New Libertarian Manifesto

Samuel Edward Konkin III

This is a set of excerpts from is Konkin’s agorist manifesto.

Agorism is perhaps best deﬁned as the ideology that holds that the marketplace is the best, most practical, and only ethical means by which to bring about social or political change. It is, therefore, a revolutionary form of libertarianism, whose goal is not merely the diminution of the state, but its abolition. The method of agorist revolution is radical in the sense that it aims to ﬁght the system from without, rather than employing the liberal means of ﬁghting or merely reforming the system from within. Agorism tends thus to eschew any association with institutions or organisations that, like the Libertarian Party, aim to employ the aforementioned liberal means; in the view of agorists, this approach is either impractical or even unethical.

“New Libertarianism,” always found capitalised, is the term Konkin uses to describe his own particular agorist take. In a manner of speaking, “New Libertarianism” is the strategy of promoting agorism through the organisation of entrepreneurs for Liberty.

As I am not myself a “New Libertarian,” I ﬁnd myself in disagreement with Konkin during a number of occasions. Below you ﬁnd a collection of interesting quotes from this classic work, along with some comments I wrote to myself while reading this book. The latter will be written in pale yellow, whereas the former will be quoted in white.

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