Agorism is the libertarian political philosophy that advocates the goal of the bringing about of a society in which all relations between people are voluntary exchanges by means of counter-economics. It was founded by libertarian philosopher Samuel Edward Konkin III in 1975.^[1]

Ideology[link]

Most agorists^[who?] consider themselves market anarchists, while some proponents characterize it as a form of left-libertarianism.^[2] Agorists generally oppose voting for political candidates and political reform. Instead, agorists stress the importance of alternative strategies rather than politics to achieve a free society. Agorists claim that we can achieve a free society more easily and sooner by employing such alternative methods.^{[citation needed]} Such alternative strategies consist of education, direct action, entrepreneurship, and counter-economics.^[1] Agorists advocate promoting awareness of libertarianism and Austrian economics.^[1]

Konkin's class theory[link]

Konkin developed a class theory which includes entrepreneurs, non-statist capitalists, and statist capitalists:

Konkin claimed that while agorists see these three classes differently, anarcho-capitalists tend to conflate the first and second types and implied that "Marxoids and cruder collectivists" conflate all three.^[2]

Etymology[link]

The term was coined by Konkin, and comes from the Greek word "agora," referring to an open place for assembly and market in ancient Greek city-states.^[3]

History[link]

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Konkin's treatise New Libertarian Manifesto,^[1] was published in 1980. Previously, the philosophy had been presented in J. Neil Schulman's science fiction novel Alongside Night in 1979. Ayn Rand's example, presenting her ideas in the form of a work of fiction in Atlas Shrugged, had inspired Schulman to do likewise. Konkin's afterword to the novel, "How Far Alongside Night?", credited Schulman with integrating the "science of counter-economics" with Konkin's basic economic philosophy.^[4]

Criticisms[link]

Agorists' opposition to voting differs from the views of Murray Rothbard, who defended the act of voting.^[5] Rothbard openly denounced Konkin's agorism,^[6] claiming:

“Konkin’s entire theory speaks only to the interests and concerns of the marginal classes who are self-employed. The great bulk of the people are full-time wage workers; they are people with steady jobs. Konkinism has nothing whatsoever to say to these people. To adopt Konkin’s strategy, then, would on this ground alone, serve up a dead end for the libertarian movement. We cannot win if there is no possibility of speaking to the concerns of the great bulk of wage earners in this and other countries.”

—Murray Rothbard

See also[link]

• Counter-economics
• Economic secession
• Voluntaryism

Notes[link]

External links[link]

• J. Neil Schulman: The Agorist Revolutionary Alternative
• An Agorist Manifesto in 95 Theses
• Agorism.info
• Agorist Action Alliance (A3)
• Agorist Class Theory (PDF)
• Interview With Samuel Edward Konkin III
• The New Libertarian Manifesto
• Free PDF Download: Alongside Night

