Tuesday, November 30, 2010
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.
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.
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.
An Agorist Road Map- Kyle Bennett | Guest Contribution
So, you want to secede? Your differences with some government or other are irreconcilable, and you want a divorce, but you don’t know how? The usual methods are messy, and involve lawyers. You’ll spend a lot of money and time, years of draining effort, endure painful negotiations, and hope that at the end of it all, you’ve convinced enough of the right people to sign off on your wishes. You’ll have no idea if, when, and at what cost the final victory will come. You may even have to fight a war before it is all over.
Would you like an easier way? A way that puts you in control, that allows you to secede entirely on your own initiative? Do you want to start right now, from where you currently live, without the hassle of figuring out how to divide the house? Do you want to spend your time and money building a new life and a prosperous future instead of buying your ex’s lawyer’s next BMW? Do you want to separate in a way that deprives your ex, the state, of the resources it needs to keep hounding you?
Agorism may just be the answer you are looking for. Think of it as a DIY divorce, free from political and legal wrangling and compromises among competing factions, and without the risk of a power vacuum into which the next up and coming wannabe tyrantcan step. The resources you use remain yours, and build over time. They are not spent on flyers and events and donations, they are invested. They are invested in you.
What is a state, really? It’s a bunch of people, operating under a certain set of rules, perhaps with a shared culture and set of norms. It is a set of mechanisms for enforcing laws, regulating economic activity and money, maintaining geographical integrity, and collecting resources to do all of this via taxation. Some of these things are necessary to any kind of society, others are nothing more than means arbitrarily chosen by a state to try to create the first set of things. They are the wrong means.
The great insights of market anarchism are that rules can be enforced by individuals without centralized law, that markets can self-regulate economic activity and money, that taxes are just theft that allow the non-productive to live off the work of the productive, and that geographical integrity is only necessary to the flawed means chosen by states.
Agorism has a simple answer to freeing one’s self from those flawed means: Just stop. Don’t participate in top down legal enforcement, start enforcing the rules you need for your life from the bottom up, with your own resources. Don’t allow economic regulators to rule your life and your trade and your money, regulate them yourself via markets, relationships, and real money such as silver. Start paying for the things you need yourself, while refusing to pay for those things that others want. Free yourself from the bonds of geographical monopolies and declare that wherever you are, right here and right now, is your own country of one. Let a billion nations bloom.
OK, you didn’t really expect a free lunch, did you? It’s never that simple, except in principle. It takes work, sweat and toil, risk, and planning ahead to achieve the things you want, even those things you have a right to. It’s a process, not a single event. There are basically two processes, done in tandem, and that build upon each other. One is reducing those areas of your life that fall under the control of the state, and removing the remainder from state control. The other is moving those things into another realm, one in which you are in control, you make the decisions, and you reap the rewards. The first reduces the power the state has over you, and over others, by draining resources away from the state that would use them against you. The second builds a new life, the kind we were told as kids was possible in a “free” country where you could be anything you wanted to be. And it creates a society, and a culture, that will already be in place and moving forward on that happy day when states begin collapsing all around us.
Reducing your “lifestyle footprint” in the state controlled sphere frees up your time to act in the free domain. It makes you more agile, more flexible, better able to respond to both opportunities and threats. Are you in debt? Eliminate it, as soon as humanly possible. Debt is the greatest enslaver of mankind. Do you maintain a rich lifestyle dependent on a high income? Cut back as far as you can stand. You won’t have to give those things up for long, you are only reducing them on one side so you can build them up on the other. Is your job tying you down to a fixed schedule, W-4 or 1099 forms, bosses or clients who will never go along with your agorist goals? Re-orient your career to a freelance, or purely entrepreneurial form, or even a different field entirely.
