Category: Liberty

All Laws Are Backed By The Threat Of Death

A lot of people, either willfully or ignorantly, haven’t comprehended the fact that all laws are backed by the threat of force. I like to point this out whenever one of my statist friends advocates for a new law that seemingly carries minor consequences. Usually I’m rewarded for me efforts by being accused of making a hyperoblic statement or being ridiculous. But facts are facts and laws are violence:

On the opening day of law school, I always counsel my first-year students never to support a law they are not willing to kill to enforce. Usually they greet this advice with something between skepticism and puzzlement, until I remind them that the police go armed to enforce the will of the state, and if you resist, they might kill you.

I wish this caution were only theoretical. It isn’t. Whatever your view on the refusal of a New York City grand jury to indict the police officer whose chokehold apparently led to the death of Eric Garner, it’s useful to remember the crime that Garner is alleged to have committed: He was selling individual cigarettes, or loosies, in violation of New York law…..

The problem is actually broader. It’s not just cigarette tax laws that can lead to the death of those the police seek to arrest. It’s every law. Libertarians argue that we have far too many laws, and the Garner case offers evidence that they’re right. I often tell my students that there will never be a perfect technology of law enforcement, and therefore it is unavoidable that there will be situations where police err on the side of too much violence rather than too little. Better training won’t lead to perfection. But fewer laws would mean fewer opportunities for official violence to get out of hand.

If a person I’m debating is especially touchy they will usually reply with a variation of, “So you don’t support any laws? You’re fine with people murdering other people?”

Anarchism isn’t the opposition to all laws but the full comprehension of the fact that laws are backed by the threat of force. Therefore we put it on individuals to decide what they’re willing to enforce. Historically stateless societies had laws against initiations of force such as assault, murder, rape, theft, and other situations where one person was clearly harming another. These laws existed not as decrees written by men in marble buildings but by the actions of individuals.

Consider murder. Most individuals are will defend themselves if somebody tries to murder them and will go so far as to kill their attacker. The same goes for assault. Somebody being assaulted is typically willing to defend themselves to the point of escalating to deadly force is their attacker continues to escalate matters. Rape is another crime where victims are generally willing to escalate matters to deadly force if necessary. Theft, although seldom reaching such a drastic point, can result in somebody killing a thief, usually if the thief attempts to interfere when the rightful owner arrives to retrieve their property.

But very few people are willing to post a sign on a road with an arbitrarily selected limit and kill anybody who exceeds it. They may be willing to support a speed limit if somebody else is willing to enforce it but that is different than being willing to take the responsibility upon themselves.

The other factor in stateless law is whether members of a community will tolerate it. Let’s return to murder. If somebody was attacked and circumstances escalated to the point where the intended victim killed the aggressor would members of the community support it? Historically most communities were fine with that by the fact members didn’t see it as necessary to punish the would-be victim. The same could not usually be said for individuals who attempted to enforce victimless “crimes.” If you murdered somebody who exceeded your arbitrarily posted speed limit it is likely other members of the community would view you as a murdered and retaliate. In stateless societies each individual was a lawmaker and the community was the check and balance.

Laws are threats of force. The question is whether you’re willing to use that force to prevent a certain action. If you’re not then you have no business asking somebody else to do. If you are then you have no need to have others write it down and vote on it. That is the basis of anarchist law and that is why stateless societies tended to be far more peaceful than their statist neighbors and why the number of laws were very few.

New Wealth Is Constantly Being Created So Take Advantage Of It

Neoliberals, communists, and socialists focus primarily on wealth distribution. Much of their rhetoric revolves around the top one percent holding a majority of the world’s wealth. In their eyes there is only so much pie to go around and the top one percent have a vast majority of it while everybody else has to fight over scraps. The error of this viewpoint is that wealth isn’t fixed, it’s constantly being created.

I think part of the problem is people often mistake fiat currency for wealth. Fiat currency, as the name implies, indicates nothing more than a number some oligarch commanded to be created. Wealth, on the other hand, is the abundance of valuable resources and material possessions.