Part of the Politics series on
Anarchism
Schools of thought Buddhist Capitalist Christian Collectivist Communist Egoist Existentialist Feminist Green Individualist Infoanarchism Insurrectionary Leftist Mutualist National Nihilist Naturist Pacifist Philosophical Platformist Post-anarchist Post-colonial Post-left Primitivist Queer Social Syndicalist Synthesist Vegan Voluntaryist Without adjectives
Theory practice Anarchy Anarchist Black Cross Anti-authoritarianism Anti-militarism Affinity group Black bloc Class struggle Communes Consensus democracy Conscientious objector Decentralization Deep ecology Direct action Direct democracy Dual power Especifismo Expropriative anarchism Free association Free love Free school Freethought Horizontalidad Illegalism Individualism Individual reclamation Isocracy Law Participatory politics Permanent Autonomous Zone Prefigurative politics Propaganda of the deed Refusal of work Revolution Rewilding Social center Social ecology Social insertion Somatherapy Spontaneous order Squatting Temporary Autonomous Zone Union of egoists
People William Godwin Josiah Warren Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Henry David Thoreau Max Stirner Mikhail Bakunin Louise Michel Peter Kropotkin Benjamin Tucker Errico Malatesta Johann Most Leo Tolstoy Emma Goldman Émile Armand Nestor Makhno Rudolf Rocker Buenaventura Durruti Alexander Berkman Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia Volin Murray Bookchin Colin Ward Noam Chomsky Alfredo M. Bonanno John Zerzan
Issues Anarcho-capitalism Animal rights Capitalism Education Criticisms Islam LGBT rights Lifestylism Marxism Nationalism Orthodox Judaism Religion Sex/love Violence
History Paris Commune Hague Congress International Conference of Rome Trial of the thirty Haymarket affair May Day Anarchist Exclusion Act Congress of Amsterdam Tragic Week High Treason Incident Manifesto of the Sixteen 1919 United States anarchist bombings Biennio rosso Bavarian Soviet Republic Kronstadt rebellion Third Russian Revolution Free Territory Amakasu Incident Escuela Moderna Individualist anarchism in Europe Individualist anarchism in France Spanish Revolution Barcelona May Days Red inverted triangle Labadie Collection May 1968 Provo LIP Kate Sharpley Library Australian Anarchist Centenary Carnival Against Capitalism 1999 WTO Conference protest
Culture Anarchist films Anarchist Bookfair Anarcho-punk Arts Black anarchism Culture jamming DIY culture Freeganism Independent Media Center Infoshop The Internationale Jewish anarchism Land and liberty Lifestylism Popular education Property is theft! Radical cheerleading Radical environmentalism Squatting Symbolism Terminology A las barricadas
Economics Communization Co-operatives Counter-economics Economic democracy Free store Gift economy Infoanarchism Market abolitionism Mutual aid Mutualism Participatory economics Planned economy Really Really Free Market Wage slavery Workers' self-management
By region Africa Argentina Australia Austria-Hungary Brazil Canada China Cuba Ecuador England France Germany Greece India Iceland Ireland Israel Italy Japan Korea Mexico Poland Russia Spain Sweden Turkey Ukraine United States Vietnam
Lists Anarcho-punk bands Communities Fictional characters Jewish anarchists Musicians Organizations Periodicals Poets Pornographers Russian anarchists Films
Related topics Anti-capitalism Anti-consumerism Anti-corporatism Anti-fascism Anti-globalization Antimilitarism Anti-statism Anti-war Autarchism Autonomism Labour movement Left communism Libertarianism Libertarian perspectives on revolution Libertarian socialism Situationist International
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Samuel Edward Konkin III (aka SEK3) (8 July 1947 – 23 February 2004) was the author of the New Libertarian Manifesto and a proponent of the political philosophy which he called agorism. In the introduction to New Libertarian Manifesto he credited Murray Rothbard, Robert LeFevre, and Ludwig von Mises as influences.

Personal life[link]

Konkin was born in Saskatchewan, Canada to Samuel Edward Konkin II and Helen. He had one brother, Alan. He married Sheila Wymer in 1990 and had one son, Samuel Evans-Konkin IV. The marriage ended shortly thereafter.^[1] Konkin was also notable for his style of dress: "To show his anarchist beliefs, he dressed completely in black, a color associated with that movement since the late nineteenth century."^[2]

On 23 February 2004, Konkin died in his apartment in West Los Angeles, California of "natural causes". He was buried alongside his father in Edmonton, Alberta. A memorial held a month later in Torrance, California was attended by friends and family, including Republican congressperson Dana Rohrabacher, author Victor Koman, author Brad Linaweaver, and journalist Jeff Riggenbach.^[3]

Political views[link]

Like Rothbard in the late 1960s and early 70s, Konkin saw libertarianism as a movement of the radical left. He was a founder of the Agorist Institute and the Movement of the Libertarian Left.

Konkin rejected voting, believing it to be inconsistent with libertarian ethics. He likewise opposed involvement in the Libertarian Party, which he regarded as a statist co-option of libertarianism. He was an opponent of influential minarchist philosopher Robert Nozick, and referred to Nozick's followers as "Nozis."^[2]

Konkin presents his strategy for achieving a libertarian society in his aforementioned manifesto. Since he rejected voting and other means by which people typically aim to change, reform, or "fight the system from the inside," his approach necessarily aimed at fighting "the system" from without. Specifically, he encouraged people to withdraw their consent from the state by moving their economic activities into the black market and grey market where they would be untaxed and unregulated. "Konkin called transactions on these markets, as well as other activities that bypassed the State, 'counter-economics.' Peaceful transactions take place in a free market, or agora: hence his term 'agorism' for the society he sought to achieve."^[2] He also strongly opposed intellectual property.^{[2] [4]}

Konkin was interested in TSR's role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, and contributed a newsletter to the role-playing fanzine 'Alarums and Excursions' for many years, starting in the late 1970's. He described the ongoing adventures of his group of characters in a D&D universe. One copy of the newsletter's cover featured them hanging D&D co-author and president of TSR Gary Gygax from a tree limb over a rule dispute.^{[citation needed]}

Konkin was editor and publisher of the irregularly produced New Libertarian Notes (1971-1975), the New Libertarian Weekly (1975-1978), and finally New Libertarian magazine (1978-1990), the last issue of which was a special science fiction tribute featuring a Robert A. Heinlein cover (issue 187, 1990).

