Agorism

Maxliberty:

Yet another agorist worried about the tax man. Isn't the whole point of agorism to live outside the state control? Comical how you continue to bring up what the state tells you to do. Since you probably plan on working for the state as a teacher I can understand your concern. Also, if living in isolated places in Amreica is too much for you do you really think your ready to take on the state?

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.

Geoffrey Allan Plauche:

Maxliberty:

My point is that agorist ideology wasn't a requirement to undermine the state.

So what? This is a really weak objection.

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.

Geoffrey Allan Plauche:

Maxliberty:

Yet another agorist worried about the tax man. Isn't the whole point of agorism to live outside the state control? Comical how you continue to bring up what the state tells you to do. Since you probably plan on working for the state as a teacher I can understand your concern. Also, if living in isolated places in Amreica is too much for you do you really think your ready to take on the state?

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.

 

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.  

Geoffrey Allan Plauche:

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.

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?

 

Maxliberty:

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.

Is agorism only about operating in a black market to undermine the state?

Maxliberty:

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.

How does any of this follow?

Maxliberty:

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.  

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.

Maxliberty:

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.

Yes, a really weak objection. It doesn't undermine agorism at all.

Maxliberty:

It is the underpinning of agorism that only agorist counter-economic activity is undermining the state

This is false. You should know that by now. No excuse not to.

 

liberty student:

Geoffrey Allan Plauche:

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.

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?

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.

Geoffrey Allan Plauche:

I thought I remember reading about a tax on property for those renouncing citizenship too, but I might be wrong.

Nope. You were right.  All your property are belong to uncle sam.

Geoffrey Allan Plauche:

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.

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.

 

Maxliberty:

liberty student:

ozzy43:

But as several posts have pointed out, even if the State does not fall, leaving no vaccuum for agorism to explode into, that does not render the project futile. It's not a digital thing, either working or not - it's analog, and includes a continuum of functionality. Now, I'm trying to think about if there are discontinuities on that continuum, because I think those will be the obstacles to sustainability.

If we're going to "settle" let's all support Bob Barr then. 

Yes, if the goal is to undermine the state and the state never fails and gets replaced then you have failed. Agorists don't want goal lines because they can not be reached with that strategy.

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.

Geoffrey Allan Plauche:

Maxliberty:

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.

Yes, a really weak objection. It doesn't undermine agorism at all.

Maxliberty:

It is the underpinning of agorism that only agorist counter-economic activity is undermining the state

This is false. You should know that by now. No excuse not to.

 

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.

Geoffrey Allan Plauche:

Is agorism only about operating in a black market to undermine the state?

Accoridng to agorists the black market doesn't undermine the state. Try and keep up.

Geoffrey Allan Plauche:

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.

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.

david_z:

Geoffrey Allan Plauche:

I thought I remember reading about a tax on property for those renouncing citizenship too, but I might be wrong.

Nope. You were right.  All your property are belong to uncle sam.

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.

liberty student:

Don't call me a statist.

I didn't. I pointed out that you were falling into the same fallacy that statists do.

Second, what are people doing today?  Rolling over.  They roll over when they feel threatened.  That is how government's control people.  That is how the American government murders hundreds of thousands of people while it's citizens bicker over Sanjaya or Bret Favre.

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.

It is going to happen anyway?

You seem to think so, I think it's unlikely.

I'm arguing against the fallacy that the state will reach some sort of tipping point, and Agorism will be able to step in.  Is it possible?  Sure.  But Agorists count this as absolutely likely, and that is the one variable they have to fix, in order to explain how Agorism reaches critical mass.

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.

It's all predicated on the notion that the state doesn't drug us, or exterminate us, or biometric scan us, or infect us or brainwash us (further).

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.

It's pie-in-the-sky thinking.  Big old evil statism, run by long range planning statists with massive political, scientific and material resources, are just going to blindly carry on towards their own destruction, and when they are at the edge of the cliff, they will just jump off without trying to stop or save themselves.

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.

Libertarians are losing the propaganda war.  Have been for a long time.

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?

I'm not grasping at straws.  I'm testing the ideology.  If it can't withstand internet forum criticism (this applies to you as well), it certainly isn't going to topple the state.