Throughout the entire history of our species wealth has continued to increase. As our agricultural knowledge increased food became more plentiful. As our metallurgical knowledge increased tools became more plentiful. As our mining knowledge increased raw materials became more plentiful. Human history is the history of more knowledge leading to more wealth. Today electricity, running water, and a plethora of home appliances are common in first world household. Internet access, automobiles, pocketable computers, 3D printers, and an almost uncountable number of other products that didn’t even exist merely a generation ago are now widely available. Their isn’t a single pie we all eat from, new pies of constantly being baked at an every increasing rate.

If you only believe there is a fixed amount of pie you focus on taking pie from others. This, in my opinion, is one of the biggest flaws in neoliberalism, communism, and socialism. Instead of trying to take pie by seizing the means of production and increasing taxes a more effective strategy is to start baking pies.

This is where agorism shines. Agorists aren’t trying to seize means of production or increase taxes. They’re focused on creating more wealth. Whether via creating more efficient means of production, preventing the State from taking a cut of everybody’s wealth, or simply creating wealth that has been forbidden by the State agorists are focused on creating more for everybody instead of redistributing what is already there.

The fact that more pie is constantly being created should be taken advantage of by everybody. Why relegate yourself to taking what already exists when you can create something better? There’s no reason to limit yourself like that.

Embrace Automation

Believe it or not quite a few of my friends happen to be communists. One of them specifically dubs himself as an advocate of fully automated luxury communism. Unlike most forms of communism, fully automated luxury communism has a foundation to work from:

Located on the futurist left end of the political spectrum, fully automated luxury communism (FALC) aims to embrace automation to its fullest extent. The term may seem oxymoronic, but that’s part of the point: anything labeled luxury communism is going to be hard to ignore.

“There is a tendency in capitalism to automate labor, to turn things previously done by humans into automated functions,” says Aaron Bastani, co-founder of Novara Media. “In recognition of that, then the only utopian demand can be for the full automation of everything and common ownership of that which is automated.”

Bastani and fellow luxury communists believe that this era of rapid change is an opportunity to realise a post-work society, where machines do the heavy lifting not for profit but for the people.

I think phrases like “common ownership of automation” and “heavy lifting not for profit but for the people” are pretty nonsensical but the basic ideology, letting machines do all of the work, is what I’ve been espousing here. The reason I mention these fully automated luxury communists is because they’re the first communists I’ve come across that are screaming for more automation instead of bitching about machines taking jobs.

Imagine a world where food production is entirely automated and in such abundance nobody has to labor to produce it unless they enjoy doing so. Imagine buildings being constructed by squads of automated robots. Imagine abundances of energy being beamed down from orbital solar collectors. In such a world the necessities of survival would potentially be so cheap to produce and so abundant that even the poorest person could afford them.

Over the years I’ve shifted my views quite a bit. If you read the archives of this blog you’ll see my slow transformation from a constitutional libertarian to an anarcho-capitalist to a slightly more left-leaning anarchist to my current position today, which can basically be summed up as wanting to advance technology as much as possible for the purposes of liberation. Advancements in technology can enable liberation by lessening humanity’s dependence on centralized hierarchies. This strategy not only improves the overall quality of life but also don’t rely on the mob mentality of politics. To advance technology I don’t need to get a majority of people to vote my way. I can either directly create or partner with people creating new technologies. It’s the ultimate libertarian strategy because it relies on individual efforts instead of mobs.

Although I don’t subscribe to the communist part of automated luxury communism I do share a similar dream and can say I have far more in common with them then I do with many libertarians.

Cat And Mouse Game

Since they want to revolutionize the world you would think libertarians would be hard to beat down. But so many of them, at least in my experience, are willing to roll over if the alternative requires too much work. Computer security is one of those things that tend to require too much work for the average libertarian.

Libertarianism is about wrestling power away from the state. One way of doing this is exploiting economics. The more resources you can make the state misallocate the less it will available for maintaining and expanding its power. That being the case cryptography should be every libertairans best friend. Cryptography, even when it’s not entirely effective, still forces the state to allocate more resources into its surveillance apparatus. Even data secured with weak cryptography requires more effort to snoop than plaintext data. When you start using effective cryptography the amount of resources you force the state to invest increased greatly.

Learning how to use cryptographic tools requires quite a bit of initial effort. Instead of investing their time into learning these tools a lot of libertarians invest their time in creating excuses to justify not learning these tools. One of the excuses I hear frequently is that current cryptographic tools will be broken in a few years anyways.

