Utilizing markets to combat unethical business practices is a long tradition amongst activists from various ideologies. Whereas agorism seeks to combat cronyist practices of utilizing corporate welfare, tax breaks, lobbying, intellectual property laws, and other special government granted privileges to maintain economic status and even monopoly over certain products or ideas as well as other bad business practices by shifting more and more of our activity to agorist or free black and grey markets, ethical consumerism, on the other hand, seeks to combat unjust business practices by being conscious consumers on the white market, utilizing tactics of boycotting and buycotting.

Ethical consumerism is what’s traditionally known as voting with your money within the mainstream economy. It’s simply the idea of buying products and services that one deems ethical and not buying those one views as unethical in order to promote ethical market activity through demand. Don’t like Monsanto? Don’t buy food products supplied by them. Don’t like Chick-fil-A because of your stance on gay rights? Don’t buy from them. This is a tactic as old as markets themselves. However it fails to take into account multiple external factors which make this tactic wildly ineffective on a large scale.

In a truly freed market, ethical consumerism makes total sense but sadly our economy is anything but a freed market. Our market is so skewed in favor of certain actors that it is hard to effectively wage such battles against them on a large enough scale to affect them substantially. Poverty and unjust wealth distribution make it nearly impossible for some to survive as “ethical” consumers as the cost of such products tends to be much higher priced. Thus poorer consumers are forced to buy unethically produced lower-cost items out of necessity. Poorer consumers have a difficult enough time utilizing the democratic potential of markets as is, let alone in ethically sound ways. Therefore ethical consumerism becomes a basis for shifting the blame from unethical corporations to unethical consumers and can lead to poor shaming.

Living in a hierarchical society where businesses are mostly structured top-down means that information is also dispersed asymmetrically. Because of this many of us are so far removed from the reality of the products we consume. This knowledge problem leads us as consumers to make unethical choices in what we buy out of ignorance and lack of information. Certification groups such as Fairtrade International have sprung up to help supplement our personal knowledge by supposedly making sure that companies adhere to strict ethical standards laid out by each certification group in order to receive their seal of approval. However not only have some of these groups been discovered to be selling certifications without inspection, but have also been criticized for pushing western ethics onto other cultures where certain views on ethics may differ. Such non-western farmers and producers who wish to gain or maintain fair trade status are forced to adopt foreign ethical standards in order to maintain business, thus making the movement appear to be more of a form of ethical colonialism rather than an ethical system built on autonomy or freedom.

The reality of ethical consumerism is that it fails to fundamentally challenge the current capitalist economic system in any substantial way, instead opting to work within the system. As with most economic activity, capitalists usually find a way to incorporate and market movements like this in such forms as consumer trends, cause marketing, green capitalism, and other niche markets. Instead of freed markets where the consumer has more control we are instead left with false promises from Energy Star appliances, fair trade foods, and other “ethical” products that capitalism can be saved and made more ethical.

Agorism by contrast does not see the white market state economy as ethical at all and chooses not to work within it to the largest extent in ways that sabotage it or decentralize it further. It does not shame those for their white market purchases, their lack of economic voting power, or their “unethical” purchases. There are no gatekeeper organizations such as fair trade certifiers which keep producers from participating. Best of all, agorism is a tactic accessible to everyone to varying degrees.

Unlike ethical consumerism which paints everything in a very black and white fashion, agorists see their tactics working in stages. Thus it is not necessary to be steadfastly and unswervingly “ethical” by means of only participating in the black and grey markets to the exclusion of white markets. Instead individual agorists strive to move as much of their economic activity as possible to the underground economy while navigating survival in the real world. Even the poorest person with no real white market voting power can avoid paying taxes, work under the table, utilize alternative currencies or the cashless economy, sell drugs, start unlicensed businesses, etc. And whereas many in the early stages of the agorist movement will only carry out a few of their daily activities through the underground economy, as the black and grey markets grow and develop, they will become both safer and encompass more and more products and services thus allowing more people to participate with less cost both financially and safety-wise.

While it is important to factor in personal ethics when engaging in the underground economy lest it become a haven for cartels, violence, and other unjust practices, ethical consumption on the white market is at best ineffective and at worst impossible. While tactics such as boycotts do have some success, they are not exclusive to the philosophy of ethical consumerism. All in all agorism seems both more realistic and better equipped to significantly challenge our current capitalist economy from the outside. Remember that there is no such thing as ethical consumerism under capitalism and the state market!

Daniel Larison discusses Hilary Clinton’s recent speech on American exceptionalism.

Franklin Lamb discusses Syrian refugee children and their plight.

Jacob G. Hornberger discusses Obama’s own version of Operation Condor.

Jacob G. Hornberger discusses whether individual states in the U.S. should control their borders.

Laurence M. Vance discusses what conservatives don’t get about the War on Drugs.

Robert Higgs discusses turning intellectuals into cult figures.

Peter Boettke discusses Mise’s book Socialism.

Medea Benjamin discusses Hilary Clinton, the Podesta group, and Saudi Arabia.

Paul Pillar discusses Israeli-Arab relations.

Uri Avnery discusses a possible Israeli civil war.

Jonathan Marshall discusses the Saudi war in Yemen and growing opposition to it.

Jeff Jacoby discusses why aid to Israel is a bad idea ~ I don’t endorse his pro-Israel stance, but I do agree with the notion of cutting aid to the Israeli govt.

Wendy McElroy discusses war and libertarianism.

Taleed J. Brown discusses how govt created the three worst terrorist groups in the world.

Jeffrey Tucker discusses friendship and political differences.

Charles Johnson discusses why there isn’t a taco truck on every corner.

Deirdre McCloskey discusses liberty, equality, and justice.

Trevor Hultner discusses the brave stand of a 49er.

Daniel Lazare discusses Hilary Clinton, Donald Trump, and American exceptionalism.

Ben Norton discusses the U.S. backed Saudi war on Yemen.

Todd Gitlin discusses the non-nuclear option.

Glenn Greenwald discusses the push to shield Hilary Clinton from criticsm.

Ivan Eland discusses U.S. interventionism in Syria.

Nick Turse discusses U.S. special ops in Africa.

Peter Van Buren discusses the denial of entry to the U.S. of Craig Murray.

Peter Hitchens discusses how the Cold War is over.

Jacob G. Hornberger discusses American exceptionalism.

Richard M. Ebeling discusses the relevance of Mises’s Human Action.
Markus Kompa interviews an author on Allen Dulles.

Ted Rall discusses Uzbekistan and American support for the govt there.

Karl Marx considered the lumpenproletariat to be the segment of the working class with the least revolutionary potential and in fact went as far as to deem them as potentially counter-revolutionary. However, this class of  “beggars, prostitutes, gangsters, racketeers, swindlers, petty criminals, tramps, chronic unemployed or unemployables, persons who have been cast out by industry, and all sorts of declassed, degraded or degenerated elements”  was considered by Bakunin to be the class with the most likely revolutionary potential, believing that wage workers were far too integrated within capitalism to be able to truly challenge it.

Illegalism sprung up as an anarchist philosophy of the lumpenproletariat. Championed by individualists such as  Ravachol, Émile Henry, Auguste Vaillant, and Caserio and others influenced by Max Stirner’s brand of egoism, illegalism promoted the criminal lifestyle as the archetype for the revolutionary, believing that through individual criminal actions done in pursuit of individual desires and survival under capitalist oppression, they could eventually inspire mass insurrection leading to a revolution. Theft and burglary were seen as a means of individual and mass reappropriation of capitalist property, counterfeiting and smuggling were used as a means of survival, and most controversially, political bombings and assassinations were labeled as “propaganda of the deed.” Criminals were cheered on for their general disregard of statist authority and their use of crime as a survival tactic.

Agorists similarly champion so-called criminals who make their livings in the black and grey markets. Smuggling, drug dealing, gun running, civil disobedience, prostitution, and unlicensed business practices are promoted as a means of countering state power. As more and more economic activity is moved from the white market to the underground economy, the state loses more and more control over such economic dealings. Along with this, agorists advocate tax evasion which helps to drain the state’s monetary supply thus making it difficult for it to function. While both deal with daily survival under a state-capitalist system, illegalism merely places hope in one day inspiring revolution while agorism lays out a clear path. Agorism puts an entrepreneurial spin on lumpenproletariat activity.

Now at first glance these tactics have much in common. Harboring undocumented immigrants, dealing in illegal drugs and weaponry, smuggling, squatting, prostitution, tax evasion, and even counterfeiting are illegalist actions that are also counter-economic and have been advocated by anarchists in both camps. However major differences in opinion come about when so-called red market activity comes into question. While not strictly entrepreneurial activity, political assassinations, bombings, and even theft are considered antithetical to agorism as they violate the rights of other persons and their property. Sometimes such things as political assassinations have been justified by individuals on the grounds of self-defense but many agorists believe self-defense can only be claimed if one is under immediate threat of violence which would therefore exclude political assassination outright.

While some agorists would likely argue that individual reappropriation is a violation of property rights like any form of robbery or theft, illegalists would argue that the capitalist has no legitimate property rights to begin with as they made their fortunes by stealing the fruits of others’ labor. This sentiment is actually echoed by many on the libertarian left who point out that most capitalist property was gained through means of state seizure and corporate welfare, thus making their claims to such property illegitimate. In the Rothbardian tradition, if the original owner of such stolen property cannot be determined or found, then it should be reclaimed by others who can offer a more just claim to the property. Is this not a call for reappropriation of sorts?

So it seems that agorism is compatible with illegalism but illegalism is an uncomfortable fit at best within agorism. Despite this uneasy relationship at times, the two philosophies can indeed learn a lot from each other. Both of these philosophies defiantly spit in Marx’s face and show the true revolutionary potential of the lumpenproletariat as both criminals and entrepreneurs. It’s time for the underclasses to rise up and take what is rightfully theirs.

Steal This Book, by Abbie Hoffman. Pirate Editions/Grove Press. 1971

If you are looking for an in-depth collection of arguments about the evils of the current system, this is not the book you are looking for. In fact it assumes in the intro that readers have already reached their ideological conclusions and are prepared to act on them. Instead, Abbie Hoffman’s Steal This Book is a sort of survival guide for young radicals in the post-sixties era. Its content could have easily doubled as both a Boy Scout Handbook for young rebels trying to fight the system, and for petty thieves and con artist looking to cop as much free loot as possible. Indeed, Hoffman makes it clear that he envisions substantial overlap between these categories. In Steal This Book, Hoffman shares strategies for such activities as ripping off restaurants, banks, airlines and grocery stores, as well buying illegal drugs, making bombs, arming oneself, and setting up underground newspapers and radio stations.

While Hoffman instructs readers to try his suggestions themselves, much of the advice given here has become obsolete since the book’s release in 1971. While advanced security measures have made a lot of the petty theft more risky, the internet has completely changed the game for things like underground communication and movement building. As such, the book lends itself to being more of a historical interest piece, or fuel for New Left nostalgia, rather than an modern activist’s guide. Ironically, Hoffman, if he were alive, would probably be pleased to know that the internet has made “stealing” (or more accurately copying) this book easier than ever before.

Abbie Hoffman was a founding member of a the Youth International Party, also known as the Yippies, which were a radical counter cultural New Left movement known for their use of street theater and political pranks. Prior to this, Hoffman was involved in the civil rights movement as part of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, as well as the free-speech movement and opposition to the Vietnam war. He was convicted of conspiring to start a riot through anti-war protests at the 1968 Democratic convention as part of the Chicago Eight, though his conviction was overturned on appeal.

Hoffman spent much of the seventies in hiding, after being charged with intent to sell a suitcase full of cocaine (which he maintained was planted in his office by police). He returned to visibility in the 1980s, when he became a vocal critic of the CIA and one of the biggest promoters of the “October Surprise,” which alleged members of Ronald Reagan’s 1980 campaign team plotted with the Iranian government to delay the release of the American hostages until after the election.  Hoffman’s death in 1989 was ruled a suicide.

Steal This Book was written primarily by Hoffman in 1970 while he was serving time in jail. He notes that he worked with multiple collaborators and that he and others he knows have tested the advice he provides in the book first-hand. Hoffman also notes that the book was rejected by numerous publishers despite its potential for commercial success, and blames intelligence community intervention for this. As noted above, Hoffman spends very little time in Steal This Book exploring the justifications for the actions he advocates, but instead assumes the reader is “ideologically set” to take the types of actions he outlines.

He describes his readers as part of a new nation, which he sometimes refers to as the “Woodstock Nation” which he sees in opposition to “The Pig Empire” or “Amerika” which he describes as the prevailing system of “corporate feudalism.” Hoffman unambiguously presents big government and big business as being partners in crime, which is a refreshing alternative the overly common assumption, found among the mainstream right, that the two are somehow antagonistic forces. The book was written during the era of the Cold War, post-war Keynesianism, the Vietnam War, an increasingly visible military industrial complex, and government suppression of civil rights and anti-war groups through covert (and often illegal) COINTELPRO tactics. In such an environment, it would be easy to feel that the state, big business and law enforcement all serve the same malicious establishment.

Granting this assumption, Hoffman declares that it is not only moral to steal from the “Pig Empire,” but immoral not to do so.  He advises that stealing from a sympathetic “Brother and Sister” is evil, thereby setting up the basic moral code of the book, which Hoffman summarizes “Community within our Nation, chaos in theirs.” He also notes that this book can be used as proof of the violent nature of his movement, but states that he does not feel laws created to serve elites should be followed. That said Hoffman makes it clear that he does not want his readers to martyr themselves for the cause, and fittingly he titles the first section of the book “Survive.”

