Agorism: Anti-electoralism, critical support and the art of the systempunkt

Those of us who are agorists run into a lot of criticism from political libertarians for our position against voting in state elections and participation in political parties. This criticism only reflects, though, the enormity of the job we have in front of us as revolutionaries — and hence the need for depth of commitment on our parts.

By recognizing that any statist, however “libertarian” they may be, is still a statist and the enemy of the complete free market, the stateless society we seek to whelp, we free ourselves to always take the side of the victims of statism (even against the supposed “lesser evil”).

There is much more, whole books, that could be written on this and related points. Perhaps the most essential for what I am about to talk about next, though, is the recognition of who you are and adopting a perspective of yourself as an individual. Libertarians tend to obsess about finding THE supposed best libertarian political strategy for all libertarians to supposedly follow (if we could just herd those cats). As a deeply committed anti-political revolutionary, you stand apart from that and, almost alone, correctly recognize your job as finding ways to profitably leverage society further and further out of anyone’s control.

Although I’ve said similar things before, I wanted to give a recap so I could write about rare partial exceptions.

Konkin recognized that the basic agorist methodology of always seeking a positive gain in value had exceptions: war, genocide and wholesale persecution.

Ideologically, there is nothing wrong with sabotaging the State or even shooting statists; either you believe the State is pure institutional aggression or you need to go back to elementary classes in basic libertarian theory. However, for agorists there is a strong economic element involved: is this economically sound?

Morally, all but our pacifist allies should have no problem with self-defense and hence sabotage of the State. The interesting questions arrive in the Strategic and Tactical levels. Strategically, we refer to agorism: all counter-economic activity is considered sabotage of the State’s economic order. So, again, we have no problem in a systematic sabotage of the State. But how and where? When should scarce resources be utilized for a negative, defensive purpose rather than our usual pursuit of moral profit having the positive side-effect of smashing the State?

And so we come to the Tactical level, the elegance of Counter-Economics answers our question simply: almost never. There are two categories where sabotage may be engaged in, divided praxeologically, into production and consumption. Consumption means that a particular counter-economist finds sabotaging the State to be his or her whim-worshipping pleasure. Most of MLL, most of the time, cannot waste resources on such pleasures.

On the other hand, on a production level, one commits a destructive act in order to clear the way for an even more constructive act. What object of the State could distract us to put our “dynamite” in its vile dam blocking the road to freedom? The answer is War. Not only is sabotaging the war machine satisfying, but downright urgent. Lives are at stake, either draftees from home or victims of imperialism abroad.

(Tactics of the MLL, Vol. IV, No. 3, December 1987)

The manifest horror of war and similar or related events are such that agorists can and do make an exception to the idea of “no political platform” (i.e., no program for how the state should act, apart from dying) having a unifying effect on opponents of statism. In wholesale slaughter, we find an objective standard to cut through the otherwise large degree of subjectivity and trade-offs with tyranny in most “libertarian” prescriptions for how the State should act (or rather, cease to act). That standard needs to be applied with considerable restraint, though. Murray Rothbard’s disgusting support of the largely anti-liberty right-winger Pat Buchanan in the 1990’s on anti-imperialist grounds comes to mind as an example of taking that idea so far as to confuse what he otherwise supported.

I don’t advocate voting in state elections for any candidate under any circumstances, though, and stand by that. I refuse to taint my own advocacy of the libertarian, anarchist and agorist message with the crimes of potential future holders of state office — and any state office-holder is, by definition, a criminal. For example, the admittedly pretty good (on many counts) Ron Paul nonetheless advocates the tyrannical persecution of migrants (and that whole thing about supporting the existence of a purportedly constitutional government is a big obstacle for me, as an anarchist, as well).

“… if you wish to know how libertarians regard the State and any of its acts, simply think of the State as a criminal band…” – Murray Rothbard

But to put a stop to a war in progress, I advocate non-voting critical support by agorists for insurgent, anti-establishment, hardcore anti-war candidates, much as Rosa Luxemburg critically supported the October Revolution. That means, in our role as propagandists for total liberty, praising what they do right and vigorously condemning what they do wrong. That doesn’t mean walking a precinct for them. It doesn’t mean voting for them in state elections. It does mean voting for stories about them on Digg. It means signing petitions for them to be allowed to participate in candidate debates the pro-war establishment desperately wants to exclude them from.

Moreover, critical support means understanding your role as a hardcore revolutionary. You are a wildcard — a total free agent with a deep and abiding hatred of the entire statist system. You alone among free-market libertarians have a thorough understanding of politics as a class-based system of oppression, deceit and plunder. This understanding provides a social “map” for non-violent monkey-wrenching and sabotage of the sort Konkin advocated — even in an electoral context. Rather than doggedly working for a particular candidate, your time is perhaps best used anonymously seeking and exploiting any available systempunkt in the establishment campaigns.

The thoroughly anti-war and rapidly snow-balling campaigns of Ron Paul and Mike Gravel are black swans. Savvy revolutionaries will leverage these rare occurences into cascading damage to the establishment. Lives are at stake.

This is where my opinion stands right now. I’m willing to be convinced otherwise by anyone that thinks they can make a better case for a different approach.