this post was submitted on 13 Jan 2025
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Told you so?
But we told them so.
Vote 3rd party and an anti-democratic felon rapist will be your leader.
Then it happened.
Could they also tell us I told you so?
3rd party voters, "Focus on these issues or we won't vote for you and you will lose."
Dems didn't listen to voters and instead moved closer to corporations/conservatives.
Then it happened.
And now those 3rd party voters who didn't want that, are getting that, to the extreme.
It doesn't matter what they wanted, since every single 3rd party vote (including right wing third parties) could have gone to Kamala and she still would have lost.
But that doesn't change my comment.
First of all, 3rd party voters could make the difference in any given election because multiple elections have been much closer than this one. They had no idea whether they were going to make the difference or not when they filled out their ballots.
Secondly, many, if not most, of those 3rd party voters REALLY didn't want Trump, but they also wanted a 3rd party canidate more than Harris. Now they get Trump, their least favorite pick. And again, they filled out their ballots not knowing if they were going to be responsible for that happening or not.
Also, while it didn't matter overall, at least Wisconsin would have swung Harris if she got the majority of 3rd party voters, not even all of them. So it did matter in some states, even though probably not in enough.
But the point is they COULD have made the difference and for all they knew at the time were making the difference because in other elections 3rd party votes have made the difference. If anything, it not mattering in this election is just going to embolden them to vote 3rd party again in another election where we find out afterward that it really would have made the difference.
And it's not like there's any reality at all where their 3rd party candidate could have won, so why take that massive gamble? The bottom line is that we are NOWHERE NEAR a 3rd party winning a presidential election, so it's patently stupid to vote 3rd party in a presidential election. I mean the 3rd party candidate with the most votes only got half of a single percentage of the total votes. And that was magician Jill Stein, who disappears into thin air for years at a time and magically reappears a couple months out from every election.
Now consider all the people that stayed home and didn’t vote in protest. People seem to like leaving them out.
Whenever I see people bring that up, there seems to be an assumption that Kamala definitely would have won if more people voted. Maybe that's true, but who's to say? I do agree that Dems need to increase turnout if they want to remain competitive, and I hope they do that by running a better campaign rather than banking on the idea that being "not Trump" will be enough to win. I'm not optimistic about that though.
Fair point. But I’ll add that conservatives show up to vote. It’s almost a given that trump got all he was going to get. Of the 90,000,000 people that chose not to- it’s safe to assume that many of them would have voted for Kamala had it not been for the single issue non-voters, or protest non-voters.
I agree with the rest of your point. And well said.
Would've happened regardless of my vote and the votes of Green/PSL voters. Your candidate had the worst electoral performance since the Republicans took California. Would've needed a better candidate and a party that actually listens to criticism, instead y'all chose to stuff your fingers in your ears and dismiss any and all criticism and proceeded to eat shit, as we told you would happen. You can't pin this one on us, the failure is on your candidate and party.
Liberals (and independents) complained that Biden was too old (despite Trump being equally old) and it became a serious issue and they replaced him with a younger candidate. That's called listening to criticism.
Not retroactively. But every single 3rd party voter filled out their ballots not knowing if they were going to make the difference or not. Because some elections have come a lot closer than this one and 3rd party voters did make the difference. It's not particularly meaningful to me that you point out it wasn't your fault after the fact, when you didn't know whether it would be your fault or not at the time. That's like a kid admitting he threw the kitchen knife at his sister but it didn't hit her so everything is totally fine and the subject can be closed.
The fact remains that it's patently stupid to vote for a 3rd party presidential candidate because we are NOWHERE NEAR a 3rd party winning a presidential election. I mean the 3rd party candidate with the most votes only got half of a single percentage of the total votes. And that was magician Jill Stein, who disappears into thin air for years at a time and magically reappears a couple months out from every election.
The question is what you're looking at. If your primary concern is understanding why Kamala lost, then it is very relevant to point out the fact that we did not cost her the election. If your primary concern is establishing the moral standing of individual voters, then I suppose it's less relevant.