In this section, Hoffman spells out ways to live largely for free. Here many left-libertarian readers will part with Hoffman, as his advocacy does not focus so much on building a self-sufficient alternative system in the shell of the old, but on living by stealing from the old system. The fact his advocates stealing from (or simply using) the Welfare State (and by extension the tax-payers, as well as those who really need the money) is sure to clash with the ideals of some libertarian readers. However such readers may find solace in his advocacy of tax avoidance, stating “it’s not your government, so why submit to its taxation if you feel you do not have representation.”

The same can be said of his advocacy of stealing from grocery stores (which he partially justifies, by claiming that groceries stores widely over-charge their customers, to the extent that theft will not hurt their bottom line). On a similar note he justifies doing the same to major charities, by claiming they pocket 80 percent of the money they raise. He does little to indicate which for-profit business he feels should be targeted, thus one is likely to conclude massive corporate chains and small time Mom and Pop shops are both fair game. Hoffman seems willing to let the reader decide for herself.  However one has note that stealing from petty retailers who are actually giving the corporate behemoths competition is hardly conducive to creating alternatives.

One also has to question the strategic wisdom of much of what Hoffman advocates here, as stealing from people tends to be a good way to alienate them and a bad way of spreading sympathy to one’s cause. This is especially true in the decades since the 1960s in which the generation gap has become less defined and a wider swath of the population is open to anti-establishment ideals. One could even argue that such tactics may not only be needlessly risky, but also play into the establishment’s hands. The undercover agents who infiltrated New Left groups around this time were known to encourage group members to engage in illegal activities that made them vulnerable to both arrest and negative publicity.

That said, Hoffman does provide a great deal of positive advice that is conducive to voluntary cooperation with others. For instance he goes into detail about asking grocery stores, bakeries, and butcher shops for food items that would otherwise be thrown away. Of course, he is not above advocating using dishonesty to do so.  He also gives the positive advice of setting aside funds for emergencies, hosting free community dinners, and he advocates for liberating women from domestic drudgery.

Hoffman goes on to give advice for buying and selling drugs, as well as growing one’s own cannabis. He notes the biggest risk of buying drugs is having one’s money stolen, and notes that one should stay away from such drugs as speed and heroin. He also encourages drug dealers donating money to “bust trusts” which bail out drug users. Additionally, considerable discussion is given to how readers can defend themselves against law enforcement personnel. Hoffman clearly foresees that conflict between demonstrators and the police will be a continued part of life in America.

Hoffman sees fun and leisure as part of the lifestyle he promotes and much of the book consists of advice for those looking to attending or staging free concerts, gamble in Las Vegas cheaply, or getting free pets. He makes the interesting claim that the US Parks Service gives away free elk and buffalo to those who request them. Additionally there is a major emphasis on starting alternative media outlets like radical newspapers (including ones that cater to military bases) and pirate radio stations.

Perhaps the most contentious parts of the book are places where Hoffman advocates politically motivated property destruction, which he terms “trashing.” He favors targets that have a symbolic association with state violence such as “banks, large corporations, especially those that participate heavily in supporting US armed forces, federal buildings, courthouses, police stations and Selective Service centers.” In one section he suggests locking a decaying fish in side a bank deposit box, essentially forcing the bank to shut down. He states that every instance of such destruction should make an obvious political point, and states that “random violence produces random propaganda results.” He also warns not to harm people while doing this, including nightwatchmen and security guards. Indeed, Hoffman advocates using pay phones to warn people ahead of time when buildings are going to be demolished, to avoid deaths and injuries.

This tactic was used in real life by Hoffman’s sympathizers in the Weather Underground, who led a bombing campaign against banks and government buildings to protest American war making. They used warnings to prevent unintended deaths and issued communiques stating what specifically was protested by the act of property destruction. Some readers may remember that these late sixties and early seventies bombings received new attention as recently as 2008, when then-presidential contender Barack Obama’s acquaintance with former Weather Underground member (turned prominent Chicago academic) Bill Ayers was used to paint the former as a radical leftist. In hindsight Obama has unsurprisingly proved to be anything but.

Hoffman presents himself and his sympathizers as being in a war against American imperialism, a war that likely cost Hoffman his life. Hoffman took a no-holds-barred approach to his activism. A book like this opens up much potential for voluntarists to debate what kinds of tactics are in keeping with the goal of making a freer, more just society. In ways Hoffman’s positions parallel Murray Rothbard’s 1969 essay “Confiscation and the Homestead Principle” which argues that government-owned property as well as that owned by government-funded firms ought to be seen as unowned and free to be liberated or homesteaded by those who use them. Rothbard in this case uses General Dynamics, a major military industrial complex firm as an example, placing his market-oriented ideals closer to Hoffman’s far-left than is often assumed.

This book is a fun read, and provides a heavy dose of late 1960’s radicalism.  While many of the tips and tricks it offers are obsolete, it remains an entertaining work that boldly displays the spirit of the era that created it. In the years following its release, the US government discontinued drafting people to fight in Vietnam, taking away one of the New Left’s unifying issues. Also, a series of financial downturns took a heavy toll on much of the free-wheeling spirit of the sixties. Despite this, the influence of  anti-authoritarianism, as well as its opposition to racism, sexism and imperialist adventurism are still strongly felt today. It is quite a book, and I’m glad I stole it.

Marginalized people are often excluded from the formal economy. This exclusion can be driven through state interventions, such as occupational licensing laws, that erect barriers to entry. This can be coupled with discrimination by employers, barriers to accessing education, and other social factors that impede success in the formal labor market. This leads to transgender women, for example, often pursuing “survival crimes” such as sex work and drug related entrepreneurship. Given that transgender people, people of color, women, the poor, and other marginalized and oppressed people often work in the counter-economy, it may be fruitful to synthesize intersectional feminist theory and praxis with agorist theory and praxis. Indeed, many oppressed people are practicing agorist direct action already, even if they do not adopt the theoretical framework of agorism.

Intersectional feminists emphasize that oppression is interrelated, and that we cannot isolate sexism from racism, transphobia, homophobia, or economic subordination. People often experience multiple forms of oppression simultaneously. These oppressions are not simply additive, with racism adding oppression on top of sexism for women of color, for instance. Instead, these oppressions influence and structure one another. For example, racism structures the gendered expectations and stereotypes projected upon women of color, such that they face a different form of misogyny than that faced by white women. This means that white women, who are often the leaders and face of politically influential feminist movements, may be ineffective advocates for women of color. Strategies for social change should be attentive to differences and should empower people from a wide range of backgrounds to act in their own interest and towards their own liberation. As a strategy for social change, agorism is compatible with intersectional feminist insights, because the agorist emphasis on entrepreneurship allows people to apply their local knowledge in order to resist the state interventions that directly oppress them.

Perhaps the most obvious site for intersectional agora-feminist emphasis is sex work. Sex workers and their clients are criminalized. Recently their criminalization has been fueled through laws that emphasize “human trafficking,” but tend to criminalize immigrants, voluntary sex workers, and those who provide services to voluntary sex workers. These laws engage in a bait and switch by appealing to legitimate concerns about sexual coercion in order to further criminalize some of the most marginalized people in our society. In many American cities, including New York, transgender women of color have been profiled as sex workers by police, and have had their possession of condoms treated as evidence of guilt. Sex workers and their allies can act in various ways to make sex work safer and protect sex workers from violence and abuse, whether by police or individual criminals. This work is fundamentally agorist in nature.

Restrictions on abortion and access to reproductive heathcare can also be circumvented through agorist direct action. In some countries, abortion is outright criminalized, while in the U.S. it is often regulated in ways that impede access to abortion. While the most onerous of these restrictions were recently struck down by the Supreme Court, restrictions still exist and limit access to reproductive healthcare. This provides entrepreneurial opportunities to provide healthcare to poor women whose access is restricted by state intervention.

When abortion was entirely criminalized in the U.S., this type of agorist entrepreneurship was pursued by the JANE Abortion Network. JANE connected women who wanted abortions with doctors who could provide them safely. Eventually, members of JANE learned to perform abortions themselves after one of their primary doctors lost their trust. According to the Feminist Women’s’ Health Center, “the underground collective performed over 12,000 safe, affordable abortions. Word of the illegal alternative was spread through word-of-mouth, cryptic advertisements, and even by members of Chicago’s police, clergy, and medical establishment.” This was black market entrepreneurship that concretely helped thousands of women safely access healthcare that had been criminalized by the state.

Agorist tactics can also help advance feminist goals on issues of gender violence. When it comes to rape, sexual assault, and domestic violence, we live in an era characterized by government failure. According to the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN), 994 out of every 1,000 rapists will never be incarcerated. This is largely because most rapes are not reported to the police. Many people do not trust the police, and recognize that upon reporting they may be shamed, re-victimized, scrutinized, and have to repeatedly revisit or relive the trauma of sexual violence. Some of that discomfort may be a necessary feature of evidence gathering and testifying in a trial. But much of it relates to misconduct and poor behavior by police officers and other actors within the criminal justice system. Even when rapes are reported, police officers and other actors in the criminal justice system are often grossly negligent in investigating rapes. For example, there are massive backlogs of untested rape kits in many American cities. Many sexual assault survivors have found the state to be a woefully inadequate provider of justice.

Yet in government failure there are entrepreneurial opportunities. Whenever the state has failed to serve people’s needs, entrepreneurs have the opportunity to fill that gap. For example, programmers have developed apps such as Circle of Six, which enable people to quickly contact trusted friends or family members in order to coordinate a response during a crisis. Rape crisis centers, women’s self-defense collectives, and other grassroots responses to sexual violence can also be developed. In India, the feminist vigilantism of the Gulabi Gang can be thought of as entrepreneurial provision of law and governance by non-state actors.

Today, agorism is conventionally associated with libertarianism and high-tech hacktivism. These realms are currently dominated by white men. But when we examine the counter-economy more broadly, we find diverse forms of entrepreneurial direct action by women, people of color, and members of the LGBTQ community. These oppressed people are not begging the state for reforms, but are instead engaged in entrepreneurial direct action for their own survival and liberation. Agorists should do all we can to aid and abet their agora-feminist revolution.

“Konkin’s entire theory speaks only to the interests and concerns of the marginal classes who are self-employed. The great bulk of the people are full-time wage workers; they are people with steady jobs. Konkinism has nothing whatsoever to say to these people. To adopt Konkin’s strategy, then, would on this ground alone, serve up as a dead end for the libertarian movement. We cannot win if there is no possibility of speaking to the concerns of the great bulk of wage earners in this and other countries.”^[1]

And so goes Murray Rothbard’s criticism of the philosophy of agorism to which SEK3 had a good chuckle before pointing out that many of those in the working class are already taking part in counter-economic activities from not reporting all of their income on their tax forms to paying someone under the table to mow their lawn. Despite this, Rothbard’s criticisms are echoed still to this day by some, especially within anti-capitalist circles. Ironic since many in anti-capitalist anarchist circles also take part in counter-economic activity in practice. However, these criticisms are not without some kernel of truth, which leads some agorists to wonder if agorism isn’t in need of some updating. After all, Konkin himself believed agorism to be a living philosophy.

Agorist and journalist Derrick Broze speaks often of the concepts of ‘vertical’ and ‘horizontal agorism’. Horizontal agorism is what most of us understand, traditionally, as agorism. It is the use of black and grey markets to out compete the state as outlined in SEK3’s The New Libertarian Manifesto and The Agorist Primer. Examples of such include unlicensed businesses, tax evasion, smuggling, drug dealing, harboring undocumented immigrants, gun running, squatting, and alternative currencies. Vertical agorism is focused on localism and self-sufficiency and is inspired by such books as Karl Hess’ Community Power. Such practice includes buying goods from farmers markets and community farms, rooftop gardening, personal and community use of solar power and aquaponic systems, community toolshares and skillshares, homesteading, urban farming, community protection networks, and free schools. While not all vertical tactics are strictly black or grey market activities (such as free schools and farmers markets), they are counter-economic nonetheless in that they challenge corporate and government monopolies and provide working alternatives that are much more libertarian in comparison.

So if not all activities have to strictly be black or grey to be considered counter-economic, then where does that leave such things as worker cooperatives and collectives or even classical wildcat unionism and newer forms of alt labor? Do these not challenge state and corporate power in significant ways, placing more power in the hands of the individual instead of coercive authorities? Rothbard himself pointed out that most, if not every, corporation rested on illegitimate property claims and therefore should be homesteaded by the workers – the wage earners whom Rothbard claimed that agorism could do nothing for – who invested their time, labor, and energy into running the day-to-day operations but is this not just a form of syndicalism?

Karl Hess advocated a combination of such tactics as a practicing agorist, both vertically and horizontally, and a member of the Industrial Workers of the World, a 100+ year old labor union that offers a refreshing challenger to the exploitative business union model of groups like the AFL-CIO while advocating syndicalist tactics. And such tactics do seem to compliment each other in theory and in practice, offering a significant challenge to state and corporate power, while also crossing ideological boundaries between free-market anarchists and social anarchists. In fact, many free-market libertarians aside from Hess have made such alliances with alt labor organizations and unions.

