Agorism: A Modern Primer

Agorism: A System without legitimized force
We all are born with a thing called natural rights or The Philosophy of Liberty. As long as there have been humans there have been violence, but as societies grew most humans learned it’s wrong to hurt, steal, and harm another individual. There is still a great deal of violence in a modern world such as today even when a majority of people try to life in peace, The Superstition of Authority, or Government’s throughout human history have been the culprit for the majority of violence and wrong doing through using man’s weakness, and an indoctrination, The believe in a State is no different than a belief in a Religion or a Cult. It boils down to belief in humans need other humans to make sure humans behave, it’s an act of lunacy and as humans I believe we can go on from having masters and slaves as Lysander Spooner Puts it in his book ‘No Treason’: “A man is No Less a Slave because He gets to choose a new master in a term of years”. So for right now let’s imagine this superstition of “authority”, or the state did not exist, and humans lived peacefully without legitimizing violence and calling it something else. Violence will still occur and there never will be a utopia but legitimizing violence for a greater good has caused a great majority of wrongdoing in human history. Let’s for once imagine how a society would work with you keeping 100% of your money and no “government”. Using Agorism as the perfect solution to the current situation we face.
Throughout history humans have believed in many superstitions, religions and other deities. The Superstition of “authority” is one of those which “Government” is at its core. A superstition of Initiated Violence that is responsible for most of all of society’s countless acts of murder theft, and violence daily. Of course, most people will find such an assertion hard to swallow. Isn’t government an essential part of human society? Isn’t it the mechanism by which civilization is made possible, because it forces us imperfect humans to behave in an orderly, peaceful manner? Isn’t the enacting of common rules and laws what allows us to get along, to settle disputes in a civilized manner, and to trade and otherwise interact in a fair, nonviolent way? Haven’t we always heard that if not for the “rule of law” and a common respect for “authority,” we would be no better than a bunch of stupid, violent beasts, living in a state of perpetual conflict and chaos? Yes, we have been told that. And no, none of it is true. But trying to disentangle our minds from age-old lies, trying to distill the truth out of a jungle of deeply entrenched falsehoods, can be exceedingly difficult, not to mention uncomfortable. It Is Called Cognitive Dissonance and to see how a society could work without the superstition of authority or “The State” We can turn to Agorism, Voluntaryism, and technology advancements to evolve as a species of humans.
So if society lived without a system of imitated violence, many alternatives would start to pop up. The first part of the cognitive dissonance that gets asked is what about the roads? The same people that do it today without a man in the middle taking a part of your earnings would build the road’s without violence. Today there are many free market alternatives. Some are talking about using computer processing power and cryptocurrencies such as Electrum and Bitcoin transaction Fee’s as one way to offer these solutions. Businesses in the past have been known to build road’s maintain them and voluntarily let people use them as an avenue to create revenue. This and Voluntary contracts locally without a middleman deciding the service you choose would ultimately lead to the most efficient road’s, police, and more once a free market is allowed to operate.
At what point does theft occur when you do not keep 100% of your labor or money, or as natural law states, Time and Energy creates value which would be money, currency, barter, or something of value which would be your labor. So as soon as you do not have 100% of said earnings you are being stolen from, it being the IRS, a gang member, or an entity known as “the state” which is just humans who take from others. Before a gang can say it’s for the common good they do some things that are positive and a lot that are negative, collectivism or collectively putting humans in groups is a great way to accomplish this and has worked for many years. Before the US entered and used a superstition of “manifest destiny” cattle towns in the Frontier’s in the 1800s crime or violence was almost nonexistent or far and few. Privatized security and local communities banded together to have violent or harmful people ostracized from society.
Currently over 50% on average of your income goes to an entity known as “the State”. If said system was legalized and free market alternatives protected private property, humans created voluntary contracts I believe and logically deducing most poverty and issues with large scale murder(war) would be over which would result in no rich or poor but your total Time and Energy you use to create value without a system of violence and charity could help those in need when times do get tough.
Agorism is the radical Idea of counter economics to delegalize a system of violence to create a more localized and decentralized marketplace, it stands for Anarchy, Action, and Agora. Agora is a Greek word meaning marketplace. And combining civil disobedience, non-compliance and subscribing to axioms such as the Non-Aggression principle or the “NAP” as some call it which would create a more efficient marketplace once a system of violence and corruption does collapse like all do, such systems would lead to a nonviolent evolution of humans without harming another individual's natural rights or “philosophy of liberty”.
So using these means, we see advancements of p2p economies and small businesses popping up everywhere, Uber is a great example of agorism working in a great way small businesses basically or your own time and energy creating money without any of it going to anyone but you. So in turn you are more likely to have a higher amount of income which in turn would turn over and help those around you with the money that you earned by spending it and helping other businesses boom, and give to charities which would in turn help de legitimize initiated violence.
Viper’s Threat management is a private security force ran voluntarily out of Detroit is another great example of private individuals creating their own security forces to protect citizens in Detroit, Michigan where the police will sometimes not help you. You also see Bitcoin a p2p currency or known to the entity known as the “IRS” which can be exchanged for cash, gift cards, or anything online anonymously, and is user based instead of a central currency. This has given rise to different forms of currency or money using this p2p platform since it is open source and free to show to all to help develop. So Society help’s each other sufficiently through these means and other new business ventures popping up all the time and startup companies being in the news small businesses are the new rage and everyone is becoming an entrepreneur.
By seeing all these alternatives to the entity known as the “state” I truly believe we could live in a society where we kept 100% of what we earned and still have a functioning society. We would most likely a more efficient society and world by eliminating a middleman and using new approaches to solve many of the world's problems by using these means and ending the allowance of the initiation of violence dressed up as different names. Keeping 100% of your labor is the only moral and ethical thing to do in this author’s opinion and I believe it is obtainable in the current world we live in today, that is why instead of having a master we are all free as long as we harm no other individual and live by voluntary contracts. We must use these techniques to help legitimize a system ran on force to help create an evolution of the human species instead of the same thing over and over again.
Works Cited
Eddlem, Thomas R. "Before the Income Tax." Before the Income Tax. The New American, 18 Jan. 2013. Web. 26 Apr. 2016. http://www.thenewamerican.com/cultu....
Eyre, Pete. "Vipers Threat Management Voluntary Security." Vipers Threat Management. Vipers Threat Management, 15 Mar. 2014. Web. 26 Apr. 2016. http://threatmanagementcenter.com/vlntrsvc.htm.
Freeman, A. "My Philosophy of Liberty." Economics and Liberty. Wordpress, 22 Jan. 2011. Web. 20 Apr. 2016. https://economicsandliberty.wordpress.com/....
Kim, Larry. "23 Crazy Facts About Uber, the $51 Billion Startup Success."Inc.com. Inc, 17 Sept. 2015. Web. 20 Apr. 2016. http://www.inc.com/larry-kim/23-cra...
Konklin, Samuel L., and •. New Libertarian Manifesto (1983): n. pag. New Liberterian Manifesto. Praxeology. Web. 20 Apr. 2016. http://praxeology.net/NewLibertarianManifesto.pdf.
Jashti, Sreekar. "How Much Do Americans Really Pay in Taxes? - NerdWallet." NerdWallet. NerdWallet, 08 Apr. 2015. Web. 26 Apr. 2016. https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/taxes/how-much-do-americans-really-pay-taxes-2015/.
V. "Freedom Is Voluntary." : The House Is Beyond Repair. Blogspot, 15 Feb. 2013. Web. 20 Apr. 2016. http://foundliberty.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-house-is-beyond-repair.html.
.