Marijuana’s legalization seems much more like neoliberal privatization of markets than true liberation of them. While I do not question the decency of these first major marijuana retailers, there are legitimate concerns. Those most victimized by the state’s rabid oppression of marijuana markets will find themselves very often out of luck, as extensive background checks are required by law, and any drug felony charge is enough to exclude individuals from operating as vendors. TakePart magazine notes in an article that even as weed is legalized, those in prison for the crime of possessing or selling marijuana will remain there. While new businesses boom with customers, those who formerly tried to compete in this market remain locked up in cages.

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Being that the drug world is literally under siege by a domestic military operation, it is beyond anyone’s imagination how markets like the Silk Road could keep their doors open without a serious injection of class consciousness. All those involved in the drug community are criminals. Whether or not we are all revolutionaries is up for debate. We are criminals first and foremost. When you buy an ounce of pot from your friend, you are in no uncertain terms worthy of being pumped full of bullets in the view of most police and even many citizens.

Those employing the Silk Road must keep aware of this fact. Many imagine Silk Road to be something of a revolution, and I’d largely agree with that analysis. But the state does not see you as revolutionaries. To them, drug users are of the same class as rapists and killers. Those engaging in such activities ought to adjust their activities in accordance with this.

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The common libertarian nowadays is of the same non-interventionist temperament as the Taoists. They endorse individual preference, spontaneity and self-interest. They loathe the State and central planners of all kinds. Most libertarians identify, also, as individualists — both methodologically and ethically.

However, much of libertarian culture is hostile to the idea of the slacker, of the non-contributor, of the lazy. Libertarians have very much embraced the protestant work ethic, that work in and of itself is valuable. It’s good to work, it’s good to be disciplined and rigorous. While all libertarians, in line with the non-aggression principle, must support the right to be lazy, most libertarians have taken to looking down upon those who simply don’t do much with their lives.

Feed 44:

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Dark Wallet is a suite of tools for storing, sending and receiving Bitcoins that seeks to protect and anonymise the use of the crypto-currency. It stands against those who would seek to take the crypto out of crypto-currency.

If you do wish to test it out yourself, you can find it by going to UnSystem’s page and navigating to the github. From there the source code is available to download. If you are using a windows system, download the .zip. If you are on OSX, you can choose either the .zip or the tar.bz. If you are using Linux, you should probably be aware of what archiving programs are on your system and choose accordingly. Once it is downloaded, extract the folder to a known location.

To install the extension to your Chrome Browser, go to Settings > Extensions, then tick the Developer Options box, and then click “load unpacked extension“,  find the folder you have just extracted and hit OK.

You will now have Dark Wallet installed on your browser.

Upon running Dark Wallet for the first time, you are greeted with a clear, simple and flat interface. From here you are prompted to create an account, you can choose to use the Bitcoin Testnet if you wish. This is alpha software, so this is the wise choice. The Testnet is a parallel Bitcoin architecture used for the testing and development of Bitcoin related software. It is designed in such a way that the coins in the system remain worthless.

Once your account is created, you are taken to your wallet. From here you can manage and create “pockets,” which are administerable sub-wallet addresses, and check your transaction history. There is a Multisig fund feature, which allows the creation of a wallet that is required to be signed by multiple keys in order to initiate a transaction. This seems especially useful for business and organisations where the person administrating the Bitcoins is not necessarily the owner of the Bitcoins, and due to the irreversible nature of these transactions, accountability is important.

In the send section are the basic tools to send your Bitcoins to other addresses, with added advanced options such as “CoinJoin” which is a feature that mixes transactions from different users together, making them difficult to track through the blockchain. The public nature of Bitcoin transactions means there is a risk of anonymity being compromised if a malicious party is interested enough.

There is also an escrow option that is not yet active. Presumably this will allow transactions to be held at an address by a third party arbiter, if a dispute arises between two parties, the arbiter can have final say as to which direction the transaction flows. If implemented properly, this could be an effective decentralised antidote to monolithic institutions such as Paypal and banks in the role of a dispute resolution service. This is a much needed standard, if Bitcoin is to gain mainstream traction.

Other features include a system for keeping contacts, and right now there is a public chat under “lobby”. This is a great feature to have right now, the lobby moves randomly from bouts of nonsense and pointless trolling to answering questions about the software, and people sending and receiving test coins to each other so they can get a sense of how Dark Wallet works. If you can’t get a hold of any Testcoins, numerous “faucets” are available that will send you a reasonable sum of TestCoins to your wallet. Here is one that I, and others have had success with.

While the alpha is not without it’s bugs, the design and features available have great potential to proliferate and become a mainstream Bitcoin wallet. In doing so, it could make Bitcoin unassimilable into the current financial paradigm. This is possibly the greatest potential that Bitcoin can offer. This concept, along with the possible future Dark Market may be an extremely robust and open alternative to the current white market system.

Dark Market is at present a proof of concept not currently in active development, as the UnSystem team wish to focus their current efforts on Dark Wallet. To it put simply, Dark Market is a market platform with the same focus on privacy and anonymity as Dark Wallet. A P2P distributed counter economy, which can not easily be shut down – in Cody Wilson’s words, market “where no one has to be Dread Pirate Roberts”.

While an initial look at Dark Wallet, and the concept Dark Market may seem like they are best suited for selling contraband, there is no reason that this, as a platform, could not eventually become a Grand Bazaar – a new Amazon or eBay free from centralised restriction, utilising cryptography and peer to peer networking to facilitate transactions and resolve disputes.

A parallel grey and black market that seduces the white.

Right now there is a battle between those who see crypto-currencies as a solid foundation for a modern counter-economy, those who wish to sterilise and recuperate it into the state approved white market and those who simply want to destroy it. This is imperative to them because only the white market can effectively be controlled by the state, only in the white market can taxes be sought on the movement of goods and services and regulation be placed on what we trade. Dark Wallet equips us against this, whether we are self-consciously engaging in the counter-economy or not. As anarchists it is not only ethical, but conducive to our goal to engage and expand the counter-economy – to engage in voluntary exchange without feeding the state. The war between these markets is an old one, and Dark Wallet represents a new weapon in that battle.

Despite progressive’s claim to command a substantive critique of social and systemic power, they will celebrate governmental structures of plutocracy. They see plutocracy as an externally constituted force that can combat diffused power hierarchies while failing to be a part of them. As if it were a “neutral” force, a blank executive slate upon which a rational justice can be inscribed and effectively commanded by the intended rationality of the prescribed justice itself. Exposing the modern progressive’s ignorance of the structures of oppression is another opportunity.

