© Corbett Report
Have you entered a store without the mandated mask affixed to your face?
Visited a friend in violation of a lockdown order?
Frequented a New York bar that didn't offer "
substantive" food to go with your beer?
Congratulations! You're a thought criminal!
And here's the best part: There are more thought criminals being born every day!
What am I talking about?
The counter-economy, that's what!
As you'll no doubt remember from
my previous writing on the subject, counter-economics is not what the Pentagon does to
cook its books each year. No, it's both an idea and a practice that was pioneered by Samuel Edward Konkin III, everyone's second favourite Canadian emigre anarchist.
In
An Agorist Primer, Konkin explains that "All (non-coercive) human action committed in defiance of the State constitutes the Counter-Economy." That's a deceptively simple definition, so let's tease out some of the nuance here:
- "Non-coercive" is important because murder, theft, assault, fraud, extortion and other forms of coercion are not part of the counter-economy, but, as Konkin notes, are simply "other forms of statism."
- "Human action" is important because, as Konkin was at pains to stress, counter-economics is not a dry, dusty theory to be discussed in a philosophy classroom, but an idea that can only be realized in practice.
- And "in defiance of the State" is important because the purpose of counter-economics is to undermine, and, eventually, shrink the state out of existence.
So, you walk into a store without a mask in defiance of your city's ordinances? Congratulations! You're a practicing counter-economist.
Comment: As we watch the onslaught of news about Portland's inability to confront its siege head-on or take advantage of federal help (blackmailed with fines for doing their job), news outlets do the country no favor by slanted reporting for political or self-serving reasons. Are Americans so clueless to the trappings of pre-fabricated revolution? They wouldn't be if the Times and WaPo were really doing their job.
See also: