Baby Steps and Going Underground By Sean Sawyer

Living in the 21st century presents expansive opportunities in "going underground." The Internet for provides a tax free, less mandated regulation, more options and a way to make the things you want to work around your schedule. Finding things you want and searching out the most accessible avenue to get those wants/needs that correspond with your lifestyle. It just takes baby steps moving the right direction while the bigger picture takes shape. Letting life takes it's course and keeping your eyes peeled for the opportunities that present themselves.

I got a Mac mini for my tv now I got free tv watching the shows I want to when I have the time and watching movies for the comfort of my easy chair. Without messing with the select few corporations who the government says can entertain me. Switching from overtaxed over regulated cancer sticks to e-ciggarettes. With eventual plans of moving on from working for local fascist to producing for myself. The market finds a way to get to those who choose to make a change. When the need is there the market will present itself this is the beauty of freedom. 

Freedom is everywhere local farmers market, local natural foods store, street corners in big cities, country roads in small towns, and computer monitors in your home. Freedom is choosing what you want from who you want without being locked in cages for victimless transactions. It takes time and the market is ever adapting to the manipulation of those who want to control our choices. In a world where untraceable, unregulated, non inflationary medium of exchange can exist at the click of button. I take note that change does not happen all at once but in baby steps to an ever evolving world. So don't just talk about freedom take it into your own hands.

Greece; Tax evaders are the new terrorist by Sean Sawyer

Greece on Monday appointed a former anti-terror prosecutor to help spearhead its latest tax evasion crackdown in a bid to boost its depleted state coffers by a hoped 11.8 billion euros by 2013.

The naming of 55-year-old Ioannis Diotis as head of the Greek fraud squad came as government ministers unveiled a raft of measures to combat a shadow economy that costs the state up to 15 billion euros ($22 billion) a year.

"There are studies by many organisations that give a shadow economy range from 25 to 35 percent of GDP. Based on that and with simple calculations, one can assume that 10 to 15 billion euros are lost to tax evasion every year," Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou told a news conference.

The ministries of finance, development, justice and police will work together to clamp down on wayward taxation, undeclared property, smuggling, money laundering and illegal gambling and trade, in addition to hunting down uncollected fines stagnating for years, Papaconstantinou said.

There will also be tougher sentences for tax dodgers and Greece will seek an agreement with Switzerland to levy tax on Greek bank accounts there.

"We have begun negotiations on a bilateral agreement with Swiss authorities, equivalent to that which Switzerland is negotiating with Britain and Germany, in order to tax funds deposited by Greeks in Swiss banks," he said.

The overhaul was announced as the debt-hit country prepares to undergo a new audit this month by the EU and the International Monetary Fund in order to unlock a scheduled loan release vital to Greece's continued solvency.

Government always mismanages funds that are confiscated from productive individuals. They have no to know how to appreciate resources. The black market is in the business of this everyday and does this without being tracked down by government scum. These are the real heroes who will keep the economy going while the government defaults. Which makes them more dangerous than terrorist because everyday they evade the taxman and show the emperor has no clothes.

Snitch; do it for the children by Sean Sawyer

Late last week the government of Jamaica revealed several new measures that it will take in order to cut down the high levels of tax evasion in the country and the extent of the national underground economy.

During the reveal of the 2011 - 2012 budget for the government of Jamaica on April 28th, the Minister of Finance Audley Shaw announced that the government would be taking an increasingly tougher stance on tax evasion, with several new measures to be implemented in the near future. 

The first of the initiatives came into effect on May 1st, when the government opened an anonymous phone service which allows Jamaican citizens to submit information about other people and businesses who might be evading their tax obligations. All information provided to the tax authorities through the new whistleblowing service will be kept confidential and be followed up by a tax investigator. 

The Minister stated that the government would attempt to make greater efforts to fight the country’s underground economy by addressing the issue and occurrence of unrecorded and unreported cash transactions. It was suggested that the new push will be made more effective by the new whistleblowing phone line, as tax authorities will greater access to information on non-complying businesses than they could have previously. 

The government will also soon create and maintain a comprehensive database of all high-salaried professionals. The list will be cross-checked with tax authority records of individuals who file tax returns, to determine potential cases of tax evasion and non-filing. 

The Finance Minister is pushing for the citizens of Jamaica to comply with their tax obligations and to utilize the new whistleblowing phone line, as the national budget requires greater levels of resources fund Jamaica’s health and education systems.

Call a hotline snitch on your competition, pay for a kid's next textbook. Across town mom or dad go's to jail for not paying the government it's fair share. Tax is theft, don't snitch, live and let live.

Russians live in the shadows by Sean Sawyer

Almost a fifth of Russia’s working population are employed in a shadow economy with informal contracts or tribe paid to the state.

“You could call it an informal labour market and undisclosed payment for labour. According to today’s estimates, around 13 million people work there, or 17% to 18% of the economically active population,” Alexander Surinov, head of the state statistics agency. 


The figures for this shadow economy did not include those employed in illegal spheres such as prostitution, drug dealing, pornography and piracy.

The shadow economy accounts for around 16% of the GDP and includes covert transactions by legal entities as well as the casual labour market and people who raise home produce for their own use, Surinov said.

Individuals whether they sell vegetables or their bodies, sell this product  because consumers find a value in their service. Both the farmer and the prostitute live in the shadows at the barrel of a gun. Government is force, the black market is free exchange.