To be perfectly clear, if we cost a candidate like Kamala the election, I would be perfectly fine with it. I wish that we did represent a larger contingent of the vote so that we had the power to deny a win to any candidate that doesn't meet our demands. It would be preferable if our kitchen knife hit and we could claim credit for it. Unfortunately, your candidate lost for other reasons.
Of course, the only analysis liberals seem capable of is looking at the moral purity of individual voters. It is inconceivable to punch up and critique our rulers. The Democratic party can never fail, it can only be failed. This aversion to self-critique and reflection is itself part of why the Democrats failed, and why they will continue to fail.
How?
The Democrats insisted their candidate was good enough, but we weren't on board? We said that, and got ignored, and the Dems lost
Nobody was denying that was an outcome, just that it was a daft one. That's why they were trying to convince you it was daft. You could only say 'Told you so', if what they were saying wasn't true.
It wouldn't have changed the outcome regardless of how we voted or what we said. But the criticisms we were making weren't just about our own values or preferences, they were things that would have allowed her to appeal to a much broader section of the population. It was not our willingness to criticize and take a stand that caused this, but the Democrats' stubbornness and unwillingness to listen to criticism.
Ultimately, it just goes to show the necessity of building a better party from the ground up. The one thing Democrats are supposed to be good for is keeping Trump out, they've abandoned any pretence of actually helping people or not committing mass murder, and they can't even do that. It's a sinking ship.
It introduced apathy that could’ve changed the outcome. You’re not including all the people who didn’t vote.
There were no easy policies that would’ve led to victory. Doesn’t matter if the policies are objectively good or popular as she was up against a misinformation machine. She ran a near perfect campaign in the time she had. And Biden only came back initially because yous already voted Trump in once. You got exactly the government you deserve unfortunately.
Could’ve united and killed the republicans party. Locked Trump up. Shifted the Overton window back and gotten some leftists as the opposition but looks like you’ll need to do it the hard way.
Near perfect? Is that a joke?
She ran on the status quo which is absolutely not working for a ton of people. She campaigned with Dick Cheney, an immensely unpopular politician across the entire political spectrum responsible for a pointless war that killed countless people. She completely failed to adapt to a changing media environment with streamers and the like, which the Republicans took full advantage of. The messaging she did have was completely unfocused, the one moment she had of doing something right was calling Republicans weird, which she then dropped because of civility-brain. And that's not even talking about Palestine!
What on earth did she do right strategically? Near perfect? I can hardly think of a single thing she didn't screw up! And the result was, again, the worst electoral result since the Republicans took Cali. Absolutely insane thing to assert.
No, none of that could've happened. Leftist defectors were not a large enough contingent to have swung the election. Even if we were, and had fallen in line, it wouldn't have done shit for the Overton window, it would've kept going right and shown the Democrats that there's zero consequences for moving so far right that they're actively committing genocide. This idiotic and self-defeating strategy of falling in line behind the lesser evil is what the left has been doing for generations and it's how we got here in the first place.
Question for you: where do you think Trump came from? Do you think he's just a random fluke, or were there root causes that allowed someone like him to become popular? Follow up, do you think that a problem can be addressed using the same approach that created the problem in the first place?
Y'all are completely conservative in your thinking, you're just trying to cling to a past that is gone for good. If the Democratic party fails to adapt to changing conditions, then it will die, and the only question is how much wasted effort we put into it before we realize it's a lost cause.
She wasn’t trying to win your vote. The population votes for the status quo. Deviation from that would’ve led to her loss. You weren’t going to get another Sanders in the time she had.
Has there been an American president who wasn’t contributing one way or another to a genocide? Idk why people act like that’s surprising. They’re all war criminals. There’s a difference between that and actively egging them to ramp it up while using ‘Palestinians’ as a slur.
The Cons would’ve felt the consequences, as Trumps crimes were laid bare over the subsequent years and the extent of their delusion publicly dissected. Embarrassment is one of the few things fascists understand.
This vacuum would’ve led to space for leftist voices to emerge.
No Trump was not a fluke, but you’d assume in the Information age someone so blatantly acting against your interests wouldn’t be your pick.
Dems aren’t ever going to solve anything either way. It’s just a nicer environment for the rest of us to try and do so.
Oh, well then, my congratulations to President Harris on winning the election.
