Are You a Terrorist?
Are You A Secret Agorist?
Make no mistake about it, if you are not on your knees thanking the government for their lockdowns, praising them over mask mandates, and kissing Biden and Fauci asses as they implement vaccine passports, they want you dead or in jail.
Do you think I’m joking?
Have you seen this headline from CNN?
That’s right… They are accusing anyone who questions anything the government does, of being a terrorist.
But worse than that, they’re conditioning everyone around you to view the desire and search for freedom as terrorism.
Because accusations don’t stop at just your feelings about the government’s covid response but invade every aspect of liberty.
And you know you’re not a terrorist. But you could be an agorist and not even know it.
Just like the alphabet soup of sexual identity, tons of labels are floating around for people who prefer freedom and privacy to tyranny and nanny statism.
Some are based on political ideologies like Anarchist, Renegade, and Right-Wing Extremist.
Others are financial, like Anarcho-Capitalist, Crypto-Anarchist, Pirate. Since clearly if you want freedom, you’re a money-washing, tax-evading criminal. (Roll eyes)
And then there are more social descriptions like Libertarianism, Voluntaryism, and my favorite – Agorism.
What is Agorism
In the seventies, a political activist named Samuel Edward Konkin III came up with a voluntary, free-market society based on counter-economics, in which people can freely live their values without violence and coercion by others.
- He called it “agorism” after the Greek word agora, referring to an open place for assembly and market in a city-state.
- And he said that in pursuing the agora we can never violate the rights of others.
Think of the most central location in your town. Something like the main street, town square, or wherever public life is most vibrant.
In ancient Athens, this place would have been known as the agora. Traders came from far away to bring their wares to the agora, such as pottery, jewelry, food, etc. It was the hustle and bustle of the city, where meetings, debates, and trading took place.
This was the inspiration for Konkin’s agorism. He believed that, as a society, we should return to the free-flow free-trade society of the agora marketplace.
The main objective of agorism is to foster voluntary interactions in the marketplace governed by logic and self-ownership – to counter the excessive involvement of governments in shaping human interactions within the economy.
There are really 4 Ideologies of Agorists
- Counter-economics
The concepts of counter-economics aim to abolish the mainstream-fiat-controlled economy by encouraging the flourishing of the black market, free market, and the ‘underground economy.' Agorism counter-economics encourages civil and social disobedience economic aspects that governments seek to limit or control.
2. Voluntary association
In Agorism, voluntary association advocates for economic strategies outside the mainstream political system. By opposing the electoral political system, agorists believe that social and economic reforms can be achieved outside the political system.
3. Opposition to political parties
Konkin believed that when citizens encourage political engagements through political parties, it hinders the economy’s transition towards free markets.
4. Profitable civil disobedience
For Agorists, this is aimed at choking the state’s source of revenue and socio-economic roles and bestowing them to decentralized institutions. According to Konkin, this is the most feasible way of achieving free markets.
Modern Agorist Applications
In today’s society, several aspects of agorism have been adopted and are practiced in our daily lives.
For counter-economy practitioners, agorism is the perfect way to assert our freedom.
For example, we can Leverage Bitcoin To Achieve Agorism
I mean, long before cryptocurrencies came into the picture, agorists engaged each other in barter trade to bypass the fiat economy.
Cryptocurrencies revolutionized the agorist notion of decentralized civil obedience, enabling users to transact outside the mainstream fiat economy. The absence of government regulations ensures your personal freedom and at-will purchase of goods and services; which should be a dream for every freedom lover.
The main appeal of agorism to me is that it can seamlessly be practiced alongside daily life.
With cryptocurrencies, the decentralized nature and airtight privacy have helped the growth of voluntary peer-to-peer marketplaces. What’s more intriguing is the fact that even those who do not subscribe to the agorist way of life get to practice agorism. Often without even realizing it.
The explosion of new cryptocurrencies is a testament to the increased demand for privacy and a viable alternative to the current financial system. The rapid increase of decentralized finance into the mainstream economy has led to it being heralded as the most suitable replacement for the centralized economy.
However, since it is difficult to envision a society where political establishments are obsolete and the centralized financial system irrelevant, agorists must be content with the co-mingling of the two systems.
Benefits of Crypto-Agorism
Financial inclusion has been one of the most touted goals in the past decade. But with restrictions such as credit checks, it has become increasingly difficult for the poor to get financed. In the fiat financial ecosystem, it is safe to say that the rich get richer.
With decentralized finance-driven agorism, all one needs is a smartphone and internet connectivity. Thanks to decentralized finance, the evolution of issuance and investing platform and the growth of open lending protocols, makes it easier and quicker for anyone who can prove their identity to get funded.
Evidently, blockchain technology provides a more viable path toward real financial inclusion. The P2P platforms in decentralized finance would otherwise have been cumbersome and almost impossible to execute under the supervision of governments.
More agorist applications which circumvent the state you might not have realized exist already include:
Uber —the barely-taxed ride-hailing network which has completely destroyed State-sponsored and condoned transportation monopolies worldwide.
Airbnb — the lodging industry’s middle finger at the State gets in the way of the State raking in taxes of around $50 daily per room. Then there are also the other State income perks, such as property taxes, employee income taxes, etc.
Cell411 — or Cell211 in Europe, which is a decentralized, micro-social app that allows users to issue emergency alerts, in effect attacking what is perhaps perceived as the State’s greatest monopoly and “duty” — that of security and guardianship.
Conclusion
Perhaps the seventies and eighties were the last eras where people could freely think, speak, and share their thoughts. Hopefully, these weren’t the last generations who weren’t satisfied with the status quo of being told what to do, what to think and how to think.
If you support these applications and the thinking behind them, you should be proud to think that way, and regardless of what they tell you, you are not a terrorist. You are an agorist – even though perhaps you may never have even heard the word before.
Or, if you want to throw out labels as I do, you are a free-thinking individual who believes in voluntary trade while respecting others’ values without violence.
Let me know your thoughts in the comments below… Is there anything wrong with wanting free interactions between individuals? Do we need the state involved in every interaction between us?
And, remember, peaceful resistance is not futile.
