Still unable to be civil. Tsk tsk.
I don’t plan on going completely off the grid unless I have to.
The whole point of agorism is to develop alternative institutions to the state. Gil’s planned security service is one example of an above-ground (as opposed to underground) alternative institution.
What do you mean by “if living in isolated places in Amreica [sic] is too much for you do”? Are you implying I’m weak or cowardly or not that devoted to liberty? It seems so. None are true.
A really weak objection? It is the underpinning of agorism that only agorist counter-economic activity is undermining the state and capable of creating the institutions to do so. If it’s false and all counter-economic activity undermines the state and counter-economic institutions can be created without agorist ideology then agorism as an ideology is of no more value than current activity for undermining the state through counter-economic means.
The objection, which has never been answered by agorists, dismantles the whole strategy of the agorist ideology.
Now let me get this straight, you advocate agorism which as part of it’s strategy is to move completely off the grid so to speak and yet you have no intention of doing it yourself.
The whole point of agorism is to develop alternative institutions? Well at least your one agorist coming to your senses that growing the counter-economy to undermine the state isn’t going to work. We are making progress.
I am not implying anything, I am flat out stating that if being inconvenienced is too much of a sacrifice for freedom then it is obviously not a very high priority for you. It’s you who is leading the agorist crusade and are admitting to not being willing to back it up with your own actions.
I have been meaning to read that, but haven’t had the time yet.
If you don’t mind, could you maybe answer one question I have? If Gil’s service is above ground, does that mean it pays taxes, remits payroll taxes, registers firearms etc?
Is agorism only about operating in a black market to undermine the state?
How does any of this follow?
Ah great. So you admit to explicitly insulting me. Well, you’re wrong. And an ass. Good luck with your Liberty Colony with a personality like that.
Yes, a really weak objection. It doesn’t undermine agorism at all.
This is false. You should know that by now. No excuse not to.
Probably, once it starts, otherwise the state will put a stop to it right quick. That’s not some kind of weakness for the strategy. The point is to create alternative institutions for people to use instead of the state. Such a service is one step toward that.
Nope. You were right. All your property are belong to uncle sam.
Ok, I know it seems like I was asking all of the right questions to exploit it, but I wasn’t. Thanks for the reply, I was just curious if I should move it up my reading list or not. If it is going to be near term compliant, then it is a little less interesting to me, and I won’t put other things off to read it then.
I think goal lines are fine and arguably do exist if not in particularly concrete form (undermining the State, precipitating its collapse) - but the concrete milestones which verify that progress is being made toward that larger, less well defined goal - while in the normal ‘project’ sense are undoubtedly useful, may in fact be a hindrance here. Consider: projects are implemented top down. Thus, the planners need to have milestones to verify that steps are proceeding as planned, to ID those steps which are falling behind, etc. These are useful things in a top down planning sense.
But agorism - insofar my admittedly poor understanding goes - seems to be to be all about bottom up. Consider the Iraqi insurgents: did they have goal lines? Sure! Americans out. Did they have mapped out milestones? Nah. Basically, commit murders and bombings, try to incite chaos and terror. But all of that - the tactics - done at a local or cell level. And if they had been smart about it and not killed so many fellow Muslims (and thus alienated their natural global constituency), they may well have achieved their goals, or at least be closer to them. And hell for all we know they still may. Same thing goes for Afghanistan. Of course, you could argue that it was lack of top down planning which has - so far - prevented effectuation of their goal, and that may be a fair critique - but really there was no choice. Top down is vulnerable to command and control intel and take-down strikes, so bottom up is the only way to go in some circumstances, whatever the potential limitations.
But the notion that top down planning is the ONLY way to effectuate success is, I think, wrong. It is ONE way, and one we are confortable with, and you clearly would give up some things by not using that way, like - knowing if progress is ‘on schedule’. SO the very thing you are asking for ‘are things on schedule’ ar6e the things that have, by virtue of choosing a non-top down strategy - unknowable.
I’d be interested to hear if any agorists who have read Col Thomas Hammes’ ‘The Sling and the Stone’ which is where he introduced the notion of 4th generation warfare vs 3rd. It seems somewhat relevant to the conversation. 3rd generation would correspond to what Max seems to be thinking, if I’m not mistaken.