No they fucking don't vote for the status quo when the status quo is fucked. Trump at least postures that he's different (even though he's more of the same) which is why it's hardly surprising that he won.
He wasn't my pick.
And what does trying to do so look like? Would it, perhaps, involve forming an organization, say, a party, that actually represents the interests of the people?
They vote for the status quo when there is an algorithmic conservative fear beast under their bed.
Your choice was to vote to prevent Trump getting in or to enable it.
And no it involves building up parallel institutions, counter-economic systems, mutual aid networks on the grassroots level outside the states control.
No, they don't! If you were right, she'd have won! How can you possibly assert this in direct contradiction to the evidence?
Right, so exactly like what PSL does.
The PSL is a joke man. When will you give this up? They will never see themselves with a legitimate candidate because they don’t do a single thing to position themselves as a serious contender.
Them, just like all other third party shitshows only ever show up at the 11th hour to play election spoiler by collecting the votes from idiots too ignorant to know any better.
If they really want to make a run at candidacy, they’d make a name for themselves the other three and a half years between elections.
But they don’t.
No one will take them seriously until they start moving ground. Until then, they’re going to remain the joke that they are.
What evidence? Both statements can be true
PSL? Pakistani Super League?
In that case her defeat was inevitable and none of this matters. I reject that defeatism because her strategic errors are obvious and many. If establishment democrats don't see a path to victory, they should get out of the way and let someone with more vision have a try.
The Party for Socialism and Liberation.
It was with the sentiment generated by never-genocide voters, sure.
Socialism? In America? After decades of red scare hysteria and hypertardation? Gerrymandering and vote suppression? Doubt it.
What’ll work is a truly freed market. Not in the AnCap sense but in the anti-capitalist (and anti-collectivist) sense.
The path we're on is fundamentally unsustainable. Something will have to give. Free markets are not capable of addressing human needs and the collective crises we're facing, but regardless, you won't be getting any change in any direction except the steady decline into dysfunction and right-wing extremism that we've been getting so long as the two party system remains hegemonic.
You can punch left all you want, but again, the anti-genocide voters did not swing the election. Regardless, you people all have a completely upside-down conception of politics. Politicians must change to conform to the values that voters have, not the other way around, it's completely backwards to blame masses of people for holding onto valid moral convictions rather than blaming the politicians that failed to account for and accommodate those convictions. It's just bootlicking, I find it quite spineless and repulsive frankly, and it's very sad to me that anyone could have such a feckless way of thinking about politics.
Again, not free markets in the ancap sense. A truly freed market requires us to dismantle all non-state forms of coercion and privilege that distort economic interactions.
There is nowhere left of me to punch. I’m punching up at the Auths who think reform is a viable path to liberation.
Election wasn’t lost because of values it was because people are easily manipulated to vote against their interests.
"Distort economic interactions" is idealist nonsense, as is this whole conception of a "truly freed market." Here in reality, groups pursue their own interests, and in a capitalist system, wealth will concentrate enough that the bourgeoisie will inevitably be able to seize power and change the laws to create a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, unless they are prevented from doing so through "Auth" means. "Auth" is not a real political alignment, it's a bedtime story your rulers tell you to make sure you don't get any funny ideas about trying to actually wield power or challenge them. There is only one physical reality, and what happens in that reality is a function of who holds power and what they do with it. When starving peasants are storming the gates of the rich to seize their food, what is more or less authoritarian, to stop them, to help them, or to sit back and watch? It is a nonsense concept.
What zero theory does to a MFer.
There is a practical process of dismantling state-enforced monopolies and coercion. Authoritarianism, whether bourgeois or revolutionary, perpetuates centralised power. True liberation arises not from seizing power but from rendering coercive systems obsolete through counter-economic action.
In reality, political revolution only changes rulers; the system of coercion remains. Only through economic revolution can true liberation be achieved.
Nothing idealist about it. Seems the be the only praxis that’s made any progress actually rather than circlejerking over theory we know doesn’t work.
