Nice selective reading.
[8-)]
Then maybe you’ll be able to find a retort halfway worth reading, Libby.
Do goals promote potency in action? Do people with good memories use to-do lists to facilitate an urgency in their actions? Are counter-economists the same thing as Agorists?
Should we drink the koolaid and move to wherever Jimmy wants us too?
You’ve lost. Now it’s just prolonging the endgame.
No. Yes. No.
I dunno. Will your parents pay my way as well? [:)]
I’m interested, Libby. How does one “lose” in internet forums? I think you take the internet a bit too seriously.
And why don’t goals push people to work harder? Doesn’t working for something specific focus one’s mind on a task as opposed to acting aimlessly without objective?
No. You need to stay back at home and clean the kitchens.
Niccolo, all of your reasoning for why agorist actions are different have not explained the actual difference in the actions. Everything you have stated only states that Agorists will be more active in the counter-economy not how these actions undermine the state differently.
I understand why you refuse to create a hypothetical transaction like my farmer example and follow it all the way through to explain the difference because there is no difference with the effect on the state. I will give you credit as the only agorist who has made any attempt to explain the agorist position.
Liberty Student is right. I have basically destroyed all the agorists arguements in this debate. It should be an indication to you Niccolo that no other agorists has offered to come to the debate that the other agorists realize the flaws in agorism and are not able to defend it.
As far as aggregate market is concerned I provide the following definition “The extended name for this model is the aggregate product market, to emphasize that it reflects the exchange of gross domestic product in the macroeconomic product markets.” If that is a satisfactory definition then my previous use of the US GDP is a reasonable gauge of what numerical value that the agorists need up to 1/3 of, which would be about a 4 Trillion dollar agorist economy. Again, I ask how big to the best of your knowledge is the current agorist economy?
It just occurred to me that Agorism as a movment, may suffer from a similar flaw as Socialism, in that due to it’s secretive and decentralized nature, a movement oriented Agorist might never be able to ascertain the quality and scope of the movement, and using that feedback to make decisions about his own tactics and level of involvement. Or in other words, Agorism can’t calculate.
ML, I think you and I agree, it would be great if Agorism was a viable alternative. While some take the unserious approach that criticizing Agorism means that we hate it or want to troll the topic, on the contrary, we would rather point out it’s flaws and verify that it is either workable than not, rather than just follow dogma and invest our energy into something we aren’t entirely sold on ourselves.
I work at seceding economically because I have to try to satisfy my conscience. If I really thought that it could bring down the state, I would be working hard to convince others of the same.
Really? I don’t think he wants there to be a viable alternative. His behavior suggests he feels the need (implicitly if not consciously) to discredit any alternative to his Liberty Colony in order to make it look attractive. But I just don’t see it working.
As for the calculation issue, I think you’re quite obviously misapplying the socialist calculation argument to something that has nothing to do with it. Moreover, secrecy and decentralization are obviously not an insurmountable obstacle for guerrilla warfare and terrorist cells, so why would it be for agorist cells? Looks like your thesis just crashed agaisnt the rocky shore of reality and sank.
And why should agorism be the only method one utilizes against the state? Several times in this forum I’ve linked to this alternative to government security. (Gil’s currently in the research and planning stages of his business model.) We should private arbitration and mediation services as alternatives to government courts. Perhaps start up a gold-backed mutual fund with a checking account as a first step in getting back to a gold currency and away from our current fiat currency. Promote other business models for private security. Etc.
My goal is simple…freedom and in my own lifetime. I criticize agorism because it is not logically consistent. I have pointed out these flaws on numerous occassions. Since agorism is not based on a logical approach it can not possibly succeed. The actions that agorists advocate and the effect on the state that they say will happen are not consistent with how counter-economic activity functions.
I don’t advocate that there may be only one method, in fact an actual violent revolution in some places may be quite effective. I just point out that agorism won’t work and I have conclusively demonstrated why.
For your friends private services I am all for it. It will not b epossible in the U.S. but in other places those types of things have more potential. In short, the more a society distrusts it’s current system the more open they are to a new system. This is the main reason that the Liberty Colony is looking for these types of environments.
