Why I Talk About Agorism

by James Corbett
corbettreport.com
October 26, 2025

The always provocative (and thought-provoking) Larken Rose recently posted a video, “Why I Don’t Talk About Agorism.” If you haven’t seen it yet, you should:

(And, after you watch it, you should subscribe to his channel and buy his book.)

Long story short, Larken makes the point that he doesn’t talk about “the philosophy of agorism” because agorism is not a philosophy. It’s a tactic. The philosophy underlying the agorist tactic is voluntaryism. Ergo, he talks about voluntaryism, not agorism.

I understand his point, but I suppose I’ll make the argument for agorism as a philosophy.

So, are you the type of person whose eyes glaze over when people start talking about philosophy? Do you want to gouge your eyes out with a rusty spoon at the mere mention of political ideology? Then you can go on with your day. You will not enjoy this editorial.

Conversely, are you interested in political philosophy? Would you like to know more about agorism, voluntaryism, and the praxis of anarchy? Then this is the editorial for you. Read on!

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WHAT IS AGORISM?

First, let’s start out as every fruitful discussion on complex topics should: by defining our terms.

Voluntaryism is perhaps most succinctly defined at voluntaryist.com:

Voluntaryism is the doctrine that relations among people should be by mutual consent, or not at all. It represents a means, an end, and an insight. Voluntaryism does not argue for the specific form that voluntary arrangements will take; only that force be abandoned so that individuals in society may flourish. As it is the means which determine the end, the goal of an all voluntary society must be sought voluntarily.

Even in this simple definition, however, you start to see the tensions between philosophy as ideology and philosophy as practice that Larken points to in his own commentary. In this formulation, for instance, voluntaryism is both a means and an end (and, as an added bonus, it’s also an insight!).

But if voluntaryism is indeed a means, than what are those means? Surely, the “means” of a voluntary society is the practice of engaging in voluntary relations with others and eschewing coercion and offensive force. This is where agorism comes in.

The next logical question, of course, is: what is agorism?

The name itself derives from “agora” (ἀγορά in Greek), which is generally translated as “marketplace.” But the ancient Greek agora was not merely a marketplace in the crass sense of our modern understanding of that word. It was a public square, a gathering place where people could exchange not only goods but also ideas. A place where they could cooperate, argue and καταλλάσσω (katallassó), i.e., not just exchange goods or ideas but engage in the reconciliation that forms the basis of human society.

There is much more to be said about these topics and the associated study of catallactics, but using “a space for the voluntary, mutually beneficial interactions of free people to play out” as a rough definition of the agora, we can now turn to famed voluntaryist philosopher Samuel E. Konkin for a definition of agorism.

Konkin opens his seminal work on this topic, The Agorist Primer, with the simplest explanation of the word “agorism” you will ever read: “Agorism can be defined simply: it is thought and action consistent with freedom.”

But, like all succinct definitions for complex words, Konkin acknowledges that this description, too, leaves much room for interpretation: “The moment one deals with ‘thinking,’ ‘acting,’ ‘consistency,’ and especially ‘freedom,’ things get more and more complex.”

Indeed.

So, how about this definition from later on in the same chapter: “Agorism is the consistent integration of libertarian theory with counter-economic practice; an agorist is one who acts consistently for freedom and in freedom.”

The only problem here is that we encounter yet another new term: counter-economics. Those who have read my editorial on “You’re Already a Criminal: An introduction to counter-economics“ will know that Konkin defines counter-economics thusly:

All (non-coercive) human action committed in defiance of the State constitutes the Counter-Economy.

As I go on to elaborate in my editorial, everything from driving over the speed limit to paying a contractor in cash under the table to cutting someone’s hair without a license could fall under the category of “counter-economic activity”—provided that action is “committed in defiance of the State.” It is by reducing the scope of the state’s power over citizens—and thereby, often depriving the state of its tax revenue—that the counter-economist helps to create a freer world.

There is obviously much more to learn and to understand about the counter-economy, about the consistent application of libertarian principles, and about “acting consistently for freedom and in freedom,” but at least we now have the pieces to understand what agorism is.

An agorist is one who applies the principles of libertarianism consistently through counter-economic practice. They aim, that is, to bring about the voluntaryist society not through political (in)action but through direct counter-economic action.

But now that we know what agorism is, we’re left with the even more important question: namely, what agorism isn’t.

WHAT ISN’T AGORISM?

Let’s return to Larken Rose’s assertion that agorism isn’t a philosophy.

It’s easy to understand why Larken would make this argument. Generally speaking, a philosophy is something that starts with some axiomatic principles and then attempts to reason out the answer to questions about the universe using those axioms as a guide.

The voluntaryist philosophy, for instance, starts from the axiom that “all relations among people should be by mutual consent” and then reasons from there to deduce the illegitimacy of the state.

The libertarian philosophy, meanwhile, starts from the axiom of self-ownership and deduces the fundamental human freedoms (the right to life, the right to liberty, the right to property) that derive from this axiom.

Larken and others argue, however, that agorism is not such a philosophy. Rather, it is a practice—a proposed method (counter-economic activity) for achieving a desired aim (freedom). It does not, in other words, tell us why we desire that aim in the first place. To fill in that blank we must turn to a philosophy like voluntaryism or libertarianism.

