Introduction
This is the third in a series of articles on the Economic Means to Freedom. The second article included a brief discussion of the "No-Opposition Strategy." You can access the first two articles at this website.

This article will elaborate on the No-Opposition Strategy and introduce the "It's Not All-or-Nothing" principle.

The No-Opposition Strategy

"If you can avoid it, never play on the other guy's field, by the other guy's rules, or with the other guy's ball. He didn't design his system to give you the advantage. Remember that organisms defending their own territory are twice as effective as an intruding attacker." -- L. Neil Smith

A basic theme of the Economic Means to Freedom is "building freedom" rather than "fighting for freedom" or "fighting against tyranny." I believe that if a critical mass of people were to focus on building freedom, corrupt political systems will eventually lose their power and influence.

I don't know how many people would constitute such a critical mass, nor how influential their economic power would have to be, in order for their combined economic activities to have a decisive impact on the expansion of freedom, on one hand, and the decline of the power and influence of coercive political systems, on the other hand.

The fifth main principle of the Economic Means to Freedom is the No-Opposition Strategy. When we oppose something, or try to reform it, we usually encounter opposition. Our effort elicits an almost automatic counter-effort. In practicing the Economic Means to Freedom, we don't attempt to change, oppose, reform, or overthrow any political or economic systems. We simply create our own voluntary alternatives in the free-enterprise sector.

In the second article of this series, I used the examples of Ghandi, the fall of the Berlin wall, and the collapse of the soviet empire to illustrate that the terrocrats (terrorist bureaucrats or coercive political agents) were not invincible -- "The power of terrocrats is tenuous -- largely based on illusion, flimsy, fragile, and of little substance."

At 01:29 AM 10/11/97 -0700, Tim Starr timstarr@netcom.com wrote:

... Peaceful resistance can work, but ONLY against those who aren't willing to mass-murder the resisters. Gandhi & MLK were fortunate enough to be up against opponents who were unwilling to do so. Anyone who thinks the US government would be equally unwilling is invited to consider what happened to the Bonus Army in 1932, back when the U.S. government was considerably less willing to use force against its citizenry than it is six & a half decades later.

Exaggerating the effectiveness of peaceful resistance is tantamount to sending the gullible to their deaths.

My examples may have created the impression that I advocate peaceful resistance. Let me emphasize that peaceful resistance may be appropriate for certain people in certain situations, but it does not fit at all into the context of the No-Opposition Strategy.

Peaceful resistance is a form of opposition, which tends to elicit counter-effort. It involves forms of "fighting for freedom" or "fighting against tyranny."

There are various styles of practicing the Economic Means to Freedom. The most powerful is invisibility. You operate in such a manner that you and your economic activities are effectively invisible to terrocrats. There is no protesting terrocrat actions; no resistance to terrocrat actions; no fighting terrocrats in court.

Protesting, resisting, and fighting may have a place in the Economic Means to Freedom, but have no place in the No-Opposition Strategy. There are times to take a stand, times to ignore, times to take evasive action, etc. There may also be times to just pay terrocrats what they demand, if that's the least evil or troublesome.

In practicing the Economic Means to Freedom for a quarter of a century, I've paid terrocrats around $500 in "fines," maybe $5,000 - $10,000 for "car registration" and "driver's licenses," and around $10,000 - $15,000 in various "sales taxes."

No terrocrat has ever used a gun against me, or threatened to do so. No terrocrat has ever pointed a gun at me. Their threats have always come in the form of words. As indicated in the first article of this series, the practitioner of the Economic Means to Freedom may face, in general, fewer risks from terrocrats than people "in the system."

I've received a few threatening letters from terrocrats. In some cases I paid the "fine" demanded; in other cases I sent them a reply that resulted in them deciding that it would be more profitable for them to pursue other, easier victims or "marks."

By making the above payments, I supported the terrocrats. You could argue that, to the extent I paid terrocrats, I practiced the Economic Means to Slavery. This suggests the sixth principle of the Economic Means to Freedom.

It's Not All-or-Nothing
The sixth principle of the Economic Means to Freedom is that you don't have to suddenly switch from one extreme to the other. You can shift into the free-enterprise sector in stages. You can compartmentalize your life and affairs so your assets, earnings, and economic activities are partially in the private (or even public!) sector and partially in the free-enterprise sector.

[The first article in this series explains the distinction between the three different economic sectors.]

Freedom Technology consists of the practical knowledge, methods, and skills to live free; the street-smart know-how to outwit and run rings around terrocrats; the means to protect your earnings and assets from terrocrats and other thieves and robbers. Freedom Technology enables you to legally, elegantly, and safely shift some or all of your economic activities into the free-enterprise sector.

Some of the practitioners of the Economic Means to Freedom, who facilitate this shift, may become the millionaires and billionaires of the next century. Emerging free-enterprise institutions, such as those mentioned in the first article of this series, are likely to play an expanding role in the economic shift into the free-enterprise sector.

An important characteristic of the shift into the free-enterprise sector is that as it grows, it becomes easier for new people to join the shift. The emerging financial free-enterprise institutions (see first article in series) already make it much easier now, than it was 10 years ago, to shift into the free-enterprise sector. And as the shift grows, so do the number of free-enterprise businesses. This increases the opportunities for freedom lovers to work in or with businesses that don't kowtow to terrocrats.

What to Do Next
1. Find out more about Freedom Technology at the Build Freedom website.

2. Subscribe to the Build Freedom and Advanced Freedom Solutions lists, and explore with others the best ways to implement the Economic Means to Freedom.

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