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/samuel-edward-konkin-iii-new-libertarian-manifesto
It's always very funny the absolute disdain people have towards Lenin and his body of work, or rather, the disdain you have towards the idea of reading anything he wrote. Even from a purely historical perspective, he's one of the most important people of the 20th century, if not all history. And yet you always refuse to read anything he wrote while having very strong opinions regarding his ideology. His greatest crime, of course, was that he had the audacity to put theory into practice, and to do things to actually affect material change rather than sitting around theorizing.
This is nonsense because without power it is impossible to affect change. In order to conduct counter-economic action, you must have some ability to influence the economic sphere, which is to say, power. You can dress it up in flowery language all you like, but ultimately, you have a vision of the world that you're seeking to enforce through economic power. The only difference is that you're choosing to tie a hand behind your back before fighting a pack of lions. Building and exerting economic power is all well and good, but it would be incredibly foolish not to use any means of power available (including political) in a life-or-death struggle against a far stronger foe. And what do you get in exchange, the satisfaction of feeling like you're being ideologically consistent, while the state guns down everyone you care about?
This is fully suicidal. States have the ability to leverage overwhelming force against "local, immediate self-defense," which they pretty much always have been since the days of knights and lords, but it is especially absurd in the context of modern militaries.
The crushing of the Paris Commune, the lack of coordination in Republic Spain... the only reason anybody thinks this is at all viable or desireable is because they haven't seen it in action, and they haven't seen it in action because people learned from it's historical failures, or they were defeated.
Even if the forces were evenly matched (which they wouldn't be), it's very easy to divide and conquer. Without a unified front, forces cannot be dispatched to defend strategically vital locations, people will insist on defending their own homes and towns, which a centrally managed force can easily take advantage of.
This is extraordinarily idealist. "Initiatory violence" is a concept inherently tied to property rights. It is also completely wrong. Is is wrong (immoral, evil, suprememely impractical) for a starving man to steal bread for his family? Or does theft not count as "initiatory violence" if you really, really need it?
But let's use a more real world example. There are many countries around the world where the people live in abject poverty, even though the natural resources are quite plentiful. In many cases, their resources were seized by force during colonialism, and now continue to be owned by foreign multinational corporations. Is it wrong (immoral, evil, supremely impractical) for those nations to reclaim control of those resources, given the opportunity? And for that matter, was it "supremely impractical" for colonial powers to seize those resources in the first place? Because it seems like the people who did it made a lot of money off of it and died quite rich and happy.
Of course, this moral proclamation is handed down from on high by the author, without establishing any kind of philosophical basis for it, let alone any consideration of how thing function in the actual, material world. Why should I not simply reject this assertion?
The issue isn't the implementation of theory but the centralisation of power. Lenin's approach replaced one form of coercion with another, perpetuating oppression under a different guise. True liberation arises from dismantling coercive systems entirely and fostering voluntary, decentralised networks that operate independently of centralised control.
Political power often reinforces the very structures it seeks to dismantle. Genuine change stems from creating resilient, voluntary networks that operate in the shadows, gradually eroding state influence through counter-economic activities. By building these systems, we undermine coercive institutions without legitimising them through political engagement.
By the time local self-defence becomes necessary, the state's power will have diminished due to the proliferation of decentralised, counter-economic networks. These networks, operating independently, build resilience and adaptability, making it impossible for centralised authorities to suppress them effectively.
A starving individual seeking sustenance isn't initiating violence, the coercive system that led to their deprivation bears responsibility. Reclaiming resources taken through coercion is justified, whereas establishing new systems of authority through violence perpetuates cycles of oppression.
Coercive systems have consistently failed to deliver genuine freedom. Building decentralised, voluntary networks offers a sustainable path to liberation, circumventing the instability and oppression inherent in centralised power structures. Historical evidence demonstrates that centralised authority always leads to systemic failure and human suffering.
Counter-economic activities cultivate influence by operating outside the state's purview. Engaging in black and grey markets enables individuals to build economic strength without relying on state mechanisms, undermining the state's control over resources and diminishing its legitimacy.
Ah, so stealing is not in fact stealing if you really really need it, gotcha.
There's something I need to explain here and I think the only way to do it is to step back and tell you a story.
I studied physics in uni because I didn't know what to study and it seemed like the best place to try to understand reality. The day we started studying the more complex, and weird stuff, like relativity and QM, my professor gave us a speech that really resonated with me.