Property Records

Property Records

by Robbie Revenant

 

I was reading Robert Murphy's book Chaos Theory the other day and recognised an opportunity for enterprising agorists. Yes, we can replace the statist court system, police system and legal system with private alternatives in numerous ways. But to prevent or resolve disputes over property and contracts we must first have clear and trustworthy records of these—records not derived from state sources.

"Whatever (if any) the abstract or metaphysical nature of property law, the purpose of public titles is quite utilitarian; they are necessary to allow individuals to effectively plan and coordinate their interactions with each other. Specialized firms (perhaps distinct from arbitration agencies) would keep records on the property titles, either for a specific area or group of individuals. Title registry would probably be accomplished through a complex, hierarchical web of such firms.

The fear of rogue angencies, unilaterally declaring themselves "owner" of everything, is completely unfounded. In market anarchy, the companies publicizing property rights would not be the same as the companies enforcing those rights. More important, competition between firms would provide true "checks and balances." If one firm began flouting the community norms established and codified on the market, it would go out of business, just as surely as a manufacturer of dictionaries would go broke if its books contained improper definitions."

Murphy, Chaos Theory, pp. 26-27

The problem with property records today is that they are mostly in the hands of the government. Some exist as contracts (mortgages, and the like) filed with banking institutions, and many unofficial copies of these documents are in the hands of individual "owners". (I used quotes because in the present statist system, none of us actually "own" anything. The government sees us as serfs working leased-land—thus, property tax, building codes, eminent domain, etc. The same goes for anything else which we ostensibly own but must aquire a license, pay a tax, or abide some state-mandated regulation in order to be granted the conditional privilege of owning and using.)

What the agora needs are agencies that "keep records on property titles", as Mr. Murphy suggests. It could initially consolidate records from government, banking and other commercial sources. Agorists who use these agencies could then sell, trade, or give property, and such transactions could be recorded by the agency with no governmental (or other) oversight or interference. These records could then be considered proof of ownership in the event of a dispute and subsequent arbitration.

This property records business need not be an agorist one. It could operate in the open—following governmental regulations and attracting business from white marketeers concerned about their claims to land, vehicles, homes, businesses, etc. The records could be used to settle disputes in the public (state) court system just as readily as in private arbitration. Either way, white market or black, such businesses would be invaluable. Eventually the state will disappear—and with it most of the records it holds of private ownership. It is essential that such records be entrusted to market-accountable firms rather than the state—not only for the agorists of today and the anarcho-capitalist society of tomorrow, but also for that tumultuous transition period when the state dies and takes its records of who owns what to the grave.

A similar opportunity exists for maintaining contract records—or even of combining the two services. I strongly encourage any agorists out there with the requisite knowledge to consider founding such a firm.

On Networks and Communities by FreeRad

Subversive action against an oppressor is not immoral or illegitimate. The State will portray it that way in an effort to reinforce it's unjust authority into every aspect of our lives until we are no more than human shells with the State's hand up our asses, moving our mouths, and having their words spew forth. In order to prevent such a future we advocate agorism in an effort to starve, deprive, and nullify the State. The only way to really, and effectively turn agorist action into a successful outcome is through agorist communities based on dispersed networks. How can we take on the State if we are dependent on the State's system for medical "care", “protective” services, "education", or limited by the State's regulations? We need to begin forming networks. The networks I'm attempting to discuss are geared towards getting libertarians off the system and self sufficient or a better term would be community sufficient. We need networks of “good” and "trusted" citizens, who look great on paper and are above suspicion, to work behind the scenes as agorists. We need medical professionals who will not hesitate to treat, but not report, an injured friend. We need defense agencies to make sure our lives, homes, and wealth are protected when the state can no longer maintain its guise of being our benevolent protectors. We need underground networks of skilled people to help remove libertarians, and in time others, off of our State dependence and toward State independence.

We need networks of nurses and doctors or even veterinarians and homeopaths to help cure our ills and heal our wounds. A place to go, off the grid, and get the help you need without having to be tracked by the State and it's accomplices. If you're a freedom activists and thinking of going back to school this is an excellent field in which to gear any future education. This type of education can be invaluable to the movement. Doctors, nurses, and vets can aid and preform surgeries, if properly trained. The community may not have the best, off grid, access to Dr. and hospitals, but our only other option is to be treated in a state run institution by state sponsored and trained doctors who are loyal, not to the patient but, to the State. If a few nurses were to apprentice under a surgeon then they maybe qualified for anything that arises in the regular course of a day, short of major surgeries. Veterinarians are, also, important because they have a lot of the experience with surgery and can get access to medications. The problem is a simple lack of experience on humans. This could be mitigated through technology. A friendly doctor could watch a procedure or diagnose an illness via video over the Internet and guide the vet through the surgery or prescribe the appropriate drugs. Is it optimal? No, but when all else fails it may save a few lives. Homeopaths would also be invaluable in prevention of illnesses and natural remedies to help overcome illnesses particularly when modern medicines are being withheld or in short supply. By taking the necessary steps homeopaths could start learning their craft now and be prepared to step up once everything falls down. As previously stated, doctors and nurses don't necessarily have to be close in order to diagnose. A good webcam and a high bandwidth connection may be all that's needed for a doctor or nurse to diagnose a patient. There were recently rumor of an iPhone app that could test for STD's by urinating on a chip that connects to the phone. As technology of this nature grows the need to visit state doctors or travel to a friendly doctor will dwindle.

