Then the American military is not as powerful as you claim.
Perhaps the goal of the Iraq war was not territorial domination of Iraq. As pointed out, that could have been accomplished by murdering everyone who currently lives there and importing settlers. That worked with the colonization of North America. Why not do it again?
What if the Iraq war serves another purpose? Maybe the purpose of the war is to loot the American people. A lot of the money spent on the Iraq war wound up in the hands of private military contractors. If the war ended right away, that wouldn’t be as profitable!
The true purpose is profit for insiders. It’s irrelevant if the publicly stated objective is attained. In fact, if you’re profiting from the war, the incentive is to drag it out as long as possible!
In 6 months, there will be a new President, most likely Obama. He will probably end the Iraq war. People will forget about the injustice of war for a few years until it’s time for the next war. By replacing Bush with Obama, all the injustices of the past 8 years will be forgotten/forgiven.
The ability to do something should not be confused with the willingness to do something in a given situation. The U.S. military had the ability to pursue a genocidal policy but chose not too. In different circumstances it may make a different decision.
We are talking about power, not ability. I have the ability to drive around running over everyone in my path. But I wouldn’t be able to go far without someone stopping me, and so we cannot say that I have the power to drive around running over everyone in my path.
Brilliant! I am interested in agorism, but all of these people who claim that agorism is the “only way” are full of baloney!
Well, with due respect, things like the so called ‘liberty colony’ are way more unrealistic than agorism. Let alone the fact that the guy ‘organizing’ it is a cop of sorts.
You mean hundreds of thousands dead is not genocide ? What is it then ? A tea party maybe ?
It’s true the U.S. military in a general sense is constrained by the U.S. population. The American people have shown a willingness to destroy entire cities in order to accomplish certain political ends so it is a matter of circumstance not lack of ability.
You in fact do not have the ability to drive around with unlimited ability to run people over without being stopped whereas the war in Iraq could be different based solely on the whims of the American people not on anyone being able to prevent it.
The Liberty Colony is the only current attempt to establish a free society. Agorism has no chance of succeeding. First off, as large portions of the world’s population are already deeply involved in the informal economy and their governement are not on the verge of collapse. Secondly, agorism has no goal and as such it is a path to nowhere. The world is not bottom up organized and for a free society to exist it has to be created. It is foolish to assume the abscence of the current state will create a free society.
Thanks, hopefully you will participate in helping the Liberty Colony establish a free society.
The hell we are. Since I’ve learned about agorism, I’ve converted roughly 20% of my economic activity into counter-economic activity. Others who have been at it longer than I have are doing much more - as much as 100%. Meaning - they do not pay taxes, and their money does not lose value.
This statement is easily disproven by the fact that many people have achieved a large degree of economic freedom already by agoric means…
That’s because they don’t have focus or purpose. Agorism is about converting the pre-existing countereconomy into a principled movement with a specific goal.
Care to prove this incredibly arrogant statement?
Are you joking, or trolling? Because there’s no way you can be serious with that statement, unless you have read nothing about the subject. The very IDEA of agorism is to apply a goal to the naturally existing countereconomy.
Blatant strawman. Agorists acknowledge that the free society will not come on its own - that’s the whole bloody point of agorism! Agorists are working to create market alternatives to services that are currently monopolized by the state, so that when the state does collapse (as it will), the free society is already there, fully functioning and waiting to pick up the pieces.
Progress has been made already in creating those things. But keep in mind that the idea is relatively new - only a few decades - whereas the state apparatus is hundreds of years old at least. Right now, we are building the infrastructure of the countereconomy. The more people who participate, the sooner it will begin to produce the kind of results that will draw people naturally into it. Thus the point of educating other people about it.
Agorism was “born” after the recession of the 1970s. If it had existed before that time as a coherent set of ideas, it would probably be much further along than it is now. But today, we are nearing what looks to be a very severe recession, which will draw people toward alternative markets as they see their wealth gouged more every day by the state.
One more thing - it doesn’t help when people like you pooh-pooh agorism because it’s not the same idea you have. Great thing about freedom is, there is always more than one way to do something, and varying means can work harmoniously toward similar ends. We (agorists) are not in competition with the Liberty Colony.
I recommend that you read some literature to familiarize yourself with the concept; maybe then you’ll feel less threatened by it. I’d start with the New Libertarian Manifesto.
I’m going to start an unlicensed agorist gambling organization so libertarians can bet on “how the future free society is eventually formed.” Once we live in anarchy you can collect your money if you bet right.
