This is an overview of the speech I gave on January 27, 2022, at The Greater Reset in Morelia, Michoacan. In it I go into detail about the history of the ideas of Agorism and parallel networks and how they can practically be implemented today.

I wanted to start out by introducing the idea of Agorism and parallel structures to people that are not familiar with the terms. I will then explore how we can use this strategy practically to survive and thrive in the coming years despite what the “global elites” have planned for us in the great reset. 

Many people reading this may have been woken up because of the Covid hysteria. This “pandemic” has made it impossible to ignore the level of irrational thinking and authoritarian nature of our societies but this is a symptom, but not the root cause, of the problems that we are facing today. Many of us see this kind of authoritarianism continuing and even increasing as western civilization continues to run itself off a cliff. Economic crisis, supply disruption, rising energy costs, and even war are things that many of us see as big possibilities in the coming years. Obviously, we would like to avoid any such scenarios, so what can we do? That is what the Greater Reset is all about. Instead of dwelling on the technocratic dystopia that they are discussing, we will use our time and energy to talk about how we can build our own futures for ourselves.

One strategy that we will be focusing on today is called Agorism.

Agorism

Agorism was a term coined by Samuel Edward Konkin III in a book called The New Libertarian Manifesto. The word is based on Agora – Which was the marketplace in Ancient Greece and he defined the agorist as one who acts consistently for freedom and in freedom. He was using this archetype of local, person to person, markets to illustrate how we can undermine the system at large using black and grey markets. This activity put into practice was what he called Counter-Economics which he defined as the study and/or practice of all peaceful human action that is forbidden by the State.

Agorist class theory

Most libertarian class theory is binary. They are split into those who are net payers and net recivers in relation to the statist system at large. Konkin did not see this so cut and dry because corporations benefits from state privileges that aren’t so easily recognized. I think that these last two years have in a large way proved his point an shown that the “free market” corporations have been in lockstep with the government’s path toward totalitarianism in ways that seem to be antithetical or even suicidal to their own ends. This is because the late-stage statist system that we live under causes these large corporations to rely on the state for their very existence and as a result they operate as defacto government entities.  Central bank bailouts, compromised regulatory enforcement, and a complicated tax structure are only some of the factors that make it impossible to separate the two classes so easily. For this reason Konkin sought to create a new more practical class theory that could be used for strategic purposes. 

White Markets: Businesses considered legal by the state which are regulated and taxed. Banks, large grocery stores, department stores, all large corporations, fiat currency

Grey Markets: Businesses that are legal but are outside the supervision of the state and are usually not taxable and/or consist of untaxed or unregulated goods. Farmers markets, contractors, growing food, collecting rainwater, homeschooling, neighborhood watch, independent media, and hair salons can all be examples of grey market activity depending on how they operate. 

Black markets: Markets that are deemed illegal by the state but are exchanged voluntarily. Drugs, prostitution, ghost guns, Silk Road, are examples.

Red Markets: Markets that are illegal by the state but engage in violence and coercion. Human trafficking, assassination, extortion: Everything the state does but you’re not allowed to. 

Agorism: Advocating the development of black and grey markets as a revolutionary means.

“As more people reject the State’s mystifications … the Counter-Economy grows both vertically and horizontally. Horizontally, it involves more and more people who turn more and more of their activities toward the counter-economic; vertically, it means new structures (businesses and services) grow specifically to serve the Counter-Economy.”

Samuel Edward Konkin III

Parallel Structures

Now I want to show how this can incorporate another idea called parallel structures which is a term coined by a man named Václav Havel. Although SEK3 put his own labels on these terms, this strategy or tactic is not new. In fact, black and grey markets are what have allowed millions of people to survive under many totalitarian regimes. One notable example is what was labeled the “second economy” during the Soviet Union which has been documented extensively as the means to which a large part of the population was able to survive under otherwise unlivable circumstances and which contributed greatly to the demise of the entire Soviet regime.  This second economy is something that begins to flourish the more totalitarian a society shifts. The participants do not need to be aware of the philosophical foundation of voluntary transactions, they participate for sheer survival.

Parallel structures: Any form of organization, business, institution, technology, or creative pursuit that exists physically within a totalitarian society, yet morally outside of it.  

Václav Havel was a political dissident under communist rule in Czechoslovakia and coined the term in his book The Power of the Powerless, where he wrote about the absurd nature of living under the totalitarian soviet regime.

“We never decided to become dissidents. We have been transformed into them, without quite knowing how, sometimes we have ended up in prison without precisely knowing how. We simply went ahead and did certain things that we felt we ought to do, and that seemed to us decent to do, nothing more nor less.” 

Václav Havel

As you can see during those circumstances much of the population naturally must participate in the second economy and build parallel structures.

“When parallel structures are formed a second society or culture can spontaneously form and function as an enclave of freedom and sanity in a totalitarian world.”

Václav Havel

He noted that in the Soviet Union Parallel structures or the Second Economy was more effective at combating totalitarianism than political action. 

…what else are parallel structures than an area where a different life can be lived, a life that is in harmony with its own aims and which in turn structures itself in harmony with those aims? …What else are those initial attempts at social self-organization than the efforts of a certain part of society…to rid itself of the self-sustaining aspects of totalitarianism and, thus, to extricate itself radically from its involvement in the …totalitarian system? 

Václav Havel

Now that we understand the strategy of Agorism and building parallel structures let’s talk more about how we can put them into practice.  I want to make sure it’s understood that even Konkin recognized that there are degrees that people participate in the Agora and that it is not to be expected that everyone is going to be working 100% outside the system. It is understandable for someone to not run out and quit their job immediately with nothing to fall back on because they work for one of these quasi-government corporations. However, it is advisable to try to at the very least create other streams of income, side hustles or skills outside the system that you can fall back on and perhaps eventually replace your salary with. I will also add that there are obviously times when it is impossible to not deal with white market businesses. There are instances where having a bank account or insurance will be necessary and there are no options outside the system. Also, if you do have money that is unavoidably inside the system you should try to use the white market games so that you can legally pay as little taxes as possible.

So now that you have a more detailed understanding of these concepts, it’s time to think about how you can try to incoporate them into your own life. That is what the Greater Reset and Freedom Cells is all about. Once we have enough people with a big enough network of people participating we can form support groups and intentional communities that will be able to survive and thrive even during times of economic crisis which we may be seeing in the near future or authoritarianism which we are seeing now.