State regulations preventing the purchase of certain drugs without a prescription could hurt an anti-government movement. We know that the State will not hesitate to hurt the family of those who stand against it, but if we have trade networks setup from Canada or Mexico through friendly communities or through agorist couriers services, then we could have a smuggling network in place prior to any coordinated violent action of the State or any failure of the State. It is a common practice to smuggle people and drugs over these borders. The routes are already in place, the need is for agorists to either connect with or become the smugglers. An outbreak of disease could seriously hinder any resistance movement or simply kill people during a shortage of medicine. In order to limit such things we'll need not only medical professionals, but also access to modern drugs or natural remedies.

Education may be the most important part of the equation. To sustain any movement and to not lose any progress we make we will need to ensure that the next generation is not indoctrinated, but can start life with a clean slate. They cannot be made to learn the "truth" as taught by the state and then to have to unlearn it later. We need our children to have a clean slate in which to breed new and untainted ideas. Our next generation is the most important tool we have to fight tyranny. They are our future and they are the ones who are more likely to see freedom. Educators are needed to help with this task. Homeschooling isn't an option for everyone. Some parents don't feel they have the talent to teach their children and others simply don't have the time. Community schools with a focus on freedom and the NAP, or other libertarian ethics models, need to be promoted. Preferably these schools should be full time education centers. I do not mean to put children in a school or a class room for 8 hours a day, but regular meetings and field trips with trusted friends greatly expand a child's ability to perceive the world around them. Internet study groups and local activity groups could do wonders to free the minds of our children while preventing them from being locked in the mental cage many of us were locked into at one point or another. This is something that needs to be done immediately and effectively. Internet study groups and games to educate kids are a good way to help them understand the basics of freedom and free thinking while limiting the amount of damage the state can do.

As for defense organizations, I believe that initially individuals will have to train themselves. Learn to fight. Learn to Shoot. Learn to Survive on minimal supplies. Then find others with similar training and similar attitudes and begin offering your services to those within the community. Whether it be guarding money while on the way to a vault or transporting gold and silver from one person to another. If an agent is injured in the course of his\her work then it may be expedient to go to an agorist medic to get patched up due to the States inability to stay out of the private business of private individuals. As the jobs come in the money will grow and a business will form around it. With viable agorist defense agencies, to protect their interests, some agorist insurance agencies may arise. I'm not going to get into the specifics of how these relationships will or should work, but simply that they are possible, probable, and necessary. A recent incident with a fellow community member has brought to light the need to focus on "inside the system" and "outside the system" recourse. Not all actions will require the use of force nor will all actions be pacifistic in nature. Timing is everything and knowing when and what type of action is necessary is going to be key. Sometimes it may be necessary for phone chains and mass "harassment" campaigns. Sometimes it may be necessary to break in a door and free a comrade from a potentially violent situation. Situations dictate tactics and success and failure will dictate viability.

How much time do we have before the State starts to fail? History has shown that high inflation and wars have brought down civilizations in the past. We are in the midst of the fall. How fast it happens may depend on many factors. Agorism is one of those factors. As more and more people wake up to the tyranny we will have more and more resources available to us. We have to make sure that we survive the struggles to come and that we not only survive, but thrive. We need to come out of this stronger then how we went in and we need to have stronger bonds between us. It's time for us to go out and find these people or to become these people. We need to know our niche and work on strengthening it so that we are able to provide service to our Community.

Agorism and the Agorists By Diana Culda and Harry Felker

I give the by-line to Diana because throughout all of the process to writing this article she had been an invaluable input and assistant.  And quite frankly without her involvement in my life much of what I have done would never have come to light, much as I had said in my book, Fuck the State, I may have been clutching in the darkness for answers still if it were not for her challenging my ideas.

As of late it has become apparent that new ground, though I am sure it is not actually very new, has to be struck.  In the spirit of experimentation I had put the principle of statelessness in the foreground and set my others to a side, in part due to my interaction with one “Danzilla” Brown and his idea of anarchism without adjectives.  I have learned a thing or two in this time, trust my instincts and trust my wife, funny thing is Diana bought me a shirt which reads “I don’t need an encyclopedia, my wife knows it all!”  This seems to be the case when regarding this subject, for what I can assume was in benefit of this experiment she did let a lot slide for a long time before she had become very frustrated and it would seem we reached this point together.

On Counter-Economics and the Agora

Samuel Edward Konkin III developed an idea with others known as agorism, fashioned in sorts as a revolutionary movement to reach an anarchist society.  His idea was the combination of two other ideas which already existed in history, counter-economics (The Black Market) and Libertarianism.  There is absolutely no evidence of primacy to agorism; it just has a shiny new name, much like the term minarchist and partyarch.  There are many people who are wholly part of the libertarian tradition and engage in the freed market which has been traditionally known as the black market.  What first must be done is to dismantle this idea that Sam was anything more than a mere human, if we will propagate myths about something, I firmly assert it should have to do with a force of nature; Sam is not a force of nature. 

FUCK YEAH!!!

