Bleed The State by FreeRad

The State – A parasitic organization which claims a monopoly on the use of force. Through the use of force and indoctrination the State can, and does, live off of your life blood: your labor, or the product thereof. Without you the State cannot survive. Without your consent the state cannot hide behind the false premise of legitimacy. Without your labor the State will starve. Without the State you will thrive. Without the state all non-aggressive actions are, once again, legitimate. Without the State your labor, and its product, will remain yours. This is why the State is considered parasitic. The State cannot live without its host, but its host can live without the State and, in fact, the host will thrive without it.


Agorism – A Left Libertarian theory based on the premise that we can build a new society inside the decaying remains of an old one through the use of counter economics and subversion of the State. If the State cannot extract the product of your labor then it cannot survive. The State has no money, no land, no authority, and no legitimacy without the consent of the people. Those who attempt to say no are usually put in a cage for being "unAmerican". The most disturbing part about this sentiment is that one of the main reasons for America coming into existence had to do with excessive taxation with a lack of representation. We, as libertarians, lack any semblance of representation in congress, yet we are still bled by this parasite. We, as libertarians, do not consent to this system of governing through institutionalized aggression. We, as libertarians, need to take it upon ourselves to try and end this coercive, parasitic system of violence and corruption because if we do not then who will?


I, personally, believe that one aspect of potential action that could be and should be used by agorists has been left out, ignored, or simply not thought of and\or put to words by the many talented advocates of this movement. I don't know if it is due to an ideological stigma or if they just find it distasteful, but if we can bleed the parasite rather than allowing it to simply bleed us we may have a legitimate shot at taking down the state while many of us are still young enough to enjoy it.


In my opinion, one of the best ways to bleed the State while preventing it from bleeding us involves government programs. Every practicing agorist who appears to have no income, who pays little or no taxes, and\or who makes very little traceable income should sign up for every government program possible. If agorists are taking more money away from the state then they are putting back into the state we are effectively depriving the parasite of its life blood: our stolen labor. Like a tape worm which sits in your intestine and consumes a significant portion of the nutrients your body processes the government consumes a significant amount of the product of the labor of the productive class. If agorists can begin to feed off of the state then we can begin to weaken this parasite so that, hopefully, the next generation will not have to deal with it.


Many may look at this as funding agorism through theft. I can sympathize with this sentiment, but being a small movement we don't have the numbers to simply starve the state through deprivation of our tax dollars. We would be no more than a paper cut. Now, if we latched on to that paper cut in an effort to drain the blood away we'd have much better results. These funds could be used for many reasons; for instance, food stamps could be used to purchase food and resell at $.50 on the dollar, the food could be donated to a charity that can't receive government funds, the food could be donated to needy families in the movement who fall upon hard times, a group of agorists could use the food gathered through state theft and start a soup kitchen, or you could keep the food and free up more liquid capital for other things such as: purchasing silver, purchasing ammo, starting a garden, purchasing solar panels, learning self defense tactics, etc... Products received from WIC could be sold or donated to needy mothers who can't afford to pay full price for formula. We need to think of ways to use up this money before it is used against us.


I am in no way advocating dependency. In fact, quite the opposite. I'm advocating independence. Taking this stolen money and returning it to those who need it. One person can only get so much aid, but if 2 or 3 people can supplement that aid then we can negate some of the effects of government, within the community, by redistributing some of the stolen funds to those who feel the loss the most. I don't like the idea of businesses and charities, within the agorists community, taking money from the state because we want these entities to grow outside of state involvement so that when the state dies they're ready to jump in. With that said, I don't mind agorists who decide to take state funds starting up a charity that will redistribute the funds to the needy, preferably those within the movement. I can see some inconsistency as far as this goes. Why wouldn't we want to drain more from the state by having charities take money from the state? Well, for one, we want our charities and businesses to be independent of the state. We want them to grow without the state, yet within the state's decaying shell. If they take money they'll just be another entity which needs to follow certain rules in order to receive the funds and that's not what we want. As individuals the rules are a bit more lax. We can apply and receive the funds without being monitored for the most part. Plus, agorist charities shouldn't be registering with the state. They need to ignore the state, fight the state, and avoid any attempt to acquiesce to the State.


We must bleed the state because, God knows, they're bleeding us.

Greece's black market is the answer for recovery by Sean Dusk

Greece has the lowest amount of government/private debt compared to other OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) nations at 235% of GDP. Government debt at 127% very high and corporate/household debt at 108% of GDP. Greece's black market is 27% of GDP highest of all OECD nations according to the IMF. Due to widespread tax invasion and "corruption." Average is 11% for OECD nations.

To bring the reins in on such a prosperous black market is preposterous and can only hurt their economy even more. This plan is seen in nations across the world. In times of high government/corporate debt politicians and their lobbyist will do anything to squash the competition.

If the black market is embraced by more people in Greece it will flourish and government will ween itself away kicking and screaming to it's death. But individuals who live in the political designation know as "Greece" will have two chooses get off the dole or suck the parasites dry in turn suffering inflation. 

In reflection this does not seem likely normally the armed fraction hold on to power and the black market goes deeper underground. But when it is left as the only feasible option for the people it serves it is a market that will grow. Lets watch and see who wins.

Armenia Pledges to Rob it's Shadow Economy by Sean Dusk

Armenia will step up enforcement on the shadow economy. According to an article in Azatutyun, this is in hopes to us force to usurp wealth into the parasitic economy. Based on the illogical assumption, that you must to pay the piper.

When bubbles burst black markets grow and naked emperors procreate edicts to regain their legitimacy. Armenia's black market, according to IMF is 46.3 % of it's GDP. This proves that black marketeers in Armenia are resilient and experienced. Devour the parasites, enfuse a growth in the black market and lay to waste their cohorts. 

Kenya's Informal Economy Starves Parasites; Jua Kali by Sean Dusk

Kenya's informal economy is 34% of it's GDP according to the IMF. Kenya's informal economy is starving Kenya's government of millions. Tax dodges preclude 3.4 million of welfare that the parasite class wishes to acquire.

Kenya's Parliamentary Budget Office has broken down the shadow economy into 3 areas. Keeping in mind most of these transactions are grey market exchanges. Their is a lack of bookkeeping is what makes them so successful.

The self-employed is the first group which includes farmers, traders, hawkers, carpenters, etc... Second are the wage slaves who are domestic workers, watchman, construction workers, and general labors. 

The third is Jua Kali meaning hot sun is scorching the parasites. And it is growing they are mostly under the minimum tax bracket, and is estimated to be 7.9 million people. They survive without the parasites and do so as a means of empowering the poor. Their is even a book depicting The Jua Kila of Kenya. Which gives a detailed account of it's existence and it's growth from 1970 to 1995. These people know understand their property is their own and should not be usurped by parasites.

