the whole world was against us.

And now it’s the same, they never liked Russia.

– Rustam Minnekaev, deputy commander of the Central Military District, Russian Army, April 23, 2022

Readers of Mises should understand that a socialist regime, on its own, would not have survived so long were it not for subsidies and looting. Socialism is pure parasitism, it simply burns capital accumulated under the previous regimes, then steals abroad, then collapses. Ludwig von Mises was surely the greatest and staunchest critic of socialism that ever lived… It is sad that writers on a website bearing his name seem to have missed the point. Socialism is not just a somewhat less efficient economic policy. It is pure murder and looting – and it knows no borders. A regime based on the negation of rights of human beings… of course won’t stop at its “border”. Spreading misery abroad, too: socialism is “egalitarian” and “generous”: there’s no reason only one country should suffer from it. Mises understood it. His followers don’t.

“Russia never attacked anyone”: the aggressor playing the victim

Thus, while imperialist and deplorable, Soviet foreign policy is basically cautious and defensive; Russia has been invaded three times from Eastern Europe in this century, and therefore its concern with avoiding anti-Soviet governments there is understandable.

– Murray N. Rothbard, “The Afghan Scam”

The great irony in Russia claiming to “save people, demilitarize, denazify Ukraine”⁹ is that what enabled Nazism was Russia’s illegal militarization of Germany, and the subsequent alliance (surprise) between Soviet Socialism and National Socialism:

While Soviet-German military cooperation between 1922 and 1933 is often forgotten, it had a decisive impact on the origins and outbreak of World War II. Germany rebuilt its shattered military at four secret bases hidden in Russia. In exchange, the Reichswehr sent men to teach and train the young Soviet officer corps. However, the most important aspect of Soviet-German cooperation was its technological component. Together, the two states built a network of laboratories, workshops, and testing grounds in which they developed what became the major weapons systems of World War II. Without the technical results of this cooperation, Hitler would have been unable to launch his wars of conquest.

– “Sowing the Wind: The First Soviet-German Military Pact and the Origins of World War II”

In a dramatic scene in Babylon Berlin, Season 2, Episode 3, the main character goes on a dangerous mission to photograph a secret Luftwaffe base in Soviet Russia. Historically accurate.

• “Review: Stalin’s War: A New History of World War II”
• Wikipedia, “Treaty of Versailles – Violations – Military”
• Wikipedia, “Soviet invasion of Poland”
• Wikipedia, “Warsaw Uprising”

So the one time Russia was attacked, in the last century, was in fact, entirely its fault. That is: the fault of its socialist leadership. The millions of Russians who died in that war did not “sacrifice themselves”, they were sacrificed on the altar of Stalin’s insanity. Then there are all the other aggressions, of course:

Throughout Russia’s history, it has been involved in many external and internal “attacks.” The Russian Empire fought wars and expanded its territory through force. The Soviet Union attacked Finland, annexed the Baltic states, crushed democratic revolutions in Hungary and Czechoslovakia, and fought a long war in Afghanistan. Post-Soviet Russia invaded Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine beginning in 2014. It brutally suppressed Chechnya. It also has been a combatant in Syria, attacking hospitals and civilian infrastructure. In sum, Peskov’s claim that “… Россия на протяжении всей своей истории никогда ни на кого не нападала” is outrageously false.

– “The claim that ’Russia, throughout all of its history, has never attacked anyone’ is false”

See also:

• “Fact-Checking: A Putin spokesman says ‘Russia has never attacked anyone.’ That statement ignores centuries of Russian attacks.”
• “moscow is awfully uncreative. in the last one hundred years #RussianColonialism has been using the same invasion and occupation tactic over and over and over again. thread.” (Русский Колониализм)

Also, while Rothbard mentions Iran, why does he skip the part that started all the troubles in the first place, out of a neutral country, namely the British-Russian invasion of Iran/Persia?

The pot calling the kettle black

A common tactic of Russian propaganda seems to be to “accuse the other of doing the exact thing you’re doing yourself”.

Other Russian nationalist volunteers involved in separatist militias [on the “separatist militas”, see part 5] included members of the Eurasian Youth Union, and of banned groups such as the Slavic Union and Movement Against Illegal Immigration. Another Russian separatist paramilitary unit, the Interbrigades, is made up of activists from the National Bolshevik (Nazbol) group Other Russia. An article in Dissent noted that “despite their neo-Stalinist paraphernalia, many of the Russian-speaking nationalists Russia supports in the Donbass are just as right-wing as their counterparts from the Azov Battalion”.

According to the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, a number of European politicians from far-right and extreme-left receive all-expenses-paid visits to Donetsk.

– Wikipedia, “Donetsk People’s Republic”

Do we even need to discuss, for instance, the whole claim about “denazification” of a country with a Jewish president? (Also, a native Russian speaker...)

Language discrimination?

• “Russia has eliminated all classes taught in Ukrainian since its annexation of Crimea”

• “Ukrainian language pushed out of Crimean schools”

• “#Crimea: Ukrainian+Russian road signs are replaced with only Russian ones.”

• “Part of Russian ‘filtration’ of Ukrainians trying to escape Russian occupied areas is checking for tattoos in non-Russian languages (Ukrainian, English, Polish..). Offenders are disappeared into ‘filtration camps’ and Russian prisons. Many just disappear.”

• “Russia begins erasing Lithuanian traces from Kaliningrad”

Antisemitism?

• “In its decades-long tradition of antisemitism, Moscow orders Jewish Agency to cease its operations in Russia. Jewish Agency, or Sochnut, was a standard target for Soviet and KGB attacks, it was enough to have some leaflets from Sochnut to be put in jail, as Putin worked for KGB.”

• “Russia orders Jewish Agency to stop all operations in country”

• “Ukraine Jewish leaders criticize Putin in open letter”, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, March 5, 2014

• “Jewish groups condemn Ukraine invasion, pledge support for Jewish communities in crossfire”, Jewish News Syndicate, February 24, 2022

• “Ukraine chief rabbi: World didn’t stop Hitler, it must stop Putin — bomb his army convoy”, The Times of Israel, March 2, 2022

• “Moscow’s chief rabbi in exile after refusing to back Ukraine invasion, relative says”

• “Ukraine today boasts the lowest rate of antisemitic sentiment in eastern Europe and probably most of western Europe too.”

Far-right groups?

• “The Involvement of Russian Ultra-Nationalists in the Donbas Conflict”, June 11, 2014

• “Four years of Kremlin’s ‘Donbas republics’ and their far-right and left-wing friends”, May 15, 2018

• “How the Russian Media Spread False Claims About Ukrainian Nazis”, July 2, 2022

• “Ukrainian far-right has been overrepresented in the international media. A thread about Russian fascism in the context of #UkraineRussiaWar.”

Neo-Nazis?

• “Russian Nazis in Ukraine (collection of links)”, April 18, 2014

• “Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service (BND) recently provided a 7-page report to several federal ministries, that conclude a number of Russian right-wing extremist and neo-Nazis are currently serving in the ranks of Russian forces involved in the war in Ukraine.”

• “If Russia is Serious about De-Nazification, it Should Start at Home”

• “Why are German neo-Nazis training in Russia?”

• “The idea that Putin had to invade Ukraine to protect Russians from Ukrainian nazis is absolute garbage. It was purely a land grab. There are many places where Russians are genuinely oppressed, like Turkmenistan. Putin doesn’t care about them one bit.” – Михаил Светов

• “Russian State Media War Reporter Defends Nazi Tattoos”

• “Journalist of the Russian government-owned media RIA and his friend that has a Heinrich Himmler tattoo. Typical denazificators.”

• “RIA Novosti reporter covering Ukraine War has fascist tattoos, Ukrainian journalists find out”

• “Russian Neo-Nazis Participate in ‘Denazifying’ Ukraine – Der Spiegel”

• Spiegel, “Zahlreiche Neonazis kämpfen in der Ukraine für Russland”

• “An untimely death reveals the nature of a Russian neo-Nazi unit that fought in Syria” (“Rusich, infamous for its role in the early years of the war in eastern Ukraine, is a Saint Petersburg-based militant group with significant far-right ties.”)

• “Yan Petrovsky, one of the notorious Russian neo-Nazi sadists who took photos of themselves over the bodies of Ukrainian soldiers they had mutilated has been arrested in Norway.”

• “Who Are The Neo-Nazis Fighting For Russia In Ukraine?”

• “Mr Kolesnikov, who has been put in charge of mobilizing Ukrainians by force in occupied territories and forces them to fight against other Ukrainian is a convict and neo-Nazi. He has been tasked with “de-nazifying” Ukraine by Putin.”

• “Des unités militaires russes arborent officiellement un écusson néonazi en #Ukraine. On perçoit le #kolovrat, un symbole revendiqué par le néonazisme russe (anti-Européens et eurasiste, pour une occupation russe de l’Europe). En fond, le drapeau de l’empire russe”

Murder, torture, genocide?

• “Dear Daniel McAdams, Who is ethnic cleansing? #collection of stories”

The repeating of the Russian propaganda by the Lew Rockwell Cesspool seems to know no limits, either. Here’s Rockwell himself about Mariupol:

Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., “Mariupol Residents Able To Move Freely, No Longer Have To Shelter From Nazi Shelling”, April 22, 2022

When the reality, of course, is that the city is completely destroyed:

But that failure by Russia to secure a rapid capture of the city, has prompted Russian commanders to resort to a 21st Century version of mediaeval siege tactics.

They have pummelled Mariupol with artillery, rockets and missiles - damaging or destroying over 90% of the city. They have also cut off access to electricity, heating, fresh water, food and medical supplies - creating a man-made humanitarian catastrophe

– “Mariupol: Why Mariupol is so important to Russia’s plan”

The number of bodies in Mariupol is overwhelming. Petro Andryushchenko, an adviser to the Ukrainian mayor, estimated that 22,000 died in the two months of fighting. However, a person among several coordinating burials in the city who spoke on condition of anonymity said they believed the total was closer to 50,000.

– “Makeshift graves and notes on doors: the struggle to find and bury Mariupol’s dead”

Cemeteries of Mariupol. Three month ago this was one of Ukraine’s fastest growing and comfortable cities. Now it a giant uninhabitable heap of ruins surrounded by graves.

This is what this Russian “liberation from Nazis” actually looks like.

– Illia Ponomarenko

“The whole world against us” paranoia

They [capitalists] will furnish credits which will serve us for the support of the Communist Party in their countries and, by supplying us materials and technical equipment which we lack, will restore our military industry necessary for our future attacks against our suppliers. To put it in other words, they will work on the preparation of their own suicide.

– Vladimir Ilich (Ulyanov) Lenin, as reported by I. U. Annenkov in an article entitled, “Remembrances of Lenin,” Novyi Zhurnal / New Review, September 1961, p. 147.

The Chinese governments were very clever. They did not expropriate the British. First, they prohibited them from exporting profits. Then they forced them to operate in such a way that there was no profit. Then they asked for taxes also, so that the British had to send additional money to China. Finally they made the British realize that you cannot do business with the communists, you especially cannot invest with them.

– Ludwig von Mises, Marxism Unmasked: From Delusion to Destruction

Indeed, if “The West” is to blame for something, it is for its excessive tolerance of national-socialism, socialism, and communism:

• “Western betrayal”

• “Operation Keelhaul”

• “Percentages agreement”

• “Soviet industrialisation is portrayed as the ‘competition’ with the capitalist West. It is a lie. In fact, it was a meticulous emulation of American industrialism. America built Soviet industrial power. American companies, technologies, engineers made the USSR a powerhouse”

• “How the U.S. saved a starving Soviet Russia: PBS film highlights Stanford scholar’s research on the 1921-23 famine”

• “Lend-Lease – US deliveries to the Soviet Union”

• Did Russia Really Go It Alone? How [British] Lend-Lease Helped the Soviets Defeat the Germans

• The darling of Soviet military drivers, the Studebaker-US6 was a real lifesaver for the Red Army, which experienced a chronic shortage of vehicles throughout WWII. It was the most exported vehicle to the USSR under the Lend-Lease program — up to 200,000 were delivered to the country during the conflict.

When the West was not actively helping the socialist regimes, the socialist regimes would steal or copy what they could from it:

• “How Communism Survived Thanks to Capitalist Technology” (“90% of all Soviet technology was of Western origin”)

• “Atomic Spies – Importance”

The whole socialist failed experiment could be seen either as either a pet project of the Western political class, or as a mere parasite of capitalism.

C’est l’un des secrets les mieux gardés de l’histoire du gaullisme. À l’aube de sa légende, De Gaulle appuya sa fragile légitimité sur une alliance secrète qui se révéla, pour lui, décisive, mais n’alla pas sans lourdes contreparties: avec Joseph Staline. Elle le conduisit à torpiller, en 1944, l’exploitation de la victoire de l’armée française en Italie et le projet britannique d’une percée par les Balkans qui auraient permis d’éviter le retour de la guerre sur le sol français et auraient empêché l’URSS de s’imposer en Europe de l’Est.

Elle se traduisit aussi par l’installation du parti communiste, discrédité par sa conduite pendant la drôle de guerre et sa collaboration de vingt-deux mois avec l’Allemagne nazie, au cœur du jeu politique et de l’appareil d’Etat.

– “De Gaulle-Staline, les liaisons dangereuses” (see also: De Gaulle et les communistes)

A French libertarian online magazine once asked: “Sommes-nous suffisamment anticommunistes ?”. To which we would reply: no, one can never be anti-communist enough.

Libertarianism is against a new Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

Россия восстанавливает свое единство — трагедия 1991 года, этой страшной катастрофы нашей истории, ее противоестественный вывих, преодолены.

[Russia is restoring its unity – the tragedy of 1991, this terrible catastrophe in our history, its unnatural dislocation, has been overcome.]

– Петр Акопов, “Наступление России и нового мира” [ “The new world order” ]

It seemed then that there could be no greater dictatorship than in North Korea and Turkmenistan. Many things seemed impossible then, but not now. In the race of dictatorships today there is an absolute leader, and it is neither North Korea nor Turkmenistan.

– Nigina Beroeva, Russian journalist, “I wrote about people forced to flee their countries, now I have to flee mine”

Rehabilitation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

Instead of rejecting its criminal past, like Germany did, Russia tries to either deny it or take pride in it:

• Russian Tanks Flying Soviet Flag

• Russian soldier in Ukraine with a Soviet flag.

• Russian soldiers have put up a Lenin statue in the occupied city of Nova Kakhovka in the Kherson region.

• Look Who’s Back: Russians Restore Lenin Statue in Ukrainian Town

• Russians Love Communism

• Vladimir Putin’s Russia is rehabilitating Stalin

• Why Is Stalin’s Popularity On the Rise?

• Vladimir Putin bans comparisons between Soviets and Nazi Germany in Second World War

• talking heads and government officials on state TV suggest that what Russia needs now to prevent potential riots is a figure like the notorious Lavrentiy Beria, who headed the NKVD during Stalin's purges. (on Бе́рия, see also)

• Stalin himself, of course, is also mentioned positively, by Solovyov (see also)

• Russian state TV keeps referring to Ukraine as “the hydra”, echoing Dzerzhinsky

• In that sense, the modern Russian army truly is the inheritor of the Soviet legacy.

• Putin sends Mariupol survivors to remote corners of Russia as investigation reveals network of 66 camps

• Ukraine flag being replaced by Soviet flag by Russian occupiers

• Soloviev Went On The Air In A Rare Sweatshirt Of A Luxury Brand For 125 Thousand Rubles

• “Another Soviet Flag, this time with Stalin’s face”

• Far from toppling statues, former Soviet Union puts up new monuments to Stalin

• “In occupied #Zolote, #Luhansk region, #Russian occupiers throw away a #Ukrainian flag and replaced it with a Soviet one.”

• “Russian Soldiers Raising Soviet Flag Over Occupied Ukraine Cities”

• “Nothing captures more the essence of the Russian invasion into Ukraine like this image of Russian forces waving a Soviet flag - the most genocidal regime in history - on a destroyed building of a city they just ‘liberated’ from its inhabitants.”

The Soviet flag. The communist flag of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Socialism is theft

Это всё уходит очень глубоко. В трудах прошлого века люмпен-пролетариат осуждался разве только за некоторую невыдержанность, непостоянство настроения. А Сталин всегда тяготел к блатарям – кто ж ему грабил банки? Еще в 1901 году сотоварищами по партии и тюрьме он был обвин?н в использовании уголовников против политических противников. С 20-х годов родился и услужливый термин: социально-близкие. В этой плоскости и Макаренко: зтих можно исправить. (По Макаренко, исток преступлений – только “контрреволюционное подполье”). Нельзя исправить тех – инженеров, священников, эсеров, меньшевиков.

[And all that went very deep indeed. In works of the last century, the lumpenproletariat was criticized for little more than a certain lack of discipline, for fickleness of mood. And Stalin was always partial to the thieves—after all, who robbed the banks for him? Back in 1901 his comrades in the Party and in prison accused him of using common criminals against his political enemies. From the twenties on, the obliging term “social ally” came to be widely used. That was Makarenko’s contention too: these could be reformed. According to Makarenko, the origin of crime lay solely in the “counterrevolutionary underground.” (Those were the ones who couldn’t be reformed–engineers, priests, SRs, Mensheviks.)]

– Александр Солженицын, Архипелаг ГУЛаг

Surely not a coincidence that the current kleptocracy-oligarchy is blurring the distinction between common criminals and itself: “Criminals as Social Allies of Marxism”, a new form of Социально-близкие.

The limit between socialism and common theft is hard to tell… indeed, properly understood, socialism is theft. Common thieves or socialists? Anecdotic incidents or deep-seated tradition of plunder? Continuation of Soviet Socialism – or gang of thieves oppressing the people in both cases? You decide:

• “The idea that Russia has low tax rate is false. In addition to 20% VAT we pay mandatory 22% towards the government pension fund, 13% Income tax, 5.1% for compulsory medical insurance and 2.9% into Social Security fund. A total of 64%. Not included are crazy high import taxes.”

• “Государство и госкомпании контролируют 70% российской экономики” [  The state and state-owned companies control 70% of the Russian economy ]

• “92% of all land in Russia is owned by the government. The rest mostly belongs to Putin’s cronies. One of the biggest landlords in Russia is Former Minister of Agriculture Alexander Tkachov. Somehow he acquired 641 thousand hectares.”

• Russia Seizes Rare Swiss Watches in Sanctions Reprisal

• “‘They tore it all down, took everything away, and yes they even beat us’ A Moscow business owner describes how the city destroyed her stores”

• Russia to nationalize the 500+ airplanes that Western leasing companies have demanded to be returned to them.

• Truckloads of grain being carried off toward Russia from Russian occupied Melitopol. Just like in the days of Stalin.

• Russian trucks transporting Ukrainian grain stolen from the Zaporizhzhia region to Russia. 90 years have passed since the Holodomor and Russian soldiers are stealing Ukrainian grain again.

• 50 Buryats started shooting against 50 Chechens after the Chechens stole goods that the Buryats had looted from Ukrainian homes.

• “Russians plunder $5M farm vehicles from Ukraine – to find they’ve been remotely disabled”

• “Russians steal vast amounts of Ukrainian grain and equipment, threatening this year’s harvest”

• Russian Soldiers Looting (compilation)

• “In Russian army, looting is a form of motivation”

• “Russia stole 2500 tons of rolled steel from the port of Mariupol of today, transporting it to Russia on a Ukrainian ship that they have also stolen. They also announced that they are stealing 34 other Ukrainian ships. The Russian state loots away.”

• “A resident of Kherson posted a photo of a russian truck filled with looted items.”

Perhaps there is a reason why Алиса Зиновьевна Розенбаум referred to socialist thieves as “looters”. She was Russian. She understood.

When a society establishes criminals-by-right and looters-by-law—men who use force to seize the wealth of disarmed victims—then money becomes its creators’ avenger. Such looters believe it safe to rob defenseless men, once they’ve passed a law to disarm them. But their loot becomes the magnet for other looters, who get it from them as they got it. Then the race goes, not to the ablest at production, but to those most ruthless at brutality. When force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket.

– Ayn Rand

Regarding “defenseless men”: more on that later.

Criminals-by-right and looters-by-law? One can almost read the Russian word-concept behind that: вор в законе, thief in law.

Rusko trpí spasiteľským komplexom [see also: Russischer Messianismus]. Keď som bola v polovici deväťdesiatich rokoch na reportáži o krstnom otcovi Ďalekého Východu, tak tento kriminálnik, ktorý si odsedel osemnásť rokov v trestaneckom tábore a potom vlastnil v Chabarovsku televizionnyj kanal, reštaurácie, hotely, kasíno, sa mi obklopený svojou ozbrojenou ochrankou úplne vážne zdôveril, že prorok, ktorý spasí ľudstvo príde z Ďalekého Východu - a čuduj sa svete, sedí predo mnou. Tak prečo by si Vladimír Putin nenárokoval na to isté poslanie, veď stoji v kriminálnom svete vyššie na rebríčku ako onen Chabarovský vor (zlodej). Inak označenie vor je v týchto kruhoch veľká česť. Ten, kto kradne na vysokej úrovni je uctievaný.

– Irena Brežná, “Príspevok k diagnóze Ruska” (French translation: “La Grande Russie entre foi et mensonge”)

Incidentally:

The use of middlemen in order to issue bounties on United States military personnel is a direct example of the Vory mafia being utilized as an instrument to the state. This level of integration between the state and organized crime is remarkably new in the sense that Putin denies all ties to the Russian mafia yet recent events such as bounties in Afghanistan and ‘little green men.‘

And unsurprisingly, in the new “People’s republics”:

In 2014-2015, however, they endured expropriation and terror at the hands of their new Russian-supported government. The takeover of this part of Ukraine by criminal gangs lining up under the banner of national self-defense led to the largest spate of robberies in post-Soviet history. Anyone of any means was at risk as squabbling warlords stole money, cars, even homes. But property crimes were far from the end of the affair: many victims were subjected to torture and humiliation in stinking pits nicknamed “basements,” where they were kept while their relatives scrambled to secure ransom. Many people died, and those who escaped often lost their health in the ordeal.

Under Russian management, the economic situation in the “people’s republics” quickly deteriorated. With zero enforcement of property rights, money and goods were simply stolen and redistributed. Factories and mines, once sources of regional pride, were taken apart and sold to Russia on the cheap. The few workers who remained at their posts found their meager salaries unpaid for six months at a time. What little income this once-prosperous region produced was funneled into the pockets of Moscow bureaucrats and oligarchs.

– Nikolay Mitrokhin, “‘For Eight Years They Sat There in Cellars Under Fire!’ — On One False Narrative About Ukraine” (Russian original)

Totalitarianism

“Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four was about liberalism, not totalitarianism, claims Moscow diplomat”

A man was arrested in Moscow for standing in the street holding Tolstoy’s War and Peace

Meanwhile, A man, Dmitry Silin, was arrested in the Russian city of Ivanovo for offering free copies of George Orwell’s 1984 from a little trestle table in the street.

– “Inside story: Struggle for truth about Ukraine war in an Orwellian regime”, April 16, 2022

The book 1984, banned in the Soviet Union and its satellite states: my family in Socialist Czechoslovakia had a samizdat copy translated into Czech, I still remember the note on the title page: “the translator prefers to remain anonymous” – for obvious reasons.

Speaking of which, here’s from Anne Applebaum:

In Russia the state has ordered publishers to eliminate the word “Ukraine” from textbooks. An attempt to erase a nation and a people, and to leave no trace, has begun. («Перед нами задача — сделать так, будто Украины просто нет». Из учебников издательства «Просвещение» убирают упоминания Киева и Украины) [ Mentions of Kyiv and Ukraine removed from Russian schoolbooks: “We have a task to make it look as if Ukraine simply does not exist” ]

No wonder 1984 is censored again, indeed¹⁰. In, Russia, the truth is illegal (there are no limits to the lies: they even make it into museums):

La première personne condamnée en vertu de l’article 354.1 était Vladimir Luzgin, un mécanicien automobile de Perm. En 2014, il avait partagé sur les réseaux sociaux un lien vers un article en ligne sur l’histoire de l’Armée rebelle ukrainienne. L’auteur de l’article avait notamment soutenu que « les communistes […] ont activement collaboré avec l’Allemagne pour diviser l’Europe, conformément au pacte Molotov-Ribbentrop », et que « les communistes et l’Allemagne ont conjointement attaqué la Pologne et déclenché la Seconde guerre mondiale le 1er septembre 1939 ! ». En 2016, la Cour suprême de Russie a jugé que ces déclarations historiques contenaient des informations manifestement fausses sur les activités de l’URSS pendant la Seconde guerre mondiale et étaient contraires au jugement du tribunal de Nuremberg, bien que ce dernier ne se soit jamais prononcé sur l’invasion de la Pologne par l’Armée rouge soviétique en 1939. Luzgin a été condamné à une amende de 200 000 roubles (environ 2 200 euros). Depuis 2017, son affaire est en attente de jugement devant la Cour européenne des droits de l’homme (CEDH).

[The first person convicted under Article 354.1 was Vladimir Luzgin, an auto mechanic from Perm. In 2014, he had shared a link on social media to an online article about the history of the Ukrainian Rebel Army. The article’s author had argued, among other things, that “the Communists […] actively collaborated with Germany in dividing Europe according to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact,” and that “Communists and Germany jointly attacked Poland and started the Second World War on 1 September 1939!” In 2016, Russia’s Supreme Court ruled that those historical statements contained knowingly false information about the activities of the USSR during the Second World War, and were contrary to the Nuremberg Tribunal judgment, despite the fact that the latter never adjudicated the Soviet Red Army’s invasion of Poland in September 1939. Luzgin was fined 200,000 rubles (about EUR 2,200). Since 2017, his case has been pending at the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).]

– “Russie : Crimes Contre l’Histoire”, Fédération internationale pour les droits humains [ “Russia: Crimes Against History”, International Federation for Human Rights, June 2021 / N°770a ]

Today’s Russia is an extremely oppressive regime, the dismal continuation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. It should be obvious to any libertarian, that, like for all socialist, authoritarian and totalitarian states, the less people it is allowed to oppress, the better.

continued in “Libertarianism is against aggression (4)”

This article is part of a series about libertarianism and foreign policy, with a particular focus on the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

This part (3) was first published on May 9th, 2022.