Consciously moving forward in building such alliances could prove to be quite advantageous. While agorists build alternatives to the white market within the black and grey markets, syndicalists could focus on challenging existing white market entities from the inside, eventually taking them over as Rothbard advocated. But it doesn’t have to stop there. Agorists should indeed advocate that syndicalists go even further. Once a white market business is successfully syndicalized, agorist-syndicalists should help transition the business into the agora. The newly collectivized business should eventually do what all good agorist businesses do: ignore state licensing regimes, refuse to pay taxes, engage in the use of alternative currencies, and generally disregard statist interference with their business dealings. They just successfully ousted the boss, why submit to yet another authority? They just got rid of the corporate cronies who became rich by stealing the fruits of their labor so then why let the state do the same through taxes?

For those who object to such claims and scream #notallbosses, I offer the following quote from Konkin:

“In an agorist society, division of labor and self-respect of each worker…will probably eliminate the traditional business organization – especially the corporate hierarchy, an imitation of the State and not the Market. Most companies will be associations of independent contractors, consultants, and other companies. Many may be just one entrepreneur and all his services, computers, suppliers and customers.”^[2]

Even Konkin couldn’t help but notice the exploitative nature of corporate hierarchy, believing it to be some of the lasting remains of feudalism and that if the individual were truly respected, bosses would slowly become a thing of the past. In the truly freed-market, labor unions would be allowed to operate just as any voluntary association and groups like the IWW show us a way to unionize without appealing to the state for favors.

Having an established local agora, no matter how small, can also provide comfort to union organizers who regularly fear losing their jobs because of their organizing activities. But the agora provides organizers the comfort of knowing that if they are fired for organizing on the job they can make a living outside of the corporate-capitalist structure. This will allow for organizers to be more daring in their actions, further challenging corporatist domination. Agorists who are excited by the ideas of direct action and civil disobedience may even decide to take corporate jobs in order to ‘salt’ them and help bring them down from the inside, which unlike in the dreaded political game doesn’t involve taking a position of authority in contradiction to libertarian principles.

In the words of the late SEK3:

“Sometimes the terms “free enterprise” and “capitalism” are used to mean “free market.” Capitalism means the ideology (ism) of capital or capitalists. Before Marx came along, the pure free-marketeer Thomas Hodgskin had already used the term capitalism as a pejorative; capitalists were trying to use coercion — the State — to restrict the market. Capitalism, then, does not describe a free market but a form of statism…”^[3]

So then why not openly challenge capitalism and the state? Why not draw from the combined examples of Rothbard, Konkin, and Hess for inspiration in how to make agorism more appealing to “the great bulk of wage earners in this and other countries”? Why not reach out and form an agorist-syndicalist alliance?

^[1] Rothbard, Murray, Konkin on Libertarian Strategy

^[2] Konkin, Samuel, New Libertarian Manifesto

^[3] Konkin, Samuel, An Agorist Primer

[Di Kevin Carson. Originale pubblicato su Center for a Stateless Society il 2 settembre 2016 con il titolo No, Capitalism Isn’t Making Us All Richer and Richer. Traduzione di Enrico Sanna.]

Se leggete spesso e regolarmente pubblicazioni libertarie di destra, vi sarà capitato di vedere uno di quegli articoli mozzafiato che parlano di come il capitalismo stia rendendo i poveri più ricchi dei monarchi medievali. Prendiamo Calvin Beisner: “Non importa quanto ricco avresti potuto essere” 150 anni fa, “nell’afa estiva non avresti potuto godere né l’aria condizionata né una bevanda ghiacciata…. Non avresti scattato né guardato fotografie, né ascoltato musica registrata, né guardato… un film.” (“Material Progress Over the Past Millennium,” FEE, 1 novembre 1999). Mi ha sempre infuriato il modo in cui questi articoli boriosi ignorano sia l’inflazione che colpisce il costo di beni indispensabili come la casa o, cosa importantissima, la crescente precarietà di una fetta sempre più grande di lavoratori. Va detto, però, che qualcuno dell’informazione tradizionale (il Washington Post, nientemeno) nota la cosa (Christopher Ingraham, “The stuff we really need is getting expensive. Other stuff is getting cheaper,” 17 agosto).

Certo, computer, smartphone e megaschermi sono sempre meno cari. Ma così non è per molti beni indispensabili. “Dal 1996 ad oggi, il costo di alimentari e alloggi è cresciuto di quasi il 60%, più dell’inflazione. I costi dell’assistenza sanitaria e per la cura dei figli sono più che raddoppiati. Il prezzo dei libri di testo e dell’istruzione superiore quasi triplicati. Negli ultimi decenni questi costi sono cresciuti ad una velocità svariate volte il tasso d’inflazione.

E per una porzione crescente della classe lavoratrice il posto sicuro appartiene sempre più al passato. Nel mercato del lavoro, i settori che crescono più rapidamente sono quelli che impiegano “collaboratori esterni” precari, con scarse possibilità di essere riassunti dopo un anno, un mese, o anche una settimana. E la precarietà si sovrappone alla fragilità finanziaria. Come nota Neal Gabler sull’Atlantic (maggio 2016), “Molti Americani della Classe Media Vivono in Attesa dello Stipendio.” A molti americani mancano i soldi per riparare l’auto o per affrontare spese inattese anche di poche centinaia di dollari.

Precarietà non significa solo incertezza riguardo le necessità minime a termine, ma anche indebitamento crescente come modo di vita. La stagnazione dei salari ha poi peggiorato la già problematica tendenza del capitalismo, in momenti di crisi, a deprimere i consumi e far crescere le capacità inutilizzate; di conseguenza, il sistema ha generato domanda soltanto indebitando il consumatore.

Tutto ciò che è indispensabile alla vita e alla sicurezza materiale, inoltre, è proprio quello che i capitalisti, in combutta con lo stato, sono riusciti a blindare con fittizi diritti di proprietà al fine di estrarne rendita parassitaria. Ne è chiaro esempio il latifondista, che occupava e recintava un terreno incolto per tenerlo inutilizzato oppure per darlo in uso dietro il pagamento di un tributo.

Ma anche l’industria della salute è infestata da cose come i brevetti sui medicinali, il monopolio degli ordini professionali che restringe il numero di praticanti, e le grandi aziende ospedaliere che, grazie allo stato, sono protette da ogni genere di barriere all’ingresso e da un sistema corrotto di credenziali che gonfia i costi con uno spreco enorme e irrazionale di denaro e paghe dirigenziali gonfiate a dismisura. Quanto all’industria dell’assicurazione sanitaria, è un racket. Ma il motore primo dell’inflazione dei costi è nel campo dei servizi, con tutto quell’intrico di monopoli e cartelli che fanno sì che ogni procedura in America costi svariate volte quello che costa altrove.

L’istruzione superiore è diventata una necessità soprattutto perché stato, datori di lavoro e industria scolastica superiore hanno unito gli sforzi per gonfiare i requisiti minimi per accedere ad un lavoro. Data questa necessità artificiale, e la voglia dell’industria dei prestiti scolastici di snidare nuove vittime, l’industria scolastica superiore spreca tutta questa massa di denaro, versata da una clientela in trappola, in inutili progetti faraonici e in aumenti delle paghe degli amministratori, che sono svariate volte gli stipendi del personale. Intanto, però, per pagare queste rette gonfiate gli studenti si ritrovano davanti una vita di indebitamento, con la probabile prospettiva di anni di apprendistato gratuito prima di accedere al primo gradino salariale da colletto bianco.

Ovviamente, anche in quei casi in cui i costi dei beni calano davvero, il calo dei prezzi non elimina la questione giustizia. Gran parte del prezzo dell’elettronica non viene dalla quantità di manodopera e dal materiale necessario a produrla, ma dalle rendite monopolistiche date dai diritti di brevetto e dai copyright, rendite incorporate nel prezzo finale. E l’accesso ad internet di un computer avviene tramite vie telematiche controllate da quei baroni di rapina che sono le telecom monopolistiche che operano culo e camicia con lo stato. Sì, è vero che i prezzi sono calati, ma solo di una frazione di quanto avrebbero dovuto. E la differenza va nelle tasche dei rentier parassitici.

No, Enrico VIII non aveva né l’aria condizionata né il computer. Ma neanche spendeva metà dello stipendio per l’affitto, né viveva ad un mese di stipendio dallo sfratto.

Sarebbe ora che i libertari smettessero di raccontare la storia di come è meraviglioso il mondo sotto il capitalismo e con l’alleanza blasfema dei latifondisti con lo stato, e cominciassero ad attaccare questo patto collusivo tra poteri. Bisogna abolire tutti i monopoli e i diritti artificiali di proprietà, e trasformare in una fonte di reddito la produttività del nostro intelletto collettivo.

The goal of this essay is to examine where the counter-economy and the “Agorist movement” is in relation to Samuel E. Konkin III’s hypothesis of a progression from Statism to Agorism in four phases. Readers who are new to the philosophy of Agorism and the practice of counter-economics are likely better served by reading The New Libertarian Manifesto or introductory essays provided by C4SS.

In the late 1970’s, anarchist, activist, and writer Samuel E. Konkin III (SEKIII) released The New Libertarian Manifesto, presenting his case for a new strain of Libertarianism that he called “New Libertarianism”. The philosophy behind the New Libertarian Movement was Agorism, named after the “agora”, the Greek word for market place. “An agorist is one who acts consistently for freedom and in freedom,” SEKIII wrote. Essentially, Agorism is a radical libertarian philosophy that seeks to create a society free of coercion and force by using black and gray markets in the underground or illegal economy to siphon power away from the State. Konkin termed this strategy “counter-economics”, which he considered to be all peaceful economic activity that takes place outside the purview and control of the State.

In the NLM, SEKIII outlines his vision of a more free and just world by first describing society’s present condition: Statism. Konkin briefly outlines the path of human thinking from slavery to the discovery of libertarian thought and also emphasizes the importance of consistency between means and ends. Indeed, Konkin believes exposing Statist inconsistencies is “the most crucial activity of the libertarian theorist.” From here Konkin describes the goal of Agorism and the Counter Economic means necessary to achieve this goal.

In order to paint a clear picture of the Agorist struggle for a more free world, Konkin explains the four stages from Statism to Agorism, as well as various actions that a consciously practicing Agorist might seize upon in order to advance Agorist propaganda and Counter-Economic activity. By understanding Konkin’s vision of progress it is possible to create a diagram to outline how far society as a whole has come and where we, as individuals, fit within these steps. After the steps have been mapped it will then be possible to pinpoint strategies that can help the New Libertarian move from one stage to the next.

Konkin starts in “Phase Zero: Zero-Density Agorist Society”. Phase Zero is the time when no Agorists existed and libertarian thought was scattered and unorganized, which Konkin says has been “most of human history”. Once Libertarians became aware of the philosophy of Agorism counter-economic activity began and we moved into “Phase 1: Low-Density Agorist Society”.

In this phase the first counter-economic libertarians appear. Konkin believed that this was a dangerous time for activists who would be sold “Get-Liberty-quick” schemes. Konkin also reminds Agorist’s not to be tempted by political campaigns. “All will fail if for no other reason than Liberty grows individual by individual. Mass conversion is impossible,” he wrote. Phase 1 is presented as a time when the few existing practicing counter-economists’ main goal is recruitment and creation of “‘radical caucuses,’ ginger groups, or as a ‘Libertarian Left’ faction in general”. Konkin also notes that the majority of society is acting “with little understanding of any theory but who are induced by material gain to evade, avoid, or defy the State. Surely they are a hopeful potential?”.

In order to achieve the free society Konkin again emphasizes the need for education and “consciousness-raising of counter-economists to libertarian understanding and mutual supportiveness”. SEKIII also called for the creation of a Movement of the Libertarian Left which may grow strong enough in influence and numbers in the latter stages of Phase 1 to be able to “block marginal actions by the State”.  The ability to block actions by the State has absolutely increased in recent years (see this and this for starters) with the explosion of decentralized, peer to peer networks via the internet that allow for rapid sharing of information and calls to organize. With the spread of ideas like Freedom Cells we will continue to see communities stand up against State actors.

As we move to “Phase 2: Mid-Density, Small Condensation Agorist Society” the statists take notice of Agorism. Is it in this phase that Konkin believes the counter-economy will grow and Agorists will begin to represent “an ever-larger agorist sub-society embedded in the statist society”. Although the majority of Agorists are still living within the States claimed territories, we begin to see a “spectrum of the degree of agorism in most individuals”. This includes benefactors of the State who are “highly statist” and “a few fully conscious of the agorist alternative”, however, the majority of society is still engaged in the Statist economy.

From here Konkin suggests that Agorists may want to start condensing into districts, ghettos, islands, or space colonies. We are, in fact, beginning to see the creation of Agorist minded communities, eco-villages, co-ops, and underground spaces which emphasize counter-economic activity and the creation of counter-institutions to the State. Konkin believed these Agorist communities might be able to count on the sympathy of mainstream society to prevent an attack from the State. This is the moment where the question of community protection and defense comes into play. We have seen the creation of community protection alternatives to the police state monopoly, but so far nothing completely Agorist has come into existence.