No wonder you didn’t answer any challenges, you can’t even articulate what your advocating.
The agorists have consistently argued that agorist counter-economic activity has a different impact than regular counter-economic activity. You need to pay attention.
Accoridng to agorists the black market doesn’t undermine the state. Try and keep up.
No, I merely point out that people who advocate that others do the work they are unwilling to do dont have much of a leg to stand on.
Yup - this is the exit tax I was talking about. But what I meant was: additional restrictions on top of this will likely be forthcoming, including currency controls and potentially emigration controls. So you’ve paid the exit tax and now when you try to transfer what’s left, you find that you can only move $10k/yr out, or something similar. Because not just half of your property belongs to the State - it all does.
BTW, there are some obvious ways that you can structure things such that this exit tax will not apply to all of your assets and which is lawful, but it takes some planning ahead of time. Which is why waiting until the last minute is a bad idea if your intent is to expatriate. The Sovereign Society is probably a good place to start for information. Just don’t get sucked into their gimmicky offers.
I didn’t. I pointed out that you were falling into the same fallacy that statists do.
There are almost 300 million Americans. You may have described about a third of them, or maybe two thirds. But even if you described 9/10ths of them (and I think that’s pushing it a lot), there are still 30 million people who would fight back Consider that there are around 10 million self-described libertarians in this country, and not only libertarians would fight gun confiscation or martial law.
You seem to think so, I think it’s unlikely.
Every state in history has fallen, and this new and worse sort is not going to be any exception to the laws of economics or human nature.
I don’t know who you mean by “us”.
But if that is the case, we might as well just give up now, eh? If the state’s victory is so damn inevitable, if they’re just going to kill you or whatnot no matter what you try, why the hell do you even come to this website?
Actually I think that sort of pessimism is paranoid, and highly unrealistic.
Huge flaming straw man. Of course the statists will try to save themselves - those who are so wretched that they cannot see the prosperity and stability which will come with a free society. But there is no way that they could out-compete the free market, in the long run. It is economically impossible.
Maybe you haven’t noticed, but the liberty movement is GROWING, not the other way around. I don’t see the point of glooming around the way you do. Are you trying to convince yourself to give up or something?
You’re pulling absurdities out of thin air to “test the ideology”. Sure, you can ask what if the world were set up completely differently such that governments which are run by people who share the same human nature as you and I could be motivated to nuke the citizens of a country which no longer has a government to threaten them. And by the same token, what if there’s a plague of zombies?
I didn’t. Are you using the collective “you”? Don’t do that.
Unless the Agora is able to fight the new government. Which, again, is the point. And if that is bound to be the fate of a polycentric yet widespread movement as in Agorism, what do you think will happen to your little liberty colony when the statists percieve it as a threat? Your defeatism puzzles me.
I’m not quite sure what you’re asking in that first sentence there. Are you asking of there are any agorists who have read it? Or are you asking if it is where he introduced the notion of 4th gen warfare? Or are you asking how it applies to agorism?
Well, that’s cowardly. You followed up with the “expecting more” comment. I have news for you. Although your style of late seems to be bullying and confrontational, ala Nicky without the finesse or juvenile pranksterism, you continue to fail downwards defending or making a sound argument. Those theatrics are only useful or interesting when you are also able to make your point, without getting lazy and relying exclusively on Ad Homs, Non Sequiturs etc.
Right. But when has the state fallen and anarchy prevailed? Never? Which makes the argument that eventually the state will fail (true) and then Agorism or Anarchy will shine a non-sequitur.
This is personalizing, not addressing what I posted. I assume you are using this tactic, because you cannot respond in a meaningful manner to what I had written?
If it is economically impossible, why do they continue to beat the odds?
All I ever hear is that the movement is growing with vulgar libertarians, which our little marxist friend Wombatron will be back to explain to the group later. As far as what I am trying to convince myself of, that’s not relevant to the discussion. You are personalizing again. It’s childish and unproductive. Please stop.
Where is the absurdity? In your country, a mass of people deify Truman, who mass murdered thousands of people with atomic bomb. In your country, invading Iraq was logical after 9/11. Please don’t tell me that the masses and government are filled with people like you and I. I can’t speak for you, but I absolute loathe the state. I loathe murder and violence.