Criticism[link]

Political theorist Ulrike Heider criticized Konkin in his book Anarchism: Left, Right, and Green for supporting historical revisionism. Konkin personally rejected Holocaust denial, but supported the Institute for Historical Review on the grounds that their freedom of speech was under attack.^[5]

See also[link]

• Counter-economics
• Economic secession
• J. Neil Schulman

References[link]

External links[link]

• Agorism.info has archived Konkin writings and pamphlets in PDF format
• Interview with Konkin
• SEK3's history of the libertarian movement
• Konkin on Libertarian Strategy, by Murray Rothbard
• Sam Konkin and Libertarian Theory, by David Gordon
• J. Neil Schulman's tribute to SEK3
• KoPubCo back issues of New Libertarian
• Murray Rothbard, "Konkin on Libertarian Strategy" followed by Samuel E. Konkin, "Reply to Rothbard" at AnthonyFlood.com
• Obituary for SEK3 by Jeff Riggenbach
• Obituary for Sam Konkin by Phil Osborn

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (February 2012)

Kevin Sorbo
Sorbo in June 2008
Born	Kevin David Sorbo (1958-09-24) September 24, 1958 (age 53) Mound, Minnesota, U.S.
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1986–present
Spouse	Sam Jenkins (1998–present)
Children	3
Website
http://www.kevinsorbo.net

Kevin David Sorbo^[1] (born September 24, 1958) is an American actor best known for the roles of Hercules in Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Captain Dylan Hunt in Andromeda and Kull in Kull the Conqueror.

Early life[link]

Sorbo was born in Mound, Minnesota, where he attended Mound Westonka High School. He is the son of Ardis, a nurse, and Lynn Sorbo, a junior high school mathematics and biology teacher.^[1] He is of Norwegian descent and was raised in a Lutheran family.^[2] Sorbo attended Minnesota State University Moorhead and worked as a model for print and television advertising in the 1980s.

Career[link]

Sorbo started his acting career in the late 1980s making guest appearances in several television series such as 1st & Ten, Murder She Wrote and The Commish. He was considered for and lost out to Dean Cain as Superman in Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman and was a possible contender for the role of Agent Mulder in The X Files which went to David Duchovny.

In 1994, he shot to fame when he played the role of Hercules in the television film Hercules and the Amazon Women. This was the first in a series of television films that served as pilots for the TV series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, which ran from 1995 to 1999.

Kevin Sorbo at Gatecon in 2005

Sorbo also guest-starred as Hercules in episodes of the 1995-2001 spin-off series Xena: Warrior Princess and provided the voice of Hercules in the 1998 direct-to-video animated film Hercules and Xena - The Animated Movie: The Battle for Mount Olympus.

Other voice-over work followed, with Sorbo providing the voices of Reiko and Quan Chi in the 1997 video game Mortal Kombat 4. In between the years playing Hercules, he played his first leading film role in Kull the Conqueror (1997).

In 1997, while on a publicity tour for Kull the Conqueror and between the 4th and 5th seasons of Hercules, Sorbo experienced an aneurysm in his shoulder, which led to three strokes. As a result, he was weakened for the next several years, a condition that he and the producers of Hercules kept secret from the public. (Sorbo only revealed the details in 2011.) During the last two seasons of Hercules, the 5th and 6th, which aired in 1998 and 1999, Sorbo was given a reduced filming schedule to accommodate his condition, and more guest stars were brought in.^[3]

After Hercules came to an end, Sorbo played the starring role of Captain Dylan Hunt in the science-fiction drama series Andromeda from 2000 to 2005. In 2006, he played a recurring role on the final season of The O.C and guest-starred in the sitcom Two and a Half Men. In 2007, he starred in the direct-to-video film Walking Tall: The Payback, which was a sequel to the 2004 film Walking Tall. He reprised his role in the second sequel, Walking Tall: Lone Justice which released later that year. He also starred in the Lifetime Channel film Last Chance Café, the Hallmark Channel film Avenging Angel, co-starring his real life wife Sam Jenkins and guest starred as a bounty hunter in the season-two episode "Bounty Hunters!" of the series Psych. He appeared in the 2008 spoof film Meet the Spartans, which was a box office success^[4] despite being universally negatively reviewed by critics.^[5] He starred in the Albert Pyun directed SciFi Vampire flick Tales of the Ancient Empire.^[6]

Sorbo voiced one of the main protagonists, Prometheus, in the Wii video game The Conduit.