We’ve all seen this mantra, “Legalize it, regulate it, tax it!” Notice the awkward position they place themselves in. The difference between regulation and prohibition, for there to be a distinction at all, is that regulation makes exceptions for the privileged – that’s little comfort when you’re the one effectively prohibited in either case. While heavy-handedness has resulted in calamity, they’re confident that a moderate application of forceful regulation is workable. Public policy writing, it seems, isn’t equivalent to playing whack-a-mole while wearing a blindfold.

“Unregulated” Black Markets? Where?

It’s often implied that the dangers of criminal drug markets are a result of their “unregulated” character. If we just legalized drugs and let the government regulate their quality and consistency, everyone would be safer. I agree that everyone would be safer under legalization, but regulation has nothing to do with it. Far from it, because the existing harm is spawned from the failures and faults of the regulatory state. Not just because outright banning the production, distribution and consumption of a good is the highest form of regulation imaginable, but because it disempowers consumers by fostering hierarchy and violence on a structural level.

First, prohibition erects strict barriers to entry, requiring that market actors to either possess privileged access to specialized resources – such as the means of producing and distributing the prohibited good in the first place – or go through unreliable channels at differing levels of the economic hierarchy. Not only are prohibited resources made harder to acquire, but the artificial risks and costs that come with avoiding law enforcement ensure that the divide between winners and losers is not a fair one, and that only a fortunate few, who now control the industry, have access to certain resource inputs. The power of consumer-voting is hampered because distributors frequently have different channels of access to the same supply chains. There is little use for a buyer trading one rip-off for another.

Second, the unmatched profits that privileged participants extract from the risk premium and controls on distribution leads to unequal economic power relationships. This kind of violent domination and bullying can be seen in the Mexican drug cartels. In a truly freed market where participation is open to the public, free competition acts as a check on the power and honesty of involved actors. Absent the artificial specialization of necessary resources, most competitive actions delivering short-term profits for smart actors will be leveled overtime when others adopt or modulate their ideas. Instead of the current situation where actors having circumstantially better resources and access to power means that everyone else can’t do anything about it. In an unrestricted market, there would be nothing stopping anyone from having access to the same resource inputs.

Third, the State’s forceful monopoly on the provision of law and security reserves for them a special power of exclusion, which, when used, has a distorting effect on black markets. It’s a clear case with illegal drug markets. We are disabled from creating our own institutions of justice while at the same time there’s a forced need for security – that is protection from law enforcement. So, as black market actors, we are heavily constrained in our options to protect against risk, and hierarchical cartels form in response. Not only does prohibition define what kinds of institutions are possible, but the need for hiddenness and anonymity severely distorts everyday market transactions on an individual basis. It doesn’t feel particularly safe exchanging with some shady stranger in his van at night, but there isn’t much in the way of options – not as traditionally conceived.

Market Responses

We live in interesting times. The spread of the internet and the information-based economy is empowering people to create the kinds of social spaces for themselves that would otherwise be prohibited. Whereas traditional modes of organization creates visible or vulnerable targets for the State to smash, networks are much more resilient because they can recreate themselves easily. Through this model of networked organization, we are seeing a partial reversal of the forms of economic disempowerment created by state prohibition and regulation.

The Silk Road (SR) has made a tremendous impact over the last few years, and its recent take down by the FBI was a great injustice, to be sure, but for perhaps the first time we are seeing a blunting of blows. The U.S. government’s response shattered the SR’s disruptive constituents into a million pieces. Those pieces are being taken up by super-empowered groups and individuals to be forged into weapons of their own. Consumers are making use of a growing array of darknet marketplace alternatives – included among them is a bottom-up remaking of SR itself – and with but a few hiccups along the way we have been relatively unhampered in our ability to peacefully exchange goods and services with each other, regardless if they’re “prohibited” or not.

To better understand the roles these distributed alternatives have to play, we should draw our attention to the innovations and failures of the original SR. SR was a “hidden” service deployed only on the Tor network, i.e. you could only access it if your browser was configured to use the Tor network or if you just used the Tor Browser Bundle. Functioning much like a tweaked Amazon or eBay, it offered a host of useful features that helped facilitate trust between sellers and buyers, such as an Escrow payment system, seller feedback, and dispute resolution. According to their civil forfeiture complaint (PDF), the FBI purchased samples from SR’s drug listings and laboratory-tested them (page 6), and typically found high levels of product purity matching what was advertised. The reputation-based nature of SR, combined with often accurate information on seller profile pages and the official forums, empowered buyers to make informed choices and remain safe.

SR’s critical point of failure was its centralization. Although the ability to operate “hidden” is a useful byproduct of the Tor network, the service can be compromised given a few mistakes by its founders or if the physical servers are discovered. Upon the initial SR seizure, the contingency mechanism that would release members’ on-site Bitcoins to their chosen addresses was never activated due to unforeseen circumstances. All of its useful functions were internalized, requiring blind trust in the honesty and competence of the site’s administration.

It’s true that the long-term returns on sales commissions proved a greater incentive than short-term gains from scamming the entire user base and making off with their Bitcoins, but the failures of hidden services like “Sheep Marketplace” and “TorMarket” illustrate that this only happens so long as the future prospects of the service seem good. TorMarket shut down without warning and was never heard from again, after a period of disruption and uncertainty in other marketplaces and being subjected to several DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks that left users unable to access the Bitcoins in their on-site personal and Escrow wallets.

Those are lessons that had to be learned. One “hidden” service called “The Marketplace”, located on I2P, instead of the Tor network, is not, as they explain, actually able to steal from the digital wallets you create for Escrow. Although it remains centralized in other ways, there is a large community interest in giving more control to the end-user, from which “The Marketplace” forged its model in recognition. Other markets are performing similar experiments. The potential for fully decentralized marketplaces is there – where essential buyer/seller protection features exist trust free and it is being realized by projects like Open Transactions.

This phenomenon is similar in effect to the ‘invisible molotov’ described by William Gillis:

For those of us interested in resisting and undermining coercive power, the issue is less how a truly freed market might one day improve our lives, but rather how the faint sparks of freedom in the market today are already working against hierarchy, banditry and the concentration of power and how those sparks might be stoked. Therefore our interest is not the market’s invisible hand, per se, but the invisible molotov it carries.

The tighter their grip, the more that slips through their fingers. The networked social systems we create for ourselves can stand up to fragility. In fact, it’s an environment where we thrive; as anti-fragile institutions we self-modulate and improve in response to failure. The monolithic State requires stability and predictability, but in the new millennium that’s a dying cause. The ends of total social control are the only means of its survival, but these distributed elements of disruption are here to stay. This system of conglomerates and nation-states continually provoke this disruption and thus participate in its own destruction. A surging black market correction is unraveling the institutions of “neutral” power that progressives dream of commanding, all the while provoking frantic reactions that reveal their nature as not-so-innocent forces of totalizing oppression.