1. Libertarianism is against aggression (1)
   1. Libertarianism is deontological, not consequentialist
   2. Libertarianism is about non-aggression
   3. Libertarianism is rational
2. Libertarianism is against aggression (2)
   1. Libertarianism is about a beautiful vision of a free society
   2. Libertarianism is not aggressive-war-militarism
   3. Libertarianism is about the right to live in a free society
3. Libertarianism is against aggression (3)
   1. Libertarianism is against socialism
   2. Libertarianism is against socialism (collectivism, terrorism, wars)
      1. Israel’s peaceful neighbors
         1. Socialism and terrorism
         2. Acknowledged leaders and pan-nationalism
         3. Property rights, individual and collectivist
      2. Cuba’s property rights
      3. Venezuela’s democrats
      4. Serbia’s non-genocide
      5. Vietnam’s peaceniks
   3. Libertarianism is against socialism (its famines)
   4. Libertarianism is against socialism (its lies)
      1. “Russia never attacked anyone”: the aggressor playing the victim
      2. The pot calling the kettle black
      3. “The whole world against us” paranoia
   5. Libertarianism is against a new Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
      1. Rehabilitation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
      2. Socialism is theft
      3. Totalitarianism
4. Libertarianism is against aggression (4)
   1. Libertarianism is the right to defense
   2. Libertarianism is the right to keep and bear arms
   3. Libertarianism is against nuclear terrorism
5. Libertarianism is against aggression (5)
   1. Libertarianism is the opposite of nihilism
   2. Libertarianism is (real) self-determination
   3. Libertarianism is a universalism
6. Agency denial is not libertarian

Footnotes

¹ The sinister Swiss socialist party, who has in its program:

• abolition of Swiss army
• disarmament of civilians (Switzerland has a very strong gun culture, which they try to destroy), especially registration of civilian firearms (let’s make a foreign invasion or democide as easy as possible!)
• “overcoming capitalism” (until 1935, they supported the plain communist goal of “dictatorship of the proletariat”)

All points which Parteigenosse Lenin would certainly have approved, as either turning Switzerland straight into a socialist republic, or making it easy prey for conquest by one. (Note that in half of Switzerland’s four languages, the party is called “socialist”, while in the other two it pretends to be “social-democrat”. We’ll go with the “socialist” translation.)

See also this note and that one. ↩

² On socialism, see:

• socialism/communism (non-)distinction
• Socialism as a political philosophy of anti-Law
• Socialisme
• National-socialisme
• Pourquoi le parti socialiste ne devrait pas exister
• Impossibilité du calcul économique en régime socialiste
• Socialistes méchants
• Социализм в отдельно взятой стране
• Communism is a fraud (forthcoming) ↩

³ We might also question the relevance of this statement on its own: what good does it do to, say, a Polish libertarian, that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is no threat to South Africa or Ireland? (More on that later.)

Likewise, should the Soviet involvement in Korea be “justified” by their 17 kilometers tiny border, or condemned as part of their spreading of mayhem and socialism around the world?

Though not officially a belligerent during the Korean War (1950–1953), the Soviet Union played a significant, covert role in the conflict. It provided material and medical services, as well as Soviet pilots and aircraft, most notably MiG-15 fighter jets, to aid the North Korean-Chinese forces against the United Nations Forces. Joseph Stalin had final decision power and several times demanded North Korea postpone action, until he and Mao Zedong both gave their final approval in spring 1950.

– Wikipedia, “Soviet Union in the Korean War”

This “wrong neighborhood” is also part of the victim-blaming for the invasion of Ukraine. Using a rape analogy, the various “libertarian” comments on the invasion of Ukraine were more or less as follows:

• deny vigourously as misandrist hysteria (“russophobia”) that the rapist is about to rape the victim, making sure no one assists her and helps prevent the rape happening in the first place;
• once it does happen, don’t pause for a second to apologize for the wrong assessment of the situation, but conversely start giving the rapist tips on how best to proceed with the rape (see part 2)
• find excuses for the rapist. maybe the rape victim was not wearing the right clothes? maybe she was in the wrong neighborhood (surely being near Russia you can’t expect to have the same rights as a citizen of Switzerland or Ireland, do you)? maybe she rejected the rapist’s overtures earlier? maybe she was about to marry someone else: blame him, too! (“it’s NATO’s fault for not committing never to accept Ukraine”)
• if the victim defends herself, instead of helping her, scold her for prolonging her own agony, and advise her to just surrender to the rapist and give him whatever he wants (“Ukraine should surrender, the West should stop providing weapons to Ukraine, etc.”)
• if the rapist threatens to shoot anyone who helps the victim, blame this on the victim too: the victim is crying for help? accuse her of inciting murder! (see part 1)
• while the victim is struggling, and others are trying to stop the rape and punish the aggressor, proclaim instead that “the least bad outcome” (sic) would be if the rapist gets everything he wants (“the least bad outcome of the war would be a Russian victory”).

And alas, the rape analogy is not that far-fetched. ↩

⁴ Now to be sure, government redistribution is of course always wrong. But there is something particularly stunning about the policy of a poor state, starving its population, literally taxing it to death, in order to finance… sheer hatred and destruction. For a century now, the average Russian, much poorer than the average American, has been starved, kept in poverty, squeezed to death, in order to finance… murder, mayhem, and destruction. The average Russian, of course, has nothing to gain from the murder of Israelis by Soviet planes, or the destruction of Ukraine at a huge cost. Socialism, in its essence, indeed, is not as much redistribution as it is pure destruction:

Le monde entier couvert de merde… sans aucun profit pour personne.

[The whole world covered in shit… to no one’s benefit.]

– Jean Plumyène

Speaking of which, Russian author Дми́трий Алексе́евич Глухо́вский comments:

Dans leur vie privée, la grande majorité des Russes sont totalement impuissants et désemparés face à un Etat qui leur inculque une conscience loyaliste plutôt que civique. Les gens ont un énorme besoin de respect de soi, de dignité, mais le régime de Poutine est fondé précisément sur la suppression de la dignité humaine, sur l’apathie politique et le sentiment d’impuissance. Au lieu de cela, le chauvinisme impérial est imposé au peuple, déguisé en patriotisme. Le gouvernement est incapable d’améliorer la vie des Russes, qui se détériore depuis des années, s’appauvrit et se raccourcit. Les gens sont malheureux et amers, pauvres et effrayés et, surtout, tourmentés par un sentiment d’absence de but et de futilité dans une vie qui se dégrade d’année en année. Et même si les gens réalisent au fond d’eux-mêmes qui est responsable de leurs malheurs (ce n’est pas Zelensky ou Biden qui ont chié dans leurs ascenseurs!), ils n’ont pas le courage de l’admettre, même à eux-mêmes.

An even more staggering example of that today is the socialist North Korea: North Korea’s military spending is at 22% of GDP, 8 billion USD, whereas South Korea’s is 3% of its GDP, 26 billion USD. Likewise, US military spending is of course huge, but… less than Russia’s in percent of GDP. ↩

⁵ Actually, Rothbard was an admirer of Holocaust denier Harry Elmer Barnes:

It is this much-needed stripping away of the last remaining good-war and good-war-president myth that Harry Elmer Barnes accomplishes in his final article. It is a fitting note for Harry to leave us, for it is in a cause for which Harry fought and suffered all of his life: the cause of peace and justice and historical truth.

– Murray N. Rothbard, “Harry Elmer Barnes, RIP”

See also:

• John P. Jackson, Jr. “The Pre-History of American Holocaust Denial.”

↩

⁶ See also by Walter Block and Alan G. Futerman: The Classical Liberal Case for Israel. On Block see also, however, this note. ↩

⁷ Could the difference for them be that American involvement in Vietnam was more direct than Russia’s? No: when it comes to Russia, everything is acceptable to them, when it comes to the US, nothing is: “Noninterventionism Is Not Isolationism: The US Government Should Stop Arming Ukraine”. We are still waiting for an article from them titled “The Russian government should stop invading Ukraine”.

Or could it be that for some reason they only criticize “their own” government (whatever that means, more on that later)? Neither: they do criticize other governments:

• Australia and New Zealand are called “totalitarian”… not Russia!
• Canada is called “one of the most repressive countries on earth”… not Russia!
• Ukraine’s conscription is criticized… not Russia’s!

So they do criticize other governments… except never the most socialist, never the worst authoritarian ones. Why?

For these “libertarians”, liberal regimes are always wrong in foreign policy. Whatever they do can only be motivated by “hatred”, the deep state, the military-industrial complex, etc. Conversely, for all socialist dictatorships, whatever they do, they must have good reasons to be taken at face value!

While these “libertarians” complain about “MSM”, and while they oppose in theory government censorship and media financing, they have no issue wholeheartedly gobbling every lie and propaganda that comes from socialist dictators’ government-controlled media. ↩

⁸ Another friend of dictators (“Libye : quand Meyssan vole au secours de Kadhafi”, “Thierry Meyssan, l’ami français de Bachar el-Assad”), well-known conspiracy theorist, allegedly banned from entry to the US, widely published on the Lew Rockwell Cesspool (introduced as “French intellectual, founder and chairman of Voltaire Network and the Axis for Peace Conference”).

Republishing propaganda from Russian state-media was bad enough, but now we have an author who is literally on the payroll of a terrorist organization:

« La victoire de la révolution islamique d’Iran de 1979, peut être évaluée, dans l’histoire du monde, aux côtés d’autres grands événements comme la révolution française de 1789 et de la révolution d’octobre 1917. (…) La révolution islamique continue d’être une source d’inspiration pour un nombre considérable de mouvements populaires et révolutionnaires. Cela montre que le peuple iranien reste toujours attaché à sa révolution. (…) La révolution islamique d’Iran a une nation qui inspire, automatiquement, les valeurs auxquelles aspirent les nations du monde ». Ces propos sont extraits d’une interview de Thierry Meyssan publiée le 16 février dernier sur le site de l’IRIB, l’agence de presse officielle de la République islamique. Les premiers contacts de Meyssan avec les mollahs et leurs supplétifs libanais (voir sa rencontre avec le Hezbollah) remontent à 2002. Cette année-là, Meyssan publie son best-seller conspirationniste, L’Effroyable imposture, un livre dont la traduction et l’impression en persan est assurée par… le gouvernement iranien. En 2008, Meyssan quitte la « zone OTAN » (où il se dit menacé de mort) pour la Syrie avant de se fixer définitivement au pays du Cèdre. Il déclare travailler aujourd’hui pour Al-Manar, la chaîne de télévision du Hezbollah (voir son interview par ReOpen911) et intervient régulièrement sur Sahar TV, une chaîne satellitaire appartenant à l’IRIB.

– “Le serment d’allégeance de Thierry Meyssan aux mollahs”

Following the catastrophic 2020 Beirut explosion, which could have been due to the Hezbollah happily keeping the huge amount of ammonium nitrate around, in case it could use it against Israel (“Ammonium nitrate didn’t belong to Hezbollah, but they knew about its dangers”, “Hezbollah wants to remove judge investigating catastrophic Beirut port explosion”), surely Thierry Meyssan would not blame it on his employer… so why not blame it on Israel, as usual (of course!):

Thierry Meyssan, “Israel Destroys East Beirut With a New Weapon”

Published, of course, on the Lew Rockwell Cesspool! Notice that Meyssan claims that the explosives did indeed belong to the Hezbollah (“a Hezbollah arms depot”, “Hezbollah warehouse”), yet has no issue with that. ↩

⁹ As usual, the Lew Rockwell Cesspool is swallowing and respitting the Kremlin’s propaganda – hook, line, and sinker:

• “Russia Demilitarizes Ukraine” ↩

¹⁰ Russian puppet-state Belarus followed suit since then: “Belarus has banned the sale of 1984.”, May 20, 2022. ↩

janarchism: from the name Jan + Ancient Greek ᾰ̓ρχή, sovereignty : sovereignty for every Jan, the philosophy that every person has the same identical and universal right not to be aggressed upon by others, and the symmetrical duty not to aggress others.

I’m a janarchist. I want rights: the right not to be killed, stolen from, aggressed in any other ways, etc. I want them for me, Jan. How can I get these rights? How can I live in a society where my rights are secured, for me, Jan?

There are other Jans. Do I have a more unique claim on those rights than them? Certainly not: I could try to pretend I do, but it will be hard to convince anyone. Many have tried. Many have failed. I might as well acknowledge the truth: my claim to those rights extends to all other persons named Jan as well. My claim is the same as theirs, no more, no less.

But a name can hardly be a source of rights. Should I have less rights if my name were Tom instead? And imagine if I were somehow unable to prove my identity: should I be at the mercy of being murdered without consequences if I forget to wear my name tag? How could I ever prove beyond any doubt that I belong to the rights-bearing category, and not the other one? If Jans have rights but not Toms, how can I be sure that I shall always be able to prove I am a Jan and not a Tom?

Once arbitrariness replaces Universal Law, no one is safe:

Встречаются два зайца в поле:

– Отчего ты так бежишь, запыхался даже?

– А ты разве не слышал, объявили, что всех верблюдов будут кастрировать?

– Так ты же не верблюд!

– Ну да… Поймают – кастрируют, а потом доказывай, что ты не верблюд.

Another version:

Бегут зайцы через границу СССР. Их спрашивают:

– Почему вы убегаете?

– Потому что будут арестовывать всех верблюдов.

– Но вы же не верблюды?

– Так поди докажи НКВД, что ты не верблюд!

English version:

Two rabbits on a road during the Stalinist terror of 1937.

First rabbit: “Where are you going in such a hurry?”

Second rabbit: “Haven’t you heard? There’s a rumor going around that all camels are to be castrated!”

First rabbit: “But you’re not a camel!”

Second rabbit: “Once they catch you and castrate you, try proving that you’re not a camel!”¹

The surest, the one and only way, for me to have my rights secured for myself, is if they are also secured for anybody I could be confused with.

“I never thought leopards would eat MY face”, sobs woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party.

Therefore, whether I be altruist or selfish, I have no choice but to extend those rights to, well, pretty much everyone else too (with a name, whether that name be Jan or not, or even without a name: everyone, just to be safe; after all, my life is at stake).

Οὐκ ἦν τι καθ’ ἑαυτὸ δικαιοσύνη, ἀλλ’ ἐν ταῖς μετ’ ἀλλήλων συστροφαῖς καθ’ ὁπηλίκους δή ποτε ἀεὶ τόπους συνθήκη τις ὑπὲρ τοῦ μὴ βλάπτειν ἢ βλάπτεσθαι.

Justice is an agreement to neither harm nor be harmed

– Epicurus (341—271 B.C.E.), an early Janarchist

You might say: there could therefore be many other words to say the same thing then. Well, sure. If feminism means the same rights for women as for men, and defending the rights of women, then it means the exact same thing as masculinism – the same rights for men and women, and defending the rights of men. If nationalism means what’s best for the inhabitants of a country, then it means the exact same thing as egalitarianism, in the sense of equal rights for all, and does not conflict with any other nationalism. See François Guillaumat: “La rationalité comme seul critère de distinction entre les normes politiques”. Janarchism is, of course, similar to anarchism and panarchism, which are equivalent to laissez-faire, libertarianism, humanism, the identity of rights of all human beings, (Natural) Law: the only non-contradictory philosophy of Law. Properly reasoned out, all correct starting points have libertarian universalism as the only answer.

The best way to have your rights protected, therefore, is:

1. Don’t infringe on the rights of others – don’t be a criminal.
2. Strive for a society where everyone’s rights are better protected – be a libertarian.

Stated another way:

Since property rights are thus a fact of logic, they are by extension a fact of nature, inescapable and absolute. This is what libertarians mean by the phrase “property rights are natural,” and that they have pre-existed their practical recognition or protection by any human institution. In the same way, two plus two has always equaled four, even thousands of years ago, whether or not any primitive tribesmen and women existing at the time could themselves have grasped the concept.

In other words, you can’t treat others like savages, i.e. violate their property rights, and then expect to have your own dignity respected in return. This is different than saying you shouldn’t treat others like savages, or you ought not violate other’s property. It’s more like saying, you shouldn’t treat others like savages, provided that you do not want to be treated like a savage yourself.

“Square One: Liberty through Property”

Slaveholders, when talking about their right to their slaves, always assume their own right to themselves. What slaveholder ever undertook to prove his right to himself? He knows it to be a self-evident proposition, that a man belongs to himself—that the right is intrinsic and absolute. In making out his own title, he makes out the title of every human being. As the fact of being a man is itself the title, the whole human family have one common title deed. If one man’s title is valid, all are valid. If one is worthless, all are. To deny the validity of the slave’s title is to deny the validity of his own.

Theodore Dwight Weld, The Bible Against Slavery, 1838.

The opposite of Law is nihilism, which equates to might makes right: the rule by brute force. Law or nihilism, you have to choose: either abide by the Law and help ensure its protection for all, or, violate it, live like a savage, but don’t be surprised at the consequences on you. Below some infamous examples of those who either made the wrong choice consciously, or thought they could have their cake and eat it too, to have their own rights protected while happily violating those of others:

• Maximilien Robespierre: “the architect of the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror … Robespierre encouraged the execution, mostly by guillotine, of more than 17,000 enemies of the Revolution. Cause of death: Guillotine”

• Генрих Григорьевич Ягода: “Appointed by Joseph Stalin, Yagoda supervised arrests, show trials, and executions … supervised construction of the White Sea–Baltic Canal … during which 12,000–25,000 laborers died. Like many Soviet NKVD officers who conducted political repression, Yagoda himself ultimately became a victim of the Purge.”

• Лавре́нтий Па́влович Бе́рия: “Following the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939, he was responsible for organizing purges such as the Katyn massacre of 22,000 Polish officers and officials … Beria administered the expansion of the Gulag labour camps … Beria’s ruthlessness in his duties and skill at producing results culminated in his success in overseeing the Soviet atomic bomb project … he was tried for treason and other offenses, sentenced to death, and executed”

• Николай Иванович Ежов: “organized mass arrests, torture and executions during the Great Purge … subsequently admitting in a confession (that he later claimed was taken under torture) to a range of anti-Soviet activity including ‘unfounded arrests’ during the Purge. He was executed in 1940 along with others who were blamed for the Purge.”

• Никола́й Васи́льевич Крыле́нко: “Krylenko was an exponent of socialist legality and the theory that political considerations, rather than criminal guilt or innocence, should guide the application of punishment. Following interrogation and torture by the NKVD, Krylenko confessed to extensive involvement in wrecking and anti-Soviet agitation. After a trial of 20 minutes, he was sentenced to death by the Military Collegium of the Soviet Supreme Court, and executed immediately afterwards.” (He is quoted at the start of Солженицын’s Архипелаг ГУЛаг: “В эпоху диктатуры и окружённые со всех сторон врагами, мы иногда проявляли ненужную мягкость, ненужную мягкосердечность.” [“In the period of dictatorship, surrounded on all sides by enemies, we sometimes manifested unnecessary leniency and unnecessary softheartedness.”]

… and many others:

Le successeur de Iejov, Beria « nettoie » le NKVD, et force en 1939 plus de 7 000 collaborateurs (plus de 22 % du total) à quitter le service. De la fin 1938 à la fin 1939, il fait incarcérer en tout 1 364 membres du NKVD, et en outre change presque tous les responsables du NKVD sur le plan des administrations des républiques et des territoires. Les cadres du NKVD de rang particulièrement élevé sont fusillés.

Beria réhabilite quelques victimes de l’ère Iejov. Simultanément, sous sa règle, la lutte contre les « parasites », les « conjurés » et les « ennemis » continue, et ce avec les mêmes méthodes qui ont été reprochées aux autres collaborateurs du NKVD. L’extension de ces poursuites diminue cependant, parce que les objectifs de la tête de la direction politique autour de Staline ont changé. En outre, il n’y a plus d’opération de masse.

Beaucoup de membres de troïkas sont eux-mêmes réprimés. Jusqu’en 2009, des données biographiques suffisantes ont pu être exploitées pour 169 cas. 47 représentants du NKVD, 67 membres du Parti et 2 représentants du ministère public ont été condamnés à mort.

– “Ordre opérationnel n° 00447 du NKVD”

Who’ll be next?

Our advice: Be a Janarchist, not a Robespierrist.

you are under no compulsion to accept my creed; that you are, so far as I am concerned, absolutely free to follow the torch of your reason according to your conscience; and I believe that you are civilized to that degree that you will extend to me the right that you claim for yourselves.

Give to every other human being every right that you claim for yourself.

– Robert Green Ingersoll, “The Limitations of Toleration”, May 8, 1888

I want to be free. It’s easier for me to be free if you’re free.

– Russell Means

¹ Incidentally: “California Court Rules That Bees Are Fish”.

The Russian leadership can, and should, at any time, the sooner the better, recall their invading force, resign, apologize, stand trial and start paying reparations for their crimes.

Now why would a libertarian call for anything else?

Libertarianism is about a beautiful vision of a free society

What is the point of a detailed account of an inferior plan that cannot be realized?

– David Gordon, “In Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State, by Charles Murray”

But beyond this, we have to ask: What’s the purpose of our little argument? Whatever we libertarians decide, it’s certainly not going to affect national policy. It would be one thing if Cox, or you dear reader, for some reason had the power to decide whether the nation would have federal border patrols or not — and at the same time lacked the authority to alter any other federal policies.

But that’s not the situation. We aren’t going to convince politicians on immigration, just as they ignore us on taxes and minimum wage legislation.

That’s why the purpose of libertarian writing is to provide the general public with a consistent and beautiful vision of a free society.

– Robert P. Murphy, “Upsidedown Luddism: The Case of Immigration”

Libertarianism is about a beautiful vision of a free society, it is not about… Mass murder tactics.

Yet here we have this astonishing proposal:

I do think the chance of a wider war would be far less if the Kremlin had committed all of the invasion forces and used whatever conventional weapons necessary regardless of civilian casualties to quickly end the war, while refusing to be delayed and distracted by negotiations and Western bleating. Having made a decisive decision, the Russians needed to demonstrate decisive military action.

– Paul Craig Roberts, “A Quick Decisive Victory Can Prevent a Wider War”

Now Paul Craig Roberts is certainly no libertarian¹, yet he gets published regularly on “LRC” (henceforth: the Lew Rockwell Cesspool), the website of none other than Lew Rockwell², founder and chairman of the Ludwig von Mises Institute³.

And no, this awful view is not an isolated opinion. Here is Daniel McAdams, the Executive Director of the “Ron Paul Institute for Peace (sic) and Prosperity” defending it and then some:

Thus Lew Rockwell is derided as “er, libertarian ‘anti-war’” for featuring a piece by Paul Craig Roberts that accurately pointed out that if Russia had adopted US tactics and gone in for full scorched earth in Ukraine the conflict would have been over very quickly thus reducing the possibility for a wider war, as we are seeing today… Surely a quick strike, leveling Ukraine as the US leveled Fallujah and Sirte and much of Baghdad would have rapidly established facts on the ground

– Daniel McAdams, “‘Regime Libertarians’ Go Neocon on Ukraine”

This is the same McAdams who was sooo certain that Russia would not invade, screaming insults⁴ at anyone who would dare accuse dear innocent Putin⁵ of such intentions. Now he is equally certain that as long as Russia is allowed to slaughter enough Ukrainian civilians, it won’t hurt anyone else. Really? What’s next?

Now this raises, obviously, objections on many levels from any sane person:

1. This is not libertarianism, but an abhorrent call for war crimes, with an invalid, irrelevant “justification”. Libertarianism is deontological, not consequentialist. Libertarianism is based on individual rights, not interpersonal utility comparisons, etc etc.
2. Even if it were somehow acceptable, it would still be an inferior solution, by far, to “The Russian leadership can, and should, at any time, the sooner the better, recall their invading force, resign, apologize, stand trial and start paying reparations for their crimes.” These authors don’t event suggest that “the Russians” could and should have refrained from said “decisive action” (sic) altogether.
3. The authors of this proposal have provided no evidence as to how they have any more power to achieve that inferior solution to the preferrable one. Does Mr Roberts have the power to convince Mr Putin to murder more civilians, to bomb Ukraine with even less regard for civilian casualties, yet somehow lacks the power to convince Mr Putin to not bomb (or to immediately stop bombing) Ukraine in the first place? (We hope not.)
4. It does appear that the Russian army is already committing many war crimes and atrocities. There is no evidence whatsoever, that were it to commit even more of them, this would somehow lead to a happy outcome (e.g., had Russia achieved a “Quick Decisive Victory”, what evidence is there that it would not have felt bolstered to invade further? What evidence is there it would not commit crimes against defenseless Ukrainians under occupation? etc. etc. : these authors don’t know that, can’t know that, and are very likely utterly wrong.)⁶

What “the Russians” needed and need to do is to make the decisive decision to recall their invading force, resign, apologize, stand trial and start paying reparations for their crimes.

Libertarianism is not aggressive-war-militarism

Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice

– Grey’s Law

Now this is all so obvious, so basic, that it’s very difficult to believe these authors could genuinely believe, either that deliberate massive war crimes are compatible with libertarianism, or that they have the power to influence the Russian regime to commit them as some sort of second-best solution (but no power to influence them to the ideal libertarian solution), or that libertarianism is suddenly consequentialist and they somehow achieved omniscience (they know exactly the consequences of everything!), or revolutionized libertarian theory (or indeed, any valid reasoning) into some sort of socialism where sacrificing some for the benefit of others would be acceptable (It’s a surprise, with such omniscience at their disposal, that they haven’t solved the economic calculation under socialism problem yet.)

This does not leave open that many alternative explanations, certainly none very flattering.

Diving deeper into the Lew Rockwell Cesspool, however, the reader with a strong stomach will find more clues⁷.

Now, with the frantic daily irrational propaganda blitz demonizing Vladimir Putin and the Russians, here is a brief documentary program that will not be airing on CNN, MSNBC, ABC, PBS, CBS, FOX, or on Social Media platforms. It shows the deep-seated nationalist reverence the patriotic and traditionalist Russian people have had for their unique combination of reverential Orthodox religious faith and honoring their military.

– Charles Burris, “The Main Cathedral of the Russian Armed Forces”, February 23, 2022

Militaristic propaganda⁸… Right on the eve of the invasion. Then we have this, quotation marks on “casualties” included:

The ideological cornerstone of American statism is the Lincoln myth, concocted around the man who waged total war on his own civilian population in the Southern states, killing at least 50,000 civilians according to Lincoln cultist James McPherson. The real number is bound to be much higher, coming from the “dean” of the Lincoln cult. These were not “collateral damage” in a foreign country, but almost exclusively American women, children, and old men. Then of course “we” dropped Atomic bombs on two Japanese cities occupied almost entirely by civilians; firebombed European cities full of civilians; mass murdered tens of thousands of Plains Indians; killed some 200,000 Filipinos, thousands of Vietnamese civilians, Koreans, Iraqis, Afghans, and on and on and on. But Boobus Americanus is now supposed to believe that only Big Bad Putin would do such things.

– Thomas J. DiLorenzo, “Crocodile Tears Over Ukrainian Civilian ‘Casualties’”

What exactly does Lincoln (1809 – 1865) have to do with Putin’s actions in 2014-2022?

And then we have this, a bit older, but then again the war against Ukraine started eight years ago:

– Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., “Russia Is a Beacon of Promise for a Christian Future” July 12, 2018
A Lutheran Pastor Explains.

The American military is a regime change janissary force for Israel, the banks, and the fossil fuels cartel - and Russia is standing up to it […]

I explained that in my view, Russia was not only a post-Communist society coming out of a 70 year tragedy, but that Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church were jointly leading the country into a pre-Bolshevik spiritual, moral, and political renaissance based on Christianity.