It is the creation of these syndicates of community protection which will ultimately allow the Agora to flourish. However, in order for this to happen “the entire society has been contaminated by agorism to a degree”, leading to the possible creation of an above or underground movement which Konkin called the New Libertarian Alliance. The NLA simply acts as the spokesperson for the agora and uses “every chance to publicize the superiority of agorist living to statist inhabiting and perhaps argue for tolerance of those with ‘different ways’”.

This brings us to “Phase 3: High-Density, Large Condensation, Agorist Society”, which is described as the point when the State has moved into a terminal crisis period due, in part, to “the sapping of the State’s resources and corrosion of its authority by the growth of the Counter-Economy”. As the Agora grows in influence the State’s stranglehold is also dissipating as a result of unsustainable economic practices. Konkin again warns that the statists will attempt to win over New Libertarians with “anti-principles” and calls for maintaining “vigilance and purity of thought”. Highly motivated New Libertarians move into R&D to help create the first Agorist protection and arbitration agencies that will compete with the State.

At this point statism exists in pockets with the state mostly concentrated in one geographic territory. Those living under statism are very aware of the freedom being experienced by their Agorist counterparts. The State has become weak enough that “large syndicates of market protection agencies” are able to contain the State and defend New Libertarians who sign up for protection-insurance. This, Konkin believed, was “the final step before the achievement of a libertarian society.”  Society is divided between the larger Agorist areas and the isolated Statist centers.

The transition from phase 3 to phase 4 brings about “the last unleashing of violence by the Ruling Class of the State”. Konkin said that once the State’s intellectuals recognize that their authority is no longer respected they will choose to attack. Defense against the State will be managed once the counter-economy has generated the syndicates of protection agencies large enough to defend against the remaining Statists. The NLA should work to prevent the State from recognizing their weakness until the Agorist movement has completely infected the Statist society. Once the Agorist communities have successfully resisted the State’s attack the Agorist revolution will be complete.

As we move from Phase 3 to 4, Konkin notes that the first three changes “are actually rather artificial divisions; no abrupt change occurs from first to second to third.” However, he envisions the change from the third to fourth step to be “quite sudden”.

Phase 4: Agorist Society with Statist Impurities

Once the State has gasped it’s dying breath the counter-economy becomes the freed market where exchanges are free of coercion. Konkin predicts that “division of labor and self-respect of each worker-capitalist-entrepreneur will probably eliminate the traditional business organization – especially the corporate hierarchy, an imitation of the State and not the Market.” He imagines companies as associations of independent contractors, consultants and entrepreneurs. After the remnants of the State are apprehended and brought to justice New Libertarianism becomes the basis of ordinary life and “we tackle the other problems facing mankind”.

Whether the totality of Konkin’s vision becomes realized, the Western World has, at the least, made some slight progress through the phases predicted in the NLM. All signs point to the Counter-Economy and consciously practicing Agorist movement to be somewhere at the tail end of phase 1 and merging into phase 2. The internet (and technology as a whole) has greatly increased the chances for success of the Konkian revolution. While mankind is being exposed to the value of a life free of coercion, they have not yet been properly exposed to the tools with which to create such a world. If the Agorist movement and counter-economy continue to expand in equal rate to the violence and theft of the State, it will only be a matter of time before we see protection agencies with the capacity to defend the people. Once the people recognize the State is weakened and in decline it is inevitable that the Agorist vision of Samuel E. Konkin III will become reality.

In future essays I plan to expand upon the idea of mapping progress between the four phases of Statism to Agorism. For insight into this progression, please see Per Bylund’s excellent essay “A Strategy for Forcing the State Back”, or my talk “Creating Freedom with Vertical and Horizontal Agorism”.

[Di Kevin Carson. Originale pubblicato su Center for a Stateless Society il 20 agosto 2016 con il titolo Right-to-Repair Activists are Heroes. Traduzione di Enrico Sanna.]

La “proprietà intellettuale” serve unicamente ad imporre la scarsità contro l’abbondanza; ovvero a imporre cose, che per natura dovrebbero costare meno grazie al progresso, per renderle artificialmente costose. Il caso più evidente è la guerra portata avanti dalle aziende contro il diritto dei loro clienti di riparare ciò che hanno acquistato. Fortunatamente, come nota Emily Matchar su Smithsonian (“The Fight for the ‘Right to Repair”, 13 luglio) ci sono attivisti che lottano per questo diritto di riparare.

Il “divieto di riparare”, dice Matchar, è un metodo sempre più diffuso per imporre l’obsolescenza pianificata o per trasformare le riparazioni in un limone da spremere. Le auto e moltissime apparecchiature hanno incorporato un software, che è solitamente proprietario. “Alcune aziende usano blocchi digitali o software coperti da copyright per impedire ai consumatori e ai riparatori di fare modifiche. Altri si rifiutano semplicemente di pubblicare i manuali di riparazione. Altri ancora mettono nell’accordo con l’utente delle clausole quasi invisibili con cui i clienti (spesso inavvertitamente) promettono di non riparare i loro prodotti.”

L’estorsione permessa da questo metodo è una disgrazia. Una batteria di ricambio “autorizzata” per iPhone costa 79 dollari, contro i 30 pagati da Matchar per un ricambio non autorizzato in un centro commerciale di Hong Kong, e i 35 dollari chiesti da iFixit (poi ci torno) per un kit spedito a casa. Qualche anno fa Julian Sanchez riuscì nell’intento, reso deliberatamente impossibile, di aprire il guscio del suo iPhone e sbloccare un bottone, invece di seguire i consigli di Genius Bar e sostituire l’apparecchio per 250 dollari (“Dammit, Apple,” 2 giugno 2008). In famiglia, mia sorella ha pagato un tecnico 200 dollari giusto per controllare l’auto con un software di diagnostica.

Strozzinaggio a parte, l’obsolescenza programmata proprietaria contribuisce pesantemente allo spreco di risorse e alla distruzione dell’ambiente. Tech Dump, un’organizzazione che ricicla elettronica usata per rivenderla ai poveri a basso prezzo, riesce a recuperare appena il 15% di tutti i computer, cellulari e televisori che riceve, o perché i pezzi di ricambio sono proprietari o perché le istruzioni per i riparatori sono tenute segrete. Immaginate quanto si potrebbe risparmiare in leghe alle terre rare (un commercio associato ad alcuni dei peggiori conflitti regionali e allo sfruttamento del lavoro) se non ci fossero barriere al riciclo dell’elettronica.

Ricambi brevettati e software di diagnostica protetti da copyright spingono sempre più i riparatori indipendenti fuori dal mercato.

È qui che intervengono gli attivisti del diritto di riparare. Una delle organizzazioni più note è iFixit, fornitore di quel geniale e non autorizzato kit di sostituzione della batteria per l’iPhone, un “Wiki di riparazione” online che “dà istruzioni su come riparare e consigli e strumenti fai da te.” In Tanzania, un riparatore indipendente di strumentazioni mediche ha un sito (frankshospitalworkshop.com) con manuali e altre informazioni su come riparare incubatrici, monitor cardiaci e strumentazioni simili: un servizio pubblico che gli procura rogne costanti da parte dei produttori. C’è anche un grosso mercato di consigli su come sbloccare quelle apparecchiature che impongono costi oltraggiosi per ricambi come le cartucce d’inchiostro.

Finora il movimento non ha ancora raggiunto il suo “momento Napster”. Ma io sono ottimista, e presto lo raggiungerà. Pensate a quando ci sarà l’equivalente di The Pirate Bay o SciHub per il software di diagnostica delle auto, software che qualunque riparatore della domenica potrebbe scaricare liberamente. Pensate a quando tutti potranno acquistare riproduzioni economiche di ricambi brevettati sfornate a manetta in microlaboratori di quartiere.

Ovunque guardiamo, vediamo eroi della libertà d’informazione che sfidano il divieto imposto dallo stato corporativo alla condivisione libera della conoscenza. Quello che gli hacktivisti della cultura libera hanno già fatto con la musica e le pubblicazioni accademiche presto toccherà i beni materiali. È l’informazione che dev’essere libera.

If there’s one common theme that unites the economic Right — conservatives, right-libertarians and disciples of Ayn Rand — it’s that looting is bad and extremely prevalent. And they’re all pretty much agreed on who the looters are, besides. The framing has been pretty much the same going back at least to that (possibly Snopesbait) Alexander Tytler quote that appears so frequently in right-wing screeds, about democracy only lasting until “the people discover they can vote themselves largess out of the public treasury.” The looting consists majoritarian democracies that take from the rich and industrious and give to the poor and lazy. But a couple of news items I stumbled across suggest it might be the other way around.

In right-wing propaganda, it’s always the few and the rich — the “job creators” — who enable the rest of us to live through their industry. And we ingrates punish them with new government programs to tax their honest wealth and feed our own sloth. In Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, the great capitalist titans “stopped the motor of the world” by withdrawing the thankless labor that supports us looting ingrates and retreated to the fastness of Galt’s Gulch. Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises, beloved of right-libertarians, praised Rand in a 1958 letter: “You have the courage to tell the masses what no politician told them: you are inferior and all the improvements in your conditions which you simply take for granted you owe to the effort of men who are better than you.”

More recently, right-wing propagandists countered Occupy Wall Street’s attack on the 1% by putting forth the counter-meme of the “53%,” in which middle class people were encouraged to identify with super-rich folks as fellow taxpayers. Mitt Romney pushed a similar “makers vs. takers” line in his 2012 presidential campaign.

And of course all the right-wing critics of Black Lives Matter focuses like a laser beam on the looting in Ferguson, which in their opinion eclipsed all the police wrong-doing in that city.

But as it turns out, all this respectability porn gets it exactly wrong. The biggest looters in America are two groups most beloved of the Right: those wonderful job-creating employers, and (please stand and take off your hats) Law Enforcement Officers. That’s right. In 2012, just the $280 million back pay actually recovered by the Department of Labor —  a tiny fraction of total wage theft — exceeded the total amount stolen by ordinary, unrespectable muggers and burglers in the same period. And that’s just a drop in the bucket compared to all the people — most of them low-wage workers in service jobs — who have worked off the clock or been required to clock out during slow periods and sit in the break room waiting to clock in again. I’ve done both myself, as have around a third of American workers.

Meanwhile, in 2014, the loot taken in by cops through civil forfeiture was worth more than the total proceeds of theft in ordinary robberies. Remember all those people clutching their pearls over “thugs” looting stores in Ferguson? Well those saintly “law enforcement officers” they love so much steal way more than that, as a normal part of police policy. They not only seize land, homes, cars, cash and possessions from people who were never charged with a crime — let alone convicted — but they specifically target people for raids based on estimates of how much loot they can get their grubby mitts on.

But in fact this is nothing new. Millions of people who work for a living know that, from the very beginnings of capitalism, the real “motor of the world,” the real “Atlas,” was the working class. And the looters were the landlords, capitalist and licensed monopolists, all acting through their state. The capitalist state nullified customary peasant property rights and enforced land enclosures and evictions, first in the earliest capitalist countries of Europe and then in the colonial world. Besides dispossessing working people of their own access to the means of production, they have restricted free movement and association by labor and enforced capitalist monopolies to prevent us working and producing for each other in the social economy. And having set up these toll-gates, they have extracted countless trillions from us. As the song goes, “We have fed you all for a thousand years.”

The real looters aren’t people in masks, or in work clothes. They’re people with uniforms and badges, people with suits and ties sitting around tables in boardrooms and cabinet offices, of the kind we’re encouraged to look up to and honor by every media outlet and propaganda organ in America. And it’s time for us to shrug them off and stop feeding them — to occupy the vacant land they fence off and hold unused, to stop paying rent on land whose title dates to such enclosure, to occupy factories built with wealth extracted from our labor as monopoly rents, and to disregard all patents and copyrights and other laws that restrict our freedom to produce for ourselves and freely trade and share with one another.

Free your mind.

Organizing a Counter-Economic General Strike: A First Pass

 What is a General Strike?

There will be more than a few entries in this symposium expressing some ways that agorists can form meaningful alliances with either illegalists or syndicalists. I’ve had the latter idea going for a few years now and have a large (currently) unpublished paper dedicated to it. So I think I’ll speak more to the former albeit very briefly, for now.

One of the ways I think we need to provide connection between the agorists and the syndicalists is their choice of strategy. For agorists it’s counter-economics and with syndicalists its something called a general strike. Most of this article will focus on strikes because I presume the reader is likely familiar with what a counter-economic action is. But briefly, a counter-economic action is one that falls outside the purview of the state in an effort to defy it in some way.

More generally a strike is an economic tool used by workers against the capitalist in hopes of causing the short or long term cessation of work. There are different views on what the strike should be used for but the strike is mainly for the purpose of interrupting the capitalist’s production. Within this context the general strike is a larger act to create a situation wherein the cessation of work happens on a much wider scale.

The IWW member Ralph Chaplin in his 1933 work, The General Strike defines the general strike this way:

“The General Strike, as its name implies, must be a revolutionary or class strike instead of a strike for amelioration of conditions. It must be designed to abolish private ownership of the means of life and to supplant it with social ownership. It must be a strike, not of a few local, industrial or national groupings of workers but of the industrial workers of the world as an entity.”

Chaplin further clarifies that,

“If we keep in mind that there are four phases of the General Strike it will help to understand clearly what we mean by using the term:

• A General Strike in a community
• A General Strike in an Industry
• A national General Strike
• A Revolutionary or class strike – THE General Strike”

Obviously there’s many challenges and quagmires to figure out here. How can agorists get behind social ownership? Could syndicalists somehow reconcile themselves to the presence of private property or money and markets still existing? These are all deeply ideological and theoretical problems that I don’t think can be easily hand-waved and should be discussed.

