Lakota Sioux Secede!
Via Manuel Lora, news that the Lakota have seceded from the United States.
I wish them well.
Counter-economics as revolutionary praxis and the rise of the Russian Business Network (RBN)
One doesn’t have to gloss over the ethical problems (from a libertarian point of view) with any particular illegal enterprise in order to analyze the prefigurative indicators of insurrectionary potential inherent in counter-economic activity. John Robb makes an excellent such analysis in his recent post on the Russian Business Network (RBN). Also pay attention to the second and third sections of this older post.
The challenge for advocates of agorism in this environment boils down to boosting their public advocacy of the non-aggression principle to such a point that adherence to it begins to “pay” in a sense of significantly reduced defense costs for those illegal enterprises which do adhere to it. The result would be a coherent “lasing” from red market activity to black market activity.
Iowa Caucuses
From the Caucus of the Future web site:
Caucus of the Future - January 2-3, 2008
**UPDATE** 12.02.07
The Caucus of the Future will be held at the Drake Legal Clinic at 24th & University in Des Moines, Iowa [2400 University, Ave.].
In the next week we will have another update, including scheduled workshops/discussions and presentations, plus some other goodies. There’s still time to participate! If you’d like to teach a workshop, lead a discussion, play music or help out in other ways get in touch by filling out this form!
Also, check out the Downloads section for our new poster to spread wide and far.
WHAT IT IS
The Caucus of the Future will take place January 2nd & 3rd, 2008 in Des Moines, Iowa, running concurrently with the Iowa Caucuses. Our goal is to dream up and practice the many ways we can take power out of the hands of those who claim to represent our interests, be they elected or unelected, and redistribute it to everyone through a network of free communities and neighborhoods. Through workshops, discussions and performances, the Caucus of the Future will provide a forum for exchanging alternative ideas that are based on mutual aid and cooperation. Patrons of the Caucus will share skills and resources with each other, demonstrating the many ways we can make a difference in our own lives, with or without casting a vote. We do not do this to gain control over others, but to attain control together—over how we provide each other with shelter, education, art, and information, over how we resolve conflicts, over how we share resources and ideas, over how we determine our own lives.It should be noted that we do not wish to dissuade folks from participating in the Iowa Caucuses–rather, we want to present a more direct approach to solving problems. The Caucus of the Future will have something for everyone, so be sure to participate! Oh, and it will also be a ridiculous amount of fun!!
WHAT TO EXPECT
We will be providing participants of the event with a Caucus of the Future Guide that will list all of the speakers, workshops and performaces and the times they will be held. In addition, we will have that information on this site as things come into fruition.Some workshops and discussions you can expect to see might include: Alternative Energy/Fuel, Sustainable Agriculture/Permaculture, Alternative Media, Direct Action, Self-Defense, Folk History, Bicycle Repair, Community Gardening, Consent, Gift Economics, Urban Exploration, Community Organizing, Alternative Education, and much more.
The Caucus of the Future will provide a festive atmosphere with free organic vegetarian food and beverages, and performances by musicians and artists.
HOW TO PARTICIPATE
If you wish to participate in the Caucus of the Future [give a workshop, leading a discussion, performance, etc], head on over to the Get Involved section and fill out the form. It’s important that we have a diverse mix of workshops, skillshares and speakers so we can keep this an all inclusive event; which is to say, please participate if you can!————————————————————————————————————————————
Democracy—Three wolves and six goats are discussing what to have for dinner. One courageous goat makes an impassioned case: “We should put it to a vote!†The other goats fear for his life, but surprisingly, the wolves acquiesce. But when everyone is preparing to vote, the wolves take three of the goats aside. “Vote with us to make the other three goats dinner,†they threaten. “Otherwise, vote or no vote, we’ll eat you.â€
The other three goats are shocked by the outcome of the election: a majority, including their comrades, has voted for them to be killed and eaten. They protest in outrage and terror, but the goat who first suggested the vote rebukes them: “Be thankful you live in a democracy! At least we got to have a say in this!â€
Extraction of THC-rich oil from marijuana
The following video is said to be a demonstration of a procedure for extraction of THC-rich oil from marijuana. Please note that the apparent use of volatile solvents indicates the procedure can only be safely carried out in a well-ventilated area, presumably in a friendly jurisdiction (whatever that might be).
