Agorism

[Syock]

I did some looking around on the net for agorism information today, and it seems to be rather sparse.  

I have noticed there seems to be a split within agorism.  There are the people coming from the libertarian side, such as the founder of the movement, and there are those coming from what seems to be ancom.  Interestingly the only place I found some information was from the ancom side.  I find the entire thing odd as it seems the founder was anti-ancom.  

The original concept was to replace all economic activity with the agorist equivalent.  The ancom version seems to only want to replace things that are black market mafia types of activity.  Does anyone know why this is?  Are ancoms just using the term to fit their own goals, rather than understanding the concepts and economic theory that led to the development of agorism?  Is there anything we can do to support the integrity of the original concept?  Did I just miss finding the huge wealth of information on the subject?  

[MAM]

I did some looking around on the net for agorism information today, and it seems to be rather sparse.  

I have noticed there seems to be a split within agorism.  There are the people coming from the libertarian side, such as the founder of the movement, and there are those coming from what seems to be ancom.  Interestingly the only place I found some information was from the ancom side.  I find the entire thing odd as it seems the founder was anti-ancom.  

The original concept was to replace all economic activity with the agorist equivalent.  The ancom version seems to only want to replace things that are black market mafia types of activity.  Does anyone know why this is?  Are ancoms just using the term to fit their own goals, rather than understanding the concepts and economic theory that led to the development of agorism?  Is there anything we can do to support the integrity of the original concept?  Did I just miss finding the huge wealth of information on the subject?  

Ancom misusing terms to fit with their goals seems consistent with their form.

[BobRobertson]

Not sure about a "wealth of information".

Just do what you are going to do without coercion and without bothering with getting permission first, and it's Agorism.

"Agora" being simply the open market.

Many people do have Agoraphobia, the fear of acting without tacit or explicit permission from the state.

 

[Syock]

This is one of those things I was doing before knowing it had a name.   My point is there only seems to be the two original writings, and a bunch of ancom stuff. 

[JustSayNoToStatism]

This is one of those things I was doing before knowing it had a name.   My point is there only seems to be the two original writings, and a bunch of ancom stuff. 

There is not much information. Ancap is still somewhat small. Agorism is just a small subset of that. Most market anarchists believe that black markets have a role to play, but not very many think that it's the primary way to bring down the state. Very few of the figureheads in the liberty movement identify explicitly as agorists.

[MAM]

This is one of those things I was doing before knowing it had a name.   My point is there only seems to be the two original writings, and a bunch of ancom stuff. 

Me too only recently did I learn it had a name...

[Aegidius]

Most market anarchists believe that black markets have a role to play, but not very many think that it's the primary way to bring down the state.

The most beautiful thing about agorism is that it doesn't need to bring down the state in order to get results.  You try, as much as you can, to live freely in spite of the state.  The more people practice agorism, the more varied and specialized the activity in the countereconomy is, the more completely it will be possible to opt out of the state.  Agorism is practicable paralell to statism.  "Alongside night", if you will.

Of course, without the state things would be a lot easier.  It'll be very hard to get more advanced activities going in the countereconomy while the need for secrecy lasts.  I'm mostly thinking of complex, specialized manufactured goods.  I'd love to see agorist-made microprocessors, but I'm not holding my breath.

[AgoristTeen1994]

Have to agree with you there Aegidius. However I really think the role that Agorism has to play, at least in the U.S. is that once the gov't collapses (Which WILL happen since so long as things continue as they are,  it's an inevitability according to simple math.) people will be desparate. That will be the "bad" anarchy most people believe is an intrinsic property of anarchy. The role agorism has to play in that scenario is 1. Convincing people to NOT create another gov't. 2. Create alternative, non-coercive institutions that provide the services the gov't provides that people actually demand. 3. Demonstrate that gov't is not necessary.

[Amagi]

If you are able to make more money in the system and use that money to help organizations like Mises, FEE, Seasteading, or your own organization then I would recommend doing it that way.

I do have some friends who participate in agorism, but remember it is illegal (tax evasion, in some cases not having the proper licenses, and selling/buying illegal products) and if you end up in jail for 10-50 years you won't be much use in the liberty movement.