Samuel Edward Konkin Ⅲ on Smashing the State

Wally Conger, at out of step, reprinted some good advice from Samuel Edward Konkin :

Ideologically, there is nothing wrong with sabotaging the State or even shooting statists; either you believe the State is pure institutional aggression or you need to go back to elementary classes in basic libertarian theory. However, for agorists there is a strong economic element involved: is this economically sound?

Morally, all but our pacifist allies should have no problem with self-defense and hence sabotage of the State. The interesting questions arrive in the Strategic and Tactical levels. Strategically, we refer to agorism: all counter-economic activity is considered sabotage of the State’s economic order. So, again, we have no problem in a systematic sabotage of the State. But how and where? When should scarce resources be utilized for a negative, defensive purpose rather than our usual pursuit of moral profit having the positive side-effect of smashing the State?

And so we come to the Tactical level, the elegance of Counter-Economics answers our question simply: almost never. There are two categories where sabotage may be engaged in, divided praxeologically, into production and consumption. Consumption means that a particular counter-economist finds sabotaging the State to be his or her whim-worshipping pleasure. Most of MLL, most of the time, cannot waste resources on such pleasures.

On the other hand, on a production level, one commits a destructive act in order to clear the way for an even more constructive act. What object of the State could distract us to put our “dynamite” in its vile dam blocking the road to freedom? The answer is War. Not only is sabotaging the war machine satisfying, but downright urgent. Lives are at stake, either draftees from home or victims of imperialism abroad.

liberal Cindy Sheehan and libertarian Sam Bostaph have come together to urge people to dynamite the war machine:

[T]he ideological differences that exist between Cindy and Sam must be set aside in the interest of a united front against this obscene war. If she had to do so, Cindy would describe herself as a progressive humanist who wants the militarism of America and the world to be replaced with kinder, more gentler foreign and domestic policies. She passionately believes that the vast amounts of our tax dollars that are being dumped into war and wasted by the “War” Department every year need to be returned to our communities to build a culture of plenty and peace.

If he had to do so, Sam would describe himself as a political and economic libertarian who wants a government that is limited solely to the protection of our human rights. This would eliminate almost all departments and agencies of the federal, state and local governments as they exist now. Like Cindy, he wants an end to militarism, the return of all U.S. military forces to the continental U.S. and the closure of all foreign bases.

But, Cindy and Sam are “we” in this struggle against the fascist, warlike society that America has become — particularly under the Bush regime — and “we” want a lot of company.


Are you a frustrated Picket Line reader who doesn’t live in the United States and can’t stop paying taxes to the IRS because you never paid ’em in the first place? Well, you can still play along: Boycott Bush.

By boycotting US multinationals who are large donors to the Republican Party, we want to put pressure on the US government to join the international community, complying with the rules of the United Nations and international law, the same way Mahatma Ghandi [sic] drove out the British empire out of India, or the international opinion put an end to the apartheid regime in South-Africa.