I like the idea of a gold backed mutual fund. I have previously suggested to others in this forum for the creation of gold backed internet currency along the lines of e-gold or others. A gold backed mutual fund would fit perfectly with this. We could limit the mutual fund activities only to what might be considered counter-economic or grey market areas. I am looking for investors for the project. Does that interest you?
One can easily say the your LC may not entirley be logically consistient either; I personally do not think it will be entirley sucessfull due to a number of circumstances that may actually have little to with the LC itself, such as surviving enriomental disasters & external forces.
That doesn’t mean it isn’t worth the effort, however. I think it would be greatly helped if you tried recruiting or advertising beyond the usual forums of libertarian / anarchism oriented. (This is bit of a tangent but…), I think followers of The Pirate Bay, whom donated to the TPB in interest of gaining a island for the TBP’s servers (which would’ve attempted to be a sovereign nation), might be interested in such a colony. Of course, that might invite too much publicity & speculation.
I think both approaches are important, and the criticisms of Agorism being secretive are a defense mechanism that might be required for some Agorist’s depending on what Phase they are in; it would be logical to assume that in the beginning stages of Agorism (in the inital Phase 0 & Phase 1 stages), such may be required towards outside onlookers whom are not immediatly involved with Agorism or are Agorist’s themselves.
I think possible criticisms of secrecy towards Agorism can be pointed at the possible locations of the LC as well; from what I understand, to undertake the LC, some things will have to unvieled later on as things progress.
Yes really. Unless it is your contention that you are a better mind reader than I am, and can tell when ML is lying or not. As far as discrediting anyone, I don’t think he needs to. Agorists thus far have not produced any logical or supportive answers.
I think that you repeatedly bringing up the LC but ignoring the arguments for/against Agorism is a canard.
It’s not wise to compare Agorism to guerilla warfare or terrorism. They are completely different. Guerilla warfare and terrorism are confrontational, Agorism is non-confrontational.
As far as the calculation argument, I can’t believe that I am reminding a philosopher about thinking in the abstract.
Yes, these are things that interest me.
I have made some changes to the Liberty Colony addressing some of the early concerns. The current process requires a two stage voting process for selecting the location. So whatever secrecy concerns people had previously no longer exist.
I’ve yet to see you make much of anything resembling an argument in general. Just like what I’m quoting, you merely make assertions as if you’ve already proven them and proceed to repeat them. “It’s not logically consistant”. “It’s not based on a logical approach”. These aren’t arguments, they’re assertions that you just repeat over and over again while essentially ignoring the content of the book’s worth of material that people write to you in response. To me, you appear like the statist who merely repeats “but it just won’t work” (I.E. assuming what they must prove, as if merely appealing to the conventional wisdom constitutes an argument) when trying to debate an anarchist. Your non-argument reduces to “I win”.
What are these criticisms? Where have you made them? All that I have seen is bare assertions. Do you need proof that a black market can overthrow a government? Try this. Even socialists admit that the black market was a major player in the collapse of the Soviet Union (see here and here for comments about the “second economy”). I have seen Niccolo previously write about his own experiences with ignoring and avoiding the state in Italy.
Whats more, no one advocates just praticing agorism. Building alternative institutions (especially monetary, security, and legal institutions), education, and direct action and civil disobedience are all methods that can be praticed in tandem with agorism. Even projects like the Seasteading and your own Liberty Colony are consistent with agorism.
No, Jimmy, I have explained the difference. The difference is the vested interest and the derivatives that come from it. I will express it to you with your farmer example - you messed it up, by the way. I now have to fix it for you.
Suppose farmer A is an Agorist and farmer B is merely a counter-economist. Suppose A and B are homogenous workers in every way except for their vested interests. They are of equal physical ability, equal intelligence, equal past, equal everything, sans the ideology.
Let X then represent their collective production of counter-economic goods.
Letting X represent the production of counter-economics, let Y represent the production of all markets, and let Z represent only the production within the pink economy. This will figure out so that,
Now pay attention to X1 and X2. Suppose that X is made up of two variables. Let those variables be vested interests and everything else, represented by V and C respectively.
