An Agorist Manifesto in 95 Theses (by Kyle Bennett) archived

An Agorist Manifesto in 95 Theses Author: Kyle Bennett.

[The original was at: http://fr33agents.ning.com/profiles/blogs/an-agorist-manifesto-in-95

and it currently resides also at: http://humanadvancement.net/blog/index.php?itemid=247]

 agora (1) - n. A place of congregation, an ancient Greek marketplace. 

agora (2) - n. A market free of forceable regulation, taxation, and government (The) Agora - The aggregate of all such markets of any size. 

==============95Theses============== 

 1. Free, unregulated, untaxed, and unmonitored trade is the natural right of all human beings 

2. In a voluntary trade, both parties receive more than they give up, otherwise neither would trade. 

3. Nobody gets taken advantage of through mutually voluntary trade. 

4. Taxation forces people to pay for things that aren't worth the cost 

5. Government regulation forces people to abstain from trades they would otherwise voluntarily make. 

6. Markets collect, organize, and distribute information more rapidly, accurately, fairly, and efficiently than any central authority could ever do, even with superior resources. 

7. Prices are information. 

8. Force distorts market information. 

9. Governments' only means of action is force. 

10. Governments operate blindly because they only see information distorted by force. The more information they gather, the less clear their vision becomes. 

11. Aggression is a reaction to unpleasant or unwanted information. It's motto is "kill the messenger". 

12. A market is smarter than any of it's participants. A government is stupider than most of it's participants. 

13. Governments require markets for their survival; markets thrive in the absence of government. 

14. The more efficient a government is, the more dangerous it is. 

15. Markets improve the material well-being of all people. Governments improve the material well-being of some people at the expense of other people. 

16. Markets are more powerful than governments. 

17. Human survival and well-being require free markets. 

18. Human survival and well-being require the absence of government. 

19. The best humanitarian aid that can be brought to impoverished people is to allow them access to the Agora, usually by removing their governments. 

20. Productivity is the application of intelligence to labor for creating something of value to someone. 

21. Labor is equivalent to value in the same way crude oil is equivalent to a vacation. 

22. The non-productive have always and will always try to live off the value created by the productive. 

23. The productive will by right decide how much, if any, to allow it. 

24. Charity is offered and received face-to-face, or it is no longer charity. 

25. Wealth is the natural and honorable reward from trading value for value. 

26. Wealth is a store of productivity, not a store of value. 

27. In the Agora, the rich have already given back far more than they received. That's the only way to get rich in the Agora. 

28. Those who get rich outside the Agora could never give back all they have taken. 

29. Money laundering is an invented crime, the concept cannot exist in the Agora. 

30. Price gouging is an invented crime, the concept cannot exist in the Agora. 

31. Unfair competition is either not one, or not the other, or not in the Agora. 

32. Market price is an observation of history. 

33. Market price is related to value in the same way news photographs are related to current events. 

34. "Intrinsic value" is a lie told by parasites to try to steal from producers. 

35. Companies advertising their product as "an $XX value" are lying to you. 

36. Fiat currency is theft by fraud. 

37. Gold and silver are usually the bases for real money because they have properties that best serve that purpose. 

38. Paper is the basis for fiat currency because it has properties that best serve that purpose. 

39. Communication strengthens markets and undermines governments. 

40. Markets are the way communities stay organized when they are too large for face-to-face interaction. 

41. All resources are human. The term "human resources" is demeaning to the nature of both humans and resources. 

42. Competition is not the purpose of a market, it is one of its methods.

43. Natural selection in the Agora is more Lamarckian than Darwinian. 

44. Natural selection in the Agora does not destroy resources, it reallocates them. 

45. Natural selection in the Agora does not kill people, it frees them to be more productive. 

46. "Dog eat dog" is a feature of governments, not of markets. 

47. Monopolies can only be created and sustained by governments. 

48. Freedom to fail is every bit as important as freedom to succeed. 

49. The Agora guarantees neither, and resists the perpetuation of both. 

50. Markets don't have goals, values, or ambitions. Markets are a tool for human beings to pursue those things. 

51. "Market Failure" is an oxymoron. People sometimes fail to use markets properly. 

