The details of his friendship and work with Fidel Castro are legendary. In 1959 he joined the Prensa Latina press agency, founded by Che Guevara and Jorge Ricardo Masetti. Whenever he came to the island he stayed in one of the luxurious protocol villas that El Comandante reserved for his friends. There they shared their culinary passions. Gabo’s favorite dish was “Lobster à la Macondo,” Fidel’s “Turtle Consommé.” But above all, they shared their dreams of how the revolution would bring, some day, endless prosperity for the ordinary Cubans that queued for hours under the sun, ration books in hand, for a few pounds of rice and beans.

In 1988, living in Havana, García Márquez made progress on the General in his Labyrinth, a book about Simón Bolívar’s final years. Gerald Martin, author of García Márquez’s first full biography published in English, suggests his description of Bolívar was inspired by traits of Castro. In 1989 he dedicated the book to one of his great friends, Antonio “Tony” la Guardia, a Colonel in Cuba’s Ministry of Interior: “For Tony, may he sow good.”

That same year, de La Guardia was sentenced to death on charges of drug trafficking and treason. When De la Guardia’s daughter begged García Márquez to intercede on her father’s behalf, he told her that “Fidel would be crazy” if he allowed the execution, raising her hopes. But shortly afterwards, Tony was executed.

Apparently García Márquez became so devoted to Castro that he came to rationalize de la Guardia’s execution as just “a quarrel among officers,” as he told Francois Miterrand during the bicentennial celebration of the French Revolution. He also publicly claimed that the charges of treason were justified, and that given the situation, Castro had no alternative.

What’s most sad about García Márquez though, is that his attitude is the prototypical example of the Latin American “lefty” intellectual – always ready to idolize petty tyrants as soon as they throw out an anti-imperialist or social-justice slogan.

Upon reading “Operación Carlota: Cuba in Angola,” an acclaimed chronicle written under Castro’s supervision, fellow Literature Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa accused García Márquez of being Castro’s “lackey.” Once great friends, the writers grew distant due to ideological differences. And just as sadly, Vargas Llosa became his perfect nemesis, idolized by supposedly libertarian, right-wing intellectuals across Latin America.

Perhaps the most striking example of Vargas Llosa’s own tragic rationalization of evil authority involved many more deaths than the execution of a single man. In the run-up to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, Vargas Llosa had publicly and vehemently opposed it. But a few months later, after covering the invasion on the ground on assignment for El País newspaper, he proclaimed that despite the massive loss of life and treasure he witnessed, if he would have been in an Iraqi’s shoes, he “would have supported the intervention [sic], without hesitation.”

Sad as it is, the contrast of the ideological myopia and literary genius of each writer on his own can’t even compare with the profound suffering that the clash between the two worldviews they so typically represent has caused for Latin America. Too many of our cultural inferiority complexes boil down to our obsession with the superpower, either as the cause to every single one of our social problems, or as a divine source of peace, prosperity and justice. Inevitably, any rational thought on how to structure our relationship with it, or how to get our own political act together like grownups should, is lost in an endless, divisive blame game of epic proportions.

Each writer represents the archetype of Latin American rebellion towards one form of authority, and submission towards another. Maybe we are forever cursed by some sort of magic-realist spell that condemns us to forever live attached to one of the extremes of this false dichotomy. But I like to think that exposing ourselves to the internal contradiction brought about by reading every single word these two great and tragically amiss writers put on paper, will help us break it.

They had already been traveling for three days, but had not gone far from Moscow. The landscape along the way was wintry: the tracks, the fields, the forests, the roofs of the villages-everything lay under snow.

The Zhivago family had found themselves by luck on the left corner of the upper front bunk, by a dim, elongated window just under the ceiling, where they settled in a family circle, not breaking up their company.

Antonina Alexandrovna was traveling in a freight car for the first time. When they were getting on the train in Moscow, Yuri Andreevich had lifted the women up to the level of the car floor, along the edge of which rolled a heavy sliding door. Further on, the women got the knack of it and climbed into the car by themselves.