It’s certainly possible but that’s not an excuse. Cryptography is a cat and mouse game. As cryptographic tools improve the tools used to break them need to improve and as those tools improve cryptographic tools need to improve again. In keeping with the theme I established above the key to this cycle is that the tools to break cryptography need to improve as cryptography improves. In other words adopting better cryptography forces the state to allocate more of its resources into improving its tools to break cryptography. Using effective cryptography today forces the state to invest resources today. If you don’t use it the state doesn’t have to invest resources to break it and therefore has more resources to solidify its power further.

Libertarians have to accept the fact that they’re in a big cat and mouse game anyways. As libertarians work to seize power from the state the state develops new ways to maintain its power. Surveillance is one way it maintains its power and effective cryptography turns it into a cat and mouse game instead of a mouse and mousetrap game. So stop making excuses and start learning about these tools.

Don’t Return To The Caves

Robert Anton Wilson popularized the words neophiles and neophobes to describe people who enjoy and can adapt to rapid changes and those who fear and oppose change respectively. Whenever neophiles create and adopt a technological advancement neophobes step in to try and retard it. Strong cryptography allows individuals to securely communicate between one another. Neophobes, who are fearful by nature, cannot accept the idea of people having conversations that cannot be spied on. Advancements in automation require less human labor to produce more goods and services. Neophobes fear automation because they cannot conceive of a world where laborers don’t have to work as much or can find meaningful employment after being displaced by machines. Genetically modified crops can dramatically increase our species food production and feed more people with less resource expenditure. Neophobes want to halt production of genetically modified crops because they fear tampering with nature will have frightening and currently unrealized consequences.

The biggest difference between neophiles and neophobes is the former understands risks are inherent in change and accepts those risks while the latter fears change because it involves unknown risks.

Would you enjoy living a much shorter and hard life as a hunter gatherer in a cave? Because that’s what we’d all being doing if everybody listened to the neophobes. Advancement is scary because we don’t know how they will change the world. But advancement is far less scary than stagnation. This is why I don’t give any weight to arguments against technological advancement.

Are there risks in widespread availability to strong cryptography? Yes. Are there risks in allowing machines to do more and more of our labor? Yes. Are there risks in creating and cultivating genetically modified crops? Again, yes. However there are risks in enabling widespread surveillance, relying on manual labor, and refusing to advance agriculture. Those risks are powerful police states, injuries and deaths on jobs, and starvation.

Since the industrial revolution we’ve enjoyed a world where neophilia has surpassed neophobia. Even though we’re enjoying a standard of living unheard of only a generation ago the neophobes are still pounding their drums and trying to scare people into returning to the caves. Do you want to live in a world where we’re relegated to subsistence agriculture or one where robots produce more food than our species can possibly consume? If you, like me, desire the latter then you should work to ensure technological advancement isn’t hindered by neophobes. That means not supporting any efforts to stop the advancement of technology. Don’t support attempts to control the exportation of strong cryptography. Don’t support attempts to stop the adoption of automation. Don’t support prohibitions against genetically modified crops. Try to help technological advancements to flourish so more people can enjoy their benefits. Refute the neophobic fear mongering by pointing out how not adopting new technologies is also risky and how the fears of neophobia have seldom, if ever, been realized. Don’t help those who would return us to the caves.

There Shouldn’t Be A Law

If I received a dime every time somebody said, “There ought to be a law,” I would be sitting on my mega yacht in some tropical location drinking expensive booze and watching the world lose its collective shit from my overpriced satellite Internet connection. But I don’t so it’s an entirely worthless phrase. I know somebody is out there right now saying that phrase in the sincere hope some political body will pass some law in a futile attempt to fix some perceived problem and it pisses me off. Why? Because legislation doesn’t accomplish anything other than wasting time and resources that could be put towards far better things.

Let’s consider what a law is. Unlike physics, where the term refers to an immutable rule, a law in regards to American politics is nothing more than words that have been written and voted on by a body of politicians. That’s it. And that’s the problem.

Laws are usually written and passed in response to a perceived problem. But that very fact creates a major problem in of itself. People believe laws fix problems but in reality they do nothing of the sort. Words written on paper are impotent. That goes double for words that have been voted on. Even after a law is passed the perceived problem still exists. The only difference is a large number of people no longer believe the problem exists.

Laws create a false sense of security. Consider the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). It was passed in 1984 when people first started realizing how important computer security is. The bill criminalized unauthorized access to protected systems. After the passage was everybody able to sleep soundly? Did unauthorized access to protected systems suddenly stop? No. Computers considered protected systems still had to be secured. The only difference between the time before the law was passed and after was that a bunch of politicians received paychecks and benefits for writing, debating, and ultimately passing the CFAA. Besides that it was business as usual and everybody had to continue implementing, maintaining, and improving security strategies.

And therein lies the problem. Laws are worthless. They don’t actually solve anything. People still have to operate under the assumption somebody will break the law. Assault is illegal but people still need to have a means of defending themselves because somebody may assault them. Theft is illegal but people still need to secure their property because somebody may try to steal it. Hacking into a bank computer is illegal but information technology employees still have to secure computers at every bank because somebody may try to hack into them.

When there’s a problem don’t say, “There ought to be a law.” Say, “We need to solve this problem.” Those two phrases have entirely different meanings. The first means a problem exists, needs to be solved, and involves politicians not solving it. The second means a problem exists, needs to be solved, and implores individuals to act directly towards solving it. Don’t write to some politician asking them to solve a problem with legislation. Roll up your sleeves and start working to actually solve the problem. Doing the former still requires you to do the latter but wastes resources, especially time, by involving middleman who don’t actually do anything.

In Regards To Hoppe’s Argument Against Open Borders

The imaginary lines on our maps are the subject of frequent debate. It’s not surprising to see statists argument about immigration policy since they believe those imaginary lines are very real and very important. What’s surprising to me is that various branches of anarchism argue about them as well.

Yesterday the Muh Borders Facebook page linked to an article by Hans-Hermann Hoppe posted by Lew Rockwell. Hoppe’s article argues against open border policies that are supported by, what he refers to as, left-libertarians. It’s true that I consider myself a dirty leftist but I came from what most people would consider right-libertarianism. Right-libertarianism believes in the Lockean principle of homesteading. That is to say initial property rights are established when one mixes their labor with unowned resources. From there property rights can be transferred through trade. Herein lies my quarrel with Hoppe’s article. In it he argues:

But on what grounds should there be a right to un-restricted, “free” immigration? No one has a right to move to a place already occupied by someone else, unless he has been invited by the present occupant. And if all places are already occupied, all migration is migration by invitation only. A right to “free” immigration exists only for virgin country, for the open frontier.

[…]

The second possible way out is to claim that all so-called public property – the property controlled by local, regional or central government – is akin to open frontier, with free and unrestricted access. Yet this is certainly erroneous. From the fact that government property is illegitimate because it is based on prior expropriations, it does not follow that it is un-owned and free-for-all. It has been funded through local, regional, national or federal tax payments, and it is the payers of these taxes, then, and no one else, who are the legitimate owners of all public property. They cannot exercise their right – that right has been arrogated by the State – but they are the legitimate owners.

On the surface this makes sense. Goods obtained with stolen wealth rightfully belong to those who the wealth was stolen from. But this raises a question, what exactly can be claimed to be owned by the state? Is it everything within the imaginary lines it has drawn on our maps? If that’s the case the principle of homesteading seems to be absent in Hoppe’s argument. Much of the land claimed by the United States government, for example, hasn’t been homesteaded, the state hasn’t mixed any labor with it. It just sits untouched.

If we were to divest the property of the United States to the people whose wealth has been stolen would we also include that untouched land? If so, why? Do states enjoy a special type of property right that allows it to just declare something its own in lieu of homesteading? If not, why is the land not open for homesteading and therefore why are open borders at odds with right-libertarianism?

Hoppe expands his argument further by asking a hypothetical question:

First off: What would immigration policies be like if the State would, as it is supposed to do, act as a trustee of the taxpayer-owners’ public property? What about immigration if the State acted like the manager of the community property jointly owned and funded by the members of a housing association or gated community?

At least in principle the answer is clear. A trustee’s guideline regarding immigration would be the “full cost” principle. That is, the immigrant or his inviting resident should pay the full cost of the immigrant’s use made of all public goods or facilities during his presence. The cost of the community property funded by resident taxpayers should not rise or its quality fall on account of the presence of immigrants. On the contrary, if possible the presence of an immigrant should yield the resident-owners a profit, either in the form of lower taxes or community-fees or a higher quality of community property (and hence all-around higher property values).