The Shadow Economy as the Agora by Sean Dusk

When Agorist see the shadow economy, they see the unprincipled black marketeer's. Not seeing the action in the unwitting black marketeers. These "black marketeers" are part of the counter evolution, whether they espouse Agorist ideals are not. They are making it possible for an educated Agorist market, to come to fruition.

As the statist economy dies from the cancer that is eating itself. These black marketeer's are laying the golden brick road, for the counter evolution to become possible. Through the study of this black market we can see the extra ordinary actions, that can lead way, for a conscious counter evolution. As I see it their are more of them than their are us and their more of us than their are statist. Although they lack the education they will do more for the movement globally the I ever could. Education is vital but without direct action it is futile.

For countries like Georgia, Bolivia, and Panama the 3 largest black market's.Where 2/3 of their GDP is the shadow GDP, where it is almost impossible to find any information out about them. They can not possibly be expected to get the education that is behind the principle of their actions. This could only be done by "Agorist Missionaries" which I think would be a great idea. Basically reaching these black marketeer's would be of little consequence.

We need to stand together as one United Golden Economy. So when these countries reach the "Agorist Age" we can embrace their experience. Let's bridge the gap and build a new society in the shell of the old for agorist and black marketeers alike.

IMF steps up measures to tax Europe's Shadow Economy

The IMF plans to give nations in Europe, with around 30% GDP going to the underground economy, guidance in taxing their shadow economy. With about 30 million in USD's to help countries like Greece and Ireland tax their underground economy.

Countries with strong underground economies will be forced deeper into the underground. Tax guidance from the IMF will prove week at best. It is cheaper for a business to avoid regulation's, and taxes. In these challenging economic times shadow economies grow.

The World Wide Agora: a proposal by Robbie Revenant

The World Wide Agora: a proposal

by Robbie Revenant

I had originally considered entitling this article "iAgora", in parody of Apple's endless stream of "i"-products, but after saying it aloud, judiciously decided against it.

Thus, "The World Wide Agora": a more descriptive—though certainly less humorous—title. This is the topic of my article; however, before I get to the meat of it I would like to justify it. So let me start with the bones.

There seems to be some debate going on—a schism of sorts—between those who propose that our practice of radical free-market left-libertarian anarchism (agorism) be done in the open, and those who counsel that it be done in secret. Unquestionably, both arguments have merit.

The open-door-agorists (if I may call them that) argue that by self-identifying they encourage others to learn about agorism and join the underground free-market, to their benefit and the state's detriment. The closed-door-agorists argue that antagonizing the system and operating out in the open will only lead to fines, incarceration, and the eventual death of the movement. Furthermore, it may discourage practitioners from participating fully out of fear of reprisal from the state.

As I see it, this is a conflict between the two main problems agorists face when attempting to practice what they preach. How do buyers and sellers find each other? And how do they trade black- or grey-market commodities without being caught? The first requires that agorists be open and public about what they do and what they are offering. The second requires that they be clandestine and secretive. How do we resolve this seemly unresolvable dilemma?

Let's first consider the case of a small, rather homogeneous, agorist community. Suppose I make widgets. These widgets could be anything. They could be something the government deems impermissible for us to own or sell (drugs, weapons, happy meal toys, etc.). Or it could be something heavily regulated. Or it could be that neither party wants to pay taxes on these items. Maybe we just value our privacy and don't want the government snooping on our purchases—what right do they have to know you buy widgets! Maybe they are a white-market item, but because I buy the component parts on the black-market and then sell there, I am able to keep costs down and provide a perfectly legal product at a price that is superbly lower than the same item under government-scrutiny (due to the fact that I'm avoiding sales tax, income-tax, tariffs, and a host of licensing fees, oversight, and other regulation in the production of my wonderful widgets).

In short, it doesn't matter if it's a hand-grenade or a hat-rack. I've got it; you want it; and we both agree on a price. Now, in our little local agorist community such a transaction is quite feasible. We can assume that every agorist knows every agorist (or that someone knows someone who knows someone, etc.). The information problem is no problem at all. Buyers can easily find sellers. Sellers can easily find buyers.

So too, the problem of making the transaction without being apprehended by the police is of little concern. Yes, some Nosy Nancy could observe and report us (and this is becoming a growing threat given the recent drive to deputize the public into a national Snitch-Corps). However, this can easily be circumvented by making the transaction discreetly in a secure location. If Nancy doesn't "see something", Nancy won't "say something". (Thank you, Janet Nazi-tano!)

Now, this idyllic community of agorists has several shortcomings. The first is that all our buying and selling options are restricted to what is local, thus limiting our options. The second, of course, is that such communities are still very rare. So let us move on to the real world, the one in which agorists are scattered across the country—nay, the world.

Now suppose I live in Tucson. And you live in Keene. We suddenly have some major problems arise. You really want a widget, but how do you know I sell widgets? One simply can't put up a website that says, "Buy Bob's Bazookas, Basement Bargain Prices!!". That will no doubt attract significant unwanted attention, not to mention a lengthy jail sentence. You couldn't even sell home-made jam without the FDA shutting you down, or the IRS seizing your bank accounts and threatening imprisonment.

What's an agorist to do? Well, here is my vision (and it's not at all revolutionary, merely the next logical step). You log onto the WWA. Your account has a profile. It may be anonymous, containing no pertinent data about the real-life you; or it may contain enough information to identify you as, well, you. It's your choice.

Others would also have profiles on the WWA and be able to interact on a minimal level (no stalkerish Facebook-like feeds here). You would have a credential-rating based on an algorithm that takes into account who has verified that they know you and to what degree. Having 2 people certify that they know you in person would result in a higher credential-rating than 20 people who just know you from some other virtual meeting-place. The algorithm could also take into account the "connectedness/distance" from a "trusted" or known agorist (the agorist version of an Erdös-number). The idea is to give others a sense of how well they can trust this person, who may very well be anonymous, and to weed out law-enforcement. Anyone would be able to see your credential-rating.

The WWA, in its complete form, would have 3 sections: the Market, the Forums, and the Lyceum. (Although it's the Market that is the heart of the matter, since the Forums and Lyceum already exist in some form or another elsewhere on the web.)

Entering the Market, you see something very akin to Amazon.com or other online stores. There would be a searchable database of items for sale by third-parties. Any user can set up a shop if they have a good or service to sell. Much like Amazon's third-party sellers, they would each have a seller-rating, letting potential buyers gauge whether or not to trust a particular seller. Likewise, each user would have a buyer-rating, although only potential sellers when contacted by a buyer would be able to see his rating. This is to protect the buyer's privacy. (No one need know how many times you've made purchases or trades in the marketplace, or at all!)