At first the cars had seemed to Antonina Alexandrovna like cattle sheds on wheels. These pens, in her opinion, were bound to fall apart at the first jolt or shake. But it was already the third day that they were being thrown forward or back or sideways on turns or as the momentum changed, and the third day that the axles went on knocking rapidly under the floor, like the sticks of a wind-up toy drum, and the trip went very well, and Antonina Alexandrovna’s apprehensions proved unjustified.

The long train, consisting of twenty-three cars (the Zhivagos were in the fourteenth), stretched only some one part of itself-the head, the tail, the middle-along the short platforms of the stations.

The front cars were for the military, in the middle rode the free public, at the end those mobilized by labor conscription.

There were about five hundred passengers of this category, people of all ages and the most diverse ranks and occupations.

The eight cars that this public occupied presented a motley spectacle. Alongside well-dressed rich people, Petersburg stockbrokers and lawyers, one could see-also recognized as belonging to the class of exploiters-cabdrivers, floor polishers, bathhouse attendants, Tartar junkmen, runaway madmen from disbanded asylums, small shopkeepers, and monks.

The first sat around the red-hot stoves without their jackets, on short, round blocks stood upright, telling each other something and laughing loudly. They were people with connections. They were not dejected. At home influential relations were interceding for them. In any case, they could buy themselves off further along the way.

The second, wearing boots and unbuttoned kaftans, or long, loose shirts over their pants and going barefoot, bearded or beardless, stood by the slid-open doors of the stuffy cars, holding on to the doorposts and the bars across the opening, looked sullenly at the area by the wayside and its inhabitants, and talked to no one. They did not have the necessary acquaintances. They had nothing to hope for.

Not all these people were placed in the cars authorized for them. A portion had been tucked into the middle of the train, mixed with the free public. There were people of that sort in the fourteenth car.

9

Usually, when the train approached some station, Antonina Alexandrovna, who was lying on the upper level, raised herself to the uncomfortable position she was forced into by the low ceiling, which prevented her from straightening up, hung her head over the side, and, through the chink of the slightly opened door, determined whether the place presented any interest from the point of view of barter and whether it was worthwhile getting down from the bunk and going outside.

And so it was now. The slowing pace of the train brought her out of her drowsiness. The multitude of switches over which the freight car jolted with increasingly loud bumps spoke for the importance of the station and the length of the forthcoming stop.

Antonina Alexandrovna sat bent over, rubbed her eyes, smoothed her hair, and, thrusting her hand into the knapsack, rummaged around and pulled out a towel embroidered with roosters, little figures, yokes, and wheels.

Just then the doctor woke up, jumped down from the berth first, and helped his wife climb down to the floor.

Meanwhile, past the open door of the car, following the switchmen’s boxes and lampposts, there already floated the trees of the station, weighed down by whole layers of snow, which looked like a welcome offering for the train, and the first to jump down from the still quickly moving train onto the pristine snow of the platform were the sailors, who, to get ahead of everyone, went running around the station building, where, in the shelter of the side wall, women selling forbidden food usually hid.

The sailors’ black uniforms, the flying ribbons of their peakless caps, and their bell-bottomed trousers lent a dash and impetuosity to their steps and made everyone give way before them, as before downhill skiers or skaters racing at top speed.

Around the corner of the station, hiding behind one another and as nervous as if they were telling fortunes, peasant women from the nearby villages lined up with cucumbers, cottage cheese, boiled beef, and rye cheesecakes, which, under the quilted covers they were brought in, kept their aroma and warmth even in the cold. The women and girls, in kerchiefs tucked under their winter jackets, blushed like poppies at some of the sailors’ jokes, and at the same time feared them worse than fire, because it was mostly of sailors that all sorts of detachments were formed for combating speculation and forbidden free trade.

The peasant women’s confusion did not last long. The train was coming to a stop. Other passengers were arriving. The public intermingled. Trade became brisk.