At the same time, begin building yourself up on the free side of life. Learn to handle silver. Just buy a little every so often at first. Learn the pricing structure of bullion and “junk” US Silver coins. Learn how silver feels in your hand, and that satisfying llittle “tink” sound it makes when struck. This is the beginning of your agorist nest egg. Start learning new tradable skills, different than the ones you currently make your living with, to allow a greater range of options. Seek out like-minded people and opportunities to trade. Learn to explicitly assess your trust in them, and to communicate that trust to others in an objective way free of malice or gossip. The most basic infrastructure of agorism is relationships and trust. It is never too early to begin laying those foundations.
Consider your earliest interactions as practice, as opportunities to share in the learning of skills that will be needed as you move to a more and more agorist lifestyle. Make free, unhindered trades for the fun of it, and to learn the details and techniques that make such trade move more smoothly. Use this to build up a network of trusted associates, and maybe some not so trusted. Look for fellow travelers in your community, who may not care about agorism per se, but are willing to work outside the system. Learn to keep your data, communications, and plans secure through encryption, and to selectively reveal them to others based on trust. Learn to think of the pricing of goods and services in terms of silver or gold, rather than dollars.
Most agorists are currently operating in this stage zero of agorism. It doesn’t look like much from the outside, and there is a constant itching to get out there and do something. However, If you have debt, if you maintain a rich lifestyle, the demands these place on you will thwart your efforts to free yourself at every turn. If you don’t have a network of friends and trading partners, you’ll find your opportunities for agorist expansion limited. This is the stage for preparing the ground, laying foundations for future building. It’s a time of learning skills and techniques, of meeting new people who share the agorist vision. It is a time for learning to think and act in a new way, for getting used to ignoring the state and becoming comfortable with the risks and the opportunities that entails. It is a time for learning to think of creative, bottom-up market solutions instead of top-down coercive solutions.
As your abilities and options grow, you will begin to use these networks and skills to get real work done, to build income and capital. You will begin to need some kind of physical and/or formal abstract infrastructure to facilitate your activities. The main categories of infrastructure are in the areas of security, currency, trade, transportation, communication, dispute resolution, and land. Build what you need, as you need it, but don’t build any one area out fully in anticipation of future needs. Let them grow organically, holistically, and in sync with each other, to serve the needs you have at any given stage of your own agorist development. Co-opt existing infrastructure when you can, or when you need to until you can build your own. Also, remember that others will need this infrastructure as well, so there is entrepreneurial opportunity there.
Success will breed more success. Those on the political fence will begin to see greener pastures on our side, misery, fear, and want on the other. The slow trickle of resources being withdrawn from state control will become a stream, then a torrent, then an exodus. Government will become weak, then crippled, then entirely impotent. One day you’ll wake up and realize that the state has withered on the vine, that you have built a new society and a new culture free from its incessant interference in your economic and social life.
We are now approaching six centuries after the printing press freed information and inquiry from the control of the elites in state and church. The world has built societies that those elites could never have imagined. What could we build within a mere six decades of the dawn of the internet and its freeing of information and relationships from the bonds of mass and distance? Would we recognize it if we could see it today?
It won’t take six decades to start to see real results in an agorist life, if we start today. We can begin to see them almost immediately. We can do it, but we can’t do it for you. Each of us has to build that world for ourselves. We can cooperate in the effort, we can mutually benefit from voluntary trade, we can build on each other’s successes and innovations. But we have to build it, we cannot wait for others to build it for us. Those who do wait will find themselves excluded from it, until such a day as it is all around them and they are dragged kicking and screaming into it. It is inevitable, and necessary if the human race is to survive and to continue advancing, to continue prospering. But inevitable does not mean imminent. It won’t happen until somebody picks up the tools and starts the work. It can happen in our lifetimes if we make it happen, but it won’t happen until we do.
Would you like an easier way? A way that puts you in control, that allows you to secede entirely on your own initiative? Do you want to start right now, from where you currently live, without the hassle of figuring out how to divide the house? Do you want to spend your time and money building a new life and a prosperous future instead of buying your ex’s lawyer’s next BMW? Do you want to separate in a way that deprives your ex, the state, of the resources it needs to keep hounding you?
