Nick. B:Start a pure market anarchist organisation.
Just start a business. Hire people. Run your business in the most Austrian/Free Market manner possible. And make sure you're successful, because if you fail, that hurts the cause.
Nick. B:I mean when do we get organised and start fighting for our freedom?!
Don't wait. Be the change you want to see.
liberty student: Just start a business.
Just start a business.
Can't help but think that's the very best way to support any free-market viewpoint. Show people the market gets you from A to B.
There's a trend (at least where I live) in thinking that young people are not politically conscious enough, and in trying to encourage political activism. That's all well and good, but it encourages the use of the political method to accomplish things rather than individual initiative and enterprise. That's a strike against libertarianism right off the bat.
Nick Ricci:Can't help but think that's the very best way to support any free-market viewpoint. Show people the market gets you from A to B.
And it can be a fairly honest way to live as well. Walk the walk so to speak.
When I study I use pieces of paper as a place markers. When I gave books back to the Uni library they I always left the markers in. I realised this could be an advertising opportunity. I made up on MS publisher 12 cards (about 5.5 by 7.5) and a few bookmarks. With Mises.org, the Mises coat of arms and a short description(free student economic resources ect.) As well a few Adam Smith Institute ones for variety. The opportunities for placement(both strategic such as in the the road to serfdom and the Mises section of economic dictionaries, and random places like billboards and sociology books)mean I have had to produce more consistently since.
I don't know whether Its done any good at all but It doesn't require that much effort, (although if you don't have a guillotine it can be a drag cutting them out one at a time) and it can hardly hurt the cause.
At my school I think that putting up posters would be a great way to start. They're up everywhere and they can grab attention. The problem is that I haven't really found any that I felt were worth putting up yet. Are there any more sites that have posters that I can print up and post?
Yes, I am a huge Dodgers fan.
Anti-state since I learned about the Cuban Revolution and why my dad had to flee the country.
Beer, Guns and Baseball My blog
tonyfernandez: At my school I think that putting up posters would be a great way to start. They're up everywhere and they can grab attention. The problem is that I haven't really found any that I felt were worth putting up yet. Are there any more sites that have posters that I can print up and post?
Freedom Fridays should fit your needs perfectly.
There is no group here at UCLA though. How can I get one started?
tonyfernandez: There is no group here at UCLA though. How can I get one started?
Tony, here's the YAL instructions on forming a chapter. I hope this helps.
Luis Buenaventura: liberty student: Spread articles and flyers. Apparently people attending public schools cannot do this due to Morse v. Frederick court case, I learned that one the hard way.
liberty student: Spread articles and flyers.
Apparently people attending public schools cannot do this due to Morse v. Frederick court case, I learned that one the hard way.
It is odd that a school administrator would choose that case as the basis for restricting article and flyer distibution. Morse v. Frederick deals with specifically with speech promoting illegal drug use, and only such speech.
faber est suae quisque fortunae
This is a great thread; what I've been looking for. This is a great site for learning but I'd like to see some action also. Yes I have all the degrees, but this only means I'm a good student. Far more important I have political experience. Not big time at all, but I've been both elected and appointed.
All the ideas here are good, and some are great.But from reading it I get the impression that most of the bloggers are students, either in college or high school. So it's important to remember that most people are not in those age groups and different age groups have different interests. So let's plan for different age groups.
Next remember that most people don't enjoy focused learning; after they leave school they do as little of it as possible. Most people find thinking to be hard work.
Third is a very important piece of political knowledge. "10% of the people in any group do all the work." This is always true and often it's less than 10%. It works in any group. I even tried it out in graduate school and post grad and it works there just as well. In organizations take the 10% that do anything and put them together in a group, and the rule still holds true. 10% of that group will end up doing everything. This means that finding people who will do anything at all is very important. Even if they will only talk to others about it.
Most of the suggestions here are great for students. By 25 or earlier the vast majority of people have stopped thinking. They're focusing on their children, careers or jobs, and money. By 45 people are at the peak of their careers or jobs and are thinking about money. By 55 or 60 they're thinking alot about retirement and their infinancial situaion in reitrement. By 65 or 70 they're retired and now have time to think, read, volunteer or just relax. So a national campaign should include all these ages and interest points. Most people still vote, especially older ones and the young. People 45 and older typically do not access facebook, youtube or twitter, and a smaller % use email or forums.