"The stuff we're about to cover doesn't make a lot of sense, and some of you may find it troubling that the universe works in such a strange and confusing way. But in a way, it makes sense that it doesn't make sense. Our brains evolved to understand things on a macro scale, and everything we've studied up to this point has operated on that level. But nothing in your genetic makeup or day to day life has equipped you to understand subatomic particles or objects approaching the speed of light. It would be very strange, then, if we were able to grasp these concepts immediately and make sense of them right off the bat. Eventually, if you keep studying and working with these concepts, they will become second nature and start to make more intuitive sense, but you just have to sort of rewire your brain a bit first."
What's important about his speech is that it touches on something broader that's a little difficult to put into words. It's the fact that reality is always just a little messy. It never works just exactly the way we want it to. Sometimes, it works in a way we really, really don't want it to. But you study things enough, eventually you start to recognize what truth is shaped like. And for me, I make a distinction between "natural" ideas and "man-made" ideas. In a sense, all ideas are man-made, but there are certain ideas that seem to inherently reflect reality, such that any intelligent being would come up with them, physical laws and the like. But then there are other ideas that are distinctly human. They are clean, pleasing, comforting, they help us establish our identity, and they are often bullshit. They don't reflect reality as it is, messy and imperfect, they're always a bit too clean, and the real purpose is more psychological than anything.
Agorism is a man-made idea. The entire foundation of the philosophy, according to what you linked, is the inherent, absolute principle, that initiating violence is always wrong, and the only thing that is wrong. And yet, the first example I come up with that follows that example to a messy, uncomfortable conclusion, suddenly it doesn't count. Somehow.
What it comes down to is that this ideology isn't designed to actually do anything or to reflect any actual truth. It's supposed to sit there in your head providing you with a particular sense of identity. In the realm of the physical, the results are often messy and imperfect, but in the realm of the mind, everything can always work out perfectly for everyone. Thus, Lenin's great sin of moving things from the theoretical, where they could be clean and perfect, to the physical where they would actually have the capacity to affect change, at the cost of having to confront difficult, messy, life-or-death questions.
If someone is starving, you say, it must be because of a coercive system. But that isn't necessarily true, and more importantly, it doesn't really address anything. "Systems" cannot be held accountable, you cannot take the concept of Capitalism to court and demand it start giving the man bread. Suppose the man simply cannot find work - who is responsible? Every business owner who refused to hire him? Every landowner who prevents him from living in his natural state of a hunter-gatherer? But let's broaden the scope some more - of course, in the mind palace, we can simply decide who's responsible and hold them responsible, regardless of how much wealth or power they might possess, but what if the culprit is external and beyond our reach? Say, we're in one of those nations that had their resources stolen, and the nation decided to reclaim its resources, and in response, the colonizers have imposed sanctions and a blockade. So the man is still starving, but it's not because of anyone within his society, there is no one he can reasonably seek restitution from, and he doesn't have the means to steal from the colonizers, so instead he steals from someone who's completely innocent.
It seems to me that this absolute moral law from which the entire ideology is derived and which, above all else, must never be contradicted, doesn't actually survive contact with the physical world. It needs so many exceptions and amendments that to make it work you essentially end up ignoring it and just doing whatever your conscience tells you is right. Which is obviously a superior approach, since that law is a nonsense, man-made idea that doesn't actually reflect reality, while your conscience is influenced from experiences interacting with the real world.
I've focused too much on that point but I will try to quickly address some others.
That's like saying that historical evidence demonstrates walking on two legs always leads to systemic failure and human suffering. Centralized authority pops up everywhere because it is an effective way of addressing certain problems. Again, decentralization is romanticized because it is foreign and it is foreign because it often has significant problems. Decentralization is often synonymous with warlordism, not to mention things like generational blood feuds, lynch mobs, and witch burnings. Centralization has reasons for being so common, and suffering is also quite common, but that doesn't mean that one causes the other. What is you evidence for decentralization working so much better? How do we know it's that and not some other factor?
