Agorism activity

[Anonymous_Coward]

@Stranger

@banned

@Stranger

Why doesn’t the mafia’s ideology undermine the state, considering 100% of their income is counter-economic?

You mean “Why doesn’t the Mafia’s counter-economic activity…”? Their ideology isn’t nessesarily directed towards undermining the state. Anyways, reguardless of whether or not 100% of their income is counter-economic, 100% of their consumption (or close to it) would also need to be counter-economic to have the same effect as an agorist.

So what you’re saying is that agorists remove themselves entirely from the world economy and the division of labor? How do you, I dunno, not starve?

Wow, the discussion has gone full circle and now the agorists are saying that they need to be independent but when I claimed as much was incorrect for some reason.

Which also brings up the question that wasn’t answered before of how the agorists plan to get around the problem of State monopoly industries that give them quite enough money to survive outside of taxing the common folk’s market activities? Oil comes immediatly to mind along with a few other key industries which require so much capital investment that they couldn’t possibly exist in a shadow economy.

[Anonymous_Coward]

@Niccolò

You do realize that twins tend to be homogenous in genetics and environment, right?

I will not give names - obviously - but I will tell you that not only is the one more productive, but he actually takes care of the other. What could be the reason here? Their experiences and genetics are largely the same, so could it be some other factor?

Yes, there could be some other factor. Probably many, many other factors.

Even suggesting that the only difference between the two that could account for the difference is agorism is just absurd.

Maybe you can prove it with some more pseudo-math?

[Maxliberty]

@banned

Nope. I do not see how level of production is an indication of motivation as production relies on a multitude of other factors as well.

Thank you, you have just continued to throw more dirt on the coffin of agorism. The critical issue for agorists is that they can weaken the state with their activity and increased motivation to undermine the state. Now as you realize the complete lack of logic and overwhelming evidence that agorism is fundamentally flawed you claim that production is not the critical factor. Game, Set, and Match.

Now that is has been demonstrated that agorism is fundamentally flawed you should begin to think about what can actually undermine and or replace the state.

[Maxliberty]

@ozzy43

That right there is the problem - to an outsider, y’all seem so enmeshed in your own private visions of what the future of liberty has to look like that you have completely lost sight of the big picture. One group has an idea to advance liberty, and another group has another idea to advance liberty, neither is proven yet, and so the sniping begins. What the f**k is wrong with you? I’d be overjoyed to hear that the Liberty Colony got off the ground and was thriving (IMO, Ecuador should be on the possibles list), and I’d be equally ecstatic to learn simultaneously that agorism was having some measurable impact in progressing toward its stated goal of undermining the State via counter-economic activity!

What do you think liberty is, some sort of zero sum game? Hesus Aitch Christos…it’s no wonder libertarianism hasn’t been able to make any headway for so many years. Same old sh*t, different decade.

The good news is, come the socio-political and technological collapse due to peak oil, you’ll all have a chance to put your plans to the test. At least, the ones still standing after the chaos. I’ll tell ya one thing: buncha guys in some island somewhere or tucked away in a country nobody gives a sh*t about are gonna have a much better chance for survival and long term success that those who stick around in the epicenter that will be America. Just one man’s opinion…

I also have to say, as I understood Niccolo to put it, the micro and macro pieces of agorism are going to ineluctably collide. Call it my dim view of human nature, but whenever it comes down to a choice between turning a profit OR undermining the State, the former’s gonna win out most of the time, except among the true believers, perhaps. History’s pretty clear on this, IMO. As a basis, it’s seems a pretty sketchy one to me.

Let the flames begin…

Thanks for your post and taking time to look at the Liberty Colony. The key issue for me is that it is time to take some sort of action. Those who are only talking and pretending to be involved in some activity need to be exposed. One of the major problems that the freedom movement has is that very few people are engaged in actively trying to achieve liberty and most are not willing to honestly evaluate the progress. Einstein famously said that the definition of insanity is to attempt the same thing over and over and expect different results. We in the freedom movement need to be critical of the far too many people in the freedom movement that are just talking.