If we gaze back to Europe, the word liberal is still used in the traditional sense, someone who would do away with laws; the radical version of the liberal in Europe is the anarchist.  There is a quaint realism to the European tradition, the fact that they are not quick to change, and in similar vein they do not have this strange classification between markets, there is the black market and the market.  The black marketers of Europe do not advertise, write essays or use specialized lingo in order to spread their business and therefore their ideas, they use their market interactions.  The point and purpose to the European black marketer is to avoid paying taxes, regulatory fees and other points where the superfluous order of the state is a hindrance to individual liberty and an expense to the consumer in the realm of pricing.  In their action they breed a dissent for the state, it is far more persuasive to pay less for bread than to pay more, and on the black market in Europe you can purchase bread just as you can purchase cocaine.  The deflection of black market actors (by creation of the gray market) away from this ever narrowing classification pushes the agorists into a corner of an ever shrinking percent of the population.  It is a token defense to claim the precepts of agorism will in effect free the black marketers from the state and reward them for being the second class market that can be thrown under the bus when the state begins its inevitable witch-hunt on agorism.

The other “aspect” of agorism is the purely libertarian nature of the idea, the adherence to a non-aggression principle and a respect of property that which is owned by another.  This concept has been the subject of much literary work by libertarian thinkers, the consistent view of these people leads down the road of anarchism by logical conclusion.  This too predates the term “libertarian” as suggested by Murray N. Rothbard and Jeff Riggenbach by their work, the former with a compendium of books throughout his career and the later even to this day with his “The Libertarian Tradition” production featured on the Ludwig Von Mises Institute website.  Great thinkers like Laozi, De la Boetie, Warren and the like had all been a fundamental part of libertarianism well before the word was invented; I do not think it is a stretch to note these men were libertarians before the word existed.  More importantly if it were not for the thinkers of the past much of the intellectual foundation in which we rely on would not be present.

In a conversation with Ethan Lee Vita he excludes many people from the classification of “agorist” based on his personal narrowing of it, he claims (I am sure it is true) these notions are supported by those who knew Konkin during his life and by interpretation of his work.  Unfortunately there is an inconsistency in this rendition of the classification by who it excludes in two main ways.  First he seems to assert one must know about agorism to be an agorist, and second it seems to me he places a timestamp on who may be considered an agorist based on his false notion that agorism has primacy to Konkin’s work.  This is an unfortunate error on his part not only because of his use of the term agorist, but also how it is applied in practice; he asserts someone who practices counter-economics is not an agorist because he does not “seek to spread the agora” however many of his contemporaries are agorists because they attempt to “spread the agora” yet they fail to actually practice what they preach.  I think this is rooted in a massive misunderstanding, living by example is just as, if not more so, convincing of an idea than just talking about it. 

Sean Sawyer does an amazing job of documenting estimates of the “black market” size and scope in the world today, in many cases the black market is by and far the main source of income for a great percentage of the human populace.  Does it take away from the logic to end the state if the people involved in these interactions do not know who Sam is, do not know what agorism is or never heard of the NAP?  The people involved on the interpersonal level of the black market anywhere are two things first and foremost, they are spreading the idea that the government is bad for the market by example and they are defunding the state on a much grander scale than any of these self proclaimed agorists can ever hope to.  The second issue, the primacy issue is highlighted further by making the claim that those who had practiced agorism in the past could not be “agorists” because they were not around after Konkin coined the term.  I find it a foolish classification if such is the case, how can one claim that someone today who produces articles on libertarian theory and how free markets and statelessness would be a better form of human society is an agorist, yet deny the term to include Laozi or De la Boetie. 

If anyone in American history cannot be denied such a title it would be a man who not only supported statelessness with intellectual works but also sought to compete with the federal government in letter carrying.  Lysander Spooner fits the bill of agorist more than any other man that I can provide proof of, he not only talked the talk but he walked the walk, I could venture even further than Konkin himself, verily a century prior.  What about Josiah Warren, who even predates Spooner?  This man not only spoke on the part of statelessness, inspiring Tucker, but also in practice sought to set up stateless communities, first on the communist/socialist model following Robert Owen to New Harmony, and on an individualist model known as Modern Times.  Besides this he opened an Owenite “Time Store” and had used the equal exchange of labor to receive compensation and sold goods for zero profit.  Here we have a puzzle, we have two individuals who are libertarian in philosophy and practiced what they preached to bring about the state’s demise and to show the disutility of the state.  How are these men not considered agorists, they had done everything to fit the bill, they did not know Konkin (he was not born) or any of Konkin’s words (not invented) but none the less they were doing what Konkin described.

It was also claimed that this distinction between agorist and counter-economist was the foundation of the revolutionary nature of agorism.  I have to call complete bullshit on this claim; the revolutionary nature of agorism is the disregard of the political process as a whole in order to achieve one iota of liberty:

“Can you imagine slaves on a plantation sitting around voting for masters and spending their energy on campaigning and candidates when they could be heading for the “underground railway”?  Surely they would choose the counter-economic alternative; surely Dr. Rothbard would urge them to do so and not be seduced into remaining on the plantation until the Abolitionist Slavemasters’ Party is elected.”

~ SEKIII

Konkin himself asserts that not all counter-economists are libertarian and therefore not agorist, but he does not arbitrarily make the claim that libertarian counter-economists who do not preach libertarianism are not agorists.  As I quote below, Konkin is quite clear he is more interested in action than mere words; it would be a safe assumption that a libertarian who preaches and does not act in the counter-economy is not an agorist rather they are just Libertarians meanwhile one who does act and does not preach about it is emulating Konkin’s ideas consistently.

