Why Agorism Works

Agorism is the philosophy of achieving freedom through nonviolent counter-economics—trading in black and grey markets to starve the state while building parallel systems. It's been practiced as long as humanity has sought liberty, but rarely with the strategic intention and network infrastructure we're building today.

This page explains why agorism is the most effective path to dismantling the state and cultivating genuine societal freedom. Not through violence, not through politics, but through economic action that makes the state irrelevant.

To us, agorism is where all actions lead toward bringing down the state (the biggest current threat to freedom) by delegitimizing its involuntary strategies through counter-economics. This can happen as quickly as we make it happen. The scope of what is possible in the next 1-10 years is what has been lacking in most of the freedom spaces we have seen.

Agorism as we see it is a strategy one can employ in order to fight, reduce, or obsolete the state through counter-economics. To align ideologically with agorism does not make one an agorist. Agorism acknowledges that there is an economic war between free markets and State-controlled and extorted markets. By your lifestyle, actions, career, and economic choices, you choose which side of that war you stand on.

Animal rights aside, it is more ethical to consume agorist beef than it is to consume organic vegan produce that you bought at a grocery store if you look at all the taxes that were extorted through the life of the product. The only murder you are funding was of one cow who you could verify was treated well vs. the exploitation of everyone (including murder and death of innocents) when you buy groceries. The focus that will bring us together and sustain us is around how you choose the outer network you are supporting.

Most important for all members of the network is the understanding of how things are when there are no government restrictions, only private people handling their own business. They have to understand that the problem is not with one thing or another, it's not with the language but with the story itself.

Why don't we write plans in which we are the number one hero of our own life, pursuing our wildest fantasies? It's not our fault - we are tricked. We are told we will be persecuted by the government if we pursue means that give us the freedom to flourish and grow resilient networks. Instead, each person is living in an isolated node of a largely directionless network of people, unable to offer even their own eyes as backup to a network they actually would benefit from supporting. We have to create a new option. The option where people choose for themselves.

If you could choose how many sources you wanted when it came to organic produce, it might be easy to imagine paring it down to a handful of local farms for your groceries - but if it came down to choosing a police force that would either protect you in a time of need or potentially take you to a cage for any number of reasons whenever they encounter you, having another option can be a matter of life or death.

Why don't we have more choices when it comes to the protection agencies we fund and are subject to in our own spaces? That is a whole other discussion but the answer to meeting the needs of society is a free market where consumers are allowed to choose the services they want to subscribe to and the agencies they want to be involved in. That market is something each of us have the fortune of securing in this time and for generations to come.

We are creating abundance loops.

An abundance loop is when you find a way to both thrive and have some excess prosperity. We are funneling this towards people who also can create abundance loops. The proliferation of abundance loops will spiral outwards from our own excess.

As travelers, we are able to sell people's goods just by being where we were going to be already. Our gas money is already accounted for before we will even pick up and travel at all. You do not have to constantly burn gas to be a nomad - but when the network has a supply for the huge demand we currently face for agorist goods - it becomes very lucrative to travel. The opportunity to travel becomes too expensive to pass up.

This is because within the reality we exist within, being a traveler is a boon as long as there are suppliers of products because there is always a market for agorist products. That is why it becomes important for us to crowdfund farms and producers of agorist goods.

We have a loop that says: We can do this. There is a need that they will fill. We have the extra piece that needed filling. We will work to fill in the missing piece instead of letting it thwart us.

Which people will understand and continue the feedback loop?

Supply and demand means that in a free market, producers will produce goods that they can sell and make a profit off of. But if there aren't enough customers for a product and not enough publicity, the producer will have no reason to try and create a market there. Just as someone would desire for a carbon tax upon behaviors that could damage the environment, we are advocating a government footprint statistic to be observed.

There is much more wealth to be shared among our net worth than is currently being distributed within it. If the demand is no longer there for local goods in an area, that should not restrict someone from growing a crop or offering something. The caravan and individual people will fill in the network just as semi trucks do today for larger companies.

Our aim is in allowing humans to make the decisions they would naturally make if they were presented with the option to. For example, people will choose the cheaper option that is higher quality and healthier.

In win-win interactions, there will always be two people who benefit. The other party in your interaction may be an ally or an enemy. This simple truth is one most neglected in their day-to-day transactions. In times both past and present, families would maintain economic dominance by passing on their wealth to the first-born son or daughter. While we neither support nor oppose such practices, we recognize the value of keeping your wealth within your agorist network rather than watching it bleed back into the system. You can expand this to "resource sharing" as well, choosing to specialize with or differentiate your offerings from others on your team.

If your time and effort are put into acquiring products you know are of high value, you should try to pass that value on to trusted members of your network who will recognize and likely utilize your product (such as a quality truck you acquired) toward your common goal of abolishing slavery by ending the State by taking your agorism seriously and directing your wealth in a way that empowers yourself and the allies who are fighting the same fight you are.

When you give your time and resources to another in a voluntary exchange, give to those who seek to concentrate their wealth into their network/family/community that focuses on manifesting anarchy beyond themselves. Is the person you're selling your goods/services to an anarchist who is actively seeking to manifest anarchy for others? Or are you giving your fruits away to be funneled/fed back into the statist paradigm/system? Vote with your wealth. Let your wealth work for you toward what you're here to accomplish: the abolishment of slavery and freedom of humanity.