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?

You ruined the last Agorism thread by personalizing it.  Don't repeat the same mistake twice.

I didn't. Are you using the collective "you"? Don't do that.

If/when the moment comes, Agorism can't "scale" to accommodate security and provision for the masses faster than another government (from whatever source one could imagine), then it will have failed.

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.

ozzy43:

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.

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?

MacFall:

I didn't. I pointed out that you were falling into the same fallacy that statists do.

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.

MacFall:

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.

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.

MacFall:

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.

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?

MacFall:

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.

If it is economically impossible, why do they continue to beat the odds?

MacFall:

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?

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.

MacFall:

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?

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.

MacFall:

I didn't. Are you using the collective "you"? Don't do that.

No, I was addressing YOU specificially when I used the word YOU.

MacFall:

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.

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!

Maxliberty:

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.

Oh, this is amusing. I guess you forgot what you wrote earlier. Here let me quote you for you.

Maxliberty:

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.

"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.

Maxliberty:

Geoffrey Allan Plauche:

Is agorism only about operating in a black market to undermine the state?

Accoridng to agorists the black market doesn't undermine the state. Try and keep up.

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.

Maxliberty:

Geoffrey Allan Plauche:

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.

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.

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.

Geoffrey Allan Plauche:

ozzy43:

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.

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?

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.

liberty student:

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.

All power to the dictatarship of the proletariat!  The means of production must be seized from the capitalist oppressors!  Smash the corporate pig-dogs and the lackeys of the bourgeoisie with the hammer and the sickle!  The world will be flooded with the blood of counter-revolutionaries!  Heed to my call, comrades!

Geoffrey Allan Plauche:

"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.

Geoff, you can do better than argue semantically (I hope).  This isn't grad school, the biggest nerd doesn't win.  I'd really like to see the discussion stay on a practical track, where we deal with what are real challenges to Agorism.

And if Max is being a boor (I didn't read all of your posts), then I hope he stops and we get back on track.

 

Full marks for trying to be funny.  Care to explain why you have a SDS graphic in your sig?

OK, well just wanted to say I'm happy to have been able to get some good info on agorism from this thread before it devolved again into sniping. I do appreciate it...

I also found some amazing blogs through links that people provided - nothirdsolution kicks ass and 'once upon a time' is absolutely amazing, and I'm digging nostate also. Great insight, powerful.

wombatron:

liberty student:

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.

All power to the dictatarship of the proletariat!  The means of production must be seized from the capitalist oppressors!  Smash the corporate pig-dogs and the lackeys of the bourgeoisie with the hammer and the sickle!  The world will be flooded with the blood of counter-revolutionaries!  Heed to my call, comrades!

Hey! It's not just 'lackeys', it's 'imperialist lackeys' - the qualifier is there for a reason, dammit! This is your last warning...

Mike from NoState is a real inspiration for me.  David @ No Third Solution is good too.

If you like opinion delivered like a two by four to your face, FSK's blog is also stimulating.

ozzy43:

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.

Actually I haven't gotten around to reading the book yet, but guerrilla warfare (a form of 4th gen warfare) and 4th gen warfare are intellectual hobbies of mine. I have several books on the subject and am familiar with it. As I mentioned earlier, I was trained as a military intel analyst in the army national guard. The purpose of my MOS was to figure out what the enemy was up to and would do and brief my commander on it. I think 4th gen warfare is very applicable to agorism. 3rd gen warfare not so much, at least not until the last stages of a revolution, and even then the typical statist highly hierarchical and bureaucratic army model should be avoided. We don't want to set up the conditions for another state after all.

ozzy43:

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.

Yes, it has applications outside of combat as well. I have Mao's and Che's books on guerrilla warfare as well as the special forces manual and Major Von Dach's Swiss Army Guide to GW and Underground Operations. I also have one of Mao's Little Red Book of Quotations. I picked it up in China a number of summers ago.

liberty student:

Full marks for trying to be funny.  Care to explain why you have a SDS graphic in your sig?

Rothbard made numerous favorable remarks about SDS - saw some common ground where some common work might be done, IIRC. His 'Betrayal of the American Right' includes this bit of history.

liberty student:

Geoffrey Allan Plauche:

"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.