Communication in the WWA is done via PGP-like encrypted messages between buyer and seller, passed via secure http (and perhaps even a third layer of encryption) from seller to server to buyer and back again. The servers and mirrors for the WWA would only keep such messages long enough to pass them to the client (buyer or seller). In this way, it acts like a mail-server in which email is deleted off the server when read. The buyer and seller would, of course, have a record of these messages on their local machines, which could be purged also for security purposes if necessary. Notice that even the server hosts cannot read these encrypted messages, nor do they persist on them. These are private conversations between buyer and seller alone!

Such messages would allow buyers to place orders, work out the details of custom orders, make inquiries, and arrange payment (trade, cash, credit, gold, silver, BitCoin, money held in escrow by a trusted third party until the transaction was completed, etc.)—all beyond the scrutiny of prying eyes.

Digital-signatures would be used to verify that an agreement had been reached. This would provide some measure of accountability in the event of a dispute. Both buyers and sellers could be removed for fraud or multiple failures to live up to their contracts. The rating system would have to suffice at first. Later, trusted arbitration groups may pop up to which both sides would voluntarily present their unencrypted agreement, and any other evidence that one lived up to the agreement and the other did not. The WWA would then abide by the ruling of the arbiter and act accordingly on the buyer's or seller's account.

Sellers would be permitted to sell anything that did not violate the NAP. Anything that does (stolen goods, slaves, etc.) would be removed and the seller banned.

The Forums would allow users to communicate at length on various topics in the usual threaded conversation format. Various discussions could be completely open, or restricted to certain users, or restricted to users that meet a certain credential threshold. In this way, you could start a conversation on a topic and have anyone join in, just a few associates, or anyone who is likely to be an actual practicing agorist and not a cop.

The Forums would work differently than most you may have encountered. Nothing would reside on the server for very long in restricted rooms. They would only persist long enough to pass to the other users in the conversation. In fact, it may be possible to design it in a strict peer-to-peer fashion, with the server functioning only to let others in the conversation know who has what pieces of the thread available for download. As with all messages in the WWA, the thread would be encrypted with a PGP-like session key—in this case, unique to the participants and the thread. Only participants in the thread would be able to read it. Even the server hosts and mirrors would not have access to this information.

The Lyceum would be an open area where more theoretical discussions about the history of economic and political thought, as well as the development and current state of agorism could be taught. Unlike the forums, this area would be directed by lecturers familiar with agorism and the particular topic at hand.

The World Wide Agora would then be a kind of super-discreet hybridization of Amazon.com, Facebook, and an online university. It would have fewer bells-and-whistles to be sure; but it would, in turn, make protecting your privacy it's highest concern. This is the reason for all of the encryption and non-persistence of data—to secure the privacy of participants in the agora should the servers be compromised by law-enforcement.

Note that some agorists could choose to remain completely anonymous. Others could self-identify, tying their profiles to their real-world persona. They could thus proclaim to be agorists, promote freedom of the individual and the starvation of the state, help educate others, and at the same time, their actual transactions would be secure from scrutiny. We would have achieved openness without sacrificing privacy.

There would also be other less tangible benefits to having a secure-but-open electronic marketplace. We could get an instant summary of the size and scope of the underground market. If people begin to realize that hundreds, then thousands, then millions of their fellow citizens are participating in counter-economics, they may be more inclined to follow suit. The social-stigma of the counter-economy will wash away and the agora will thrive!

*Technical Note: This is merely a call to action. I confess that I do not personally possess the requisite knowledge to make such a system work. My programming knowledge is in C, C++, Java, and high-level packages like MATLAB. I know nothing about secure PHP or MySQL programming. There is certainly incentive to create the WWA, though. Aside from helping out the movement (promoting a genuinely free market), one could make a nice profit by either charging a small fee for each transaction (which might not be desirable due to privacy concerns), or by charging sellers a fee for setting up shop (much like charging a fee for a booth at a swap meet). Either way, much work would need to be done on a design level first. What I have outlined is merely a rough sketch. Great care would need to be taken to design the protocols necessary to ensure that the three top priorities of such a system would be met: Privacy, Privacy, Privacy!

So, to any enterprising agorist computer-geeks out there: Go to it!

Agora! Anarchy! Action!

Open Source Agorism

Agorist dodge the state by guarding their autonomy. Whether because they do it thru virtue or survival. Which is an valiant tatic for agorism. The means at which we enter into agorism should be open source. As the tools we use to keep our actions and ourselves autonomous are open source so should our strategy be. Open to anyone who sees the fault in the means to becoming an agorist and maintaining agorism. As open source technology has improved encryption, so could it be applied to improve agorism. Open source agorism, so that all the buds may bloom into the black rose that is our culture.

A golden economy by any other name

Agorist's of all stripes, weather they ever heard the word or not. Are participating in the counter culture. We see open agorist who produce wealth off the books. To the blood stained hands of those who, are the parasite's of the black market. Are shaping the face of the golden economy.

Those who choose openness to gain the counter cultures' vision of a truly free market. Fly in the face of statist parasitic market. Call on those who support them when their property is in parol. If they are vindicated through jury nullification or by any other means. The golden economy is seen by those who want liberty now, act to be the change they see in these Agorist hero's.

Those who choose to be the overt Agorist, who use technology to advance an invisible golden economy. Build a new society within', without the parasites. Who whether to not be caught or on the principle of autonomy move in the shadows. Learning from the parasite's of the black market to keep their heads down, moving the golden market foreword. Using technology and living off experience, to sustain a market for those how wish to stay golden.

The uneducated Agorist, who makes up the majority of the golden economy. Who through whatever choice of their own, is advancing liberty unwittingly.
Needs use the most, to see the beauty of their actions and to advance these ideas to the uninformed Agorist.

Then their are those the highly debated parasites of the black market. Those who move as statist in a black market, as too be the rule of law in a market that has no need for their protection/rule. But have survived and can teach us much as to how to survive in a parasitic economy.

Rise and rise again, until all markets, are golden!!!

Black Market Cocaine; Who's the # 1 Exporter

270 tons of cocaine was produced in Colombia in 2009, according to the US Office of National Drug Control Policy.The 2009 amount was lower then the 280 tons produced in 2008 and the 700 tons produced in 2001. 95 percent of the cocaine consumed in the United States is produced in Colombia.

Cocaine production in Colombia fell to less than half the world’s total last year, when Peru surpassed the nation in cultivation of the drug’s base ingredient, the coca leaf, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime said in June.Cocaine production in neighboring Peru rose last year, to 225 metric tons, while output in Bolivia remained stable at 195 metric tons, according to today’s statement by the White House drug czar. Europe may be one of the main markets of both nations, the U.S. said.