I went on to say that Putin’s Russia was the last and best bastion against the New World Order itself, deliberately targeted by globalist forces for this very reason. Using his smart phone, I pointed him to both Russia Insider and Russian Faith as necessary alternatives to American Mainstream Media (MSM) for his careful consideration.

Let us check the other mentioned “necessary alternatives to American Mainstream Media” website then:

“Russia’s Holy War Against the West”

Russian peacekeeping troops are carrying out a special operation in order to apply the Nuremburg process to all of Europe. [...]

What’s worse was when Orthodox people, almost two hundred priests, sent an appeal to His Holiness Patriarch Kirill, asking him to help stop the war. [...]

I repeat that what is being done now is not some kind of local, not a local operation. Today we are talking about cleansing Europe from any trace of fascism, which can give nothing to the world except ISIS and Bandera.

Well. The author of “Russia Is a Beacon of Promise for a Christian Future” being also the author of “The Primer for the Zionist Assault on the American Republic and the Nation of Iran”, unsurprisingly, we find on this “necessary alternatives to American Mainstream Media” website, such “interesting” articles as “World War II: The Foundational Lie of Our Era” (“World War II was Churchill’s War, not Hitler’s war… In contrast to the British aristocrat, Hitler was a man of the people. He acted for the German people.”), “The Case That 9/11 Was an Israeli Attack on the US Is ‘Overwhelmingly Strong’ - Ron Unz”, “How Jews Gave America Gay Marriage”, “The REAL Holocaust: The 1915 Armenian Genocide and its Russophobic Origins”, “We Must Dismantle Jewish Supremacy - Silence Is Not an Option”, etc.

“Russia Insider” is heavily reposted on the Lew Rockwell Cesspool.

The “Russian Faith” website, the one advocating for “Holy War Against the West” has been introduced on the Lew Rockwell Cesspool as:

Russian Faith, a new website with news about the Christian renaissance in Russia.

Articles from that website have also been republished on the Lew Rockwell Cesspool, such as:

“For Christians Interested in Moving to Russia: Here Are Your Options”

Editor’s note: As the Western world becomes more aggressively godless, more people have been looking towards Russia as the last place where they are free to raise a Christian family and leading a life of faith. Some have made the ultimate step and moved to Russia in their search for a Christian society where the establishment supports Christian values and beliefs and is not trying to destroy them.⁹

“Putin Adores Huge, Traditional Families and He’s Not Afraid to Show It”

Let Western media label these photos as “creepy” as they wish; we find Putin’s personal interest in traditional families–and the families themselves–downright charming. What do you think?

What do we think, indeed.

Libertarianism is about the right to live in a free society

Q: Is it true that there is freedom of speech in the USSR, just like in the USA?

A: Yes. In the USA, you can stand in front of the White House in Washington, DC, and yell, “Down with Ronald Reagan,” and you will not be punished. Equally, you can also stand in Red Square in Moscow and yell, “Down with Ronald Reagan,” and you will not be punished.

Любому ватнику, который утверждает, что фашизм не в России, а в Украине, надо предложить выйти с плакатом “Нет фашизму” в Киеве и в Москве. Где за это накажут - там и фашизм.¹⁰

When they are not advising dictators on how to lead their wars of aggression, or reposting propaganda from state-owned media, or praising and linking to websites calling for holy war, these “anti-state, anti-war, pro-market” (anti-)libertarians are surprisingly (or not…) silent on Russia itself.

The growing fascism of the regime, forcing children to form their idiotic military symbols, the growing persecution of libertarians, the ban of anti-war protests, indeed the censorship of the very use of the word war… Are all ignored. No criticism whatsoever of Russia’s open anti-liberalism and anti-libertarianism.

A case in point is the article “Facing Unpleasant Facts: What You aren’t Supposed to say about the War in Ukraine”. Ukraine is wrongly called the most corrupt country in Europe… Guess which country is the correct answer.

Moreover, the author seems to be doing just fine saying them. Conversely, were the author living in Russia (maybe if he followed the good advice above and emigrated there!), he could end up in jail just for that title:

In two internal emails, …, employees of the chemical company are required to no longer speak of “war in Ukraine” within the firm and in external communication. … According to the two emails from Ems-Chemie, employees must use the phrase “Ukrainian conflict” because the use of the word “war” in connection with Ukraine is punishable by imprisonment in Russia.

– “The expression ‘war in Ukraine’ is banned within Ems-Chemie”

The Lew Rockwell Cesspool, claiming to be “antiwar” and “antistate”, advising its readers to move to ultra-statist, ultra-militaristic Russia, where antiwar protesters are jailed, the very word “war” is censored, and dissenting from the government war propaganda is punishable by 15 years of prison.

We have words for that: useful idiots of the void.

continued in “Libertarianism is against aggression (3)”

This article is part of a series about libertarianism and foreign policy, with a particular focus on the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

1. Libertarianism is against aggression (1)
   1. Libertarianism is deontological, not consequentialist
   2. Libertarianism is about non-aggression
   3. Libertarianism is rational
2. Libertarianism is against aggression (2)
   1. Libertarianism is about a beautiful vision of a free society
   2. Libertarianism is not aggressive-war-militarism
   3. Libertarianism is about the right to live in a free society
3. Libertarianism is against aggression (3)
   1. Libertarianism is against socialism
   2. Libertarianism is against socialism (collectivism, terrorism, wars)
   3. Libertarianism is against socialism (its famines)
   4. Libertarianism is against socialism (its lies)
   5. Libertarianism is against a new Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
4. Libertarianism is against aggression (4)
   1. Libertarianism is the right to defense
   2. Libertarianism is the right to keep and bear arms
   3. Libertarianism is against nuclear terrorism
5. Libertarianism is against aggression (5)
   1. Libertarianism is the opposite of nihilism
   2. Libertarianism is (real) self-determination
   3. Libertarianism is a universalism
6. Agency denial is not libertarian

Footnotes

¹ Paul Craig Roberts, also the author of The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West, among other things, is certainly no friend of ours here at the Laissez-faire Institute.

If anyone doubts that he is indeed happy with the Russian “decisive decision”:

In my opinion, provocations would have been avoided and lives saved, if the Russian government had established a de facto no-fly zone when Russia first came to Syria’s aid, and if Russia had stuck with the project to defeat Washington’s terrorists without premature withdrawals and ceasefires in the naive hope of obtaining some kind of agreement. How could the Russian government possibly think that any agreement with Washington, Israel, or any of Washington’s EU puppets would mean anything? All these Russian hesitations did was to permit Washington to figure out how to interject itself more firmly into Syrian territory. If Russia had acted more decisively and less hesitantly, the Russian airmen and a large number of other people would still be alive.

– Paul Craig Roberts, “Is Russia Being Betrayed By Its Own Intelligensia?”, September 27, 2018

NB, in the same article which mentions “Washington’s terrorists”, the Hezbollah terrorist organization is referred to as “the Hezbollah militia”. The start of the article refers to the downing of a Russian aircraft, in Syria, by Russian anti-aircraft missiles. Despite the obvious fact that Russian planes would not be shot by Russian missiles in Syria, if neither were present in Syria, the author still manages to blame it on… Israel. Of course.

Worth reading to grasp the reason for that accusation, and the full depth of the cesspool this is coming from: “Washington’s Belligerence Can Produce A World Holocaust”.

An article so awful and antisemitic we’d rather not even quote it here. Suffice it to say that such figures as Putin, Chomsky and Unz are quoted favorably. The rest of his work is no better. And when he gets criticized for some of his most outrageous conspiracy theories (notice he is also published by the Ron Paul Infamy for War and Poverty), other LRC authors side with him: “I Am Paul Craig Roberts”... yes, indeed you are.

Notice, also, that those same authors being hysterically against NATO establishing a no-fly zone over Ukraine, or the democratically elected Ukrainian government inviting US soldiers to defend its territory against foreign aggression, have no issue whatsoever with a Russian no-fly-zone over Syria (again, what exactly is Russia doing in Syria, side-by-side with Iran?), nor with Russian troops there, as long as it’s one dictator getting the help of another to remain in power:

Unmentioned is that Russia was legally “invited” by the legitimate government of Syria, while the US and its coalition are committing a war crime of aggression against a fellow member country of the United Nations.

– David William Pear, “Who Really Defeated ISIS?”

The US has troops within Syria, but those troops were not invited by the Syrian government.

– Jason Ditz, “Syria Rejects US Demand for Iranian Pullout”

Incidentally:

The first thing to note from the three major mobilisations of the western ‘anti-war’ left is that they have little to do with ending the war. More than half a million Syrians have been killed since 2011. The vast majority of civilian deaths have been through the use of conventional weapons and 94 per cent of these victims were killed by the Syrian-Russian-Iranian alliance. There is no outrage or concern feigned for this war, which followed the regime’s brutal crackdown on peaceful, pro-democracy demonstrators. There’s no outrage when barrel bombs, chemical weapons and napalm are dropped on democratically self-organized communities or target hospitals and rescue workers. Civilians are expendable; the military capabilities of a genocidal, fascist regime are not. In fact the slogan ‘Hands off Syria’ really means ‘Hands off Assad’ and support is often given for Russia’s military intervention. This was evident yesterday at a demonstration organized by Stop the War UK where a number of regime and Russian flags were shamefully on display. […]

This left exhibits deeply authoritarian tendencies, one that places states themselves at the centre of political analysis. Solidarity is therefore extended to states (seen as the main actor in a struggle for liberation) rather than oppressed or underprivileged groups in any given society, no matter that state’s tyranny. Blind to the social war occurring within Syria itself, the Syrian people (where they exist) are viewed as mere pawns in a geo-political chess game. They repeat the mantra ‘Assad is the legitimate ruler of a sovereign country’. […]

According to the Pentagon there are currently around 2000 American troops in Syria. The US has established a number of military bases in the Kurdish-controlled north for the first time in Syria’s history. This should concern anyone who supports Syrian self-determination yet pales in comparison to the tens of thousands of Iranian troops and Iranian backed Shia militias which are now occupying large parts of the country, or the murderous bombing raids carried out by the Russian air force in support of the fascist dictatorship. Russia has now established permanent military bases in the country, and has been handed exclusive rights over Syria’s oil and gas as a reward for its support. Noam Chomsky once argued that Russia’s intervention could not be considered imperialism because it was invited to bomb the country by the Syrian regime. […]

– Leila Al-Shami, “The ‘anti-imperialism’ of idiots”, April 14, 2018

It is as if she were writing about our “antiwar, antistate” “libertarians”… On self-determination and universalism, see also part five.

About Chomsky and Syria, see also:

Chomsky’s Americentric perspective tends systematically to minimize the crimes of states that are opposed to the U.S. […] What Chomsky calls Syria’s “recognized government” is the dynastic regime that has been in power for 52 years […] Commentators like Chomsky make a point of calling the regime “brutal” and “monstrous” but merely as a preface to what they consider the real problem: the role of the U.S. and its allies in the region. They are mistaken. […] It seems that if the U.S. cannot be blamed for these crimes, then they are not very important.

– “Chomsky Is No Friend of the Syrian Revolution”

On ProWarDotCom, conversely, this tankie idiot is, of course, introduced as “Professor Noam Chomsky, believed to be the greatest living intellectual of our time.”. Of course.

↩

² Rockwell himself has published four articles (“A Manufactured World Crisis”, “Why Die for Biden?”, “Keep US Out of War”, “Why Die for Ukraine?”) saying essentially the same thing, that no matter what Russia does, Biden should send no US soldiers to Ukraine. Which in fact is exactly what Biden already committed to (arguably not a very smart move to have said it regardless of whether it would be a good move to actually do it or not).

In all four of them(!) Joe Biden is referred to as “brain-dead Biden”. In none of them is there any criticism of Putin or his invasion, the closest to any condemnation at all being the somewhat fatalistic: “Invasions kill people, and this is sad, but this is the way European power politics operates and has operated for hundreds of years.”

Contrary to “brain-dead Biden”, Putin only gets praise from Rockwell: “Putin is nobody’s fool, and he has decided to act decisively to free Russia from encirclement.”

Does Mr Rockwell somehow think that his voice is needed and sufficient to convince Joe Biden to keep not doing what he’s already not doing (by systematically insulting him?), yet at the same time nothing whatsoever can be done to convince Putin to stop invading Ukraine? (Or, indeed, one might infer, see below, nothing should be done, because the invasion is right?)

From a Swiss perspective, the other astonishing claim here is the bland parroting of Russian paranoia about “encirclement”. Switzerland has 90% of its borders with NATO, yet you don’t see us invading our neighbors to ensure “buffer zones”…

Russia, conversely, is at… less than 2%. Its actions, now, might directly cause it to be closer to 8%, if Finland and Ukraine were to join the Alliance (and who could blame them) – still nowhere near “encirclement”.

Speaking of praise on Putin, here is Buchanan, defended by McAdams:

Putin is a Russian nationalist, patriot, traditionalist and a cold and ruthless realist looking out to preserve Russia as the great and respected power it once was and he believes it can be again.

The corrupt Putin, causing through his actions pointless military losses for Russia, sanctions, rise in hostility towards Russia among all its neighbors, condemnation by a large majority of UN members, a huge cost of a criminal and pointless invasion which someone will have to pay for at some point, etc, etc? Really?

What a Russian patriot would do, in any reasonable meaning of the word, would be to cease the invasion immediately, apply for NATO membership, end conscription, halve Russia’s military spending to the NATO 2% baseline, for starters – probably much less would be enough – and establish friendly diplomatic and economic relations with Russia’s neighbors.

From Buchanan, there is also:

Even the falls of the British and French empires at the end of World War II do not match as geo-strategic disasters the collapse of the Soviet Empire and breakup of the Soviet Union since the end of the Cold War.

– Patrick J. Buchanan , “Quo Vadis, Mother Russia?”, May 20, 2022

On Antiwar.com... Word for word, the same lamenting as KGB Putin, as usual.

More praise on Putin? How about this:

No one can read Putin’s remarks without concluding that Putin is the leader of the world. In my opinion, Putin is such a towering figure … The immoral, wicked, and declining West is incapable of producing leadership of Putin’s quality.

– Paul Craig Roberts, “Vladimir Putin Is The Leader Of the Moral World”, October 27, 2014

Well, 2014, surely he must have gone back to his senses by now, right? Right?

Putin is a liberal in the old fashioned sense that no longer exists in the West. He believes in sustaining a network of laws and agreements that resolve disputes diplomatically instead of with violence. He believes that government should serve the people and not the economic interests of the elite. He believes that religion is an important element of social unity and sustains moral behavior on which society depends. He is constrained in implementing his beliefs by Washington and Russian leadership elements that are pro-Western. This leaves Putin frustrated and angry.

– Paul Craig Roberts, “Why the West Hates Putin”, March 23, 2022

Well. Meanwhile, of course:

Putin: Russian president says liberalism ‘obsolete’

↩

³ From the so-called “Ludwig von Mises Institute”, we’ve not seen much on this that wouldn’t have made Lviv-born Ludwig von Mises ashamed. Besides the already mentioned and quoted articles, there is an article about US pundits’ opinions on nuclear war (nothing really significant from anyone in power), yet no mention of the real calls for nuclear terrorism from the Russian side.

Ukraine’s conscription (alas not that uncommon in Europe, including Switzerland, including emigration restrictions for soldiers) is criticized with the clickbait title “Ukraine’s Regime Is Now Kidnapping Fathers for Military ‘Service’” (to our knowledge, there is no exemption for childless men), as is a hypothetical US one… But no mention of the actual kidnappings, tortures and murders by the Russian side, nor a word about Russian conscription itself (certainly conscription by a large state, used to commit wars of aggression, is (even) less justified than conscription by a small state defending its population against genocide-threatening invaders). And of course, do not expect any comment from them when Russia does literally what they accused Ukraine of doing:

Russians in occupied Lugansk now wait outside kindergartens for fathers to show up. Then they are abducted, forcefully into Russian army and sent to the front.

In fact, no need to look farther than the LvMI sister site LRC for a fascistic defense of conscription:

Still, the Swiss are very right to keep compulsory military service. Young men, still immature and besotted by hormones, need military discipline and structure. I look back on my own army days as some of the best of my life.

– Eric S. Margolis, “Most Armed; Most Free”, Lew Rockwell Cesspool

Incidentally, in Switzerland, avoiding conscription is punishable by 18 months imprisonment. Famous Swiss lawyer Marc Bonnant, for instance, boasted about having sent many young men to long prison terms.

In addition, for any Swiss male that is not conscripted, there is a special tax of 3% of his income, for 11 years.

In case of war, desertion is punishable by life imprisonment.

And until 1992, it was the death penalty.

Ryan McMaken, LvMI senior editor and author of the above clickbait article, seems to enjoy strange titles, another one being:

“Why the West Hates Russia: It’s Not Woke Enough?”

Of which any serious misesian won’t quite know what to make of.

(Also, that sort of emotion-based idiotic explanations are not new for them, we have, e.g. this explanation of US policy towards Iran as the “deep state’s hatred of the Iranian people” – of course! How else could foreign policy be determined than by picking a country at random one morning and deciding to hate all its inhabitants for no reason!)

And by the way, not woke enough? Here’s Russian government complaining about imaginary discrimination, while promoting real one – that sounds plenty woke to us:

“We demand that discrimination against the Russian and Russian-speaking population be stopped. We will continue to seek its protection in accordance with the relevant conventions and international standards”

And of course, do we even need to comment on that:

It’s a whole lot easier—and a whole lot more legal—to be gay in Russia than in many other countries that are considered important US allies. Think Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and the NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) country Turkey. Gays in many of these places face severe criminal penalties for private sexual acts. That’s clearly not the case in Russia.

Reality:

• “Chechen authorities rounding up and killing gay men in ’prophylactic purge,’ Russian paper says”

His other articles are in the same vein, such as (before the invasion) “The Usual Suspects Are Pushing War with Russia”, followed by “Is the US Insane Enough to Start a War with Russia?” (after) and “Yes, the US Has Its Own ‘Sphere of Influence’. And It’s Huge.”. Apparently, for these authors (see also the Lincoln example we quote below, as well as “US Foreign Policy Has Always Been Aggressive”), when a government does something wrong, the top priority is not to analyze it and condemn it from a libertarian perspective, but to quickly find examples (even if they’re 150 years old!) of the US government doing or having done something similar at some point. Right.

(Also, of course, not all “spheres of influence” are equal: “The states of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union were desperate to join America’s sphere of influence, because they were desperate to leave Moscow’s”. But more on that later.)

Obviously, this has left many LVMI readers (perhaps unaware of the deeper roots of the LVMI’s “foreign policy” fallacies), quite disappointed:

I am deeply disappointed how mises.org is partly ignoring this historical event or completely misrepresenting it.

As a lover of the Austrian school of economics, I am embarrassed to be associated with the Mises Institute at this time. I think that Mises would also be embarrassed by this, especially because he spent part of his life in Lviv, Ukraine. Hayek must be turning over in his grave after seeing the latest from the Mises Institute.

The reactions that happened with Covid and Ukraine instead do not bode well for our movement. We will forever be a group of kooky conspiracy theorists, libertines, psychopaths, and the just plain ignorant. This article from Alice Salles resembles all the others I’ve seen from Mises.org lately on this historic event–just cynical and shortsighted and non-insightful.

Actually, I feel quite sorry for all the so-called “libertarians” who proclaim their–theoretical–love for freedom while parroting Russian propaganda.

Mises.org, […] You completely compromise the ideas of freedom. It will be a shame for decades for supporting an authoritarian regime that murders people.

This article is a load of Russian propaganda and it’s outrageous that the author claims to be pro-freedom. ↩

⁴ Some authors have got it all: garbage both content and style. The Lew Rockwell Cesspool and the Ron Paul Infamy for War and Poverty, in particular, seem to enjoy vulgarity and insults as much as they love state-controlled media, anti-libertarian dictatorships and war crimes. They especially dive right into full hysteria whenever someone dares criticize their “saint” (as Walter Block calls him, sic), Ron Paul, e.g. over his unlibertarian defense of Russian invasions. Other examples:

• Paul Craig Roberts: “Unfortunately, the dumbshit Ukrainians didn’t hear and neither did the dumbshits in Washington.”
• Paul Craig Roberts: “Zelensky, the excrement that serves as Washington’s puppet president of Ukraine”
• Daniel McAdams: “But come on, man! CATO Institute has hired that wretched neocon freak Cathy Young as a senior fellow?” ↩

⁵ Except reprimanding him for not having ordered the murder of enough civilians, the only other thing that could be seen as a criticism of Putin from the LRC/LVMI/RPI crowd is this title, from useful idiot Ron Paul:

“Is Putin the New Coronavirus?”

But of course, that would be the case only if you read it as a reasonable person would. For Doctor Paul, conversely, this means something else (we’re not quite sure what?), given that he wrote, two years ago (trust him, he’s a doctor):

Over what? A virus that has thus far killed just over 5,000 worldwide and less than 100 in the United States?

Written at a time when Italy was already struggling with the virus: “Italy’s Health Care System Groans Under Coronavirus — a Warning to the World”. But from their perspective, Italy’s hospitals struggling with covid is no more of a concern for the US than Ukraine being invaded by Russia, or, for Rockwell, Hitler winning World War II. (“apathy, selfishness” as Rockwell describes his own stance. We would use other words: this is not rational selfishness.)

The covid pandemic is now at an official 6 million death toll (one million for the US, highest in the world, by far), most likely underestimated, with more “injured” through long covid etc.

So let’s hope the Saint Doctor is wrong once again. ↩

⁶ The idea that quick defeat or surrender would have been a good idea in order to “save lives” was never defensible theoretically, but as reports of planned atrocities committed by the invading/retreating army emerge, it becomes chillingly wrong even on its own. Even if that were not confirmed to be the case, no one would have had the right to impose that risk on someone else.

See for instance:

• From the horse’s mouth: “Что Россия должна сделать с Украиной” (English, English, French)

• “Ukraine police find 900 bodies around Kyiv, many ‘simply executed’”

• “New Evidence Shows How Russian Soldiers Executed Men in Bucha”

• “A Russian soldier describes Russian torture of Ukrainians.”

• “shelling mostly happened in residential area”

• “«Vous comprenez, mes soldats ont bu. Ils veulent s’amuser»”

• “‘Three Russian soldiers raped my mother and sister. The fourth made me watch.’ Hundreds of cases of rape by Russian soldiers in Ukraine”

• “Filtration and forced deportation: Mariupol survivors on the lasting terrors of Russia’s assault”

↩

⁷ We tried disscussing some of this with Walter Block, who after all has been correct against his own crowd on such topics as immigration, Israel and the pandemic, on which topic he correctly noted that:

these are mere matters of pragmatism, perhaps unworthy of even being mentioned in a journal devoted to deontological libertarian theory. In contrast, the libertarian question, the only libertarian consideration, concerns deontology, not utilitarianism. For this philosophy, saving lives is of no moment; rather, the essence of libertarianism concerns rights, obligations, duties, the nonaggression principle (NAP), and private property rights.

– Walter Block, “A Libertarian Analysis of the COVID-19 Pandemic”

Yet, on the current issue, he defended Roberts’ and McAdams’ insane and (wrongly) consequentialist call for war crimes. He ended the discussion with a link to this article which starts with a bizarre analogy that he repeatedly refused to clarify, instead doubling down on it with the strange:

From a deontological point of view, the US should invade Brazil, not Mexico.

We have no idea at this point if that’s meant literally, or if some substitutions are assumed in these countries’ names, nor how that would supposedly make it any less absurd (and frankly, we don’t care at this point). Presented with the examples above of what a spout of Russian pro-war propaganda the “antiwar” Lew Rockwell Cesspool is, he answered with:

in my interpretation, they are not really “anti-war.” Rather, they are anti-unjust war. Virtually all wars are unjust. Probably, 99.99% of them. So, “anti-war” is not really misleading.

As we wrote before: not many possible interpretations, none of them flattering.

(NB: “saving lives” is of course a general consequence of applied libertarianism, as is prosperity, longevity, peace, happiness, etc. Neither of these, however, are part of the core of libertarian theory nor principles to be used in sound analysis.)

Update: we found the explanation. It’s even worse than we thought.

↩

⁸ Not that it matters for our topic either way, but the statement about respect for the military is not even accurate:

• “A host on a state-run Russian TV channel berated a veteran who called for a moment of silence for Russian troops who had died in Ukraine”
• “deliberate government policy to keep professional military low in dominance hierarchy. Russian state purposefully keeps its military in this position.”
• “Russian officers shoot up their soldiers to force them to attack Ukraine”
• “Authorities shush families of Moskva cruiser sailors killed by Ukrainian strike – intelligence”
• “Predictably, when Russia considers some soldiers to be liability, it sends them on suicide missions”
• “Kursk Anniversary: Submarine Disaster Was Putin’s ‘First Lie’”
• “La tragédie du Koursk, symptôme d’une autocratie et d’un autocrate, Poutine, qui se moque de la vie de ses soldats”
• “The Russian military is so corrupt that its commanders have invented a new and particularly disgusting way of making money. They trick parents of young soldiers to bribe them, with the deal being having their sons transferred to safer areas. Then they leave them where they are.”
• “Le service militaire obligatoire, d’une durée d’un an, est très impopulaire en Russie face à la peur de bizutages, la perspective de travaux ennuyeux, et, désormais, la crainte d’être envoyé en Ukraine.”

On the “cathedral” itself, see: “Angels and artillery: a cathedral to Russia’s new national identity” and “Giant new Russian cathedral glorifies Putin and Stalin in mosaics”. ↩

⁹ Incidentally, this is not true, either:

• Protestant pastors in Donetsk have been abducted and tortured

• Greek Catholic Priest abducted By pro-Russian armed forces in Crimea

• The idea that Putin is a champion of traditional Russian values is bonkers.

• The Myth of the “Crusader Putin”

• “The Ukrainian Orthodox Church on Wednesday said two monks and a nun have been killed in the shelling of a historic monastery in eastern Ukraine.”

• “Using incendiary ammunition, Russian artillery deliberately targeted the monastery of Sviatohirsk Lavra in Donetsk Oblast. One of the most significant, and ancient, European monuments to Christianity, it was a place of zero military value. It’s now rubble.”

• “Ukrainian Catholics experiencing ’total persecution’ in Crimea”

• “All but one faith persecuted in occupied Crimea”

• “Ukrainian Churches are facing imminent ban in Crimea”

• “Losing Their Religion in Crimea: Russia’s Restrictive Religion Laws Take Their Toll”

• “In rebel-held Donetsk, religious intolerance grows”

• “Embroidery Day in Crimea: Detention, Interrogation & Ghoulish Threats”

• “In Donetsk, Protestants are being forced to conduct their services in apartments, persecuted by pro-Russia separatists who believe there’s only room for one religion in the region: Russian Orthodoxy.”

• “Russia’s war has fully or partly ruined 183 religious sites in Ukraine. According to the State Service for Ethnic Affairs and Freedom of Conscience, the lists includes churches, mosques, synagogues, educational and administrative buildings of Ukraine’s religious communities. Five of the 183 sites ruined or damaged by the Russian attacks are Muslim, five are Judaic, and the other 173 are Christian.”