Geoff, you can do better than argue semantically (I hope).  This isn't grad school, the biggest nerd doesn't win.  I'd really like to see the discussion stay on a practical track, where we deal with what are real challenges to Agorism.

You've got to be kidding me. That's not a merely semantic distinction. There's an important difference there. Really, I shouldn't have to point this out. Max made an uninformed and false claim. I pointed out his error. He can't keep his formulations of the agorist position straight, and one was right while the other was wrong. And the formulation that was right isn't vulnerable to his objection.

liberty student:

And if Max is being a boor (I didn't read all of your posts), then I hope he stops and we get back on track.

Well, shoot, I wish you would. It might help you to maintain some objectivity here.

ozzy43:

liberty student:

Full marks for trying to be funny.  Care to explain why you have a SDS graphic in your sig?

Rothbard made numerous favorable remarks about SDS - saw some common ground where some common work might be done, IIRC. His 'Betrayal of the American Right' includes this bit of history.

Agreed.  The latest iteration of the SDS is even better, from a libertarian standpoint, than the original ever was.  It is explicitly anarchist and anti-authority, and leaders of the SDS have openly asked for support from libertarians and anti-state rightists.

BTW, I differ from plumb-line Rothbardian anarcho-capitalism in only a few ways.  I can't actually call myself a Rothbardian, technically, as I derive rights from the capacity for rationality (a la Rasmussen, Den Uyl, Long, and Plauche) rather than axiomatic self-ownership.  I just think that the mutualists and individualist anarchists have several insights that are usually missed by libertarians.

 

liberty student:

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.

Now really... you have a lot of gall criticizing me for calling Max out on his bad behavior when you pull stunts like this. Moreover, Wombatron is not to my knowledge a Marxist.

liberty student:

Full marks for trying to be funny.  Care to explain why you have a SDS graphic in your sig?

You do know that the New Left back in the '60s, of which the SDS was a part, was fairly libertarian, right? They weren't perfect, but then again neither was the Old Right, nor are many contemporary libertarians. You might read some of Rothbard's articles in the journal Left and Right (online at mises.org in pdf).

wombatron:

I just think that the mutualists and individualist anarchists have several insights that are usually missed by libertarians.

Can you either be more specific (maybe start another thread) or provide links?

Geoffrey Allan Plauche:

Now really... you have a lot of gall criticizing me for calling Max out on his bad behavior when you pull stunts like this. Moreover, Wombatron is not to my knowledge a Marxist.

Pull a stunt?  Womby started it with his fast and loose "vulgar libertarian" reference.  No one likes to be called vulgar anything, it's clearly used in a pejorative sense, and he was baiting for someone to call him a Marxist, so I did.

 

Geoffrey Allan Plauche:

You do know that the New Left back in the '60s, of which the SDS was a part, was fairly libertarian, right? They weren't perfect, but then again neither was the Old Right, nor are many contemporary libertarians. You might read some of Rothbard's articles in the journal Left and Right (online at mises.org in pdf).

"Fairly libertarian"?  Does that mean they are vulgar libertarians?  This is not the 1960's movement.

I looked into SDS before I asked.  It looks like a slightly radical left organization, that appeals to sentiments that I would think anarchists would reject, like trading warfare for welfare (education).  They also seemed to be obsessed with equality, and with the collectivism of the left that comes with that.

They are pro-environmentalism, pro-labour.  From where I sit, they appear to be another anti-war left movement, with a socialistic agenda.

 

liberty student:

Geoffrey Allan Plauche:

You do know that the New Left back in the '60s, of which the SDS was a part, was fairly libertarian, right? They weren't perfect, but then again neither was the Old Right, nor are many contemporary libertarians. You might read some of Rothbard's articles in the journal Left and Right (online at mises.org in pdf).

"Fairly libertarian"?  Does that mean they are vulgar libertarians?  This is not the 1960's movement.

I looked into SDS before I asked.  It looks like a slightly radical left organization, that appeals to sentiments that I would think anarchists would reject, like trading warfare for welfare (education).  They also seemed to be obsessed with equality, and with the collectivism of the left that comes with that.