Antonina Alexandrovna was making the rounds of the women, the towel thrown over her shoulder, looking as if she were going behind the station to wash with snow. She had already been called to from the lines several times:

“Hey, you, city girl, what are you asking for the towel?”

But Antonina Alexandrovna, without stopping, walked on further with her husband.

At the end of the line stood a woman in a black kerchief with free crimson designs. She noticed the embroidered towel. Her bold eyes lit up. She glanced sideways, made sure that danger did not threaten from anywhere, quickly went up close to Antonina Alexandrovna, and, throwing back the cover of her goods, whispered in a heated patter:

“Looky here. Ever seen the like? Aren’t you tempted? Well, don’t think too long-it’ll be snapped up. Give me the towel for the halfy.”

Antonina Alexandrovna did not catch the last word. She thought the woman had said something about a calf.

“What’s that, my dear?”

By a halfy the peasant woman meant half a hare, split in two and roasted from head to tail, which she was holding in her hands. She repeated:

“I said give me the towel for a halfy. Why are you looking at me? It’s not dog meat. My husband’s a hunter. It’s a hare, a hare.”

The exchange was made. Each side thought she had made a great gain and the opposite side was as great a loser. Antonina Alexandrovna was ashamed to have fleeced the poor woman so dishonestly. But the woman, pleased with the deal, hastened to put sin behind her and, calling the woman next to her, who was all traded out, strode home with her down a narrow path trampled in the snow, which led to somewhere far away.

Just then there was a commotion in the crowd. Somewhere an old woman shouted:

“Where are you off to, young sir? And the money? When did you give it to me, you shameless liar? Ah, you greedy gut, I shout at him, and he walks off and doesn’t look back. Stop, I said, stop, mister comrade! Help! Thief! Robbery! There he is, there, hold him!”

“Which one?”

“Him walking there, with the shaved mug, laughing.”

“The one with a hole on his elbow?”

“Yes, yes. Hold him, the heathen!”

“The one with the patched sleeve?”

“Yes, yes. Ah, dear God, I’ve been robbed!”

“What’s the story here?”

“He was buying pies and milk from this old woman, stuffed himself full, and pffft! She’s here, howling her head off.”

“It can’t be left like that. He’s got to be caught.”

“Go on, catch him. He’s all belts and cartridges. He’ll do the catching.”

– Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago, 182-184.

Nicholas was convinced that everybody stole. He knew he would have to punish the commissariat officials now, and decided to send them all to serve in the ranks, but he also knew that this would not prevent those who succeeded them from acting in the same way. It was a characteristic of officials to steal, but it was his duty to punish them for doing so, and tired as he was of that duty he conscientiously performed it.

“It seems there is only one honest man in Russia!” said he.

Chernyshov at once understood that this one honest man was Nicholas himself, and smiled approvingly.

“It looks like it, your Imperial Majesty,” said he.

“Leave it — I will give a decision,” said Nicholas, taking the document and putting it on the left side of the table.

Then Chernyshov reported the rewards to be given and about moving the army on the Prussian frontier.

Nicholas looked over the list and struck out some names, and then briefly and firmly gave orders to move two divisions to the Prussian frontier. He could not forgive the King of Prussia for granting a Constitution to his people after the events of 1848, and therefore while expressing most friendly feelings to his brother-in-law in letters and conversation, he considered it necessary to keep an army near the frontier in case of need. He might want to use these troops to defend his brother-in-law’s throne if the people of Prussia rebelled (Nicholas saw a readiness for rebellion everywhere) as he had used troops to suppress the rising in Hungary a few years previously. they were also of use to give more weight and influence to such advice as he gave to the King of Prussia.

“Yes — what would Russia be like now if it were not for me?” he again thought.

“Well, what else is there?” said he.

“A courier from the Caucasus,” said Chernyshov, and he reported what Vorontsov had written about Hadji Murad’s surrender.

“Well, well!” said Nicholas. “It’s a good beginning!”

“Evidently the plan devised by your Majesty begins to bear fruit,” said Chernyshov.