One possible solution is to try to convince the other of a kind of meta-anarchy whereby different anarchic societies cooperate and compete with each other to reach the best societal results. This too is tricky given the general syndicalist disposition towards “competition” per se’. Here, I think it’s prudent to remind syndicalists that often times cooperation and competition can (and do) go hand and hand amongst friends, family members and everyone else in communities.

The presence of competition doesn’t require us to hate each other or think less of someone so much as it requires that the production of goods is optimized by certain incentive structures.

And unlike under a state-capitalist system the incentives are not distorted by a capitalist work ethic or governmental barriers to entry. Instead we can rely on friendly competition and cooperation to provide for much of our goods and services through a mix of productive but playful autonomous activities that we freely choose for ourselves.

Is it a Useful Tactic?

Strikes and counter-economics are both useful insofar as they are radical. And I don’t mean that in some faux social-capitalist way where we can brag about how hip and cool our strategies are. I mean radical in a very literal sense with regards to how these strategies challenge and disrupt power relationships in fundamental ways.

In that regard both counter-economic activities and general strikes seek to challenge power in such ways. For instance in the introduction to the February 2009 republication of Chaplin’s piece a fellow left-libertarian and IWW member Charles Johnson wrote:

“Since 2001, after an economic collapse in Argentina and a wave of factory closures, “autonomist” workers have put in Chaplin’s ideas into working reality in hundreds of occupied factories in Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela and other South American countries. Bosses abandoned factories, leaving workers owed weeks of back wages; workers responded by cutting the locks, reclaiming the factories, and reopening the business under autogestion – workers self-management. These workers without bosses have revitalized once-failing businesses and made a living for themselves through cooperative ownership of the business, equal wages for all workers, and business decisions made by direct votes of the assembled workers.”

Is the General Strike a Libertarian Action?

The libertarian interest in supporting agency and legitimacy in contracts and the fact that state-supported industry such as big defense contractors that help directly and actively perpetuate the war machine means that libertarians have good reason to at least consider strikes more generally.

As Logan Glitterbomb noted in her piece Rothbard said that, “Konkin’s entire theory speaks only to the interests and concerns of the marginal classes who are self-employed. The great bulk of the people are full-time wage workers; they are people with steady jobs. Konkinism has nothing whatsoever to say to these people. To adopt Konkin’s strategy, then, would on this ground alone, serve up as a dead end for the libertarian movement. We cannot win if there is no possibility of speaking to the concerns of the great bulk of wage earners in this and other countries.”

And I think there’s something to this and as Glitterbomb pointed out, this sort of flaw is exactly why agorists should educate themselves about worker empowerment and resistance. And what better strategy to embrace and learn about then the biggest of them all?

One way to connect the dots between counter-economic actions and worker empowerment in strikes is the issue of “scabs”. Scabs are workers who replace workers who go on strike so as to keep capitalist firms from continuing to run despite the clear signals their workers are giving with their dissatisfaction. Obviously these scabs are quite an annoyance to workers because it renders their strikes far less economically and politically potent than they would be otherwise. This can lead to violence between the strikers and the scabs but I don’t think that need happen.

The intersection of using counter-economic or under the radar work to supplant their strikes can aid the strikers in getting money on the side while still not worrying about their reputation being harmed by vengeful employers. It can also prove to be much more flexible than a formal job which can let workers who are on strike be able to maintain their protests more effectively.

This is just a small way in which counter-economics can help better sustain strikes and perhaps even help them amass more political concentration. Counter-economics can help workers get in touch with classes of folks they may not otherwise interact with, and cultivate solidarity there and vice versa. This not only helps ameliorate the Rothbardian critique but makes cultivating the general strike that much easier, the counter-economic general strike!

Agorism is the philosophy of counter-economic activity eventually overcoming the statist economic consensus. It’s not simply black market activity, but rather a whole alternative economy that operates just below the surface of state capitalism. While seen by some (including Rothbard) as a niche element to the state’s leviathan, Konkin himself noted that the counter economy encompasses a huge range of activity, from black market heavy industry in Burma to the cottage industry of medical marijuana in the United States. In the modern world, where regulation is more pernicious than ever before, and is enforced through a huge range of trade agreements, product directives and intellectual property law, agorism is more important than ever. New developments in technology and software are increasingly enclosed by corporate vested interests through the mechanisms of intellectual property and complex trade law.

With the advent of electricity, theorists like Mumford and Kropotkin saw the advent of a new technological age of decentralised production based around individuals contracting their goods voluntarily. Electricity was the means to this as it eliminated the need for large factories to use the full capacity of the existing technology. As a result, the artificial hierarchies of bosses and wage labourers became obsolete and instead society could move toward individual contractors who could choose to work collectively or individually. However, such a picture was never painted. Electricity was integrated into large-scale mass production systems, and the centralising tendencies of industrial capitalism continued unabated. The capacity that needed to be fully utilised became much larger through electrical power, and meant that the state was increasingly required to soak up the excess product. The Bretton Woods system of regulated trade was the first major internationalisation of production which accomplished this, itself borne out of the New Deal and its legislated trade associations and massive infrastructure projects. Military Keynesianism through Cold War spending enlarged this infrastructure, “opening up” economies through the power of the state, as well as creating new technologies through R&D spending which furthered economic centralisation.

Neoliberalism was the next step in this process, co-opting newer technologies into its huge economies of scale and monopoly markets. Things like the Wal-Mart style of retail, the Amazon style of distribution and the Apple system of production predominate due to state infrastructure and its soaking up of overproduction. New technologies are integrated to continue these processes, negating their decentralist functions, much like electrical power a century ago. Agorism opens up the decentralist actualities of these technologies and means a new way of operating these technologies away from statist and corporate networks. “Every single transaction that takes place outside the nexus of state control is a victory for those individuals taking part in the transaction”[1], allowing those individuals to ignore the increasing stringency of state control. The Shanzhai economy in Shenzhen, China already shows some of these possibilities. A clustered economy of small contractors and firms creating new forms of technology around existing products, particularly cell phones and computers. In a similar vein, the black economy of the internet functions through small contractors and small-batch production. These only exist due to their ignoring the nexus of intellectual property laws.

There is an increasing viability of these new technologies being a means toward new production models that counter the economic narratives of neoliberal state capitalism. The development of new forms of consumer analytics (direct comparison sites and the tailoring of consumer needs directly toward the consumer) means the redevelopment of counter-economic consumerism toward the direct economy, engendering new economies of scale. Open source technologies, ranging from the Blockchain to Tor, give power back to the individual in an economy, allowing for the creation of a new entrepreneuriat by decentralising the means of production. P2P finance and online bartering sites represent another element to this, providing significantly higher consumer choice and getting around the problem of coincidence of wants by connecting individuals and firms to a huge variety of differently scaled economies. It also means capital is unlocked, opened up to a huge range of potentials for entrepreneurs and producers. Even in the realm of distribution, technology empowers alternative market activity as drones are becoming a new way of transporting deliverable goods. This has an inherent decentralist tendency as drones are affordable for the layperson and thus spread the capability to join the entrepreneuriat even wider.

However, such technologies are already trying to be appropriated by existing corporate behemoths. Amazon is now looking to use drones for its distribution networks, limiting this technology’s capacity to decentralise distribution to local economies of scale. Consumer analytics are being co-opted by large advertising firms and technology giants. The Blockchain is now beginning to be used by too-big-to-fail banks, negating the decentralisation of capital and instead maintaining the corporate kleptocracy present in large, subsidised firms.

Thus the importance of Agorism. It hands power back to the individual. Konkin saw this as moving from the figure of the wage labourer to that of the independent contractor, which creates a more equal bargaining position from which economic relations can flourish. Technology can continue this trajectory, allowing different service providers and consumers to link up through the internet. What’s created is a “meshwork”[2] of producers and consumers linked into a small market system.

“Small markets…allow the assemblage of human beings by interlocking complementary demands. These markets are indeed, self-organized decentralized structures: they arise spontaneously without the need for central planning. As dynamic entities they have absolutely nothing to do with an “invisible hand”, since models based on Adam Smith’s concept operate in a frictionless environment in which agents have perfect rationality and all information flows freely. Yet, by eliminating nonlinearities, these models preclude the spontaneous emergence of order, which depends crucially on friction: delays, bottlenecks, imperfect decision-making and so on.”[3]

These bottlenecks and centralised imperfections give rise to agorism. In the cracks of state capitalism there exists a capacity for entrepreneurs to jump on such competitive opportunities, whether legal or illegal. Such can already be seen in Greece with the development of a cornucopia of alternative economies which encourage geographic boundaries around communities of consumers and producers. This naturally reorients economies toward a more human scale. The integration of technology has played an important part in this process. Open source programs have been used to develop alternative currencies that are as accessible as possible, as well as being a way to advertise their political and social aims[4]. The burgeoning barter systems in Greece also rely on the use of open source internet technologies. The associations of doctors and patients which have slowly replaced the destruction of Greek healthcare have developed through internet technologies controlled by their users which connect those in need of their service with a service-provider. These open source platforms also reorient these sectors toward systems of trust rather than as systems of commodification.

But it’s not just a counter-economy of consumers in Greece. Counter-economic production has already begun with the taking of the state broadcaster and the Vio.Me factory by their respective workers[5]. This Rothbardian homesteading pushes economies of scale down as workers and community members refocus economic ends toward more direct needs, as has happened with the Piquetero movement in Argentina[6]. Similar takeovers may well occur with the “privatisation” of Greek shipyards and docks, meaning a fundamental change of direction away from international shipping toward national and regional shipping and production-consumption structures. It means a social change similar to what Colin Ward has described when understanding worker ownership[7]. It’s not a simple transition but rather a radical reorientation of what an economy represents and entails, as workers take over elements of the means of production and use their own basis of needs and desires to reconstruct the current socio-economic paradigm toward an alternative counter-economy. These coming horizons present a new opportunity for counter-economic practices and entrepreneurial activity. The Greek people have an opportunity to create a counter-economy based within regional and local economies of scale simply by ignoring both the corrupt Greek state and the capitalist forces of the European Union.

Going to a different arena, that of the UK, there exists developing horizons of opportunity for counter-economics and the development of an agorist alternative economy. With the possibility of the UK exiting the EU, there may well be economic uncertainty surrounding the viability of corporate behemoths (particularly manufacturing firms) and farm subsidies. With this, there is a potential for re-envisioning the prevailing economies of scale that ail the British economy. By removing themselves from the internationalised marketplace that is the EU, radically reoriented economies can be developed through worker control of major manufacturers (such as British steel plants or car makers) and the creation of local economies of scale for food production and consumption as a result of high food tariffs and a lack of farm subsidies. By connecting through the internet, such firms could connect with their local or regional direct economy and produce therein. This technological agorism decentralises power to the entrepreneur and the consumer, and away from corporate kleptocracies that require massive state intervention on their behalf.

The new technologies that are developing have a natural inclination to be integrated into small-scale production outfits and reduced economies of scale. However, the presiding corporate powers are using intellectual property and the entry barriers present in regulatory apparatuses to make sure that these technologies are instead integrated into the corporate-state nexus, maintaining the position of wage labourers instead of allowing for the development of a new, radical entrepreneuriat of independent contractors and worker-owners. Agorism is needed to correct this economic injustice, and make sure new technology is available to potential entrepreneurs and producers. Already such developments can be seen in Shanzhai (an economy based on ignoring the stupidities of intellectual property) and Greece, where austerity has destroyed the prevailing capitalist economy and required direct action by consumers and workers. Combining the burgeoning technological agorism with these coming horizons of economic recession means the ability to create a whole new raft of alternative local and regional economies that rival the corporate state.

[1] D’Amato, D.S. Black Market Activism: Samuel Edward Konkin III and Agorism, 2015

[2] DeLanda, M. Markets and Antimarkets in the World Economy, 1998

[3] DeLanda, M. Markets and Antimarkets in the World Economy, 1998

[4] Shaw, C. Redefining Money: The Praxis of Local Currencies, 2016

[5] Karyotis, T. Chronicles of a Defeat Foretold, 2015

[6] Shaw, C. Rethinking Markets: Anarchism, Capitalism, and the State, 2016

[7] Ward, C. A Self-Employed Society, 2012

At Reason, Nick Gillespie (“How to Build a Better Epi-Pen — or Something Totally Different That’s Much Better,” Sept. 4) argues — correctly — that Mylan’s EpiPen price-gouging is enabled by government regulations. He cites fellow Reason writer Scott Shackelford’s earlier article (“Want to Reduce the Price of Epipens? Approve Some Competition!” Aug. 25) showing how FDA regulations are specifically tailored to Mylan’s product specifications so as to give it a de facto monopoly on the EpiPen. This enables Mylan to mark up the price of an EpiPen to about $300, compared to the actual ten cents worth of epinephrine in it.

Gillespie also points out that “Mylan’s path to monopoly pricing in EpiPens has everything to do with politics and nothing to do with laissez-faire economics. The approval process isn’t just long and expensive, it also opens things up to politics.” Well, that’s true as far as it goes. Of course just about the whole structure of the capitalist system as it’s existed for the past five hundred years — not to mention the monopoly capitalist system we’ve had for the past 150 or so — has everything to do with politics and nothing to do with laissez-faire economics.” Things were “opened up to politics” a long time ago, starting with land enclosures, mercantile war, colonial conquest and the slave trade.