Vita made the claim that agorists have a “duty” to spread the idea of agorism and it makes me question the libertarian nature of his interpretation of agorism, I have serious doubts one could even claim it is some aspect of agorism without experiencing ideological whiplash.  I personally am not too happy about this statement; anything about libertarianism seems to me counter-intuitive to the notion of “duty”.  Maybe it was a poor choice of words, but I will not neglect the opportunity to relay the message of liberty, I rather enjoy the message.  Libertarian thought does not confer a duty on anyone, anyone who believes this to be true in order to qualify them to something related to the libertarian philosophy has a consistency issue.  It is not the duty of a libertarian to spread libertarian ideas, the only thing one could say is expected of a libertarian is voluntary interaction.  Claiming, “One cannot be part of the “agorism” club if one is not abiding by the duty we confer on someone,” co-opts the term agorism away from libertarian thought and places it into a collectivist dogma.

Agorist Union?

And then there was Mr. Spangler who laid claim that a government sponsored union of government workers staging a mass call in with the designed purpose of protesting benefit payment increases on their part due to lacking stolen funds is in some way agorist is utterly preposterous.  Not only shall we recognize that there is nothing voluntary about the teacher’s union in this country, but we cannot deny that these same people are, even in a strict Konkinite point of view, part of the political class.  How, in any way, is this even a blip on the radar of agorism other than being eerily similar to “The Auctioneer” by Joan Samson?  It seems to me that once Mr. Spangler saw “Union” and “protesting government” his brain shut off and the socialism took over for rational thinking processes.

The present situations of unions are not the voluntary collective bargaining and mediation services they were at the turn of the century, they are the workers analog to the corporate lobbyist, certainly in some cases people are not compelled to be a part of the union but this does not stop the union from impressing its will on those workers as well.  The unions had become monoliths of the centralized organization of labor, forcing the will of itself on the entire workforce, in this sense it is just another layer of government.  It may not have the right to morally rob at gunpoint, but it does not need to since it petitions for law and funds the democrat head of the political monster known as leviathan.  It claims to know the “best interests” of workers much like the state claims the same for “citizens” completely ignoring that individual interest are not measured in aggregate.  In the case of teachers unions, in 28 states and D.C. all teachers are required to pay an “agency fee” which is equal to the union dues, the right to work states do not carry this feature and there is the religious exemption loophole.  This organization is only a political lobby group, the two largest spent $69 million on lobbying and $93 million on “contributions, gifts and grants” (numbers are from 2009) there is nothing agorist about the teachers unions in this country.

Many unions use the state the same way the corporatists do, to get their way over the rest of the population, and it works.  These are the analogs to the Democrat and Republican shuffle we see in politics and oddly enough they seem to align along those lines as well.  It seems maybe someone is smart enough to see the false paradigm of the left vs. right show government puts on but is at the same time just dumb enough to not see it when it involves his precious socialist staple of Unionization.  Maybe it is “for the children” you are looking to let agorism include institutions which are part of, and need, the state to warrant their existence?  Paint me revolutionary but with Konkin’s complete contempt for the LP and their attempt to control leviathan, I do not think it is a stretch that he would hold the same ire for state run unions of state employees who grease the wheels of the state to allocate the funds reaped by the state from the white market.

The Five Market Chart

The 5 Markets

A friend of mine had generated a chart which delineated the differing varieties of markets available to individuals.  These were separated into two main categories, moral and immoral and then along three secondary distinctions, approved, approved under specification and banned.  This led to the understanding of a five market model in which moral markets included the white, gray and black markets and the immoral ones included the pink and red markets.

The moral markets are characterized by actions which are not violating other people, being paid to murder others is not considered moral by the creator of the chart, I tend to agree with that sentiment but inconsistently he asserts that paying the state to murder (white market) is moral.  The consistent action to be taken by an individual who views murder as inherently immoral is to abandon any way of paying for that murder which is possible. 

This is where the gray and black markets come into play, according to the diagram, the untaxed and unregulated markets which are “moral” by the standard depicted in the chart.  This distinction I find wholly unnecessary and not at all supported by Konkin in any of his work, Konkin himself denoted only white and black markets.  He specifically professed to “turn all white into black” in regard to markets, this is not a concept which aligns to this chart.  The distinction between gray and black markets is wholly arbitrary, if you get the license, follow regulations and pay the taxes you are in the white market, if you do not the action is banned and you are a “criminal” in the eyes of the state.  The consequences of selling crack, labor, sex, or liquor outside the white market are not necessarily equal in severity but are equally available for punishment despite the ability to transfer some of these goods and services to the white market.  Gray markets as such are not, therefore, part of agorist theory by virtue of the fact that Konkin specifically labels what is considered gray market as black market.

The classification of “immoral” markets is poor at best since morality is a subjective notion; one only needs to examine the absurdity of socialist property invalidation or the abortion issue to come to this understanding.  Is it moral or immoral to rent property, to perform or contract an abortion or to sell or purchase sexual services?  These questions have no consistent answer because the idea of morality is wholly and unequivocally subjective; it is a matter of opinion in regard to the individual you ask.  I suppose a better distinction would be between coercive and non-coercive “markets” as this would delineate between rape vs. rape play scenarios and murder vs. “Murder Park” scenarios.  In a coercive “market” the initiator of the action, the rapist and murderer, stand to risk retaliatory force of self-defense and potentially pay consequences for his actions.  Conversely in the non-coercive market the “rapist” and “murderer” are acting in a voluntary manner with the other individual (which would be victim in the coercive “market”). 