If you're going to take time and focus from other anarchists, do so in a way that focuses on manifesting anarchy for others. If you're going to seek help with things on your property that won't or don't manifest anarchy beyond yourself, then look for statists to fulfill those tasks since they'll at least be wasting their time in a way that benefits you while dodging government extortion fees ("taxes"). This then frees (or at least doesn't tie up) the time and focus of anarchists to manifest more freedom and grow the wealth and infrastructure of the network. Of course, that is not to say that you shouldn't pay other anarchists to tend your own garden for example, just don't pretend like that's in some way making the world more free if it doesn't do anything to actually free anybody.

Family can be a very important support system for a person. In today's western world, however, children are encouraged to stop sharing resources and leave the family. You don't see multi-generational homesteads anymore. There are many reasons for this, some justified. Even though the family unit has been split, we aim to recreate many of the strengths of the family unit in a healthy way.

It is better for your wealth to wind up in the hands of your allies within your network, than in the hands of your enemies. This simple truth most neglect in their day-to-day transactions. In times both past and present, families would maintain economic dominance by passing on their wealth to the first-born son or daughter. While we neither support nor oppose such practices, we recognize the value of keeping your wealth within your agorist network rather than watch it bleed back into the system. You can expand this to "resource sharing" as well, choosing to specialize with or differentiate your offerings from others on your team.

If your time and effort are put into acquiring products you know are of high value, you should try to pass that value on to trusted members of your network who will recognize and likely utilize your product (such as a quality truck you acquired) toward your common goal of abolishing slavery by ending the State by taking your agorism seriously and directing your wealth in a way that empowers yourself and the allies who are fighting the same fight you are.

Win-win

By choosing not to abide by the zero aggression principle or other related concepts, principles, or boundaries, a person effectively signs and hands over a contract stating that, by their performative actions, they consent to be treated as they treat others. After all, morality is universal.

It doesn't matter if people don't agree with each other. People need to know that when they act upon others, they are saying that they believe that is how people should act upon them.

We have a method to support and bolster the supply of goods and services by providing an ever-growing supply and demand for these resources. This is accomplished through intentional networking and establishing trade relationships and contracts with individuals who share our aim of bringing about the best of all possible worlds by making the world more free for others. We also aim to minimize if not eliminate altogether the number of fiscal transactions we engage in with unknown or unvetted individuals, especially those who haven't demonstrated a desire to be free from the taxes and regulations imposed on them by the State.

When we work within the private realm and don't spend our resources on government licenses and taxes, there are more resources concentrated within the Network of freedom-bringers. This brings the price for Network goods down, making them more accessible and allows them a competitive advantage over the Matrix market. Networks can provide these high-value goods and services to those still stuck in the Matrix, introducing them to the abundance of the Network without requiring them to understand the philosophy. This results in stronger, larger agorist networks and market opportunities.

Success looks like a network that can provide people with what they need to make their lives better in the absence of compulsory fees or restrictions getting between suppliers and customers. This results in alternate income streams, careers, training, and education. A multitude of options of superior value become available from this strategy when it comes to food, supplies, and services. Alternate healthcare, insurance, arbitration as well as alternate entertainment venues and community meeting spaces become available to more individuals as the network grows.

The confrontation: where does your business lead after you have taken care of your basic needs (not necessarily the business needs because a business can be a net negative if it is not formulated properly). Basically, did your business plan include an altruistic vision?

The second question: Where are you spending your money? Is it going towards a network that will help you or towards a system that will hurt you?

Businesses can be human-centric. You can make a product that helps people. But it needs to organize itself in a dynamic, fluid way. And it also needs a human. In itself, a business can have built into it a philosophy and methodology that makes sure it does not become a negative entity, but it needs humans to enforce that methodology and make sure it is reflective of the outside world.

It is important to define capitalism because the word has been used to divide us. But it is not irreparable that people now take Capitalism to mean the love of money - it is still important to describe the effects of greed with no accountability for the human or environmental cost. It is true that there is nothing worse than an action that hurts another person knowingly on behalf of personal profit.

Most who use the word capitalist to describe themselves would say that Capitalism is not greed, in fact, but something truly healing to society which we do not have the chance to observe today.

Free market capitalism would still allow for all current safety precautions for example the creation of a myriad of restrictions and certifications that products could voluntarily subject themselves to in order to achieve higher customer satisfaction.

When we let people handle things for themselves, they are able to choose the life they want to live.

They say that a better future starts with an internal change - that you start with yourself to make the world a better place. But I think that's a bit too small-minded. Let's all expand our ideas of what's possible.

This entire endeavor is focused on real solutions for pulling anarchists out of the cities and placing them in the situations they need, regardless of the resources or money they have amassed as of yet in the zombie system.

A society can be achieved that is utopian voluntarily in this way:

A free market exists. People are getting their needs met and we are experiencing the real return of our labor and technological advancements.

A society forms which is doing away with all forms of toiling that aren't done freely out of passion.

That society grows and more people see the good things about it. It develops as it grows and learns to accommodate larger amounts of people, breaking down into local groups that can choose their own ways.

That society voluntarily replaces the current form of society because it provides better than what came before.

This completes the Philosophy section of The Library. You now understand the core principlesâ€"voluntaryism, strategic intention, decision-making frameworks, and economic strategy.

Ready to see how these principles work in practice? Continue to Beyond State Solutions in the Real World Examples section, or return to The Library to explore other topics.