Anti-capitalism for anarcho-capitalists, free markets for leftists
Kevin Carson’s seminal “The Iron Fist Behind the Invisible Hand: Corporate Capitalism As a State-Guaranteed System of Privilege” is notable because the understanding of “capitalism” it puts forward indicates market anarchism (including what we typically call “anarcho-capitalism”) is “anti-capitalist” in the positive sense that avowed libertarian socialists use the term — opposition to statist plutocracy. You don’t have to sign on to Carson’s espousal of usufruct and the labor theory of value in order to get that point and use it effectively in your advocacy of market anarchism.
Now, thanks to William Gillis, Carson’s Iron Fist is available for download as an aesthetically-pleasing PDF layed out specifically for printing and folding into booklets to distribute. Special thanks for William’s work can be sent as Paypal donations to The Jack Pine, a radical community center.
Distinguishing between anarcho-capitalism and agorism
While agorism grew out of “anarcho-capitalism” and retains much from it, their respective theories of progress toward the goal of a stateless society are entirely different. The anarcho-capitalist is a reformist, or at best a gradualist. The agorist is a revolutionary.
The reformist anarcho-capitalist still identifies with the state, even while condemning it rhetorically. Starting from the ethical axiom of the libertarian non-aggression principle, the anarcho-capitalist (lacking a theory of revolution) can only derive from it a political program of attempting to shape state policy toward “less government”, a revamped version of classical liberalism. The anarcho-capitalist is thus a de facto liberal in practice.
The revolutionary agorist instead applies the non-aggression principle (and other aspects of libertarian theory) to their own perspective as an individual to derive an understanding of anarchist revolution as a process of bootstrapping market systems of law and defense which will emerge from below and outside the state. I’ve summarized that process before as follows:
Agorism is revolutionary market anarchism.
In a market anarchist society, the positive functions of law and security will be provided by market institutions, not political institutions. Agorists recognize, therefore, that those institutions can not develop through political reform. Instead, they will come about as a result of market processes.
As government is banditry, revolution culminates in the suppression of government by market providers of security and law. Market demand for such service providers is what will lead to their emergence. Development of that demand will come from economic growth in the sector of the economy that explicitly shuns state involvement (and therefore can not turn to the state in its role as monopoly provider of security and law). That sector of the economy is the counter-economy – black and grey markets.
In essence, the agorist seeks to spread the understanding of counter-economics as productive and ethical disobedience accomplished by first “killing the cop in your head” — an understanding which has philosophical roots going back to la Boetie, at least — in order to make society ungovernable.
This understanding can only be spread one individual at a time. It can not be imposed from above as an approach to state policy. Thus, the agorist and the anarcho-capitalist apply the libertarian non-aggression principle at metaphorical right angles to each other — the revolutionary agorist horizontally and the reformist anarcho-capitalist vertically.
To the anarcho-capitalist who lacks a theory of revolution and still (deep in the back of his mind) identifies with the state, the agorist is supposedly not serious about politics.
On the contrary, the agorist replies. We’re the only ones serious enough about politics to take demonstrably the shortest road to abolishing it.
ADDENDUM: The reformist anarcho-capitalist who sneers out of ignorance and arrogance that agorists are “not serious about politics” is, of course, only recycling the same insults he has suffered from the corporatist “Beltway libertarians” in his own relative radicalism in comparison to them.
Quotable: Anselme Bellegarrigue
Anselme Bellegarrigue (Born between 1820 and 1825) was an anarchist who took part in the 1848 French Revolution, and who founded the newspaper, L’Anarchie.
“Indeed:
Who says anarchy, says negation of government;
Who says negation of government, says affirmation of the people;
Who says affirmation of the people, says individual liberty;
Who says individual liberty, says sovereignty of each;
Who says sovereignty of each, says equality;
Who says equality, says solidarity or fraternity;
Who says fraternity, says social order;
By contrast:
Who says government, says negation of the people;
Who says negation of the people, says affirmation of political authority;
Who says affirmation of political authority, says individual dependency;
Who says individual dependency, says class supremacy;
Who says class supremacy, says inequality;
Who says inequality, says antagonism;
Who says antagonism, says civil war;
From which it follows that who says government, says civil war.” — Anarchist Manifesto, (1850), Trans. Paul Sharkey, Kate Sharpley Press, Berkeley CA, 2002
