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Concept
Counter-economics
Summary
Counter-economics is an economic theory and revolutionary method consisting of direct action carried out through the black market or the gray market. As a term, it was originally used by American libertarian activists and theorists Samuel Edward Konkin III and J. Neil Schulman. The former defined it as the study or practice "of all peaceful human action which is forbidden by the State".
The term is short for counter-establishment economics and may also be referred to as counter-politics. Counter-economics was integrated by Schulman into Konkin's doctrine of agorism, a left-libertarian social philosophy and branch of left-wing market anarchism that advocates creating a society in which all relations between people are voluntary exchanges.
Within libertarianism in the United States, counter-economics has been adopted by anarcho-capitalists, left-wing market anarchists, as well as more anti-capitalist anarchists.
The first presentation of the theory of counter-economics was made by Samuel Edward Konkin III at a conference organized by J. Neil Schulman in 1974 held in Cheshire, Massachusetts. The first book to portray counter-economics as a strategy for achieving a libertarian society was Schulman's novel Alongside Night (1979).
Konkin's agorism, as exposited in his New Libertarian Manifesto, postulates that the correct method of achieving a voluntary society is through advocacy and growth of the underground economy or "black market" – the "counter-economy" as Konkin put it – until such a point that the State's perceived moral authority and outright power have been so thoroughly undermined that revolutionary market anarchist legal and security enterprises are able to arise from underground and ultimately suppress government as a criminal activity (with taxation being treated as theft, war being treated as mass murder, et cetera).
According to Konkin's pamphlet Counter-Economics:
The Counter-Economy is the sum of all non-aggressive Human Action which is forbidden by the State. Counter-economics is the study of the Counter-Economy and its practices.
Official source
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