Agorism may just be the answer you are looking for. Think of it as a DIY divorce, free from political and legal wrangling and compromises among competing factions, and without the risk of a power vacuum into which the next up and coming wannabe tyrantcan step. The resources you use remain yours, and build over time. They are not spent on flyers and events and donations, they are invested. They are invested in you.
What is a state, really? It’s a bunch of people, operating under a certain set of rules, perhaps with a shared culture and set of norms. It is a set of mechanisms for enforcing laws, regulating economic activity and money, maintaining geographical integrity, and collecting resources to do all of this via taxation. Some of these things are necessary to any kind of society, others are nothing more than means arbitrarily chosen by a state to try to create the first set of things. They are the wrong means.
The great insights of market anarchism are that rules can be enforced by individuals without centralized law, that markets can self-regulate economic activity and money, that taxes are just theft that allow the non-productive to live off the work of the productive, and that geographical integrity is only necessary to the flawed means chosen by states.
Agorism has a simple answer to freeing one’s self from those flawed means: Just stop. Don’t participate in top down legal enforcement, start enforcing the rules you need for your life from the bottom up, with your own resources. Don’t allow economic regulators to rule your life and your trade and your money, regulate them yourself via markets, relationships, and real money such as silver. Start paying for the things you need yourself, while refusing to pay for those things that others want. Free yourself from the bonds of geographical monopolies and declare that wherever you are, right here and right now, is your own country of one. Let a billion nations bloom.
OK, you didn’t really expect a free lunch, did you? It’s never that simple, except in principle. It takes work, sweat and toil, risk, and planning ahead to achieve the things you want, even those things you have a right to. It’s a process, not a single event. There are basically two processes, done in tandem, and that build upon each other. One is reducing those areas of your life that fall under the control of the state, and removing the remainder from state control. The other is moving those things into another realm, one in which you are in control, you make the decisions, and you reap the rewards. The first reduces the power the state has over you, and over others, by draining resources away from the state that would use them against you. The second builds a new life, the kind we were told as kids was possible in a “free” country where you could be anything you wanted to be. And it creates a society, and a culture, that will already be in place and moving forward on that happy day when states begin collapsing all around us.
Reducing your “lifestyle footprint” in the state controlled sphere frees up your time to act in the free domain. It makes you more agile, more flexible, better able to respond to both opportunities and threats. Are you in debt? Eliminate it, as soon as humanly possible. Debt is the greatest enslaver of mankind. Do you maintain a rich lifestyle dependent on a high income? Cut back as far as you can stand. You won’t have to give those things up for long, you are only reducing them on one side so you can build them up on the other. Is your job tying you down to a fixed schedule, W-4 or 1099 forms, bosses or clients who will never go along with your agorist goals? Re-orient your career to a freelance, or purely entrepreneurial form, or even a different field entirely.
At the same time, begin building yourself up on the free side of life. Learn to handle silver. Just buy a little every so often at first. Learn the pricing structure of bullion and “junk” US Silver coins. Learn how silver feels in your hand, and that satisfying llittle “tink” sound it makes when struck. This is the beginning of your agorist nest egg. Start learning new tradable skills, different than the ones you currently make your living with, to allow a greater range of options. Seek out like-minded people and opportunities to trade. Learn to explicitly assess your trust in them, and to communicate that trust to others in an objective way free of malice or gossip. The most basic infrastructure of agorism is relationships and trust. It is never too early to begin laying those foundations.
Consider your earliest interactions as practice, as opportunities to share in the learning of skills that will be needed as you move to a more and more agorist lifestyle. Make free, unhindered trades for the fun of it, and to learn the details and techniques that make such trade move more smoothly. Use this to build up a network of trusted associates, and maybe some not so trusted. Look for fellow travelers in your community, who may not care about agorism per se, but are willing to work outside the system. Learn to keep your data, communications, and plans secure through encryption, and to selectively reveal them to others based on trust. Learn to think of the pricing of goods and services in terms of silver or gold, rather than dollars.
