Boycotting Money?

Economics Economics Questions
21

There are two approaches: stealth and blatant public defiance. They aren’t mutually exclusive.

Some groups should try stealth-agorism (and may be trying already). If you successfully practice stealth-agorism, you still benefit, even if you don’t defeat the State. Practicing agorism, your personal wealth is increased, even if enough people aren’t participating to threaten the State.

Someone should attempt blatant in-public agorism. You would need to be some sort of celebrity or have another way to capitalize on the publicity generated when the State violently cracks down on you. If you are committing truly benign activity (clothing, farming, etc.), then it becomes VERY hard to justify a violent crackdown. A violent crackdown might create sympathy for the agorists.

The mainstream media would doubtless say “look at those selfish/greedy agorists”, or not cover the story at all. However, there would be substantial discussion on the Internet.

Also, if the agorist was very intelligent, he might be able to successfully pursue a sui juris “jury nullification” defense and avoid conviction.

I’m leaning towards both possibilities. I might try stealth-agorism. I might try blatant-in-public-agorism. If I try blatant-in-public-agorism, I’m giving up my anonymity. If I had a profitable blogging/vlogging business, I might profit from the publicity generated by the inevitable trial.

It might be profitable to go to jail for 1-2 years, if your personal reputation substantially increased as a result.

Someone else mentioned balancing the risks of agorism. The true risk of stealth agorism is unknown, especially if you’re clever about it. A good advocate for blatant-in-public agorism could covert a lot of people to stealth-agorism.

I already discussed the possibility of tax resister insurance. If tax resisters pool their risk, and pool their State-avoidance tactics, it might be possible to profitably insure against an assault by the IRS. If fewer than 1%-2% are subjected to trial, the others could contribute to their defense. If you maximize the IRS’s collection costs, then they might pursue less tempting targets or their terrorism might not be profitable.

22

I guess the real issue here is that we need some sort of critical mass for any strategy to succeed. Agorism needs as much publicity as it can get. Open agorism might generate that but so might a huge crackdown on secret agorism, especially if the “guilty” agorist maintains that he has committed no crime and is not guilty.

23

I don’t think stealth agorism will be very effective, except to test techniques. Self regulation (to avoid detection) of creative approaches can be just as stifling as government regulation.

I hope to touch on some of this stuff in blog posts soon. The last few weeks have been hectic.

24

Yes, that’s why winning the sympathy of the public is the only essential battle to win. Think how easy it is to get away with smoking and selling marijuana in some areas. Now I know this isn’t a perfect example since in many areas it’s not so easy and there still are heavy penalties, but if countereconomics became as “normal” as other activities these issues would have less relevance. The tide is already shifting in favour of non-violent drug offenders in the battle of public sympathies. Imagine how much easier it could be to win the battle of making t-shirts, dairy products, agricultural products, alternative currency etc. non-violently while ignoring government regulations if this thing really got off the ground. The problem is how to get it off the ground.

25

You would need a massive refusal of people to file their income tax returns. They can’t audit everyone. They would have to ignore it or have a violent crack down, giving it coverage

26

I know this thread is now a little old but I noticed Good Morning America (July 14, 2008) having a women on talking about how barting is becoming more popular and how its a great way to get “free” stuff. They showed examples of a women trading a wedding dress for house painting. It seems to me if bartering did become much more common place then the gov. would try some way or another to regulate it. Nothing free about it except for the taxes

27

According to the IRS, barter transactions are taxable. I consider that law/regulation illegitmate, but the IRS has more guns than me.

The average person believes “barter transactions are not taxable”, but the IRS disagrees.

There probably would be a mass propaganda campaign “Barter transactions are taxable!” I’m not sure if that would work, because many people might find that offensive.

If you run a barter network, you are required to report all activity to the IRS. If you want to operate a barter network, it should be P2P decentralized, so the IRS doesn’t demand or seize the records.

Taxing barter transactions is difficult. The IRS is dependent on people voluntarily reporting the transaction. If you publicly advertise a barter network, you will come under IRS scrutiny.

28

Well, if they weren’t taxable, nobody would use fiat money. Even using cows as money may end up cheaper than paying all the taxes for the benefit of using paper money.

29

“In cows we trust” lol

30

Though they got raided, the Liberty Dollar is still selling new liberty dollars, albeit at a high markup. (silver is $18, Liberty Dollar ounces are sold for $36 at a $50 face value.)