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Agorism

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Agorism is an anarchist political philosophy founded by Samuel Edward Konkin III which holds the ultimate goal being bringing about a society in which all "relations between people are voluntary exchanges — a free market.". The term comes from the Greek word "agora" an open place for assembly and market in ancient Greek city-states. Ideologically, it is a term representing a revolutionary type of free market anarchism, with "revolutionary" not referring to violent revolution but emphasis on "counter-economics" - untaxed "black" market activity, which agorists believe has the ability to eliminate the state.

The seminal and definitive treatise, Konkin's New Libertarian Manifesto, was published in 1980. However, the philosophy was presented fictionally previously in J. Neil Schulman's novel Alongside Night in 1979. He was inspired to portray Konkin's ideas in fictional form by the example of Ayn Rand's proto-libertarian novel Atlas Shrugged, and Konkin wrote an afterword 'How Far Alongside Night?' for the 1987 Avon paperback edition of Alongside Night.

Agorists are propertarian market anarchists who consider that property rights are natural rights deriving from the primary right of self-ownership. Thus, Agorism can be considered a type of anarcho-capitalism. Agorists consider their ideas to be an evolution and superation of those of Murray Rothbard. Konkin describes agorists as "strict Rothbardians...and even more Rothbardian than Rothbard.

Strategically, agorists are advocates or conscious practitioners of counter-economics (peaceful black and grey markets). Agorism advocates achieving a market anarchist society through advocacy and growth of the underground economy or "black market" — the "counter-economy" as Konkin put it — until such a point that the State's perceived moral authority and outright power have been so thoroughly undermined that revolutionary market anarchist legal and security enterprises are able to arise from underground and ultimately suppress government as a criminal activity (with taxation being treated as theft, war being treated as mass murder, et cetera).

Agorism's proponents characterize it as left-libertarian. According to Konkin, it was Murray Rothbard's idea to call his and Konkin's radical free-market libertarianism "Left," the reasons being that they wanted to use a label that was appealing to the New Left in order to solidify an alliance with them and because they wanted to distinguish themselves as those interested in building counter-economic enterprises, and because in the old French Assembly, the some free-markets sat on the left. In this view that considers radical libertarians Left, libertarians based in minarchism, gradualism, conservatism, and reformism are considered to be on the "Right The labeling of market anarchism being left-wing libertarianism is not accepted by scholars, such as David DeLeon, who regard anarchism that stresses "the individualism of the unregulated marketplace" to be right-wing libertarianism.

Early publications

J. Neil Schulman, managing editor of Konkin's magazine New Libertarian at the time of its first publication in 1979, first promoted the philosophy of Agorism in his novel Alongside Night, which he began writing in 1974, when he was an editor for Konkin's magazine, New Libertarian Notes. On their cross-country automobile trip from New York to California in August 1975, Konkin and Schulman outlined a book to be co-authored by them titled CounterEconomics. When the outline and sample chapters for CounterEconomics failed to achieve a contract with an advance from a major publisher, Schulman went back to work finishing Alongside Night while Konkin devoted his energies to his own magazine publishing before eventually writing The New Libertarian Manifesto and An Agorist Primer, scheduled to be published by Victor Koman's KoPubCo, which published the most recent edition of The New Libertarian Manifesto. Before his death Konkin completed a manuscript for CounterEconomics which is also scheduled to be published by KoPubCo.

Counter-economics as revolutionary theory

According to a short summary of the agorist conception of market anarchist revolution, Agorist Revolution in a Nutshell:

Views on property

By preferring the term "free market" agorists feel they are not bound by the implications of the term "capitalism". Government-favored corporations are viewed by agorists to link the illegitimacy of the state to many such businesses. State restrictions that limit liability on corporations are believed to corrupt those businesses such that the upper management acts irresponsibly with corporate assets. For example, if such businesses excessively pay executives and are then unable to meet contractual debts, many state laws protect the wages of those responsible for the bankruptcy. Agorists argue that liability cannot simply disappear by act of government and so legitimate business will always have managers or owners who will be held responsible for any actions taken.

Konkin was opposed to the concept of intellectual property rights, and wrote the article "Copywrongs" to explain and support this position. Schulman later took position against Konkin's arguments in "Informational Property: Logorights." While Konkin opposed state copyright and patent laws as constructs of the state, and creators of illegitimate monopoly, as did Benjamin Tucker before him, Schulman argued that the material identity displayed by an original creation could be owned as an exclusive natural property right.

Unlike mutualists, they believe that land need not to continue to be in use to continue to be owned. Private property would continue infinitely until ownership was voluntarily transferred or it was discarded.

Three types of capitalists

Many agorists, like all anarcho-capitalists, refer to the free market as capitalism. However, according to Konkin, agorists make a 3-part distinction between participants in capitalism.
entrepreneur or venture capitalist non-statist capitalist pro-statist capitalist
(good) (neutral) (bad)
innovator, risk-taker, producer
the strength of a free market 		holders of capital
not necessarily ideologically aware
"relatively drone-like non-innovators" 		"the main Evil in the political realm"
Konkin claimed that anarcho-capitalists tend to conflate the first and second types, and implies that "Marxoids and cruder collectivists" conflate all three.

Political action

Agorists tend to oppose voting and political participation, and at least do not believe that such could ever be an effective means to bring about a free society. They support education and direct action, with a particular focus on entrepreneurship and counter-economics.

Agorists' opposition to voting differs from some other individualist anarchists, such as Lysander Spooner and Murray Rothbard who defended the act of voting.

See also

Notes

External links



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