New Libertarian Manifesto 15
I. STATISM: OUR CONDITION
We are coerced by our fellow human beings.
Since they have the ability to choose to do oth-
erwise, our condition need not be thus. Coer-
cion is immoral, inefficient, and unnecessary
for human life and fulfillment. Those who wish
to be supine as their neighbors prey on them
are free to so choose; this manifesto is for those
who choose otherwise: to fight back.
To combat coercion, one must understand
it. More important, one must understand what
one is fighting for as much as what one is fight-
ing against. Blind reaction goes in all direc-
tions negative to the source of oppression and
disperses opportunity; pursuit of a common
goal focuses the opponents and allows forma-
tion of coherent strategy and tactics.
Diffuse coercion is optimally handled by lo-
cal, immediate self-defense. Though the mar-
ket may develop larger-scale businesses for
protection and restoration, random threats of
violence can only be dealt with on the spot ad hoc.1
Organized coercion requires organized op-
position. (An excellent case has been made
many times by many thinkers that such orga-
nization should remain skeletal at best, flesh-
ing out only for actual confrontation, in order
to prevent perversion of the defenders into an
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1 I am indebted to Robert LeFevre for this insight,
though we draw differing conclusions.
16 Samuel Edward Konkin III
agency of aggression.) Institutional coercion,
developed over the millennia with roots of
mysticism and delusion planted deep in the
victims’ thinking, requires a grand strategy
and a cataclysmic point of historical singular-
ity: Revolution.
Such an institution of coercion—centralizing
immorality, directing theft and murder, and
coordinating oppression on a scale inconceiv-
able by random criminality—exists. It is the
Mob of mobs, Gang of gangs, Conspiracy of con-
spiracies. It has murdered more people in a
few recent years than all the deaths in history
before that time; it has stolen in a few recent
years more than all the wealth produced in
history to that time; it has deluded—for its
survival—more minds in a few recent years
than all the irrationality of history to that time;
Our Enemy, The State.2
In the 20th Century alone, war has mur-
dered more than all previous deaths; taxes and
inflation have stolen more than all wealth pre-
viously produced; and the political lies, propa-
ganda, and above all, “Education,” have twisted
more minds than all the superstition prior: yet
through all the deliberate confusion and
obfuscation, the thread of reason has devel-
oped fibers of resistance to be woven into the
rope of execution for the State: Libertarian-
ism.
Where the State divides and conquers its
opposition, Libertarianism unites and lib-
erates. Where the State beclouds, Libertar-
ianism clarifies; where the State conceals, Lib-
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2 Thank you, Albert J. Nock, for that phrase.
New Libertarian Manifesto 17
ertarianism uncovers; where the State par-
dons, Libertarianism accuses.
Libertarianism elaborates an entire phi-
losophy from one simple premise: initiatory
violence or its threat (coercion) is wrong (im-
moral, evil, bad, supremely impractical, etc.)
and is forbidden; nothing else is.3
Libertarianism, as developed to this point,
discovered the problem and defined the solution:
the State vs. the Market. The Market is the sum
of all voluntary human action.4 If one acts non-
coercively, one is part of the Market. Thus did
Economics become a part of Libertarianism.
Libertarianism investigated the nature of
man to explain his rights deriving from non-co-
ercion. It immediately followed that man
(woman, child, Martian, etc.) had an absolute
right to this life and other property—and no right
to the life or property of others. Thus did Objec-
tive philosophy become part of Libertarianism.
Libertarianism asked why society was not
libertarian now and found the State, its rul-
ing class, its camouflage, and the heroic histo-
rians striving to reveal the truth. Thus did
Revisionist History become part of Libertari-
anism.
Psychology, especially as developed by Tho-
mas Szasz as counter-psychology, was em-
braced by libertarians seeking to free them-
_____________________________________________
3 Modern Libertarianism is best described by Murray
Rothbard in For a New Liberty, which, regardless how
recent the edition, is always a year or more out of date.
Recommending even the best writing on libertarian-
ism is like recommending one song to explain music in
all its forms.
4 Thank you, Ludwig von Mises.
18 Samuel Edward Konkin III
selves from both State restraint and self-im-
prisonment. Seeking an art form to express the
horror potential of the State and extrapolate
the many possibilities of liberty, Libertarian-
ism found Science Fiction already in that field.