Macfall: Where do you live? I’m someone who practices theoretical agorism but not practical agorism (yet). Do you have any advice for getting started, when you have NO contacts at all? I’m probably the “theoretical agorist” that the other people are criticizing.
Regrettably, any list of “agorists in each city” could also be used as a “list of people to arrest/harrass”.
Majevska: I’m just looking for a safe place to store my savings. If you could credibly promise “Deposit 1 ounce of gold now. Receive 1 ounce of gold anytime until or after the State collapses”, I’d take it. I’d even pay for a REALLY secure warehouse receipt bank, probably something like -0.1% to -1% per year. However, in order to get my deposit, you have to CREDIBLY prove that you can protect my savings even after a State raid.
Some sort of distributed banking system is needed. If you store all your savings in one place, it’s too tempting for the bad guys to raid you.
I live in Southwestern Pennsylvania, and my “contacts” consist of a few farmers who barter, a car mechanic who is a minarchist yet believes in economic secession, and I’m currently trying to arrange something with a guy who buys and sells things like insulin (which I need) on the gray market. That’s the really solid stuff - there’s also the basement breweries with which I have become acquainted, and I know a tobacconist who is a self-described agorist.
Also, what I’m doing - and this is what I’d suggest for you to do - is informing people about the coming collapse of the dollar (not exaggerating, just being frank), and encouraging them to accept gold and silver (or direct exchange) to preserve their capital holdings. It’s not hard to convince someone of the benefits of counter-economic exchange, whether they share your goals or not. Also, I’d try networking with libertarians of all kinds in your area, because it should be easier to find agorist allies amongst that group.
One of the things I’m trying to get started is a counter-economic craigslist (regarding which I made a thread on here a while back), which should seriously expedite countereconomic transactions.
Yes, but today there is no need for such a list. Long live internets. =) Anonymous trading and shipping (a la the “You Ship It” system) can very effectively obfuscate the network to nosy outsiders. Besides, I don’t think that the government will come after us until we are actually a threat, at which time, we will actually be a threat, of course.
Grey/black market insulin sales. That’s nice! Is it possible to profitably manufacture insulin on a small scale?
Do you know of an agorist doctor?
At some point, it’ll be feasible to have grey market medical research. I heard rumors of several promising treatments that the State is suppressing. For example, stem cell research is promising, and I heard of a natrually occuring plant chemical that’s great at treating cancer (suppressed because it’s un-patentable).
A counter-economic Craigslist would have to be totally decentralized P2P. If there was a centralized server, it would represent an attack point. I wrote a specification for such a system, but I haven’t implented it yet.
If you “ship it”, it would probably have to be an agorist delivery/courier service. If you use UPS, USPS, or FedEx, you risk that the State would inspect/seize/track your packages. For example, I wouldn’t feel comfortable shipping 10 ounces of gold via UPS. I’d pay the fee to have someone personally deliver it.
Are you suggesting that there won’t be a massive counter-agorist propaganda/terror campaign until it’s too late? That’s interesting. The State tends to move slowly. By the time the bad guys are fully aware of the problem, it’ll be too late for them to do anything about.
I guess I’m (indirectly) helping you by promoting the stereotype that agorists are all talk and no action!
It’s nice to see that there are people further along than me on the path to economic freedom.
I’m looking into it. Apparently, it’s really not that hard to do if you know what you’re doing according to a biochemist friend of mine. The only reason it’s so damned expensive is because of the FDA regs.
Unfortunately none in my area. I’ve heard of a few in NH who are FreeStaters. The biochem friend is a flaming liberal, so I probably can’t go to help from her. I do know a pharmacist who is interested in barter, however. Perhaps he might know someone…
Obviously, there are still a lot of gaps to be filled - plenty of room for countereconomic entrepreneurism.
Yes, all of which are potential goldmines for black market actors. But it goes even deeper than that - any doctor who is willing to take a cash payment and not talk about it is a potential countereconomic asset.
That was pretty much the idea I had. Sort of a tracker of sorts, which would allow users to create a profile with “for sales” and “looking fors”, and the tracker would “crawl” the network of profiles and find potential trade loops (e.g., A has bricks, wants food; B has tires, wants his roof fixed; C wants tires; has food, D is a roofer; wants bricks.) The tracker alerts the potential participants of the trade and gives them the opportunity to assent to it.
If they do so, it arranges for C to send his food to A, A to send his bricks to D, D to fix B’s roof, B to send his tires to C. The “loop” could be that small or way larger, and the tracker could arrange them based up on cost-efficiency and the “trust certificate” rating you described.
