One fact needs to be dealt with right off the bat, and put openly on the table before any meaningful discussion on agorism or counter-econ can be had: we are facing a violent threat. The state does not play nice, play fair, or have compassion. It is brutal and violent, and a hallucinated abstraction which comprises virtually innumerable throngs of brainwashed and sociopathic order followers, who stand ready and willing to devour you for the ‘greater good.’ Only thinking individuals opting out of this cult by their actions can make a real difference, in the end.

It is because of this abusive nature of the state that mere talk about a ‘bitcoin revolution,’ ending the Fed, or ways of leveraging counter-econ to survive and thrive in these times is useless, unless spurring on and proliferating direct action and resolute non-compliance. The ideas of these revolutions and abolitions are critical, to be sure, but they are meaningless without action, and action demands risk. Very real risk. Spreading the message of liberty is the first part. Nurturing the seeds and edifying understanding the second. Action is the third step, and the crown of any usefully acquired and integrated knowledge.

Though the risk is real, many believe the price to be well worth the prize. As American essayist and cultural critic H.L. Mencken wrote: ‘We must be willing to pay a price for freedom, for no price that is ever asked for it is half the cost of doing without it.’

What Is Counter-Economics?

According to Samuel Edward Konkin III (SEK III), one of the original purveyors of counter-economic ideas (and the arguable creator of the terminology itself), counter-economics is simply ‘to live anarchy now’ by performing any non-violent, consensual transaction between adults outside the purview of the state. ‘The Counter-Economy is the sum of all non-aggressive Human Action which is forbidden by the State,’ Konkin clarified in one of his  pamphlets on the subject.

In practical example, counter-economics is engaged in — intentionally or otherwise — by nearly everyone. Cash jobs, labor trades, barter with neighbors and friends, failing to declare purchases at airport customs, mistakenly or intentionally underreporting or not reporting taxes, illegally immigrating to a less violent state, downloading pirated files on the internet, accessing restricted information, having a yard sale without permission, feeding the homeless, obtaining illegal substances, unregulated currency exchange on parallel markets, collecting rainwater, saving seeds, renting out a room without the state’s permission, buying a Bible, selling access to one’s body, accepting gas money for carpooling, obscuring bitcoin transactions — all of these are or continue to be ‘illegal,’ somewhere in the world.

The key to understanding counter-economics is to understand that even though an activity might be deemed *gasp*  ‘black market,’ by mainstream voices and so-called authorities, it is all the same acceptable if no party to the transaction has had their individual self-ownership (or by extension, property) violated.

Counter-Econ in the Time of Covid-19

For those that have lost their jobs, careers, and livelihoods due to violence-backed state mandates in the midst of this Orwellian coronavirus hysteria, counter-economics becomes an indispensable tool.

Did you receive money from friends or loved ones to weather this storm, which you will not report to the state? You are now a ‘criminal.’ Do you have a shuffled bitcoin paper wallet stashed under the sofa for a rainy day? That could be an issue down the line. Organizing an illegal farmers market? Heinous. Of course none of these activities are inherently violent or criminal, but that’s not what matters to the state. What matters to the state is unquestioning compliance and obedience, no matter what.

As mass media is progressively filled with videos of swarming jackboots ripping young children from their parents in the name of safety, surveillance drones and robots, conflicting and wildly contradictory ‘official stats,’ Pavlovian behavioral directives, grim forecasts of unprecedented economic fallout, starvation, famine, depression, suicide, and death — not to mention tech billionaire contributors to government ‘health organizations’ magically becoming medical experts and authorities — only the naive or under-informed could imagine this madness is going to end anytime soon. Or that it is meant for anyone’s good health and well being.

It is pure, unadulterated, pedal to the metal narrative force-feeding to the end of complete draconian sociopathic control. So what can we do?

Modern Day Pirates: Three Metrics for Practical Counter-Economic Action

The answer, as far as the author can see, is a simple one: become a ‘pirate.’ Do whatever you damn well please to survive and thrive, in non-violence. What this looks like in practical terms is different for each individual. Everyone must know their lines in the sand which must not be crossed, their plans for action and defensive attack, and the risks they are taking on by engaging in counter-economic activity. Mental, spiritual, and physical preparation is key.