↩

¹⁰ Someone did try, in Moscow, with the slight variation “Фашизм не пройдет”. Guess how it ended: “Moscow court rules that the slogan ‘Fascism shall not pass’ discredits the Russian army”. ↩

It is Washington that has invaded Ukraine, not Russia. How come it is only Russia who is yet to invade anyone who is to be held accountable?

– Paul Craig Roberts, “Can We Trust Russophobes with Our Foreign Policy?”, January 21, 2022

That is why the US State Department is maintaining the fiction that Russia is about to launch a ground war to occupy Ukraine… That is why despite neocon/neo-liberal hype, magnified by the lock-step US media, Russia is not about to invade Ukraine. This fantasy is being pushed by those who desperately need to continue to gin up enthusiasm for a thoroughly idiotic and counterproductive imperial enterprise.

– Daniel McAdams, “Biden’s Ukrainian Albatross”, January 24, 2022

That is why House Democrats are desperately trying to ram through a massive “free weapons” bill for Ukraine before the current lapdog media-driven “RUSSIA INVASION” propaganda dies down.

Just as Big Pharma is rushing to put a new omicron variant vaccine on the market before their Covid gravy train dies out, Washington’s Democratic warmongers (with plenty of Republican fellow travelers) are rushing to send half a billion dollars in weapons to Ukraine before the casual MSM consumer learns (they’re always last to know) that the whole “Russia is about to invade Ukraine” cook-up is another lie.

– Daniel McAdams, “Bipartisanship: US House Races MASSIVE Ukraine Weapons Transfer to the Floor!”, January 26, 2022

Here we go again … the regime in Washington attempts to whip the American people into a frenzy so that they will support the latest American invasion … This time … the enemy is Russia … Joe Biden even allegedly has been more alarmist on the matter than even the Ukrainians themselves, supposedly telling the Ukrainian head of state that Kyiv would be “sacked“ … badmouthing any American ally who is unenthusiastic about starting new wars …

– Ryan McMaken, “The Usual Suspects Are Pushing War with Russia”, January 28, 2022

Ray McGovern joined Scott on Antiwar Radio this week to discuss the hysteria over a Russian invasion of Ukraine. McGovern explains why no such invasion will be taking place.

– “Ray McGovern on the Russia Invasion Panic”, February 14, 2022¹

Kiev in the main may well fall within the next 12-24 hours. Russian troops are already in the city. And Zelensky is in his bunker with fewer and fewer to take his calls. The cavalry he believed was promised him will not be coming to rescue him. Ukraine will be de-militarized and Ukraine will be neutral.

– Daniel McAdams, “Washington’s Crocodile Tears Over Ukraine’s Destruction”, February 26, 2022²

Putin is nobody’s fool, and he has decided to act decisively to free Russia from encirclement. Invasions kill people, and this is sad, but this is the way European power politics operates and has operated for hundreds of years.

– Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr., “Keep US Out of War”, March 1st, 2022

“The United States and Ukraine Started the War—Not Russia”
– Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., April 9, 2022

Libertarianism, or laissez-faire, is a philosophy of Law. Its purpose is to identify what constitutes aggression and strive for a society where aggression (and aggression alone) is recognized as a crime.

It’s not about making wrong predictions. It’s not about repeating shifting propaganda lies from state media. It’s not about advising dictators on mass murder tactics. It’s not about game theory (nor lack thereof), or tactics for negotiating with terrorists. It’s not pacifism. It’s not nihilism. And it’s definitely not about its converse, encouraging or excusing, or indeed advocating for, aggressions.

Large fractions of the libertarian movement, especially following the Rothbardian tradition, have been profoundly wrong (whether factually or theoretically) on matters regarding “foreign policy”. Their reactions to the blatant aggression of Ukraine by the Russian army have made those fundamental flaws in reasoning, contradictions and pseudo-smart contrarianism more striking than ever.

In this series of articles we will explain how these viewpoints are not part of libertarianism, but are either outside of sound libertarian theory (in which case they could be either right or wrong, but with no way of knowing, and not defensible as part of libertarian theory), factually wrong, or, worse, clearly go very much against libertarian theory by promoting, excusing, or muddying aggression. Along the way, by making clear what libertarianism is not, we hope to also help solidify what it is, and clarify what a correct libertarian framework for thinking about foreign policy issues consists of.

Libertarianism is deontological, not consequentialist

Let’s start with the most basic principles, and the most staggering fallacies. Several of the latter are present in:

Jacob G. Hornberger, “Zelensky’s Call for Nuclear War”

The very title raises the obvious question: did Mr Zelenskyy call for nuclear war? No, he didn’t. Which raises a follow-up question: does Mr Zelenskyy even have the power to start a nuclear war? Incidentally, does Ukraine even have nuclear weapons?

Well no, it doesn’t. It doesn’t, in fact, because it gave them to… Russia. In exchange for a commitment by Russia to, well, not invade Ukraine:

The Russian federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the United States of America reaffirm their commitment to Ukraine, in accordance with the principles of the CSCE Final Act, to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine.

– Memorandum on security assurances in connection with Ukraine’s accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, Budapest, 5 December 1994

Which Russia proceeded to violate already in 2014.

That Russia invading Ukraine is an act of aggression should be obvious. Certainly one should not even need to be a libertarian to notice that. Indeed, a treaty to not commit aggressions should not even have been necessary.

Given that Mr Zelenskyy doesn’t have the power to start a nuclear war himself, nor the power to force anyone to start one, nor has expressed any desire to start one, certainly it makes no sense whatsoever to accuse him of wishing to start one. If Mr Zelenskyy is materially incapable of committing nuclear aggression, then libertarian theory has nothing further to say on that.

Libertarianism is about non-aggression

What then, did Mr Zelenskyy ask for? He asked for a “no-fly zone”, over Ukraine.

Russian bomber planes, bombing Ukrainian cities, have no business being in Ukraine. If they do, it is an obvious act of aggresion, whether in common sense, in libertarian theory, or indeed considering the Budapest Memorandum. Shooting them down is therefore pure self-defense.

Self-defense can of course be delegated. Therefore Mr Zelenskyy also has the right, as per the non-aggression principle, to invite anyone to assist Ukraine with the task of stopping Russian aggression. Anyone, of course, is free to accept or refuse. Whether it is a wise idea to accept or refuse for a given government or individual is entirely out of the scope of libertarian theory. Certainly there is no harm in asking for something that is not an aggression.

Surely the Russian government is made of people with agency and free will: no one is forcing them to commit any aggressions. No one is forcing the Russian government to invade Ukraine, to continue invading it, or indeed to keep a nuclear arsenal. The Russian leadership has, at any time, the possibility to recall their invading force, resign, apologize, and start paying reparations for their crimes³.

What is not only outside the scope of libertarian theory, but actually against it, however, is to be criticizing a victim’s scream for help, criticizing anyone who would dare help her, and not criticizing the actual aggressor. Ukraine is not threatening nuclear war, the US is not threatening nuclear war, the Russian government is. It’s astonishing that Mr Hornberger attacks Zelenskyy for requesting the peaceful transfer of planes from one country to another, while making no comment whatsoever on the invading movements of planes actually committing war crimes. Indeed, American fighter jets deployed to defend Ukrainian airspace, would not need to shoot down a single Russian plane, would not need to fire a single shot nor cause a single victim, as long as no Russian planes were trying to commit aggression against Ukrainians.

At most, from a strictly libertarian perspective, what can be considered aggression if a government decides to spend money in assisting another government’s legitimate defense operations, is the cost of it on its own taxpayers. It is perfectly legitimate, for a libertarian, to criticize the extra cost on American taxpayers of American involvement in any war, and to argue for alternatives such as selling or billing the military equipment and services instead, or financing them voluntarily through crowdfunding donations⁴.

However, if the libertarian complains loudly on that, yet stays silent on much graver aggressions committed by other governments at the same time, in direct relation to the same issue, e.g. the massive cost of the Russian invasion on hapless Russian taxpayers, not to mention Russian conscripts (not to mention the murdered Ukrainian soldiers and civilians, destroyed Ukrainian property, etc), then his libertarian consistency and intellectual integrity will appear very dubious indeed.

Libertarianism is rational

In conclusion, the libertarian case against the US helping Ukraine to enforce a no-fly zone is rather weak. On top of that, it is not happening. The libertarian case against Russia invading Ukraine, however, is very strong, and it is happening. If the libertarian, then, wishes to make an appeal to politicians to change their course of action, if the libertarian wishes to complain about a relevant event in a chain of events, surely the event they should choose is the one that is an actual aggression, and the suggested change to be that aggression not happening, or ceasing to happen.

If the libertarian thinks they have a chance of influencing someone, then the correct course of action is to ask the aggressor to stop aggressing (or indeed actively stop them from aggressing), not to ask the victim to stop asking for help, nor to ask third parties to refrain from helping.

The Russian leadership can, and should, at any time, the sooner the better, recall their invading force, resign, apologize, stand trial and start paying reparations for their crimes.

continued in “Libertarianism is against aggression (2)”

This article is part of a series about libertarianism and foreign policy, with a particular focus on the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Polish translation: Libertarianizm jest przeciwko agresji (część 1)

1. Libertarianism is against aggression (1)
   1. Libertarianism is deontological, not consequentialist
   2. Libertarianism is about non-aggression
   3. Libertarianism is rational
2. Libertarianism is against aggression (2)
   1. Libertarianism is about a beautiful vision of a free society
   2. Libertarianism is not aggressive-war-militarism
   3. Libertarianism is about the right to live in a free society
3. Libertarianism is against aggression (3)
   1. Libertarianism is against socialism
   2. Libertarianism is against socialism (collectivism, terrorism, wars)
   3. Libertarianism is against socialism (its famines)
   4. Libertarianism is against socialism (its lies)
   5. Libertarianism is against a new Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
4. Libertarianism is against aggression (4)
   1. Libertarianism is the right to defense
   2. Libertarianism is the right to keep and bear arms
   3. Libertarianism is against nuclear terrorism
5. Libertarianism is against aggression (5)
   1. Libertarianism is the opposite of nihilism
   2. Libertarianism is (real) self-determination
   3. Libertarianism is a universalism
6. Agency denial is not libertarian

Footnotes

¹  On Scott Horton, see part 5. Ray McGovern? On February 7, he wrote (all on “Antiwar.com”) an article titled “Putin Is Not Stupid and That’s Good”. On February 22: “Is this not another reason why Putin would not invade Ukraine? In my view, if Putin did decide to do such a stupid thing, it is a given that he would check with Xi first, and that Xi would respond with a loud NYET in Chinese.”. Amazingly (or not), this brilliant author is still offering the world his views on “Antiwar.com”, here’s from June 21: “Lithuanians Stick New Finger in Eye of Russian Bear”: “In my view, they would be well advised to…” ↩

² Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022.

On April 9, Zelenskyy was walking freely around Kyiv, accompanied by Boris Johnson.

On June 6, Zelenskyy visited Lysychansk.

On June 16, Emmanuel Macron, Olaf Scholz and Mario Draghi visited Irpin.

↩

³ A similar statement was tweeted on February 24 by the US Libertarian Party, quoting the Russian Libertarian Party (Либертарианская партия России):

We demand an immediate cessation of hostilities and the withdrawal of Russian troops from the territory of Ukraine. The imperial ambitions of a tyrant should not be paid for by our taxes and the lives of Ukrainians, among whom many of us have relatives and friends.

From the Russian Libertarian Party, see also their statement: Правда и свобода — на стороне мира.

Note, however, that the US LP has since then, alas, been taken over by the Kremlintarian “Mises” Caucus, so it is unlikely they would make such a statement now. ↩

⁴  For examples of this ideal libertarian solution in both libertarian fiction and military history, see this note. Actual recent examples:

• Ukrainian volunteers crowdfund 4 attack drones in 3 days
• A Ukrainian TV host crowdfunded $20 million to buy Bayraktar drones. The company making them refused the money and said it’d donate the aircraft instead.
• Baykar’dan duyuru!
• Lithuania fundraises 3.3 million euros within 2 days to buy Bayraktar drones for Ukraine.

Note that Lithuania’s population is 2.8 million.

Tapinas’s initiative follows the Czech crowdfunding appeal thought up by Tomas Kopecny, the country’s deputy minister of defence in charge of industrial co-operation. More than 120,000 Czechs have already given more than €50 million. Kopecny’s office has co-ordinated several dozen shipments of weapons, including howitzers and multi-launch rocket systems bought with the funds.

– “Let’s all chip in and buy weapons for Ukraine”

Perhaps this should indeed be the proper task of a transitional, minarchist government.

Other ideas:

A Ukrainian student has found an unusual way to raise money for the war against Russia. Ads on social media offer custom notes on artillery shells for $40. Insider verified the process is real. Organizer Anton Sokolenko said it’s raised around around $18,000 for military equipment.

– Ukrainian soldiers raise money by writing custom notes on artillery shells for $40 before firing them at Russians

You can get your own here: Sign My Rocket.

• Arming the citizens of Ukraine (see also part 4)
• Czech citizens raised $1.3M and bought a T-72 tank for Ukraine (contribute: zbraneproukrajinu.cz – Dárky pro Putina a jeho poskoky!)
• Bayraktar dla Ukrainy / Bayraktar for Ukrainians
• Etc. See our thread: Crowdfunding defense.

Note, also, that this is a different question than whether the service should be provided at all. See part 4. ↩

Introduction

Hi, I’m François-René Rideau, the one-man think-tank behind Bastiat.org. I am well published in French-speaking libertarian circles, but in New Hampshire, I’m mostly known for my Pony song.

Today, I’m going to diss activism and promote passivism: In other words, don’t sacrifice yourself to save the world, don’t try so hard to change other people, but make it a priority to improve yourself and your fare.

Isn’t it wonderful, to come to a conference rife with people who are doing activism or think they should be doing more of it, and tell them that activism is by and large bunk?

Of course, the devil is in the details of what I mean by “activism”, and what I mean by “passivism”.

Note that I’m not here to discourage you from doing anything in particular — I’m here to encourage you to step back. I want you to rethink what efforts do or don’t work for what ends, and where your first duty is — to think both in terms of efficiency and morality — and then you’ll take the actions by which you can do most to save the world: those that save yourself.

1. Jail Break Classics

But first, since this conference is about escaping the unjust oppression of evil-doers, let’s imagine this cross-over remake of two great Hollywood jail-break classics: Cool Hand Luke — and The Shawshank Redemption.

Who here doesn’t know these movies? The protagonists are in prison domineered by evil guards, accused of crimes they haven’t committed or shouldn’t even be crimes. Cool Hand Luke is the rebel who will never bow to authority; sent to years of prison for a petty act of vandalism against so-called “public” property — in the end, he is in prison just because he fails to respect authority. And there he is made to toil with common criminals. He never bows to the guards, ever defiant, despite cruel punishments; and never stops trying to escape, despite even worse punishments — until he ends up killed by the evil prison warden. Different story, in the Shawshank Redemption, Andy Dufresne, an accountant, is wrongly convicted to life in prison for the murder of his wife; he is victimized by both imprisoned criminals and criminal prison guards — until he shows the guards how to dodge taxes and manage their finances, at which point they protect him rather than kill him, and he can live a quiet life managing the prison library.

And so in this cross-over remake, you can imagine every prisoner looking up to Cool Hand Luke every time he sticks it to The Man, cheering every time he escapes, supporting him every time he is caught again. They love him so much, at least for the few months that he lives; and they remember him forever afterwards. He’s the prototypical hero that activists aspire to be: always standing straight, never giving up, never surrendering, always head on against The Man. At the same time, everyone looks down on Andy Dufresne, who bows to the guards, and works for them (well, everyone except Luke himself, who is too good for such negative sentiments). And for the many many years that Andy survives — they despise and hate him, though they fear and envy the protection he gets, and enjoy the prison improvements he obtains from the guards.

Yet, in the end, who wins against the system, and who is beaten? Who manages to not only escape but also punish the bad guys? And who dies miserably, his only achievement being to have given the bad guys additional opportunities to revel in sadism? Cool Hand Luke may be a supremely likeable guy — in the end, he is a loser, and is shot like an animal by the prison guards while running for his life. Meanwhile, Andy Dufresne secretly digs a tunnel every night; and after twenty long years in jail, not only does he make an escape, but he also elopes with all the money from all the accounts he was managing for the jailers, and sends proofs of their corruption and murders to the authorities.

Cool Hand Luke had a great potential, but he wasted his life and achieved nothing — near the end, he blames God, but really, he brought it all upon himself. And no, his short lived “moral victories” don’t count. The proper way to spell out “moral victory” is “D E F E A T”. Andy Dufresne on the other hand, was dealt a bad hand, but he did manage to stick it to The Man, to improve his life and the lives of other inmates while in prison, and eventually escape young enough to still enjoy life — with lots of money, while the bad guys got punished.

And so who is the real hero: Cool Hand Luke, the activist? Or Andy Dufresne the passivist?

My message to you today is: don’t be Cool Hand Luke. Be Andy Dufresne. (And I’d like to thank my friend Evan for the story.)

2. Vanity of Activism

I like to collect quotes. Here is a great one from a play by Paul Claudel: “Who released the most slaves? The one who spent his wealth buying them back? Or the capitalist who found a way to power mills with water?”

We could also ask, for instance, who saved the whales from extinction, back when their blubber was the world’s first source of oil for burning? Was it ecologist activists? Think again! Rockefeller, that’s who it was: the man who managed to extract oil from rock, at an industrial scale, at falling prices that no one could beat, so fishing whales became a very expensive proposition instead.

Who stopped the genocide conducted by Leopold of Belgium and his goons in Congo? Was it pacifist activists? No. It was the botanists and industrialists who planted rubber forests in India and made extraction of wild rubber through mass murder no longer profitable.

Who freed Western women from being second class citizens? Was it feminist activists? No. It was the inventors and industrialists who commercialized the washing machine, the refrigerator, the vacuum cleaner, plenty of home appliances, etc. — and of course, the researchers who developed contraceptives.

I could go on and on and on.

Activists like to claim that the good that happened what thanks to them, just because they fancied good stuff happening, and made a lot of noise on the front scene. But reality doesn’t run on good intentions. Passivists are those who do the real hard work of bringing about the change. You don’t hear them, but they create the technology that makes change not just possible but inevitable.

3. Activism vs Passivism

So what do I call “activism, and what do I call “passivism”? How can you tell the difference, and why do I claim “activism” can bring no good?

Activism is the attempt to change other people through protests, demonstrations, calls to boycott, picketings, disruption, shouting, pressure, threats, etc. In extreme cases, activism can become violence, terrorism, death squads — all of them legal when the activism is completely successful. In other words, activism is about being confrontational with those with whom you disagree, and getting them to submit to your will, by hook or by crook. It is about playing negative sum games.

Unsuccessful activists are toothless nuisances, always restless, who only make the world a noisier, less friendly and more bitter place. Successful activists are powermongers who can and will use the State to impose their will upon their opponents through unaccountable coercion. In other words, they are the very thing that libertarians stand against!

Passivism is the pursuit of improving yourself and being the change you want to see in the world. It doesn’t seek or depend on support or approval from others, even less submission; all it seeks is lack of interference, through avoidance if discussion doesn’t work. It is about creating useful and beautiful things, about building robust structures that may last or be easily rebuilt, whether physical or social. It is about further progress through technological and social understanding. It is about playing positive sum games.

Unsuccessful passivists are still honest people with whom you can positively trade, from whom you can learn and who can learn from you. Successful passivists are great businessmen who create vast wealth that benefits millions of people. In other words, they are the very thing that libertarians stand for!

4. Passivism

To explain what I mean by passivism, by contrast, let me read you this piece I wrote a few years back for a French libertarian anthology:

To Live Free, To Live Well

Unless you free yourself, you cannot save other people. – Musō Soseki (1275-1351)

Saving the world by subjecting it to the yoke of a Power wielded by angels. That’s the dream of Politics, sold on credit to all the suckers ready to believe in angels, superior men and supreme saviors. You don’t fall for it anymore: you’re a libertarian.

Although, do you still wonder how to save the world? Are you planning on one of these fantastic events where all the worse losers than you are would suddenly reach enlightenment, resolve all coordination problems, and establish some utopia, driving away the current parasites without their being replaced by new ones? You are still a victim of the same scam; in vain are you trying to use against the Masters a Power that the populace is said to hold, by which it allegedly reigns: this Power is illusory. Masters control the people, and not the other way around; and their very real Power is that of deception and domination. Through this Power, you might conceivably topple the masters and become master in their stead; but you cannot possibly save the world; for to save the world would be to destroy this very Power.

Vain hopes, collectivist delusions. You do not possess the power to save the world. Nobody possesses such a power, not anymore than anybody possesses the power to damn the world, and happily not so. You do not possess the duty to save the world, either. However you do possess a duty, that this diversion is only leading you astray from, a reachable goal, that was personally assigned onto you, your most important task, one for which you are the best placed and most capable person: to save yourself!

Even assuming you really want to save other people, you will have a hard time saving anyone so long as you are yourself in distress. Whereas once saved, you will have a world of possibilities opening before you; and I trust you to then work towards saving whomever you really care for. Therefore, not only is saving yourself your first and foremost goal, it is the necessary means for any ulterior and superior goal you seek to accomplish. And it is a very efficient means, for the example of your success will drive more followers than your best arguments, that will only convince the few people curious about your topic who haven’t set their minds yet. Lastly, having saved yourself is the criterion by which to judge the means you propose to use to save other people. Does your idea work? Put your money where your mouth is! It’s also by trying, by starting an interaction with the world, that you will perfect the proficiencies that will help you and those you will be able to help, by showing them the way more so than by sharing the fruits of your success.

Your mind is to be emptied from the neuroses by which you try to control other people or let yourself be controlled by them. To seek to convince who doesn’t want to be, is already the poison of politics. So is to seek to please, whether it be your parents, family, friends, colleagues, bosses or customers, or worse a nebulous “society”. By submitting yourself to their supposed judgment, expectations, self-righteousnesses, you live under a mask. Choice is the stuff life is made of. When you are not the one doing the choosing, you are not the one living, and it’s not any one of them either; you’re just a zombie who doesn’t make anyone happy.

Off with the mask! Show yourself as you are. Find who will appreciate you for who you are, not who cherishes a fake image inside which you are hidden, a prisoner. Those who truly love you will accept you. Others will shun you, leave you — for the better.

Uncovering yourself, you will discover yourself. Learn to accept yourself as you are. To accept others as they are, the world as it is. Truth is your ally, lies are your enemy. That includes the lies you tell others to enter relationships of control, but most importantly, the lies you tell yourself, that make you fail at your projects, or what is worse, that make you miss the living of your own life. Truth sometimes hurt now, lies will cost you even more, and for a longer time.

Recant the “I must”s, the externally imposed beliefs and internalized neuroses. Let go of any superfluous baggage, of any superstition, and even of any of those theories that seem true but that you are not personally qualified to assess, of your second-hand “I know”s. Explore your “I can”s and acquire some “I understand”s; many are they that evade you only because you are not even looking at them, you are not used to seeing them anymore, you haven’t acquired the skill of examining them, of creating them.

Shed all shame and start by acknowledging your ignorance. Then, deepen those topics that interest you. Become an expert, out of humility, reading, practice, experimentation, reflection. The scientific method applies to your life: research what others have done, try several approaches, measure results, see what works for you.

Explore the world. Dare to travel. Are you having a hard time being yourself where you are? Would the truth put your life in danger? You live in the wrong place, a place where you don’t have a future, and that doesn’t have much of one itself. Run away. Somewhere, anywhere, there’s a career waiting for you, friends, a husband or wife. The trip can be inside yourself. It involves change and wonder. Be not afraid to lose what you possess that leaves you a stranger to yourself, to win that by which you will blossom. Grapple with your fate.

Late it may be, yet many, having lost everything, older than you are, have started their life again with great sucess, in a new country of which they didn’t speak the language, in a new profession that they knew nothing about. It might be too late to be as successful as some celebrity at the same age, it is never too late to start to live free, to live well.

— Faré

Passivism is not just more efficient: it’s your first and foremost MORAL DUTY. If you fail this duty, you’re behaving as an immoral person, and no amount of trying to help others will excuse your failure. Worse: until you get your act straight, you won’t be able to efficiently help others, either.

5. Activism cannot work

As a principle for social change, activism cannot achieve anything good. Note that I’m not saying that it can’t accomplish anything — there is plenty that activism can achieve and has achieved. I’m saying that in the long run it can achieve nothing good. As Mencius Moldbug noted, activism is the perfect tool for the statists, whether they call themselves “progressives”, “collectivists”, “socialists”, or with less principle “conservatives”, or even “islamists” — whatever is the favorite flavor of the day and place. And with that tool, statists have managed to gain power, oppress people, silence dissidents, keep their victims in check. For at heart, all mass demonstrations are intimidation; they are displays of force; they are the implicit threat “look how strong we are, look what we can get away with in total impunity; don’t go against us — or else!“.

That’s why free market or “tea party” demonstrations are so pathetic: people who threaten no violence, who promise they will obey the law no matter what, who don’t litter, don’t vandalize, don’t disrupt, destroy, injure, insult, defame — people who not only do not demonstrate how they are getting away with any of it; but quite on the contrary, people who demonstrate that they are well-disciplined farm animals, who will always walk in rank to the slaughterhouse, though they staunchly refuse to run to it. These people are absolutely worthless as a political force. They may possess inertia that will slow down the State, but since they can never fight back, they slowly but surely are led to the abyss, one shove at a time; the statists may not always manage to budge that mass, but they can run circles around it, and they have all leisure to choose which least defended angle to attack next. A purely defensive war can never be won, can only be lost. And that’s what the legal “opposition” to power can achieve at best.

Christian fundamentalists, nationalists and other crazies who are ever ready for violence — they count, politically, by using activism to display and use their strength; and that’s how they earn their share of the evil in government. They are not of course as systematic in their evil as those who worship government in and of itself: the “progressives”, “socialists”, etc. For these and all kinds of statists, activism can work wonders — and often does.

But to libertarians, it’s of limited use. When they are a tiny minority, it’s a ridiculous display of weakness rather than strength; when they are a majority, it’s a wasteful activity opposite to everything they stand for. Demonstrating in small numbers to tell your aggressors that you respect the NAP has negative political value. Even worse when your message is that furthermore you won’t retaliate at all against their violence.

6. The resources at stake

An important equation here is about what resources are at stake: is activism nurturing the cause it purports to further, or is it using up the scarce resources available to that cause?

Quite clearly, the first, direct effect of activism is to spend the resources: the time, the focus, the energy of the activists are being spent doing whatever they do. You must be wary to never, ever, count these resources positively in your balance books. Just like all efforts expended on any goal — they are on the cost side of the equation.

