Samuel Edward Konkin III, the creator of the political and economic system known as "agorism," was born in Saskatchewan, on July 8, 1947. Years before he stumbled upon libertarianism and conceived agorism as a statement of his revolutionary ideas, Konkin was already active in student political organizations, heading the University of Alberta's Young Social Credit League. 1 Through his interactions with libertarian luminaries such as Murray Rothbard, Konkin refined his ideas, eventually expounding a "New Libertarianism," consistent in its application of the principles of the agora, the open marketplace. Political libertarianism, at least for Konkin, was a contradiction in terms, libertarians being opposed to politics in principle. Agorism instead emphasizes the importance of building the "counter-?economy," libertarian economic institutions and enterprises existing outside of the legal strictures of the dominant framework characterized by state intervention and coercion. Agorists regard this counter-?economy as a form of nonviolent direct action, a method of simultaneously challenging and evading state power, in the process building a free society based on the principles of unrestricted voluntary exchange. Counter-?economics underscores the fact that given the volume of rules, regulations, and licenses already choking economic relations, almost everyone has already participated in the counter-?economy in one way or another, perhaps quite unwittingly. By simply paying no heed to arbitrary rules that attempt to prohibit completely voluntary, mutually beneficial trade, agorists are engaged in an attempt to change society without resorting to political action, which agorism regards as capitulating to the existing power structure. Agorists believe that by becoming politically engaged, running candidates and attempting to reform governmental structures and lawmaking, libertarians fall into the trap of politics — the delusion that if we only elect the right person or pass the right law, we can attain freedom. For agorists, the processes and institutions of politics are inherently and unchangeably corrupt and coercive. Konkin thus maintained that it was impossible to accomplish "libertarian ends through statist means, especially political parties."

What is Agorism?

As a strategy for achieving political and economic change, agorism eschews practical politics, even casting a ballot, preferring the establishment and encouragement of new libertarian institutions to overtly political means such as campaigns and legislation. This idea that libertarians should use political parties and the political process to further libertarian objectives Konkin labeled "partyarchy." In his condemnation of limited government libertarianism (as opposed to the anarchism that he and, for example, Murray Rothbard espoused), Konkin coined another now well-?known and oft-?used term: "minarchism." Contending that politics and partyarchy had demonstrably failed, proving themselves hindrances to the libertarian project or worse, Konkin proposed his agorism as an alternative, a route to a free society through the immediate and unhesitant application of its principles. If politicians and government bodies are the enemies of freedom, Konkin argued, then libertarians should quite deliberately avoid the struggle to acquire public office or political power. This agorist stance placed Konkin at variance with the large segment of the libertarian movement that saw a need for political participation, particularly for the creation and promotion of a specifically libertarian party.