Again, this argument seems to make sense on the surface. Immigrants or the residents who invited them are expected to pay the full cost of the immigrants’ use of public goods and facilities. But it again fails to address land that hasn’t been homesteaded by either the state of its tax victims. If an immigrant decides to homestead a piece of land in the Nevada desert that hasn’t already been homesteaded the tax victims face no costs. The only way the trustee model justifies state enforced immigration controls is if it is exempted from the homesteading principle.

When I brought this up to some of my friends one of them had an interesting interpretation of what Hoppe wrote. He thought Hoppe implied that the state was only able to hold the territory it claimed by extorting wealth from the populace and therefore, under Hoppe’s argument, all of the territory should be divested amongst the tax victims. Even using this interpretation I find that the homesteading principle would have to be ignored.

It’s true that the state is only able to hold the territory it claims because it used some of the wealth it stole to create a military that can kill anybody who doesn’t acknowledge its claim. But I don’t believe that satisfies the homesteading principle because the state still didn’t mix any labor with the land.

Imagine if the United States claimed sole ownership over the moon and threatened war against any other nation that landed on it. It’s ability to make such a threat would certainly be made possible by its sizable military. However the stolen wealth was invested in creating the military, not homesteading the moon. Therefore this interpretation would be an argument for divesting military assets amongst the tax victims but not the moon itself. The same applies to the territory within the state’s borders that hasn’t been homesteaded.

At the start of the article Hoppe claims that left-libertarianism “serve as Viagra to the State.” I would argue that, if anything, his argument against open borders serves as Viagra to the state. His argument requires granting the state a special privilege to claim land without homesteading it. Right-libertarianism’s core argument against the state is that it enjoys a special privilege to legally initiate force. One of the ways it exercises that privilege is by enforcing its claims to land and resources it hasn’t homesteaded. By granting the state a special privilege you put it a step up on the hierarchy than everybody else and that is what allows it to maintain its power.

When is Discussing Cryptography a Jailable Offense

A 17 year-old is facing 15 years in a cage because he discussed cryptography. Specifically he discussed how members of the Islamic State could utilize cryptography to further their goals:

A 17-year-old Virginia teen faces up to 15 years in prison for blog and Twitter posts about encryption and Bitcoin that were geared at assisting ISIL, which the US has designated as a terror organization.

The teen, Ali Shukri Amin, who contributed to the Coin Brief news site, pleaded guilty (PDF) Thursday to a federal charge of providing material support to the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant.

Dana Boente, the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, said the youth’s guilty plea “demonstrates that those who use social media as a tool to provide support and resources to ISIL will be identified and prosecuted with no less vigilance than those who travel to take up arms with ISIL.”

According to the defendant’s signed “Admission of Facts” filed Thursday, Amin started the @amreekiwitness Twitter handle last June and acquired some 4,000 followers and tweeted about 7,000 times. (The Twitter handle has been suspended.) Last July, the teen tweeted a link on how jihadists could use Bitcoin “to fund their efforts.”

According to Amin’s court admission (PDF):

The article explained what Bitcoins were, how the Bitcoin system worked and suggested using Dark Wallet, a new Bitcoin wallet, which keeps the user of Bitcoins anonymous. The article included statements on how to set up an anonymous donations system to send money, using Bitcoin, to the mujahedeen.

Some may point out that this is obviously bad because it supports the “enemies of America.” But it brings up a very important question. Where is the line drawn between aiding an enemy and simply discussing cryptography? I write a lot of posts about how encryption can be used to defend against the state. That information could very well be read by members of the Islamic State and used to secure their communications against American surveillance. Have I aided the enemy? Has every cryptographer who has written about defending against government surveillance aided the enemy?

Lines get blurry when governments perform widespread surveillance like that being done by the National Security Agency (NSA). Regular people who simply want to protect their privacy, which is supposedly protected by the Constitution in this country, and military enemies of the government suddenly find themselves using the same tools and following the same privacy guides. What works, at least in regards to secure communications and anonymization, for people wanting privacy and military enemies is the same. Therefore a guide aimed at telling people how to encrypt their e-mail so it can’t be read by the NSA also tells an agent of the Islamic State how to do the same.