And in pointing out all this, Gillespie can’t resist mentioning how refreshing it is for Mylan’s CEO to admit “I am a for-profit business. I am not hiding from that.” If he finds it so refreshing to hear a CEO say he’s in business to make money, he’d positively love former Archer Daniel Midlands CEO Dwayne Andreas, who not only admitted that he was in business to make money but also uttered the usually unspoken understanding of how large corporations actually make the great bulk of that money: “The competitor is our friend; the customer is our enemy. The only place you’ll find one grain of anything on the free market is in Fourth of July speeches.”

But we have yet to come to the real howler: “Mylan isn’t taking advantage of customers. It is simply working a political system to its own advantages.” Holy Moly! Take a minute to let this sink in. “This isn’t a square. It’s simply a geometrical figure with four equal sides.”

Now, at this point I need to insert a few comments on the concept of “crony capitalism,” as it’s used by the Libertarian Right. It’s something that almost all right-libertarians concede the existence of, and object to, in principle. They just have a hard time recognizing it in any actual case. The stuff they love the most is like a laundry list of crony capitalist abuses: Most “privatization” schemes, charter schools, governor-appointed city Emergency Managers, corporate managed “free trade zones” created by eminent domain seizures of peasant land, ad nauseam. If the Ex-Im Bank and flood insurance for beach houses didn’t exist, right-libertarians would have to invent them just to have a couple of real-world examples of “crony capitalism” on hand to prove their opposition isn’t entirely rhetorical.

But look — here is a case where Gillespie is actually describing, and condemning, a case of crony capitalism. Everything he says about FDA regulations being tailored to enable Mylan to price-gouge customers is entirely correct (although he leaves out drug patents, which are the biggest state aid to drug industry rent-extraction of all). But even here, he still can’t overcome a knee-jerk impulse to defend big business!

Howdy, folks! It’s Sunday, which means it’s time for an update on what the Center for a Stateless Society has been doing and where we’ve been. I’m Trevor Hultner, your new Media Coordinator, and from here on out I’ll be keeping you abreast of where our writers are getting published, where C4SS is being mentioned and what we’re up to for the upcoming week.

Ch-ch-changes

Erick Vasconcelos stepped down from the Media Coordinator position earlier this week. Erick took over from me when I left the Center back in August 2015, and over the past year he has done amazing work reorganizing everything from who gets our article submissions to how those pickups get counted. I’ll be continuing his work behind the scenes.

A Week In Commentary

The last week of August/first week of September was a relatively quiet week for C4SS, with regard to commentaries. Toward the tail-end of last week, Logan Glitterbomb posted their piece on indigenous resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline. We submitted the piece for pickups on Monday, and the piece was grabbed by CounterPunch, a regular disseminator of our work; from there, their piece was picked up by the Canadian Centre for Globalisation Research.

Logan also published a report on the goings-on of the Spanish Anarcho-Syndicalist union CNT – Confederación Nacional del Trabajo – including word that they would be reforming the International Workers Association.

I posted a hot take on Colin Kaepernick’s refusal to stand for the National Anthem, and Kevin Carson has posted a piece on how capitalism is not making us richer. Both of these articles are in the queue for submissions, and we’ll have their stats – and more! – in next week’s blog post.

Anarchy in the Gray Lady

Chad Nelson got into the New York Times! Okay, not exactly, but it’s really, really close, and really, really exciting. Here’s the breakdown:

Back in April, Chad published an article on activists protesting cluster bomb manufacturer Textron in Rhode Island. It was picked up by an Augusta, GA news outlet, a Long Island news vertical, and RI Future, a “progressive political blog that strives to speak truth to power, stick up for the oppressed and ignored and tell interesting and entertaining stories about the Ocean State.”

RI Future is where Sewell Chan, a reporter for the New York Times, found Chad’s piece and used it as a contextual link in the online version of their story, “Report Finds Ban Hasn’t Halted Use of Cluster Bombs in Syria or Yemen,” published on Friday, Sept. 2.

Here’s the paragraph from Chan’s article that Chad’s link was hanging out in:

“In April, activists began regular protests outside the Providence, R.I., headquarters of Textron, a maker of cluster munitions. In May, the Pentagon stopped delivering cluster munitions to Saudi Arabia. And in June, a provision to ban the transfer of such munitions to Saudi Arabia was nearly adopted by the House of Representatives, losing on a vote of 216 to 204.”

This is legitimately a momentous occasion. Being linked to in an article published in the New York Times shows the kind of impact our writers – and our ideas – can have, even months down the line. This is why it’s important to…

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Is there anything we as agorists, anarchists, and others of the left can do to build a revolution? What does agorism tell us about our ends, the society we wish to create, based on its means?

Agorism is an anarchist philosophy of revolutionary counter-economics, but it is not the first. Agorism’s use of black and gray markets to empower the disenfranchised is only one way to undermine white and red markets- those deemed legal by the state in support of capitalism. Another philosophy, illegalism, also undermines the capitalist and political class for individual empowerment. It is my view that these two philosophies, separated by generations, are complementary. Both are necessary for survival, liberation, and building the alternatives of the future.

Looking to the Past

“By refusing us the right to free labor society gives us the right to steal. In taking possession of the wealth of the world, the bourgeois give us the right to take back, however we can, what we need to satisfy our needs.”

In 1909, illegalist anarchist Victor Serge penned these words in Le Revolte. Illegalism repudiates laws, especially those defending capitalist property claims. Some examples include bank robbery, theft from bosses or businesses, and violent acts including killing police, even bank tellers and a company accountant. Illegalists took direct action to the next level, calling it “propaganda of the deed.” The above quote also seems to support the idea that if illegitimate property claims leave nothing to be homesteaded, the right to homestead illegitimately claimed property remains.

Serge ultimately changed his mind about illegalism. If I may speculate, his change of thought seemed to be both a mix of despair from seeing a lack of lasting success as well as being sentenced to 5 years in prison for his aid to the Bonnot Gang. The Bonnot Gang were a group of illegalist anarchists who famously escaped and overpowered French and Belgian authorities by using repeating rifles and cars. The French authorities did not yet possess this technology and were unable to apprehend them from 1911-1912.

While the state now has these capabilities and more, I would like to highlight a theme throughout history. Technology evens the playing field in unexpected ways when it comes to large organizations fighting smaller ones. One recent example is the US government requesting Apple to unlock a terrorist’s cell phone. In some cases I’d like to argue that technology actually favors those resisting a larger invading force. Improvised Explosive devices plague the military daily, and even drones can be disabled by new weapons technology which fires no projectile, allowing the user to remain hidden. The cost of building tanks, transporting troops, and building infrastructure to move military equipment is so much greater than the cost of the IED’s being used to stop it all. Destruction is usually cheaper than construction, thus favoring a low-budget resistance. The amount of time it takes is also considerably less when comparing building a vehicle to constructing the $416 bomb that blows it up[1].

Looking at the Present

“In order to transform society- if this is possible- we know that something else is needed besides reformist collective movements or acts of banditry. But in order to do these other things one must live; and in order to live one must be a wage earner or a bandit…Wage labor and banditry are for us nothing but deplorable expedients we are forced to resort to in order to survive and fulfill our task in an abominable world.”[2]

Acknowledging that simple acts of theft or political reform are only a means of survival while working towards a different future, we are left to build the alternatives ourselves. As agorism teaches, means and ends must be consistent. Arriving at the society we wish will require actions which contribute to its creation- literally building the future. Our actions must necessarily be outside of the sphere of what is currently allowed. For example, a little north of where I live, anarchists in Denver, Colorado set out to house the homeless last year. They constructed mini-houses in a vacant public lot, and Denver Housing Authority took them down. Where I previously lived, in Trenton, New Jersey, homeless people set up what is called “Tent-City”, a practice repeated in numerous other places. Communities of free people seeking to meet each other’s needs have been established, more or less under the radar, and some have been able to remain despite the state’s public disapproval, and sometimes without their knowledge. In building the foundation to change society we must make sure to take care of each others’ basic needs.

Housing and feeding the homeless as well as assisting each other with direct mutual aid will allow the working class to unite. A revolution cannot be expected if all those who would stand to gain are starving or incapable of resisting the powerful state. Capitalism divides us; Mutual aid brings us together. Black and gray markets require trust, and trust is built through acts of compassion. In addition to mutual aid, solidarity is another way to represent shared values across great distances. Local communities need to show support for each other when striking or simply struggling against the challenges of capitalism. Ride-sharing and day-care are simple, comparatively less restricted ways to support each other that truly make a difference in each person’s daily life. Minimizing the cost of living and maximizing the benefits of liberty are the way forward, whether by illegal farming or trading in goods and services.

Speaking of the incapability’s of the current economic structure, anarcho-communist Murray Bookchin argued “Attempts to ‘green’ capitalism, to make it ecological, are doomed by the very nature of the system as a system of endless growth.” The only way to reverse it is to first stop, and the only way to stop it is to replace it with a new system. Luckily, agorism points us in the direction of new alternatives. Under such political and economic pressures, counter-economic entrepreneurs have no choice but to innovate to compete in markets. In addition to innovation, what is needed is agitation to attack the system where it is most vulnerable.

Looking to the Future

In France today we see a nationwide workers’ strike affecting the petroleum and nuclear energy industries, impacting the economy at the source- its power. Train drivers also went on strike, with many workers blocking railways as well- all of this accomplished by a united front of many different national unions. The existing system has an advantage of being implemented on a large scale, but that advantage is also its downfall. It has a number of weak points, all of which are difficult to defend simultaneously, and all of which depend on the submission of the working class. This is only one example of effective disruption of the capitalist system. All successes and failures should be considered to develop a strategy that encompasses every known weakness of that which we resist, so we might be able to affect a change in an opportune moment. The state often makes political decisions based on cost-benefit ratios and foreseeable changes, whether via embargo or other diplomatic maneuvering. Radicals should think in similar terms to achieve results on a large scale.

There will always be those who seek power, but by destroying the overarching system in place as well as the legitimacy of the oppressor, the economically liberated will be able to reassert their control over resources. What will be left will be a more self-sustaining society. It matters not which branch of anarchism becomes most popular or whether or not all people agree as to which specific kind of society they desire – the lack of institutionally-enforced obstacles and self-destructive tendencies will allow people the time and freedom to discover their preferences.

Now, at the height of ecological and economic self-destruction, the time has never been as ripe for revolution. Illegalism and agorism go hand-in-hand providing free people what they need to survive. Sabotage of industry, theft, trade in goods in manners prohibited, and all other manner of anti-capitalist activity are simply the means to achieving a society where centralized, oppressive entities are made obsolete and driven out.

[1] “Afghan IEDS: warfare on the cheap”, Tom Vanden Brook, USA TODAY. June 24, 2013

[2] ‘Expedients’, Victor Serge, Le Revolte. January 18, 1912

Joseph Cozza discusses the conflict in Yemen and how to resolve it.

Ramzy Baroud discusses the repression of civil society groups opposed to Israeli policy.

Stephen Zunes discusses the bellicose rhetoric of both major party platforms on Iran.

Medea Benjamin discusses the sale of weapons to Saudi Arabia and their use in Yemen.

Glenn Greenwald discusses the donation of money by repressive Middle Eastern regimes to the Clinton foundation.

Jacob Sullum discusses the Philipine’s war on drugs.

Ivan Eland discusses whether the American Department of Defense is providing much ssecurity.

Ted Galen Carpenter discusses U.S. policy in the Baltic region.

Jim Miles discusses a book on Israel and the Arab world.

Steve Chapman discusses paranoia about safety in the U.S.

Cesar Chelala discusses Gitmo.

Ashley Smith discusses anti-imperialism and the Syrian revolution.

K. Lloyd Billingsey discusses the use of armed agents to enforce ever more laws.

Andrew Mitrovica discusses the BDS movement in Canada.

Doug Bandow discusses the peril of excessive alliances.

Ann Wright discusses boats sailing to the Gaza Strip.

Richard M. Ebeling discusses John Locke and American individualism.

Doug Bandow discusses why Washington is addicted to perptual war.

Marjorie Cohn discusses the poster child for Bush era torture.

Charles V. Pena discusses why South Korea should defend itself.

Andrew Cornell discusses anarchists and the welfare state.

Richard M. Ebeling discusses Austrian economics.

Belen Fernandez discusses disappearances in Latin America.

James J. Sheehan discusses two books on U.S. foreign policy.

Neve Gordon and Nicola Perguini discuss human shields and international law.

Alice Bach discusses a book on Palestine.

Jim Miles discusses a book on Palestine.

Radley Balko discusses a DEA atrocity.

Lucy Steigerwald discusses bipartisan warmongering.

Justin Raimondo discusses Hilary’s speech to the American Legion.

Un Nuevo sondeo de la universidad de Harvard muestra que el 51 % de los millennials o mileniales no apoyan el capitalismo (comparado con 42 % que sí lo apoyan). Un sondeo anterior llevado a cabo por el proyecto de opinión pública Reason-Rupe encontró que el “socialismo” sobrepasa al “capitalismo” en popularidad 58 a 56 %; pero el “libre mercado” resultó ser arrasadoramente más popular que una “economía dirigida por el gobierno”. La vocería politiquera no demora en calificar esto como confusión por parte de los mileniales acerca de lo que son el capitalismo y el socialismo. Pero esto, más bien, refleja aduciblemente lo obsoleto de las definiciones mismas de “capitalismo” y “socialismo”. Lo que es más, las definiciones convencionales utilizadas durante el siglo veinte nunca tuvieron mucho sentido.