Suppose that A possesses a higher vested interest than B. This is a safe assumption, as we have detailed their homogenity in everything except for ideology. If ideology influences ones interests, facilitating that one is more likely to give one’s all for that ideology, then it would follow that the vested interests for one with ideology is higher than it is for one who hasn’t.
Understanding this, we can detail an algebraic equation:
Call this result the Agorist Mentality Effect, or (AME).
Now, observe the change in A’s production with time. It is an example of exponential growth. Let P be interchangeable with X so the P1 = X1. Let t represent time. Let x represent the production and let y represent the positive growth factor. Let the positive growth factor for A be larger than the positive growth factor for B - this principle will derive from A’s added incentive and thus increase efficacy. Use numbers to illustrate the increased efficacy of A to B. Let them be arbitrary.
Arbitrarily let x1 = 2, x2 = 1, y1 = 3, y2 = 2, t = 10.
Assuming that B produces 1 widget on his widget farm and A produces 2 - deriving from the employment of the Equation of Production - and assuming that with each round B doubles his production while A triples his - again deriving from previous axioms, namely AME - we come to this conclusion:
Employing algebra to express the nature by which Agorists (A) produces in comparison to B’s production, it becomes clear that by adding time to the equation and looking at the example through the two dimensional examples given by Jimmy, we can see that the physical production of the Agorist ends alone are enough to increase the time by which the revolution will overtake the pink economy if the pink economy possesses even less V than X2 and X1.
This, however, is not all there is to Agorism. It just makes up the arithmetic of the counter-economy’s progression over the pink economy. Furthermore, just having an arithmetic advantage over the pink economy is not enough. There must also be a progressive movement towards literally overthrowing the government. Possessing a counter-economy is important and without it no revolution will end in real success, but it is not the entire story.
Geoffrey, Gil’s methods are within the application of Agorism. Anything designed to set up an alternative to involvement with governments is counter-economic and Agorist.
Math & Logic > Strange little occultists on the Mises forum.
To clarify, I meant “even state-socialists admit…”. No offense intended, Niccolo…
You dirty commie, you [:P]
Oxymoronic, methinks.
Nonsensical. Profit exists in agorism. Demand exists in agorism. Profit is the economic calculation of demand. The agorist economy is more of a market economy than the state economy and hence an agorist would more likely be able to calculate better than someone working in the state economy (i.e. because taxation is a coercive artificial trade off that shifts demand unnaturally towards the state. The true free market demand on a given product cannot be known under a state.)
That’s a first.
But how could they calculate, when there are closet agorists everywhere? How do they know who is and is not an agorist, and thus what agorist activities may require an increase in supply or decrease in demand?
That’s my point. As a movement, because it cannot centralize (as a market) and the market participants are unnaturally paranoid and secretive, the entrepreneur is at a disadvantage trying to assess prices across the movement as a whole.
Which makes developing a mass of Agorists to accomplish the endgame, somewhat self-defeating.
Perhaps I’m not explaining it well, but I’m fairly certain that what I am talking about is logically consistent.
I’ll try an example.
Nicky has an agorist trading group. But they stay under the radar, and he is not comfortable with sharing details for obvious reasons.
I have agorist wares I want to sell. I have a few customers, but Nicky’s network could provide a lot of new opportunities, not only in profit, but increasing the standard of living of both myself and my trade group, by having access to a broader range of goods and services.
But because we have to deal secretly, trade is not open (1) we may miss trade opportunities, and (2), competition is hindered because a potential market participant is unaware of the size of the market, the goods available in trade as well as the price, and whether that provides the opportunity to compete for profit.
Imagine going into store after store, looking for a product, say a broom, and none of the stores have signs, and none of the goods have advertised prices. And few if any of the storekeepers will share any information with you, certainly none about their own store.
Is that an efficient market?
And is it capable of building a state toppling mass movement?
ML wrote something interesting which I imagine would have gone ignored. He wants liberty in his lifetime. I’m sure he realizes it’s not guaranteed he can achieve it, but that is his goal and he is striving for it.
Which makes me wonder, Banned, is liberty in your lifetime your goal? Do you feel that agorism is the vehicle to accomplish this?