So money is a common concern. i think information on money, today in this deflation, would be of considerable interest to a large portion of people. But definately not theory. Most people's idea of money is that they work and get paid, and the money they earn is theirs except for taxes and fees. How about discussing with them how the Federal Reserve and our government is stealing our money every day, every minute, and we don't even know about it. They kept it a secret. This is already one of their deepest interest points and will always get their attention. There are many, many ways to explain this. It's best not to get too involved or into too much detail, but that depends upon the level of interest. Do they know the Federal Reserve Banks are private, and the majority ownerss are the wealthist families in our history? The simplest way I can think of is the Fed.'s 2% annual inflation (compounded annually), which means that every 20 years the money you earned or saved or invested is worth only half as much. A more involved point is that of the 6% the Fed. charges for creating and managing their loans, they keep 2% profit for their private banks. That's 2% of all loans in existance at any given year. In fact, we don't even have any 'money'. What we have is IOU's from the Fed. for the labor and investments we hope to make in the future.
If you can expalin in the smplest terms that our government is stealing their money, people will become very interested, even angry. That's what you want. But then they will say,"but what can we do"? Answer - vote for a libertarian, constitutionalist, independent, etc.
Also be very careful not to use emotional words - activist, conversative, liberal, Democrats, Republicans, neo-cons, etc. I think it better not even to talk about democracy, economics, or any other broader subjects. Wait until you've got their interest fixed and built some trust. Stay simple.
I've given a lot of thought to how a community (town, village, city, state) could, on its own, create and use only sound money. I still can't see any way to do it without doing it nationally. But if anyone here has an idea, I'd love to hear it. For example, a small group of people in one town could open a gold/silver bank and issue demand certificates on 100% reserve deposits. The town business men could give a 3-5% discount for accepting those certificates (they would not ahve to pay the 3% credit or debit card cost). The depositors would have to pay a storage fee for their gold/silver held by the bank. Alas, the price of gold/silver is controlled by the government. When the price is flat or dereasing (as they wish) the bank is a loosing game, because of the costs of purchasing the gold/silver (with Federal Reserve $'s). "In a government controlled economy, bad money drives out good". "In a free-market, good money drives out bad." (Have I got that right?)
Again, as I've suggested before, put your name up for election - to anything; If you're old enough, for Congress. The experience is more than worth the effort. City Council, the water board, various commissions, anything. Personally I'd love to have more than 2 choices and would always vote for the 3rd, and so will at least some others. If you run for some office, focus on the interest point in that community, whatever it is. (We elected a complete City Council during 3 years of excessive rain by focusing on the need for sewers ((and we now have sewers.)
For influencing people I agree that the house to house approach gets the best results, expecially for those over 35. Try to spend time talking with them and getting to know them, rather than hitting the biggest number of houses or appartments.
Being an entrepreneur is a great idea already suggested. Offer what you enjoy doing and do well for sale, in a stand by the road, at craft or garden markets. I'm convinced no one in American knows how to make bread like the French, Czeck, or Polish do, so I make my own. I would make a bee-line straight to a person who sold good bread. (Its time consuming but very easy to make, and needs only flour, salt, water, and yeast, and no kneeding.) Did you know that successful small businessmen make a better living than most managers at any company, and you get to be your own boss and have to put up with no office politics?
Become familiar with the commodities market, particularly gold and silver. (DO NOT invest any money until after at least 1 full year of observation). Track the prices daily, chart them, correlate them with the Fed. actions, federal funds rate and T-bill and T-bond interest rates and other news. Check out the GATA site, and the Kitco forum. Learn the attitudes of the different countries toward gold and silver. Who is buying? Will some emerging countries succeed in creating an alternate reserve currency? Will it be gold-backed?
Well I have for a while been scanning/translating some Austrian School books up here: www.enxurrada.blogspot.com
some of them, like Hayek's Denationalization Of Money and Individualism And Economic Order, I actually uploaded last year, before Mises Institute...
But the thing is that my college does not have much AE books... If some college students in North America also started scanning some books it would be awsome... I've been trying to read Roger Garrison's Time And Money, but it's impossible to find it...