Let us at least be honest with ourselves that the all of the current strategies are not working. The state and the general support for the state is growing stronger not weaker in many places where the freedom movement is strongest. It is time for the arm chair warriors to either start really leading or get out of the way.

I started the Liberty Colony because I believe that strategy has the best chance of success. Everyone should evaluate every strategy that is actually being attempted for it’s likelihood of success.

[banned]

@Maxliberty

Thank you, you have just continued to throw more dirt on the coffin of agorism.

Whatever. [8-)]

@Maxliberty

The critical issue for agorists is that they can weaken the state with their activity and increased motivation to undermine the state.

To my understanding agorism isn’t what weakens the state. The state is weak by definition: It relies on a host to maintain any form of strength, it’s a parasite. So without the host, the state collapses on its own.

@Maxliberty

Now as you realize the complete lack of logic and overwhelming evidence that agorism is fundamentally flawed you claim that production is not the critical factor.

Production is A critical factor, but it’s relative. Production is also not what determines the effectiveness of an economy.

And thank you for taking my words out of context. I said production is not a valid indication of motivation and you say I claimed some other bs. In a controlled experiment you would be able to observe motivation, but an economy is never a controlled experiment.

@Maxliberty

Now that is has been demonstrated that agorism is fundamentally flawed you should begin to think about what can actually undermine and or replace the state.

NO U

[wombatron]

@Maxliberty

The key issue for me is that it is time to take some sort of action. Those who are only talking and pretending to be involved in some activity need to be exposed.

Am I the only one that finds this disturbing?

[Niccolo]

@Anonymous Coward

Yes, there could be some other factor. Probably many, many other factors.

Even suggesting that the only difference between the two that could account for the difference is agorism is just absurd.

Maybe you can prove it with some more pseudo-math?

Well, from what I can tell, there is only one factor. Their political leanings.

[Niccolo]

@JimJones

Well, your wrong again. My example was designed for you to illustrate the effects of agorism. Your response is that agorist are more productive by some exponential factor. All of your math is based on this assumption. You have absolutely no evidence that the underlying assumption is correct.

Ok, I’m done after this, because it’s quite obvious that your skull is just too thick to understand what logic actually is.

The logical fact that Agorism is a more influential motivator - thus better facilitator of production - than mere counter-economics derives directly from your example. Your example assumes homogenity between A and B in everything but motivation outright assuming A possesses a larger net motivation than B. A possesses the motivation of ideology and monetary profit, but B only possesses monetary profit motivation; given that A’s incentive for profit = B’s incentive for profit there is no clear distinction between the two motivations yet. That being said, when you add the additional motivation for A, it is logically necessary that A possesses more motivation than B.

The underlying assumption is not an assumption, it is a derivative of your example. Don’t get pissy because your examples are as inept as your LC scam.

Jesus Christ!

[Niccolo]

@JimJones

Thank you, you have just continued to throw more dirt on the coffin of agorism. The critical issue for agorists is that they can weaken the state with their activity and increased motivation to undermine the state. Now as you realize the complete lack of logic and overwhelming evidence that agorism is fundamentally flawed you claim that production is not the critical factor. Game, Set, and Match.

Now that is has been demonstrated that agorism is fundamentally flawed you should begin to think about what can actually undermine and or replace the state.

Do you have any idea how incoherent you are?

You just said Agorists can weaken the state with activity. This lacks logic? You’re the one that stated it! How is Agorism flawed again? Because it encompasses counter-economics and is thus superior to it - if it encompasses and adds to, it is necessarily superior? Because it provides a link for people to actually live free and avoid interacting with the government? If not having to deal with the government isn’t freedom, what is?

You do realize that everyone here - other than your girlfriend, Libby - thinks you’re insane right? Fuck! Get some help or something!

[liberty_student]

It’s not much different than what SEK3 writes in the NLM.