From political, economic, philosophical,
psychological, historical, and artistic realms the
partisans of liberty saw a whole, integrating their
resistance with others elsewhere, and they came
together as their consciousness became aware.
Thus did Libertarians become a Movement.
The Libertarian Movement looked around
and saw the challenge: everywhere, Our En-
emy, The State; from the ocean’s depth past
arid desert outposts to the distant lunar sur-
face; in every land, people, tribe, nation—
and in the individual mind.
Some sought immediate alliance with other
opponents of the power elite to overthrow the
State’s present rulers.5 Some sought immedi-
ate confrontation with the State’s agents.6
Some pursued collaboration with those in
power who offered less oppression in exchange
for votes.7 And some dug in for long-term en-
lightenment of the populace to build and de-
velop the Movement.8 Everywhere, a Libertar-
_____________________________________________
5 Radical Libertarian Alliance, 1968–71.
6 Student Libertarian Action Movement, 1968–72,
later revived briefly as a proto-MLL.
7 Citizens for a Restructured Republic, 1972, made
up of RLA members disillusioned with revolution.
8 Society for Individual Liberty, 1969–89 (now merged
with Libertarian International to the International So-
ciety for Individual Liberty). Also Rampart College (now
defunct) and the Foundation for Economic Education and
Free Enterprise Institute, all of whom were around be-
fore the libertarian population explosion of 1969.
New Libertarian Manifesto 19
ian Alliance of activists sprang up.9
The State’s Higher Circles were not about
to yield their plunder and restore property to
their victims at the first sign of opposition. The
first counterattack came from anti-principles
already planted by the corrupt Intellectual
Caste: Defeatism, Retreatism, Minarchism,
Collaborationism, Gradualism, Monocentrism,
and Reformism—including accepting State of-
fice to “improve” Statism! All of these anti-prin-
ciples (deviations, heresies, self-destructive
contradictory tenets, etc.) will be dealt with
later. Worst of all is Partyarchy, the anti-con-
cept of pursuing libertarian ends through stat-
ist means, especially political parties.
A “Libertarian” Party was the second coun-
terattack of the State unleased on the fledg-
ling Libertarians, first as a ludicrous oxymo-
ron,10 then as an invading army.11
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9 Most important, the California Libertarian Alliance,
1969–73. The name is still kept alive for sponsorship of
conferences, and is also used in the United Kingdom.
10 The first “Libertarian” Party was set up by Gabriel
Aguilar and Ed Butler in California in 1970 as a hollow
shell to gain media access. (Aguilar, a Galambosian,
was staunchly anti-political.) Even Nolan’s “L”P was
mocked and scorned by such as Murray Rothbard in
the first year of its existence.
11 The “Libertarian” Party that eventually organized
nationally and ran John Hospers and Toni Nathan for
President and Vice-President in 1972 was first orga-
nized by David and Susan Nolan in December 1971 in
Colorado. Dave Nolan was a Massachusetts YAFer who
had broken with YAF back in 1967 and missed the 1969
climax at St. Louis. He remained conservative and
minarchist right up to this first edition.
Although the Nolans were rather innocent, and other
early organization and candidates often so, the debate
20 Samuel Edward Konkin III
The third counterattack was an attempt by
one of the ten richest capitalists in the United
States to buy the major Libertarian institu-
tions—not just the Party—and run the move-
ment as other plutocrats run all the other politi-
cal parties in capitalist states.12
The degree of success those statist counter-
attacks had in corrupting libertarianism led
to a splintering of the Movement’s “Left” and
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on “the Party Question” began immediately. New Lib-
ertarian Notes attacked the “L”P concept in Spring 1972
and ran a debate between Nolan and Konkin just be-
fore the election (NLN 15).
By the 1980 presidential campaign, the Nolans had
broken with the “L”P leadership of Ed Crane and his
candidate Ed Clark, who ran a high-powered, high-fi-
nanced, traditional vote-chasing and platform-trimming
campaign.