They are pro-environmentalism, pro-labour.  From where I sit, they appear to be another anti-war left movement, with a socialistic agenda.

Things are not quite as simple as this, LS. You are thinking in conventional terms: left = socialist = bad. The actualities were - are are - far more complex. Here's a snippet from Rothbard's Betrayal of the American Right - download and read chapter 14 - which discusses the New Left - for more details on why an accomodation was never really achieved:

The SDS march inaugurated the great
anti-Vietnam War movement, which undoubtedly constituted the
deepest and most widespread opposition in the midst of war since
the conflict with Mexico in the 1840s. The opposition during
World War I was strong, but isolated and brutally suppressed by
the government; the isolationist movement of World War II collapsed
completely as soon as we entered the war; and the Korean
War never generated a powerful mass opposition. But here at last
was an exciting, massive opposition to the war proceeding during
the war itself! Another point that cheered Leonard and myself was
that here at last was not a namby-pamby “peace” group like SANE,
which always carefully balanced its criticism of the U.S. and of
Russia, and which also took pains to exclude “undesirables” from
antiwar activity; here was a truly antiwar movement which zeroed
in on the evils of American war-making; and here was a movement
that excluded no one, that baited neither reds nor rightists, that
welcomed all Americans willing to join in struggle against the
immoral and aggressive war that we were waging in Vietnam. Here
at last was an antiwar Left that we could be happy about!
It is true that SDS, the unquestioned leader of this new antiwar
movement, had been born in unfortunate circumstances; for it was
originally and was then still officially the student arm of the social
democratic League for Industrial Democracy, an old-line socialist
and red-baiting organization that represented the worst of Old
Left liberalism. But SDS was clearly in the process of breaking
with its parentage. Not only was it militant on the war, but it was
also no longer doctrinaire socialist—a pleasant change indeed from
the Old Left. On the contrary, its ideology was vague enough to
encompass even “right-wing libertarians.” In fact, there was a good
deal of instinctive libertarian sentiment in that early SDS which
was to intensify for the next several years. There was a new hunger
for individual freedom, for self-development, and a new concern
about bureaucracy and technocratic statism that boded well for
SDS’s future.

Thus, SDS was shaping up as instinctively quasi-libertarian
even on “domestic” issues. This libertarianism was reinforced by
the campus movement generated by the Berkeley Free Speech
Movement. For hadn’t conservatives and libertarians for decades
been bitterly critical of our state-ridden educational system—its
public schools, compulsory attendance laws, and giant, impersonal
bureaucratic training factories replacing genuine education?
Hadn’t we long been critical of the influence of John Dewey, the
emphasis on vocational training, the giant tie-ins of education
with government and the military-industrial complex? And here
was the New Left which, while admittedly inchoate and lacking a
constructive theory, was at least arising to zero in on many of the
educational evils that we had been denouncing unheeded for over
a generation.

...

The emergence of the New Left persuaded Leonard and me
that the time had come to act, to break out of our ideological and
political isolation. Hence we founded, in the spring of 1965, the
three-times-a-year journal Left and Right. The purpose of founding
L&R was twofold: to influence libertarians throughout the
country to break with the right wing and to ally themselves with
the emerging New Left and try to push that left further in a libertarian
direction; and second, to “find” the New Left ourselves as a
group to ally with and possibly influence.

...

The high point of SDS and New Left interest in the “left-right”
libertarian position came in the work of former SDS President
Carl Oglesby. In 1967, Oglesby published Containment and Change,
a critique of the Vietnam War and the American Empire. In his
concluding pages on strategy, Oglesby called for an alliance with
the Old Right. He called upon the libertarian, laissez-faire wing of
the Right to abandon the conservative movement which held the
libertarians in thrall by convincing them of the existence of a “foreign
threat.” Oglesby cited my article in Continuum, and quoted
from the Old Right view on war and peace of General MacArthur,
Buffett, Garrett, Chodorov, and Dean Russell. In particular,
Oglesby cited Garrett at length, stating that his “analysis of the
totalitarian impulse of imperialism” had been verified repeatedly
over the intervening years.