I have an idea to punish media outlets who support the state. Every time a company runs an ad on a network that supports statism, actively boycott that company for at least one month. If enough people did this, it might put pro-state media outlets out of business.
What do you think of this?
Max Keiser (www.maxkeiser.com) is big on boycotting. He has the Karma Banque and his new anti-state IP project PIRATE MY FILM.
Check him out. He's applying the idea of boycotts to activism practically.
max keiser is great. i respect a lot of what he has done, especially karma bank.
I heard another idea somewhere to have everybody withdraw their money from banks on the same day.
shazam: I heard another idea somewhere to have everybody withdraw their money from banks on the same day.
The government will just print more.
Keiser is into practical, OVERT agorism. Stop buying from corporations. Stop supporting oligarchs. Stop funding the people who use government coercion to make a profit. Deny them a profit. Make your own products, become your own entrepreneur.
If you really want to do something, take your capital and assets out of the Unites States and expatriate. Nothing will starve the beast faster than that. That's what I did, and it's increased my quality of life 1000-fold.
Quod licet jovi non licet bovi.
Seandon Mooy, I moved our discussion to a new thread.
http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/7953.aspx
I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned it but we have an opportunity now that we did not have before.
Join a local tea party group and educate.
This takes patience, you can't overdose them but it's doable. There's a lot of people who sense something is wrong, don't trust the GOP (rightly) but don't know where to turn intellectually. You can't go in there teaching the gospel accd to Rothbard or Mises, but you can sow the intellectual seeds of liberty. Don't directly challenge sacred cows, but take opportunities to point out that the other guys have similar cattle that they care about. Point them to articles here or other libertarian sites that you know coincide with their views, etc.
If we don't the GOP will co-opt them given time, because they won't see they have another choice. Even if the movement can't be completely steered to freedom, we'll have educated people.
I finally got tired of being a whiny libertarian who impotently railed against the sheeple who fail to see the tyranny of evil men.
I think it's time to be the shepherd;)
The easiest people to win over are the people without strong ideological or political ideas.
The majority of the American electorate are independents. Free agents.
In Canada, voter turnout is in decline.
There are a lot of people disengaging from hard politics right or left.
These are the low hanging fruit.
Unfortunately, libertarians love to do things the hard way. Instead of speaking to their family, they will spend 100 hours online trying to argue with one communist. Then they get discouraged, then they give up or lose momentum.
Start small. Do the easy things first until you get confidence and develop rhetorical skill.
We need to advertise campaignforliberty.com on Facebook. 200 million users use facebook.
I wish there was another word for "We" - I'm starting to be averse to "We" and the groupthink it carries. How about stuff "individuals" can do. It means the same thing, strangely enough...
Sukrit Sabhlok: We need to advertise campaignforliberty.com on Facebook. 200 million users use facebook.
If it's not already there, I'd be a little suprised. Will have to check...
Btw - 200 million? How many real ones?
Would anyone be Interested in helping me create the site I am making focused at activism in New Zealand? http://whatisliberty.co.nz
It would be awesome if someone could help by writting some articles. They just need to be short (around 500 words) but powerful introduction of the ideas of liberty to persons that know nothing about the matter.
The articles on LewRockwell.com and the Daily Articles here might help. You can reprint the Mises articles, I'm not so sure about the LRC articles, although you could probably snippet them if you provide backlinks.
A lot of us have our own sites we struggle to create content for.
Start a new thread with a few topics you want articles and media on, and I am sure the community will give you lots of resources to re-post, or to use as inspiration for your own work.
"You swayed me"- Got this twice on Monday on topics of health care and psuedo prohibitions still on Alcohol and tobacco.
Freedom is appealing when presented as it is. Not just an a view, but a clearer picture.
An attempt to summarize the problems with our current leadership.... looking for collaboration... copy, edit, distribute....
http://wiki.freetalklive.com/Tyranny
1. One tool I feel is sorely missing from the anarchist arsenal is ready collection of essays/wikis directed at particular groups, and speak their language: leftists, environmentalists, minorities, apolitical folks, neocons, centrists, those against the banking elite (but who don't understand that government is what enables it - Zeitgeist and The Money Masters viewers, etc.), those who hate the depredations of "big business," military personnel, the elderly, parents, teenagers, students, etc.