Black and grey markets are not going to magically make you rich if you're broke. If you're powerless, you're still powerless, and have no ability to affect the world until you obtain some form of power. It's possible, of course, to acquire economic power through such means, but it's also possible for the state to SWAT you the moment you actually become a credible threat to its legitimacy.
You still seem to still be conflating Agorism with Anarcho-Capitalism. In an agorist society, theft like stealing bread would be rare because the conditions that lead to such desperation would not exist. State-enforced scarcity and capitalist exploitation would be replaced by mutual aid networks and decentralized cooperation, ensuring basic needs are accessible. If theft occurred, it would be addressed through restorative justice by understanding the cause, providing aid if necessary, and seeking restitution if harm was done. Social accountability, such as loss of reputation within networks, discourages repeated misconduct. The focus is on resolving issues and preventing recurrence rather than punishment.
Agorism isn’t about idealism. It is grounded in pragmatism. Centralized systems cause large-scale instability and exploitation, while decentralized ones adapt to the complexities of human interactions. Perfection isn’t the goal. It is about minimizing harm and creating structures that empower individuals while avoiding systemic coercion and exploitation. Agorism acknowledges the messiness of reality and provides a framework for minimizing coercion, not eliminating it entirely. The NAP is a guiding principle, not a guarantee of utopia. Philosophical frameworks aim to reduce harm and improve conditions. They are not invalidated by challenging scenarios.
Systems are made up of individuals whose actions perpetuate power dynamics. Decentralized networks empower individuals and communities to resist coercive systems directly. In cases of external blockades or sanctions, decentralized economies are more resilient. They rely on mutual aid, local production, and underground trade to bypass monopolistic control. Accountability in decentralized systems is direct and immediate, unlike the diffuse harm caused by centralised hierarchies.
The non-aggression principle isn’t dogma. It is a guideline to reduce coercion and exploitation. It recognizes that existing systems are deeply coercive and seeks to replace them with voluntary, equitable alternatives. While exceptions and complexities exist, decentralized systems avoid the systemic violence and hierarchies that dominate centralised frameworks.
These are symptoms of collapsing centralized systems, not decentralized organization. True decentralization builds networks of accountability, trust, and voluntary cooperation that reduce the likelihood of such chaos. These systems ensure power isn’t monopolized, preventing the unchecked abuses often seen in collapsing hierarchies.
Black and grey markets aren’t about wealth. They are about independence. They allow individuals to operate outside of coercive systems and build resilience over time. Decentralized networks avoid single points of failure, making them harder for the state to suppress. Resistance economies in authoritarian regimes and informal networks in marginalized communities demonstrate their success in resisting oppression.
Decentralization is the obvious choice because it fundamentally disperses power, eliminating the systemic vulnerabilities inherent in centralised systems which we've seen fail time and time again. Decentralization is not just theoretically preferable but practically effective. It aligns with human-scale organization, minimizes systemic failures, and fosters innovation and resilience by allowing communities to adapt independently to challenges. In every system where decentralization has been implemented, it has consistently avoided the catastrophic failures seen in centralized models while empowering individuals to take ownership of their lives and their economies. It was the Agorists who joined the war on drugs on the side of drugs and won. Very quickly. Now there's a global network that can't be stopped and in common use around the world. Working on V2
Excuse me?
It really does not sound to me that the author is proposing this principle as some sort of flexible guideline or polite suggestion. It sounds as though he considers the principle quite absolute. The reason that forming a political party to influence the state towards your vision of the world is a complete betrayal of the movement because it contradicts this ironclad principle, which can never be contradicted because it is the foundation of the ideology. It seems that your views differ from the author's.
It seems to me that if your principle can be violated in order to avoid the cognitive dissonance of condemning a starving man, it ought to be fine to violate it in order to acquire the political power you would need to implement it, since otherwise it's nothing but talk. But then, we come back to the point that it isn't meant to succeed, it's just meant to occupy a space in your brain where it looks pretty and feels nice.
Even if it is merely a guideline, it's a shitty one. Reality makes no distinction between initiation and retaliation, these are purely human concepts. It is only important to navigate such concepts insofar as it's important to avoid offending people's proclivities. It is no more an inherent moral principle than "You shouldn't go outside naked."
Mhm, and you're out to collapse centralized systems.