Oglesby concluded that libertarian right-wing thought, along
with the black power movement and the anti-imperialist student
movement, were all “rootedly American” and were
of the grain of American humanist individualism and voluntaristic
associational action; and it is only through them that
the libertarian tradition is activated and kept alive. In a strong
sense, the Old Right and the New Left are morally and politically
coordinate.

**************************

Also, not sure you are aware of this, but Rothbard considered today's Republicans to be far more of a threat to liberty that today's Democrats. He also held that the Cold War was a product of American aggression against the Soviets, rather than the other way around. As he puts it (emphasis mine):

we began to rethink the origins of the Cold
War that we had opposed for so long; ...and we concluded that
our older isolationism had suffered from a fatal weakness: the
implicit acceptance of the basic Cold War premise that there was a
Russian “threat,” that Stalin had been partly responsible for the
Cold War by engaging in aggressive expansion in Europe and Asia,
and that Roosevelt had engaged in an evil “sellout” at Yalta. We
concluded that all this was a tissue of myth; that on the contrary
Russia had not expanded aggressively at all, its only “expansion”
having been the inevitable and desirable result of rolling back the
German invasion. That, indeed, the United States (with the aid of
Britain) was solely responsible for the Cold War, in a continuing
harassment and aggression against a Soviet Union whose foreign
policy had been almost pathetic in its yearning for peace with the
West at virtually any price. We began to realize that, even in Eastern
Europe, Stalin had not imposed Communist regimes until the
United States had been pressing it there and had launched the
Cold War for several years. We also began to see that, far from
Roosevelt “selling out” to Stalin at Yalta and the other wartime
conferences,9 that the “sellout” was the other way around: as
Stalin, in the vain hope of seeking peace with an implacably
aggressive and imperialistic United States, repeatedly sold out the
world Communist movement: scuttling the Communists of
Greece in a sellout deal with Churchill; preventing the Communist
partisans of Italy and France from taking power at the end of
the war; and trying his mightiest to scuttle the Communist movements
of Yugoslavia and China. In the latter cases, Stalin tried to
force Tito and Mao into coalition regimes under their enemies;
and it was only the fact that they had come to power by their own
arms and not in the wake of the Soviet Army that permitted them
to take over by telling Stalin to go to hell.

In short, we had come to the conclusion that the most astute
analysis of the events of World War II and of the Communist
movement was that of the Trotskyites; far from expanding vigorously
in Europe and Asia, Stalin, devoted only to the national security
of the Soviet Union, had tried his best to scuttle the world
Communist movements in a vain attempt to appease the American
aggressor. That Stalin had wanted only national security and the
absence of anti-Soviet regimes on his borders was shown by the
contrasting developments in Poland and Finland; in Poland,
aggressive anti-Sovietism had forced Stalin to take full control; in
Finland, in contrast, there had emerged the great statesman
Paasikivi, who pushed a policy of conservative agrarianism at home
and peace and friendship with the Soviet Union in foreign affairs;
at which point Stalin was perfectly content to leave Finland at
peace and to withdraw the Soviet army.

In contrast to the uniformly peaceful and victimized policies of
the Soviet Union, we saw the United States using World War II to
replace and go beyond Great Britain as the world’s great imperial
power; stationing its troops everywhere, presuming to control and
dominate nations and governments throughout the world. For
years, the U.S. tried also to roll back Soviet power in Eastern
Europe; and its foreign policy was particularly devoted to suppressing
revolutionary and pro-Communist movements in every country
in the underdeveloped world. We saw too that the Soviet Union
had always pushed for disarmament, and that it was the U.S. that
resisted it, particularly in the menacing mass-slaughter weapons of
the nuclear age. There was no Russian “threat”; the threat to the
peace of the world, in Europe, in Asia, and throughout the globe
was the United States Leviathan. For years, conservatives and libertarians
had argued about the “external” (Russian) and the “internal”
(Washington) threats to individual liberty, with libertarians
and isolationists focusing on the latter and conservatives on the
former. But now we—Leonard and I—were truly liberated; the
scales had fallen from our eyes; and we saw that the “external
threat,” too, emanated from Washington, D.C.