Naturally, people could also arrange their own trade if they wished; the tracker’s function would be to expedite things.
Also, the program could allow shippers, insurers, and the like to bid on any trade circuits they find interesting.
You seem to know more about this type of program than I do; I’m strictly an end user when it comes to computers.
And shipping insurance could also be available as well.
That’s what I hope and suspect. But if I’m wrong, it just means that we’ll have to be more careful. What I hope is that a network such as we are discussing could aid in forming face-to-face cells which, although they take a greater risk in meeting face to face, it helps to keep the movmement polycentric. And it is around those cells where agorist protection services would form - first against non-state ciminal competition, then eventually the force which will rival the state.
There’s no need to deal directly with barter. Gold or silver work fine as well. There’s a publicly quoted price for gold and silver, so they’re a fair price benchmark.
Of course, you may ship goods around without trading gold or silver. Sound money is merely a benchmark for setting price. You don’t need actual metal to trade. I write about this in the Social Credit Monetary System.
The main problem is matching up buyers and sellers. I’m not sure which is a more effective use of my time. Should I directly promote agorism via writing? Should I write and give away (open-source) the software? I think that promoting agorism is more important than writing software, right now.
There’s one benefit of the Internet. You may share information. If you figure out a small-scale way to manufacture insulin, then you can tell me how and I’ll use the tactic myself. I don’t live in the same city as you, so I’m not your direct competition.
I don’t think direct criminal competition would be a problem. Do you think a marijuana farmer will care that you’re manufacturing your own insulin?
Common criminals aren’t the problem. It’s the criminals wearing badges and uniforms that are the real problem!
Certainly. But what I was referring to was a system of private law and arbitration which would enable counter-economic participants to handle crimes against their persons and properties without calling the cops and being wrung through a government court. I agree that with peaceful black markets functioning, the violent criminals that currently deal in vice “crimes” will disappear pretty quickly. Most will probably join in with the immensely profitable (and less risky) agorist markets. But a few might decide to retaliate against people horning in on “their” markets - those are the people with whom the private protection sector will have to deal the most, I think.
There’s two separate issues. There’s contract enforcement and common crime.
For contract enforcement, punishment via ostracism should suffice. If someone doesn’t honor their contracts, then they’ll be kicked out of the underground economy.
As a practical matter, an agorist will enter many small contracts instead of a few big ones. Without the overhead of State contract enforcement, many small contracts are feasible, reducing the risk if one is broken.
For regular crime, I’m afraid you’re dependent on the State until the agorist economy is mature. It is problematic. Suppose someone breaks into your house and steals something, but you don’t want policemen snooping around your house. You’re probably SOL in the present.
At some point, free market justice becomes viable. It would be, essentially, vigilatism. If extracting compensation from a criminal isn’t feasible, and the crime is serious, then your only option is vigilate action.
By the time this becomes viable, the State has already lost. Suppose the police raid an agorist for tax evasion. If there’s a mature free market court, it would rule in the agorist’s favor. If the free market is capable of enforcing a sentence against the policemen who conducted the raid, then the State no longer exists.
Look I have read the literature. I am not opposed to individual action to obtain more economic freedom. Strategically agorism can not ever replace the state. I live in Costa Rica, half the poulation here is already practicing more counter-economy than you will probably ever do in your lifetime. The governement is nowhere close to the verge of collapsing. If the government here is not even close to collapsing then the U.S. has no chance of collapse in your lifetime. So if Agorism is a 200 year program and an intergenerational plan then I think on the face of it it would be inconceiveable to get people to participate in the fashion you describe.
Agorism requires the masses to reach a tipping point. Look at all of the counter-economy type activities that have gained any size and they have all been shut-down or are under constant harassment. Strategically we can not rely on the masses to create anything.
The Liberty Colony is about right now, in your lifetime. Frankly, from an agorist point of view the Liberty Colony is the best option. Agorist’s want to create small groups that develop the ability to replace functions of the state and thus by demonstration to others grow the movement. What could be better than an actual place that is free, even if very small. The internet gives us enormous ability to interact commercially and things like gold currencies, online banking and other barter and auction related activities are the perfect kinds of things that can be done from the Liberty Colony itself.
Part of my goal on this forum is to agitate and propel those sitting on their couch to action. Agorism even when practiced is simply not enough to achieve the goal we both desire. I am not threatened by agorism, you and I simply deserve more than what it can offer.