Translations for this article:

• Portuguese, As correções do mercado negro.

$1.00 for the first copy. $0.60 for every additional copy.

Counter-Economics is the practice of direct action in economic life — the cultivation of economic relationships that evade, avoid, and defy both the State and the legally-compliant, corporate dominated white-market economy. “Counter-Economics: Our Means” is the classic presentation of Counter-Economics by the man who first coined the concept and developed the theory, Samuel Edward Konkin III of the Movement of the Libertarian Left. The essay reprinted here was originally published as Chapter 3 of the New Libertarian Manifesto (1980), first published by Anarcho­sam­is­dat Press, then in later editions by Koman Publishing Co. / KoPubCo.

“The function of the pseudo-science of Establishment economics, even more than making predictions . . . for the ruling class, is to mystify and confuse the ruled class as to where their wealth is going and how it is taken. An explanation of how people keep their wealth and property from the State is then Counter-Est­ab­lish­ment economics, or Counter-Economics for short. The actual practice of human actions that evade, avoid and defy the State is counter-economic activity. . . .”

“Now we can see clearly what is needed to create a libertarian society. One the one hand we need the edu­cat­ion of the libertarian activists and the consciousness-rais­ing of counter-economists to liber­tar­ian understanding and mutual sup­portiveness. . . . On the other hand, we must defend our­selves against the vested interests or at the very least lower their oppression as much as pos­sible. If we eschew reformist activity as counter-productive, how will we achi­eve that?

“One way is to bring more and more people into the counter-eco­n­omy and lower the plunder available to the State. . . Slowly but steadily we will move to the free society turning more counter-economists onto libertarianism and more libertarians onto counter-economics, finally integrating theory and practice. The counter-economy will grow and spread to the next step we saw in our trip backward, with an ever-larger agorist sub-society embedded in the statist society. . .”

Samuel Edward Konkin III (1947–2004) was an anarchist libertarian active from the late 1960s until his untimely death in 2004. Founder of the Movement of the Libertarian Left and editor of several irregularly published movement papers (New Libertarian Notes, New Libertarian Weekly, New Libertarian), he became an influential critic of smaller-government reform­ism, electoral politics, and the “Libertarian” Party. He is best known for his role in developing the philosophy of agorism, a direct-action movement of revolutionary market anarchism, to be achieved through the conscious practice black and grey market activities to grow the ‘counter-economy.’

Foreword
Introduction
The Failure of Marxism
The Marxist Appeal
Precursors to Marxist Class Theory
Marxist Classes
The Agorist Critique of Marxist Class Theory
Libertarian Class Analysis
Radical Libertarian Class Analysis
Agorist Class Theory
Agorist Solutions for Marxist Problems
Appendix: Cui Bono? Introduction to Libertarian Class Theory (1973)

Cui Bono? Introduction to Libertarian Class Theory (1973) By Samuel Edward Konkin III

Libertarianism has been denounced by William F. Buckley as “extreme apriorism” (in reference to Murray N. Rothbard in “Notes Toward an Empirical Definition of Conservatism”). Indeed, Libertarians can willingly concede the substance of the charge, if not the pejorative implication of heresy. The fundamental libertarian premise of non-aggression — of unbending opposition to all forms of initiatory violence and coercion to life and property — gives the libertarian analyzing his societal context and seeking out ways of dealing with it a logical “razor” of exceptional keenness. With it, he can slash away the fat of special pleading of various ideologies and retain the lean meat of genuine contributions to his understanding. Perhaps no other ideology, not even Marxism, has such a quality of over-all integration and self-consistency, as indicated by the startling rapidity that this new and complex theory is transmitted to new libertarians.

What follows is an excellent example of the use of “Rothbard’s Razor” in synthesizing an approach and understanding in an area almost devoid of libertarian sources.

The author readily acknowledges that his only original contribution to this field is one of collation and organization of scattered writings absorbed during his intellectual maturation which was fortunate enough to coincide with that of Libertarianism. Above all, acknowledgement is accorded to The Libertarian Forum, Dr. Murray N. Rothbard, and the scholars he inspired.

I. Economic Analysis of Libertarian Class Theory

Dr. Rothbard has noted the inspiration he gained from John C. Calhoun that the State — which we recognize as the monopoly of legitimized coercion — divides men into two classes. The State’s systematic looting of the general public and subsequent distribution of this wealth necessarily distorts the allocation of property that would exist in a free market. By a free market, libertarians mean one in which all goods and services are voluntarily exchanged. An analysis of involuntary exchanges is provided by Power and Market by Dr. Rothbard. At the very least, the resources consumed by the individuals who make up the State’s bureaucracy constitute a net gain by these wielders of power (or they would not engage in the practice) and constitute a net loss to their victims even if the remains were distributed as equitably as possible. In practice, far more is consumed by the Statists and their chosen beneficiaries and is lost by the victims. This is the fundamental division observed by Calhoun and Rothbard: the division of society into an exploiting class of those who make a net gain by the existence of the State, and an exploited class of those who incur a net loss by the existence of the State.

The charge immediately arises that nearly everybody in the modern complex mixed economy makes gains and losses from the State’s actions. Separation and accounting is extraordinarily difficult. Libertarians must agree but respond that firstly, one can improve the moral character of one’s own life by striving to comprehend his sources of wealth, maximizing the non-coercive ones and minimizing the coercive ones, and, secondly, that those enjoying or suffering an extreme imbalance can be discerned and dealt with. Those who are obviously suffering heavy oppression deserve the priority attention from those libertarian humanists concerned with aiding and relieving victims of the State. Those who are obviously gaining overwhelmingly by the State (the “Ruling Class”) can be rightly suspected of directing State policy and becoming priority targets of those libertarian activists interested in achieving a just society.

II. Historical Analysis of Libertarian Class Theory

Here Dr. Rothbard has drawn heavily upon the studies of the German sociologist Franz Oppenheimer (The State) and his American disciple, Albert Jay Nock (Our Enemy, the State). Oppenheimer distinguished two means of acquiring wealth — the economic means and the political means. These correspond to wealth acquired voluntarily by the market and to wealth acquired coercively by power.

