I liked this article on Yahoo. In protest of high cigarette taxes, some people are growing their own tobacco to avoid the tax.
With greenhouses and plant lamps, people are growing their own tobacco even in parts of the country where the climate is otherwise unsuitable.
The article mentioned people growing their own tobacco. If you're going to the trouble of growing your own tobacco, you might as well make enough for a few other people as well. Then, you can sell it off-the-books for profit.
The fact that cigarette taxes are so high makes this a lucrative business opportunity for agorists.
The same applies to people who make their own alcohol to avoid alcohol taxes.
Division of labor is a good thing. If you're growing your own tobacco or making your own alcohol, you might as well make some extra and sell it to your friends. The key is to make sure that your friends won't rat you out to the State. If you stick to a small scale, enough for only 50-100 people, then it's hard/unlikely for State enforcers to violently crack down.
Monday, December 7, 2009
Agorist Tobaccoo Farmers
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
The state creates violence by raising barriers to entry into a particular industry.
That industry then enjoys higher profits. This creates arbitraging opportunity which someone will take. (as long as no one takes it, the possible profit from arbitrage keeps rising, guaranteeing an eventual take). Once someone starts arbitraging by say selling cigarettes as in above example, the state must come in with violence to "solve" the situation it itself purposefully and shamefully created long time ago.
I conclude that the state is an intentional plan to ruin everyone lives and to create violence.
Anon,
"I conclude that the state is an intentional plan to ruin everyone lives and to create violence."
I agree, but we need to distinguish beteen government and State. Is it possible to have government without State. For me the State is created when the government takes on the Banking function and a taxation system to pay for it.
Monarchy was always better at protecting people from the State than Structural Democratic State.
Anon 2, Government and The State essentially mean the same thing. It's the institution(s) mandated with creating and enforcing laws, rules and regulations with an explicit monopoly on violence.
I find it strange that you mention nowhere existing Local Exchange Trading Systems like LETS and time dollars. These use interest free local currencies that have a value that is usually not attached to a national currency so that it is inflation proof. For example 1 Time dollar equals one hour of work regardless of inflation.
People trade services but also things they make themselves (bread, eggs, software...) or second hand stuff like what is traded on ebay.
A potential problem with current systems i know of is that they can be infiltrated by the government but currently they are to small for the gvt to be bothered by them. But it should be possible to build more privacy into it;
In my experience these networks are currently popular with 2 groups of people environmentalists and jobless people. The environmentalists are mostly of the good kind, productive and wanting to help other people but possibly they are some communists.
Post a Comment