Is there One, True Path to Liberty™? Is there only one valid strategy that, if diligently followed, will lead us to a stateless society? Just one, perfect path, perhaps handed down from on high, expertly cultured in the gardens of Valhalla and approved by the wise, if laughing, Buddha?
Many libertarians, plurally-minded people that we are, say no. And then flash our middle fingers.
Where these folks go wrong is when they use this idea as an excuse to not consciously and consistently pursue any strategy whatsoever.
“Although I am a committed anarcho-capitalist/voluntaryist/agorist/market anarchist,” they say, “I practice no specific strategy because I don’t believe there is One, True Strategy™.”
Here’s why this is nonsense.
This idea of One, True Path to Liberty™ is a strawman. No one is claiming such a thing exists. It’s a distraction meant to avoid a choice. It’s an intellectual pain pill to numb the ache of wanting something but not believing you can achieve it. It’s smug procrastination.
Selecting a strategy and testing it does not require you to believe it is the only possible one. It doesn’t even imply that.
The “There is no One, True Path to Liberty™” idea is like going to college and not picking a major because you see value in all fields of study.
It’s going to the supermarket and not buying any milk because you don’t believe in choosing one brand over the other.
It’s like saying there is not just one road to Rome, so I don’t believe in using roads. At all.
It’s like saying I’m going to be a scientist but I reject the scientific method because there is no one, true, all-encompassing hypothesis.
It’s like saying that there is no, single best way for people to live their lives, so I won’t even try to find a good way for me to live mine right now.
Every man builds his world in his own image,” he said. “He has the power to choose, but no power to escape the necessity of choice. If he abdicates his power, he abdicates the status of man, and the grinding chaos of the irrational is what he achieves as his sphere of existence – by his own choice.” (from Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand)
I challenge you to pick a strategy, one of your own making or someone else’s. Write it down. Define your tactics, your habits, your practices. Commit to this strategy for a fixed amount of time, be that 1 month, 1 year or 5 years. Follow it. Document your experiences. Share your results.
That’s what Jim Babb has been doing with jury rights activism in front of courthouses since 2010.
Julian Heicklen has been doing the same, with a few breaks, since even earlier.
A young libertarian activist chose the agorist strategy and went in deep.
Ross Ulbricht chose a similar strategy and went in even deeper.
I chose a less risky agorist strategy and practiced it from 2009 to 2015.
For Ron Paul, it’s running for office and writing books.
For Murray Rothbard, it was writing books and the Libertarian Party.
For Ayn Rand, it was fiction and teaching.
For Adam Kokesh, it’s confrontation.
For Christopher Cantwell, it’s lone-wolf shooting cops.
For Stefan Molyneux, it’s teaching his philosophy using extra long videos and strong-arm argumentation tactics.
For Tom Woods, it’s his podcast.
Historically, people have achieved liberty through fighting, either violently or nonviolently. But today we have better paths open to us.
I’ve been building and practicing my strategy of individual power since 1999. I’m reporting on it every Friday.
This is the scientific method, or a rough approximation. Take a hypothesis, test it, report your results and repeat.
What about you? What’s your strategy for achieving your goals? What results have you documented? How have you honed your strategy over time?
We have a shared project: the replacement of the obsolete nation-state by a polycentric, market anarchist order. Do you expect to achieve it by luck? By coincidence? To sit back on the couch, potato chips in hand, and watch someone else do it on Netflix?
If you wish to be a part of the solution, commit yourself to this serious project.
“When you have to make a choice and don’t make it, that is in itself a choice.” – William James
Photo Credit: David Howard CC-BY
2 replies on “The One, True Path to Liberty”
George,
I really appreciate how you listed those individuals and their preferred methodology as examples of the variety of tactics they are using. It is imperative, I think, for others in the alternative media to gauge the efficacy of those means in achieving their purported ends.
That being said, are you aware of Tom Marshall’s vonu strategy? Arguably, it is a competitor to agorism, and seems to be an even older idea. I’d like nothing better than libertarians to discuss/debate these two strategies (agorism & vonu), because even in the very act of doing so, it shifts the conversation away from the “grievance of the week” towards direct action.
Actually, those were examples of strategies.
If running away to the woods works for some people, awesome. But to me it looks like escapism and fantasy-play. What value do you see in it, specifically?