However, if we were to dismiss agorism as merely a practice, not a philosophy too, we might be missing part of the point of agorism itself. In fact, advocates of agorism believe that its emphasis on action is what makes agorism a superior philosophy to mere libertarianism. Just as voluntaryist.com asserts that the means and the ends of a free society are inseparable (voluntaryism is “a means, an end, and an insight,” after all), so, too, does Konkin differentiate agorism from libertarianism by stressing the action-based nature of the former: “Unlike libertarianism, agorism offers both goal and path as an internally consistent package deal.”

From the agorist viewpoint, a philosophy like libertarianism can easily lead even well-meaning freedom seekers away from a free society and towards the empowerment of the state by divorcing the goal (a free society) from the path (counter-economic activity). We see this happen, for example, when so-called “libertarians” engage in political advocacy or even join a political party in order to further their short-term goals (a reduction in taxes, for instance).

Agorism, by fusing the goal and the path, makes an important and easily neglected point: namely, that a free society cannot be imposed at the barrel of a gun. Since the entire point of agorism is to maximize the agora—that is, the space for voluntary human relations—then any attempt to achieve that goal by way of the state (with its ever-present threat of violence and its assertion of sovereignty over the individual) is impermissible.

Whether or not one agrees with agorism itself, my argument is that it is a philosophy after all. It’s simply one that takes the voluntaryist and libertarian axioms and adds to them with some specifically agoristic axioms.

What’s more, depending on how one defines “voluntaryism,” there may not be much of a distinction from agorism here at all.

Observe, for example, how Carl Watner, George H. Smith and Wendy McElroy define “voluntaryist” in Neither Bullets nor Ballots: Essays on Voluntaryism, one of the founding documents of the modern voluntaryist philosophy.

The voluntaryists are libertarians who have organized to promote non-political strategies to achieve a free society. We reject electoral politics, in theory and in practice, as incompatible with libertarian goals. Governments must cloak their actions in an aura of moral legitimacy in order to sustain their power, and political methods inevitably strengthen that legitimacy. Voluntaryists seek instead to delegitimize the State through education, and we advocate the withdrawal of the cooperation and tacit consent on which state power ultimately depends.

Semantics aside, this reads like something straight out of The Agorist Primer. Swap “agorists” for “voluntaryists” and I doubt even the most dyed-in-the-wool Konkin-supporting agorists would see anything in that statement they would take issue with.

So, is there a real philosophical difference here? Is this all just a question of semantics?

WHY IT MATTERS

You could be forgiven for dismissing this whole argument as a question of semantics. After all, there certainly are voluntaryists who act in exclusively agoristic ways, or who see the need for consistency between the means and the ends of achieving a free society as a vital part of their philosophy.

Regardless, whatever you choose to call this philosophy and whichever label you prefer to adopt, the idea that a moral/sociopolitical philosophy can be separated from the actions that philosophy requires of its adherents is something that agorists (and even a number of voluntaryists) would reject.

In fact, Austrian economics—the economic underpinning of libertarianism—has from its very inception been concerned not merely with the moral or purely philosophical questions confronting man but the actions that men and women choose to undertake to achieve their goals. So important is this concept to the libertarian philosophy that it has its own term—”praxeology,” or the study of human action. The seminal work of the Austrian school of economics is even titled Human Action.

This is not a trivial point. A free society is not merely an ideal society to be philosophically formulated, but a process to be enacted through conscious action. Thus, the idea of separating the free society from the actions that free human beings must (or must not) engage in is self-contradictory. What else defines a free society except for those actions?

Now, perhaps I have wandered too far from the point of Larken Rose’s video. Larken is clearly reacting to those would-be “agorist” purists who think that so much as driving on a government-funded road is compliance with the state and thus impermissible. In that regard, stressing the voluntaryist principles over the second-guessing of everyone’s every action makes sense. No one appreciates the smugness of the self-declared purists who spend more time nitpicking the actions of others (like libertarians) who are largely devoted to the same cause (despite voting in elections and engaging in other non-counter-economic activity) than they do in actually working against the state.

But still, I think it is important to stress that any truly well-rounded philosophy that seeks to describe the ideal society cannot and should not divorce the actions and strategies for achieving that society from the society itself.

This marriage of thought and action, after all, was the insight that motivated Konkin in the first place, and it is the insight that prompted him to formulate his famous A³ slogan in the famous closing paragraphs of his New Libertarian Manifesto:

We witness to the efficacy of freedom and exult in the intricate beauty of complex voluntary exchange. We demand the right of every ego to maximize its value without limit save that of another ego. We proclaim the age of the Market unbound, the natural and proper condition for humanity, wealth in abundance, goals without end or limit, and self-determined meaning for all: Agora.

We challenge all who would bind us to show us cause; failing proof of our aggression we shatter our fetters. We bring to justice all who have aggressed against any, ever. We restore all who have suffered oppression to their rightful condition. And we destroy forever the Monster of the Ages, the pseudo-legitimized monopoly of coercion, from our minds and from our society, the protector of aggressors and thwarter of justice. That is, we smash the State: Anarchy.

We exert our wills to our personal limits restrained only by consistent morality. We struggle against anti-principles which would sap our wills and combat all who physically challenge us. We rest not nor waste resource until the State is smashed and humanity has reached its agorist home. Burning with unflagging desire for Justice now and Liberty forever, we win: Action.

Agora, Anarchy, Action!

For anyone interested in the cause of human freedom, it’s hard not to get excited about those three A-words presented in that context.

Now, if I may be so bold, can I add one more “A” to the list? Can I get an Amen?

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