It’s been said that in the golden age of piracy on the sea, the best were not the most infamous characters, like Blackbeard or Captain Kidd, but those that never got caught. When survival is the game, staying undetected is key to longevity. Some pirates were escaped slaves, or defectors from state naval forces, kidnapped from their lives on land in the cities and forced into servitude on a ship. In other words, when ‘justice’ and ‘the law’ became corrupt, the only way for them to survive was to mutiny and become outlaws. In short, practical counter-economics typically involves hard-to-detect (or not worth the time to investigate) actions which take place outside the purview of authorities. Three practical metrics by which to evaluate and consider such activities are as follows:

1. Is it decentralized?
2. Is it non-violent?
3. Is it worth it?

Decentralized economies mean that law enforcement is less likely to investigate actions due to the lack of a large, centralized target. Your small farmers market group on Signal encrypted chat, for example, is unlikely to garner much attention. But those thousands of dollars, crypto, and metals stealthily changing hands for food, while likely a pittance to the eyes of state revenue collectors, could mean the world to the scattered individuals transacting and surviving thereupon. Start an openly advertised, huge group, however, and the statist thugs in blue may show up sooner than later, no matter how morally legitimate the business is.

Non-violence is the second key metric, without which, an action is no longer counter-economic in the Konkinian or voluntaryist sense. It is also no longer moral. The moment a non-violent individual is being defrauded, robbed or otherwise violated, the action is illegitimate.

The final factor, and arguably the most important, is a completely individual matter involving cost/benefit analysis. As anarchist activist Larken Rose states in his groundbreaking audio treatise ‘When Should You Shoot a Cop?’:

Of course on a practical level, openly resisting the gang called government is usually very hazardous to one’s health.

Deciding if, when, and how to practice counter-economics involves the deeply personal and completely individual act of self-awareness, understanding one’s own values, and meditation on the lines that — if crossed — would justify defensive action and economic disobedience/non-compliance. One man’s Silk Road may be another’s ‘mild’ tax evasion. It really doesn’t matter. What matters is that action is happening to the fullest extent possible. The bitter pill remains and must be swallowed in the end: if the state is not resisted, tyranny, oppression, and suffering are the only possible outcomes for both the current and future generations.

We find ourselves here at this very crux of decision and tradeoff, in 2020. If counter-economics is living anarchy now, as Konkin maintained, then now is certainly the time. Every transaction — no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, that weakens, makes unnecessary, or happens successfully outside of the purview of the state, embarrassing it, is a win, and more importantly, a critical affirmation of the objective reality of individual self-ownership, and the inalienable human rights attendant thereto.

Final Thoughts and Real Life Efficacy

Remember, we individuals already are the majority. And for those that would shout about agorism and counter-econ being ineffective: remember, it is already effectively practiced, right here and now, and has been in the past. SEK III himself has compellingly detailed the historic inability of Soviet Russian government to stop black market appliance repair services from operating, eventually trying desperately to license and co-opt them. A June 1990 article from the Atlantic conveys a similar jolting reality:

The Soviet economist Nikolai Shmelev cites survey research showing that 83 percent of the population buys goods and services in this vast second economy. In cities almost half the apartment repairs, 40 percent of auto maintenance, a third of appliance repair, and 40 percent of all tailoring and shoe repair happen beyond the gaze of Soviet statisticians. Owing to waiting lists at Soviet hospitals, anywhere from 4 million to 8 million of the abortions performed annually are done illegally, and 15 percent of all new housing construction— some 170 million to 180 million square feet a year— goes on outside official channels.

While abortion is a violation (apologies to the late, great, Murray Rothbard, but the ‘eviction argument’ is not logically sound), and a topic best dealt with not by states, but local communities of property owners, the message is resoundingly loud and clear all the same: free markets are indestructible, necessary, and useful — especially in times of oppression.

Now, as covid-19 is being exploited as a scare tactic to rip freedom away from individuals across the globe, counter-economic action is critical, not for some big grandiose vision of ‘revolution,’ but for individual survival. The pipe dream visions of ‘the movement’ and mass revolution are silly. Like the music-starved folks in old Russia, transforming discarded x-rays into jazz records so their very spirits were not utterly broken, so must the modern day pirates of corona mania hoist the black flag and get to work, in whatever peaceful ways possible, for their own individual survival, dignity, and legacy. Once a large enough number of individuals understands this, then the big movements come about on their own, as natural and spontaneous consequences, and not new, oppressive states.