Most agorists are currently operating in this stage zero of agorism. It doesn’t look like much from the outside, and there is a constant itching to get out there and do something. However, If you have debt, if you maintain a rich lifestyle, the demands these place on you will thwart your efforts to free yourself at every turn. If you don’t have a network of friends and trading partners, you’ll find your opportunities for agorist expansion limited. This is the stage for preparing the ground, laying foundations for future building. It’s a time of learning skills and techniques, of meeting new people who share the agorist vision. It is a time for learning to think and act in a new way, for getting used to ignoring the state and becoming comfortable with the risks and the opportunities that entails. It is a time for learning to think of creative, bottom-up market solutions instead of top-down coercive solutions.
As your abilities and options grow, you will begin to use these networks and skills to get real work done, to build income and capital. You will begin to need some kind of physical and/or formal abstract infrastructure to facilitate your activities. The main categories of infrastructure are in the areas of security, currency, trade, transportation, communication, dispute resolution, and land. Build what you need, as you need it, but don’t build any one area out fully in anticipation of future needs. Let them grow organically, holistically, and in sync with each other, to serve the needs you have at any given stage of your own agorist development. Co-opt existing infrastructure when you can, or when you need to until you can build your own. Also, remember that others will need this infrastructure as well, so there is entrepreneurial opportunity there.
Success will breed more success. Those on the political fence will begin to see greener pastures on our side, misery, fear, and want on the other. The slow trickle of resources being withdrawn from state control will become a stream, then a torrent, then an exodus. Government will become weak, then crippled, then entirely impotent. One day you’ll wake up and realize that the state has withered on the vine, that you have built a new society and a new culture free from its incessant interference in your economic and social life.
We are now approaching six centuries after the printing press freed information and inquiry from the control of the elites in state and church. The world has built societies that those elites could never have imagined. What could we build within a mere six decades of the dawn of the internet and its freeing of information and relationships from the bonds of mass and distance? Would we recognize it if we could see it today?
It won’t take six decades to start to see real results in an agorist life, if we start today. We can begin to see them almost immediately. We can do it, but we can’t do it for you. Each of us has to build that world for ourselves. We can cooperate in the effort, we can mutually benefit from voluntary trade, we can build on each other’s successes and innovations. But we have to build it, we cannot wait for others to build it for us. Those who do wait will find themselves excluded from it, until such a day as it is all around them and they are dragged kicking and screaming into it. It is inevitable, and necessary if the human race is to survive and to continue advancing, to continue prospering. But inevitable does not mean imminent. It won’t happen until somebody picks up the tools and starts the work. It can happen in our lifetimes if we make it happen, but it won’t happen until we do.
Pronunciation of Agorism
Due to the nature of the internet being crucial in education of liberty-oriented ideas, many individuals have had to teach themselves the pronunciation of various names and words. When FSP activists started speaking to each other, many had to teach others the proper pronunciations of such names and words, such as Mises and Keynesian. One word, however, has had a split on proper pronunciation: agorism.
On one side, with Jack Shimek and the Shire Activists leading the way, is the pronunciation as similar to the word agora itself: uh-GOR-ism. On the more popular side, with Keeniacs leading the way, is the pronunciation as A-gor-ism.
I've attempted to research the pronunciation of the word online, but to no avail; I've tried to inquire as to which pronunciation SEKIII used from various contemporaries of his, but from what I learned even he used both pronunciations.
What is interesting are the divisions that have occurred, coincidentally for sure, along line of pronunciation preference. For example, the former advocate more secretive businesses while the latter advocated more public businesses, mixing agorism and civil disobedience. The former advocate their secrecy on reasonable grounds of protection from the state. The latter are influenced by Keeniac tendency to commit civil disobedience, but I'm also of the belief that openness is a protection in itself as well as a form of education to inspire others to join the agorist economy. If one is public enough, people will notice when the state acts against them and knowledge can spread, allowing a response to be better planned.