Where is the line drawn? Is it the language used? If you specifically mention members of the Islamic State as the intended audience are you then guilty? If that’s the case wouldn’t the obvious solution be writing generic guides that explain the same things? Wouldn’t that mean the information written by Ali Shukri Amin would have been perfectly fine if he simply didn’t tailor it for members of the Islamic State?

As the state’s use of widespread surveillance is utilized to enforce more laws the desire of regular people to secure their communications will increase (because, after all, we’re all breaking the law even if we don’t intent to or know we are doing it). They will use the same tools and guides as members of the Islamic State could use. Will every cryptographer face the same fate as Ali Shukri Amin?

The Libertarian “Fantasy”

Gods bless Mother Jones. Between Slate and itself there are enough criticisms about libertarianism based on entirely fabricated claims to fill an encyclopedia. Take the latest shot fired by Mother Jones aimed at the predominance of men in libertarianism:

Jeet Heer investigates a burning question today: why are most libertarians men? He offers several plausible explanations, but I think he misses the real one, perhaps because it’s pretty unflattering to libertarians.

So here’s the quick answer: Hardcore libertarianism is a fantasy. It’s a fantasy where the strongest and most self-reliant folks end up at the top of the heap, and a fair number of men share the fantasy that they are these folks. They believe they’ve been held back by rules and regulations designed to help the weak, and in a libertarian culture their talents would be obvious and they’d naturally rise to positions of power and influence.

The reason this is such a laughable criticism is because it’s being made by a statist publication. Advocates of statism suffer the biggest fantasy of all. Not only do they believe a handful of people who know best must be given ultimate power over the ignorant (their word) masses but they believe that their advocacy of statism qualifies them to hold one of those positions of power.

Libertarianism is the belief that nobody is qualified to hold power over another. It is the antithesis of power fantasies. Statism teaches that a handful of people know what’s best for everybody else and that the best society can be achieved by giving those people a truncheon with which to smash anybody who disobeys in the face. On the opposite side of the spectrum is libertarianism, which teaches that the best society can be achieved by individuals peacefully cooperating with one another. Under libertarianism there is no heap on which the “strongest and most self-reliant” can sit. Libertarianism doesn’t get suckered into the claim that the “rules and regulations” are designed to help the weak. Instead libertarianism recognizes that individuals given ultimate power will use that power for personal gain.

Even advocates of statism admit that the, according to them, shitty world we live in today is actually the product of their own philosophy. Critics of libertarianism often submit the fact that there isn’t a pure libertarian society as proof that it’s unworkable. But they fail to recognized that such a claim also admits that all of today’s social ills; including the overwhelming power held by corporations, unaccountable police, and the preference of military invasion of mutually beneficial trade; are the products of statism. I’m always amused by the simultaneous claim that libertarian doesn’t exist and it’s at fault for the world’s social ills but I digress. Statists are correct in their admission because these social ills require positions of power to manifest. They require a heap on which the “strongest and most self-reliant” can sit. And that heap only exists in a society with coercive hierarchy, i.e. a state.

One can argue why there are more men than women in libertarianism, which is something it shares with other social and political philosophies, but claiming it’s because it fulfills power fantasies of men isn’t a valid argument.

Go and Make It

This is effectively what us agorists have been advocating for decades:

What if we stopped attacking people for a cause and started attracting people to a cause? What if we became creators instead of mere critics and conquerors? Rather than waging war—either figuratively (in arguing) or literally — what if we channeled all of our passion and energy into disruptive acts of creation?

What if we bypassed electoral politics and established a more cooperative era…one in which the best ideas win?

In this new age, politicians would be replaced by innovators. Political capital would be replaced by creative capital.

Social change would not be planned by bureaucrats. It would emerge from the collective creativity of artists, scientists, and entrepreneurs working in cooperation.

Agorism utilizes counter-economics to provide goods and services in a manner that doesn’t feed the state. Permits are not acquired, taxes are not collected or paid, and regulations are not consciously adhered to. Instead goods and services that people want, not what the government says the ought to have, are created and sold for a lower price since all of the cost of bureaucratic overhead is absent.

We living in a world where solutions can be more easily created. “Go and make it,” is an excellent slogan for a new revolution. It encompasses the power of individuals to create solutions and the fact that the new revolution won’t be fought with the state’s tool of war but with markets.