If you get one million people excited for one hour each about some cause, you’ve just wasted one million hours of human life. That’s a hundred and fourteen years of waking hours. Three human lives, gone. And what do you have to show for it? If each of these people, instead of getting all excited for one hour, could have instead been productive during that hour, and given five dollars each, — which they could easily make in an hour counting taxes and living expenses — that would be five million dollars. Was grabbing the attention of a million people for one hour worth spending five million dollars? When it isn’t, and it often is not, it is a sorry sight to see millions of people getting all excited for days about some half-a-million dollar issue, and doing nothing for the more important issues that their individual and collective energy could tackle.

That’s why I’m always so sad at all the activism successfully deployed on insignificant, useless or outright harmful ends: it’s a huge waste, the opportunity cost for greater achievements that never will be.

Aren’t you disgusted when you see a lot of buzz on TV or on the internet, with plenty of demonstrators and hash-taggers shouting and being all indignant, when the problem could have been solved swiftly and efficiently if only each of these “indignant” people had instead just donated a few bucks instead? The impact of donations could often easily swamp the problem being spent time on. And in cases when donating money doesn’t work — it’s not like spending mental time on the issue helps, either. BUT, most people don’t care to donate anything. They are not being indignant as a means to solve the problems, but as a means to signal tribal affiliation. Please don’t be like those people. Don’t spend energy being indignant to signal your affiliation to the tribe of losertarians.

And so, always be careful to count as a cost all the resources spent on activism, all the time, money, energy, focus poured into it. All the good-will capital tapped from the non-activists who we get to support our causes. It’s all spending. What are the revenues?

Note that I don’t mean that activism can never, ever, be used to further a good cause. I am not talking against each and every political action that can be taken. Later on, I will even speak positively (if you can believe that) about the Free State Project. But I want you to be careful to always count activism on the negative side of your balance sheet. It’s like paying taxes: while sometimes something good comes out of it, mostly taxes are buying more harm rather than more good; and whatever good you get in exchange, the paying in itself is always the negative side. Sometimes, something good can come out of some activism — and there you have the choice of funding it or not funding it. But the activism as such is part of the costs of achieving the effect.

7. What activism buys

Well, statists who capture power through activism certainly have a lot to show for it. Palaces, mansions, boats, airplanes, lavish parties, fancy booze and whores, trips to beautiful destinations, plenty of sex and money, and the sweet, dizzying taste of Power over other people. They do spend a lot of resources indeed, but be assured that the mighty among them gain, enormously, though the brainwashed sheep on the lower rungs of the machine are all net losers. Political Power is a well organized industry that is making a lot of money to its shareholders and successful entrepreneurs.

But the spoils of war are precisely what libertarians can’t get when they gain power. By definition, all or most of these benefits are forever denied to libertarians, who count its value as negative when statists count it as positive. And therefore, however successful, activism can never benefit libertarians remotely as much as it can benefit statists who become powerful.

Yet, there is some thing that any activism that has any success does, whether it’s libertarian, anti-libertarian, or unrelated. What success in activism necessarily buys is: legitimacy and opportunity in using activism as a means to an end. To make it clear in an extreme example: if you somehow succeed at overthrowing the government by violent revolution, you may or may not bring about a better government than the previous one — but either way, you’ve legitimated violence as the means to grab power, and that doesn’t bode well for the future. Activism, though it need not be as violent, is intrinsically confrontational; it is a struggle — a negative sum game. And while failure at activism is a negative sum in vain, success at activism is more negative sum games to come. Activism breeds confrontation, and that’s bad.

As my friend Jan Krepelka says: “activism is more popular because it’s confrontational”. It triggers neural pathways that give instant meaning to your life — problem being, these neural pathways optimized for short-term survival amid immediate struggle are poor guidance for building your life in the long run. Worse, he would add: when you fall into activism, you become a second-hander (to reuse the randian term), living through what other people see, and caring more about the appearance of winning than the actual winning. Activism is tribal: once you’re within its frame, success means beating your rival (the alpha males vying for tribal leadership) and winning social status (within the tribal hierarchy), all within a tribal context of a zero sum game fight over limited resources. But capitalism and globalization have brought about precisely the disruption of the millenia of these zero sum tribal games, and the passage into civilization, by putting an end to tribal limitations and introducing a positive sum game: producing wealth instead of fighting for wealth. It isn’t as attractive as politics in terms of tribal psychology; it doesn’t grab your guts like activism, it isn’t primitive as tribal rivalry, as primal as inter-tribal war — but it’s the Right Thing; it is what distinguishes the Civilized Man from the Brute and the Animal.

8. Good will

There is one all-important resource that is at stake in activism: the good will of people; their opinions toward your cause. By getting people to do things, are you using up that resource, or are you getting more of it? Obviously, the mobilization of people is using up scarce good will resources. As such, activism doesn’t create more good will — it spends the existing good will.

Sometimes, that’s exactly what you need to do. Sometimes, it’s time to fight, and to show your strength; consider the Bundy Ranch. An armed standoff against government force made them retreat, momentarily. Later on, they come back with slightly different pretenses that won’t trigger as much attention. Getting bureaucrats to retreat, and to fail at their activism, that’s the good part; having to mobilize thousands of people, that’s the bad part; and failing to mobilize the same thousands of people when government comes back with a different law, that’s showing them which way they must twist the law to conduct their criminal affairs and which way they mustn’t. So while struggle is sometimes useful in the short run, in the long run, it’s a game libertarians lose by definition.

In the long run, what you want is not activism, but the opposite: Marketing. Not to spend the good will resources in actions against government. But create new good will towards libertarian ideas, by education.

Now, activism can sometimes serve a positive role — but that’s not automatic. Consider for instance, the 2011 electoral campaign of Ron Paul for president. As activism, it was a total disaster: it destroyed a lot of good will resources, only in the end to demonstrate weakness, and failure to grab power. But as marketing for libertarian ideas, it was great: it helped spread our ideas, and made a lot of people aware of them. It made clear how the Establishment will cheat to maintain its grip on Power; how the rules are made to bind the little people and prevent them from gaining power, whereas the big club members can get away with anything. It’s hard for me to tell whether or not it was the best way to spend all those resources, but at least, it did buy something with these resources. It was quite good as a marketing campaign for libertarian ideas.

If you campaign not to use your power base, but to expand your power base — that’s where you’re doing good. But the part that works is not activism as such, it’s marketing. Activism can be a tool for marketing. But is it the best? Seldom. There are usually more direct ways of doing marketing. And while activism sometimes can serve marketing and bring more good will, it always first and foremost taps into the existing good will. So don’t use it lightly.

9. Efficiency

Harry Browne, in How I Found Freedom In An Unfree World, introduces the concept of Direct Solutions vs Indirect Solutions. A Direct Solution is something you can do, that doesn’t depend on the yet inexistent good will of others; An Indirect Solution is something that won’t happen until you’ve convinced other people to change their mind. Activism is all about indirect means of achieving some goals, by requiring that things you can’t do yourself be done by other people, whom you have no power to change. It’s helplessness. Passivism is all about direct means of achieving your goals, by doing things directly yourself, that don’t require anyone else to change. It’s efficiency. Indirect means are necessarily less efficient. You should always focus on things that you can change all by yourself, what Harry Browne calls a direct solution. It’s not just more efficient, it’s also personally empowering. No more frustration at other people not doing what you want — power and satisfaction of achieving things you can do.

Then among things you can do, some are horribly wasteful, and you should avoid them. Lefists like to go on vacations in “Peace Camps” that cost thousands of dollars to run per participant. Giving the same money to a local charity could have done ten times the effects for one tenth of the cost. So Peace Camp is not at all about helping people, it’s about rich leftists feeling good and signalling both their wealth and their commitment to the leftist Establishment. Don’t be that man. If some activism needs to be done, be the man who donates to the efficient charity that gets things done affordably. If you’re going to help, bring useful skills that locals don’t possess and that you can teach them — don’t be just an unskilled laborer eating their food, or a luxury that they can’t afford anymore once you’re gone back home.

I’m not a big charitable donor. But every year, I give a few thousand dollars to select charities. Last year, some of these thousand dollars sent to a South Korea-based association LINK that helped save a North Korean woman, who had escaped her country to China, but was living as an “undocumented immigrant” on the run from authorities. If caught, she would be sent back to certain rape, torture and death in North Korea. Meanwhile she was surviving in slave underground jobs. Was it worth shelling out a few thousand dollars to save her? I think so. Was it the best use of those thousand dollars? That can be discussed; but it sure beats the alternative of my spending the same thousand dollars on plane tickets and hotels to go to North Korea and China to do some “activism” and protest against the injustice.

10. Amateurs are not efficient

And so, be efficient, embrace division of labor. If you see some activism needs be done, either be the best in the world at it, or pay professionals to do your activism for you. If you want to promote the ideas of liberty, give to the Atlas Network, to CATO, to the Mises Institute, etc., whichever you find does the greatest job.

If you are going to be an activist, then yes, you should be the best in the world at it, and you should go professional. If the effects you’re seeking can’t be achieved more efficiently by a professional earning his life doing it, then it’s not worth it, and can’t be successful. You may have heard this saying by the famous libertarian radio host H. L. Hunt: “If this country is worth saving, it’s worth saving at a profit.” Well, it was wisely completed by Patri Friedman: “This country can only be saved if it can be saved at a profit.”

And so, if you can’t make a living out of activism, you’re an amateur. It’s quite fine to be an amateur, and do something you love as a hobby you take pleasure from. But then, if you’re going to do it for the enjoyment, remember that you’re doing it for yourself, buying yourself some personal good time, though it may be otherwise inefficient. And then, don’t go to other people and tell them how you’re “sacrificing” yourself. If you’re sacrificing yourself, you’re an idiot, and you’re morally repugnant. Remember the wise words of Aunty Ayn: “I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.” But if you want to be efficient, then work a few extra hours, acquire new skills to get a higher-paying job, and write a check to professionals with the proceeds.

11. Build Good Will

If you want to advance the cause of liberty, consider spreading the message of Liberty. And that means, don’t be confrontational — be amicable.

Consider the specialists in confrontational activism: the Westboro Baptist Church. Does their activism get anyone convinced? No, it mostly just gets them universally loathed.

Contrast with people who understand religious marketing right: Mormons, Jehovah’s witnesses, etc. — what they’re doing works. They come in pair or groups, personally find people who resonate with their message. Convince them — then send them to convince more people in viral marketing. Of course, in the case of Jehovah’s witnesses, the viral message is “Hey I’m a loser who found that I can feel superior to everyone else by entering this support community for people who can’t otherwise find meaning to their lives.” But in the case of the Mormons, it’s more like “Hey, we discipline each other in living a healthy life, looking good, etc. and at the price of stupid superstitions no worse than in other religions, you too can be part of a healthy support group.” So if you want to advance the cause of liberty — find how you can turn it into a viral message that addresses people’s needs, then turns them into more proponents of liberty.

Notice though how any marketing campaign has to be targeted to a receptive audience. The same methods and arguments that convince a given audience will fail miserably on another audience. Libertarians tend to have quite powerful arguments to those who are already interested in politics and approach the topic with a mind moved by rational arguments, in terms of causes and consequences. That’s already quite something, but still a small fraction of the public. Different messages tailored to different audiences are needed. One-to-one interaction is required to tailor the message. (And, if we are to emulate those viral sects that work, two-to-one interaction is even more efficient.) If we are to believe Myers-Briggs typology of psychological characters, a majority of people are sensitive foremost to appeal to authority (SJ in MBTI), and we must explain how our ideas are backed by great men and constitute the very fabric of civilization; they most likely will be the last to be convinced, when enough counter-“authorities” have risen to challenge the established authorities. A large majority of the rest of people are sensitive foremost to demonstration by example (SP in MBTI), and will happily follow us if we lead the way and show how being free works — and it does; they are thus a natural target for libertarians to address, and that’s why established authorities do their darned best to prevent any ostensible libertarian experiment from happening that could sway them. Then come people sensitive foremost to appeal to emotion (NF in MBTI), and we must display how ours is the way of real justice and compassion; but they are easily lured by socialist propaganda then hard to convince out of what they weren’t rationally convinced into. Only a small minority of people are sensitive foremost to rational arguments in terms of causes and consequences (NT in MBTI) like most libertarian literature is built — and those interested in being convinced probably already have, or are already being catered to. The next bigger audience for libertarians therefore seems to be people who can be showed that freedom works; and there again being successful and embodying yourself how freedom works is the best thing you can do to advance the ideas of liberty.

That’s also why I believe that passivism is important: it’s about finding what liberty can bring to each and everyone of us. It’s about reaping the benefits of a free life, and making your ideas worthwhile for you, and thus for everyone who’d adopt them.

12. Passivism Basics

The first principle of passivism: you should focus first on your own life. Even if your end-goal is to defeat this Enemy that destroys your and other people’s liberty, as any martial arts teacher will tell you, before you have any chance of controlling the opponent’s moves, you must first learn to control your own. Do you have the best job you could have? I have friends who say that if you possess the bent of mind that would make you productive at writing software, and you’re making less than $100K a year, you should definitely switch career. That doesn’t necessarily mean that all of you should be writing software — but that you should all be looking for the most productive venue in which to spend your life.

Are you not happily married? There are a lot of single men (and a few single women) at libertarian conferences. Instead of spending too much time in activism, you could do a lot more for liberty by learning dating skills, finding yourself a nice mate, and having kids that you raise to live as free responsible people.

Are you unhealthy? By acquiring discipline, eating healthier, doing exercise, you can live longer and healthier, and have more resources to spend on furthering liberty or any cause of your choice.

Are you a prisoner of superstitions, fears, neuroses, bad relationships, etc.? By working on to free yourself from negative beliefs, negative relationships, etc., you can also do more for liberty than through activism.

Getting your shit together should be your number one priority. And if you are to do activism afterwards, it will pay off mightily: you’ll convince more people to follow your lead if you are healthy and successful than if you are a frustrated loser.

Mind that motivation won’t get you there. Discipline will. Progress is necessarily slow, and only gives results when it’s steady for a long time. Trying to pull yourself with constant promises of results is bound to actually demotivate you, as the false hope never materializes. Learning to enjoy doing the positive things because you have determined them to be positive, regardless of enjoyment while doing them, even in absence of motivation or inspiration, is what will get you results in the end. Once again, mormons understand that well: they are said to “not be a religion, but a multi-level marketing company”; maintaining discipline in all aspects of life is part of the culture they enforce on each other; it helps make them successful personally; and personal success in turn makes them successful at marketing their lifestyle. Also, Tibetan Buddhists, who mastered the art of emptying your mind from immediate worries to fill it back with your own chosen long-term values, can teach you the art of what they call “Self-Compassion”.

In other words, Passivism 101 is about applying the latin proverb: Medice cura te ipsum — Doctor, start by fixing yourself.

13. Voting with your feet

One important thing you can do for yourself, is move to a better place. And of course, that’s very relevant to this conference. Should you move to New Hampshire? There are pros and cons; and the Free State Project is doing a great job weighing on the “pros”. — but whether it ends up being New Hampshire or not, you should definitely consider moving to whichever place will be best for you. Voting with your feet is the most potent thing you can do. The most important vote you can cast. Much more effective at improving your life and that of those you love than voting either with your ballots or your bullets.

I myself moved to the US from France. I don’t live in New Hampshire. Actually, I consider myself part of the “Unfree State Project”: I moved from Massachusetts to NYC. The taxes were not high enough, and the gun laws were too lax. More seriously, I moved there to have a great job, while my wife goes to a great school; but I’m ready to move again if and when things change.

New Hampshire is not a bad venue for Passivism. Here, the people and the laws are more libertarian than in most other places. That counts for something. But that doesn’t count for everything. It’s a definite plus, but there are also minuses. Can you find a job you like here? If you have to lose revenues, that counts too. Can’t stand the climate, the food, or what limited cultural life there is? That also counts. Determine which is the best place for you. New Hampshire has a lot of assets, and the Free State Project is working towards making it an even better place. It does expend some activism — but hopefully, the result is that you can reap benefits and enjoy passivism here. And so, please do not move to New Hampshire because there’s a lot of activism to do here. If anything, move to New Hampshire because there’s less of that negative-counting activism thing to do here to achieve the positive effects that you seek for yourself and those you love.

14. Goals and non-Goals of Passivism

One big non-goal of passivism: Fighting the State. You can’t win. By definition, the State is whoever is best at fighting. If somehow through cunning and force you win, you will have become It, the Enemy. One big goal of passivism: surviving the State. Russian, Chinese, people from so many destroyed countries... those who survived communism reached their goal; those who fought and died failed. Sometimes it takes running away; sometimes it takes knowing when to stop fighting. But always it means not making a frontal assault against the state; for a frontal assault is confronting it where it’s the best at: violence.

Another non-goal of passivism: saving the poor. “The poor keep getting poorer” bemoan the socialists. That happens for some people, but not mainly because they are being oppressed by other people, including by the State. Mainly and more importantly, they are being oppressed by themselves, by having bad habits. The best thing to help the poor is to lead by example. Break your own bad habits, and cultivate better habits. Perikles famously said: “As for poverty, no one need be ashamed to admit it: the real shame is in not taking practical measures to escape from it.” An explicit goal of passivism is thus instead: save yourself from poverty. Develop the skills to acquire wealth; once you have this wealth, you may share and teach those skills with other people. But mostly, do it and show the way. “The world is changed by your example, not by your opinion.” ― Paulo Coelho

A general goal of passivism: instead of focusing on destroying, focus on creating. Proponents of destruction always claim they are destroying evil, but we know better, and though there are exceptions, in general, the destruction itself is evil. Similarly, most creation is good, especially if it is not based on the past or future destruction of other people’s property. Try to play fewer negative sum games; and play more positive sum games.

15. Reality

Ayn Rand famously declared how she mostly loved the famous serenity prayer — the one adopted by Alcoholic Anonymous, that goes:

God, please grant me
the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.

Her rightful reservation was that she hated the prayer part itself, the first line; for, as Ambrose Bierce defined it in his Devil’s Dictionary: “Pray: To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.”

Passivism relies on the realization that one of the main things for you to change is yourself. And for successful passivism, as in successful anything, you need those three things indeed: serenity, courage and wisdom.

A good story about Passivism and wisdom is thus that of “The Prince and the Three Doors”, that I included in an appendix.

As you endeavor to improve yourself, you must also have the wisdom and serenity to learn and accept your deep and true self, that you cannot, will not, shall not change. And before you improve others and the world, you’ll similarly have to learn and accept these other people, and the world at large. In other words, you must learn what reality is, and what it always will be, before you may improve the things that are but need not be.

This implies a shift from a normative point of view to a positive point of view: before determining how things should be, find out how things are.

And so passivism may be about changing yourself. But before you may change yourself, you need to accept yourself — accept other people, accept the world. First, you need find the serenity of accepting the things you can’t change, and the wisdom of distinguishing them from the things you can, — only then can you enact effective change, if you have the courage.

16. Freedom Technologies

Understanding how to affect the world, without depending on a change in people — this activity has a name, and the name is: technology. And so, if you want to improve things for you and for others, you must learn to master some aspect of technology.

When I say “technology”, you may immediately think of electronics, biotechnology, robotics, material science, etc. And these are technologies indeed. But I’m using the word in its widest sense. Finance, marketing, law, management, etc., that’s technology, too. Even pick up artistry is technology, if that’s what you need. Just because people are involved doesn’t mean that it’s Indirect Solutions — because these technologies don’t depend on people cooperating against their will, but rely on their being freely cooperating out of their already understood self-interest.

Even “advanced interrogation techniques” could be argued as being technology. Thus, obviously, not all technologies are as amenable as all others to lead to more freedom. You still have to carefully pick a technology that will advance your values. I’ll get back to that. But on first approximation, any technology that makes you better off while respecting the life and property of others is worthy of pursuit, and improves freedom in the world, starting with your own.

It takes training and exercise to acquire them, but if you have the discipline to practice over and over again, you’ll get no worse at it than other less intelligent people who make a living at it. So pick a domain you think matters to you and to the world, learn the technology, and make a positive impact.

Learning marketable skills, finding a good job, being good at it, making money, is already the most useful thing you can do to advance freedom. In his article “Working and Saving are Revolutionary Acts”, Pierre Rochard argues exactly that, better than I could. Of course, once you’re making good money, don’t forget to spend some of it paying professionals to do the things you think matter that you want done but can’t efficiently do yourself. But just advancing the wealth of the world, in itself, displaces the negative sum games of the State, and replaces them with the positive sum games of Free Exchange. It makes the world freer and is a reward in itself, even if you don’t give any money to anyone, because you think you know best how to spend it on everything that you care about.

17. Technology as the Frontier

Technology informs us of the extent and the limits of what we can do. Some things we can do, and technology tells us how to do them, when we’d otherwise be powerless. Some things we can’t do, and technology informs us of the limits of things we can do. And some things we can’t do yet, but we suspect we might be able to do them, if we could improve our understanding and develop new techniques.

Thus, if you want to further freedom beyond what existing technology allows — then you need to create more technologies. Do it yourself, if you are capable of it. Mind you, it does not always require to be a genius; but it does require that you be on the bleeding edge of whatever you’re doing, and then tirelessly experiment new ways of doing it. But even if technological research and development is not for you, you can further technology by funding other people you believe are capable of advancing the technology you care about. Investing in technology is the greatest thing you can do to outcompete the State. So do whatever you’re the best at, and invest the proceeds in innovation.

Indeed, change in technology determines change in social and political structure. Consider how capital-intensive technologies such as horse riding and the sword necessarily instituted a caste of professional soldiers as the ruling class. Consider how the crossbow and then small firearms just as necessarily shifted the military balance towards democracies. Consider how recent technology seems to have only somewhat favored capital-intensive weapons again, and how bent the ruling class is on eliminating small firearms among civilians. Technology definitely shapes political structure. I already discussed how it liberated women, which has also had a profound impact on social structure.

The idea that “the base structure determines the superstructure” has been popularized by Marx and his followers. Does that mean I am repeating a marxist idea? Nope. Not at all. The idea that technology influences politics and tips political balance is as old as the study of history. Just like Class struggle, False Consciousness, and other marxist tropes, the socialists contributed their keywords, slogans, and twisted narratives; but the general concepts existed long before they were corrupted then spread in corrupted form by marxists.

So, what if you have freed yourself, and are aspiring to a future where politics is no longer keeping you and your fellow men behind? The goal is not to convince statists that we are right and they are wrong. The goal is to win. The goal is for statists to be powerless, not to acknowledge their powerlessness. To ensure that they cannot hurt you, not to convince them to stop hurting you. The idea of convincing the master that his interest is not to be master anymore is ridiculous. It is. And through the leverage of force, it is also the interest of other men to obey and be complicit in making you obey. If you want to win against politics, you cannot play the game and win, you need to change the game. And that’s technology.

Technology is a frontier where the future of mankind is decided, and where freedoms are done and undone.

18. Technologies Are Not Equal

On the technological frontier, not all technologies are born equal to each other. Some more directly advance freedom. Some more directly advance oppression. Most are neutral, or context-dependent, and can be used either way — but if we develop them in a peaceful setting (as opposed in the setting of say a government oppression program), they will most likely result in more good and less bad. Hence, better torture techniques and mass murder devices are likely to advance oppression. But uninvasive lie detection and personal defense weapons are likely to advance freedom. Medical advances are usually neutral with respect to freedom, but generally useful for mankind. Robotics or surveillance technology can be good or bad depending on whether they are used by government to control citizens, or by citizens to protect themselves from aggression including by government officials.

There are many techniques that focus specifically on evading the control of the State; but they can’t be advertised without quickly becoming ineffective. And they still become ineffective after enough time, as the State eventually catches up; so if you start using them, you have to keep updating them to stay at least one step ahead of the State. But they do exist, and you might want to work on them if you are intent on living an adverserial life and “fighting” the State. However, that’s still playing negative sum games, even if playing on the “good” side to decrease the destruction by the evil side. To develop freedom most people should be working on positive sum games.

Which leads us to the question of how to identify which technologies contribute most to increasing rather than decreasing freedom.

Let’s consider law enforcement. You may improve freedom by decreasing accountability for lawful but “illegal” acts that are not actually crimes, such as trade and use of prohibited substances, of secret or monopolized information, etc. This could happen through techniques that improve privacy and anonymity for civilians through e.g. encrypted, distributed networks. The opposite evil technology, that increases the ability of the State to enforce its unlawful “legislation”, is 1984-style omnipresent surveillance and identification of all civilians. You may also improve freedom by increasing accountability for unlawful acts, “legal” or not. Distributed “sous-veillance”, ubiquitous private drones, identification of government thugs, etc. The opposite evil technology, that increases the ability by the State to get away with murder, is secrecy of its proceedings, anonymization of its agents, etc. As you soon realize, the very same technologies can often be used to protect the innocent and prosecute the guilty, or to protect the guilty and persecute the innocent. It is thus important to put the technology in the right hands, and to facilitate its use by the good guys vs the bad guys. But it also appears that the real long-term advancement of liberty depends on determining who will hold whom accountable according to whose and what rules.

The Real fight is always about the power to decide and enforce rules. Is this power Distributed amongst the legitimate owners of the respective resources at stake, or is it Centralized in the hands of a few mighty? At one extreme of Centralization, you have the totalitarian power of those who purport to mystically “represent” millions or billions of other people. That’s “Democracy” with a big D. At the other extreme of Decentralization, you have the propertarian ideal of each one being the arbitrary master of his own property while remaining respectful of that of others. That’s “democracy” with a small d. That’s the real struggle that matters, and that’s where you can make a difference. Develop technologies that support decentralization vs those that support centralization.

A hot topic in decentralization technologies is Crypto-anarchy: peer to peer communication and anonymization networks help people avoid unlawful government meddling; blockchains provide a way to achieve a distributed consensus without a coercive government.

An opposite topic is surveillance drones, that may help make government criminals accountable if massively controlled by the public, or give them totalitarian power if they control them.

If anonymous distributed surveillance of government criminals is achieved, then the next step would be Vehmic courts: secret courts that determine guilt based on the consensual evidence and dish out lethal justice. Back in the middle ages in western Germany, they were successfully used to keep in check the bureaucrats and politically mighty who thought they could be unaccountable in their violation of other people’s rights.

Of course, when people don’t understand justice better than the government, they can dish out injustice rather than justice; and so this technology depends on a good understanding of Law being more available; but once a lot of people do understand Law, they can advance it against government using existing technology as well as new distributed justice technology. Libertarian Law is the essence of Civilization: it is maximally inclusive, and welcomes all the productive people who recognize others’ rights, whatever their motives, preferences and other ideological premises; and since government must necessarily hurt victims, and some more than others, there is always an audience for libertarian ideas. But the flip side of the coin is that civilization does have to be exclusive against parasites, violent people, declared enemies of civilization, etc. Both aspects are linked and must be advanced together; technology that fails to support the peaceful promotion of both social conservative values and liberal mores, or to reject the forceful promotion of either, is deficient. And we seem to still be lacking good reliable technology to thus promote the ideas of liberty.