But also, many of the things I mentioned were not symptoms of a collapsing system. Blood feuds lasted generations with no societal collapse in sight. Ditto for lynch mobs and witch burnings.
All you've done here it point to something, centralization, that is very widespread because of it's effectiveness and necessity, and randomly assigned every bad thing that ever happens to it, while completely ignoring the bad things that happen when it is not present. It is, again, because the idea is meant to only exist in your mind. There is no reason to really apply harsh, critical thought to it, because if it turns out to have glaring flaws, it doesn't actually matter because it's all a thought experiment.
Konkin’s absolutist framing of the NAP ensures a clear philosophical foundation for Agorism, yet consistency in principle doesn’t preclude adaptability in practice.
A starving individual stealing bread may technically violate the NAP, but this act must be seen in the broader context of systemic coercion. Agorism doesn’t excuse or celebrate such acts but seeks to eliminate the root causes that compel them. Rather than contradicting the NAP, this flexibility aligns with its ultimate goal of reducing coercion over time. Far from being arbitrary, this resonates with universal truths about cooperation, as illustrated by game theory and evolutionary models.
Konkin believed “a lot more than statism would need to be eliminated from individual consciousness” for a free society to flourish and called for a “thick” libertarianism that addressed class struggle, social justice, and other factors beyond mere opposition to the state.
Yes, but the collapse of centralized systems through decentralized alternatives does not imply chaos or the perpetuation of the abuses associated with centralized structures. The aim is not to cause disorder but to replace coercive systems with voluntary, accountable, and distributed ones.
These occurrences are not intrinsic to decentralisation. They arise when mechanisms of trust and accountability fail, whether power is centralized or distributed. True decentralisation requires voluntary structures that prevent abuses by fostering local responsibility and direct accountability.
Centralisation persists mainly because it suppresses alternatives through monopolised power rather than due to inherent efficiency. However, technology is shifting this balance, allowing individuals and communities to construct voluntary, resilient alternatives. Agorism and decentralization are not mere thought experiments but practical frameworks for distributing power, fostering accountability, and minimising systemic harm. Far from avoiding criticism, decentralisation is continually tested in real-world applications, proving its viability and effectiveness beyond mere theory. Steadily progressing toward a more autonomous, voluntary society.
Yes yes, you don't support when bad things happen, you only support good things happening. The problem is that you don't get to control exactly what things are going to look like, the best you can hope for is to set things in motion and influence the direction in a very broad sense. This is true even in cases with a centralized authority directing things, but it is doubly true in decentralized systems.
G.K. Chesterton once quipped, "Anything worth doing is worth doing badly." Meaning, when we look at what kind of changes are needed in society, we must envision their worst form or implementation, because nothing ever works out as perfectly in reality as it does in our heads, and if we can still say that changing society in that direction is a good thing even when it is done messily and imperfectly, only then should we really try to push for that change. You do not get to control whether decentralization will look like communities banding together in support or roving bands of mercenaries seizing anything that's not nailed down with no one to stop them, unless you have an actual means of ensuring that one happens and not the other. All you get to do is open the can of worm of decentralization (although, frankly, you don't get to do that since you're allergic to seizing the necessary power to do it) and what happens next is outside of your control.
Of course, so long as you're content to keep your ideas in the realm of fantasy, you don't have to worry about any of that. You can just imagine that things would work out perfectly and be satisfied with the thought of it. No need to confront any difficult practical questions. Everyone will simply choose to do good things so you never have to worry about it.
And how, exactly, is an inferior system able to suppress a superior one?
Decentralization does not promise a flawless outcome or the ability to micromanage every detail, yet it remains a powerful strategy for dispersing power and reducing coercion. Even if the transition to a voluntary, distributed system unfolds in an imperfect way, it still limits large-scale harm far better than centralized authority. It is puzzling why there is reluctance to engage with present-day, bottom-up solutions that people are already creating, such as community-based networks, alternative currencies, and mutual aid initiatives. Agorists are not simply dreaming; they actively put their principles into practice by constructing parallel structures that reduce reliance on the state here and now.
