The recent Forbes article on the Assassination Market marks only the most recent addition to a growing list of online cryptographic and counter-economic projects, but for those familiar with Tim May’s “Crypto-Anarchist Manifesto” or Jim Bell’s “Assassination Politics,” it is the final, cathartic confrontation with a world we all saw coming.
As the article details in an interview with pseudonymous founder Kuwabatake Sanjuro, the Assassination Market is a platform for crowdfunding bounties on the heads of various politicians and government officials, to be collected by anyone who can eliminate them and offer proof. On its face, the Assassination Market is the ultimate test of anonymising software, cloaking the most shameless and confrontational scheme imaginable. To most people it must seem like a clear incitement to terrorism, and by the creator’s account terrorizing politicians into extinction is his intention. And there’s a bit of libertarian macho flash to it; if private defense agencies are a hard sell to the public, get a load of this!
I won’t comment on the ethics or prudence of the site’s intended goal, but rather on its potential unintended consequences. The Assassination Market is qualitatively different from other crypto-anarchist projects to date. Tor, Bitcoin, Silk Road and Defense Distributed aim to empower individuals in ways that don’t necessarily entail such direct harm to third parties, without first gaining third party permission. These are, to paraphrase Sanjuro, a blow to the fetish of democracy. I think this is a good thing.
Wikileaks, and the expansion of bottom up surveillance by leakers, cell phone cameras, hacktivists and the like are a more complicated matter. Surveillance is commonly portrayed as a totalitarian encroachment, but it’s really more of a people’s game. Rulers only have so many eyes and so many things to watch, while we have lots of eyes laid on comparatively fewer (and, for the familiar Hayekian reasons, slower and less responsive) institution. The advantages stack massively in favor of the little guy against the dinosaurs.
However, egalitarian surveillance and social networking enables mobs to swarm against the unpopular for illegitimate reasons, fostering a climate of chaotic and perpetual horizontal oppression by bullies for … I suppose for lulz. It’s a big relief to see Anonymous displaying ethics in its choice of targets, and recently going after rapists when other people are using the same social media platforms to threaten survivors. Ditto for the many stories of crowds rising to support abused people they don’t even know, after hearing about bullying through Facebook or Twitter. The precedent so far has been acceptably good and I’m less worried about the development of a society without privacy than I otherwise would be.
I’m not so certain regarding the crowdfunding of death, but I guess we’ll see. It could have been said about the users of Silk Road or Defcad, but I think the potential for anonymous murder might attract a dangerous kind of person. Not killers in the mold of Obama, but the kind of people who think Ben Bernanke is the most obvious proxy for Sauron and think it necessary to include his transparently Jewish middle name on the hit listing. In other words, abusive trolls from the dark recesses of the Internet, whose bark normally outstrips their bite but who in swarms, through proxy soldiers, could make their abuse flesh.
The purpose of the Assassination Market is the crowdfunded death of unpopular people. Whatever ethical constraints Sanjuro might place on his own site, there is a market for others who won’t. Today the targets are politicians and bureaucrats; tomorrow economic elites; but the model can be applied to anyone who stands out and gains public disapproval, for whatever reason. Obviously, this can lead to undesirable outcomes as far as individuality is concerned. What if the result of institutionalized assassination markets is a spontaneous order of repression more efficient than that of the current government? More Americans still want Edward Snowden or Chelsea Manning imprisoned than otherwise. Salman Rushdie might not have outlived Khomeini. If you think the current crop of reddit mobs and cyber-sociopaths are bad, just wait until people put their money where their mouths are against rape survivors who speak out.
It’s unclear what will happen if this model sees broadened application. The cypherpunks of the 90s were too excited at getting here to give full consideration to where we might go from here. It will fall to us to shape the discourse, and for a new generation of technologically and politically aware to shape the trends. I’m a futurist at heart, and I’d like to think that there’s a way to force some accountability into the process of swarms, so that they become expressions of solidarity and not predation. If we can do that, then we may indeed have a bright future ahead of us.
Citations to this article:
- Logan Yershov, Assassination Markets and the Ethics of Swarms, Before It’s News, 11/21/13
I haven’t visited the site yet, so I cannot say for sure, but it seems like this site is missing an option for users to pay to prevent an assassination. Not sure how it would work, but it reminds me of an old Internet hoax where a hampster’s fate depended on the competing sums of two Paypal accounts, one for blend and the other for, uh, not blend. sure how
"… I think the potential for anonymous murder might attract a dangerous kind of person."