Sorbo returned to the role of Hercules, albeit in a more sinister portrayal, in the video game God of War III released for the PlayStation 3 in March 2010.

Personal life[link]

Sorbo married actress Sam Jenkins, whom he met when she had a guest role on Hercules, on January 5, 1998. Sorbo is the spokesman and chair of A World Fit For Kids! (AWFFK!), a non-profit organization that trains teenagers to become mentors to younger children.

Filmography[link]

Actor[link]

Guest star[link]

Producer[link]

Director[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Kevin Sorbo

• Kevin Sorbo Official Web Site
• Kevin Sorbo at the Internet Movie Database

Patri Friedman (born July 29, 1976 in Blacksburg, Virginia) is an American activist and theorist of political economy.

Background[link]

Friedman grew up in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, and is a graduate of Upper Merion Area High School, class of 1994, where he went by the name Patri Forwalter-Friedman. He graduated from Harvey Mudd College in 1998, and worked as a software engineer at Google^[1]. As a poker player, he cashed in the World Series of Poker four times.^[2]

The Seasteading Institute[link]

Friedman was Executive Director of the Seasteading Institute, founded on April 15, 2008 with a half-million-dollar donation by PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel.^[3] The Institute's mission is "to establish permanent, autonomous ocean communities to enable experimentation and innovation with diverse social, political, and legal systems".^[4] This was initially a part-time project — one day a week while working as a Google engineer the rest of the time^[1] — but Friedman left Google on July 29, 2008 to spend more time on seasteading.^[5] He and partner Wayne Gramlich hoped to float the first prototype seastead in the San Francisco Bay by 2010.^[6][7] At the October 2010 Seasteading social, it was announced that current plans were to launch a seastead by 2014.^[8]

Future Cities Development[link]

On July 31, 2011, Friedman stepped down from the position of Executive Director at The Seasteading Institute, and remained Chairman of the Board.^[9] Later, he co-founded the Future Cities Development Corporation, a project to establish a self-governing charter city within the borders of Honduras.^[10][11]

Family[link]

Patri is the grandson of Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman^[12] and economist Rose Friedman and son of economist and physicist David D. Friedman.^[12] He is separated from wife Shannon Friedman ^[13] and has one son and one daughter.^[14]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Patri Friedman

• Distributed Republic blog: Patri Friedman
• Let A Thousand Nations Bloom, blog about competitive government by Friedman, Jonathan Wilde, Mike Gibson, Will Chamberlain, and Michael Strong
• PUA 4 LTR, a blog Friedman started in November 2009 applying pickup artist skills (PUA) to intimate relationships (Long-Term Relationships or LTRs)

Articles

• "The Next Frontier: 'Seasteading' the Oceans" CNet, 2-2-09
• "Live Free or Drown" Wired, 1-19-09
• Russ Roberts interview: "Patri Friedman on Seasteading", EconTalk, 10-13-08
• "Patri Friedman & Seasteading Interview", PodCrash, 8-03-08
• Podcast interview: "WS Radio: Patri Friedman Audio", Western Standard, 6-19-08
• Lee, Timothy B. "Seasteading: Engineering the Long Tail of Nations", ArsTechnica, 6-9-2008
• Anissimov, Michael. "Seasteading Institute Interview w/ Patri Friedman", Accelerating Future, 5-14-08
• Reason.com "20,000 Nations Above the Sea", 5-08-09
• Wired "Live Free or Drown: Floating Utopias on the Cheap"
• Forbes "Names You Need to Know in 2011: Patri Friedman"
• CBS News "Ocean cities? So says Milton Friedman's grandson"
• NBC LA "Direct Impact: NBC Interview with Patri Friedman"
• Documentary Appearance "On the Trail of Easy Rider"
• Documentary Appearance "How to Start Your Own Country"
• Television Series Appearance "Mega Engineering"

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