As eradication and law-enforcement efforts increase, traffickers are diluting the drug, the drug czar said. Purity of cocaine seized in bulk shipments in the U.S. declined 14 percent from 2006 to 2010.

U.S. Forces in conjunction with Colombian forces, have stepped up their campaign in the last 10 years. This will only continue until the U.S. no longer is able to exploit the world for it's control over it's resources. But as demand increases the countries such as Peru and Bolivia will surpass Colombia. As long as the Colombian's & U.S. Forces continue to attack the Colombian's Cocaine Trade.

Spain's counter economy is gaining approval

Spain's underground economy generated 205.2 billion euros ($275 billion) in 2009, equivalent to a fifth of the country's gross domestic product, consultants A.T. Kearney say in a study commissioned by VISA Europe and released Tuesday.

Spain and neighboring Portugal are tied for third place in the ranking of Western European nations in terms of the ratio of off-the-books economic activity to total GDP.

Factors encouraging the underground economy in Spain include relatively high taxes and social security levies and the large number of small businesses and the self-employed, the study's authors say.

They also note that Spanish tax authorities lack the resources to vigorously pursue people and firms who evade taxes by hiding income.

In terms of value, the bulk of Spain's underground economic activity takes the form of transactions among companies with annual sales of less than 6 million euros ($8 million), according to A.T. Kearney.

The study expressed concern that a widespread Spanish view of off-the-books economic activity as something normal leads to greater acceptance of a counter economy.

An Excert from-Second Realm:Book on Strategy Crypto-Anarchy, Tradecraft, TAZ and Counterculture

Next steps

Should you find this strategy attractive, the question of where to go from here needs to be answered. These are some hints on how to proceed:

1. Make it your goal to achieve liberty based on this strategy or a variation of it.

2. Tell others that you committed to being active for liberty.

3. Dedicate some of your time on a regular basis to spend working on the Second Realm.

4. Start saving, so you can invest into the Second Realm when opportunities come up.

5. Take digital privacy serious. Start using PGP, I2P and similar. Learn about secure behavior.

6. There are some digital autonomous zones out there. Join them and spend time building your reputation.

7. Network with others, but not only in the digital but also in the physical. Have a few drinks together, or start a project. Declare your meetings as being autonomous.

8. Give up collectivist thought, especially asking for permission and requiring others to support you before you do anything.

9. Give up the quest for philosophical homogeneity. We will always differ in the details.

10.Start or support local OTC-Exchangers. Build a position of digital currencies so you can partake in covert commerce.

11.Live a culture of Liberty. Support the autonomy of others visibly: Respect!

12.Insert kindness and strength into the world. Charity and justice are for YOU to do.

13.Encourage others that work for liberty, that invest and produce.

14.If you are an artist, writer, musician, fashion designer (or whatever), run wild in creating our new culture.

15.Begin with defining your boundaries: Shun people that actively attack liberty and deny autonomy to others.

Second Realm:Book on Strategy PDF.

Response to Free Talk Live Discussion

Saturday night, at about 9:15pm est, I was on freetalklive, discussing the recent tour with Liberty on Tour and agorism in general. After the call, Mark, Ian, and Smeg discussed agorism, regarding the need for growing tyranny to result in a large counter-economy and whether that means an agorist would support big government, with Mark quite insistent many do. Here is my reply to that discussion.

Phrasing it as “then we wouldn’t get no government and we gotta have no government because its important and um we’ve gotta do that” is rather disregarding the reasons why its important to anarchists. I understand you’re a minarchist, but to have an elucidating debate and improve oneself’s thoughts, one must take time to understand another’s perspective. Not to mention challenging another’s actual idea will gain a better chance of providing information that would lead to them changing their mind to your idea. I have no issue with government; I have an issue with the state. Many think they’re the same, but there is a nuanced difference. I would define the State as a government organization, but one that maintains a security monopoly over a given area of land, and its inhabitants. Basically, the State won’t let you opt out. If a government decided to be voluntary, I would have no objection to people voluntarily participating and associating. I think it doesn’t make sense and that it would fade away as a popular form of organization, but I’m not going to use force, for those subjective ideas of mine, upon another. I believe in voluntaryism, people associating voluntarily according to their individual subjective desires. And finally, and to the key point behind my objection, the reason it is important to anarchists is because we hold a very high subjective standard for tolerance of organized crime and cannot stand by and do nothing while such tragedy occurs to individuals all over the world daily. That one must act, in whichever way their individual subjective desires lead them to, to end the state.

Regarding other locations for agorism, I agree, and its one of the key reasons for my trip with Libertyon Tour. In the past I’ve thrown around the idea of a Slave State Project, where one finds the worst culturally-similar region and have agorists move there. It would likely help for them to have some wealth beforehand to invest into the region to rejuvenate it with Austrian business cycle knowledge. Then one would connect with the local counter-economy to build its wealth and expand its size, in addition helping destitute people, destitute due to tyrannical state actions, by providing goods and services as well as an income to them. And as the region’s statist occupiers go bankrupt, the wealthy agorists, and their supporters they’ve educated, can do their best to prevent the rebirth of another state. I would note that it depends on the structure of statism in an area whether statist control end, in that the highest sovereign authority must be thwarted to achieve anarchism. Focusing on Detroit  would be difficult (not saying I would oppose it, I like competitive agorist regions for comparative reasons) because while the municipal statists are incredibly tyrannical, there are provincial and national statists that have much more strength. The agora built in Detroit would need to be innovative and wealthy enough to deter those forces from propping up the municipal statists with their larger strength. It would be Detroit's resources against the resources of the entire United States. In the meanwhile before such a project could be built though, I like seeing agorism and the counter-economy grow in regions with different cultural values, crime level (whether private or public crime), economic industries etc. for comparative reasons, demonstrating the expression of subjective desires, and to increase the decentralism that is the strength of the agora.