This pronunciation-divide, as a result, could easily turn into a way of differentiating forms of agorism amongst secretive vs open, a shibboleth amongst our own. So, are you an uh-GOR-ist or an A-gor-ist?
On one side, with Jack Shimek and the Shire Activists leading the way, is the pronunciation as similar to the word agora itself: uh-GOR-ism. On the more popular side, with Keeniacs leading the way, is the pronunciation as A-gor-ism.
I've attempted to research the pronunciation of the word online, but to no avail; I've tried to inquire as to which pronunciation SEKIII used from various contemporaries of his, but from what I learned even he used both pronunciations.
What is interesting are the divisions that have occurred, coincidentally for sure, along line of pronunciation preference. For example, the former advocate more secretive businesses while the latter advocated more public businesses, mixing agorism and civil disobedience. The former advocate their secrecy on reasonable grounds of protection from the state. The latter are influenced by Keeniac tendency to commit civil disobedience, but I'm also of the belief that openness is a protection in itself as well as a form of education to inspire others to join the agorist economy. If one is public enough, people will notice when the state acts against them and knowledge can spread, allowing a response to be better planned.
This pronunciation-divide, as a result, could easily turn into a way of differentiating forms of agorism amongst secretive vs open, a shibboleth amongst our own. So, are you an uh-GOR-ist or an A-gor-ist?
Difference Between Counter-Economy and Agorist Economy
A growing tendency among counter-economists or anarchists introduced to agorism is to confuse the terms of counter-economy and agorism. A simple reading of Konkin would resolve this matter, but many are too busy to read through the theory of the ideas. Simply put, the counter-economy refers to either uneducated underground economic actions, whether intentional or not, and those who study the counter-economy (a lesser used definition). Agorism refers to underground economic actions done intentionally to weaken the state. I will be using the former definition of counter-economist within this article. Therefore, the counter-economist economy is the underground economy while the agorist economy is the section of the underground economy of people acting to end the state.
It is important to not confuse the two because a counter-economist does not necessarily have the ethics of an agorist and can create bad PR for agorists, rat out an agorist to protect themselves, and/or may lead to the creation of a new state. At the same time, it is crucial to work with and amongst the counter-economists to grow the counter-economy and agorist economy.
Because a counter-economist does not act to end the state, it is also likewise that they are more willing to act in a way that results in bad PR. This can mean using violence or unsavory business practices such as racial discrimination or not paying an employee in order to make a profit.
A counter-economist is in the counter-economy for one reason: survival. It is an entirely economic decision to provide for themselves, and possibly their family, so that they can live to the next day. This occurs when the statist economy has become so regulated that it is economically inefficient to work within it. If the state were to offer a pardon and/or financial reward to rat out the greater threat of an agorist, educating against the state, it would be in their economic benefit to accept the deal instead of being punished for their activity.
Either will end the state they are living under when the counter-economy has grown to such a level that the state can no longer profit from organized theft. So why worry about a counter-economist creating a new state? Because while they were forced underground to survive due to statist actions, the schelling point of statism has not been eradicated. Many are still under the belief that a state can be better if different people are in charge, not the belief that the state itself is the problem. This is why formerly Soviet Union territory is still oppressed by statism.
And its because of these very reasons that agorists must recognize the difference between counter-economists and agorists for not only their own safety, but for the purposes of ending the state. Educating individuals equally at risk for illegal activities results in more people not wanting a new state when the current one collapses and an increase in protection as they gain anarchist ethics of solidarity and more ethical business practices. As the agorist economy grows within the shell of the counter-economy, the likelihood of a new state rising from the ashes of the old one decreases as there are more influential businessmen disavowing the use of coercive violence and more peaceful methods of providing services typically, and supposedly, provided by the state.