[Niccolo]

@Stranger

@banned

Yes it is, because if the ideology of the counter-ecoonomist is to spend as little as possible on state controlled entities and ideally none, the effect will be much more potent than if the market actor doesn’t mind paying their taxes and fueling the state.

He isn’t comparing law-abiding good citizens to agorists. He is comparing gangbangers to agorists. Why doesn’t the mafia’s ideology undermine the state, considering 100% of their income is counter-economic?

Sigh…

This has been addressed several times earlier. Just refer to the quote from NLM,

Obviously, the State is unable to obtain enforcement of its edicts. Yet the State continues. And if everyone is somewhat counter-economic, why hasn’t the Counter-Economy overwhelmed the economy?

Outside of North America we can add the effect of imperialism. The Soviet Union has received support from the more developed countries in the 1930’s and large quantities of instruments of violence during World War II. Even today, “trade” heavily subsidized by non-repayable loans props up the Soviet and new Chinese regimes. This capital (or anti-capital, being destructive of value) flow, together with military aid, from both blocs maintains regimes in the rest of the globe. But that does not explain the North American case.

What exists everywhere on Earth allowing the State to continue is the sanction of the victim. [7] Every victim of statism has internalized the State to some degree. The IRS’s annual proclamation that the income tax depends on “voluntary compliance” is ironically true. Should the taxpayers completely cut off the blood supply, the vampire State would helplessly perish, its unpaid police and army deserting almost immediately, defanging the Monster. If everyone abandoned “legal tender” for gold and goods in contracts and other exchanges, it is doubtful that even taxation could sustain the modern State.

This is where the State’s control of education and the information media, either directly or through ruling-class ownership, becomes crucial. In earlier days, the established priesthood served the function to sanctify the king and aristocracy, mystify the relations of oppression, and induce guilt in evaders and registers. The disestablishment of religion has put this burden on the new resisters. The disestablishment of religion has put this burden on the new intellectual class (what the Russians called the intelligentsia). Some intellectuals, holding truth as their highest value (as did earlier dissenting theologians and clerics), do work at clarifying rather than mystifying, but they are dismissed or reviled and kept away from State and foundation-controlled income. Thus is the phenomenon of dissidence and revisionism created; and thus is the attitude of anti-intellectualism generated among the populace who suspect or incompletely understand the function of the Court Intellectual.

Note well how anarchist intellectuals are attacked and repressed under every State; and those arguing for an overthrow of the present ruling class - even only to replace it with another - are suppressed. Those who propose changes which eliminate some beneficiaries of the State and add other\s are often laud ed by the benefiting elements of the Higher Circles and attacked by the potential losers.

A common characteristic of most hardened black marketeers is their guilt. They wish to “make their bundle” and return to the “straight society.” Bootleggers and hookers all long some day for re-acceptance in society - even when they form a supportive “sub-society” of outcasts. Yet there have been exceptions to this phenomenon of longing for acceptance: the religious dissenting communities of the 1700s, the political utopian communities of the 1800s, and most recently, the counter-culture of the hippies and New Left. What they had was a conviction that thir sub-society was superior to the rest of society. The fearful reaction to themselves they generated in the rest of society was the fear they were correct.

All of these examples of self-sustaining sub-societies failed for one overriding reason: ignorance of economics. No social binding, no mater how beautiful, can overcome the basic glue of society - division of labor. Thu anti-market commune defies the only enforceable law - the law of nature. The basic organizational structure of society (above the family) is not the commune (or tribe or extended tribe or State) but eh agora. No matter how many wish communism to work and devote themselves to it, it will fail. They can hold back agorism indefinitely by great effort, but when they let go, the “flow” or “Invisible Hand” or “tides of history” or “profit incentive” or “doing what comes naturally” or “spontaneity” will carry society inexorably closer to the pure agora.

p. 45 - 48

[Niccolo]

@Stranger

So what you’re saying is that agorists remove themselves entirely from the world economy

No, what Agorists are saying is that through phases the Counter-Economy will grow to make it so that it is a complete alternative. The problem with some members of some organized crime syndicates - eliminate the word “mafia,” from your vocabulary; it’s never existed - is their guilt/connection to the nation, to the state, to the concept that they’re just making their money in the black market to re-enter the pink market later.