No, I was addressing YOU specificially when I used the word YOU.
Again with the liberty colony. It’s not defeatism. You take every criticism of Agorism, every point upon which it could be sharpened, improved, refined, reconsidered, and mastered, and you turn it into a petty little game where you respond with personal comments, and refuse to address specifically what is being pointed out as a potential issue.
I can’t speak for Max, but I’m not arguing against Agorism to encourage some other tactic. I’m arguing against Agorism to see if it can be turned or reasoned into something rational and effective. I’d like to see Agorism thrive, but it can’t the way it is right now. It’s based on some sort of grey market bohemian lifestyle and many (not all) of it’s most vocal supporters are the very library libertarians that SEK3 warned about. People who promote the system, with no intention to conduct or experience within it themselves!
Oh, this is amusing. I guess you forgot what you wrote earlier. Here let me quote you for you.
“Only” and “different” are two very different claims, are they not? (Rhetorical question; of course they are.) So. It’s you who can’t articulate the agorist position, not me. Big fail. Try another line of argument.
LOL Geez. That’s not what you were talking about though. Please don’t try to change the subject so disingenuously. You made a big fuss about me not going totally off the grid. I asked the above question. Then you respond with this total irrelevancy about the black markets not undermining the state. What do you think “off the grid” means? Duh! Black market. Try and keep up. Do agorists say the black market doesn’t undermine the state? I disagree that it doesn’t (but undermine doesn’t necessarily mean destroy). But an agorist black market would be better. But, also, I don’t think agorism restricts its methods to “off the grid” or black market activity.
It’s an insult. Don’t try to rationalize it. At least have the courage to stand behind your insults. And when did I say anything about letting others do (all) the work for me? I think this ludicrous claim of yours is predicated on your misunderstandings I identifed above. It’s a baseless charge. But typical coming from you.
You know…your criticisms might have more credibility if you could actually articulate your interlocutors’ position, i.e., if you actually knew what you were talking about.
Sorry for the confusion - Hammes introduced the concept of 1/2/3/4 generations of warfare in this book. I think some of the 4g stuff may potentially be applicable to certain aspects of agorism. I wondered if any of the agorists here had read it, and could say if they saw any applicability to agorism.
Basically, the questions Max was asking reminded me of 3g warfare - this is the top down sort of thing that American armed services excel at, which targets command and control components. But 4g warfare - which targets the enemy’s political will - was used to defeat us in Vietnam, and has been used effectively by the Sandinistas, the Palestinians (in the first intifada), etc. Originated with Mao, who specifically designed it to beat the 3g machine of the Kuomintang. It’s clearly not directly applicable, as it’s military strategy, but the political aspects of 4g warfare may offer some applicability. It’s well worth reading if you have not.
I wanted to follow up on the false charge of defeatism. Every day now, when I wake up, the thing that motivates me, that moves me with power and focus, is working towards liberty. I see things clearer now than I ever have before. This is not some pseudo-intellectual exercise for me. I don’t tell people I am an anarcho-capitalist, or a minarchist or a libertarian. I’m not trying to join a club. I don’t want to write a book or be the toast of a Mises.org Mises Circle somewhere. I’m not looking for the tenure, the lecture circuit or to become a Ron Paul in the political sphere.
That said, the notion that I could be arguing the statist position, or that I sound like a statist myself, showcases the lack of maturity in the discussion. And I don’t mean that in a condescending way, but it truly is a lack of maturity, much like the Paulistas were politically immature when trying to take over the Republican party. They thought sign waving would get it done, not realizing they a handful of them should have been infiltrating the GOP.
The focus of the upcoming Rally for the Republic is to mass train several thousand people to be better political operatives. This, in my opinion, is what is missing. A sense of “Know your enemy”. An agenda, an organization, education in tactics etc.
Also, a sense of personal sacrifice for long term goals. I mean real sacrifice. Putting yourself and your property at risk.
If the notion is that the state will fail and no one has to take any real risks, or that we can practice secession as a hobby, or that we can collaborate with the state until we change our minds, then we’re doomed. We can’t even come up with a winning universal game plan, while the statists are planning 25 or 50 years down the road with contingencies, apprentices, networks and legislation.