It is important to not confuse the two because a counter-economist does not necessarily have the ethics of an agorist and can create bad PR for agorists, rat out an agorist to protect themselves, and/or may lead to the creation of a new state. At the same time, it is crucial to work with and amongst the counter-economists to grow the counter-economy and agorist economy.
Because a counter-economist does not act to end the state, it is also likewise that they are more willing to act in a way that results in bad PR. This can mean using violence or unsavory business practices such as racial discrimination or not paying an employee in order to make a profit.
A counter-economist is in the counter-economy for one reason: survival. It is an entirely economic decision to provide for themselves, and possibly their family, so that they can live to the next day. This occurs when the statist economy has become so regulated that it is economically inefficient to work within it. If the state were to offer a pardon and/or financial reward to rat out the greater threat of an agorist, educating against the state, it would be in their economic benefit to accept the deal instead of being punished for their activity.
Either will end the state they are living under when the counter-economy has grown to such a level that the state can no longer profit from organized theft. So why worry about a counter-economist creating a new state? Because while they were forced underground to survive due to statist actions, the schelling point of statism has not been eradicated. Many are still under the belief that a state can be better if different people are in charge, not the belief that the state itself is the problem. This is why formerly Soviet Union territory is still oppressed by statism.
And its because of these very reasons that agorists must recognize the difference between counter-economists and agorists for not only their own safety, but for the purposes of ending the state. Educating individuals equally at risk for illegal activities results in more people not wanting a new state when the current one collapses and an increase in protection as they gain anarchist ethics of solidarity and more ethical business practices. As the agorist economy grows within the shell of the counter-economy, the likelihood of a new state rising from the ashes of the old one decreases as there are more influential businessmen disavowing the use of coercive violence and more peaceful methods of providing services typically, and supposedly, provided by the state.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Statist Intervention Earns Resentment of Truckers
One member of the alliance, Ethan Lee Vita, happens to be traveling across North America, meeting individuals and promoting the concepts of liberty, mostly through agorist or counter-economic activities. Often, he rides with truckers, who have long complained about bureaucratic regulations from the state with regard to governors and hours of service. However, on this latest trip, he's noticed an increase in complaints.
Hours of Service (HOS): A federal agency, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), regulation requiring breaks, intended for safety and prevention of driver fatigue, and limiting hours of driving time.
Governors: Device that limits the speed of a vehicle, intended to allow drivers to slow down sooner in an emergency and for fuel efficiency. There are calls to require this on every vehicle and every truck manufactured since 1992 has had them installed, even if they're not enabled.
Logbooks: Most truckers use paper versions to record their HOS, though some companies use Electronic On-Board Recorders (EOBRs). FMCSA desires to require EOBRs.
For those who don't understand the trucking industry, allow me to explain. Truckers are paid on a per mile basis, and often poorly per mile, so they are highly incentivized to drive as many miles as they can. However, they must also please those they are transporting goods to, so they can't take an unnecessarily long route, but must be quick. The combination of these two aspects incentivizes them to drive long hours to get as many miles in as they can in as short a period as possible.
Obviously, there are safety concerns with doing such for reasons of fatigue, often resulting in accidents damaging life and property. Instead of allowing the market to resolve this issue via its decentralized solutions, such as a company instituting its own regulations that make sense for efficient business, or contracting such out to an insurance company, the state got involved with such regulations that cause more problems than they resolve.
At first glance, which rarely reveals the whole story, a regulation dealing with fatigue sounds great. However, as with most regulations from outside an industry, it fails to take several aspects into effect. For instance, HOS regulates that the hours spent driving may not be interrupted for any breaks, but the timer must continue. Formerly, a driver could take a break during their drive, stopping their clock. Because they are no longer allowed to stop the clock, and they are paid per mile, drivers, especially those with EOBR which automatically record hours, drivers often continue driving despite being tired. As a result, this regulation causes dangerous driving conditions it purports to stop. Furthermore, they used to allow drivers to split hours if they needed to take a break, but disallowed it with changes within the last five years.