I have been fond of using the following paradigm to synopsize Oppenheimer’s thesis. Peaceful farmers and agorists (agora = open marketplace) are engaged in production and trade, having judges, perhaps priests, and chiefs who organize defense against predatory tribes and roving bands of thieves. These bands of savages raid such productive communities for their own parasitical gain, taking all removable wealth, including slaves, and consuming fixed wealth through fire, rape, and murder. Even if constantly successful, the leaders of these raiders soon realize that they will eventually run out of sources of wealth. The first step toward civilization is then taken by leaving behind enough wealth and populace to rebuild so that they may be raided again. The parasites cease to be fatal to their hosts. Of course, the threat of an annual raid during harvest, for example, is somewhat discouraging to the incentive of the productive victims. The more enlightened barbarians move on to the next step — occupying the agorist communities, institutionalizing and regularizing the plunder and rape (e.g., taxation, droit de seigneur). These rulers seek to counter discouragement, resentment, and rebellion by allying (or buying out) the Priests to exalt the ruling class and to convince victims that they are actually benefiting by the presences of these “protectors of order.” Later in history, this function of creating a mind-numbing mystique is taken up by Court Intellectuals as religion wanes.

The plunderers can arise internally, too. Perhaps the War Chiefs and native Priests, seeing the examples around them, convince the locals that they too need a strong standing force to defend the community against invasion by the foreign States. Creating the same mystique, the protectors become the plunderers and a new State is born.

Oppenheimer’s theory complements the Calhoun-Rothbard analysis perfectly by explaining the origins of the present-day States. For a study of actual modern nation-states and the operation of their class structures, we turn to the Revisionist Historians.

III. Revisionist Contributions to Libertarian Class Theory

World War I ruptured the liberal and radical intellectual body. Even anarchists divided on the War Question. The anti-war group among historians began delving into the records to prove the correctness of their opposition and demonstrate to the more idealistic War supporters how they were duped into serving plutocratic war “profiteers,” political chicanery, and closet Imperialism. The widespread disillusionment with the Treaty of Versailles aided such Revisionists and won general acceptance to their exposures. Charles Beard, Harry Elmer Barnes, Sidney Fay, J.W. Pain, and W.L. Langer in the U.S.; J.S. Ewart in Canada; Morel, Beazley, Dickinson, and Gooch in England; Fabré-Luce. Renouvin, and Demartial in France; Stieve, Montgelas, von Wegerer, and Lutz in Germany; and Barbagallo, Torre, and Lumbroso in Italy: these historians became quite chic, especially as leaders arose in the defeated powers to revise the terms of the Treaty, and “appeasers” in the victorious powers to accommodate them.

World War II caused a new split, with Beard, Barnes, Charles C. Tansill in the U.S., and F.J.P. Veale and A.J.P. Taylor remaining (or becoming) Revisionist on the Second War, with others going a-whoring after the new War to End All Wars. This time, the victorious powers managed to impose a “Historical Blackout” through the extensive Court Intellectuals influence in ever more State-financed Universities and historical journals on the Revisionists. The courageous dissenters were vilified as thinly-disguised Nazi-symps, though many had impeccable liberal and social-democratic credentials. Pacific Front revisionism has had some measure of success, but European Front revisionism remains a disreputable activity.

Cold War Revisionism is accepted somewhat less than WWI but more than WWII inquiry and exposure. Most encouragingly, the New Left and “deviationist Marxist” historians who were drawn into Revisionism by their antipathy to the Vietnam War have begun looking backwards for the roots of modern foreign policy.

On the Left, Weinstein and Gabriel Kolko have integrated Revisionist History on foreign policy with domestic ruling class investigation. On the Right, the Birchers have grown gradually less hysterical in their “Conspiracy Theory,” dropping their International Communist devil-theory for exposure of the machinations of U.S. plutocrats.

The Higher Circles by G. William Domhoff begins the synthesis of the varying strands of revisionism into a single sober thesis, adding the sociological surveys of C. Wright Mills “Power Elite” investigations. Domhoff, a Leftist, devotes a section of his book to an earlier rightist conspiracy theorist, Dan Smoot, and finds much of it agreeable. Since then, Smoot has been superseded by Gary Allen’s None Dare Call It Conspiracy.

IV. Libertarian Class Theory — Application to Domestic Policy

Beard goes back to the American secession from the British Empire with his Economic Interpretation of the Constitution. Libertarians tend to begin with the relatively laissez-faire period of the late Nineteenth Century in the U.S., explored by Kolko in his magnificent Triumph of Conservatism. Kolko deviates from orthodox Marxism by claiming that the wicked capitalists did not establish their rule due to inevitable concentration of economic power under capitalism, but rather plotted to gain the State’s aid in destroying an all-too-successful competitive semi-free market which threatened the long-term stability of their profits. Kolko devastatingly points out that the massive regulations of transportation and anti-trust legislation advocated by the anti-monopolistic Progressive movement was actively supported by such powerful businessmen as Andrew Carnegie, Mellon, Morgan, and Rockefeller. In 1905, the National Civics Federation was formed to combat the “anarchist” tendencies of the laissez-faire oriented National Association of Manufacturers (mostly small businessmen with little vested interest wanting to grow, not stand pat). NCF members were urged to support regulations and labor legislation to integrate the labor aristocracy as junior partners in the emerging new ruling class. Over the years, the Higher Circles developed the Council on Foreign Relations to influence U.S. State Foreign Policy (tied internationally to similar groups in Western Europe through the “Bilderbergers”) and the Committee for Economic Development for U.S. State Domestic Policy.

Recently, Ralph Nader has been astonished by the discovery that most of the Regulatory Boards are run by the very industries they were set up to control. One can only begin to imagine what the CFR-CED crowd is doing with the Wage-Price Controls. The CLIC claque is made up of equal representation of Big Business, Big Labor, and Government. Surprise, surprise.

V. Libertarian Class Theory — Application to Foreign Policy

The financing of World War I has some incredible anecdotes associated with it. For example, there were the Warburg Brothers, one financing the German War Effort, the other the Allied Effort. There were bauxite mines in France which provided aluminum for German War Planes, and the activities of the “Merchants of Death,” munitions manufacturers selling to all sides, would be comic if the millions of deaths could be dissociated.

Modern revisionist theory begins with the attempts of the Bank of England to restore the pound’s value. The massive inflation of the War made it impossible to restore it to its pre-war value in gold, and exacting reparations from Germany led to a hyperinflation and crack-up boom smashing the German economy (and led to the 1923 Putsch). The Bank’s Ashley Montagu met with American financiers in Georgia for the purpose of depreciating U.S. currency to improve the relative standing of the pound. Already, the British were clubbing their East European satellites (created between the USSR and Germany by that perfidious Treaty) into following their economic policy.

The Federal Reserve Board’s inflation of the Roaring Twenties (a boom fueled by that very same monetary expansion) led to the Crash, Depression, and Roosevelt’s fascist NRA and IRS jackbooters raiding homes to seize the recently outlawed metal, gold. And, of course, the European fascist autarchies, ripped loose from the world plutocrats’ control, engaged in barter competition with their own interest in mind, and brought on the Second World War in retaliation.

