Agorism

The agorism refers to the political philosophy established by Samuel Edward Konkin III, author of the Manifeste néo-libertarien . This philosophy is connected with the Anarchist-capitalism, or anarchy of open market, and comes from the Greek agora who means gone open. The agorists are those which cease believing in the legitimacy of the Gouvernement and take part in the Against-economy (black-market and grey market, the term is comparable with that of Contre-culture) in a peaceful way to escape from control and taxation from the state.

The agorism is a crossing between Anarchist-capitalism, individualistic Anarchisme and Mutualisme, which does not recognize the Intellectual property, but recognizes the Private property, individual like collective. Many agorists are regarded as successors of the ideas of Murray Rothbard, the father of anarchist-capitalism jusnaturalist.

Agorism and property

With the difference of the majority of the anarchist-capitalists, the agorists do not seek to replace any public property by the private property, in the condition that this one is not under the control of a state: the collective ownership is permissible for the agorism, even if this political philosophy extends the field of the private property.

For the agorists, the intervention and the actions of the government in favor of the corporations corrupt these last and are the exclusive cause of the abuses those in incentive the managers of these companies to be acted in an irresponsible way. For example the laws on the responsibility limited for the shareholders or the treatment of compulsory liquidations are regarded as illegitimate: the agorists deny that a law can make disappear a liability in the middle of a collective irresponsibility.

Agorism and contractual right

The agorism establishes the limits of the application of the contractual clauses while developing the position further from Murray Rothbard, austrian economist and anarchist-capitalist. According to this last, only the exchanges of titles of property can constitute valid clauses of a contract, and the violation of any other type of clause cannot involve legitimate continuation.

For the agorists, this reasoning must be thorough beyond the application of the clauses: an agreement or contract is seen like an acceptance of mutual violation of the property rights of each part by the other. As long as the short contract, each part can continue to make it possible the other to violate its rights in exchange of the possibility of violating to them his in the measurement envisaged by the contract, not because this contract transfers from the rights of use of property, but well because this contract represents the assent of that which signed it. As from the moment when the contract does not reflect any more this assent, the contract is not valid any more and the other part can claim only it continues to be applied: the only valid complaints are those intended to compensate for the violation of its own rights within the framework of the contract, and not to continue to violate the rights of the other part in the name of an assent which does not exist any more.

Political action

The agorists preach the economic Sécession and refuse the vote, considered as a method of illegitimate and defective decision making, which cannot allow the advent of an free society. They avoid any implication in the existing political systems: Konkin was thus opposed to the creation of the Parti Libertarien with the the United States. They take part in the parallel markets (Black-market or Grey market) to escape the monitoring from the state and with the taxes, invest in tax shelters and seek to create furtive companies, without official legal existence but respecting the individual rights. They also take an active part in the networks of illicit copy of intellectual works.

The majority of the agorists are unaware of as such, and take part in the Against-economy by personal interest and not by ideology. The agorists encourage this participation consciously so as to develop a company of only consensual interactions, in order to weaken the authority and the appearance of legitimacy of the state until the organizations of justice and defense of the agorists can leave clandestinity and treat the government action as any criminal activity (the taxation is treated like a flight, the war like murders of mass, etc)

Agorism and capitalism

The majority of the agorists, like the anarchist-capitalists, refer to the open market under the term capitalism . However the agorists make also a distinction between three kinds of capitalists:

According to Samuel Konkin, the error of the other anarchist-capitalists is to confuse the first two categories, and that of the anarchists collectivists to confuse them all.

In the literature

The agorism underlies the novel of Science-fiction " Alongside Night" of J. Neil Schulman.

See too

Sources

New Libertarian Manifesto
the Néo-Libertarien Proclamation (translation)
Alongside Night ISBN 1-58445-120-3

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