I prepared a draft of my first article, “Four Scenarios to Test Your Business”, and presented it to my wife to proofread last night. She got two paragraphs into it and asked, “Who is this written for?”
It made me realize that I need to define my audience better. I have a lot of fuzzy impressions in my head of what I want the AnCap Entrepreneur Network to be. I’m going to take a few hours to try to explain them to my earlier adopters so I can make things clearer to myself.
The idea for the AnCap Entrepreneur Network occurred to me a year or two after listening to an audiobook of the Tannehill’s The Market for Liberty. I came across Gil Guillory’s research on Subscription Patrol and Restitution business models. I had seen the private security patrol industry blossom during South Africa’s wonderfully anarchic period, and had speculated on insuring against crime; but now this was moving beyond theory–it was on the verge of happening in the real world!
As I spoke with Gil about his research, three things became clear to me:
- There was a lot of work to do to prepare for the free society: the State tries to corrupt nearly every aspect of our lives.
- How much, surprisingly, was already done. The State does such a poor job trying to be a one-size-fits-all mega-corporation that competitors fill in all sorts of market niches around it.
- The urgency to build a free society. The aftermath of a failed State is not necessarily the best time to lay the foundation for the future. If US politicians destroy the current State, I want to avoid another century of dictators, wars, inflation, and empire. I want to grab this opportunity to make as much progress as possible toward the world I want to live in.
I’d like to set up community of people interested in exploring business models for a free society. The power of social networks convinced me that they would be an excellent tool for passing the word around. But I want a communication medium a little less transient–a place where we can tinker with flow charts or spread sheets. I’m thinking there is more of a niche for a knowledge base similar to Wikipedia, with links to the various social networks.
So, what sort of people do I expect will want to join me on this project?
- You get Liberty. Either by instinct or by years of study to un-learn the rubbish you were taught in government schools, you know what it means to be free and to respect the freedom of others.
- You’ve spent too much time arguing with people about the way the world should be. You’ve wasted too many hours screaming at idiots on TV. You’re eager to do something positive.
- You’re tired of hiding your ethical beliefs. You may not have an in-your-face attitude, but you don’t care if people find out that you don’t worship rulers who think they are above the law.
- You believe the market is the most effective way for people to cooperate to achieve their ends. You’re ready to trade the goods and services that help people protect their Liberty.
- You can tolerate people with different views. Agorists, Minarchists, Hippies, Bankers, Mainstream Suburbanites, Veterans, Cyberpunks, maybe even the occasional Socialist–if someone can offer you something of value in trade, you are willing to consider the offer. After all, the market is an inclusive social structure; monopolies and cartels are the specialty of the State.
- You’re not frightened of risk. You don’t want (or don’t believe) the promise of a 9-5 job with a gold watch after 40 years. You like to plan what you do, consider alternatives, and live according to your own choices.
- You’re willing to share ideas in public. Sure, this all gets stored in a peta-data center in Utah to be mined for future blackmail by the State. But you are willing to speak freely while you still can. You believe that we advance the cause of Liberty faster through the division of labor than a centrally-planned tyranny can keep up with. And if you find an idea that works, you don’t mind if other people use it–patenting business models is silly.
Do you fit the description?
AnCap Entrepreneur Network 