52. Innovation is an inherently Agorist activity, even when it happens outside the Agora. 

53. A primary goal of government is to restrain innovation. 

54. Raw materials in the ground are not resources until they are brought to market. 

55. The owners of private property tend not to destroy it. Commons are routinely destroyed or exhaustively consumed. 

56. Agorist exploitation of the environment increases resources, and protects the environment. Government "protection" of the environment reduces resources, and harms the environment. 

57. No species is endangered when it is owned. The best way to keep a species from extinction is to allow it to be property in the Agora. 

58. "Public property" is an oxymoron, and privatization of profits is not privatization. 

59. Property is authority. It's not a market without private property and private authority. 

60. Where there is private property authority, there is an agora.. 

61. Private property let open to the public is not a commons. 

62. Shortages do not exist in the free market, government obfuscation of price information is the only way to acheive a general shortage. 

63. Being unable to buy something at the price you want to pay is not a shortage. 

64. Markets are, in part, a process of voluntary rationing. 

65. Corporations are evil only to the extent they rely on government power. Corporations with a monopoly are branches of government. 

66. Markets rely on trust. Markets rely on suspicion. 

67. Individuals in the Agora expect suspicion and earn trust. Governments demand trust, and earn suspicion. 

68. A government truly of the people, by the people, and for the people would have no powers whatsoever.

69. If the measure of virtue for a society is how it treats the least among it, then the Agora is the most virtuous society ever known to man. 

70. Governments thrive on opposition, antagonism, provocation, confrontation, and defiance. What they cannot tolerate is to be ignored. 

71. The central idea behind the Agora, and one of the things it does best, is to ignore governments. 

72. The effectiveness of the Agora's self-regulation is proportional to the extent to which external regulation is absent. 

73. The Agora cannot be managed, controlled, regulated, or destroyed. It can only be interfered with. 

74. Voting is nothing more than an expression of the voter's preferred way to interfere with the Agora. 

75. The Agora is a network, and like all networks, it routes around damage. 

76. Government is damage. 

77. Public education is an oxymoron. 

78. One of government education's primary functions is to instill fear of the Agora. 

79. The Agora is all around you. It's nothing to be afraid of. 

80. The Agora is peaceful. Violence and war are results of failure to embrace the Agora. 

81. Guns are often required to deal with people who operate outside the Agora, because guns are the primary way people outside the Agora operate. 

82. The Agora does not require permission. 

83. Anyone with the power and inclination to grant the Agora permission is a threat to all honest men. 

84. Anyone offering the Agora permission will be ignored. 

85. Most true heroes end up in prison or murdered. This is even more true for Agorist heroes. 

86. The Agora ignores creed and color. 

87. When it comes to markets, black is beautiful. 

88. Wherever there are human beings, there is an agora. It may be hiding, but it is there. 

89. The Agora is a select community - the strict qualification for membership is to want it. Most people don't. 

90. The Agora does not recognize borders or artificial boundaries. It is everywhere, and it is no where.

 91. The Agora welcomes you, but does not need you. 

92. You need the Agora. Even if you oppose it, you benefit from it. 

93. An Agorist movement is an oxymoron. Agorism is the natural state of humanity. 

94. Practicing agorism is the only way to achieve agorism. Isolated networks will eventually find each other. 

95. Governments are on notice the world over: your days are numbered.

Two wolves and a sheep...

And people wonder why I never submit my rights to the majority.

The saying goes: "Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on whats for dinner"...and it's not even thoughtful sheep.

Solving the Great Regulation Shortage...

...one brutally stupid step at a time.

Once again, nanny-state pioneer Great Britain shows the world how to bury problems in a mass of paperwork and bureaucratic make-work.

Dog owners who walk their pets on leads longer than 6'8 face £1,000 fines.

From the Magna Carta to that.

You'll wonder where the money went...

here

Double your money--double your fun.

Trusting Google

Some snippets from the recent MSNBC article titled German official slams Google for ‘alarming’ privacy breaches (sounds more to me like Google is just picking up on other people's alarming privacy breaches/errors)...

...growing concerns about whether the company can be trusted with the vast storehouse of personal information that it has gathered through its search engine, e-mail and other services... Consumer Watchdog, a group that has become one of Google's most outspoken critics, renewed its call for a regulatory crackdown Friday... Street View provides photographs of neighborhoods taken by Google cameras that have sometimes captured people doing things they didn't want to be seen doing, or in places where they didn't want to be seen... Google...programming picked up the Web surfing on publicly accessible Wi-Fi networks if the company's vehicles were within range of the signal. (emphasis mine)

OK.