The most powerful Freedom Technology, if it could be achieved, would therefore be the propagation of libertarian ideas in the public at large. The Age of the Internet has allowed these ideas to flourish like never before, by connecting those who were previously isolated. This in itself was a big stride forward; but the existing technology for libertarian propaganda is obviously not touching much more than a small minority of people who already had inclinations toward liberty. To go beyond that and touch a large minority or even majority, new technology is required. In particular, rational arguments and the most ironclad theory will never be enough. A working example always speaks louder. And that’s why initiatives like the Free State Project are just as important as the best-written essays and the best delivered speeches — which themselves have more value than any activist protest.

May you too, become passivists and work on improving technology in general, and possibly freedom technology in particular.

19. Further Reading

“I Can Tolerate Anything Except The Outgroup” by Scott Alexander

“How I Found Freedom In An Unfree World” by Harry Browne

“The True Believer” by Eric Hoffer

“Nock and Leonard Read on “One Improved Unit” and the Power of Attraction” by Stephan Kinsella

“Isaiah’s Job” by Albert J. Nock

“Working and Saving are Revolutionary Acts” by Pierre Rochard

20. The Prince and the Three Doors

(Story passed as an online meme; the oldest instance found by Google is on the Excelia website.)

A King had for an only child a young, courageous, agile, clever and intelligent Prince. To perfect his education on Life, the King sent him to an Old Wise Man. “Teach me about the Path of Life,” asked the Prince.

“My words will disappear like footprints in the sand,” answered the Wise Man. “But I will give you a few clues. On your way, you will see three doors. Read the precepts engraved on each one. You will feel an irresistible urge to obey them. Do not try to ignore them or you will be sentenced to ceaselessly live time and again that which you tried to ignore. I can’t tell you more. You must experience it all in your heart and your flesh. Now, go. Follow the path right in front of you.” The Old Wise Man disappeared and the Prince started off on his Path of Life.

He soon saw a large door on which was written: “CHANGE THE WORLD” “That’s what I intend to do,” thought the Prince. “Because while I like some things in this world, I don’t like everything.” His first battle began. His ideals, his ardor and his energy gave him the strength to confront the world, to build, conquer and fashion reality to suit his desires. He achieved the pleasure and intoxication of conquerors, but no peace of mind. He managed to change some things, but many others resisted him. Years and years passed by.

One day, he met the Old Wise Man, who asked: “What did you learn on your journey?” The Prince answered, “I learned to discern what I could do and what I could not, what depends on me and what does not.” “That’s good,” said the Old Man. “Use your strength to change what you can. Forget the rest.” And he disappeared.

A while later, the Prince saw a second door. On it was written: “CHANGE OTHERS” “That’s what I intend to do,” he thought. “Others are a source of pleasure, joy and satisfaction, but also pain, bitterness and frustration.” And he rose up against anything in his brethren that bothered him or displeased him. He sought to change their character and correct their faults. That was his second battle. Many years passed by.

One day, when he was thinking about the usefulness of his attempts to change others, he met the Old Wise Man, who asked: “What did you learn on your journey?” The Prince answered, “I learned that others are neither the cause nor the source of my joys and sadness, nor of my satisfactions and disappointments. They only reveal them to me or provide me with the opportunity of experiencing them. All these things are rooted in my being.” “You are correct,” the Wise Man answered. “Others reveal themselves to you by that which they awaken in you. Be thankful to those who bring you joy and pleasure. And also to those who cause you suffering or frustration. It is through them that Life teaches you what you still need to learn and shows you the path you must continue to follow.” And the Old Man disappeared.

A while later, the Prince arrived in front of a door bearing the words: “CHANGE YOURSELF” “If I am the cause of my own problems, that is what I should do,” he said to himself. And his third battle began.

He sought to improve his character, fight against his imperfections, correct his faults and change anything that did not please him in himself or correspond to his ideals.

After many years of battle, with some successes, but also failures and resistance, the Prince met the Wise Man who asked: “What did you learn on your journey?” The Prince answered, “I learned that there are things within us we can improve and others that resist and cannot be broken.” “That’s good,” said the Old Man. The Prince continued, “Yes, but I am starting to get tired of fighting against everything, everyone and myself. Will it never end? When will I rest? I am feeling like ending the battle, giving up, abandoning everything.” “That is your next lesson,” said the Old Wise Man. “But before going further, turn around and look at the path you have already followed.” And he disappeared.

Looking backwards, the Prince saw the 3rd door in the distance and, on its reverse side, the words: “ACCEPT YOURSELF” The Prince was surprised he had not seen these words when he went through the door the first time in the opposite direction. “When we fight, we’re blinded,” he said to himself. He also saw on the ground around him everything he had rejected and battled against within himself: his faults, shadows, fears, limitations and old demons. He learned to recognize them, accept them and love them. He learned to love himself without comparison, judgment or blame.

He met the Old Wise Man who asked him: “What did you learn on your journey?” The Prince replied, “I learned that in hating or rejecting a part of myself, I was sentencing myself to never achieve a balanced life. I learned to accept myself totally and unconditionally.” “That’s good,” said the Old Man. “That’s the first sign of Wisdom. Now, you can go through the third door.”

On the other side, the Prince saw on the back side of the second door in the distance: “ACCEPT OTHERS” All around him, he recognized people he had met in his life, those he had loved and those he had hated, those he had supported and those he had fought. But to his great surprise, he was unable to see their imperfections, faults, and all that had bothered him so before, and that he had fought against.

He met the Old Wise Man again. “What did you learn on your journey?”, he asked. The Prince replied, “I learned that when I felt good about myself, I had nothing to fear or hold against others. I learned to accept and love others totally and unconditionally.” “That’s good,” said the Old Man. That is the second sign of Wisdom. You may now go back through the second door.

On the other side, the Prince saw on the back side of the first door in the distance: “ACCEPT THE WORLD”

“That’s strange,” he said. “I didn’t see those words the first time.” He looked around him and saw all that he had tried to conquer, transform and change. He was surprised by the glimmer and beauty of everything. By the perfection around him. Even though it was the same world as before. Had the world changed or his perspective?

He met the Old Wise Man who asked him: “What did you learn on your journey?” The Prince replied, “I learned that the world mirrors my soul. That my soul doesn’t see the world, but the world is seen in my soul. When my soul is content, the world seems gay. When my soul is suffering, the world seems sad. The world is neither sad nor gay. It is there. It exists. That is all. It was not the world that troubled me, but my vision of it. I learned to accept it totally and unconditionally.“ “That is the third sign of Wisdom,” said the Old Man. “Now, you are at peace with yourself, with others and with the World.” A deep feeling of peace, serenity and abundance filled the Prince. Then the Old Man disappeared.

This speech was delivered at the New Hampshire Liberty Forum 2015, in Manchester, New Hampshire, on Saturday March 7th, 2015.

Republished from Passivism: To Save the World, Start with Yourself

Table of contents

1. Introduction
2. 1. Jail Break Classics
3. 2. Vanity of Activism
4. 3. Activism vs Passivism
5. 4. Passivism
6. 5. Activism cannot work
7. 6. The resources at stake
8. 7. What activism buys
9. 8. Good will
10. 9. Efficiency
11. 10. Amateurs are not efficient
12. 11. Build Good Will
13. 12. Passivism Basics
14. 13. Voting with your feet
15. 14. Goals and non-Goals of Passivism
16. 15. Reality
17. 16. Freedom Technologies
18. 17. Technology as the Frontier
19. 18. Technologies Are Not Equal
20. 19. Further Reading
21. 20. The Prince and the Three Doors

Perhaps in time the so-called Dark Ages will be thought of as including our own.

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

We’ve quoted this already in Laissez-faire: the political philosophy of civilization, where we’ve shown how on a political level we still live in the Dark Ages. More and more, indeed, there is a caste system, a class of privileged exploiters living in castles at the expense of exploited producers. Latest example to date is how masks and gloves (like guns) are supposedly great and needed not just for the medical class, but also for the warrior class, yet useless for the serf class. And of course, the members of the ruling class have access to tests denied to us mere commoners – all equal, except those more equal than others.

Now besides all the political signs of Europe being in the Dark Ages, there is another glaring one: hygiene. Wearing slippers at home instead of street shoes – an “advanced” technology known here at least since 1478 is still far from obvious (or is there another reason for disinfecting the streets?). Soap – invented 2800 BC, yet washing hands still seems as something Westerners need to be told to do. Even before this crisis, there already was a high rate of infection in hospitals and even doctors had to be told to wash their hands. And of course, now it’s not anymore a rational advice to wash your hands when dirty, but a sort of religious ritual unrelated to actual cleanliness, to be performed even on a desert island:

“If you’re wearing gloves you’re not washing your hands.”

French Health Minister

Likewise for social organization and ways of working – remote work: technologically straighforward for decades, the obvious solution for traffic jams, commuting, pollution, etc. – yet far from spread as much as it should be by now. Avoiding rush hours and congested subways, for that matter – really something so out of our grasp of technological or organizational solutions?

In New York and Spain health workers are wearing garbage bags as protection. In 2020. In 2020 our so-called civilization can’t afford or can’t organize basic safety equipment. And the UK, of course, is still a rat-infested medieval shithole, not to mention a preposterous monarchy, and the best its leaders and medical “experts” could come up with is pretty much to not do anything about the pandemic, indeed, wish for more people to catch the virus – until, oh the irony, they caught the virus themselves.

So we have pretty much, by and large, the same political, social, religious and sanitary conditions as at the time of the Plague – except, yeah, we’ve got “influencers” around meanwhile, to bless us with their advice. We have pandemics wreaking havoc through populations maintained in artifical poverty, ignorance and technological backwardness by primitive forms of government — monarchies such as UK and Spain, and barely more modern “democracies” like France or Italy (the former being indeed a blatant case of just having copied the same king-centered structure, with the minor change of voting for him every few years – and indeed, this “President” as they call it, currently N’djekouale the 1st, successor on the throne of Flamby the 1st, also happens to be the co-prince of Andorra – QED). Whereas there’s always enough money around for the cleric, noblemen and warrior classes, healthcare is deliberately starved, criminally mismanaged and socialized, whereas technological or organizational progress is opposed.

In a thousand years, after anarchy and real civilization will have been achieved for a while already, historiography will no doubt amend the definition of the European Dark Ages thus: “Time period of the West from around 500 AD to 2500 AD, characterized by monarchies, feudalism, and coronavirus/flu/plague pandemics with thousands of avoidable victims due to lack of basic hygiene, mismanaged/socialized healthcare, and general idiocracy”.

2. Because of states, we are way poorer than we ought to be

If the State had been abolished a century ago, we’d all have robots and summer homes in the Asteroid belt.

Samuel Edward Konkin III

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Clarke’s Third Law

Try explaining the lightbulb to someone who’s only ever heard of candles. Try explaining the smartphone to someone who’s never even heard of a printed book.

The impediments on progress and wealth that government institutes are beyond dispute. The more government, the more stagnation and regression – closed and totalitarian regimes like North Korea pretty much revert a country to a Stone Age stagnation, whereas Soviet-style “socialisms in one country” just halt progress, but steal it from outside – while they can, of course, since, were they to win, they would have no one to steal technology from (and after a while, they finish burning up the capital accumulated before they started their rule, and thus collapse anyhow).

In “mixed economies”, progress is usually not halted nor reversed, merely slowed down – a lot. Compounded over hundreds of years, the difference between what we have and what we should have becomes utterly unfathomable.

Best we can do, as economists, is put some numbers on it.

It is therefore preposterous to think that a civilization technologically ahead by centuries – as any stateless country would demonstrably be if it had renounced statism a few centuries ago – would not have a cure for puny viruses, not to mention unimaginable wealths that could finance the best healthcare for everyone, and more likely than not would already have achieved widespread immortality, for that matter.

3. Governments’ degree of incompetence, irresponsiblity, criminal negligence and murderous nature is undisputable

Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.

Grey’s Law

Dios proveerá

[God will provide]

Nicolás Maduro¹

They told us it would be fine.

What we didn’t realize was [that] their definition of fine included a million dead.

@FearIsNotPanic, replying to @nntaleb

Where to start? How about...

Nicaragua?

Unas diez mil personas marcharon en Nicaragua en una concentración convocada por el Gobierno y el Partido Sandinista en solidaridad con los países afectados por el coronavirus Covid-19.

“México y Nicaragua: un festival de música y una manifestación en medio del brote de Covid-19”

Italy?

• “Italians over 80 ‘will be left to die’ as country overwhelmed by coronavirus” – so much for “equality”

Spain?

“Si no saliera su vuelo, tienen opción de sacar un billete con escala en otro país, ya que solo se han suspendido conexiones directas”

Consulate of Spain in Naples, Italy, after the Spanish government suspended flights from Italy to Spain

• Los profesionales sanitarios coinciden en la escasez de medios materiales y humanos y en la incertidumbre que esa situación produce

• La falta de mascarillas y respiradores pone en tensión a los hospitales españoles

• Chubasqueros, bolsas de basura y gorros de ducha: así atienden las enfermeras de Madrid a pacientes con covid-19

• In some nursing homes, elderly victims were found abandoned in their beds

France?

• French government sent its stockpile of masks to China

• French government maintained its silly municipal elections, calling on even old people to attend, in the middle of the pandemic (being the Dark Ages quasi-monarchy that they are, they still don’t even have absentee ballot): “Rien ne s’oppose à ce que les Français, même les plus vulnérables, se rendent aux urnes”.

Belgium?

“La Belgique détruit son stock de masques FFP2 sans le remplacer, Maggie De Block se défend” (as a bonus, you get a photo of what a government Minister of Health looks like).

Ah, Belgium! Not unlike the usual stories we get from Belgium, but at this level it’s really not that funny. (Update 2020-05-24: San Marino micro-state excluded, Belgium is now leading the world list of countries by mortality percentage. Great job guys!)

Switzerland?

• Pénurie de masques, ratage d’État

• Pénurie de masques : « On n’a rien appris, rien préparé »

• La Suisse manque de masques pour son personnel médical – Mais comment peut-on se retrouver en situation de pénurie d’un matériel aussi élémentaire ?

Good question!

Well... Swiss health care is managed in a strange way. For instance, training of new medical doctors is deliberately curtailed, which leads to, big surprise, lack of medics. It seems pretty much everything is done to make the life of medical personnel as difficult as possible – punishing people who follow their natural instinct to help their fellow humans has always been a primary task of government.

And do we need to mention the “moratorium” on opening new medical offices? An economic lunacy based pretty much on the insane theory, reversing the causality, that it’s not the doctors who cure diseases, but instead the establishment of new medical practices who renders people around it sick (and thus entails costs for the healthcare system, duh). With this sort of logic, it’s surprising they haven’t suggested yet to just close all hospitals and stop testing anyone, to get the number of new cases to zero.

Should anybody be surprised, then, that a system pretty much begging for shortages of everyone and everything, ends up with, well, shortages? And these are the rulers we should trust to fight a pandemic?

And of course, let us not forget our ridiculous slave army, endangering citizens’ lives, like always.

USA

Big surprise, governments’ economic ignorance – glaring at least since Bastiat’s writings in 1845 – doesn’t help, either: “Trump’s trade war exacerbated shortage of medical equipment”. In other news (or am I just reading Atlas Shrugged?):

The governor Friday signed an executive order giving him the power to take ventilators² from private health institutions to redistribute to those in the worst need via the National Guard.

Must be hard to sign executive orders giving more power to yourself. And another Atlas Srugged worthy quote:

“It can’t be that companies in this country or this state cannot make these simple products,” he said.

Hey, why don’t you make them? You, personally, start a private business, invest your own money, and do it? Indeed, why didn’t you make them in advance? Because, maybe, actually producing something, not with the government’s help, but against government hindrance (the myriad of idiotic regulations and petty thefts involved), is a tad harder than just looting whatever you need?

And of course, the usual bureaucracy, inefficiency, and general farce of any government involvement applies.

UK?

• Au Royaume-Uni, Boris Johnson tente « l’immunité de masse » – À revers du reste de l’Europe, le premier ministre britannique a pris peu de mesures pour réduire les contacts entre les citoyens

• La stratégie britannique pourrait coûter 70 000 vies supplémentaires

Incidentally: “People can get the coronavirus more than once, experts warn — recovering does not necessarily make you immune”.

Even Taleb (we don’t like Taleb, precisely because he’s not an individualist and could therefore support this kind of policies, hence the “even”) was shocked:

Lunacy in the UK

Just a reminder that for the government, you are expendable. Especially if it helps them hide their own utter incompetence – why admit failure at controlling the disease, when you can just claim that it’s impossible to control anyhow? And of course, you’re not supposed, as a good land-attached medieval serf, to check and compare what other countries are saying and doing.

4. Governments will lie to you, blatantly

Despite’s China managing the outbreak now, shouldn’t we mention that government censorship prevented early warnings in the first place?

China, Italy, and who knows who else are suspected of underreporting the death toll.

In countries where there is enough masks, they become recommended and even mandatory in some places:

For weeks, when healthy Americans asked whether they should be wearing face masks in public to help stem the spread of the coronavirus, health authorities in the U.S. have answered with a definitive no. Now, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reviewing its policy, those recommendations may soon change — but in Central Europe, a handful of countries have already made that decision.

Austria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia have recently made it compulsory to wear some form of covering over their mouths and noses when entering certain public spaces. In this respect, they have more closely followed the lead of health authorities in Asian countries — such as China and South Korea, where masks have been strongly encouraged and even widely distributed — than their own neighbors in Europe so far.

In countries where there’s not enough of them, government will explain to you that “they’re useless, duh”. If there is a drought and we run out of water through government mismanagement, expect the government to start explaining to us that drinking water is useless – except for politicians, of course. Enjoy this warning from the U.S. “surgeon general”, issued at a time when in countries hit earlier such as China, South Korea, and Japan pretty much everyone was wearing a mask already:

Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if healthcare providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!

Which raises the obvious question: shouldn’t hospitals, or indeed the government (that is, he) have organized enough supplies before the epidemic? People don’t hoard protective suits, yet they’re running out of them as well. Don’t blame your utter incompetence on the “general public”.

Q: What mistakes are other countries making?

A: The big mistake in the U.S. and Europe, in my opinion, is that people aren’t wearing masks

George Gao, director-general of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, March 27, 2020

5. Some governments will take smarter measures than others – but it won’t be “yours”

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.

P. J. O’Rourke.

Have we hand-picked only the most mismanaged governments for the list above?

Well, yes and no. The issues are pretty much the same across governments as different as Swiss, French, Spanish, British, US, etc. It cannot be a mere coincidence. The issue, then, is deeply structural, and not just accidental: institutional irresponsibility, short-term concerns only due to the very nature of the democratic system, etc. It is not a mere coincidence that those supposedly “end of history” systems of government would just happen to have incompetent managers, all at the same time, during the past twenty years. It is the very system that all of them share which is flawed.

The idiot John Oliver had likewise claimed that the issue with socialist Venezuela was not socialism but some sort of accidental mismanagement. But that’s missing the point entirely.

Political philosophy is not about designing a system which ensures that a limited group of people get as much power as possible, indeed ensuring that the worst get on top (Friedrich Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, ch. 10.) – and then just praying (à la Maduro supra) that somehow we’ll all be very, very lucky and that through some magical miracle they’ll just happen to be literally omniscient angels, and that the calculation problem won’t apply to them. Quite the opposite: it should be about ensuring a polycentric, stable system of mutual control and oversight. The point of socialism is precisely to concentrate power in the hands of the few so that they can mismanage for their own gain. Laissez-faire, its utter opposite, is about making sure that politicians not just don’t mismanage, but can’t mismanage, because they don’t control anything to mismanage to begin with.

But sure, let's admit the possibility we missed some good ones, who did the right things despite structural incentives to do the wrong ones. Teenage boys with whiskey and car keys might behave responsibly.

What is your guarantee you won’t have a government that makes bad decisions, with your money? How do you control it? Why take that risk? Sure, you can decide where to live – but you might not be able to anticipate which government will handle better unforeseen cases. And government doesn’t own the country you live in – why should you leave, they’re the ones who suck.

And remember:

Whatever we libertarians decide, it’s certainly not going to affect national policy. It would be one thing if Cox, or you dear reader, for some reason had the power to decide whether the nation would have federal border patrols or not — and at the same time lacked the authority to alter any other federal policies.

Wishing for a limited government that would do what you want it to is not any more “pragmatical” or “realistic” than wishing for outright abolition of government and subsequent market solutions to disease prevention – in fact, much less so.

6. Local governments are in conflict with central governments

Das Selbstbestimmungsrecht, von dem wir sprechen, ist jedoch nicht Selbstbestimmungsrecht der Nationen, sondern Selbstbestimmungsrecht der Bewohner eines jeden Gebietes, das gross genug ist, einen selbständigen Verwaltungsbezirk zu bilden. Wenn es irgend möglich wäre, jedem einzelnen Menschen dieses Selbstbestimmungsrecht einzuräumen, so müsste es geschehen.

[However, the right of self-determination of which we speak is not the right of self-determination of nations, but rather the right of self-determination of the inhabitants of every territory large enough to form an independent administrative unit. If it were in any way possible to grant this right of self-determination to every individual person, it would have to be done.]

Ludwig von Mises, Liberalismus [Liberalism: In the Classical Tradition]

Business as usual – federalism is yet another example of how government is chaos.

Brazil

• Un tribunal fédéral brésilien avait interdit samedi au gouvernement Bolsonaro de diffuser des messages allant à l’encontre des mesures de confinement décidées au niveau local pour freiner la propagation de l’épidémie de Covid-19.

• Bolsonaro’s anti-science response to coronavirus appals Brazil’s governors

Switzerland

Alors que les cantons durcissent peu à peu les mesures prises vendredi dernier par le gouvernement suisse, celui-ci tergiverse, malgré une séance de crise tenue dimanche soir.

Le Conseil fédéral ne va toutefois pas jusqu’à un confinement obligatoire. La décision du canton d’Uri de confiner les personnes de plus de 65 ans est problématique et n’est pas conforme à l’ordonnance édictée vendredi, a indiqué Martin Dumermuth, directeur de l’Office fédéral de la justice. Le Conseil fédéral n’a pas voulu de confinement généralisé et les cantons doivent l’accepter.

La réaction n’a pas tardé: peu après, le Conseil d’Etat uranais annonçait qu’il acceptait la décision du Conseil fédéral et levait l’interdiction de sortie des seniors.

La mesure avait été introduite à Uri jeudi à 18h00. L’état-major de crise cantonal avait pris cette décision parce que les seniors ne respectent pas les règles en vigueur. Les autorités espéraient les tenir à l’écart des commerces et d’autres institutions.

Uri fait marche arrière

Spain

• Toque de Díaz Ayuso a Sánchez: “Nosotros no podemos cerrar Madrid”

• El Gobierno de Sánchez desoyó a la Comunidad de Madrid y retrasó el cierre de colegios

• Madrid pidió medidas durante 10 días para enfrentar el coronavirus y el Gobierno se negó – El Gobierno de Isabel Díaz Ayuso demandó mayor contundencia contra el coronavirus y el Ministerio de Sanidad no lo vio necesario

EU

Worth mentioning is also the EU, whose only preoccupation since the start has been that Schengen area member states don’t close their borders to limit virus entry, and acting hurt that Trump closed his borders to them.

And of course, its member states, fighting against each other like the gangsters that they are³ for scraps of masks.

Not our words – those of the former Vice-President of the European Commission:

si des États membres de l’UE se mettent à se comporter comme des gangsters, comme la mafia organisée, c’est intolérable.

We couldn’t agree more: the masks come off. Altough the comparison with gangsters might not be entirely fair – for the gangsters.

Also: yes, the EU is completely useless at best and should be abandoned – since States are nothing but groups of gangsters, setting up a cartel of gangsters does not make things any better.

7. People needing government to tell them to wash their hands is the problem, not the solution

The government is good at one thing. It knows how to break your legs, and then hand you a crutch and say: “See, if it weren’t for the government, you wouldn’t be able to walk”.

Harry Browne

Do we need the state now to help us out of this? Yes of course – after stealing half our incomes (and that’s just counting statically), preventing us from researching advanced medical technology, disarming us, and making most people dependent on it for advice and information, yes we do have to rely on the state to protect us, pay out unemployment benefits, take measures to stop the propagation of the virus, etc.

But that’s precisely the problem, not the solution. People are so used to relying on the government that they don’t ensure their own reserves (food, financial, medical) anymore – or indeed, can’t, after being impoverished by government. Saving, or any sort of financial responsibility, has been actively discouraged by governments for decades:

This supply side trigger has come at a time when interest rates had already been artificially pushed close to zero for a decade or more in many countries. In such an environment, only crazy people wanted to be savers, and everybody—households, businesses and governments—borrowed to the hilt while credit was cheap and plentiful. So the world entered this coronavirus shut-down with virtually no savings buffer, with firms and employees living paycheck-to-paycheck in a mountain of debt.

In addition, people are now so used to relying on government for everything that they don’t have the reflex to seek market, community-based solutions (think of how most people are happy about the smoking ban in “public places”, yet used their effort and energy to achieve it through government legislation, instead of simple market actions to the same effect).

The government broke our legs (almost literally here – an impoverished, technologically backwards society that can’t 3D-print new legs or virus cures instantly, yet), and now is handing us the crutches (its crappy socialized healthcare system, its government mandated unemployment “social” insurance, etc.). Should we say no? Now there are libertarians who’ll say “no, no, government has no place in the crutches business”. And then there are those who’ll say, “see, we need a minimal government, because the market wouldn’t be able to provide nice wooden crutches like this”.

We say the complete opposite: governments are responsible for this mess in the first place. It’s not our role to beg the government not to clean it, nor tell the government how to clean it. Our role is to provide a glimpse of the completely different level of life we would enjoy without governments, not just with different solutions to the virus, but with the virus not being a newsworthy problem at all to begin with.

8. Collectivism is dangerous

Now of course, in a certain sense, collectivism doesn’t really exist, and individualism is apodictic. “Collectivists”, however – those who use the excuse of some form or other of collectivism to pursue their own selfish gains – do tend to push for collectivism in the general sense.

They rant against individual transportation – with ecology as a pretext (as usual with the Watermelons), yet you don’t see them praising electric cars, or encouraging remote work. No, the goal is to cram you into public transportation.

Same for housing – socialists do what they can to build buildings as ugly as possible, discourage ownership (because owners don’t vote for them). Instead of letting high-end housing be built, increase offer from the upper side, lower prices and move everyone one step above, they encourage the opposite – zoning laws, construction restrictions, higher prices through lack of competition and bureaucratic overcosts (so that people then have to beg them for subsidies), and ugly housing projects, with all they entail. Instead of encouraging everything as individual as possible, they strive for the opposite – common laundry room, common kitchen, common bathroom, etc. The pinnacle of that being the Soviet коммуналка.

Now which of these models of transportation and housing do you think favors the spread of contagious diseases?

9. Every death is avoidable

And there went another one who could have lived a thousand years.

Kim Stanley Robinson, The Mars Trilogy, quoted by Robert Vroman, “Help! The State Is Trying To Kill Me”, Anti-state.com, September 22, 2001.

Every death is avoidable. But don’t rely on the government – for them, it’s the complete opposite: every life is expendable. And the more socialist the government, the more this holds true.

