I want to express HUGE gratitude and give big, big thanks to the people of the Language of Liberty Institute and the others who made the LLI Liberty and Entrepeneurship Camp in Martin, Slovakia possible.

You are:

• Mary Lou Gutscher — Top organizatrix, cruise director, mama bear
• Glenn Cripe — Flow steerer, piano man, inspirational focus
• Andy Eyschen — Co-[redacted], [redacted] of [redacted] and [redacted]
  
• Radovan Ďurana — Semi-detached Master of All Things, glue man
• Dušan Viluda — Súdruh, kolaborant, opatrovateľ, spolupracovník a kamarát všestkým

At the camp, I made a bunch of new friends, met several new co-conspirators, a collaborator, a couple of secret society bothers, at least two business partners and a handful of new comrades.

None of this would have been possible without your dedication and perseverance. I have great luck to have been able to ride along in the wake of the energy you mustered and deployed, and to have thus made such connections.

Major thanks to all of you for making the week in Martin something amazing — something brilliant.

Milý súdruh Dušan! Okrem toho, že Ti srdečne ďakujem, poprosil by som, aby si mohol viezť moje poďakovanie aj Barborke, ktorá nás dala takú dokonalú a povznášajúcu demonštráciu slobody (i naozaj šikovnosti a zručnosti) v akcii! Zároveň ďakujem Tvojmu synovi aj ostatným zamestnancom hotela. Súčasne, uvidíme sa, kedy môžeme sa rozprávať na tému toho obchodého nápadu… že?

Answers varied wildly. The exercise, as constructed, was great, because I didn’t know this answer for myself until doing it.

My answer: Compassion. Compassion is my highest value.

Next: What’s your vision for expressing/achieving/maximising that value?

My answer: End all legal privilege. Smash the state.

Next: What is your unique ability to contribute to making that happen? Where is your comparative advantage?

My answer: Crypto/web tech to support the growth of peaceful black and gray markets.

Agora! Compassion! Action!

With a single exception, attendees responded with words evoking free markets, individualism, free association, self-determination, respect for property, the ability to create and retain wealth, no interference in peaceful trade, ideological consistency, and so on.

I then told them that they are all absolutely right. And at the same time absolutely wrong.

I said: Capitalism is an exploitative system of privileges granted to wealthy interests to the detriment of the poor.

And that definition is also right, because it lives in the minds of billions.

Discuss.