******************************************

In other words, there is nothing wrong per se with a 'radical left' organization. Now, the fact that many radical left organizations reject property rights is a problem - but not all do or did. The devil, it is said correctly, is always in the details. But as a general rule, you would be better off allying with radical left, than radical right, organizations. You will find Marxists less of a threat than Throne and Altar conservatives, in the end.

This is of course exactly the opposite of what most Americans have been conditioned to believe. There is a reason for that.

ozzy43:

wombatron:

I just think that the mutualists and individualist anarchists have several insights that are usually missed by libertarians.

Can you either be more specific (maybe start another thread) or provide links?

Sure.  The main things are:

How the state changes the fundamental structure of the economy, including subsidising transportation, IP laws, and giving the upper hand to capital owners against labor, to the advantage of large, capital-intensive, vertically-integrated corporations.

How the "lasseiz-faire" period was really statism and corporatism is disguise.

How welfare and similar programs are secondary instances of statism, rather than primary.

Links:

Instead of a Book, by Benjamin Tucker

Studies in Mutualist Political Economy and Studies in the Anarchist Theory of Organizational Behavior by Kevin Carson (as well as other articles and essays on Mutualist.org)

We could start a new thread, if there is any interest.

 

Ok, but the 1960's SDS is not today's SDS.  What is being advertised, is today's SDS, which is decidely socialist IMO.  It's like when Carsonoid the Mutualist links to the IWW on his blog.  Chomsky is in the IWW.  It's a marxist organization IMO.  Why are libertarians getting tied up with socialists over fascists?  Sounds a lot like a false choice to me.  I'd rather be shoulder to shoulder with a corporatist than a socialist.  A lot of right wingers are coming to libertarianism, while the libertarians continue to romance a left that could take or leave them.

liberty student:

Ok, but the 1960's SDS is not today's SDS.  What is being advertised, is today's SDS, which is decidely socialist IMO.  It's like when Carsonoid the Mutualist links to the IWW on his blog.  Chomsky is in the IWW.  It's a marxist organization IMO.  Why are libertarians getting tied up with socialists over fascists?  Sounds a lot like a false choice to me.  I'd rather be shoulder to shoulder with a corporatist than a socialist.  A lot of right wingers are coming to libertarianism, while the libertarians continue to romance a left that could take or leave them.

Well, I think you are throwing around terms which are far more complex than the meaning they seem to have in your context. For example, why do you fail to make a distinction between State socialism and Stateless socialism?

Let's take SDS: are they 'decidedly socialist'? What do you mean by that and what makes you say that? Are they calling for the US government to take over the 'commanding heights' of the economy? Are they calling for nationalization of major industries? If so, I would certainly oppose that.

I just checked - briefly - the Wiki page and found almost every single one of their public activities have been anti-Iraq War events - I don't see anything about nationalizing industries or about outlawing private property, which are the calling cards of socialism. They're doing all sorts of highly commendable actions to protest this monstrosity - including getting arrested. I think that's terrific. Wombatron has said, in regard to the new SDS: "It is explicitly anarchist and anti-authority, and leaders of the SDS have openly asked for support from libertarians and anti-state rightists."

That sounds reasonable to me. In fact, this sounds precisely like what Rothbard was hoping for.

As for Chomsky, yeah, he's a syndicalist, and I don't think that is a workable ideology when it comes to implementation (though to be honest, I have not given this the level of attention and thought it deserves - he is a pretty bright guy), but the guy is brilliant in his critique of the State and he is staunch in his opposition to State violence and coercion. So there are pieces of Chomsky that fit perfectly with what ancaps think - he is a hardcore anti-Statist, at least. In other words, while he is a socialist, he is an ANTI-STATE socialist. Massive difference between that and a Marxist if by Marxist we mean State socialist, IMO.

When you make this assertion: " I'd rather be shoulder to shoulder with a corporatist than a socialist" - you are rejecting Rothbardian libertarianism - are you aware of this?

When you say "A lot of right wingers are coming to libertarianism" do you perceive this as an unalloyed good?? This has happened before, and it's what gave us Cato, and Reason, and all those other bogus "libertarian" organs which are actually quasi-Statists, and in fact which represent Republicanism-lite, and reject absolutely the fundamental notion of anarchy, which, from my standpoint, is that the State is the absolute enemy of liberty. Minarchists and anarchists are different in a fundamental respect - they accept and desire the State, I reject it utterly and unalterably.