When the British Prime Minister declares that it wouldn’t be so bad if a majority of his Queen’s subjects got the virus, you don’t really expect him to go tell it one by one to all those he’s expecting to die.

Israel, a somewhat more civilized nation⁴, seems to have a much better hold on the spread, and a relatively low death count, which means each individual victim still gets individually named. Most of them are around a 100 years old – yet, still, they could and should still have lived not a hundred but a thousand years, or more. And indeed, if every country’s inhabitants were contributing so much to technological progress as Israel, per capita, they probably would have.

Israel’s first virus fatality named as 88-year-old Holocaust survivor Aryeh Even

An avoidable victim, then, who had survived another tragic failure of governments, the Holocaust – a government-committed genocide not just criminal, but also quite avoidable, as part of the also utterly avoidable WWII, following the murderous and utterly avoidable WWI (which incidentally helped spread the deadliest pandemic of the last century, and so on).

Let us never forget, then: governments have murdered directly hundreds of millions of people, way more than any virus, while other governments just stood by, or indeed encouraged it. Whether directly or indirectly through incompetence and impoverishment and infantilization of their populations, governments are to blame in both cases.

Every death by war is avoidable, every death by virus is avoidable, every death by anything is avoidable – but not while governments are around.

10. Order is the solution, therefore anarchy is the solution

L’anarchie est le plus haut degré de liberté et d’ordre auquel l’humanité puisse parvenir.

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

L’anarchie est la plus haute expression de l’ordre.

Élisée Reclus

We need order, therefore we need anarchy. We need the market to solve not just this particular crisis (and indeed, it should be taken as a wake-up call – there are much, much worse diseases than the one currently wreaking havoc, so it could have been much, much worse given the current level of irresponsible unpreparedness) but any crisis like this.

Not up to us to say exactly how, but here are some leads:

• Market solutions to inform the public – much, much better than what the government offers.

• “Czech mask enthusiasm is likely fueled by their anger towards their government which failed to protect its citizens. Making their own masks is a way of making up for the government’s lack of action and taking matters into their own hands.”(two weeks later: “Health Minister: Uncontrolled spread of COVID-19 down, country can start returning to normal”)⁵

• sheer wealth of a fully free market society would make pandemics much more manageable

• sheer technological level of a fully free market society (after a few years of removing governmental hindrances) would make medications much more advanced, faster to research and produce

• individualistic culture and lifestyle would make disease spread less likely

• better hygiene (which is correlated with higher wealth and technology) would make disease spread less likely

• a culture of individual responsibility, as opposed to relying on government for everything, would lead to a society much better prepared for crises such as this

• private property of everything – no “tragedy of the commons”, more efficient sanitary controls, less bureaucratic irresponsibility

• legal civil responsibility, e.g. legal damages for contamination, ensuring more responsibility

• Free market alternatives to cash, such as bitcoin, should have spread long ago

• online shopping companies, offering safer alternatives to brick-and-mortar shopping, like Amazon – despite protracted government opposition.

• flexible work schedules – also against government regulation of working hours and business opening hours.

• How A Charter City Would Respond To An Epidemic

• The Benefits Of A Free Society During Pandemics

• etc. pp.:

When people are free, they create things no one had previously imagined possible. This is the reason for human progress. It’s about the struggle to make life ever more wonderful, to improve health and diet, to lengthen lives, to overcome the state of nature, alleviate suffering and create a beautiful and flourishing world.

Jeffrey Tucker

¹ President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, in a speech quoted in “Venezuela, a la buena de Dios”, after the unsurprising utter failure of his socialist policies.

Turning a country with the world’s largest proven oil reserves into a shithole on the brink of famine is no small feat, yet socialism can accomplish anything. As Milton Friedman would say, “put them in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there’d be a shortage of sand”.

UPDATE 2020-04-12 Quite literally actually: Venezuela just ran out of gasoline.

² Incidentally, it seems ventilators are actually not that useful. Typical behavior of Dark Ages savages: stealing something you don’t even understand, stealing something you don’t even need.

³ We have, for instance:

• France stealing from Spain and Italy
• Italy stealing from Switzerland
• Czechia stealing from Italy
• etc.

Politics is a negative sum game, QED.

⁴ Except of course some specific parts of it – this interesting article for instance while trying to defend them manages to do the opposite – show everything that’s wrong with that type of society, such as: a rabbi making uninformed decisions, and the haredim blindly obeying the rabbi... again, as with our socialism vs accidental mismanagement example above (and as aptly summarized by Kołakowski), that is precisely the general problem here as well, as this comment on the article rightly points out:

This isn’t a defense, its an indictment. If your entire society is built on people only listening to The Gadol HaDor, and that gadol hador is cut off from the world, and only hears what is presented to him, and then is (purposely!) not presented with all the information, and thus the advice of experts, doctors, scientists, and the government is ignored, then yes, that is your fault. This isn’t a matter of you being “criminals”, this is a matter of you building a system in which this exact thing happening was only a matter of time. [emphasis added]

The exact same structural issue, on a smaller scale, as with relying on governments in general.

⁵ Since then, however: “Country’s leading epidemiologist makes U-turn on strategy of herd immunity”. Again, we face the horror of government: casually deciding who should live and who should die, and who should take what risks. When they conscript you, when they tell you which drugs you must take and which you must not, when they send you to jail for nothing, when they consider deliberately exposing you to the virus, all betray the same criminal behavior of claiming ownership of your life and treating you like their property and exposing you to risks to which you haven’t chosen to be exposed – basically forcing you to play Russian roulette.

In this particular case, we might ask: So... why don’t you show the lead? Go lick some doorknobs. Ask your peer BoJo the Clown how that has worked out for him.

“The key to the theory of liberty is the establishment of the rights of private property, for each individual’s justified sphere of free action can only be set forth if his rights of property are analyzed and established.”

Murray Rothbard, The Ethics of Liberty, 1982

To claim that property rights matter regarding questions of justice is simply to assert that the means of an action matter, that every moral agent has a right to defend their body-property and that nobody has a right to initiate force against them. A system of individualized property rights is the practical implementation of a not-so-radical notion: you can’t do good by doing wrong. Libertarians following in a Rothbardian tradition (henceforth “libertarians”) hold that they need only assert, monitor and defend the existence a single right (the natural, human right to property) in order to give practical effect to Spencer’s Law of Equal Freedom, J.S. Mill’s Harm Principle or the now commonly advanced Non-Aggression Principle. The freedom of association is an instance of that right, as are those of speech, contract and anything else one may do with property that does not violate the stronger claims of another.

Properly understood, property rights are no more than an expression of a rule of logic: non-contradiction. If you feel comfortable going up and punching someone then you can’t later complain about someone else – or eighty-thousand someones – treating you similarly. You are free to claim a right to hurt people, if you want, however you must expect to be treated in a like manner. And others are free to cooperate in order to weed out aggressors like yourself. Those who wish to cooperate reap the benefits of civil society, while those who do not remain outside the law and cannot simply appeal for its protection only when it suits their fancy while utterly rejecting it throughout the course of their day to day lives without exposing themselves to a performative contradiction. In addition to being a fundamental axiom of Ayn Rand’s Objectivist philosophy, non-contradiction is also the basis for Stephan Kinsella’s estoppel justification of individualized property rights.

Since property rights are thus a fact of logic, they are by extension a fact of nature, inescapable and absolute. This is what libertarians mean by the phrase “property rights are natural,” and that they have pre-existed their practical recognition or protection by any human institution. In the same way, two plus two has always equaled four, even thousands of years ago, whether or not any primitive tribesmen and women existing at the time could themselves have grasped the concept.

In other words, you can’t treat others like savages, i.e. violate their property rights, and then expect to have your own dignity respected in return. This is different than saying you shouldn’t treat others like savages, or you ought not violate other’s property. It’s more like saying, you shouldn’t treat others like savages, provided that you do not want to be treated like a savage yourself.

So while an individual’s right to property is indeed an absolute, all libertarians mean by that is simply this: in every possible context, it is always legitimate to defend by force the totality of your body-property (your physical body and all subjectively-independent material for which you possess a stronger, objectively verifiable link than does anyone else) from initiations of force by another. In this way then, people have an absolute, inviolable right to be secure in their personal property, with rights simply determining the way civilized human beings ought to treat each other.

The only rights are property rights because the violent enforcement of any “right” you assert which conflicts with natural property rights itself necessarily represents an initiation of force, and is thus contradictory to and in violation of the property rights of others. A pharmacist forced by state regulation to make abortifacients available for sale to her customers in order to be allowed to continue practicing her trade provides a good example. No force has been initiated until this unjust law is enforced, i.e. that the pharmacist must sell X if she wants to continue performing the rest of her otherwise peaceful and productive occupation, and its enforcement necessarily initiates force against otherwise-innocent, religious pharmacists. That is, regardless of one’s view toward abortion or the rights of the unborn, if the pharmacist continues to practice her occupation peacefully but illegally, forcing her to stop by taking her property or threatening her with violence if she doesn’t comply constitutes the initiation of force.

It should come as no surprise when such an action breeds resentment and invites retaliation. Anyone who pushes a rule like this shouldn’t be surprised when like force is used against them in the future in unforeseen ways to which they object equally as strongly. But to the libertarian, evvveryyone, alllwayyys has the right to defend themselves against these sorts of aggressions and are naturally, logically free to do so.

This article has been retrieved from Property Rights Matter, Square One: Liberty through Property where it is no longer accessible.

• One, it’s the only philosophy that provides an adequate justification for transhumanist freedom, and a solid response to those who oppose it;
• Two, it’s the only philosophy that allows mankind to survive long enough and prosper enough to be able to afford transhumanist progress;
• Three, it’s the only philosophy that expands into a rational and consistent framework for handling the new ethical questions that technological progress raises.

1. Transhumanism as a libertarian right

Freedom, Immortality and the Stars!

L. Neil Smith^1-1

1.1. The right to live vs the duty to die

Laissez-faire encapsulates in one word the whole philosophy of liberty: let do. Or, more eloquently: let everyone do whatever they want with whatever is theirs. Libertarians consider both that everyone should be free to do whatever they want with whatever is theirs, and that everyone has the right to do whatever they want with whatever is theirs. It is both a descriptive and a normative position: how the world is (we have that right) and how it should be (that right should be more widely acknowledged). Laws can either recognize our rights or not: whether they do or do not doesn’t affect our rights, it affects our effective freedom^1-2.

Besides a freedom and a right, laissez-faire also translates as an obligation: let us do, that is, do not commit aggressions against us. The non-aggression principle, the law of equal liberty, the identity of rights of all individuals^1-3: I do not have the right to commit aggression against anyone, and no one has the right to commit aggression against me. Anyone who respects this obligation is a civilized being. Anyone who doesn’t is a criminal^1-4. Laws, again, are irrelevant in this respect, they can either acknowledge this reality or deny it. Arresting an aggressor is legitimate defense. Arresting a non-aggressive person is an aggression in itself, and therefore a crime.

Thus, legitimate duties are merely the mirror of legitimate rights. Any sort of other, fake obligations, will in fact inevitably conflict with those real rights and obligations. Fake rights and fake obligations can be more accurately described as attempts by some individuals to use force to extort money or time from other individuals (by claiming a “right” to it or claiming that you would have an “obligation” to do something at their service). Those are anti-conceptual perversions of words, as absurd grammatically as they are ethically^1-5.

Laws can call any sort of behavior “crime”, but calling “crime” any sort of behavior that is not an aggression by an actual person (or group of people) against another actual person (or group of people) is a grammatical absurdity. You cannot commit a crime against “yourself” or “society” anymore than you can “rain someone” or “suicide someone”.

The right to do what I want with what is mine, of course, starts with my body. It is the reason for the prohibition of rape, beating and maiming. It is the reason why it is my holy right to choose to work or not to work^1-6, to have sex or not to have sex (for free or for money, with one person or more people, opposite sex or same sex, etc.), to take drugs or not to take drugs, to live alone, in a family or in a group, to get married or stay single.

But all of the above start from a more fundamental right: the right to my own life. The right to kill myself if I wish, and, more importantly, the prohibition for anyone else to kill me without my authorization. And of course, the right to defend myself against anyone who would trample that right.

Thus, we have no duty to die, and no one has the right to force us to. The options of seeking protection against sickness, aging, pain and death all derive from our right to our own life. We have the right to defend ourselves against all of these afflictions, through any means which don’t infringe on the same rights of others. And we have the duty to grant other individuals the respect of those same rights: to not infringe upon their life, to not infringe upon their physical integrity, to not prevent them from preserving their health and longevity.

1.2. Individualism vs collectivism

The main opposition to this right has come from the pretense by some people to claim rights over other people’s lives. Its main philosophical justification, under one form or another, has been collectivism. The opposition between individualism and collectivism, is indeed the basic issue in the world today^1-7.

However, since only individuals can actually act and make decisions, any group decision is, in the end, the decision of some individuals^1-8. Collectivism is not only ethically wrong, it’s also, again, grammatically wrong: only individuals can eat, love, think, decide^1-9.

The real dichotomy, properly understood, is therefore not whether individuals decide or a mystical “collective” decides^1-10. The issue is who decides over what. The possible answers are: each individual decides for themselves, or, some decide for others.

That is why this dichotomy can also be restated as that between humanism and constructivism^1-11: the first considers that all individuals have the same universal rights (qua human beings), whereas the latter amounts to claiming that some individuals have the right to impose their decisions on others (usually under the pretense of knowing better than them what is good for them, disrespecting their rationality), thus constructing society as central planners.

Which leads us to yet another way of stating the same opposition: the free market (the agora, ἀγορά, agorism) versus politics (πόλις)^1-12. On the free market, each individual decides for themselves; in politics, everyone decides for everyone else. Individualists want nothing to be political, collectivists want everything to be political^1-13.

The individualist thinks in terms of individuals, not collectives, people, not groups. Individuals are not expendable: unlike a constructivist, a humanist doesn’t treat people as pawns in a game. Individualists don’t care about the survival of nations, races, species. Only the survival of each individual being has any relevance. Individuals are not cells of a larger organism, for which only the survival of the organism would matter whereas the aging, dying and replacement of the cells would be irrelevant. Individuals are the only relevant organism level, the living and thinking unit, the acting agent^1-14.

Human rights are individual, private property rights. There can be crimes only against individuals, there cannot be “crimes against society”, “crimes against God”, “crimes against the State”, “crimes against the country”, “victimless crimes”, or “crimes against the human species”^1-15.

1.3. Universal rights vs subjective values

And that’s when I knew, that’s when I knew that the conversation with society has changed profoundly in this last decade. It is no longer a conversation about overcoming deficiency. It’s a conversation about augmentation. It’s a conversation about potential.

Aimee Mullins^1-16

The corollary of the constructivists’ disrespect for other people’s rationality is a lack of understanding of the subjectivity of values.

The value of something is a value of something for somebody. There is no “absolute value” and there is no “intrinsic value”^1-17. Yet again, it’s grammar: value needs the for preposition.

Thus, there is no relevant distinction between human needs and human desires^1-18. In economics terms, we all strive to increase our utility. There is no relevant definition of “needs” that everyone should have a “right” to, and “desires” that would be a superfluous luxury^1-18b. Unless rights infringements are concerned, there is not some value of one person that would give that person the right to disregard another person’s priorities and coerce that person under the pretense of their own preferences. Preferences are not morality, and morality is not rights. Interfering with another person’s utility maximizing schemes is not a matter of a “superior good” or “utility comparisons”, it’s a matter of rights^1-19. Rights are universal and can be enforced, whereas values and preferences are subjective and personal.

The anti-transhumanists define some arbitrary, unjustified limit regarding what level of science, progress, technology, research, life improvement (and free market, for that matter), thus ultimately health and life, is to be “permitted”, or even funded^1-20. Libertarians see no such limit. No anti-transhumanist Luddite actually practices the logical conclusion of his philosophy of death: living as an animal and dying either in childbirth, as an infant or through any common infection.

For there is no moral difference between using a disinfectant on your wound and taking a pill to reverse aging. Both are a manifestation of our desire and right to live, and to use whatever peaceful means we wish to achieve it. There is no moral difference between using a wheelchair if you can’t walk, getting new legs, or genetically preventing such handicaps in the first place^1-21. There is no moral difference either between preventing, indemnifying, alleviating the effects of, or reversing altogether the effects of accidents, and using the same options when these handicaps are by birth^1-22.

1.4. Freedom of association vs religious power

Most of the opposition to the alleviation of pain, aging and death has come from religions, either directly or through religion-inspired pseudo-moralities enshrined into law.

Laissez-faire, of course, defends absolute freedom of religion. But it doesn’t defend it per se. It defends it as part of a much wider philosophy. It defends freedom of religion as a consequence of the freedom of expression and the freedom of association. And it defends both of these as mere consequences of property rights, the principle of non-aggression. There can be conflict between freedom of religion and other freedoms, but not among correctly defined property rights, which all include their own limit: my right to do whatever I want with what is mine never includes a right to do it with what is not mine. Freedom of religion, thus, is a consequence of property rights—not an excuse for trampling them.

As libertarians, we have nothing to say about God, or about religion in general. And we would have nothing to say, qua libertarians, about religious organizations, if they limited themselves to expressing opinions about which behaviors lead to heaven and which lead to hell, about the meaning of life or about the origin of the world. We would have nothing to say against any religion, if they stayed out of politics. If they didn’t use—or attempt to use—the State to commit violence against us in order to force us to finance them, and force their religious views upon us by enacting laws justified on religious grounds that have no relevance whatsoever for all the non-believers to whom they’ll nevertheless apply as well.

Philosophically, most religions embrace pain, suffering and death, as sacrifice, as martyrdom, as tests of one’s worth, as measures of value, as necessities, as God’s will, as opportunities to make moral choices, as challenges to ensure a better post in the afterlife, etc^1-23. They oppose man’s improvement and quest for immortality, considering as blasphemy our getting closer to God-like achievements. They consider the afterlife, not immortality, as the priority to consider^1-24.

Religions usually oppose various aspects or degrees of progress, especially medical, be it vaccination, blood transfusion (Jehovah’s witnesses^1-25), organ sale (Catholic Church^1-26), medically assisted procreation, pre-implantation diagnosis^1-27, etc.

Which of course, goes completely against the aim of transhumanism. As far as laissez-faire is concerned, it only upholds the right of every individual to choose for themselves. If religions impose their views on no one, and merely defend pain, suffering and death as a personal choice, they can be tolerated as any sort of masochistic practice or cult whose members are only free willing consenting adults. If not, if they try to use their philosophical justification of pain, suffering and death to impose them unto others through legislation, then alas they go clearly against the laissez-faire non-aggression stance as well^1-28.

1.5. Presumption of freedom vs precautionary principle

Libertarians have always defended the presumption of innocence, and its political version, the presumption of freedom^1-29. Applied to new technologies, it means that if someone wants to ban something, the burden of proof rests on them, to demonstrate that it constitutes an aggression and should be banned.

The attack against this principle, most harmful to transhumanism, has come from its opposite, the “precautionary principle”^1-30, which has been criticized by libertarians.

The banning of new technologies should require, to the very least, strong proof of their harm... and not just some “precautionary” decisions decided by “ethical committees” who offer no rational argument for their infringements on our rights.

1.6. Power over nature vs power over people

Violence is the tool of the state. Knowledge and the mind are the tools of free people.

Lew Rockwell^1-31

And lastly, the opposition between laissez-faire and the state, between the economic means and the political means, has also been the conflict between growth and stagnation, technology versus bureaucracy, entrepreneurs versus the status quo. In the end, it’s a very old conflict, and it boils down to civilization versus barbarism^1-32.

Transhumanists and libertarians care about achieving technological progress, controlling nature, expanding the power of individuals over nature. Statists (in both senses: defending both the static, non-dynamic view of the world and the state) care about redistributing power in a static world view, achieving power over other men. Relative power status is more important to them than the absolute wealth growth of mankind and the individuals that compose it^1-33.

To us, on the other hand, technological progress, individual freedom, personal development, and transhumanism, are all part of a dynamic progression of individuals towards more absolute wealth, power over nature, control of their environments, and happiness.

2. The impossibility of a non-libertarian future

In a thousand years, our ideas will be either obvious and generally acknowledged without any debate, or mankind will have degenerated back to the Stone Age. In either case, no one will be debating politics.

Jan Krepelka^2-1

2.1. Economic growth vs starvation

If the State had been abolished a century ago, we’d all have robots and summer homes in the Asteroid belt.

Samuel Edward Konkin III^2-2

Anarchy is all around us. Without it, our world would fall apart. All progress is due to it. All order extends from it. All blessed things that rise above the state of nature are owed to it. The human race thrives only because of the lack of control, not because of it. I’m saying that we need ever more absence of control to make the world a more beautiful place.

Jeffrey Tucker

States don’t create wealth: individuals create wealth, and whenever they do it they’re acting in a laissez-faire manner. The only reason we’re even having the transhumanism debate is that there has been enough laissez-faire to allow us to afford it.

North Korea, struggling against famine, does likely not have those concerns. You don’t think about living forever when you can barely find enough food to survive the day. The reason we got out of the bare survival stage is through entrepreneurship, innovation, technological progress and accumulation of capital.

All of these are free market principles. Their effect, although magnificent, has been sabotaged and impeded by governments. Through favoring vested, static^2-3, particular interests. Trying to “save jobs”, that is, jobs in old, inefficient technologies. Taxing work and capital^2-3b. Destroying money as a means of exchange^2-4. If you think the effect of state interventions on the level of wealth, and thus technology, is mild, do the math again^2-5.

The free market is the power to create. The State is the power to destroy. The economic means is the means of production. The political means is the means of destruction. On the market, people create wealth. The State merely redistributes it, destroying most of it in the process. Taxes do not produce anything.

The reason we can even consider transhumanism is that we live in mixed economies, half-capitalist, half-socialist. The reason we haven’t achieved transhumanism a century ago is exactly the same one.

2.2. Immortality vs the State’s interests

A situação é muito grave, a mais grave de quantas o país teve de viver até hoje.

[It’s an extremely grave situation, the gravest situation the country has ever had to live through.]

The government, after learning about the end of death^2-6.

She had thought that industrial production was a value not to be questioned by anyone; she had thought that these men’s urge to expropriate the factories of others was their acknowledgment of the factories value. [...] She saw what they wanted and to what goal their “instincts,” which they called unaccountable, were leading them. She saw that Eugene Lawson, the humanitarian, took pleasure at the prospect of human starvation—and Dr. Ferris, the scientist, was dreaming of the day when men would return to the hand-plow.

Ayn Rand^2-7

If you think that despite that, the State might somehow channel its resources towards transhumanist goals, think again.

First of all, the State could invest 100 percent of its current budget in transhumanism, it would still be nothing compared to the wealth we would have spent on it by now if it had stopped impoverishing us a few hundred years ago^2-8. Anything we think we have “thanks to the State”, is an accounting fallacy^2-9.

But even more fundamentally, life extension goes completely against the interests of States and their world view. States are all about a static (duh) view of the world, of resources to “allocate”, of territories to control. Of life cycles, birth certificates, residency permissions, etc. The State is not made for the Globalization Age^2-10, nor for the Space Age, and certainly not for the Immortality Age. Their Madoff-based social security systems were not designed for it. Their collectivist ideologies don’t care about it.

2.3. Civilization vs politics

Communism—you can see it from space^2-11.

All production restrictions directly hamper some produc­tion inasmuch as they prevent certain employment oppor­tunities that are open to the goods of higher order (land, capital, labor). By its very nature, a government decree that “it be” cannot create anything that has not been created before. Only the naive inflationists could believe that govern­ment could enrich mankind through fiat money. Govern­ment cannot create anything; its orders cannot even evict anything from the world of reality, but they can evict from the world of the permissible. Government cannot make man richer, but it can make him poorer.

Ludwig von Mises^2-12

In the long run we are all dead.

John Maynard Keynes^2-13

We’ve seen that states hamper growth and lead to starvation. We’ve seen that immortal beings do not fit their collectivist model of interchangeable, “equal”, mortal slave-subjects. But even more than that, the very idea of the long term, of civilization, is entirely antithetical to the statist ideology, especially in its “democratic” fashion^2-14.

Civilization is a long term thing. It starts with planting grain for the next season instead of eating it right away (investment over Keynesian economics). It means saving wealth instead of spending it. It’s the positive sum game of creation. Politics, on the other hand, is a short term affair: grabbing power, redistributing wealth. It’s a zero sum game in principle, which always ends up being a negative sum game of mutual impoverishment and destruction^2-15: TANSTAAFL, and there is also no such thing as a free lunch redistribution, no such thing as a neutral tax^2-16, no such thing as a harmless and costless state intervention.

Therefore, there are no realistic science-fiction dystopias: there can be no technologically advanced socialist societies in the future, since socialism focuses only on consuming current resources. There is no long term under Keynesian, socialist policies. Statist policies are “max my credit card and drink myself to death” policies, nothing more^2-17.

2.3.1. Private monies vs back to barter

Consider the question of money. Sound monies, whose value cannot be changed at will by any given individual, such as gold and bitcoin, are what encourages saving. Fiat monies, on the other hand, defeat the very purpose of money^2-18: sometimes to the point that barter becomes more interesting again.

Given the current inflation rate, in 2349, US prices of 1913 will have been multiplied by one million. A one dollar haircut will cost one million dollars, whereas a 500 dollars car will cost 500 million dollars^2-19. Where did all that purchasing power go? In the government’s agents’ pockets: wasted.

The theft implied in manipulating the money supply can be more or less direct: inflation^2-20, devaluation^2-21, demonetization^2-22: all push away from the civilized use of money either as store of value for the future or in transactions. An even more direct example of the same issue is outright confiscation of money held in savings account^2-23: all of those measures not only divert money from producers to looters (already both a moral and an economic outrage), but also discourage the producers from producing and saving in the first place.

A more sophisticated form of theft: impose negative interest rates, an utter absurdity in itself. As Mises wrote:

Time preference is not a “psychological assumption,” but the effect of the physical and chemical structure of the universe in which man lives and acts. It refers to the fact that in order to be alive in March a man must first survive the month of February.

Ludwig von Mises^2-24

At which point, of course, having money in the bank would not be very interesting indeed—so the next step is to ban cash altogether^2-25, which as a free bonus also has the “advantage” of permitting utter surveillance of the (slave) population.

2.3.2. Long-term investment vs short-term leeching

An interesting conclusion can be derived by taking into account Wagner’s Law^2-26, the Laffer Curve^2-27, and the effect of government on reducing growth^2-28. Given that (1) economic growth is accompanied by an overproportional growth of the state and (2) the growth of the state reduces growth, something somewhere must give in at some point. This is what we see with the current crisis with countries having negative growth rates, that is, decline. Decline! In 2019, despite technological progress, despite globalization, imagine the degree of destruction that had to be committed to achieve such a feat!

Wagner’s Law is therefore only valid over a relatively short period of time, before the two curves (economic growth and state growth) converge. Statism is not an alternative to laissez-faire—it’s merely a parasitic disease that survives on a healthy host until it kills it^2-29.