Sometimes, the regulation contradicts a different statist regulation. For example, often times a driver will reach the end of their hours without being near a proper location to stop for the night, resulting in them stopping on the side of the road, or on the side of an on-ramp, illegally. And because thats illegal, state patrolmen often wake them and have them move along, driving further illegally and dangerously.
So with this information, how does this relate to the counter-economy or agorist economy beyond the inefficiencies of the statist economy? As a result of these regulations, many truckers break the law in order to earn more money. Those with paper logs often keep two copies, one to the company for compensation and one for police to inspect that is legal. While not strictly agorist, or even counter-economic, it is proof that the more the state regulates a business, the more the industry is harmed, the more the regulation is counter-productive, the more the industry steps into the underground market, until finally, the industry is prohibited or so cost-prohibitive as to force it entirely into the counter-economy.
Hours of Service (HOS): A federal agency, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), regulation requiring breaks, intended for safety and prevention of driver fatigue, and limiting hours of driving time.
Governors: Device that limits the speed of a vehicle, intended to allow drivers to slow down sooner in an emergency and for fuel efficiency. There are calls to require this on every vehicle and every truck manufactured since 1992 has had them installed, even if they're not enabled.
Logbooks: Most truckers use paper versions to record their HOS, though some companies use Electronic On-Board Recorders (EOBRs). FMCSA desires to require EOBRs.
For those who don't understand the trucking industry, allow me to explain. Truckers are paid on a per mile basis, and often poorly per mile, so they are highly incentivized to drive as many miles as they can. However, they must also please those they are transporting goods to, so they can't take an unnecessarily long route, but must be quick. The combination of these two aspects incentivizes them to drive long hours to get as many miles in as they can in as short a period as possible.
Obviously, there are safety concerns with doing such for reasons of fatigue, often resulting in accidents damaging life and property. Instead of allowing the market to resolve this issue via its decentralized solutions, such as a company instituting its own regulations that make sense for efficient business, or contracting such out to an insurance company, the state got involved with such regulations that cause more problems than they resolve.
At first glance, which rarely reveals the whole story, a regulation dealing with fatigue sounds great. However, as with most regulations from outside an industry, it fails to take several aspects into effect. For instance, HOS regulates that the hours spent driving may not be interrupted for any breaks, but the timer must continue. Formerly, a driver could take a break during their drive, stopping their clock. Because they are no longer allowed to stop the clock, and they are paid per mile, drivers, especially those with EOBR which automatically record hours, drivers often continue driving despite being tired. As a result, this regulation causes dangerous driving conditions it purports to stop. Furthermore, they used to allow drivers to split hours if they needed to take a break, but disallowed it with changes within the last five years.
Sometimes, the regulation contradicts a different statist regulation. For example, often times a driver will reach the end of their hours without being near a proper location to stop for the night, resulting in them stopping on the side of the road, or on the side of an on-ramp, illegally. And because thats illegal, state patrolmen often wake them and have them move along, driving further illegally and dangerously.
So with this information, how does this relate to the counter-economy or agorist economy beyond the inefficiencies of the statist economy? As a result of these regulations, many truckers break the law in order to earn more money. Those with paper logs often keep two copies, one to the company for compensation and one for police to inspect that is legal. While not strictly agorist, or even counter-economic, it is proof that the more the state regulates a business, the more the industry is harmed, the more the regulation is counter-productive, the more the industry steps into the underground market, until finally, the industry is prohibited or so cost-prohibitive as to force it entirely into the counter-economy.