This approval of his strategic talents was particularly pleasant to Nicholas because, though he prided himself upon them, at the bottom of his heart he knew that they did not really exist, and he now desired to hear more detailed praise of himself.

“How do you mean?” he asked.

“I mean that if your Majesty’s plans had been adopted before, and we had moved forward slowly and steadily, cutting down forests and destroying the supplies of food, the Caucasus would have been subjugated long ago. I attribute Hadji Murad’s surrender entirely to his having come to the conclusion that they can hold out no longer.”

“True,” said Nicholas.

Although the plan of a gradual advance into the enemy’s territory by means of felling forests and destroying the food supplies was Ermolov’s and Velyaminov’s plan, and was quite contrary to Nicholas’s own plan of seizing Shamil’s place of residence and destroying that nest of robbers — which was the plan on which the dargo expedition in 1845 (that cost so many lives) had been undertaken — Nicholas nevertheless attributed to himself also the plan of a slow advance and a systematic felling of forests and devastation of the country. It would seem that to believe the plan of a slow movement by felling forests and destroying food supplies to have been his own would have necessitated hiding the fact that he had insisted on quite contrary operations in 1845. But he did not hide it and was proud of the plan of the 1845 expedition as well as of the plan of a slow advance — though the two were obviously contrary to one another. Continual brazen flattery from everybody round him in the teeth of obvious facts had brought him to such a state that he no longer saw his own inconsistencies or measured his actions and words by reality, logic, or even simple common sense; but was quite convinced that all his orders, however senseless, unjust, and mutually contradictory they might be, became reasonable, just, and mutually accordant simply because he gave them. His decision in the case next reported to him — that of the student of the Academy of Medicine — was of the that senseless kind.

The case was as follows: A young man who had twice failed in his examinations was being examined a third time, and when the examiner again would not pass him, the young man whose nerves were deranged, considering this to be an injustice, seized a pen- knife from the table in a paroxysm of fury, and rushing at the professor inflicted on him several trifling wounds.

“What’s his name?” asked Nicholas.

“Bzhezovski.”

“A Pole?”

“Of Polish descent and a roman Catholic,” answered Chernyshov.

Nicholas frowned. He had done much evil to the Poles. To justify that evil he had to feel certain that all Poles were rascals, and he considered them to be such and hated them in proportion to the evil he had done them.

“Wait a little,” he said, closing his eyes and bowing his head.

Chernyshov, having more than once heard Nicholas say so, knew that when the Emperor had to take a decision it was only necessary for him to concentrate his attention for a few moments and the spirit moved him, and the best possible decision presented itself as though an inner voice had told him what to do. He was now thinking how most fully to satisfy the feeling of hatred against the Poles which this incident had stirred up within him, and the inner voice suggested the following decision. He took the report and in his large handwriting wrote on its margin with three orthographical mistakes:

“Deserves deth, but, thank God, we have no capitle punishment, and it is not for me to introduce it. Make him fun the gauntlet of a thousand men twelve times. — Nicholas.”

He signed, adding his unnaturally huge flourish.

Nicholas knew that twelve thousand strokes with the regulation rods were not only certain death with torture, but were a superfluous cruelty, for five thousand strokes were sufficient to kill the strongest man. But it pleased him to be ruthlessly cruel and it also pleased him to think that we have abolished capital punishment in Russia.

Having written his decision about the student, he pushed it across to Chernyshov.

“There,” he said, “read it.”

Chernyshov read it, and bowed his head as a sign of respectful amazement at the wisdom of the decision.

“Yes, and let all the students be present on the drill- ground at the punishment,” added Nicholas.

“It will do them good! I will abolish this revolutionary spirit and will tear it up by the roots!” he thought.

“It shall be done,” replied Chernyshov; and after a short pause he straightened the tuft on his forehead and returned to the Caucasian report.

“What do you command me to write in reply to Prince Vorontsov’s dispatch?”

“To keep firmly to my system of destroying the dwellings and food supplies in Chechnya and to harass them by raids.” answered Nicholas.

“And what are your Majesty’s commands with reference to Hadji Murad?” asked Chernyshov.