Well, right from the get-go, I trust Google more than I trust any government.

Second, Google's cameras captured people "doing things they didn't want to be seen doing, or in places where they didn't want to be seen". I have one question: were any of these people in legitimately "private" areas? Because, if not--them's the breaks; don't do it or don't be there--or don't do it there. Google is not responsible for other people's lack of discretion.

Third, "publicly accessible" means...publicly accessible. Exactly what expectation of privacy do people think they have on that kind of network? I assume an open network is open and...uh...public. Weird, I know, but words means things.

Honestly, is there anyone who connects to the net that hasn't seen this warning: "When you send information to the internet it might be possible for others to see that information. Do you want to continue..."? I've seen it more times than I have fingers and toes.

Fourth: all a regulatory crackdown will do is put the fox firmly in charge of the henhouse. Is Consumer Watchdog alleging some sort of serious "regulations shortage", like we don't already have enough rules?

From the article "U.S. drug war has met none of its goals" (MSNBC)

After 40 years, the United States' war on drugs has cost $1 trillion and hundreds of thousands of lives, and for what? Drug use is rampant and violence even more brutal and widespread.

Even U.S. drug czar Gil Kerlikowske concedes the strategy hasn't worked...His predecessor, John P. Walters, takes issue with that.

"To say that all the things that have been done in the war on drugs haven't made any difference is ridiculous," Walters said. "It destroys everything we've done. It's saying all the people involved in law enforcement, treatment and prevention have been wasting their time. It's saying all these people's work is misguided."

All either war has done in the US or Canada--or anywhere--is criminalize users and dealers and enrich and empower the nastiest people in the business. You probably think I mean the cartels.

After all, some people will say "you'd think the governments would have been able to predict the result by looking at prohibition:.

Don't you get it? The governments could--and did--and they knew exactly what the result would be.

And they did it anyways.

It was the excuse the governments needed for the police to become overtly paramilitary (and very, very well-equipped, at that) without any concerted objections. After all, how many people were gonna stand up and argue in favour of lawbreaking and drug use.

So, when Apparatchik Walters says the drug war has worked--he's right. The lie is saying the drug war has met none of it's goals. It's actually met its only real goal, in spades.

Of course, if you think I'm wrong, explain to me how shooting people and putting them in jail helps users and dealers, or helps you. Please, tell me how your life is better now.

Braiding hair in the Nanny State...

Hair Braiders need a cosmetology licence???

From the article:

Braiders charge $300 and up for the most elaborate styles, which can take up to 12 hours, and around $50 for simple cornrows than can be done in an hour, they said.

Sherry Williams, 44, learned to braid as a teenager and did hair out of her home as a side job for 10 years before opening her own salon last year in Chicago's south suburbs. She, like many braiders, learned the craft from family members and hasn't had any formal training.

But there are 63,000 licensed cosmetologists in Illinois, and "many of them do not look kindly on people practicing their profession without a license," said Susan Hofer, spokeswoman for the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation. In fact, most of the tips about unlicensed braiding shops that come into the department are from licensed cosmetologists, she said. (emphasis mine-ed.)

This isn't about safety. This is just cosmetologists using the State as a goons against competition in a plain old fashioned "turf war".

Straight up.

From Billy:

Oh? You think I have an attitude on? Well, that's just tough. Get those guns out of my face and nobody will have to put up with it.

Exactly the right attitude when dealing with people who claim to be your rulers, your superiors, your authorities.

Idiot Government Prudes...

Australian "businesses will face fines of up to $5000 for displaying a "poster, pamphlet or other printed material" for films classified R18+".

That means a poster for Mad Max, for just one example.

Uh...if the government tried that crap here, I think I'd simply put a poster or three up in my home's front window, and then tell them to fuck off and come and get me.

What is seen & what is not seen

here's the BIG print...

Headline: Obama: ‘We want our money back’

In earlier remarks prepared for the appearance, Obama said he was determined that every dollar spent from the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program to rescue Wall Street firms, auto companies and mortgage holders is either repaid or paid for in some fashion.

"My commitment is to recover every single dime the American people are owed," Obama said in his prepared remarks. "My determination to achieve this goal is only heightened when I see reports of massive profits and obscene bonuses at the very firms who owe their continued existence to the American people who have not been made whole, and who continue to face real hardship in this recession."