Imagine if you will a male prostitute, who sells his service to women, in which the client requests rape fantasy, would it be logical to consider this immoral?  Would it be consistently moral for the client to kill the prostitute and claim she was defending herself from a rapist?  Where any individual draws the line at for morality is not a consistent enough basis for a generalization over a market, verily there are people who would in honesty paint the entire scenario as immoral based on the fact that sex was contracted.  To use a more pertinent example the socialist community approves of an idea known to me as property invalidation, where if an individual exploits others through his property he invalidates his ownership of said property.  This is all well and good for other socialists who are unable to invalidate what they do not own in the first place, which begs the question of who is this idea intended for?  The truth is, sadly enough, this is a legitimization of theft, the intent of this idea is to confiscate property from individuals who are not socialists (landlords, employers, etc.).  So is this a moral action or not, does it not seem apparent it all depends on who you are asking?  The socialists will tend to agree that this is morally justified; meanwhile the property owning non-socialist will complain he was robbed.  Finally again I will fall back on Konkin, I do not know him to ever refer to a pink or red market (the immoral markets) so I will leave it as another unnecessary and wholly arbitrary classification.

Another damning example for the 5 market chart is the contractual stipulation to allow for violence and murder as restitution for violating the contract.  Let’s say Jones has money saved and he decides to lend it to Smith at interest, within the contractual interaction Jones includes in the contract the condition that if he does not pay on time he will be beaten or killed.  If Smith agrees to this, explicitly and misses a payment or does not pay is Jones action immorally by hiring Williams to exact this condition upon Smith, is Williams acting immorally by taking the “job” or completing the “job”?  The answer is no, one cannot claim Jones or Williams is even violating Smith since it was Smith himself who had agreed to the contract, accepted the money and therefore accepted the consequences of violation of the contract.  The same could be said for Dr. Block’s argument for voluntary servitude; the “master” is not immoral when someone voluntarily sells himself into servitude.

My personal solution is to simplify the process, in other words to make it absolutely clear; there is the white market and the black market and nothing else.  The “immoral” markets are not markets, coercive action is not a market it is a violation of others and therefore outside the realm of consented human interaction.  Is there a mugging market, a taxation market, a market in mandatory education so on and so forth?  The answer is no.  A market is operative in goods production, everything resulting from coercive action is a “bad” and therefore not part of a market at all.  The distinction of gray needs to be lost all together, either one is in accord with the state and part of the white market or is not and in the black market, the state treats the unregulated seller of food as a criminal just as much as the crack dealer.  Verily if we want to get to brass tacks everything in the black market has a white market analog, the drug dealer and the pharmacist, the prostitute and the legal prostitutes of Nevada, off books employment and on books employment, so on and so forth.  In Konkin’s own vein, there is a market which slaves interact and there is the black market where to some degree they are alleviated of their slavery:

“But a mainly innocent businessman who pays taxes is enslaved to that extent and surely his going black by dodging or defying the taxes (whichever works best) is the immediate emancipation of this slave?”

“To illustrate, slaves building pyramids are white market.  Slaves who run away, deal on the side stones and tools they ripped off, and otherwise engage in non-slave activity are black market—and free  to that extent.”

~SEKIII

This along with a non-exhaustive but extensive list of “white” market professionals which are currently in a decent proportion (20 to 50 %) counter-economic, which is to say white turned black, there is no gray in agorism.  So my thoughts are simplify the idea, streamline the tools and stop with all this divisive over analysis and brain masturbation collecting certain groups of black marketers and developing (unintentionally?) a caste system in which will grant a ready class of scapegoats and/or another class of rulers.  When considering this for some strange reason divide et impera comes to mind, maybe it is just me, but I am sure it is not.

Conclusion

The concepts which Agorism is an amalgamation of is not Samuel Edward Konkin III, it is a philosophy of dismantling the state by defunding through the counter-economy and in the market defense forces defending their customers who contract them.  He may have coined the term, but it is similar to the Zaxlebax issue on a different dimension, some people are conflating Konkin’s personal view of the wages system (which he basically clarified as a non-point in “Reply to Rothbard”) as point and purpose to agorism.  The libertarian aspect of agorism is not about who declares themselves a libertarian and therefore poses what they preach as libertarian thought; rather it is what one does.  If we look at “Reply to Rothbard” where he answers the critique of Murray N. Rothbard I think Sam makes my point well enough about talking as opposed to doing.

”‘Libertarian’ has nothing to do with what one says but with what one does.”

~SEKIII

In this light I think Sam would look at people in our day who overanalyze market interactions and segregate them by what is considered socially acceptable and declare them collectivist and not necessarily aiding the spread of the ideas.  Continuing this vein I think he would also look at those who overanalyze libertarian credentials and declare pretty much the same.  The positions these people hold are complimentary to each other and divisive to the counter economic actors, I am certain of one thing, Sam most likely would be attacking them himself if he were still around to do such.