[Niccolo]

@Stranger

Okay, so here’s an honest question for agorists. At some point in the incremental plan, you are going to have to produce your own security, or at least purchase it from other agorists. How are you going to protect yourself from the state’s response?

Again, it’s been addressed,

On the other hand, we must defend ourselves against the vested interests or at the very least lower their oppression as much as possible. If we eschew reformist activity as counter-productive, how will we achieve that?

One way is o bring more and more people into the counter-economy and lower the plunder available to the State. But evasion isn’t enough; how do we protect ourselves and even counter-attack?

Slowly but steadily we will move to the free society turning more counter- economists onto libertarianism and more libertarians onto counter-economics, finally integrating theory and practice. The counter-economy will grow and spread to the next step we saw in our trip backward, with an ever=-larger agorist sub-society embedded in the statist society. Some agorists may even condense into discernible districts and ghettos and predominate in islands or space colonies. At this point, the question of protection and defense will become important

Using our agorist model (Chapter 2), we can see how the protection industry must evolve. Firstly, why do people engage in counter-economics with no protection? the pay-off for the risk they take is greater than their expected loss. This statement is true, of course, for all economic activity, but for counter-economics it requires special emphasis:

The fundamental principle of counter-economics is to trade risk for profit. [9]

The higher the expected profit, the greater the risk taken. Note that if risk is lowered, a lot more would be attempted and accomplished - surely an indicator that a free society is wealthier than an unfree one.

Risk may be lowered by increasing care, precautions, security (locks and stashes), and by trusting fewer persons of higher trustworthiness. The last indicates a high preference for dealing with fellow agorist and a strong economic incentive binding an agorist sub-society and an incentive to recruit or support recruitment.

Counter-economic entrepreneurs have an incentive to provide better security devices, places of concealment, instructions to help evasion and screen potential customers and suppliers for other counter-economic entrepreneurs. And thus is the counter-economic protection industry born.

As it grows, it may begin insuring against “bursts,” lowering counter-economic risks further and accelerating counter-economic growth. Then it may provide lookouts and guarded areas of safekeeping with alarm systems and highly technological concealment mechanisms. Guards may be provided against real criminals (other than the State). Already many residential, business and even minority districts have private patrols, having given up on the State’s alleged protection of property.

Along the way the risk of contract-violation between counter-economic traders will be lowered by arbitration. Then the protection agencies will start providing contract enforcement between agorists, although the greatest “enforcer” in the early stages will be the State to which each can turn the other cone into. Yet that act would quickly result in one’s expulsion from the sub-society; so an internal enforcement mechanism will be valued.

In the final stages counter-economist transactions with statists will be enforceable by the protection agencies and the agorists protected against the criminality of the State. [10]

At this point we have reached the final step before the achievement of a libertarian society. Society is divided between large agorist areas inviolate and statist sectors. And we stand on the brink of Revolution.

[Niccolo]

@wombatron

@Maxliberty

The key issue for me is that it is time to take some sort of action. Those who are only talking and pretending to be involved in some activity need to be exposed.

Am I the only one that finds this disturbing?

Well, I know a place in South America where Jimmy can get started.

[Jon_Irenicus]

Assimilate to the Borg or be destroyed!

-Jon

[gplauche]

@wombatron

@Maxliberty

The key issue for me is that it is time to take some sort of action. Those who are only talking and pretending to be involved in some activity need to be exposed.

Am I the only one that finds this disturbing?