I’m not “for” big government, I’m for no state. But because I don’t believe that a minarchist state will result in no state, due to the lack of history demonstrating it, I believe that a tyrannical state is the way to no state, which has been demonstrated by history, in addition to the philosophical arguments I find valid and sound. I don’t advocate for the tyrannical state, I do my best to build direct action solutions that resolve social problems and help people, whether through an income, charity work improving people's lives, or providing a good or service. I joke, and I'll honestly admit I’m half serious, that if someone *does* vote, they should vote for the greatest evil to help things move faster. I don't deny the concern that I wonder if there are enough networks built before the final days occur, which is why I’m doing this LoT  tour to help grow them. Despite that, I still believe that libertarians promoting a minarchist state are doing good. I think that not because I believe that their votes or work on legislation will make fundamental change, I think that because it’s a great educational way to promote the ideas of liberty to people and I would never challenge that educational effort. I would note that there are those I encounter who DO advocate for larger government, but they are not numerous at all and I still do think they serve a good point in at least bringing the end closer, I just won’t support their actions of indirect voting action, just as I won’t support minarchists action of indirect voting action. I support the results of their actions, education, and bringing the end closer; I wouldn’t speak against their efforts to promote liberty, just as I wouldn't speak against minarchists efforts to promote liberty. I don’t think I’ve met anyone amongst agorist circles that advocate a violent revolution, these are usually found amongst constitutionalists or far right ex-military types.

For those concerned about not caring about individuals hurt by tyranny, that is not it at all, for I wrote this recently: How One Agorist Cares. Basically, I believe that it should be pointed out that minarchism is often written of as "small" tyranny vs the "large" tyranny and its taken in a still snapshot of time. Obviously, at that very instant large tyranny  is worse than small tyranny. It should be opposed. Minarchists are focused on the now while anarchists are concerned with the end. However, if you look at the full timeline, the wealth and prosperity lost through minarchism in each time as it continues unabated, is incredibly great compared to the immediate short-framed losses when the state collapses. Consider that minarchist states have existed in various forms for hundreds of years. Because of the belief that tyranny must come to achieve anarchism, I support building organizations that provide solutions to problems, improving people’s situation, defending them from statist tyranny whether through hiding information about activities, ability to escape, or, probably not to be used until the state is severely weakened, the market will decide when practicality makes it useful, protection against the agents directly. Tor and Twitter are both examples of ways people have built organizations to be used in self-defense from state; I'm sure there are those amongst us brilliant enough to continue that innovation. Caring agorists, innovating solutions to improving people's lives through various forms of protection and providing goods, services, and income, are the solution to the state's tyrannical actions, not merely running to a lesser state.

The Evolution of Extra Ordinary Action

Ideas are the the theory of the fiber that is the happenings of life. Ideas never die, the test of an idea is their evolution. The evolution of the idea is the antithesis of it's life.

From the practice of life comes fruition of theories, which are derived from ideas. Comes the evolution of ideas, the theories of the participation in existence.
Enveloping from this nexus of radical existence. Which is the seed if allowed to flourish, the action of the evolution.

The counter evolution is the transformation of extraordinary actions, which is the antithesis of sovereignty. Act on this to bring to the fruition of the agora. Act now so that others to follow, will come to know the ideas that will lead them to the actualization of their evolution. Extraordinary actions of sovereign for the win!!!

Free Market Defense; Operation Payback

Two groups of hackers (4Chan & Anonymous) are laying claim to web attacks against MasterCard, PayPal, Visa, and Post Finance( a Swiss bank). Any business causing harm to Wikileaks will in exchanged be harmed.

This is not a picturesque example of free market defense, although we do not choose how free market defense will emerge. To each it's own form, these businesses stand on no moral ground. They enjoy a government granted oligopoly and I bid them no compassion.

This is how the Free Market defense works, activist see a worthy cause and rally around it. Some with support, some running interference. If governments do the inevitable and harm Julian Assange they will bring the wrath of Wikileak's secret cables upon themselves. This is the end game, anyway it plays out, it is Wikileaks for the win.

How One Agorist Cares

I openly believe that in order to truly bring about a voluntaryist, stateless, anarchist society, the state will have to grow more tyrannical first. Because of this, many people accuse me of caring about an idea more than individuals. Yet this is the exact reverse of my sympathies. Its because of the individuals that I care about the idea; indeed, to lose focus on the plight of the individuals in pursuit of an idea would be a great folly, but one I do not believe I'm committing.

Its an unfortunate thing that people, not all, but what tends to be the majority in my observations, accept evil up until the point their survival is endangered. Look at the history of people complying, not necessarily endorsing evil actions. Examine how people consider the evil actions of the American Empire. Contemplate that utilitarian economic arguments persuade people to anarchism more than natural rights ethical arguments. Even I was guilty. In time, I became radicalized and stand by ethical arguments more, but when attempting to provide information to another for them to change their mind, I do my best to remember the economic arguments.

This is why I believe the counter-economy, with an agorist vanguard, is the most likely way the state will be ended. People being forced into the counter-economy due to an increasingly tyrannical, interventionist state will be breaking the statist law to survive. It has happened historically and can, and I believe will, happen again. The problem has always been preventing the next state, hence the agorist vanguard educating people about anarchism.

However, as I mentioned at the beginning, the state has to get very tyrannical before it collapses. This is horrible for the individual suffering at the hands of the state. Yet it must not be forgotten why this is. The state has lost its veneer of legitimacy and is losing support. It must rely upon entirely brute force to survive. Without the loss of legitimacy, the state continues its tyranny, subtle, but violent to the core. More individuals are harmed in the long-run by a minarchist state, with their posterity inheriting the violent tyranny. More wealth is lost as time continues, building upon past loss wealth. Prosperity and ethics are subtly reduced. Just think of how much different the last 100 years could look like without statist actions. Or two hundred. The violence the state exerts in its last days of brute strength seems horrid, and it certainly is, but its also obvious. The violence the state exerts in its long reign over individuals and posterity is equally horrid, but its subtle and not seen for what it is. The tyranny of a dying state is immediate, but its soon to end (with the door then being open to statelessness or a new state which begins increasing tyranny).

However, not only is the tyranny immediate, but a caring agorist has numerous incentives to provide protection for people as the tyranny increases. As the agora grows, businesses will develop to hide people and actions from the state, publicize aggression by the state, and eventually, physically protect them from statist actions.

To put it in an analogy, society, composed of individuals, is diseased by a parasite, the state. It distorts one's limbs and makes one less efficient and, therefore, less prosperous. However, there is a cure. Unfortunately, its a painful cure. Doctors have learned that amputating your limbs in certain areas will allow the parasite to be stopped. You still have time before it consumes your entire body. It will be painful. But there's an anesthesia called agorism to lessen the pain of removing this life-threatening parasite.

Emergence as applied to the Black Market

Black Markets emerge when their is a disruption between the point in which supply and demand meet. This disruption is known as government. Emergence can be described as the appearance of new properties or species in the course of development or evolution. When we look at the black market through emergence. A Black Market emerges where disruption of supply and demand spawns a market which has exceeded the risk of getting caught. 

As we know governments grow as they grow so do Black Markets. As government economies collapse we see Black Markets flourishing replacing the shell which the government has created between supply and demand. Hence the phrase "creating a new society in the shell of the old." Governed ordered economies die and wither away in the shell that is left over a free society with supply and demand as it's structure will emerge. 