“Well, Vorontsov writes that he wants to make use of him in the Caucasus.”

“Is it not dangerous?” said Chernyshov, avoiding Nicholas’s gaze. “Prince Vorontsov is too confiding, I am afraid.”

“And you — what do you think?” asked Nicholas sharply, detecting Chernyshov’s intention of presenting Vorontsov’s decision in an unfavorable light.

“Well, I should have thought it would be safer to deport him to Central Russia.”

“You would have thought!” said Nicholas ironically. “But I don’t think so, and agree with Vorontsov. Write to him accordingly.”

“It shall be done,” said Chernyshov, rising and bowing himself out.

Dolgoruky also bowed himself out, having during the whole audience only uttered a few words (in reply to a question from Nicholas) about the movement of the army.

After Chernyshov, Nicholas received Bibikov, General- Governor of the Western Provinces. Having expressed his approval of the measures taken by Bibikov against the mutinous peasants who did not wish to accept the orthodox Faith, he ordered him to have all those who did not submit tried by court-martial. That was equivalent to sentencing them to run the gauntlet. He also ordered the editor of a newspaper to be sent to serve in the ranks of the army for publishing information about the transfer of several thousand State peasants to the imperial estates.

“I do this because I consider it necessary,” said Nicholas, “and I will not allow it to be discussed.”

Bibikov saw the cruelty of the order concerning the Uniate peasants and the injustice of transferring State peasants (the only free peasants in Russia in those days) to the Crown, which meant making them serfs of the Imperial family. But it was impossible to express dissent. Not to agree with Nicholas’s decisions would have meant the loss of that brilliant position which it had cost Bibikov forty years to attain and which he now enjoyed; and he therefore submissively bowed his dark head (already touched with grey) to indicate his submission and his readiness to fulfil the cruel, insensate, and dishonest supreme will.

Having dismissed Bibikov, Nicholas stretched himself, with a sense of duty well fulfilled, glanced at the clock, and went to get ready to go out. Having put on a uniform with epaulets, orders, and a ribbon, he went out into the reception hall where more than a hundred persons — men in uniforms and women in elegant low-necked dresses, all standing in the places assigned to them — awaited his arrival with agitation.

He came out to them with a lifeless look in his eyes, his chest expanded, his stomach bulging out above and below its bandages, and feeling everybody’s gaze tremulously and obsequiously fixed upon him he assumed an even more triumphant air. When his eyes met those of people he knew, remembering who was who, he stopped and addressed a few words to them sometimes in Russian and sometimes in French, and transfixing them with his cold glassy eye listened to what they said.

Having received all the New Year congratulations he passed on to church, where God, through His servants the priests, greeted and praised Nicholas just as worldly people did; and weary as he was of these greetings and praises Nicholas duly accepted them. All this was as it should be, because the welfare and happiness of the whole world depended on him, and wearied though he was he would still not refuse the universe his assistance.

When at the end of the service the magnificently arrayed deacon, his long hair crimped and carefully combed, began the chant “Many Years,” which was heartily caught up by the splendid choir, Nicholas looked round and noticed Nelidova, with her fine shoulders, standing by a window, and he decided the comparison with yesterday’s girl in her favor.

After Mass he went to the empress and spent a few minutes in the bosom of his family, joking with the children and his wife. Then passing through the Hermitage, he visited the Minister of the Court, Volkonski, and among other things ordered him to pay out of a special fund a yearly pension to the mother of yesterday’s girl. From there he went for his customary drive.

Dinner that day was served in the Pompeian Hall. Besides the younger sons of Nicholas and Michael there were also invited Baron Lieven, Count Rzhevski, Dolgoruky, the Prussian Ambassador, and the King of Prussia’s aide-de-camp.

While waiting for the appearance of the Emperor and Empress an interesting conversation took place between Baron Lieven and the Prussian Ambassador concerning the disquieting news from Poland.

“La Pologne et le Caucases, ce sont les deux cauteres de la Russie,” said Lieven. “Il nous faut dent mille hommes a peu pres, dans chcun de ces deux pays.”