For example, for the hardcore nature-loving environmentalist who sees humans as in principle equal to animals (I'm thinking of vegetarians and vegans), an argument about how we should own every inch of the Earth would not make sense. The great thing about our case is that we do not need to talk about ownership to advocate it, since respect for private property rights and ownership of everything are results of not having a state monopoly. We can make a heartily convincing case even to a hardcore Earth Mother just by talking about monopoly. For this purpose, it would be nice to have ready-made articles or wikis that people could access out of a list to match to positions of the person they were trying to persuade.
2. I think we are inefficiently conflating advocacy and theory. If we fail to distinguish that which we advocate and that which is just a theory of how it would pan out or be most successful, we multiply our labors almost infinitely. For the mere purpose of getting people on our side, we just need to make the case that all monopolies are detrimental, not to make the case for property rights, the NAP, etc.- these will follow naturally in anarchy anyway.
We theorize that in anarchy, free exchange will be most successful and people will adopt universally, or near-universally. There is such a thing as an anarcho-communist, but what is an anarcho-communist? It depends on how you define it. If it is defined as the notion that, in anarchy, societies would organize themselves communistically on a voluntary basis, then we have no disagreement in what we are advocating, only what we are theorizing. Anarcho-communists by this definition would be our brethren, albeit misguided as to how things would turn out. Of course, if anarcho-communists intend on using monopoly force to implement communism, they are not actually anarchists.
As I hope the above example makes clear, what we want to push for is anarchy. Everything else we talk about is simply conjecture (however correct it may be) about the spontaneous order that would develop or be most successful in the absence of a state monopoly. To argue that NAP, property rights, etc. are what will inevitably come about is all well and good, but I contend monopoly is a far easier target. We ought to welcome true anarcho-communists, as they would help dissolve the state...they would just be wrong about the final outcome. In anarchy, we would set up our societies and they would set up theirs, but theirs would fail and ours would succeed. If they don't respect the NAP, they will have problems and quickly come around. Heck, we might even be wrong and their 100% voluntary communism would succeed in satisfying all people (hardy har). I don't see a problem either way.
For example, take the Earth Mother I mentioned above. We could certainly, after great entreaties, convince her that property rights would help the environment, but the very idea that humans ought to own everything would be fundamentally repugnant to her. She would only ever agree grudgingly, and in practice probably not at all. We need her as a true anti-monopoly anarchist first and foremost, and the path to that is pretty EASY!
Why anarchy fails
Also, post on reddit.com - that's a great debate structure site where people are reasonably smart, but horrendously misinformed about the market. Fallacies run amock, and they are actually amenable to strong argumentation. Much better than Digg.
Here's how I see it:
Reddit is a much easier site to use.
Reddit politics section is the worst in terms of the amount of statists.
Reddit economics section is very good in that most of the people are relatively libertarian, and many are Austrians.
Digg has a smaller percentage of statists than Reddit. There is actually a small but thriving liberty contingent there. This is most likely a remnant from the Ron Paul campaign.
On neither site do people respond to logic. I have argued extensively on both. But I think "taking over" Digg and Reddit is INSTRUMENTAL in getting the liberty message out.
For better or worse, news aggregation sites are where the intellectual battle is fought these days, and if Digg and Reddit are permanent bastions for statism, that is terrible because for so many kids, it is their first exposure to politics.
We need to turn the tide on these sites over time!!
The nice thing about reddit.com is the shear number of bald-faced (usually socialist) fallacies people will use, which if you can deftly demonstrate to be wrong and they will usually concede. The reason people often concede and change their opinions on reddit is that they're used to discovering something new and unexpected in almost every post. Sure there are many many cases to the contrary, but compared to other forums reddit is a debater's paradise with it's compact tree-threaded comment system (which mises.org could really use IMO, and digg.com sorely lacks) and huge numbers of reasonably intelligent and politically interested readers.
I think they do respond to logic if it is presented reasonably well. I consider reddit.com to be outreach tool No. 1. Nowhere will you get a more fair hearing with more politically active people if you argue nicely, although it's still not very fair. There is a major dearth of people with understanding of Austrian economics and libertarian concepts there, and the few that are there are mostly not good debaters. Hint: they tend to assume you know what you're talking about if you use the more highbrow debating tactics, such as copious amounts of Latin in your posts
NewLiberty:We need to turn the tide on these sites over time!!