12 Charles G. Koch—Wichita oil billionaire—through
his relatives, foundations, institutes, and centers, had
set up, bought up, or “bought out” the following from 1976–79:
Murray Rothbard and his Libertarian Forum;
Libertarian Review (from Robert Kephart), edited by
Roy A. Childs; Students for a Libertarian Society (SLS),
run by Milton Mueller; Center for Libertarian Studies
(Rothbard-leaning) and Joe Peden; Inquiry, edited by
Williamson Evers; Cato Institute; and various Koch
Funds, Foundations, and Institutes. Named the
“Kochtopus” in New Libertarian 1 (February 1978), it
was first attacked in print by Edith Efron in the con-
servative-libertarian publication Reason, along with
allegations of an “anarchist” conspiracy. The Movement
of the Libertarian Left cut away from Efron’s anti-anarchist
ravings and rushed to support her on her key revelat-
ion of the growth of monocentrism in the Movement.
In 1979, the Kochtopus took control of the national
Libertarian party at the Los Angeles convention. David
Koch, Charles’ brother, openly bought the VP nomina-
tion for $500,000.
New Libertarian Manifesto 21
the despairing paralyzation of others. As dis-
illusionment grew with “Libertarianism,” the
disillusioned sought answers to this new prob-
lem: the State within as well as the State with-
out. How do we avoid being used by the State
and its power elite? That is, they asked, how
can we avoid deviations from the path of lib-
erty when we know there are more than one?
The market has many paths to production and
consumption of a product and none are per-
fectly predictable. So even if one tells us how
to get from here (statism) to there (liberty), how
do we know that is the best way?
Already some are dredging up the old strat-
egies of movements long dead, movements with
other goals. New paths are indeed being of-
fered—back to the State.13
Betrayal, inadvertent or planned, continues.
It need not.
While no one can predict the sequence of
steps that will unerringly achieve a free soci-
ety for free-willed individuals, one can elimi-
nate in one slash all those that will not ad-
vance Liberty, and applying the principles of
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13 Murray Rothbard broke with the Kochtopus soon
after the ’79 LP Convention and most of his close allies
were purged, such as Williamson Evers of Inquiry. CLS
was cut off from Koch funding. The Libertarian Forum
began attaching Koch. Rothbard and young Justin Rai-
mondo set up a new “radical” caucus of the LP (the first
one, 1972–74, was run by progenitors of NLA as a re-
cruiting tactic and a way to destroy the Party from
within).
Although Rothbard was moved to ask “Is Sam
Konkin Right?” in his July 1980 speech to an RC din-
ner in Orange County, the RC strategy is to reform the
LP using New Left and neo-Marxist tactics.
22 Samuel Edward Konkin III
the Market unwaveringly will map out a terrain to
travel. There is no One Way, one straight line
graph to Liberty, to be sure. But there is a fam-
ily of graphs, a Space filled with lines, that
will take the libertarian to his goal of the free
society, and that Space can be described.
Once the goal is fixed and the paths dis-
covered, only the Action of the individual to go
from here to there remains. Above all, this
manifesto calls for that Action.14
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14 I hope subsequent editions may omit this note,
but in the present historical context it is vital to point
out that Libertarianism is not specifically for the most
“advanced” or enlightened elements of North America,
perhaps typified by the young, white, highly read com-
puter consultant, equally feminist mate (and 0.5 chil-
dren). Only the freest market can raise the “Second”
and “Third World” from grinding poverty and self-de-
structive superstition. Compulsory attempts critically
to raise production standards and associated cultural
understanding have caused backlash and regression:
e.g. Iran and Afghanistan. Mostly, the State has en-
gaged in deliberate repression of self-improvement.
Quasi-free markets, such as the freeports of Hong
Kong, Singapore, and (earlier) Shanghai, attracted floods
of upwardly mobile, highly motivated entrepreneurs. The
incredibly well-developed black market of Burma already
runs the entire economy and needs only a libertarian
awareness to oust Ne Win and the Army, accelerating
trade and annihilating poverty overnight.
Similar observations are possible about developed
black markets and tolerated semi-free markets in the
“Second World” of Soviet occupation, such as Armenia,
Georgia, and the Russian counter-economy (nalevo).
Note to the Second Edition: The above note is still, sadly
enough, needed.
Note to the Third Edition: With the collapse of Commu-
nism, maybe the need is declining, but the note’s still
here!