The modern era’s industrialization capacity fosters the human desire and ability to move toward ease and convenience. Which in turn leads to the abandonment of Agorism, self-reliance and the counter-economy necessary for the freedom and sovereignty of an individual prepared to take responsibility for their lives.
This is due to the modern-day availability of resource supply chains and energy infrastructures.
Self Relience
This dependence on convenience, comfort, and ease has occurred without counting the actual cost of self-reliance.
This dependence has allowed the control system to be in a position to dictate many other aspects of our freedoms, including money, food, power resource allocation, and distribution.
The ease of convenience shopping and the increasing consumer debt-based lifestyle is the Trojan horse of the attack on self-sovereign lifestyle choices.
Only when restrictions occur to individual freedoms and the availability or allocation of resources, such as power, water, food, trade or freedom of movement do the blinkers of corporate/state conditioning become obvious.
Dependancy
State-sanctioned and corporate-controlled mechanisms of distribution and supply rely on the inability of the average person to tread water long enough with the increasing tide of consumer debt.
Thereby unable to establish any alternatives to the coercive infrastructure of commerce and trade.
Many corporate/ state-run compliance mechanisms seek to bury the consumer into debt networks that work as chains.
The resulting manufactured debt and supply chains make the system difficult to exit.
The seemingly complex nature of escaping from the fabric of dependency the system has woven is partly due to how subtlety formed it has been.
Hegelian Dialect
The system architects commonly use the Hegelian dialect to implement system rules and regulations.
The Hegelian dialectic reduced to its simplest form could be summed up as problem, reaction, solution. The “agent of change” employing the strategy creates the problem or crisis, foments the reaction (tension), then attempt to control the outcome by providing the solution (resolution.
Ultimately the solution increases power to the state and the diminishing of individualism.
Depending on where you live, as you embrace the concept of agorism you will find that the state will have gatekeepers with compliance rules implemented through the subtlety I alluded to using this dialectic.
These compliance rules were likely implemented under the commonly used guise of “for the good of all” and “consumer protection/safety.” utilizing a problem, reaction, solution approach that resulted in more centralized power with bureaucratic red tape, fees and licenses.
Counter-Economy
The barriers to exiting the system and the voyage to more self-reliance become more apparent when setting up and creating something as an independent thinker and doer that brings you into non-compliance with state-mandated rules and regulations.
Non-compliance to the establishment rules will always incur the typical threats of violence through the ability of regulators to threaten financial penalties, loss of liberty and or other social constraints or impositions.
This barrier to an agora marketplace needs to be pulled down, not with force but circumnavigated by the application of counter-economics and the adherence to Agorism, a term derived from the ancient Greek word agora meaning an open marketplace.
Agorism
As written about by Samuel Edward Konkin III, Agorism is an ideology of scientifically based thought in where he notes: reality is our standard; Nature is our lawgiver.
Thus, when libertarian theory meets counter-economics, what comes out consistently with the practice of counter-economics is an agorist: one who always acts for freedom and in freedom.
Part of the subtle controls and restrictions of freedoms and the increasing dependence on ease and convenience have distanced people from the realities of producing food from the earth and the principles of self-reliance and self-sovereignty.
What has been taking place with the latest push for control through public health concerns is the division and isolation from each other through government policies.
Under the guise of “for the good of all “, this policy action can implement more authoritarian regimes to further the loss of individualism and increased dependence on centralization for resource supply and distribution.
Exit and Build
Exploring a better lifestyle that emphasizes self-reliance can be started with a simple process of building a garden and experiencing the first flush of vegetables in the new soil.
However, it’s only when looking to exit the system that is pushing down on you, the complexities of a self-sovereign lifestyle are made more obvious.
A self-sovereign lifestyle and the long term aspects of what it takes to be consistent and successful at being self-reliant become apparent as you work to uncouple from the existing matrix.
The keep it simple stupid KISS principle of establishing the groundwork and what it takes to exit and build.
Understanding that a small area of No-Dig garden can be valuable preparation for more significant leaps into food security and individual freedoms that embrace Agorism principles.
The bright lights of permaculture, self-sufficiency of the homestead/prepper movements can seem a way off in the headlights as you start the journey of self-reliance.
