I have a little book on my shelf called “Dictionary of False Friends of the Translator.” I’m not a translator, but I’ve always found it interesting to leaf through this book and confirm once again how important the smallest details are for understanding information—etymology and connotations when speaking of words, context when speaking of words in text.
I think anyone who can call themselves a libertarian has repeatedly participated in disputes about voluntariness. This is one of the key concepts for understanding the foundations of economics (voluntary exchange), the non-aggression principle, and the like. Libertarianism is impossible without a clear understanding of the boundaries between voluntary and coercive.
Again, I think I’m not wrong in saying that discussions of this kind—even excluding ordinary trolling—are usually, to put it mildly, anything but simple. There are many reasons for this, from misunderstanding the level of abstraction at which statements are made to the banal “Soviet heritage” in one’s head. But there is one reason I’d like to discuss a little, and it has to do with translation and connotations.
It is no secret that most economic and libertarian literature is written in English. And in English the word that appears as “добровольный” looks like “voluntary.” The connotations of these words differ; “voluntary” cannot be accurately translated into Russian (hence the separately standing “волюнтаризм” [voluntarism]). One can say “добровольный” (voluntary), “по воле” (by will), “по желанию” (by desire), but there is no unambiguous equivalent. It is usually translated as “добровольный,” but this word, it seems to me, is one of the causes of problems and misconceptions. The thing is that in “добровольный” the emphasis is often not on “will” but on “goodness.” “Went as a volunteer,” “voluntarily surrendered”—here there is clearly an emphasis not on “will” but on the fact that it is “good,” that the person does a kind of favor for others, brings, so to speak, some benefit. Meanwhile, in the English word “volunteer,” a different shade sounds: a person participates in something that coincides with his goals—in the case of war, for example, goes to war because he strives toward this goal, because this is what his will consists of.
Let me give an example of how understanding the difference between “добровольный” and “voluntary” can ease the argument. Here is a standard thesis, worn out to the point of nausea: that a person buying something (participating in an exchange) does so not voluntarily but, for example, under the influence of advertising (another common version is that the worker sells his labor “under the threat of hunger”). “Voluntariness” for those who use this thesis means some virginal purity and uncloudedness of the subject’s motives. That is, if he bought “Coca-Cola” after meditating for three days, then it is voluntary, but if he happened to see an advertisement before that, then that’s it, all is lost. And therefore, “voluntary exchange does not exist” and the entire economic science goes to ruin. With the worker “selling labor” under the threat of hunger, it is even worse; in general, neither economists nor libertarians understand anything, they are disconnected from life and complete utopians.
Meanwhile, economics, law, and behind them “libertarianism” speak of voluntary—which in this case can be translated as “по желанию” (by desire). If you replace “добровольно” (voluntarily) with “по желанию” (by desire), it becomes considerably more difficult to shove advertising or the hunger-aunt into the reasoning.
Indeed, the regularities that arise during voluntary exchanges do not depend at all on whether these exchanges were conducted “under the influence” of hunger, cold, advertising, the opinion of neighbor Uncle Kolya, or the aunt from Zhitomir. And it is quite obvious why. Law and economics study what lies between people, not the people themselves. No one can know under the influence of what factors this or that person acts one way or another. We only see other people’s actions, and this mutual seeing of each other’s actions and the reactions to them is the foundation of what is called “social order” with all its complex institutions and regularities.
When these actions are performed “by desire” of a person, and not under coercion by another person, the social order expands (people satisfy their desires, as they see them at the moment, by satisfying others’ desires, and build their plans based on the expectation that such an order will be preserved), the number of connections and the complexity of orders increases, and therefore, people’s possibilities and the wealth of “society as a whole” grow. For these reasons, distinguishing between voluntary and coercive is so significant, and precision in understanding these words is so important.
Now, a little about another word: “деятельность” (activity). In Russian, “деятельность” is usually associated with a fairly expanded plan and its practical implementation. Usually it would not occur to you to call, say, a purchase in a store “деятельность” (activity). The store itself—that is activity, and what kind! But a single purchase in it—no.
You have already guessed that the discussion will be about the well-known book and the simple problem that it is called Human Action, and the author himself writes there about action, not about “деятельность” (activity). It would seem that this very action should be more correctly translated as “действие” (action). But here again there is a hitch, because “действие” in Russian means something very short, often unconscious—it is actually an indivisible unit, like raising a hand. In general, they translated it as “деятельность” (activity), but the real meaning is somewhere in the middle between “действие” (action) and “деятельность” (activity). It is clear that one can show everyone a quote from this book with the definition of “деятельность” (activity), but this, it seems to me, is not the best solution—you will not always succeed at it. But if you remember that the words “деятельность” (activity) and, all the more so, “действие” (action) describe not quite what Mises meant, you can avoid various unpleasant situations in discussions on this matter.