Normally as governments collapse the armed fraction will tend to set up their structure as the new "rule of law." As this process happens more and more in geographic designations. The Black Market which inhabits this area will trump the armed fraction, causing their "rule" to become null and void. The free exchange of this Black Market will come to be a non cohesive way for society to assemble.  

This is order out of chaos which is not chaos at all. It is the emergence of an enslaved humanity's fight against the ever growing tide of cohesion.  As societies around the world come to the point of actualization  that governance as a source of order is an illusion, which is what it has always been.  Free exchange will become the order among the chaos which is human interaction. Societies will regard the Black Market as the Free Market. Let's join the freemen that unwitting strive for this reality that time has not yet made an reality. Agora! Action!! Anarchy!!!

Rose Colored Economics

The Economies of all nation's is a mutated version of how resources are allocated to enslave it's slaves and those who make the emperor's robe. Thank you for dying to keep politicans safe. Thank you for dying so government created oligopolies can pillage another geographic designation. Thank you for being robbed so politicians can say they rebuilt America. Thank you for letting us print more "money," call it stimulus, cause inflation and putting your family on the dole after you lost your job. Thank you for being the cops who beat your fellow serfs down. It is alway easier to justify a slave beating a slave. Thank you for being robbed going over sea's and occupying others nation's giving "their" slaves, justification to crash a plane into a building serfs were robbed for and then dying for our "security."

The end to this cycle is to opt out, starve the state and their oligopolies. Build an economy in the shell of the old and let the monster starve. Anarchy, agorism, action, end the illusion that is the white market. Join the counter evolution and the coercion is over. Their "money" will be worthless before we run out of time. Remember time is on our side it always has been.

The Dancing Mice

In this day and age we are inundated with information, this can only be a good thing, the more informed individuals are the better decisions they will be able to make, or so the theory goes.  I think this theory leaves out two very important factors, those who are willfully ignorant and I think by and far the most important, distraction of dancing mice.  The first factor is a matter of individual choice, I will not place an absolute value judgment but I will opine that I believe it is poor way to go through one’s life; blissful ignorance is like complacent slavery.  Not to forget, the former leads to the latter.  I believe it is more important to think about the distraction of the dancing mice, the willfully ignorant do not detract from the numbers who are thinking and informed the distracted, however are.



Yay! Dancing MICE!!!

Traditionally people believe there is false information out there and that is all there is to be wary of, I personally disagree, I think there is also a lot of true information that individuals might as well ignore, especially if you are among the ranks of the well informed.  False information does not last in the light of the skeptic’s lanterns; lies often fall away and are forgotten by well informed individuals, specifically because they question everything.  What doesn’t fall away are things with a shred of truth, if there is a nugget of fact in a story however small or trivial it gives the notion of the whole story some sort of ontological validity.  I think the adaptation of the human to this reality is the discriminating mind, being able to discern the important from the trivial, the vital from the dancing mice.

Let me please highlight some examples of what I am speaking of:

Bradley Manning

I have friends who are working in support of this project deeply, Pvt. Manning was arrested is being held and if he is not dead he will be severely traumatized if he is ever allowed his freedom again.  I do not understand the infatuation with this young man, a great injustice has been done unto him but people are kidding themselves if they truly believe anything they are doing will improve his fate one iota.  I will never suggest that people abandon Pvt. Manning; surely if he did what he is accused of he is a man of heroic stature.  Though I will mention I do find it a bit peculiar that this man is still alive, that some terrible accident or terrorist car bombing did not befall him before he was “caught” is short of miraculous to say the least.

 Julian Assange

What he is doing through Wikileaks is an astounding effort, he is doing something the mass media has dropped the ball on for far too long, with that said, people are advertising every trivial piece of flair about this man.  He is not releasing anything any truly informed individual is ignorant of, we all know the reality of the occupation of the Middle East was based on a sham, we all know  the military is doing a smash up job of killing children.  Now we are supposed to be benefitted by knowing the exact details regarding the government being a piece of shit in regard to other national representatives whose homelands we are not currently dropping bombs in the children thereof?  Was this something we were uncertain of, are we being honest with ourselves?  Individually are we truly enlightened to know the internal business of banks, we long admit are in the pocket of the aforementioned corrupt government, that are not on the up and up?  Much like Manning, especially in the light that the DHS has taken down 70+ websites in the last (was it a week?) without any judicial approval, I am a little bit skeptical because Wikileaks still exists, that and Julian is still walking the Earth.

The TSA

Another event everyone seems to be jumping on the bandwagon of is the TSA scanners and mass scale second base attempts, anyone who does not live under a rock knows the scanners are not reliably safe, there is a lot of dissenting opinion of their safety in the medical field, need I say more?  Any idiot should be able to reason that getting a pat down when you are not in custody (that means under arrest) is a violation of your privacy and personal property.  George Donnelly and his We Won’t Flycampaign is on the right track, but that is it, stop flying, boycott air travel all together, there is enough media buzz about this that one cannot honestly believe they will convince people who are about to go into a terminal to not get on that plane.  I feel for Meg, subjectively she went through a shitty situation when all she wanted was to go home, but she is not the only one who has gone through this type of thing, surely she will not be the last.  Much of the last decade I was getting felt up by TSA agents every time I was going to fly, maybe I should have cried, we could be that many years ahead on this one, or maybe we should just stop talking and start doing?

 SB-510

I have a personal bone to pick with this one, I mean FUCKING REALLY, who the hell is surprised?  This is a particular point I severely disagree with Dr. Rothbard, engaging the system is a complete waste of fucking time, call your senators and congress people, it does not make a lick of difference.  As we have seen in the 2010 cycle there was no overwhelming majority of government reducing candidates to choose from and did any of them make it into office, the answer is FUCK NO!  Now what, the government is on the verge of making rain water collection illegal as well as having loose enough language in the bill to eliminate small farm competition on the food market and potentially personally grown food?  Is anyone who is marginally informed about the government surprised, anyone who is not directly affected by this does not care, when they will feel the effects of higher food prices it will be too fucking late anyhow!

There are a plethora of other issues, baby Cheyenne, police brutality, the list is endless and I feel for all the people who suffer needlessly at the hands of the state they do not consent to, but at the same time I can’t help but imagine what strides could be taken if people would look at the situation and say, “Damn that’s Fucked Up!” and then move on to something more productive.