This time, the American Military-Industrial Complex was not dismantled. (See James J. Martin’s Revisionist Viewpoints for a truly horrifying speech reprinted which was given in 1940 advocating just that and telling businessmen to get with it — “it” being the coming new world order.) A new International Threat to Peace was needed, and less than two years after the end of the Second War to End All Wars, Churchill announced that “an Iron Curtain has fallen across Europe.”

Considerable investigation of plutocratic beneficiaries of the Vietnam War is underway, much less so of those benefiting from the Middle East conflict. Some libertarians have already begun to project the interests of the exploiting class power elite to predict the next War.

VI. Alternative Interpretations

A. Marx

While Marxist historical economic determinism draws many scholars in that camp to similar conclusions as those of libertarians, it contains several fatal flaws — over and above the obvious one of economic misunderstanding. The necessity for rigid adherence to a class struggle interpretation based on wealth possession rather than on the means of its acquisition and to an inevitable coming of a proletariat revolution led by organized labor forces the Marxist to judge and rationalize his conclusions to fit at all costs. Perhaps just as devastatingly, Marxism is now a “religion” justifying the existence of dozens of the States in the world, and Marxists are now playing Court Intellectuals and suppressing Revisionists in their midst.

B. Consensus

The “consensus” school, the dominant group of Court Historians in the West, deny the existence of any classes. While there may have been wicked exploiters in the past, they were routed and brought to justice by the Progressive Era, the New Deal, the Fair Deal, the New Frontier, and the Great Society, and whatever is to come. We are left to assume that all these plutocrats are receiving windfalls by the failure of previous reformers to spot all the loopholes and economic imperfections in the free market.

And if the plutocrats who gained the most from State intervention supported Roosevelt, Wilson, Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, and whoever succeeds Nixon…must be a lot of accidents, coincidences, and the inability of these people to perceive their own real interests but lucking out anyways?

C. Rand

No one would accuse Ayn Rand of being a competent historian or leader of a school of historiography. Unfortunately, she does convey an implicit interpretation of history which lingers in many of those deserting Objectivism for Libertarianism. In her view, similar to the Consensus school but inverted in moral judgment, peaceful productive capitalists were engaged in making everyone well off in the Nineteenth Century, when along came these Progressive collectivists drunk on Statism and high on altruism, to ravish their profits and lay their clammy hands on their activities (strictly between consenting adults). Having absorbed too much altruist collectivism themselves, the capitalists gave up the intellectual battle for their freedom and tried to pragmatically accommodate themselves to the new system, leading them to supporting pragmatist thugs like Nixon’s “plumbers.”

While I certainly would not disagree with the need to straighten out a lot of businessmen philosophically and ethically, Rand’s ignoring (and/or ignorance) of the powerful with vested interest in the State leaves the Objectivist with the tactics of parlor debates and pamphleteering as his only defense against the guns and prisons of the Statists. What frustration the Objectivist must feel hearing that Richard Nixon has read Atlas Shrugged and still has not seen the light! If only David Rockefeller would just listen to him for a minute…

VII. Value of Libertarian Class Theory

Several good reasons have already been suggested in this article for the study and application of libertarian class theory. Understanding the nature of the enemy never hurts in dealing with him. Turning over the Rank of Vested Interest on an issue to expose the Plutocratic worms crawling out from under may turn public pressure on to force the power elite to accommodate the dissent and give up untenable activities. Convincing New Leftists and Birchers that you are, indeed, aware of the problem and you can explain the Ruling Class/Conspiracy even better should aid in recruiting. Fingering the Court Intellectuals as tools of the interests they were supposed to forsake in their supposed search for Truth and Enlightenment could shake-up a few academies and compromise the credibility of these modern Witch-Doctors purveying their sophisticated voodoo.

Murray Rothbard urges the libertarian activist to burn with a passion for justice. If this is our Quest, then Libertarian Class Theory is indispensable to the discovery of those who have visited statism upon us, and whose blood-drenched hands are pocketing the booty.

Old fashioned justice is needed for a new liberty.

[This article first appeared in New Libertarian Notes #28, December 1973.]

Arguably the most powerful person in the United States (even rivaling the POTUS), Ben S. Bernanke, has left the Federal Reserve. Since 2006 he has sought to make the economy his marionette. Fed policies, under his direction, worked to manage a collapsed housing market, busted mortgage industry and the 2008 global financial crisis – a manufactured crisis of the command and control mentality over the “free” market. Bernanke engineered perhaps the largest redistribution of wealth in American (if not world) history with massive bailouts given to the financial sector – money stolen from the labor of millions and given to the “too big to fail” economic elite. Aside from the initial 700 billion dollar bailout, a Federal Reserve audit revealed the central bank provided a whopping 16 trillion in secret aid to support the corporate state apparatus. Bernanke has released his reign, transferring power to the first woman in United States history to head the Fed: Janet Yellen.

Yellen was confirmed by the United States Senate on January 6, 2014, further committing Washington to even more Keynesian policies from the central bank. As a Fed official, Yellen was a great advocate of keeping interest rates artificially close to zero, increased government spending, and the controversial Quantitive Easing measures sought by the Fed to direct the American economy. Her rise to power will continue to favor the corporate state, even with rumors of economic growth.

There have been numerous libertarian/Libertarian arguments against the central bank. It is not my wish to re-invent the wheel. Most of these arguments, however, stem from the political right – most notably Ron Paul and even greater arguments from his mentor, Murray Rothbard. There is surprisingly little noise from the traditional left – the libertarian or market left - about the central bank, however. Even the famous American leftist and anarcho-syndicalist/libertarian-socialist Noam Chomsky supports central banking. Rather than re-invent the wheel, with this essay I hope to add to the small but sound left-libertarian opposition to the Federal Reserve.

A Brief History of Central Banking in the United States

Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury, was among the first American politicians to argue for, and help develop, a central bank. Hamilton thought it would be irresponsible to place much democratic or economic control in the hands of the American populace. Hamilton and other federalists believed the country should be ruled by the economic ruling class – the elite, the educated and the privileged. Federalist John Jay put it as bluntly as possible: “Those who own the country ought to govern it.” Hamilton and company favored a strong national government, a broad interpretation of the constitution and put national unity above individualism and states rights. Their economic model, of course, was centrally planned with strict regulation of state economies. From this mindset the first central bank was born in 1791.

Hamilton’s bank, the First Bank of the United States, was kept out of the public arena and operated as a private financial institution. Hamilton’s main argument for the First Bank was that it would help repay the new nations war debt (Morgan 2012). Throughout its existence, however, the bank was met with popular backlash. Objections to the Federal Reserve today echo what was argued against the First Bank: It served moneyed interests (northern corporations), was a threat to property rights and restricted real economic growth (Morgan 2012). Some politicians of the time, notably Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, argued the bank was unconstitutional, that only congress, not a private bank, had the power to tax and print money. In 1811 the Bank was deconstructed as congress voted not to renew its charter (Morgan 2012).