Monday, November 22, 2010
Opennet, Darknet, or Internet
The question has posed to me and my associates at the Alliance as to, should The Alliance go "underground." As to say an Alliance for the advocation of the Black Market would not be allowed to flourish on an Internet which could be used to prosecute it's contributors or it's participants. This is a very real stance and one that can not be decided upon by the Alliance alone. Before the Alliance gets an official site it is imperative for it's readers and members to make the choice it is not mine. The question I ask is:
Will a darknet, opennet or Internet based site make The Alliance more app to get stories based on agorism before it gets busted? Let me know comment on this story on facebook or send me an e-mail at seasaw84@gmail.com. Thanks for the input I will keep you updated.
Will a darknet, opennet or Internet based site make The Alliance more app to get stories based on agorism before it gets busted? Let me know comment on this story on facebook or send me an e-mail at seasaw84@gmail.com. Thanks for the input I will keep you updated.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Outlaw Hotdogs
Steven Pruner was arrested on October 27 for selling hot dogs without a permission slip from the state, after the competition David Leeds his competition snitched him out. Steven Pruner owner of Outlaw Hot Dogs, says the requirements to get the proper certification are too burdensome and violate the state constitution. Early this week Pruner was at it again according a Free Talk Live caller and was asked to stop operating by the police, he closed up shop for the day. According to the caller he loved the hot dogs and would have bought a 3rd if the jackboot terrorist wouldn't have stepped in. The state's coconspirators hate competition, when they don't have the right papers.
Mexico's Agile Black Market
The Mexican Informal Economy is 1/3 of it's economy. To take a look at Mexican's Economies is to look at an economy going underground because of tyrannical government. The more a government grows the more it's economy will go underground. A productivity is not measured by the taxes the is levied from it but from it's persistence to grow under oppression. Low capital entrepreneur's thrive in a market which focuses on the lowest prices, which also's allows them to hide from the government. Government wants cut off the of biggest fish in the sea so it doesn't rise up and overtake it. A government will not attack what it does not see as a threat.One million threats stacks the deck against the government, the agora will over take by it's ability to be seen not heard. Rise and rise again till all serfs become sovereign!!!
China can't Contain it's Underground Economy
Although China's underground economy is only 10% of it's economy. It's the size of the entire economy of Malaysia. China just as every country with a fiat money system inflated it's money supply during the "recession" and now it is taking steps to slow the inflation. By raising isterest rates, creating prices caps and subsiding agriculture. With all this going on the Black Market seems unaffected, it is expected that their demand is more inelastic. Tax hikes and government regulation won't stop China's Black Market.
Solidarity and the Free Market
When it comes to the agora, a market free of coercion. No Czar's or central planner, only the market saying what go's. Their is not just one check on a business their is two. The second is the worker, who can throw a monkey wrench in the machinery of omnipotent business. For a market to be free, so must the individuals who keep the engine oiled. The worker is just as much of a check on an coercive exchange as the market. Without the worker the gears of business come to a halt. The market and the worker go hand in hand, one can not overcome coercion alone.
Ukraine and the absurdity of taxing the black market
The Ukraine has instituted new tax laws to stop anywhere's to 40% of it's economy from participating in the Black Market. This is absurd for the Ukraine officials to believe they can control an economy they have no control over now. If anything, more laws pushes more businesses into the Black Market. To this I say good, the more Black Market participants the more the Government is rendered impudent. A government with ED is a very good thing for it's serfs, because when the a government commits suicide. It's serf's will have a free market to replace the shell of the old.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Join The alliance
Everyday the black market is demonized and is attacked by the state and it's supporters. Us as agorist, join together to counter-spin the only free market, the only market that has been around sence the dawn of man and will be around till it's flame is extinguished. Join the alliance put a spin by doing revisionist journalism, agorist theory, and anything our supporters want and you can contribute. Join the movement Publize a market that grows faster than government ever will. Once you go black you don't back. Black Market that is, Agora! Action!! Anarchy!!!
PS- This will be our temporary hub until the website is up. Contact Sean Sawyer on Facebook to get involved.
PS- This will be our temporary hub until the website is up. Contact Sean Sawyer on Facebook to get involved.
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