The Ambassador expressed a fictitious surprise that it should be so.

“Vous dites, la Pologne —”  began the Ambassador.

“Oh, oui, c’etait un coup de maitre de Metternich de nous en avoir laisse l’embarras…”

At this point the Empress, with her trembling head and fixed smile, entered followed by Nicholas.

At dinner Nicholas spoke of Hadji Murad’s surrender and said that the war in the Caucasus must now soon come to an end in consequence of the measures he was taking to limit the scope of the mountaineers by felling their forests and by his system of erecting a series of small forts.

The Ambassador, having exchanged a rapid glance with the aide-de-camp — to whom he had only that morning spoken about Nicholas’s unfortunate weakness for considering himself a great strategist — warmly praised this plan which once more demonstrated Nicholas’s great strategic ability.

After dinner Nicholas drove to the ballet where hundreds of women marched round in tights and scanty clothing. One of the specially attracted him, and he had the German ballet-master sent for and gave orders that a diamond ring should be presented to her.

The next day when Chernyshov came with his report, Nicholas again confirmed his order to Vorontsov — that now that Hadji Murad had surrendered, the Chechens should be more actively harassed than ever and the cordon round them tightened.

Chernyshov wrote in that sense to Vorontsov; and another courier, overdriving more horses and bruising the faces of more drivers, galloped to Tiflis.

– Leo Tolstoy, Chapter 15 of Hadji Murad, 1917.

I: Creativity Fosters Free Society.

The task of liberating society can be described as “building a new world in the shell of the old” or finding opportunities to build liberating networks into daily life. In any sense, the project of liberation is an act of creation, and requires creative thinking to be successfully achieved.

The things we create can be the beginnings of the new world that must be built.

The personal liberation found in creating art and inventions facilitates the individual’s ability to live a free life. And on the social level, encouraging the exercise of creativity undermines the social control of authorities who rely on passive consumers and obedient producers.

One who creates is imagining new ways to live and breaking out of the roles and ideas that have been handed to him. Expanding mental attention into new areas expands freedom – the individual who can think about more things is capable of doing more things. Whether creating narratives from images in the mind, or creating usable items from discarded parts, the mental process involved in creation requires that the world be looked at from different perspectives than one is used to. Such a mindset encourages the exploration and toleration of new ideas, hallmarks of a free society.

Creation disrupts the monotony and sterility of social control. Where governments would put drab brown walls along highways, graffiti artists give passengers something to think about besides blank walls and asphalt. The right sticker on a subway advertisement can make the viewer more apt to question the messages they are getting. Public performances disrupt the routine of habit whereby people fall into acceptance of the status quo. And Do-It-Yourself projects are more likely to make the individual feel he can influence the world around him.

Like a free society, creation can be a participatory process of discovery and a voluntary pooling of individual effort for maximum benefit to all participants. Communication and free expression are more valued than slavish devotion to “The Rules.”

A more material payoff of fostering creativity can be discussed. The products of Do-It-Yourself and Make Culture can form the basis of a counter-establishment-economy, finding ways to make discards into valuable capital for use and exchange. And the more that people think innovatively, the more fronts of attack can be opened against authority. For example, more ideas about how to counter attacks on Wikileaks make it harder for the US government to disrupt it. And if Wikileaks is shut down, the authorities will then be confronted with multiple new ideas attacking them, as if they cut off one head of the Hydra to see two grow in its place.

Reason is only one part of the human thought process, so it is often helpful to communicate feeling to go with it. Doing so makes things meaningful on a deeper level, and playing with emotions can reveal the thought processes behind them.

II: Free Society Fosters Creation.

A free society would have no taxes, no globe-spanning empires, and no regulations that lock the economy into rigid hierarchy and inefficiency. But there would be an emphasis on personal liberty – this would be necessary to establish, safeguard, and improve a free society. Such an environment would be conducive to a flowering of human creativity, as creativity would not be limited by arbitrary authoritarian decree.