And the action that he thinks should be taken is of course his Liberty Colony. Hence his obvious need to discredit any and all alternatives, to make his crackpot scheme look attractive in comparison (i.e., to the lack of any other viable alternatives). And to get people to overlook his very abrasive personality. Let’s not mention the fact that his scheme isn’t really about overthrowing the state or weakening it. It’s about “liberty in his own time” for him and a few others, everyone else in the world be damned. Still, I wish him the best of luck with his Liberty Colony. If he can actually manage to get it off the ground where the Free State Project has failed, that’s great. He will have achieved liberty in his own time for a few hundred people. I want to achieve more than that, however, even if I don’t live to see the full fruits of my labor. Even aside from this, the Liberty Colony isn’t for me: I don’t agree with all the laws and the way it is organized - not libertarian enough.

“Anyone who fights for the future, lives it in today.” - Ayn Rand, The Romantic Manifesto, p. viii

[liberty_student]

@Geoffrey Allan Plauche

And the action that he thinks should be taken is of course his Liberty Colony. Hence his obvious need to discredit any and all alternatives, to make his crackpot scheme look attractive in comparison (i.e., to the lack of any other viable alternatives). And to get people to overlook his very abrasive personality. Let’s not mention the fact that his scheme isn’t really about overthrowing the state or weakening it. It’s about “liberty in his own time” for him and a few others, everyone else in the world be damned. Still, I wish him the best of luck with his Liberty Colony. If he can actually manage to get it off the ground where the Free State Project has failed, that’s great. He will have achieved liberty in his own time for a few hundred people. I want to achieve more than that, however, even if I don’t live to see the full fruits of my labor. Even aside from this, the Liberty Colony isn’t for me: I don’t agree with all the laws and the way it is organized - not libertarian enough.

“Anyone who fights for the future, lives it in today.” - Ayn Rand, The Romantic Manifesto, p. viii

Geoffrey if Agorism is legitimately discredit, then why would you care about motive, isn’t truth more important? And if it isn’t discredited, then why haven’t you offered a defense for it?

Agorism is what everyone new gets slapped in the face with here. I don’t think ML sought it out, I think several people cracked on his plan, and offered Agorism as the ultimate solution.

Overthrowing the state or weakening it? This is a joke right? Why does everything have to be US-centric? If he is able to get people together, plan and execute a small liberty colony, they will have escaped the (or many) states and created a stateless zone.

Some of us like the whole, get your hands dirty, see if you can’t get it done IN YOUR LIFETIME., sorta approach. But hey, laissez-faire.

To each his own, right?

[gplauche]

@liberty student

Geoffrey if Agorism is legitimately discredit, then why would you care about motive, isn’t truth more important? And if it isn’t discredited, then why haven’t you offered a defense for it?

It doesn’t need defending. I haven’t seen any criticisms worthy of my time in refuting them. Nothing personal. It’s just that my time is limited and the criticisms are especially weak, with an obvious agenda.

@liberty student

Agorism is what everyone new gets slapped in the face with here.

Slapped in the face? Someone’s overly sensitive. And biased. What do you think Max is doing with his LC and criticism of agorism?

@liberty student

Overthrowing the state or weakening it? This is a joke right? Why does everything have to be US-centric?

Did I say the US state? No.

@liberty student

If he is able to get people together, plan and execute a small liberty colony, they will have escaped the (or many) states and created a stateless zone.

That’s nice. Good for them. But it’s not really fighting to weaken or overthrow any existing states.

@liberty student

Some of us like the whole, get your hands dirty, see if you can’t get it done IN YOUR LIFETIME., sorta approach. But hey, laissez-faire.

That’s fine. Go right ahead. Join the LC and have liberty for a few people in an isolated part of the world in your lifetime. That’s great for you. Just stop being such pricks to those who want employ other means to achieve a more longlasting liberty both where they live and throughout the world.

@liberty student

To each his own, right?

Ah…if only you and Max would walk the walk.

[ozzy43]

@ozzy43

“He’s a nobody. He’s got what? 4 promised members for his colony now? Including himself?”