Really, you don't say. It's sharp, ethical observations like this that make anarchists so popular amongst "the folks." I'll bet you also strongly disagree with people allowing their children to starve as well, even if the Rothbardians call you a pussy because of it. Stay strong, comrade!
"What if the result of institutionalized assassination markets is a spontaneous order of repression more efficient than that of the current government?"
That is an excellent question. And if you're not 100% emotionally invested in maintaining your anarchist identity, this concern should also lead you to question the viability of anarchist calls to eliminate courts and police (this does NOT infer that certain aspects of law enforcement, such as drug/vice enforcement, should not be eliminated immediately).
Remove that "court of last resort" or some minimum, recognized, standard of behavior in a region (A.K.A. laws) and things will probably get very murky. Maybe it all just becomes a popularity contest or a witch hunt at that point, who knows. Perhaps situations that used to elicit a call to the police and a ticket or notice to appear–like a nasty drunk who won't leave your house after being asked repeatedly–now escalate into a physical confrontation or worse. Maybe people will be horrified by what has happened and they will be seduced by an authoritarian regime. In the name of security, as always.
Think about it. Ideas have consequences.
Nobody called for the elimination of law. And states have no exclusive right to it.
At its most basic, a state is a monopoly on violence within an arbitrarily delimited tract of land — many created via centuries of brutality and oppression. What makes the officials who now make up their central hierarchies the final arbiters of justice? Do the same mythical forces that justified the divine right of the monarchy apply to the divine right of the plurality?
A little over a century ago you could kill someone you owned and today spanking your own child is frowned upon. The state didn't do that. The state follows civil society. Civil society creates law.
In order to better understand justice theory under anarchy you should read up on it a little. It's a common misconception among people who don't know much about these types of things to picture anarchy as a dark, dystopian nightmare where "every man for himself" is the mantra. The truth is that violence is expensive, most of us want to avoid being hurt or killed, and people are naturally social. In order to make productive life possible, they band together in groups for defense.
The question isn't whether or not these groups exist, but whether or not they're voluntary.
And its a common tactic of anarchists to condescend and tell critics they need to "read up on it a little." Problem is, I'm a former C4SS writer so I have read up on it a little.
I have come to conclude, apostate that I am, that anarchist tactics for dealing crime and other public safety issues are unlikely to improve our situation and may even set society back. You are correct that law is most often derived from civil society and not the state. But if you can't even get a pack of anarchists to agree on how to deal with crime and criminals (string 'em up or just shun them…hmm?) how do you expect an even more diverse group of people in a sizeable region to agree on these matters? You don't have to be a big fan of centralization–and I'm not–to deduce that someone has to make the call eventually. This is where the minimum standards of behavior we call laws–and law enforcement–come into play.
The challenge should not be to "smash the state," but rather to ensure that government actors are held accountable and are not allowed to violate the same laws they hold us to. Not as sexy as anarchy, I know, but I think its a practical option.
"The challenge should not be to "smash the state," but rather to ensure that government actors are held accountable and are not allowed to violate the same laws they hold us to."
So, in other words, the elimination of social hierarchy?
No, the elimination of authoritarian hierarchy.
"Tactic?" Huh? How is anyone to know that you're a "former C4SS writer" when your post makes you sound as though you're not particularly familiar with the subject at hand?
I haven't read much of either the "string 'em up" or "just shun them" camps. The bulk of the material I've come across talks about replacing authoritarian hierarchies with alternative institutions. Usually a mix of cooperatives, for-profit companies, competing courts, etc. — any of which can be worker (or community) owned and operated. The central theme is most often dispersed power, not vigilantism *or* nonchalance.
The price of believing that amassed power can be held accountable is that the entire community must be in a state of perpetual revolution. As soon as you let down your guard, the fox will be back in the hen house. It's kinda hard to be productive if you're always cleaning your rifle and sharpening your bayonet. I happen to believe that we're capable of better systems of societal cooperation. Peaceful systems that don't depend on violence as the central impetus.
Progress toward further emancipation will come from outside the state. It has always been a retreat from authoritarianism and the idea of divine — or divined — power that has resulted in more law and order.