It is not us who stand in the way of any genuine transformation, whether proletarian or otherwise. If you truly believe in a revolution of the proletariat, you will find no direct opposition from agorists, as the shift away from centralised, coercive structures is inevitable anyway.
Over time, as these parallel systems become more efficient and trustworthy, people naturally migrate toward them and the state’s influence begins to erode. It is not about confronting the state’s monopoly on force in a single decisive battle, but rather outmaneuvering it day by day, demonstrating in tangible ways that voluntary alternatives are more durable and harder to suppress than top-down structures. This shift has accelerated with recent technological breakthroughs which empower individuals and communities to coordinate on their own terms, further loosening the state’s grip.
The profit incentive creates all sorts of collective action problems that cannot be addressed without a centralized authority. This is already a major problem and your approach would only make it worse.
The problem is externalities. Externalities are an economic term for when a particular action causes indirect effects, whether positive or negative. When a train station is built, businesses in the surrounding area become more profitable, yet the profit from this cannot be captured by the train itself, if the fares were that high, fewer people would use it and the benefits would be lost. When a factory emits pollution, the property values in the surrounding area plummet, and these costs are not borne by the factory owner.
Only though a centralized system can externalities be effectively managed. The pollution can be regulated or taxed, while public transit can be funded and run at a loss. This is particularly important in combating climate change, which has no profit incentive and therefore cannot be addressed through capitalism in any form.
I think you misunderstood my question. How is it that the supposedly inferior system of centralization won out over decentralization in the first place? If decentralization is so much more efficient and resilient, then why don't we have it already?
Communities will inevitably exhibit some degree of local centralization to coordinate efforts of course, individuals and groups can still seek restitution from polluters who contaminate or damage their land or resources. They can also organize boycotts, leverage grassroots reputation networks, employ social pressure, and engage in direct negotiations to compel cleaner production methods.
Modern technological breakthroughs greatly expand how communities can address externalities and finance large projects. These developments weaken the state’s monopoly on authority and create avenues for voluntary collaboration on a scale that was previously impractical. Decentralization remains embryonic today not because it is inherently less capable, but because coercive structures have historically worked to stifle or outlaw alternatives. During humanity’s transition from tribal living to centralized states, there was little foresight to protect decentralized methods of organization, allowing emerging authorities to entrench their power.
Ridiculous. So what, every time a company releases CO2, there's a class-action lawsuit by every single human on earth?
Libertarians love boycotts as this magical solution for keeping companies in line. In reality, they very rarely work. And of course, to the extent that the do work, boycotts are just as effective at enforcing bad things as they are at good things. Before the Civil Rights act, decentralization allowed racist communities in the US South to withhold service based on race. If a business owner chose to tolerate black customers, they risked losing racist white ones. If you released certain areas from centralization, they would return to such practices, as well as discrimination along other factors such as sexual orientation.
But you don't support that, so it wouldn't happen. All the prejudices of these rural communities would simply disappear, because you don't like confronting their existence, and again, the idea is confined to your mind where you can simply choose not to think about them.
What it comes back to is that boycotts are simply another form of power, and power can be leveraged to do both good or bad things. Because it is a less effective form of power, you're able to romanticize it as harmless, but to the degree that it's harmless, it doesn't work to do good things either. Any power capable of doing good things like punishing polluting companies is also just as capable of punishing people for being queer. It comes back to what I said at the beginning, there is one physical reality and what happens in it is simply a question of who holds what power and what they do with it.
All you're doing is romanticizing decentralization without actually examining the world and how it works.
I guess you prefer anti-democratic felon rapists over run-of-the-mill Democrats.
Thanks for being honest about it.
Which third party candidate is an anti-democratic felon rapist?
If you're implying that I'm not voting for the Democrats and thereby supporting Trump, sleep well knowing I didn't vote Blue in 2016 or 2020 either.
Right over your head.
I'm not implying. It's a simple fact. One that you don't appear to be capable of understanding.
But please, keep being a stable genius by voting for candidates that cannot, and will not, win until their parties do the work necessary to become viable, which they aren't.
That shit makes you look real smart.
They don't win because people don't vote for them. People would literally rather support a party that doesn't align with their views. That's the part going over your head.
Wow. They must be dumbfucks.