When I use the term bright lights as applied to permaculture resilience/food security, I use it to emphasize the somewhat exploited words of permaculture into the overall perspective of self-reliance.
Self-reliance, self-sufficiency, self-sovereignty are all aspects of the concept of permaculture when applied to the totality of its message and teachings.
The permaculture standards of self-reliance are the bright lights of its application as a way of living. Yet, for many freedom seekers, living the permaculture way can seem a long way off.
Taking Action
The first action is finding a crossing or building a bridge across the chasm of choice.
The chasm I am referring to is not for the faint-hearted or the casual voyager.
The chasm is formed between understanding and implementing the process of being self-reliant. Or the option of staying with the comfort and security.
Thereby being the compliant spoon-fed corporate consumer of goods.
The direct line from being a food producer to supplying the consumer as an income source in a counter economy is not for everyone.
We are all born with different innate talents that we get to share as individuals in our community.
I am grateful for technical help that I cannot get my head around when dealing with obstinate motors or internet connections.
It should not be a giant leap of faith to believe in the possibility that the person I choose to help with my needs may be happy to exchange service or commodity I can supply.
To be able to implement agreements as a voluntary, mutually acceptable trade without needing a third-party intermediary to sanction the deal in some way should be the right of every individual.
Self-Sovereignty and Self-Reliance
Building and participating in the counter economy enables you to have a more self-sovereign resiliency and leverages the trust networks necessary for trade and interaction between individuals.
Self-sovereignty and self-reliance do not mean a lone wolf approach to implementing an alternative to an increasingly authoritarian system of governance and corporate monopolies.
On the contrary, community building and local production resources are vital to implementing independent and resilient networks of trade and commerce.
These are businesses and networks outside the parameters of mainstream opportunities that are under state-sanctioned control.
Any move to self-sovereignty requires to exit systems that the individual has to participate by threats to liberty and financial penalties of compliance to state authority, instead of mutual voluntary participation.
Freedom Issues and Self-Sufficiency
We live in a world where online media consumption is the source of most of the information and news.
There is a vast gulf between practical application and just watching the latest youtube video or Facebook discussion on aspects of the permaculture conversation and keyboard warrior participation in a forum chat group.
Freedom issues and self-reliance can be practically started simply by the concept of No-Dig gardening in the situation you are in right now with a small area that you consistently maintain and produce.
Why is this important? Because you have started something. It moves a thought, idea, and desire to take action. The action is a bridge, the crossing you can take to start on the practical application of knowledge.
The implementation of freedom, self-reliance, and sovereignty action is what can provide exits from the existing control grids.
It requires motivation driven by recognizing the danger hidden in the ease, safety, and convenience the system offers.
The simplicity of starting with a small garden in whatever circumstances are available to you has the opportunity to open up conversations with like-minded neighbours.
Perhaps you may find that you have something to trade with the person that has gardens already established.
Building Community
Understanding the why behind any endeavour undertaken pertaining to self-reliance and the freedom of lifestyle choice is paramount to success.
It will be the foundation to build your pathway across to the lifestyle in which you genuinely want to participate.
The concepts behind the term The Agora can be taken as far as you want it to go if you examine what is available to you as an individual.
A thriving community comprises enterprising individuals voluntarily trading with each other on the principles of agorism, not coerced compliance with authoritarian systems.
Freedom is expressed in many ways, the ability to grow your food, trade with whom you like without the state’s permission, or the ability to say no in any areas of your life that you want to express your self-sovereignty without compromise to your values.
LIfestyle Choices
The ability to live a lifestyle of our choices should not be adjusted to just convenience or ease, as this is the siren song that lures us into a false sense of productivity and security.
The further we surrender our individuality to a centralized system for our basic needs, comforts and desires, the more control is given to the system.
The more control is given to the state more the opportunity is of our chances for a sovereign life based around agorism to be taken away from us entirely.
Is the advent of blockchain technology and digital currency an opportunity to do away with the old vanguard of monetary control and usher in a new system of trade and exchange, maybe, maybe not.
It seems evident that state-run institutions keep repeating cycles of centralization of power and authority dispensed by force that history has chronicled fails time and time again.
Market mechanisms based on voluntary participation that can provide a viable free-market alternative with agorism is worth exploring for all those who value freedom.