The elimination of the state will increase the general wealth of society by two related means. One, the government is not leaching off every minute of legal work to line the pockets of those who help politicians exert control and chase glory. Two, there will no longer be arbitrary barriers to entering the economy or to create new economies, making it easier to start new businesses or new ways of exchanging goods. The absence of state distortions in the economy means that people can work more productively with the same amount of time.

Prices of necessities, like housing, nutrition, and utilities, are kept artificially high by government intervention, particularly in land use and technology. As Charles Johnson noted in Bits & Pieces on Free Market Anti-Capitalism: the Many Monopolies,

certain key markets – importantly, the labor market, housing rental market, and other key markets are rigged markets – and in particular, indirectly-created  captive markets, in which working-class folks in need of houses or jobs are driven into a market where they are systematically stripped of resources and alternatives, faced by artificially high costs, and generally constrained to negotiate with incumbent market players who have been placed in an artificially advantageous position over them

The practical result is that in an economy rife with state intervention on behalf of the most powerful interests, the average person works more and receives less than they likely would in a free economy.

The greater profitability of work combined with the falling prices of basic living expenses in a free society means that basic needs could be met with far less work, leaving more time to create and experiment. The ease of finding someone to pay for art (though there would likely be many people interested in free expression and wealth would be more generally attainable) would have less determination over what kind of art was made, as the artist can more easily live off of other endeavors. So art does not have to be easy to sell (though there is nothing wrong with going for mass appeal) but instead would be a truer reflection of the creator’s desires to explore and create.

But creativity does not have to wait for after work is done. A free society is more likely to value the application of creativity to work. Where the authoritarian says, “Do what you’re told,” the libertarian says “If you want to be involved in this endeavor, find the best way you as an individual can contribute.” Valuing results over obedience leads to less drudgery and submission at work. The individual is less of an automaton, and more of a craftsperson valued for his skills and ideas.

A free economy leaves more time for leisure as people work more effectively instead of working longer. The demand for literature, games, and aesthetics would likely rise. So the exchange of creations could be a more prevalent part of life. And the innovation fostered by the nurturing of creativity in a free economy would likely make creation a greater part of social life.

In freedom, one does not need to perpetually labor for others in order to maintain survival or status. The things you do on your own time are more meaningful than things done on others’ time, and living without masters that require constant requests for approval is living free. The individual flourishes in autonomy.

Individual freedom requires respecting individuality. The freedom to experiment and express new ideas would likely be seen as valuable assertions of uniqueness.

III: Freedom of Communication.

The more easily information flows, the better the environment for creation, adaptation, and commentary.

All work is ultimately derivative – to be completely original, you would have to invent language and create every single environment that has fostered ideas. It is the way in which one combines previous ideas that makes a new idea original. In a free society, communication would be facilitated by innovation, by people having more time to communicate instead of taking and giving commands, and by the end of intellectual property regimes. The greater communication that a free society would foster is another way that freedom encourages creativity.

In a free society, communication and accountability would take the place of copyrights and patents. The regime of intellectual gatekeeping and intellectual property generally serves to enrich certain businesses at the expense of individual creators. Authors sign away rights to get published, film studios are not permitted to make adaptations of works that others “own,” technology workers sign away profits from innovations to their employers, incremental improvements on products can violate patents, companies sit on patents to prevent competitors from developing products, and whoever is able to muster the strongest showing in a government court wins.

Ensuring creator recognition through public accountability works by using the flow of information and consumer choice – through innovation, not disruption. In the information age, plagiarism is easier than ever to detect and draw attention to. Selling creative works without paying the creators will lead to market pressure and social costs. New business models to fund research and development will be created. Those who succeed will sell products and those who do not can create products for their own use without a lawsuit hanging over their heads.