It is almost as if we are being set up to be lost to astonishment, no one who is in any shape or form truly informed has a doubt that tyrants kill, with sadistic glee, does it follow that when their panties are in a bunch, they are not killing people off because of it?  What people are doing may be honorable but we have to look beyond that, and see that natural cause and effect is being violated.  Maybe these people are allowed to live solely because it is advantageous to have the information distraction?  It seems to me that this is more a seamless web of existence to someone trying to control a large population with an information addiction.

I know Ayn Rand is not so popular with many people, but I think there is a valuable lesson to be learned from her first novel We the Living, a depiction of life in Soviet Russia in the years following the Bolshevik Revolution.

  One of the things she notes about communist life is that there is always some busy work to do, between clubs, organizations, party meetings that if you were not involved in, you were suspect to being a party traitor.  The insight she makes of this is very relevant to the topic, it seems to her through her character personification Kira, that all the “volunteer” activities are really just a distraction to keep people from thinking.  Maybe informed individuals too are given enough information rope to hang ourselves with, to keep us stagnant and there is obvious peer pressure to keep up to date with the latest state sponsored atrocities.

I know is it almost guaranteed that someone is going to say, “But Harry, they are providing the proof for the people who deny the truth, it is a valuable weapon for recruitment.” I have an answer for that, those who are willfully ignorant will remain as such and it is their will.  This is not a fight for “hearts and minds” this is a fight for survival, time is short and getting shorter every day, is it wiser to try to enlighten someone who wishes to reject it or to begin working toward your own future?  I also know someone will say, “It is not about my life but that of the children, I am sacrificing myself for them.” And I am calling bullshit on that as well.  If there was no expectation for even a marginal improvement in one’s own life, there would be no logical point to keep doing this, as there is no guarantee that someone will pick up the torch after you and continue the job when you are dead.  If the thought then goes to recruiting people, scroll your ass back to the top of this paragraph and read it again.

I do not mean to sound pessimistic, I do not mean to be rude, but at this point maybe we should not be wasting so much time being involved on spreading spread news, keeping up with the Jones’ on the amount of factoids we can cram into our heads.  Maybe we should be looking to hone skills that will bring ourselves or prepare ourselves for the next level of the game.  There is stagnation, it is the wall between theory and practice that many seem almost unwilling to scale and overcome, I am unsure if it is fear or that people do not believe the talk they are talking but one thing is certain, people are not doing very much.

Various efforts are showing things are not working, collecting in a specific area to effect the elections is obviously not, bringing messages to the masses is not, maybe doing things that do not work is not the way to go.  In the words of my good friend Jim Davidson in an unrelated topic, “Do more of what works and less of what doesn’t.” at this point I can fairly ascertain much of what is being done is not working what so ever.  What is getting a lot of lip service is agorism, but again I do not see much of that being done, maybe that is an indication of the tree bearing much fruit, maybe not, either way it is walking the walk rather than talking the talk.  The Dancing Mice are all well and good I am sure the .0001% of the population enlightened by their presence is of some value but at this juncture we can either get busy living in their system or get cracking in a counter-economic system, the choice is yours.

 

Yep, teh katz r zmarter than u!

Agorist Education Available Here!

Shameless Book Plug

The High Road and The Low Road; Secrecy and Openness

Moving towards a free society people who can find it advantagous in openness will move in the light. Others know the state is ruthless and will stop at nothing to kill it's "enemies." As the counter evolution moves so will the Alliance. Those who wish to move in the light will be posted on the Internet. Those who choose to move in the cover of dark, shall remain nameless. Solidarity for the counter evolution, freenet for secrecy and Internet for openness, and Darknet for those who choose it. A 3 prong offensive for the evolution non violent, non cohersive. Join The Alliance and advance the agora. They fight with money, we fight with time. You do your work and I'll do mine. Their money will be worthless before we run out of time.

An Agorist Manifesto in 95 Theses - Kyle Bennett | Guest Contribution

agora (1) – n. A place of congregation, especially an ancient Greek marketplace.
agora (2) – n. A market free of forceable regulation, taxation, and government
(The) Agora – The aggregate of all such markets of any size.