In 1812 the United States found itself in the midst of another war and more national debt.  To deal with a growing financial crisis, Congress voted to charter the (larger) Second Bank of the United States. The Second Bank, at the moment of inception, was poorly managed (Scur 1960). A year and a half after it opened it almost collapsed, and would have, if not for Langdon Cheves. Cheves was the second president of the new central bank and effectively administered its operations. Still, popular sentiment about such a powerful, private institution raised concerns about the Second Banks existence (Scur 1960). This sentiment, and Andrew Jackson’s political clout, would ultimately dissolve this Second Bank in 1836.

The United States was free of central banking until yet another major war erupted. The Civil War, and the need to pay for it, again began the quest for a National Bank. In 1863 the “national banking system” (not a central bank) was developed (MFED 2013). The new banking system, with a national charter, dictated that banks had to issue government-printed bills for their own notes, these notes had to be backed by federal bonds – the war effort was funded (Sylla 1969). In 1865, as the war waged on between the industrialized North and the agricultural South, state bank notes were taxed out of existence – a uniform national currency was established in the United States for the first time (MFED 2013).

With the civil war financed and “won” by the Union, and with a uniform currency, the United States experienced a bank panic in every decade afterward (MFED 2013), ah,”The Gilded Age.” Economic panic began in 1873 due to runs on the free banking system. A “run” occurs when a large number of customers pull their money from banks (MFED 2013). The runs would lead to more and more folks withdrawing their money, causing a system wide economic panic. With the depression of 1893, the Spanish-American War of 1898 and the deep recession of 1907, banking moguls and the United States Government again sought the establishment of a central bank (Sylla 1969), as opposed to letting the market equilibrate.

What followed was a series of Congressional acts that led to the establishment of the Federal Reserve Bank. The Aldrich-Vreeland Act of 1908 established the National Monetary Commission, charged with managing the nations finances, which called for government intervention in the economy, via currency development, during times of financial crisis (MFED 2013). The election of Democrat Woodrow Wilson brought with it the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, and American involvement in World War I. The Federal Reserve System was designed to be a government (not public) institution. The new central banking system was to work closely with the United States Treasury.

What followed the establishment of the Federal Reserve, after WWI, was the roaring twenties, further industrialization, the Great Depression, World War II, The New Deal, the rise of Keynesianism, explicit fiat currency, multiple recessions, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, multiple military interventions overseas, neoliberalism, the rise, fall and decay of the middle class, booms and busts, economic bubbles, artificial scarcity, artificial abundance and much more. In the wake of such history, the Federal Reserve has operated independently of the political process (MFED 2013). The Fed has become an independent centralized bank that is utilized to manage, and some would argue control, the United States economy.

The history of central banking is wrought with military conflict and depressed markets. States have long ignored moral objections to war, but economic restrictions have often halted violence. The printing press, however, allows governments to side step these restrictions. The century of the Fed has been a century of perpetual warfare. As Randolph Bourne wrote, shortly after the creation of the Federal Reserve, “war is the health of the state.” Central banking, Keynesian policies, and states are indeed dependent on jingoism and war. For in war governments flourish – allegiance to state blossoms, class struggle is stilled, spending keeps flowing, and worst of all, human beings, millions of us, die. Liberty is fundamentally opposed to this aggression, as noted here, by Anthony Gregory.

Sadly, as attributed to Nixon: “We are all Keynesians now.”

Liberty and the “Progressive Era”

United States history, like all history, can be defined as a race between social power and state power. It is outside the realm of this essay to describe all of the liberation movements that, in some context, sought the liberty of the true market form. Rather than try I will focus on the Progressive Era, which birthed the Federal Reserve.

The end of the Gilded Age was a period of great turmoil. It was good for business, the political class and those with a monopoly on capital, but the working class, people of color, women, political feminists, labor organizers, etc, realized they could not count on the national government to take their concerns, rights or liberty seriously. The Progressive Era did begin the Age of Reform, but this reform was not enacted to elevate the populace. Instead, reform was used to quiet popular uprisings, democratic social movements, and civil liberties – it was not intended to make fundamental changes to the established order (Zinn 2003).

The era has been termed “Progressive” because of the sheer number of laws that were passed. Upton Sinclair‘s “The Jungle” sparked a labor movement that accomplished passing the Meat Inspection Act, social movements engaged the system to pass the Hepburn Act which supported labor in railroads and pipelines (Zinn 2003), to name just a couple. Particular to the Federal Reserve, Woodrow Wilson’s presidency established the Federal Trade Commission and the Central Bank(s) itself. This was polished as progressive reform to control the growth of monopolies and to regulate the country’s money and banking system. Neither happened, in fact, power and influence of Wall Street only began to grow amidst giant surges of patriotism due to rising conflicts overseas. As noted by Emma Goldman (on patriotism and allegiance to government):

But when the smoke was over, the dead buried, and the cost of the war came back to the people in an increase in the price of commodities and rent-that is, when we sobered up from our patriotic spree-it suddenly dawned on us  … that the lives, blood, and money of the American people were used to protect the interests of the American capitalists.

Due to the work of early American libertarians such as Josiah Warren, Benjamin Tucker, Voltairine de Cleyre, Emma Goldman and others, movements developed that questioned the concentration of power. The labor movement began picking up steam and the marginalized voices in society were becoming amplified. It is true that working people benefited from some of the reforms of the Progressive Era – but the reforms protected the political and economic class from working people, giving just enough to stem off a major rebellion (Zinn 2003). A middle class cushion was manufactured to stem off class conflict as Howard Zinn (2003) explains:

Fundamental conditions did not change, however, for the vast majority of tenant farmers, factory workers, slum dwellers, miners, farm laborers, working men and women, black and white. Robert Wiebe sees in the Progressive movement an attempt by the system to adjust to changing conditions in order to achieve more stability. ‘Through rules with impersonal sanctions, it sought continuity and predictability in a world of endless change. It assigned far greater power to government . .. and it encouraged the centralization of authority.’ Harold Faulkner concluded that this new emphasis on strong government was for the benefit of ‘the most powerful economic groups.’

With the help of the Federal Reserve, Wall Street was able to take firm control of the political system. The market, as it existed, was not able to disperse protests at the grassroots level (Zinn 2003). The economic ruling class championed these reforms, to stabilize the state capitalist system in a time of uncertainty (Zinn 2003). These reforms gave rise to the corporation state that exists today. As noted by individualist anarchist Benjamin Tucker: “Laissez Faire was very good sauce for the goose, labor, but was very poor sauce for the gander, capital.”