Likewise, the usual analysis of the Laffer curve forgets not only its inherent asymmetry^2-30, but also the time factor. Obviously given a time horizon of zero, the state-revenue-maximizing tax would be 100%. Over the long run, however, since any degree of taxation hampers growth, if a state really wanted to maximize its long term revenue, then (1) tax levels would tend towards zero, in order to profit from exponential growth of the economy in the long run, (2) government spending would tend towards zero as well, since it would also make more sense to enjoy compound interest (depending on interest rates as compared to growth rates) over the long run on whatever the state collected.

However the Laffer Curve, and our proposed dynamic Laffer Curve which would take into account the time horizon to be considered, is merely theoretical. Real governments are made of real people whose main concern is to maximize their individual wealth and power—that is, not to maximize the state’s revenue through maximizing the economy’s growth, but merely either get (re)elected over a short time horizon or just grab whatever they can while holding office for themselves, their friends, or whoever pays them.

2.3.3. Voting is evil versus voting for the lesser evil

Parliament: anagram of partial men.

Libertarian philosophy is against politics, against elections, against voting^2-31. Conversely, politics’ tribal mindset^2-31b usually leads to a two-party system, conflict, a destructive war of all against all for handouts^2-32, and “voting for the lesser evil”.

Now think about that last one for a minute: voting for the lesser evil. How’s that supposed to work out in the long run? What sort of civilization can be built by voting for more and more evil every year? Why complain about a particular outcome of a given system, without ever questioning the very system that made this outcome possible?^2-32b

Don’t Blame Me, I Voted for Kodos.

2.4. Anarchy vs extinction

Have the antihuman ideologies already at the fore in the early 20th century been replaced by an ideology of individual rights and economic freedom? Is the world moving away from collectivism and socialism and toward laissez-faire capitalism, or, to the contrary, is even the slightest trace of economic freedom described as laissez-faire and blamed for the existence of the present economic crisis, thereby impelling the world toward still more government control and still less economic freedom?

There is clearly a potential threat to human life and well-being looming on the horizon that is of unprecedented proportions.

George Reisman, “Gun Control—on the Government’s Guns”

The full destruction of mankind: only possible through government.

Genocide: only possible through government.

Government. Bringing you the public good of human extinction threat, since 1945.

But without government, who would put mankind at risk?

Government. In case we need to blow up the planet.

Government. Because who else could afford nuclear pollution and destruction?

To be immortal, step one is: don’t get killed. Avoiding extinction is thus paramount—both at a global and at an individual level. This requires two things:

• disarming criminal groups, including governments, which are institutionally irresponsible;
• arming individuals, which are legally responsible for their actions.

2.4.1 Life vs mass murder

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.

P. J. O’Rourke

The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes

Donald Trump, politician, in control of 7,700 nuclear warheads

Meet Satan 2: Russia’s New ICBM Nuke Capable of Leveling France or Texas in One Hit

Futurism.com, October 27th 2016

Let’s be clear: mankind’s future is not safe as long as there are states. Only governments (that is, individuals using the institutional power and structural irresponsibility that is by definition only possible through government) can commit murder on such a large scale and get away with, pollute entire regions and hide it^2-33.

Governments cannot be trusted with civilian nuclear power plants, let alone nuclear arsenals. Governments are irresponsible, by definition. In the 20th century alone, the existence of governments has made possible the cold-blooded murder of 260 million people^2-34. Some of those governments even started democratically—of course, a functional democracy is a very unstable thing. Wanna bet mankind’s survival on it^2-35?

Governments cannot be trusted with money, with weapons, nor with anything else. And especially not given a system which allows the worst to get on top^2-36, then grants them control over nuclear arsenals^2-37.

The only guarantee against democides, genocides, psychopaths in control of vast armies and mankind’s utter destruction are decentralized, distributed power systems: abolition of all governments^2-38 and individually armed populations and private defense agencies^2-39.

2.4.2 Armed freemen vs disarmed slaves

The one political issue which most clearly and unmistakably demonstrates what any politician—or political philosophy—is made of, right down to the creamy liquid center.

L. Neil Smith, “Why Did it Have to be ... Guns?”

You see, in this world there’s two kinds of people, my friend: Those with loaded guns and those who dig.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Indeed, no one went into the Gulag^2-40 or concentration camps to be forced to dig their own graves, carrying their loaded gun.

An armed population, such as Switzerland or the USA, makes a country in effect impossible to invade, and a genocide impossible to be committed. It preserves peace, and keeps a country safe from dictators, civil wars, abusive government, radical groups’ takeovers, etc^2-41.

2.5. Individuals vs the void

People are so desperate for an interruption to modernity—even if they wouldn’t put it that way—that they would consciously choose the void.

Cody R. Wilson

Death solves all problems—no man, no problem.

Attributed to Joseph Stalin, socialist politician, responsible for the deaths of dozens of millions of human beings^2-42

Giacché, per il fascista, tutto è nello Stato, e nulla di umano o spirituale esiste, e tanto meno ha valore, fuori dello Stato. In tal senso il fascismo è totalitario, e lo Stato fascista, sintesi e unità di ogni valore, interpreta, sviluppa e potenzia tutta la vita del popolo.

[For the fascist, everything is in the state, and nothing human or spiritual exists, let alone has value, outside of the state. In this sense fascism is totalitarian, and the fascist state, synthesis and unity of every value, interprets, develops and strengthens the whole life of the people.]

Benito Mussolini, socialist politician^2-43

Even deeper than all that we’ve seen so far, at its core, the libertarian philosophy is the only non-nihilism^2-44. It’s the only philosophy which takes seriously the only thinking entity: the individual. Any other philosophy, at its core, can only lead towards one direction: the void^2-45. Since individuals are the only entities which can have rights, being against individual rights does not mean choosing another option, it means rejecting the very notion of rights^2-46. Socialism is not an alternative to the free market—it is, in the long run, an alternative to life itself:

A society that chooses between capitalism and socialism does not choose between two social systems; it chooses between social cooperation and the disintegration of society. Socialism is not an alternative to capitalism; it is an alternative to any system under which men can live as human beings^2-47.

Mass starvation and concentration camps were not accidents of statism, nor were totalitarianisms some historical anomalies. They are all consequences of not taking individual rights seriously. All their violations are then merely matters of degree, consequences of various degrees of evil of the same statist philosophy (or lack of libertarian philosophy): negation of private property, that is, negation of individual rights. It’s everything the state does, from mandatory census^2-48 to the White Sea–Baltic Canal digging^2-49: the same principle of using violence to enforce one’s whims.

Consider the way the rights of some humans were violated by both non-democratic and democratic regimes, on the mere arbitrary basis of their sexual orientation^2-50:

Only about 40 percent of these pink triangle prisoners—whose numbers amounted to an estimated 10,000—survived the camps. Some of them, after their release by the Allied Forces, were placed back in prison, because they had not yet finished court-mandated terms of imprisonment for homosexual acts.

Or the particular case of a Mr. Alan Turing^2-51:

Turing played a pivotal role in cracking intercepted coded messages that enabled the Allies to defeat the Nazis in many crucial engagements, including the Battle of the Atlantic; it has been estimated that this work shortened the war in Europe by as many as four years and saved over fourteen million lives.

Turing was prosecuted in 1952 for homosexual acts, when such behaviour was still a criminal act in the UK. He accepted treatment with DES (chemical castration) as an alternative to prison. Turing died in 1954, 16 days before his 42nd birthday, from cyanide poisoning. An inquest determined his death as suicide.

Consider various new forms of statism, e.g. the “environmentalism” movement, which calls for population restrictions, or putting nature before humans—various forms of Cultural Marxism: instruments for manipulating the masses to spread collectivism. But collectivism itself is nothing but an instrument of manipulation, whose actual aim is power, power of some individuals over other individuals. The “useful idiots” of collectivism are those who help to bring it about, at their own expense^2-52. Since of course everyone is an individual, going against individualism is necessarily being an useful idiot, sooner or later. But an useful idiot of what, of whom?

During Stalin’s time, the collectivists were the useless idiots of a psychopath that would kill them sooner or later—indeed, among Stalin’s victims, there are some over which there’s no reason to cry: the ones who were mass murderers themselves, often his previously closest associates. And incidentally, they’re all dead. All those useful idiots, and their puppet-masters, they’re all dead—after having achieved nothing but death around them. From a transhumanist perspective, they failed at the only meaningful thing: achieving immortality. All useless idiots of nothingness.

Today’s propagandists following memes launched by the KGB are nothing but the useful idiots of dead psychopaths. On the last regression, this makes them the useful idiots of death—the useless idiots of death, the useless idiots of nothingness, of the void^2-53...

3. Libertarian ethics as the moral and legal framework of the new era

En tout état de cause, on peut bien tempêter contre l’individualisation du pouvoir sur la vie, mais il faut se rappeler que le monopole de ce pouvoir par l’État s’est traduit par des avortements forcés, des stérilisations, des empêchements au mariage ou à la procréation, et que l’histoire de l’eugénisme d’État n’est pas la plus honorable qui soit. On peut bien sûr préférer à la liberté procréative ou au bien-être des individus à naître les valeurs qu’ils ont remplacées, mais il ne faut pas oublier que ces valeurs n’étaient autres que le « sang allemand », la « nation française » ou le « peuple américain ». Autrement dit, le propre du pouvoir sur la vie contemporain est de rompre une bonne fois avec le fantasme d’entités biologiques collectives, en faisant de l’ensemble de la vie, des processus biologiques, de la matière vitale, un moyen au service de la vie biologique et morale des individus.

[Sure, one can rant against the individualization of the power over life, but we must remember that the monopolization of this power by the State has resulted in forced abortions, sterilizations, impediments to marriage and procreation; indeed the history of state eugenics is not a very honorable one. One can of course prefer to the reproductive freedom and well-being of unborn individuals the values which ​​they replaced, but let’s not forget that these values ​​were none other than the “German blood”, the “French nation” or the “American people”. In other words, what defines the contemporary view of power over life is to break once and for all with the fantasy of collective biological entities, making the whole of life, biological processes and vital matter into means at the service of the biological and moral lives of individuals.]

Marcela Iacub^3-1

3.1. Individual vs collective power over genetics

As Marcela Iacub summarized, someone must be making reproductive decisions. If it’s not the individuals concerned, then it’s the State, and the latter is far more dangerous.

And, as we have seen, it’s not a question of the collective welfare of “the species” or “the nation” versus that of selfish, egotistical individuals^3-2.

It’s the choice of some individuals versus the choice of other individuals. The only relevant question, thus, is who has the right to decide over what? And what means can be used to enforce that decision?

The best frame to answer those questions is private property rights, individualism, and the non-aggression principle.

3.2. Individual rights vs genetical differences

Remember, rights are individual rights. And individual rights do not depend on genetic code, on “race” or “gender”. Therefore, the rights of clones, or any other genetically engineered individuals, would be no different than the rights of anyone else, for the same reason that we don’t have different rights for men and women, blacks and whites, twins, etc. And those rights would include the right to sue the persons responsible, if the genetical changes were damaging ones^3-3.

Le droit, grâce à la catégorie de « personne », ne les [les clones] traiterait pas moins comme des réalités uniques ayant chacune d’entre elles une inscription dans l’état civil, un nom, un patrimoine, des droits et des obligations. Chacun des milliers de clones serait une personne à part entière et aucun amoindrissement de leur statut ne résulterait du fait qu’ils possèdent le même patrimoine génétique que des milliers d’autres individus. En d’autres termes, le droit ne connaît pas les clones mais des personnes ayant le même statut les unes que les autres.

[The Law, thanks to the “person” category, would nevertheless consider clones as unique realities, having each a birth registration of their own, a name, property, rights and obligations. Each one of the thousands of clones would be a full-fledged person and no diminishment of their status would result from the fact of their having the same genetic patrimony as thousands of other individuals. In other words, the Law doesn’t consider clones, but only persons, all having the same status as each other.]

Marcela Iacub^3-4

Genetical differences are not relevant for rights, and thus, their descriptions have no place in Law.

The function of the Law is to determine when it is legitimate to use violence:

Il n’y a pas de classifications juridiques, de distinctions juridiques qui ne soient fondées sur des normes de contrainte ; toute distinction juridique entre les personnes implique que l’on distribue d’une manière différentielle des droits et des obligations, c’est-à-dire des pouvoirs sociaux à certains individus au détriment d’autres, à certains individus et pas aux autres.

[There are no legal classifications or legal distinctions not based on coercive norms; any legal distinction between people means that rights and obligations are differentially distributed, that is, social powers are given to some individuals at the expense of others, to some individuals and not to others.]

Marcela Iacub^3-5

Nothing else concerns, or should concern, the Law. Not to construct a symbolic order of a society, not to “construct” what society should look like beyond preservation of peace, not to preserve any “anthropological values”:

De ce fait, l’idée selon laquelle, à travers la mise en place des distinctions anthropologiques, le droit dessine un ordre symbolique n’est adéquate ni pour décrire le fonctionnement du droit, ni pour retrouver des limites à ses transformations, voire pour établir des prédictions d’aucune sorte.

[Therefore, the idea that, through the implementation of anthropological distinctions, the law draws a symbolic order, is adequate neither to describe the functioning of law, nor to find limits to its transformations, and not even to establish predictions of any kind.]

Marcela Iacub^3-6

The Law should not be concerned about genetical differences among individuals for the simple reason that they have no relevance for regulating aggression. There are substantial differences between men and women, blacks and whites, heterosexuals and homosexuals. But these differences have no relevance for Law, and none of these words should therefore appear in any text of legislation^3-7. Exactly like the words “bald” and “hairy” do not appear in texts of law, because baldness or hairiness, although sources of differences relevant to the lives of those individuals, are not sources of different rights^3-8. Likewise, biological capabilities are not sources of rights, and capabilities should not be confused with rights^3-9.

Thus, any further genetical differences between humans would have no relevance for a libertarian legal order either. For a consistent, rational, libertarian legal system, which limits itself to prohibiting aggressions such as murder, rape and theft, any other social and genetic evolutions are not a concern. Universal rules will remain universal^3-10.

3.3. Identical rights vs equality

Identical rights do not yield “equality”. Nor should they. “Equality” has never been properly defined: equality of income? Of wealth? Of success? Of happiness?

The egalitarians usually focus on some one measure, in a static world view, then proceed to use coercion to “fix” it.

In the real, dynamic world, different competences and different choices lead to different results. On a free market, you are as wealthy as other people are willing to make you by purchasing your products and services. If you think that outcome is “unfair”, then you consider “unfair” the voluntary choices of thousands of individuals interacting on the market. That is, you intend to use coercion to impose your personal choices against theirs.

“Equality” is thus a meaningless, irrelevant concept for a libertarian^3-11. Far more important than relative “distribution” of wealth is the huge increase in the standard of living over the centuries, made possible only through economic freedom.

But it is worth pointing out that transhumanism is not likely to make particularly happy those who are already complaining about the wealth differences due to accumulations of capital, inheritances, and income differences. Transhumanism means that some people will be able to accumulate capital over even longer periods of time. Smart people will become even smarter through brain-enhancing drugs, and their kids will be even smarter through genetic improvement.

However, in the end, everyone profits from progress, whether it is accumulation of capital over the years or technological and medical progress. Even poor people have seen their lives vastly improved through the rise in absolute incomes. Technologies that at first only the rich can afford are now available to the wide masses. Transhumanist progress, likewise, will at first be available to the few, but the many will profit from the technology as well.

But for that to happen, a positive sum game, dynamic worldview is required, not the zero sum game, static worldview (which inevitably becomes a negative sum game). People’s concerns must go from envy of their neighbors towards their own possibilities^3-12.

The laissez-faire approach towards the irrelevance of inequality, and a correct understanding of economics and the accumulation of capital and its morality, are thus essential for understanding and accepting the changes brought by transhumanism.

3.4. Rights and liberties vs forbidden-or-mandatory

But we are agorists: propertarian anarchists. Our prosperity to date has come by following agoric principles and we envision even further prosperity when agoric principles are generally adopted. Why would we abandon market principles we have found efficacious in favor of hegemonic ones that have led society after society into ruin?

J. Neil Schulman^3-13

The collectivist paradigm is that everything must be either forbidden or mandatory. The individualist paradigm is that the only thing that is forbidden is aggression, and the only thing that is mandatory is not committing aggressions. Everything else is rights and freedoms, for each individual to make his own choices.

Thus, there ought not to be a grand collective debate “for or against” transhumanism, a collective, political decision to be taken. Everyone is free to do what they want to do as long as they don’t infringe on other people’s property rights. No one has the right to force anything upon anyone. There is no conflict between legitimate rights and values, only between real rights and fake rights.

Transhumanists have a right to enhance their bodies. The Amish have the right to live without technology. Neither has the right to force their views upon the others. Power cannot be used for good, not even to make transhumanism mandatory, or criticism of transhumanism forbidden. Trying to harness the power of the state for the “good” cause of transhumanism is an illusion, as we have seen in section 2.2. anyway. More fundamentally, individual rights are absolute, no “good cause” can be used to trample them^3-14.

3.5. The tough question: who has rights?

Libertarianism investigated the nature of man to explain his rights deriving from non-coercion. It immediately followed that man (woman, child, Martian, etc.) had an absolute right to his life and other property—and no other.

Samuel Edward Konkin III^3-15

An expanding definition of “human being” will challenge our view of what defines “human” rights. It’s the frontier of the human rights theory. But that’s not an issue for transhumanism and laissez-faire, on the contrary.

This question was already being raised by debates such as abortion (where does life begin?), rights of handicapped people who lack certain capabilities, animal rights, handling interaction with exospecies, etc. In all those cases, the question is the same: who is, and what isn’t, an individual sentient being with rights^3-16?

No philosophy that I know of has provided any consistent answer in this regard. Laissez-faires’s property rights theory, though, is the best place to start, the best framework to consider the issue. Although not providing an answer to everything, it provides, firstly, a consistent framework to handle all the subsequent issues of rights among rights-holders; and secondly, even this tough question has been handled better by libertarians than anyone else^3-17.

Transhumanism, by challenging our conceptions in this regard, and expanding science to further explore the very definitions of “life”, “sentience”, “conscience”, and “person”, is the only way to give ourselves the means to pursue this quest: not to contradict laissez-faire, but to clarify it even further, make it stronger and even more universal. And thus, laissez-faire and transhumanism, together, can achieve an even stronger case for individual private property rights than we ever had for human rights.

Conclusion

Transhumanism is thus an essential part of the magnificent future that awaits our civilization. Laissez-faire is its ethical justification, laissez-faire is its material precondition, and laissez-faire is its legal framework. Indeed, laissez-faire has always been all of the above for any kind of civilization properly understood, but the more civilization evolves and becomes more advanced, the more utterly synonymous with it it becomes:

If government controls could achieve nothing but paralysis, starvation, and collapse in a pre-industrial age, what happens when one imposes controls on a highly industrialized economy? Which is easier for bureaucrats to regulate: the operation of hand looms and hand forges—or the operation of steel mills, aircraft plants, and electronics concerns? Who is more likely to work under coercion: a horde of brutalized men doing unskilled manual labor—or the incalculable number of individual men of creative genius required to build and to maintain an industrial civilization? And if government controls fail even with the first, what depth of evasion permits modern statists to hope that they can succeed with the second?

Ayn Rand^3-18

Any other approach is a delusion. Expecting so-called committees on “bioethics” or religious or government commissions on “ethics” to reach the correct conclusions about right and wrong is a sick joke at best. Their members are usually composed either of people whose only qualification is to be members of religious organizations with no real competence on the relevant issues, or of scientists who reach conclusions strangely inspired by religious pseudo-ethics, not rational philosophy. Expecting governments, whose main achievement is impoverishment of mankind, to finance transhumanism, a grave contradiction. Expecting those who try to bring us down even for achieving wealth to let us achieve the far greater ambition of immortality—a dangerous mistake.

Transhumanists should not expect anything from government. Transhumanists should not ask government for funding. Transhumanists, above all, should not strive for government power in order to impose transhumanism through the same means which are being used to fight it. The high-level freedom to achieve immortality, the freedom from death, will not be accomplished by trespassing on more basics freedom—the freedom from aggression, whatever its justification. The question is not how to rule over men, nor even whether to rule over men, but how can anyone pretend to have the right to rule over men. The question is not which religion government should impose, nor whether it should impose one at all, but why would anyone have the right to impose any religion at all. The goal is not power over men, the goal is power over nature. Laissez-faire fights the former, transhumanism is the ultimate frontier of the latter.

Transhumanism is part of the magnificent future that awaits our civilization, but only through laissez-faire shall it be possible, affordable and moral. Transhumanism is one of the reasons why laissez-faire is essential for mankind, and laissez-faire is one of the reasons why transhumanism is mankind’s birthright. Both are essential components of our civilization that support each other: a transhumanist yearning highlights the dire necessity of laissez-faire, and a laissez-faire philosophy enables to go past the usual prejudice and see the grandeur of transhumanism.

It’s time we built the future: laissez-nous faire.

Originally published on July 29th, 2014, on Laissez-faire.ch as “Transhumanism: the next step of civilization” by Jan Krepelka.

Footnotes have been continuously extended since. Part two has been heavily extended, and the footnotes re-numbered, in 2018-2019.

French translation: “Le transhumanisme : la prochaine étape de la civilisation”.

EPUB MOBI

Table of contents

1. 1. Transhumanism as a libertarian right
   1. 1.1. The right to live vs the duty to die
   2. 1.2. Individualism vs collectivism
   3. 1.3. Universal rights vs subjective values
   4. 1.4. Freedom of association vs religious power
   5. 1.5. Presumption of freedom vs precautionary principle
   6. 1.6. Power over nature vs power over people
2. 2. The impossibility of a non-libertarian future
   1. 2.1. Economic growth vs starvation
   2. 2.2. Immortality vs the State’s interests
   3. 2.3. Civilization vs politics
      1. 2.3.1. Private monies vs back to barter
      2. 2.3.2. Long-term investment vs short-term leeching
      3. 2.3.3. Voting is evil versus voting for the lesser evil
   4. 2.4. Anarchy vs extinction
      1. 2.4.1 Life vs mass murder
      2. 2.4.2 Armed freemen vs disarmed slaves
   5. 2.5. Individuals vs the void
3. 3. Libertarian ethics as the moral and legal framework of the new era
   1. 3.1. Individual vs collective power over genetics
   2. 3.2. Individual rights vs genetical differences
   3. 3.3. Identical rights vs equality
   4. 3.4. Rights and liberties vs forbidden-or-mandatory
   5. 3.5. The tough question: who has rights?
4. Conclusion

Footnotes

^1-1 The great libertarian science fiction author L. Neil Smith thus summarizes in three words how every transhumanist libertarian sees the future. ↩

^1-2 This view of rights being not granted by law, but merely recognized and protected by law, is acknowledged by the US Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. —That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men.↩

^1-3 Equal rights in the libertarian sense means identical rights, the latter being less prone to conceptual confusion. On Law and rights, see Jan Krepelka, “The impossibility of a non-libertarian philosophy of Law”, January 18, 2015. ↩

^1-4 And anyone who campaigns for a wider recognition of the non-aggression principle is a libertarian, and anyone who campaigns for the opposite, that is, more aggression to be committed against peaceful people and/or no consequences for committing aggressions against peaceful people, is a statist. ↩

^1-5 Real rights are negative rights, liberty rights, rights from. Fake rights are positive rights, claim rights, rights to. Real obligations are obligations not to do, fake obligations are obligations to do. Real rights and obligations are the mirror of one another, fake rights and obligations are independent from one another. Real rights and obligations are universal, fake rights and obligations are contextual. Real rights and obligations are enforceable by anyone against anyone, their respect being required of all, fake rights and fake obligations are conditioned by other arbitrary rules.

[...] injustice or wrong always consists in working harm on another. Therefore the conception of wrong is positive, and antecedent to the conception of right, which is negative, and simply denotes the actions performable without injury to others; in other words, without wrong being done. [...] The theory that right is negative, in contradistinction to wrong as positive, we find supported by Hugo Grotius, the father of philosophical jurisprudence [...] [Justice here denotes nothing else than that which is just, and this, rather in a negative than in a positive sense; so that what is not unjust is to be regarded as justice.][...] The negative character of justice is also established, little as it may appear, even by the familiar formula: Give to each one his own. Now, there is no need to give a man his own, if he has it. The real meaning is therefore: Take from none his own. Since the requirements of justice are only negative, they may be effected by coercion; for the neminem læde can be practised by all alike.

Arthur Schopenhauer, On the Basis of Morality, “The Virtue of Justice”

The attacks against real rights and their mirror real obligations, have come from both fronts: fake rights, such as rights to food, job and housing, which resemble more a “letter to Santa Claus” than a list of rights, and fake obligations, such as “civic duties”, declarations of “Human Duties”, proposals to enact a “Bill of Duties”, etc. Both attacks conveniently ignore the other side of the coin, which is: whose real rights shall be trampled in order to coerce someone into providing those fake rights (can you “provide” a right? again, it’s down to grammar), and who’s going to get away with ignoring his real non-aggression obligation by forcing others into accomplishing those fake duties?

Ayn Rand thus rightly referred to “duty” as “one of the most destructive anti-concepts in the history of moral philosophy” (Ayn Rand, Philosophy: Who Needs It, “Causality Versus Duty”).

See for instance, about a proposal for a “declaration of duties towards mankind”: Simone Weil, L’enracinement. Prélude à une déclaration des devoirs envers l’être humain, Paris, Gallimard, 1949 [The Need For Roots, Prelude To A Declaration Of Duties Towards Mankind, London, Routledge Kegan Paul, 1952]. And more recently the Co-Prince of Andorra, Flamby the 1st, on the “rights of mankind”: “Conférence climat 2015 : Hollande veut une « déclaration sur les droits de l'humanité pour préserver la planète »” [“Climate conference 2015: Hollande wants a ‘declaration on the rights of mankind to preserve the planet’”], Le Figaro, December 31, 2014.

Fake rights give the very notion of human rights a bad name, and substitute the nihilism of power, authority and democracy for rational law. Instead of laws protecting us against crimes, laws become mere expressions of capricious personal desires. (Jan Krepelka, “Qu’est-ce que le laissez-faire?”, January 1st, 2011.)

The French government, for instance, after proclaiming various positive rights, has taken the next step of making them “enforceable”. The very fact that some positive rights are “enforceable” while others are not should give us a hint already as to the nature of those “rights”. The French word is “droit opposable”, “oppposable right”, which implies that it can be “opposed” to someone: whom? Again, a right is by definition something that is opposable to everyone and enforceable by everyone. It cannot be “provided”, it cannot be “used once or twice”, and it cannot be “valid only every Tuesday, in downtown Paris, after 9pm”: it can only be recognized or not recognized, violated or respected. Any other use of the word is a grammatical absurdity and a deliberate perversion of a rational theory of ethics. ↩

^1-6 This offers a nice illustration of the confusion between real and fake rights (see foonote 1-5).