95 Theses

Trade that is free, unregulated, untaxed, and unmonitored is the natural right of all human beings
In a voluntary trade, both parties receive more than they give up, otherwise neither would trade.
Nobody gets taken advantage of through mutually voluntary trade.
Taxation forces people to pay for things that aren’t worth the cost
Government regulation forces people to abstain from trades they would otherwise voluntarily make.
Markets collect, organize, and distribute information more rapidly, accurately, fairly, and efficiently than any central authority could ever do, even with superior resources.
Prices are information.
Force distorts market information.
Governments’ only means of action is force.
Governments operate blindly because they only see information distorted by force. The more information they gather, the less clear their vision becomes.
Aggression is a reaction to unpleasant or unwanted information. Its motto is “kill the messenger”.
A market is smarter than any of it’s participants. A government is stupider than most of its participants.
Governments require markets for their survival; markets thrive in the absence of government.
The more efficient a government is, the more dangerous it is.
Markets improve the material well-being of all people. Governments improve the material well-being of some people at the expense of other people.
Markets are more powerful than governments.
Human survival and well-being require free markets.
Human survival and well-being require the absence of government.
The best humanitarian aid that can be brought to impoverished people is to allow them access to the Agora, usually by removing their governments.
Productivity is the application of intelligence to labor for creating something of value to someone.
Labor is equivalent to value in the same way crude oil is equivalent to a vacation.
The non-productive have always and will always try to live off the value created by the productive.
The productive will by right decide how much, if any, to allow it.
Charity is offered and received face-to-face, or it is no longer charity.
Wealth is the natural and honorable reward from trading value for value.
Wealth is a store of productivity, not a store of value.
In the Agora, the wealthy have already given back far more than they received. That’s the only way to get rich in the Agora.
Those who get rich outside the Agora could never give back all they have taken.
Wealth has a short shelf-life, it dissipates when not used productively.
Money laundering is an invented crime, the concept cannot exist in the Agora.
Price gouging is an invented crime, the concept cannot exist in the Agora.
Unfair competition is either not one, or not the other, or not in the Agora.
Market price is an observation of history.
Market price is related to value in the same way news photographs are related to current events.
“Intrinsic value” is a lie told by parasites to try to steal from producers.
Fiat currency is theft by fraud.
Gold and silver are usually the bases for real money because they have properties that best serve that purpose.
Paper is the basis for fiat currency because it has properties that best serve that purpose.
Communication strengthens markets and undermines governments.
Markets are the way communities stay organized when they are too large for face-to-face interaction.
All resources are human. The term “human resources” is demeaning to the nature of both humans and resources.
Resources are what raw materials become by the application of human intelligence and purpose.
Resources are produced. Raw materials in the ground are not resources until they are brought to market.
Competition is not the purpose of a market, it is one of its methods.
Natural selection in the Agora is more Lamarckian than Darwinian.
Natural selection in the Agora does not destroy resources, it reallocates them.
Natural selection in the Agora does not kill people, it frees them to be more productive.
“Dog eat dog” is a feature of governments, not of markets.
Monopolies can only be created and sustained by governments.
Freedom to fail is every bit as important as freedom to succeed.
The Agora guarantees neither, and resists the perpetuation of both.
Markets don’t have goals, values, or ambitions. Markets are a tool for human beings to pursue those things.
“Market Failure” is an oxymoron. People sometimes fail to use markets properly.
Innovation is an inherently Agorist activity, even when it happens outside the Agora.
A primary goal of government is to restrain innovation.
The owners of private property tend not to destroy it. Commons are routinely destroyed or exhaustively consumed.
Agorist exploitation of the environment increases resources, and protects the environment. Government “protection” of the environment reduces resources, and harms the environment.
No species is endangered when it is owned. The best way to keep a species from extinction is to allow it to be property in the Agora.
“Public property” is an oxymoron, and privatization of profits is not privatization.
Property is authority. It’s not a market without private property and private authority.
Where there is private property authority, there is an agora..
Private property let open to the public is not a commons.
Shortages do not exist in the free market, government obfuscation of price information is the only way to acheive a general shortage.
Being unable to buy something at the price you want to pay is not a shortage.
Markets are, in part, a process of voluntary rationing.
Corporations are evil only to the extent they rely on government power. Corporations with a monopoly are branches of government.
Markets rely on trust. Markets rely on suspicion.
Individuals in the Agora expect suspicion and earn trust. Governments demand trust, and earn suspicion.
A government truly of the people, by the people, and for the people would have no powers whatsoever.
If the measure of virtue for a society is how it treats the least among it, then the Agora is the most virtuous society ever known to man.
Governments thrive on opposition, antagonism, provocation, confrontation, and defiance. What they cannot tolerate is to be ignored.
The central idea behind the Agora, and one of the things it does best, is to ignore governments.
The effectiveness of the Agora’s self-regulation is proportional to the extent to which external regulation is absent.
The Agora cannot be managed, controlled, regulated, or destroyed. It can only be interfered with.
Voting is nothing more than an expression of the voter’s preferred way to interfere with the Agora.
The Agora is a network, and like all networks, it routes around damage.
Government is damage.
Public education is an oxymoron.
One of government education’s primary functions is to instill fear of the Agora.
The Agora is all around you. It’s nothing to be afraid of.
The Agora is peaceful. Violence and war are results of failure to embrace the Agora.
Guns are often required to deal with people who operate outside the Agora, because guns are the primary way people outside the Agora operate.
The Agora does not require permission.
Anyone with the power and inclination to grant the Agora permission is a threat to all honest men.
Anyone offering the Agora permission will be ignored.
The Agora ignores creed and color.
When it comes to markets, black is beautiful.
Wherever there are human beings, there is an agora. It may be hiding, but it is there.
The Agora is a select community – the strict qualification for membership is to want it. Most people don’t.
The Agora does not recognize borders or artificial boundaries. It is everywhere, and it is no where.
The Agora welcomes you, but does not need you.
You need the Agora. Even if you oppose it, you benefit from it.
An Agorist movement is an oxymoron. Agorism is the natural state of humanity.
Practicing agorism is the only way to achieve agorism. Isolated networks will eventually find each other.
Governments are on notice the world over: your days are numbered.

The State is a Maginot Line- Kyle Bennett | Guest Contribution

Samuel Edward Konkin’s great insight was that smashing the state is not a prerequisite to achieving freedom, but is a consequence of it. The usual political formulation is this:

Choose freedom -> Get a lot of people together -> smash the state -> have free markets -> build wealth

Konkin saw that it could instead go like this:

Choose freedom -> have free markets -> get a lot of people together -> build wealth -> smash the state

He saw that the key difficulty is the stages “have free markets” and “build wealth.” The problem with waiting to do that until the state is smashed is that it leaves us no means to actually smash the state. Parties and activists have tried numerous methods to do so: asking the state to smash itself via protesting and voting, violent demonstrations, sabotage, withdrawing from commerce altogether to deprive the state of resources, and hiding one’s resources from the state’s grasp.

A lot of agorist discussion I see focuses on the economics of the state in counter-economics, and looks at the “counter” as merely depriving the state of our resources. While this is an important concept, it fails to get at the heart of what Konkin’s insight really reveals. It still places free markets and wealth building as something to come only after the state is smashed.

What this analysis fails to understand is that without resources, any attempt to smash the state is futile, and that small token progress is merely a speed bump that can easily be adjusted to. Achieving these speed-bump victories expends resources and leaves no way to replenish them aside from going back to work for the state’s institutions, feeding their accumulation of resources, and saving a meager pittance to be squandered on the next effort.

It is widely assumed that free markets and wealth building cannot be done under the states omniscient eye and overarching resources. It is that assumption that Konkin challenged. Its true that the purity of free markets cannot be achieved while the state still exerts its influence. But that does not mean that free markets are unavailable to us entirely, only that they carry risk. Even a little bit of free market activity builds resources. Building resources provides the means to expand those nascent markets. And it provides the means to further act against the state, to deprive it of resources, to bring more and more people into the circle of free markets.

“Counter” economics does not just mean anti- the state’s economics, it also means other than the state’s economics. And while we are building resources to smash the state, we are also building the social and market structures that will prevail once the state is gone.

If we wait to build those structures only after the state is gone, we risk opening the door to opportunists ready and willing to impose their own social and market structures, from the top down. By having those structures already in place, having been tested and honed to be resilient against the most powerful enemy we know, we leave no chaotic and dangerous transition period in which our newly found freedom can be usurped by late-comers.

In fact, with those structures in place, and having grown to the point where they trump the state’s reach and power, there might not even be a need to smash the state. Prior to WWII, the French built their ultimate defensive wall, the Maginot Line, against an anticipated invasion from the Nazi regime. They thought it impenetrable, or at least strong enough that smashing it would come at so high a cost as to make it a Pyrrhic victory.

They were right. But they made an assumption that was fatal to their defenses, and ultimately fatal to tens of thousands of their people. They assumed that the Ardennes forest was equally impenetrable, and left it mostly open as a “natural” defensive obstacle. The German generals, however, knew better. With their modern equipment and knowledge, the forest might as well have been a paved superhighway. The Germans never attacked the Maginot Line, except later, from the rear, as a mopping up operation. They knew that they would have been slaughtered in a frontal assault on it, but also that such an assault was entirely unnecessary.

I suggest we go through the forest.