So I think we just disagree here, which is fine, of course - I am in agreement with Rothbard that corporatism is vastly more to be feared by anarchists than socialism. Because the former has proven itself a stable and extremely oppressive Statist system which can last for centuries, while State socialism has always been an unstable Statist system which cannot last more than a few decades. So of the two, why would you pick the former over the latter? And whyever would you pick corporatism (Statism) over Stateless socialism (anti-Statism)? Isn't the State the main thing? Our Enemy, the State??

In fact, let me suggest what I think is a more reasonable and reality-based criteria upon which to judge organizations and people: are they for a State in any form, or are they against the very concept? If the latter, we can work with them. If the former, we can't. That means we have a lot more in common with Noam Chomsky than we do with "libertarian leaning" Republicans, at least at this stage of the game. That's the way it looks to me anyway.

BTW, for what it's worth, I used to see things very much as you do: socialism was THE ENEMY, and I thought the Republicans were much to be preferred over the Democrats (aka G*DDAMN SOCIALISTS) - but I read, and I thought, and I exposed myself to more Rothbard and to dozens and dozens of other thinkers, some of whom made good sense, and others who were full of horsesh*t, and I got to where I am now, and I am not standing still, but I do know that my old, simplistic view was not aligned with reality, and so it had to change. It may be that yours will also.

Geoffrey Allan Plauche:

liberty student:

Geoffrey Allan Plauche:

"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.

Geoff, you can do better than argue semantically (I hope).  This isn't grad school, the biggest nerd doesn't win.  I'd really like to see the discussion stay on a practical track, where we deal with what are real challenges to Agorism.

You've got to be kidding me. That's not a merely semantic distinction. There's an important difference there. Really, I shouldn't have to point this out. Max made an uninformed and false claim. I pointed out his error. He can't keep his formulations of the agorist position straight, and one was right while the other was wrong. And the formulation that was right isn't vulnerable to his objection.

liberty student:

And if Max is being a boor (I didn't read all of your posts), then I hope he stops and we get back on track.

Well, shoot, I wish you would. It might help you to maintain some objectivity here.

 

What the agorists have consistently said is that agorist counter-economic activity is different from regular counter-economic activity and that this difference is the only way the state can be undermined. There is nothing contradictory about using those words in the same sentence.

What agorists can not answer is why the activity has a different impact and how this can be measurably shown or shown in any real world example that agorists do things that counter-economic actors will not do. So if a difference can not be demonstrated between agorist activity and counter-economic activity then we only need to consider the effects of current counter-economic activity with regard to eliminating the state. We have real examples of counter-economic activity and real examples of its effect on the state. What we do know is that all counter-economic activity weakens the state and that when states do collapse they are replaced by other states. Here is the only point that agorists have that makes any sense. That there needs to be an alternative to the institutions of the state so that people have an option to move towards a free society.

So agorists focusing on growing the counter-economy for the purpose of undermining the state is a waste of time because the project is simply far too enormous to be taken seriously as a strategy to undermine the state. For example in the US agorists would have to create from scratch several trillion dollars worth of economic activity to begin to have any sort of impact. For more personal freedom and to make some money then counter-economic activity is fine.

What is left is creating institutions that can facilitate counter-economic activity. The difficulty lies in that without a counter-economic market large enough to support the institution it will not be viable. This is where market selection matters. Agorists should be focusing on where counter-economic activity is the strongest and therefore the state is the weakest. This doesn't describe America very well. It does describe the developing world. So strategically the best places for agorists to operate are areas where the state is already significantly undermined by widespread counter-economic activity. Many developing nations are in fact completely propped up by outside aid as there is no economic market that the state has control of.

So agorists are completely misguided in trying to grow the counter-economy and are unwilling to leave Fort Living Room and the creature comforts they have grown accustomed too in order to pursue the one part of agorism that may have some impact in the optimal locations.

Since you love to bring up the Liberty Colony, I will point out the obvious, that the Liberty Colony is in fact pursuing what is the optimal strategy for agorists if they were serious about what they believed in.