Max Ehrenfreund, a lo largo del artículo que cubrió el sondeo en el Washington Post (“A majority of millennials now reject capitalism, poll shows,” abril 26), emplea el término “libre mercado” intercambiablemente tanto con el “capitalismo” como con el “status quo”. Al aplicar los principios básicos de la lógica deductiva, esto significa que el status quo es uno de libre mercado, conclusión esta tan absurda que delata más la propia confusión de Ehrenfreund que la de cualquier otro. Este cita una encuesta realizada previamente, en 2011, que emplea de manera similar el término “capitalismo” como sinónimo del “sistema estadounidense de libre mercado”.

John Della Volpe, el director de encuestas de Harvard responsable de los más recientes resultados, aduce que “ellos no están rechazando el concepto. Es el modo en que se practica hoy el capitalismo, en las mentes de los jóvenes, lo que están rechazando”.

El problema es que gente como Ehrenfreund, los miembros del centro de investigaciones Pew y virtualmente todas las cabezas parlantes de la televisión y los políticos convencionales de los dos partidos políticos mayoritarios, utilizan explícitamente el término “sistema de libre mercado” para referirse a lo que tenemos ahora.

El otro problema es que nunca ha habido una forma de capitalismo que en la práctica no fuese por lo menos tan coercitiva y estatista como la que tenemos ahora. El capitalismo histórico inició hace cinco o seis siglos, no con mercados libres, sino con la conquista de poblados libres por parte de estados absolutos y con la expropiación masiva a los campesinos de su tradicional derecho a la tierra por parte de la oligarquía terrateniente; y continuó con la conquista colonial de la mayor parte del mundo fuera de Europa. Desde entonces, el capital ha seguido dependiendo íntegramente del estado para socializar sus costos operativos, erigir barreras para la competencia e imponer títulos ilegítimos a toda la tierra y a los recursos naturales acaparados a lo largo de los siglos anteriores. Esta historia de conquista, latrocinio y esclavitud es el código genético básico del capitalismo corporativista contemporáneo.

En la revista Reason (“Millenials Hate Capitalism Almost as Much as They Hate Socialism”, abril 27), Elizabeth Nolan Brown reconoció que lo que los mileniales quieren decir con “capitalismo” no es algún hipotético “libre mercado”:

Capitalismo son grandes bancos, Wall Street, “inequidad salarial” y codicia; sociópatas pudientes jodiendo el ciudadano de a pie, Bernie Madoff y horrorosas maquilas en China. Es Walmart sacando del camino microcomercios familiares, MacDonald’s engordando a la gente, derrames de petróleo de BP, bancos forzando préstamos hipotecarios de alto riesgo y Pfizer elevando los precios de las drogas mientras los pacientes con cáncer mueren. Sin importar cuán incompletas o caricaturescas sean, estas son las narrativas del capitalismo con las que los mileniales han crecido.

Pero entonces, cuando se substraen todos estos aspectos del capitalismo contemporáneo, lo que queda es algo muy similar al gato de Cheshire cuando desaparecen tanto el gato como la sonrisa.

De cualquier modo, Brown hace un trabajo mucho mejor que el de Emily Ekins, quien reportó acerca del sondeo de Reason-Rupe hace un año. Ekins sencillamente reivindicó las definiciones convencionales de diccionario de “socialismo” y “capitalismo” como artículos de fe, sugiriendo que el hecho de que los mileniales simpaticen con el socialismo pero no quieran una “economía dirigida por el gobierno” significa simplemente que “los jóvenes no saben lo que estas palabras significan” (“Poll: Americans Like Free Markets More than Capitalism and Socialism More Than a Govt Managed Economy,” febrero 12, 2015). Y en otro artículo (“64 Percent of Millennials Favor a Free Market Over a Government-Managed Economy,” julio 10, 2014), citó la inhabilidad de los mileniales para “definir socialismo como apropiación estatal” como un signo de ignorancia de lo que “el socialismo realmente significa”.

Mas “capitalismo” y “socialismo” son términos con historias largas y matizadas, y las definiciones de diccionario convencionales están, en el mejor supuesto, extremadamente supeditadas al tiempo y a la perspectiva. Además, tratar la definición de diccionario de “socialismo” como si estuviese por encima de la historia real del movimiento socialista es, si me perdonan, la definición misma de “tonto”.

Siempre ha habido ramas no estatistas en el seno del movimiento socialista desde sus inicios, una de las cuales se conoce como “anarquismo”. Por épocas, las formas no estatistas del socialismo fueron dominantes. Y siempre ha habido quienes se identifican como socialistas en el seno del movimiento libertario de libre mercado.

Incluso socialistas de estado como Marx y Engels, quienes veían en el control socialista del estado un paso esencial hacia la construcción del socialismo, no equiparaban como tal “socialismo” con apropiación estatal y control de la economía. “Socialismo” era un sistema en que todo el poder político y económico estaba en manos de la clase obrera. La nacionalización y el control estatal de la economía podrían ser parte del proceso de transición hacia el socialismo, si el estado pasaba a ser controlado por la clase obrera. De otro lado, incrementar el control estatal de la economía cuando el estado era controlado por capitalistas representaría sencillamente una nueva etapa en la evolución del capitalismo, en la cual los capitalistas manejarían el sistema a través del estado en pro de sus propios intereses.

Hoy en día, las subcorrientes más interesantes en el movimiento socialista son algunas como el autonomismo de Antonio Negri y Michael Hardt, el cual vislumbra el camino hacia el poscapitalismo como un “éxodo”, la creación de una nueva sociedad alrededor de contrainstituciones como la producción paritaria basada en el uso de los bienes comunes.

Erik Olin Wright, por ejemplo (How to Think About (And Win) Socialism,” Jacobin, April 2016), ve el “socialismo” como un sistema en que fuerzas sociales organizadas democráticamente – por oposición sea a estados sea a corporaciones– suponen los medio dominantes para organizar la actividad social. Las sociedades a lo largo de la historia han sido una mezcla de tales formas institucionales, mas, bajo el capitalismo, la firma comercial orientada al lucro se convirtió en la institución hegemónica o núcleo de la sociedad entera, definiéndose otras instituciones en términos de su relación con el capital. A medida que el capitalismo evoluciona hacia el socialismo, nuevas instituciones sociales y democráticas se convertirán en las formas hegemónicas, y el estado y los negocios se verán reducidos a poco más que nichos en un sistema caracterizado por el dominio de las nuevas instituciones democráticas.

Cosas como las monedas locales, los fideicomisos de tierras, las cooperativas y la producción paritaria basada en el uso de los bienes comunes existen hoy bajo el capitalismo. Pero en la medida en que el capitalismo alcance sus límites de crecimiento y confronte sus crisis terminales, estas nuevas instituciones socialistas se irán expendiendo y se entretejerán en un todo coherente que formará las bases del sistema sucesor; y los restos de las instituciones estatales y corporativas se integrarán a un sistema definido por su esencia poscapitalista.

… la posibilidad de que haya un socialismo depende del potencial para acrecentar y profundizar el componente socialista dentro del ecosistema económico, y debilitar los componentes estatales y capitalistas.

Esto significaría que en una economía socialista el ejercicio tanto del poder económico como del estatal estarían efectivamente subordinados al poder social, esto es, tanto el estado como la economía serían democratizados. Es por esta razón que el socialismo es equivalente a una democratización radical de la sociedad.

Algo así, por cierto, a saber, una visión de transformación basada en la construcción de contrainstituciones, ha sido un aspecto medular de muchas versiones del socialismo y el anarquismo desde su primera aparición como movimientos organizados hace doscientos años.

Así que, quizá, cuando los mileniales dicen que odian el capitalismo y les agrada el socialismo, pero se oponen al control estatal de la economía, no son ellos los confundidos. Quizá ellos tienen una mejor idea de lo que significan “capitalismo” y “socialismo” que Frauenfelder y Ekins.

Artículo original publicado por Kevin Carson, el 1 de mayo de 2016.

Traducido del inglés por Mario Murillo

“Liberty not only means that the individual has both the opportunity and the burden of choice; it also means that he must bear the consequences of his actions and will receive praise or blame for them.” F. A. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, Responsibility and Freedom

What does it mean for speech to be free? I’m less interested in the legal specifications surrounding this question and more eager to discuss what this means for us in our daily interactions. As an anarchist, I don’t see a legitimate role for governments to play in limiting or privileging certain types of speech. However, that does not mean that individuals cannot or should not be held responsible for the things they say by others in their chosen communities. Since we’ve removed as an option the use of force to suppress speech, what avenues might remain available for praxis?

If speech is to exist in a kind of “marketplace of ideas,” then “praise” or “blame” can act as a profit and loss system for “good” and “bad” speech. It remains the domain of individuals to decide for themselves what constitutes good and bad, as well as how to react to different ideas. Some people are comfortable combating ideas with their own speech with the hope of, at least, persuading or emboldening others to do the same. For others (usually those who have experienced trauma related to particular ideas such as misogyny, rape culture, homo- and transphobia, etc.) the response is often to retreat from spaces where these ideas are shared uncritically and build alternative spaces with others who feel similarly. Some would call these “safe spaces,” but bell hooks has another idea; removed from fear of re-traumatization and retaliation, people create spaces in which they are “safe to struggle.” It is a gross mischaracterization of safe spaces to say that there aren’t any levels of disagreement among those involved. Rather, open and respectful disagreement is possible because there is a foundation of mutual trust established through the intentions set for the space.

Neither of these approaches to speech with which we disagree is objectively better or worse than the other, and it would be difficult to determine their relative effectiveness without considering the validity of individual preferences. The problem of safe spaces is not about censorship or exclusion but about property rights and free association. If people want to limit access to a space based on any criteria, this should not be a problem so long as they are doing so on their own property. This includes the ability for people with racist, misogynist, and other bigoted views to freely associate. By all means, be open about your prejudices so that I and others know who to avoid and condemn.

College campuses make the issue of safe spaces and other forms of free association difficult because of their often mixed status as public or public-private entities. Therefore, to focus on the encroachment of safe spaces on protected speech is a form of “hacking at the branches” rather than “striking the root” of the problem which is a lack of defined property rights on college campuses. Even the University of Chicago, which sent incoming students a letter regarding safe spaces and trigger warnings, recognizes the value to students of being able to access these spaces on campus. UChicago decided only that classes themselves are not acceptable locales to set safe space intentions because classrooms have different and conflicting sets of intentions associated with them. They have also left the decision to use trigger warnings or not up to individual professors and students, which respects the local knowledge professors have of their subject matter and students have of their traumas and life experiences.

Libertarians and other free speech advocates have primarily focused on the freedom of speech from government, college administrators, and a vocal minority of anti-speech activists. However, a thick, cultural approach is needed to also hold individuals responsible for the content of what they freely espouse. According to Hayek, a free society demands both freedom and responsibility. If we don’t hold people accountable for the things they say, then we are, at best, coddling them and, at worst, allowing the perpetuation of those ideas that we find personally abhorrent. Instead of mocking those who advocate for the use of trigger warnings and safe spaces and giving platforms to those who espouse bigotry in the name of free speech, why not take a look at the content of what each is saying or is too afraid to say?

Often, libertarians work towards their goals by campaigning for politicians and ballot measures that promise to enact them. Agorists work towards their goals by working towards their goals.

Agorism is libertarian politics beyond policy.

It’s the familiar focus on individual liberation, respect for persons and their property rights, the market process, and the self-organizing power of free association – taken outside the narrow confines of a politics aimed at policy changes. It is a libertarianism that interacts directly with society, unmediated by the standard political process and its policy framework.

A lot of that sounds pretty obvious to most people vaguely familiar with agorism, counter-economics, direct action, and related concepts. But here I’m going to try and outline just how radical a break agorism is from the dominant way politics is seen even by most libertarians.

I. The Policy Framework

Let’s take a step back. What is the “policy framework” that I’m saying agorism disregards? The policy framework, as I’ve described it elsewhere, is “the line of thinking that assumes our basic goal is for the state to change its particular policies – for example, that it no longer considers drugs illegal, and no longer tells its police to put drug users in prison.” At an even more basic level, though, the policy framework is just the conflation between state and society that all libertarians who’ve read their required Bastiat loudly pan. It is the equivocation between what the laws of a society’s ruling state say about that society, and the actual facts on the ground about that society. It is the assumption that political goals should automatically take the form of policy goals, or even that political goals just are policy goals.

In order to explain what the policy framework is more fully, and what’s wrong with it, it’s worth looking at how it’s manifested (often in a much more complete form) in non-libertarians.

People are concerned about gun violence, so they institute gun control. People are bothered about the conditions of workers stuck in awful jobs with awful pay, so they raise the minimum wage. They’re horrified by the effects of drug addiction, so they ramp up prosecution of the drug war.

There is a constant cry of “do something,” and for that “something” to be a change in state policies that adequately expresses their outrage. Society speaks through its laws, for those firmly in the policy framework.  For instance, the radical who opposes the expansion of hate crime laws can often sound, to those operating in the policy framework, identical to the bigot who just doesn’t care about those targeted by hate crimes. The actual effects of hate crime laws are seen as less relevant than their intended expressive meaning.