One group has an idea to advance liberty, and another group has another idea to advance liberty, neither is proven yet, and so the sniping begins. What the f**k is wrong with you?

What do you think liberty is, some sort of zero sum game? Hesus Aitch Christos…it’s no wonder libertarianism hasn’t been able to make any headway for so many years. Same old sh*t, different decade.

Something has been nagging at me about this sniping apparent in this thread between the agorists and their apparent enemy - not, not the State, strangely (which would seem to be sufficient enemy for anyone), but the guy trying to start up the Liberty Colony - it was a memory of some specific event or something - and I just now realized what it was.

The agorists are the People’s Front of Judea which means Max and his Liberty Colony must be Judean People’s Front and Rome is, well Rome.

**REG:**

Judean People's Front?! We're the People's Front of Judea! Judean People's Front. Cawk.

**FRANCIS:**

Wankers.

**BRIAN:**

Can I... join your group?


**REG:**

No. Piss off.

**BRIAN:**

I didn't want to sell this stuff. It's only a job. I hate the Romans as much as anybody.

**PEOPLE'S FRONT OF JUDEA:**

Shhhh. Shhhh. Shhh. Shh. Shhhh.

**REG:**

Schtum.

**JUDITH:**

Are you sure?

**BRIAN:**

Oh, dead sure. I hate the Romans already.

**REG:**

Listen. If you really wanted to join the P.F.J., you'd have to *really* hate the Romans.

**BRIAN:**

I do!

**REG:**

Oh, yeah? How much?

**BRIAN:**

A lot!

**REG:**

Right. You're in. Listen. The only people we hate more than the Romans are the fucking Judean People's Front.

**P.F.J.:**

Yeah...

**JUDITH:**

Splitters.

**P.F.J.:**

Splitters...

**FRANCIS:**

And the Judean Popular People's Front.

**P.F.J.:**

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Splitters. Splitters...

**LORETTA:**

And the People's Front of Judea.

**P.F.J.:**

Yeah. Splitters. Splitters...

**REG:**

What?

**LORETTA:**

The People's Front of Judea. Splitters.

**REG:**

_**We're**_ the People's Front of Judea!

**LORETTA:**

Oh. I thought we were the Popular Front.

**REG:**

People's Front! C-huh.

**FRANCIS:**

Whatever happened to the Popular Front, Reg?

**REG:**

He's over there.

**P.F.J.:**

Splitter!


...

Good luck with your agorism thing, guys. And good luck with the Lilberty Colony Max. I'd say you got anywhere from a month to maybe 2 or 3 years to get something real done before it all comes crashing down here in America. I sincerely hope that these schemes work out for all of you. At least both sides have a plan and are doing their best to think it through and, presumably, put some action into it. It's my opinion that you'd all have a far higher chance of success if you could just f**king learn to work together, but that's clearly too much of a sacrifice to ask at this point. Splitters. Oughta be ashamed of yourselves.

[gplauche]

@ozzy43

“He’s a nobody. He’s got what? 4 promised members for his colony now? Including himself?”

One group has an idea to advance liberty, and another group has another idea to advance liberty, neither is proven yet, and so the sniping begins. What the f**k is wrong with you?

What do you think liberty is, some sort of zero sum game? Hesus Aitch Christos…it’s no wonder libertarianism hasn’t been able to make any headway for so many years. Same old sh*t, different decade.

@ozzy43

It’s my opinion that you’d all have a far higher chance of success if you could just f**king learn to work together, but that’s clearly too much of a sacrifice to ask at this point. Splitters. Oughta be ashamed of yourselves.

Tell that to the guy who storms into these forums bashing alternatives to his Liberty Colony idea. You’ll note that I said I hope his scheme works out. Your quote of me above is part of a reaction to his rude attack on agorism; I was pointing out that his own project suffers from the same weakness he alleges of agorism. I would be content if people like Max didn’t go around feeling the need to discredit every means of fighting liberty but their own.