The president is proposing a levy of 15 basis points, or 0.15 percent, on the liabilities of large financial institutions. The tax, which officials are calling a "financial crisis responsibility fee," would apply only to financial companies with assets of more than $50 billion.

Here's the small print:

Those firms — estimated to amount to about 50 institutions — would have to pay the fee even though many did not accept any taxpayer assistance and most others already paid back what the government lent to them.

That's not payback -- that's pure theft. It's outright stealing.

Pay attention all you small-d democrats...

Daniel Gross, in SLATE, remarking on the comments of China's Xu Kuangdi, "a veteran apparatchik, engineer, manager, and leader...mayor of Shanghai from 1995 through 2001, vice chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and president of the Chinese Academy of Engineering Sciences"...Mr Xu was explaining why democracy doesn't work:

Democracy promotes the sort of arguing that hinders growth. The performance of other Asian countries seemed to have suffered when fractious democracies emerged from authoritarian or military rule. Xu added a new one: It would promote unhealthy class warfare. If elections were to be held in a large geographical area where gaps between the rich and poor are wide, and in which people have different educational backgrounds, "it might cause turbulences to society," he said. "If somebody just went out in the street and shouted, 'I will divide the property of rich people into poor people,' I think he would be elected. But it is useless, as parity will not solve the problem of economic development."

Mr Xu is, of course, correct.

Now, if leaders in China fer cryin' out loud have realized that "parity will not solve the problem of economic development", then even the "Marxists" must now know that the whole egalitarian-collectivist argument is dead, and that that whole body of theory doesn't work. And they've now also realized that democracy is nothing better or different than "two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner".

That leaves only individualism (read: freedom) or totalitarianism.

And The West isn't exactly being the champion of individualism these days, what with Mr Obama (and he only for example and not just to single him out) doing his level best to emulate and put in place the worst of the old democratic-collectivist thinking.

I love this headline.

I hope he finds some.

LINK

Well, no kidding...

U.S. loan program may have made things worse

Not "may have". Did.

But Mr Obama bought a lot of votes with that money.

They mean what they say...

Just a heads up: these folks aren't joking...

Rev Wright: "...no-nonsense Marxism..."




Barney Frank: "We are Trying On Every Front to Increase the Role of Government"...



Maxine Waters: "nationali...uh...uh...buh......basically, the government taking over all..."

The Chinese get the joke...

...even if Obamabots don't.

US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner was laughed at by an audience of Chinese students after insisting that China's US assets are safe.

H/T: Human Advancement.

Stupid is as stupid does....

Mont. jury awards $850,000 in aluminum bat lawsuit

HELENA, Mont.—A jury on Wednesday found that the maker of Louisville Slugger baseball bats failed to adequately warn about the dangers the product can pose, awarding a family $850,000 for the 2003 death of their son in a baseball game.

The family of Brandon Patch argued that aluminum baseball bats are dangerous because they cause the baseball to travel at a greater speed. They contended that their 18-year-old son did not have enough time to react to the ball being struck before it hit him in the head while he was pitching in an American Legion baseball game in Helena in 2003.

Someone will poke their eye out...

Coffee can be really hot. People will try to hit things fast with good bats. Sticks can have pointy ends. Rocks can hurt you...DHMO can kill..(don't believe me about DHMO?)

The Borg Raising the Borg...

Council bans parents from play areas

The edict:

Due to Ofsted regulations we have a responsibility to ensure that every authorised adult who enters our site is properly vetted and given a Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) check by Watford Borough Council.

Council Mayor Dorothy Thornhill:

Sadly, in today's climate, you can't have adults walking around unchecked in a children's playground and the adventure playground is not a meeting place for adults.

...but it's for the children...

Sir.

What do you think I fought for in Omaha Beach

Billy...

...again putting the description right down, in one sentence.

An entire culture sunk in delusion and mendacity, eating itself one bite at a time from neighbor to neighbor, now pitched against each other in competing visions of mutual slavery -- where the plain-day principle of freedom once guided the best of our aspirations.

2nd good laugh of the day...

kts2 at The Agitator

I just survived a college economics 101 class taught by an admitted Keynesian.

It was simple really, just answer almost all the questions exactly wrong and get an A.

heh.