Dear Free Talk Live,
Listening to the program on August 18th, in which an e-mail calling out Agorists – i.e. activists that choose to utilize the market as opposed to the political system – was featured prominently throughout the show, I found myself growing increasingly embittered towards reformists represented by people like Matthew, the e-mailer, who continue to belittle Agorism without understanding libertarianism itself, much less market activism. Throughout the course of the message though, I became increasingly assured that reformists, despite their claims or similarities, do not want to achieve the same objective that Agorists do and so for this reason cannot be considered comrades. Now, this is quite a strong statement and requires a rather intense, though brief, focus on the defining differences between reformists and Agorists. To establish this sharp divide though, it is only necessary to show first why reformism is inadequate, and second why Agorist radicals and reformist conservatives do not exactly possess the same ambitions.
First, however, to give a little background information about myself and my perspective I will admit, I am an Agorist and have been a successful one for quite some time. Setting up trade ports and networking with local dealers and tradesmen, I have been able to influence and interact with others cooperatively in facilitation for safe, secure, and peaceful environments for trade in contraband ranging from illegal fireworks, to untaxed cigarettes, to Cuban cigars, and other various black market items. Throughout my time doing this I have contacted many different individuals, talked to all about liberty and Agorism, convinced most, recruited a few, and profited much in both monetary and liberty terms. See, while the reformists cough up their dignity and crawl to government officials on hands and knees, begging for just a little bit of freedom, I have lived my life without fear, I have been free, and I will continue to convince others to follow my lead with the promise of a true revolution, mapped out in Samuel Edward Konkin III’s, New Libertarian Manifesto. As I practice what I preach, peaceful cooperation in trade and free association in labour, I believe my strategy is both more effective in action and more convincing in conversation than a strategy that highlights itself with timidity and cowardice – so much cowardice that some will not even buy a gun for fear of the state’s laws prohibiting them from protecting their families.
Of course, as indicated by Matthew’s e-mail, this strategy of freedom in action is frowned upon by the reformists, so much so that they can often become belligerent – an odd attitude to take when supposedly responding to the “knocking” of reformism by Agorists. This may be indicative of the true conservative nature of most of the people Matthew represents. For Matthew, there appears to be an expectation that the hardest goal to attain, liberty, is capable of being captured with the least amount of self-sacrifice, voting. Believing himself to be all safe and snug in his glass house, obeying the state’s laws, playing by the voting game set-up by the tyrants, and writing angry e-mails to talk shows where hosts actually do what he only wishes he could, Matthew rejects one of the most prized aspects of humanity, entrepreneurship.
Yes, Matthew represents an unfortunately common breed indeed, a parlor revolutionary – if that – he wishes to make way to liberty not by actually focusing on consistency in principle, message, and execution, but rather by the bureaucracy of parliament – a truly efficient structure, of course. This leads me to my first conclusion, that attempts to reform the state are a waste of time at best and counter-revolutionary at worst.
To illustrate with a quote from the exquisite Voltairine de Cleyre, an Individualist Anarchist and Anarchist without Adjectives, she writes,
Well, I have already stated that some good is occasionally accomplished by political action – not necessarily working-class party action either. But I am abundantly convinced that the occasional good accomplished is more than counterbalanced by the evil; just as I am convinced that though there are occasional evils resulting through direct action, they are more than counterbalanced by the good…
But the evil of pinning faith to [political action] is far greater than any such minor results. The main evil is that it destroys initiative, quenches the individual rebellious spirit, teaches people to rely on someone else to do for them what they should do for themselves; finally renders organic the anomalous idea that by massing supineness together until a majority is acquired, then through the peculiar magic of that majority, this supineness is to be transformed into energy. That is, people who have lost the habit of striking for themselves as individuals, who have submitted to every injustice while waiting for the majority to grow, are going to become metamorphosed into human high-explosives by a mere process of packing, (de Cleyre, Direct Action)!
Indeed, though politeness is required when making this point, and it needn’t be made with hostilities, it is an oddity that I find irreconcilable with the reformists that they would put so much faith in the markets to allocate resources for the production of food, housing, water, etc. but when allocating resources and achieving ends come in their own lives, they revert directly back to a bureaucracy in hopes that if they put enough effort or hope into their precious campaigns, they’ll get their square pegs to fit into the round holes of change. This seems foolish to me, but what seems more foolish still is a theory of compatibility.
Yes, another strange attempt to reconcile the differences between reformists and Agorists – more than likely a mere attempt to bandage the reformists’ bruised egos – comes with the still more inept belief that a combination of reformism and Agorism are needed. In the recent movie, No Country for Old Men*, one of the points made, underneath the surface of the gunshots and drug money, is that when an unstoppable force is implemented, to implement yet another means is a foolish attempt to hedge all bets. The hedging of bets appears to be exactly what the compatibilists desire, but paraphrasing Anton Chigurh, that is foolish, you pick the one right tool. After all, when a nail needs pounding do you apply a shovel, a hammer, or a combination of both? I hope everyone on the show answers with a hammer.*
That the ends of libertarianism is for the most efficient, just, and anti-statist society is enough to require a libertarian revolutionary to throw away his ballot and begin entering the market, the Agora.
The point of consistency and efficacy in a strategy aside, however, there does exist an even more potent separation between reformists and Agorists. That separation is the end in itself. To some extent, I have assumed here that Agorists and reformists desire the same ends and though that is partially true, it is not entirely true – that is, the desires of a reformist are only superficially similar to those of an Agorist.
Here, I observe that there is an absolute difference between reformists and Agorists and it comes with the package of their objectives. See, whereas reformists want to, supposedly, liberate people from the state, Agorists want something much deeper and more powerful, Agorists want the people to liberate themselves from the state.
The difference here is as distinct as night and day; it is essentially the difference between top-down planning and bottom-up action. As noted, reformists desire to achieve political power – ignore the inability of them to actually do this – and with that political power they apparently expect to one day end their reign with one big press conference where the libertarian president, perhaps Ronnie Paul Jr., walks in, reaches for the microphone, and repeats, “there is no more government; everyone go home.”
Contrast this obviously unlikely event with the market based action of Agorists and one sees the exact difference between the two. For Agorists, it is not required to gain political power, it is only required to create counter-institutions and expand the profit motive and minimize the risk in abandoning the state’s economy for a new counter-economy. This is called, entrepreneurship. Asking then which seems more likely, it appears that even if Agorism were not more efficient, it certainly would be more probable.
Note: Though I cannot go into the details of the Agorist plan, I assure you there is more to it than that, I am merely illustrating here for a contrast.
Containing here a small condemnation of reformists like Matthew as counter-revolutionaries then, I hope the point of Agorism is stressed and clarified. Absolutely, perhaps the reason for Matthew’s belligerence even comes from understanding this simple fact, that as he mulls around half-dead in a parliament, his counter-parts in the counter-economy are actually making a profit and influencing real people on the ground – not to mention living free themselves in their own life-times, no less.
*Sincerely, Niccolò