Social power is still racing against state power.

The Liberated Market

Enter, Janet Yellen, a grand proponent of quantitative easing in a depressed economy. The Federal Reserve, under her leadership, will continue to serve the politically connected and do very little for the average American. Even Andrew Huszar, an ex-Fed official, in a piece for the Wall Street journal described the programs Yellen champions as the “greatest backdoor Wall Street bailout of all time.”

For all the discussion in the United States today about the proper function and role of our federal government, how to manage the economy, how to battle poverty, how to create jobs and so on and so on, what seems to be missing from national discussion is the true beauty of markets. A banking system, or piece of economic legislation, cannot fix the economy.

Economic systems are developed by the spontaneous order of society. The market is a product of inclined labor, derived from the dreams, aspirations, desires, passions and activities of free people. The market encompasses our places of exchange, but also the rest of human labor – social movements, federations, institutions, decision-making and all of human activity. This behavior cannot be managed from a centralized authority. The work of human beings, our inclined, creative labor, cannot be directed – it can only be realized in liberty.  The liberated market mechanism is the only cure for our past, current and future ills.

Today, in the era of too big to fail, it is corporate monopolies and financial institutions that benefit from the public. As George W. Bush said: “I have abandoned free market principles to save the free market.” What he meant was: “I have again exploited the middle and working classes to serve our economic ruling class.” While Bernanke, with the power of the Federal Reserve, was redistributing wealth to the upper tiers of society, organized people, from a diverse history of social movements, began developing the tools for market liberation.

The true market form, how people engage their labor, exists outside of the state.  The market left speaks of exchange and labor in human terms. The liberated market allows for economic, social and environmental justice. Liberation champions a society that allows the free flow of information, science and progress, democratic values, and the fruits of  labor so these principles can spread without restriction. The liberated market allows us to determine how great we can be. The liberated, free(d) market allows plans by the many, not by the few – it renders Yellen, Bernanke and all bureaucrats of the political class obsolete.

With booms and big busts, giant bubbles, manipulation of the market, a giant national debt and a decaying dollar accompanying promises in future spending, a full economic collapse of the United States government is a very real possibility (see Thomas L. Knapp: Government Spending: Two Steps Sideways, One Half-Step Back). This is scary, we all live here, we all have families here, we all have bills to pay and mouths to feed. Our way of life, however, is not at the mercy of the Federal Reserve or a conglomerate of folks in Washington. Though this realization is indeed scary, it should also be exciting. The market will finally have a chance to equilibrate. As witnessed in Detroit, free people can accomplish much with very little – and free people are already working on the solutions.

If we are to be serious about living in a peaceful and prosperous society, then we must also be serious about competing forms of currency, competing markets and the abandonment of the command and control mentality. Perhaps the Keynesians are right and government spending is the only way to prevent the collapse of state capitalism. What’s ignored by fans of the printing press is that state capitalism is unsustainable. If we all march off to battle there will be full employment, but nothing to eat. The only way out is the liberated market. In the words of Kevin Carson: “In the end we’ve got to find some way off the hamster wheel.”

Instead, may we work together and exchange services to co-ordinate and cultivate markets. The emergence of peer to peer currency, like Bitcoin, and the rise of voluntary exchange are sources of hope. The more we work around traditional power structures, the more we advance social power in our all too important race against the corporate state.

The creative labor of human beings will build markets, mutual aid, relief, decent societies and finally peace.  We can and will build a real and lasting peace that will make life on Earth worth living — a peace for every child of humanity. Free human beings will no longer die for governments and/or capital. The greatest moment in human civilization is within our grasp. It is time we reach out and attain liberty.

As Yellen continues, perhaps even enhances, the disastrous policies of the Fed, may we find solace and peace in the liberated market. May we soon, in liberty, say triumphantly: “We are all Agorists now.”

References:

Chandavarkar, Anand G. Keynes and Central Banking. Indian Economic Review / Volume XX, No.2

Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. (2013) A History of Central Banking in the United States.  http://www.minneapolisfed.org/community_education/student/centralbankhistory/bank.cfm

Morgan, H. Wayne. (1956) The Origins and Establishment of the First Bank of the United States. Business History Review / Volume 30 / Issue 04 / December 1956, pp 472-492

Scur, Leon M. (1960) The Second Bank of the United States and Inflation After the War of 1812. Journal of Political Economy/Volume 68, No. 2

Sylla, Richard (1969). Federal Policy, Banking Market Structure and Capital Mobilization in the United States, 1863 – 1913. The Journal of Economic History/Volume 29, No. 4

Zinn, Howard (2003). A People’s History of the United States: The Socialist Challenge. Harper Perennial.

Foreword
Introduction
The Failure of Marxism
The Marxist Appeal
Precursors to Marxist Class Theory
Marxist Classes
The Agorist Critique of Marxist Class Theory
Libertarian Class Analysis
Radical Libertarian Class Analysis
Agorist Class Theory
Agorist Solutions for Marxist Problems
Appendix: Cui Bono? Introduction to Libertarian Class Theory (1973)

Marxist Problem: The revolutionary class appears to work against its own interest; the proletariat support reactionary politicians.

Agorist Solution: The Counter-Economic class cannot work against its interests as long as it is acting counter-economically. Those supporting statists politically have internal psychological problems without doubt, but as a class, these acts dampen the weakening of the State marginally. (Someone who earns $60,000 tax-free and contributes up to $3000 politically is a net revolutionary by several thousand dollars, several hundred percent!)
—

Marxist Problem: “Revolutionary” States keep “selling out” to reaction.

Agorist Solution: There are no such states. Resistance to all states at all times is supported.

—

Marxist Problem: Revolutionary parties often betray the victimized class before taking power.

Agorist Solution: There are no such parties; resistance to all parties at all times is supported.
—

Marxist Problem: Little objective relief can be accomplished by reformist action. (Agorists agree!) Therefore, one must await the revolution to destroy the system. Until then, revolutionary activities are premature and “adventurist.” Still, the productive class remains victimized until the class reaches consciousness as a whole.

Agorist Solution: Each individual may liberate himself immediately. Incentives for supporting collective action are built in and grow as the self-conscious counter-economy (agora) grows.
—

Marxist Problem: The class line blurs with time — against prediction.

Agorist Solution: Class lines sharpen with time — as predicted.