I have to disagree with that. A good example is what happened with Bureaucrash. The libertarian anarchists thought they captured the social network, but the conservative thinktank that owned it put in neocon management (Lee Doren, Mr. "How my neocon world works") that is completely not libertarian.
So all of that energy and time was wasted promoting bureaucrash. Many of those folks left and started fr33 agents. Now there is a primarily libertarian/anarchist social network.
So instead of trying to capture reddit or digg or wikipedia, use them to promote your own social networks and websites for libertarian/anarchist news.
I wholeheartedly support the ideals of classical liberalism, mises, and libertarianism however not voting is not making a statement, its doesnt help our cause it is a disgrace. It is the degradation of generations of dead heroes plain and simple. Vote Ron Paul or if you dont like him start a campaign, support whomever you want. Not voting is disgraceful.
With that said I also believe there should be a "none of the above" or slot to insert a name because limiting the options and forcing people to choose the lesser evil is tyrannical.
grace has nothing to do with it. neither do any dead heroes for the state. heroes for freedom are a different matter, but then, they do not have cause against libertarian anarchists who vote defensively or not at all, since they understand freedom.
Where there is no property there is no justice; a proposition as certain as any demonstration in Euclid
Fools! not to see that what they madly desire would be a calamity to them as no hands but their own could bring
liberty student:Promote Mises.org books and the bookstore.
I advertise mises.org on the most visible of every book I borrow from my college library.
Prashanth Perumal:I advertise mises.org on the most visible of every book I borrow from my college library.
Nice work!
First of all, great thread, I think there are many valid points.
Here are some of my ideas. I am from Czech republic, therefore a non-english speaking country. So I am currently setting up a blog where I will regularly post translations of articles from Mises.org (and perhaps rockwell.com and some other sites, depends on their permissions) to provide an access to austrian and libertarian thoughts to people that do not read in english. I think every person that has a good knowledge of some other language can do that. It is also a good exercise. Plus I´ll try to put together some articles of my own, although my reasoning is pretty weak compared to the guys on Mises so far. Btw. first article that I chose to translate is Art Carden´s Minimum wage, discrimination and inequality - simple and nonoffensive for a regular (social democratic in this country) person. Good intro I think.
Second point - as a college student I try to involve some austrian ideas in most of the school work. My bachelor´s degree thesis title was "Fair Trade coffee in the perspective of Austrian school of economics". Almost no-one in the school supported that idea (almost no-one knew austrian school and thought it´s some bullshit since it involves no math - pardon my language), but since I tried to make it as much understandable and consistent as possible, it was a success. And my friends and peers at school were also quite interested in it. My master´s degree thesis will be probably something similar.
Well I know it´s not much, but I think the most important thing for me, as an austrian economic apprentice, is to learn as much as possible, to be able to discuss all the topics. I tried to discuss libertanianism and anarchocapitalism with my friends before, but they usually got me on road privatization, pension system, national defense and such. More study needed indeed:).
Kabal:Here are some of my ideas. I am from Czech republic, therefore a non-english speaking country.
Kabal, you should contact Mike Gogulski at www.nostate.com. He is in Bratislava Slovakia, and he is a translator by trade. He can probably offer you some ideas and suggestions.
Kabal:Well I know it´s not much,
It is fantastic. If everyone did this much, things would change in a matter of months.
Good for you, and welcome to Mises.org
liberty student: It is fantastic. If everyone did this much, things would change in a matter of months. Good for you, and welcome to Mises.org
Thanks for the warmth welcome and support. So if anyone knows any Czech or Slovak speaking people that would be interested in articles on liberty, sound economics and such, here is my site. Not much in there so far (only Art Carden´s article), but work is in progress:-).
I have always seen through experiance that the best thing you can do is talk to other people through more simple concepts, then using libertarian speak. Also, it's good to have a partner in crime. Don't forget that many alliances can be made with "conservatives", "liberals", and even socialists. Political group's theories always have to agree somewhere, it's better to come together for a certain cause, then to make that person your enemy and to have nothing. If I had, one of my closest activist friend, would have done half the work we would've done individually. Plus it really kills the stereotypes of a certain group, and lets you understand their reasons much better. An ally can even start to understand your ideas better and reduce their hostility torwards it.
Freedom has always been the only route to progress.