The actual, on the ground effects are less relevant to those in the policy framework in part because the policy framework involves an almost magical kind of thinking. A well-written piece of legislation, under this framework, moves immediately from being passed to enforcement as-written, with more or less the intended effects of that legislation coming about in the real world. Legislators are careful wizards, finding all the right words they need to cast just the right sort of spell. Once they find just the right kind of gun control bill, it will just suddenly make it the case that guns are gone. They’d just vanish out of the hands of would-be assailants, who couldn’t get them otherwise, and there would be no notable effects of the policy other than the ones directly intended. This isn’t to say that two people committed wholesale to the policy framework couldn’t disagree about gun control. Of course they could – some might reject the proposal on strictly rights-based grounds. But both, if they were totally in the grips of the policy framework, would assume that the law would be enforced exactly as-written. Neither would propose that such a policy might actually increase incidents of violence. Nor would either side seriously consider the possibility – even if they knew it in the abstract – that this policy would mean the further mass-incarceration of, disproportionately, people of color.

Obviously, very few if anyone buys into the policy framework all the way. But a lot of people get pretty close. Some minimum wage proponents, for example, are not totally unaware of its unwelcome, unintended consequences which specifically burden the very people they’re trying to help. Rather, they just underestimate the effects of the minimum wage, being blinded by the magic of its promise.

Much of what I’ve been saying so far should be pretty standard for libertarian readers, and may even look a little self-congratulatory. I’ve said all of that, though, in order to show how libertarians also fall into this trap. “Free Trade Agreements,” for instance, seem like a no-brainer for libertarians – opening up trade is always a plus. The devil, though, waits in the details, with FTAs considerably more often than not also ramping up intellectual monopoly on an international scale. In other words, libertarians captivated by the free trade claims of FTAs find themselves working to strengthen a protectionism without borders.

II. The Soft Whimper of Liberation Within the Policy Framework

There’s also an even more fundamental level at which nearly everyone – libertarian anarchists included – tend to buy into the policy framework. This is mistaking their social and political goals for their closest policy equivalents. For example, libertarians agree that an important goal is to defend the rights of drug users. Many take this to mean that an important goal should be drug policy reform. It’s often said in arguments about political strategy, that even in cases of civil disobedience, your ultimate goal is a particular policy change—e.g., that you work against the enforcement of drug laws in order to change the drug laws. What is typically taken as totally ludicrous is the idea that the disobedience itself (civil or uncivil) could itself be a part of the goal.

Yet we should notice that the goal of protecting the rights of drug users and the goal of changing the drug laws are clearly analytically distinct. Even if it seems implausible, it’s very well logically possible to protect the rights of drug users without changing the drug laws, and it’s very well logically possible to change the drug laws yet fail to protect the rights of drug users. Obviously, the entire reason we would want to change the drug laws is because we assume this is the way to make drug users secure in certain rights that are currently being disregarded. But since the two goals are distinct here, it’s worth asking if one actually is the almost necessary-and-sufficient condition for the other that we seem to think it is.

This is where agorism’s consistent avoidance of the policy framework really starts to help. It may well turn out in a given case that the best thing to do is to try and get the state to stand down and stop its campaign of aggression. For instance, if it turned out that a state put full legalization without taxation on the ballot, an agorist opposition to campaigning for that proposal would be absurd. However, thinking that our actual world is one in which we’re constantly being presented with those opportunities is also absurd. Rather, we’re constantly being presented with potential policy reforms that the vast majority of us realistically have very little (if any at all) power to effect, and constantly carry the risk of being one step forward, two steps back.

For example, consider the endless treadmill of poisoned “reforms” in the criminal justice system. As Nathan Goodman writes:

“[Prison] reform may make the problem worse. It’s important to remember that prisons themselves were first developed by social reformers who wanted an alternative to corporal punishment and capital punishment. Solitary confinement, which is now recognized as a traumatizing form of psychological torture, was first proposed by Quakers as a form of introspection that could be more humane than the whip. Since then, we have seen well intentioned reforms help expand the prison system’s power. Women’s prisons were opened in response to campaigns to end sexual assaults against women in men’s prisons. The construction of these prisons paved the way for dramatic increases in incarceration of women. Victoria Law writes that in the decade following the opening of the first women’s prison in Illinois in 1859, ‘the total number of women sentenced to prison tripled.’ Recently we have seen similar processes in the development of transgender wings in prisons and jails in response to abuses of transgender inmates in the general prison population.

The Smarter Sentencing Act… exemplifies this ‘one step forward, two steps back’ approach to prison reform. The bill would eliminate some harsh mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent drug offenses. However, thanks to the logrolling and bundling that is necessary to pass bills, the bill also threatens to add new mandatory minimums for violent crimes.”

Given the public choice and class theory considerations that underlie radical libertarianism in the first place, this should be sadly unsurprising. Furthermore, that policy-pessimism should be our presumption with alleged reforms. Importantly, resistance to this position (even from committed libertarian anarchists) itself falls prey to the same kind of bad reasoning we’ve already considered with the policy framework.

For the libertarian with a policy-centric strategy is often very aware, in the abstract, that they should have expectations of heavy policy-pessimism. Whenever things (inevitably) don’t quite go as they’d hoped, they will themselves note public choice considerations in frustration. Yet just like a minimum wage advocate may well know in the abstract the kind of effect the minimum wage has on involuntary unemployment, they are blinded by the magic of a policy reform’s promise. The allure of policy reform’s almost magical approach to social change – that one can successfully tweak the state’s laws, with that alteration going through as-intended by the reformer. That our libertarian Baptists will always sufficiently ward off Bootleggers. That we can bypass all the difficult work by just convincing the state to slowly abolish itself. It’s a beautiful dream that just seems too good to be false. Therefore, even acknowledging in the abstract that our policy-pessimism should be the bleakest of the bleak, it’s easy to underestimate just how true that is, especially with how irrationally exciting each apparent chance at policy reform looks.

III. The Agorist Alternative

I say this not to bring bummers. I do not believe, as some anarchists have on occasion, that there is no hope. The bleakest of bleak policy-pessimism is not ultimately a pessimistic view. It’s simply an invitation to look elsewhere for social and political change.

That elsewhere is right in front of us. It is our everyday experiences, in which each of us is uniquely situated with a particular set of talents, a particular set of social positionings, and a particular set of tacit knowledge, to suit us to particular forms of resistance. It is not the case that there is some single obvious path to abolishing the state overnight. There are countless ways of directly interacting with the society around us to liberate it over time. When natural disasters hit, and the state fails miserably, those of us well-situated to do so can work toward mutual aid. Workers who seek to better themselves in spite of the state’s imposition of managerial capitalism can do so through wildcat unions. Socially marginalized and oppressed groups can build grassroots social movements to better their situation, rather than rely on a state operated by their oppressors to do it for them.

Speaking in general terms like this, though, with one example after the other might actually obscure what I’m trying to say here. Which is that by expanding political action away from just policy radically opens possibilities in ways that we simply can’t even imagine until they actually happen. We are in a position of radical ignorance of what the best steps toward liberation are, and that ignorance will not be lifted until those best positioned to take them take them. Those who are best positioned to take them will only do so if they are not blinded by a policy framework that leads them to assume that unless their skills are well-suited for directly influencing legislators, drafting legislation, or running for office that they can only serve an instrumental role. In order for them to be entrepreneurially alert as possible, they must not be ideologically restrained by the belief that political change is ultimately restricted to those who work to effect policy change.

For one example of the sort of powerful possibilities for political change of which we may be presently radically ignorant, let’s return to something I said earlier. Our actual goal of “protecting the rights of drug users” is clearly analytically distinct from what many seem to have assumed is synonymous with that goal, “reforming drug policy.” Those who want to protect the rights of drug users should, on the agorist view I’m promoting here, directly seek to protect the rights of drug users, not just indirectly do so by seeking to work towards drug policy reform.

The difference here is not actually hypothetical, either. Because we have a prime example of exactly the sort of thing I have in mind, on this very issue. In constructing the Silk Road, Ross Ulbricht directly sought to protect the rights of drug users – both from the state and from violent drug-dealers. And it was a monumental success. The drug trade much more closely approximated an open market, even including an explicit rating system. The use of bitcoin and darknet anonymity kept buyers safe from cops seeking to enslave them. According to one criminological study, the Silk Road measurably reduced the level of violence in the drug trade.

All without signing a single petition or writing a single congressperson.

Of course, Ross did eventually get caught, tried, and sentenced for his involvement with the Silk Road. Due to the example of his courage, though, countless sites have emerged after the fall of Silk Road, each helping to protect the rights of drug users.

What we need is a political framework where every single one of us with the ability to be a Ross Ulbricht can be alert to that possibility, and feel prepared to act when they see an opportunity. A political framework that puts everything ultimately in terms of fruitless policy reforms, mistaking the laws of a society’s state for the actual nature of that society, cannot be that political framework. All that the policy framework can do is provide continued ideological blindness, and slow the tide of liberation.

What we need, then, is a politics that can account for the real world as we actually experience it, not the illusions of the electoral process and its policy framework. What we need is agorism.

If you frequent mainstream right-libertarian publications on anything like a regular basis, you’ve probably seen more than one of those breathless articles about how capitalism is making the ordinary poor person richer than a medieval king. For example Calvin Beisner: “No matter how rich you might have been” 150 years ago, “You could not have enjoyed air conditioning or iced drinks during a hot summer…. You could not have taken or viewed photographs, listened to recorded music, or viewed… motion pictures.” (“Material Progress Over the Past Millennium,” FEE, Nov. 1, 1999). I’ve long been infuriated by the way such puff pieces ignore both the inflation in the cost of necessities like housing, and — perhaps more important — the increasing precarity of a growing portion of the working class. Finally someone in the mainstream press — the Washington Post, no less — is pointing out the same thing (Christopher Ingraham, “The stuff we really need is getting expensive. Other stuff is getting cheaper,” Aug. 17).

Yes, computers, smart phones and big screen TVs are getting a lot cheaper. But a lot of much more fundamental stuff is not. “Since 1996, the prices of food and housing have increased by close to 60 percent, faster than the pace of inflation. Costs of health care and child care have more than doubled. The prices of textbooks and higher education nearly tripled. Over the past several decades they’ve all been increasing in price at several times the rate of inflation.”

And for a rapidly growing segment of the working class, job security is becoming a thing of the past. The fastest growing sectors of the job market are precarious jobs with “independent contractor” status where there’s little assurance of being employed next year, next month or even next week. And precarity overlaps with financial fragility. As Neal Gabler points out at the Atlantic (May 2016), “Many Middle-Class Americans are Living Paycheck to Paycheck.” Most Americans lack the savings to deal with a car repair or other unexpected expense of even a few hundred dollars.

Precarity includes not just short-term uncertainty about even minimal basic income needs, but growing indebtedness as a way of life. Stagnant working class incomes have worsened capitalism’s already troubling crisis tendencies towards underconsumption and idle capacity, and rising consumer debt has been the system’s way of generating demand.

The things which are most essential to life and basic material security also happen to be the things which capitalists, in alliance with the state, have been most successful at enclosing with artificial property rights and extracting rents from. The landlord monopoly — by which vacant land is engrossed and enclosed and then either held out of use altogether, or opened to use only in exchange for tribute — is the obvious example.

But the healthcare industry is riddled with things like drug patents, licensing monopolies that restrict the number of practitioners, and corporate hospital chains protected by all kinds of government entry barriers and accreditation rackets that drive up overhead with enormously wasteful and irrational capital spending outlays and bloated senior management salaries. The health insurance industry is a racket in its own right. But the main source of cost inflation is on the provision of service side, with all the interlocking monopolies and cartels that make any procedure in America cost several times what it does elsewhere in the world.

College education has become a necessity mainly because of cooperative efforts by the state, employers and the higher education industry itself to inflate credentialing requirements for employment. And given this artificially created necessity, and the willingness of the student loan industry to ensnare new victims, higher education takes advantage of the ever higher tributes flowing in from its captive clientele to pour billions into wasteful building projects and grow the numbers and salaries of administrators at several times those of faculty and support staff. Students, meanwhile, incur a lifetime of debt peonage to pay this inflated tuition, with the likelihood of years of unpaid internships before they can finally get into a bottom-rung paid white collar position.

Even in the case of stuff that really is getting cheaper, of course, the falling price doesn’t dispense with questions of justice. Most of the price of those electronic goods comes not from the actual labor and material inputs required to make them, but from the embedded rents on patent and copyright monopolies. And Internet access on those computers comes through data pipelines controlled by robber baron telecom monopolies that operate fist-in-glove with the state. So the stuff is becoming cheaper — but not nearly as cheap as it should be. And the difference is going into the pockets of parasitic rentiers.

No, Henry VIII could never have obtained an air conditioner or computer. But Henry VIII didn’t spend half his month’s income on rent, or live a single paycheck away from eviction.

It’s time for libertarians to stop putting a positive spin on how wonderful things are under capitalists’ and landlords’ unholy alliance with the state, and start attacking that collusive power relationship. It’s time to abolish all monopolies and artificial property rights that make the necessities of life expensive, and turn the productivity of our collective intellect into a source of rents.