Foreword
Introduction
The Failure of Marxism
The Marxist Appeal
Precursors to Marxist Class Theory
Marxist Classes
The Agorist Critique of Marxist Class Theory
Libertarian Class Analysis
Radical Libertarian Class Analysis
Agorist Class Theory
Agorist Solutions for Marxist Problems
Appendix: Cui Bono? Introduction to Libertarian Class Theory (1973)

Murray Rothbard took Franz Oppenheimer’s distinction between the political means of gaining wealth (State theft) and the economic means (production) and then portrayed them as Power vs. Market (in his book Power and Market). Unfortunately, most libertarians haven’t applied Rothbard’s concept completely and thoroughly. Explained Konkin:

Since many libertarians arrived at anarchy from the limited-government, classical liberal position, they retain a sort of three-cornered concept of struggle: the State at one apex, ‘real’ criminals at a second, and innocent society at a third. Those who commit victimless crimes, in the minarchist view, may often be put in the criminal class not for their non-crime victimless act but for avoiding trial by the State and remaining at large. Again, some anarchists have yet to entirely free themselves from this liberal statist hangover.

Remember, the liberal statists want to restrain the State to increase the production of the host to maximize eventual parasitism. They ‘control their appetites’ but continue the system of plunder. The recent political example of supply-side economics starkly illustrates the basic statist nature of such ideas: the tax rate is lowered in order to encourage greater economic production and thus a greater total tax collection in the long run.

Likewise, “free-enterprise” conservatives, and “libertarian” minarchists call for retention of the State, however restricted or restrained. They are the enemy of the agorists, the free market, and complete liberty. They fall on the statist side of the class line. “The libertarian rhetoric they offer,” Konkin wrote, “may be ‘turned’ or continued to consistency in winning over confused and marginal potential converts — but they offer no material substance for freedom. That is, they are objectively statists.”

What is meant when a person or group or people are called objectively statist? To agorists, the term is used for those who emulate the State by murdering, stealing, defrauding, raping, and assaulting. “These ‘red marketeers’ (dealing in blood, not gold or trade goods),” SEK3 explained, “are best looked upon as degenerate factions of the ruling class, in contention with the State’s police as the Cowboys fight the Yankees, the Morgans fight the Rothchilds or the Rockefellers, and the Soviet statists fight the American statists.” These “red marketeers,” say agorists, are criminals.

At the same time, all so-called (by the State) “criminals” (or criminal acts) that do not involve initiation of violence or the threat of it (coercion) are counter-economic. Since they run counter to the interests (real or perceived) of the State, and are usually productive, they are forbidden by the State. They are, therefore, objectively agorist and thus objectively revolutionary.

Wrote Konkin:

Agorist class theory has the best of both positions: a sharp class line and a graduated spectrum. Individuals are complex and confused. An individual may commit some Counter-Economic acts and some statist ones; nonetheless, each act is either Counter-Economic or statist. People (and groups of people) can be classified along a spectrum as to the predominance of agorism over statism. Yet at each given moment, one can view an action, judge it immediately, and take concrete counter-action or supportive action, if desired.

What about motivation, awareness, consciousness of actions and their consequences, and professions of agreement? They are irrelevant; agorists judge one solely by one’s acts. And one is responsible for fully restoring one’s victims to the pre-aggression state of being for each and every act (see New Libertarian Manifesto, chapter 2). Konkin explains:

Regular, repeated patterns of aggression make one a habitual criminal — a statist (or ‘pure statist’). These people earn no wealth and have no property. Their loot is forfeit to revolutionary agorists as agents of the victims. The pure statist subclass includes all political officeholders, police, military, civil service, grantholders and subsidy receivers. There is a special subclass of the pure statists who not only accept plunder and enforce or maintain the machinery of the State but actually direct and control it. In ‘socialist’ countries, these are the top officeholders of the governing political party who usually (though not always) have top government offices. In the ‘capitalist’ countries, these super-statists seldom appear in government positions, preferring to control directly the wealth of their state-interfaced corporations, usually banks, energy monopolists and army suppliers. Here we find the Power Elite, Higher Circles, Invisible Government, Ruling Class and Insider Conspiracy that other ideological groupings have detected and identified.

Towards the other end of the spectrum [from statists] are full-time counter-economists,” SEK3 explained. “They reject government offerings and disregard State regulations. If they report an income, it is a tiny proportion of what they actually earn; if they file a report, it’s highly misleading but plausible. Their occupations are fulfilling demand that the State strives to suppress or exterminate. They not only act freely, but often heroically.

Just as the superstatists understand the State’s workings and use it consciously, there exist those at the counter-economic end of the spectrum who understand the pure libertarian consistency and morality of their acts; these are the agorists. “Against the Power Elite is the anti-power elite — the Revolutionary Agorist Cadre (or New Libertarian Alliance),” Konkin wrote.

But what of the “middle class” on the spectrum? What of those who mix commission of some counter-economic acts (black spots) with some statist acts (white spots), their lives summed up by grayness? Konkin described the middle-class this way:

To the statists, they are the victims, the herds of cattle to be slaughtered and sheep to be sheared. To the Agorists, they are the external marketplace, to receive nearly everything in trade — but trust.

And some day they shall either take control of their lives and polarize one way or the other, or fail to do so and shall stagnate in the statist swamp or be borne away on the winds of revolutionary change.

Konkin offered a scenario, using agorist class theory, to illustrate the difference between a limited-government libertarian and an agorist:

Consider the individual standing at the corner of the street. He can see two sides of the building behind him as he prepares to cross the street. He is hailed and turns around to see an acquaintance from the local libertarian club approaching in one direction. The latter advocates ‘working through the system’ and is an armed government agent. Walking along the other side of the building is another acquaintance, same age, gender, degree of closeness and so on, who is a practicing counter-economist. She also may be armed and is undoubtedly carrying the very kind of contraband the State’s agent is empowered to act on. Seeing you, the first individual waves and confirms she indeed has the illegal product — and is about to run into the ‘libertarian statist’ at the corner. Both are slightly distracted, looking at you.

The situation is not likely to happen too often but it’s quite possible. Only the removal of ‘complicating factors’ is contrived. If you fail to act, the counter-economist will be taken by surprise and arrested or killed. If she is warned, she may — at this last-minute — elect to defend herself before flight and thus injure the agent. You are aware of this and must act now — or fail to act.

The agorist may take some pains to cover his warning so that he will not get involved in a crossfire, but he will act. The socialist has a problem if the State agent works for a socialist state. Even the ‘libertarian’ has a problem. Let’s make it really rough: the State agent contributes heavily to the local ‘libertarian’ club or party (for whatever reasons; many such people are known to this author). The counter-economist refuses to participate except socially to the group. For whose benefit would the ‘political libertarian’ act?

Such choices will increase in frequency when the State increases repression or the agorists increase their resistance. Both are likely in the near future.

Agorist class theory is quite practical.