It seems to me the people looking to dissect factors out of Agorism do so at their own peril, I am sure they must notice this by now, so why?  These people share a distinction outside of agorism, they are predominantly socialist and when I say this I would apply the generalization that they are all, but many have co-opted other terms to describe the same thing.  I am certain this is either ignorance on their part or deception; one can never know the intent of an individual, but more on that later.  Much like the socialists of the 20th century co-opted the terms liberal and left away from those who would do away with laws and in the radical sense government they are co-opting agorist to push their socialist agenda through the agorist/anarchist community.  Maybe it should be taken on that Konkin was not a socialist, never was and could never be construed as one, he made such ultimately clear in his reply to Dr. Rothbard when the latter questioned his position as an Austrian (Economist):

“Again, in passing only, my own observations are that independent contracting lowers transactions costs—in fact, nearly eliminates them relative to boss/worker relationships running the gamut from casual labor with annoying paperwork and records to full-scale Krupp worker welfarism. But this is an empirical question, one, as Mises would say, not even for economists but economic historians.  Why my Austrian credentials should be called into question over such an observation is inexplicable—save as an act of verbal intimidation.  En garde, then.”

~SEKIII

He does not mention the inherent exploitation of the employer employee relationship, he mentions the transaction costs, the fact that wage-labor is not as efficient as entrepreneurial contractor business, this is a statement that Sam was not only a capitalist but also understood his point as empirical and impossible to be decided until it became history.  He further enunciates this point in the following passage:

“And wage-labor’s historical benefit may have been as great as the invention of the diaper—but surely toilet-training (in this case, entrepreneurialization) is even a more significant advance?”

~SEKIII

Sam also indicates that his issue with corporatism is the limited liability feature, not the capitalist aspect of joint stock companies:

“Nowhere have I ever opposed joint-stock companies (see page 23 again where they are specifically affirmed).  After I penned NLM I set up precisely that to own New Libertarian magazine.  I assume we both continue to oppose the statist perversion of joint-stock companies into limited-liability corporations.”

~SEKIII

It may be said that this situation would be more pleasing to the socialist than the traditional anarcho-capitalist view of what will be will be, but it is in essence, proven by the former passage, precisely what Konkin is saying.  This does not mean one must think Konkin was adverse to socialists; agorism being a solely propertarian system, exactly like anarcho-capitalism, allows for the socialists to do what they will with their property, even grant title to the community, hug and play Kumbya all night long while sharing instead of trading.  The thing not allowed in Agorism, just as it is not allowed in an anarcho-capitalist typed society is for a group of socialists to decide the fate of another person’s property when they are not specifically using it, renting it or hiring hands to work it.  In short they are not allowed to use their ideas to violate the property of other people quantitatively picking on the point of property invalidation. It is true he does not declare anything specific as an organizational structure, but this does not mean he intends worldwide socialism:

“New Libertarianism does have an organizational preference.  Other forms of organization might then be considered non-New Libertarian but not necessarily “unlibertarian” or non-agorist.  What the New Libertarian Strategy seeks is to optimalize action to lead to a New Libertarian society as quickly and cleanly as possible. Activities that lead to authoritarian dependency and passive acceptance of the State are sub-optimal and frowned on; action that is individualistic, entrepreneurial and market-organized are seen as optimal.”

~SEKIII

Since Konkin puts a line across to New Libertarianism as a rejection of collectivist/socialist action (one can make this logical deduction based on Konkin’s assertion that he is ‘Rothbardian’) it does not lend to the notion that Agorism is a Socialist idea.  The socialists must have missed that part:

“With that constantly in the reader’s awareness (pages 22, 23, and 24 of NLM are a long disclaimer to this very point!), it is obvious that there are no moral (other than individual self-worth) questions involved in organization and hierarchy.  (My “lumping them all together” that Rothbard decries might be considered integration of concepts by others.)”

~SEKIII

I mean how much more does one need than Sam’s own words on the subject of what he fights for and against in regard to Dr. Rothbard himself?

“In conclusion, Rothbard and I continue to fight for the same things—and against the same things.  Hopefully we will continue to fight in our own ways, reaching those the other missed.”

~SEKIII

I would think this offers much food for thought, Konkin hard rails against socialist economic ideas, the labor theory of value, ownership theory and exploitation theory as a whole, if not he would have abandoned his Austrian credentials.  His use of left is not the American/socialist perversion but rather the use of which is the radical stateless philosophy as evident with his rejection of the Libertarian Party and voting in total.  I would think that if it were produced in his lifetime, Konkin would have preferred to label his position as above the political spectrum in regard to my rendition of the political environment dropping left perhaps and acquiring higher.

Speaking of precepts and proscriptions of socialism and the matter of ignorance or deceit, I have also noted on a few occasions another trend of the people who magically fall in line with the same people co-opting Agorism to stand for socialism, what a coincidence.  This is a lack of commitment to any principle what so ever; socialist thought had reached climax in the head of Marx, no one likes this name but I am going to shoot from the hip, he had been blacklisted by many socialists because of the outward failure of the communist model.  What is happening more and more often as I see it is the mass denial of the socialist economic model’s role in communism, or in other words a deception on the order of Marx.  Marx had, in his philosophy of communism, merely took the role of “the State” and transferred it to “society”, if we examine the idea through this looking glass we see Marx had not developed anything which would deliver freedom, rather it would only ever transfer the power of the state to another fictitious body, society. 