QuestionCopyright.org promotes a “Creator-Endorsed” trademark to certify that creators of a work endorse the version that carries the mark (Stephan Kinsella discusses the idea in The Creator-Endorsed Mark as an Alternative to Copyright). A dishonest use of such a mark would constitute a fraudulent attempt to make a profit. If one sold a product bearing the Creator-Endorsed mark without the actual approval of the creator, the customer is not receiving the product they paid for. The seller would be dishonestly keeping money that he promised the consumer he would give to the creator. The Creator-Endorsed mark is one example of an effort to help creators make money by the spread of information and by the decision-making power of consumers.

Cases of derivative work are best decided in the court of public opinion. If a work is an obvious rip-off, it will lose support and bring social costs. If a work draws inspiration from other expressions of ideas, it will be up to each individual to decide if it is too derivative or not. There will not be one line fixed by authority, but multiple standards based in communication, persuasion, and individual decision making.

The use of information technology without state restrictions will overall lead to better working conditions for creators. As Kevin Carson notes in his latest Center for a Stateless Society study The Thermidor of the Progressives,

[I]t’s feasible for a larger number of people than ever before to obtain payment (in smaller amounts) for their ideas by marketing them directly to readers and listeners, as opposed to the previous state of affairs in which fewer people gained access to much larger sums of money by winning the approval of the corporate gatekeepers. What we’re seeing is a return to the folk model of making modest incomes by direct production for one’s audience, in place of a model in which the “artist” is the client of some bureaucratic government or corporate patron (with the giant publishing house or record company “keeping” the artist in the same way an Italian grandee kept his pet artist in the Renaissance).

The corporate gatekeepers, those who skim off the work of some while countless others petition for consideration, are now facing competition from the new entrepreneurialism enabled by the free use of technology. Creators can reach a wider audience without the intermediaries of businesses who have their own interests in mind.

The gatekeepers aren’t better at recommending stuff than friends and trusted reviewers. With mass exposure, quality control is democratized. Creators can judge feedback from multiple sources in a conversation between equals instead of looking up the hierarchy for revision. And consumers have more potential seals of approval to put their trust in.

And mass exposure is good for works that aren’t massively popular too. The free flow of information enables niche audiences to more easily find the products they’re looking for. If I’m trying to convince someone to buy a ticket to a concert I’m going to, one of the best things I can do is point them to YouTube. There might be official videos, there might be bootleg concert footage, and there might be videos made using movie clips without permission. All help the potential consumer make a more informed choice, and lead to more interest in the product. And a variety of creators can be better matched to more unique tastes.

As Carson says later in Thermidor:

But even assuming that “piracy” really does cut into the total revenues of the little guy who’s trying to make a full-time career out of music or writing, that’s looking at only one side of the picture. It neglects what Bastiat called “the unseen.” What revenue does come in to artists follows a much longer tail distribution, spread out among a larger number of people making small amounts of money, as opposed to larger amounts being concentrated in the hands of a smaller number of artists.

Let’s consider my case. I don’t waste time worrying about the sharing of pdf files of my books at torrent sites, or how much money it’s costing me. To me, the proper basis for comparison is the money I still can make that I never could have made at all in the “good old days.” In the good old days, I’d have painstakingly put together a manuscript of hundreds of pages, and then put it away to gather cobwebs when I couldn’t persuade the gatekeepers at a conventional publisher that it was worth the cost of printing and marketing… [I]f it weren’t for digital publishing technologies and free publishing venues on the Internet, I would probably have lived and died doing menial labor with nobody anywhere ever hearing of my ideas. If I’d had to persuade a conventional publisher that my books could sell ten thousand copies before I could be heard, my entire writing career would have been confined to letters to the editor. Thanks to digital culture, I’m able to make my work directly available to anyone in the world who has an Internet connection, and market it virally to a niche readership at virtually no cost.

The breaking of monopoly leads to a flowering of alternatives. Creators are able to see their visions realized in the physical world, and writers are empowered to communicate more.

But the creator is a consumer as well. Finding inspiration and sources for projects can get really expensive or otherwise inconvenient if you can’t download it for free and later compensate and promote those you have found to be most helpful.

In anarchy, human creativity would be liberated and countless ideas would be experimented with. Liberty and creativity are bound together in the pursuit of maximum freedom.