What does this mean in regard to these current day socialists; they are opportunist looking to encourage their dogma along any philosophy, welcomed or not.  They are sporadically “photo bombing” every idea they can find in order to, as far as my logic can tell, be able to revise reality and shove socialism down the throats of others based on an intelligentsia presence in every philosophy.  This is, by and far, a symbol of the arrogance of the socialist, they were in the 18th century as they are today, and the main psychological notion of this doctrine is taken from the playbook of the totalitarian.  They seek to co-opt anything which may deliver people into freedom in order to capitalize on its potential success, and install themselves as leaders, gurus or go to guys when a question arises, a small banality to their vanity.  But the root of all evil is the smallest of banalities and much like the kraken of Greek mythology they will attempt to arise as the head of the leviathan, as the father leader directing the children subjects in order to make them all good like him.

Of course the aforementioned situation is only applicable in the case of deceit, to which I would like to say I do hope beyond hope it is not the case and if it is they can all rot in hell.  The other potentiality is that they are truly ignorant, which would not be so bad if they were not like so many pied pipers, spreading the malignant tumor of collectivist dogma and claiming it can do anything but lead to starvation and death or bring us right back where we are today.  If their priority was to action at least then they would get to try their plan, go off to someplace and fuck themselves in the ass with a broken bottle, in the best case learn their lesson, in a sub optimal case they would perish as a result of failure.  One important point though, the rest of the rational actors in the world would see irrefutable proof of the untenable nature of the socialist model and one could hope the socialists die off with their shitty ideas and take them to the grave with them.

Are we looking for the philosophy of agorism to go the way of liberal and left, traditionally held as anarchist and non-interventionist positions co-opted into a nanny socialism which in turn will bring us right around full circle to where we are today?  This I cannot tell, but I have been fighting it, Diana has been fighting it and others as well, too many to mention, some may prefer non-notoriety, anyway it is a perversion of the truth which so many claim to stand for.

Strategy

Moving forward is always the goal, whether you believe we will see the agora in our lifetime or in generations, the revolution does not need to be won on a battlefield but rather in the lives of individuals along the way.  Each person who embraces the counter-economy is at once relieved of some fraction of the slavery and to such an extent freed by this factor.  So to each person who reads this I say, get your hands dirty, it is not what you say, it is not who you believe yourself to be but rather what you do that defines you and your character.  Start a business, find a source of income which is unregulated and untaxed, offer goods and services in a tax free environment, and find these same things in a tax free environment.  I know of a university which allows anyone to be a professor, set their own price for their services and not report a single thing to the government, if this is something that interests you.  You do not have to do anything, but if you have a goal which is akin to mine, the end of Leviathan, I happen to be of the opinion that any of the above suggestions is a decent starting point.

Offering Education the Agorist way!!!

Whether you are open or secretive about your actions is only relevant to one’s personal preference towards risk versus reward.  It is very rewarding to be open, there is a definite niche in every market for cheaper goods and services and my own analysis of the market shows a decent niche for political angst as well but this comes with the risk of capture by goons.  Not everyone’s counter-economic business will be as defensible as “The Last Biscuit” was when the state cracked down on them, and this is something to keep in mind.  Being secretive is also not exactly counter intuitive to high reward, if this were the case I think the “drug” market would be far less alluring to people than it actually is.  There are no absolutes in markets and this cannot be ignored, all one can hope for is that their actions are consistent with the desired results of them and this makes the outcome more reliable.

Demonstrating in public does not seem to have that much of an impact, the Keene people still have prohibitory laws enacted, the federal reserve is still in business, people are still being robbed from via the State and there are still people all around the world being killed systematically because of accident of birth.  All protesting has done was make people targets for political, punitive or discrediting actions by politicians, police and media outlets.  When protestors get arrested funds are taken from productive actions and directed towards paying off the kidnappers, if counter economic actors participate in these things it seems to me there is an inconsistency in execution of ideas.  At the end of that day, I respect the authority one has over their production, and the rewards they reap, so I will not tell them they are wrong, but I will note the glaring inconsistency between word and action.

Agorist Education Available Here!

White market jobs are not necessarily the enemy, they help us hide in plain sight, certainly we are robbed at our white market jobs but is adds to an appearance which can benefit us in the current situation.  It is not hypocritical to work on the books, as it is a defensive feature, it affords one less attention from Leviathan and this can only be a good thing.  Jim Davidson discusses a lot on hiding in plain sight during his “Fireside Chat” at the Individual Sovereign University Founding Fiesta, this is one of the many reasons one may wish to purchase the complete disks, make sure to have pen and paper in hand as you will be learning something.  An “On Books” job also can serve as a primary source of capital for one’s counter-economic measures; this is especially the case for those who are new to the counter-economy.  These two factors alone are compelling enough to suggest that white market jobs are not inconsistent with being an agorist, per se; it is the action one takes beyond this job that determines ones intentions and positions.

In the immortal words of Mahatma Gandhi “Be the change you believe in!” you will have to be the one to make the changes in your own reality tunnel, maybe someone will see them and be convinced of their merit, maybe not.  The only person you can really save is yourself, and after that you stand the chance to be the inspiration for others to follow suit or not, but again the choice must be theirs, this is the libertarian way, this is the way of Agorism.