Alternative Econ 101
How to make money by jumping the rail of the
sinking "ship of state" economy to more-better boats

At the Free State Liberty Forum last year, I was honored to present my Sacred Nonaggression Principle (SNaP) book to a subset of the freedom community: The Alternative Exposition (AltExpo) group founded by Jack Shimek et al.[1]

I recall, after making my presentation, there were some astute questions from a woman in the front row, going by the moniker FreedomGal. Indeed, she was the next presenter. Her topic: how to ascend from "verbal libertarianism" to "actual, living libertarianism" by becoming part of the (actual, living) alternative economy. — bw

I was in touch with Mr. Shimek a couple of weeks ago, and he told me, for Liberty Forum 2010, I'd be welcome again to present my SNaP book, 2d Edition—which I'm in the process of finishing up this month. "But, Brian, the situation with Altexpo is grim; if you have any ideas for bringing in the bread—to support Altexpo, or even to help people make ends meet personally... man, we're all ears." So I remembered Altexpo last year, and FreedomGal's words, then mulled things over:

"Hmmm, what are some ideas for making real ducats, or simply being staff in an organization that draws enough money to sustain freedom-type people for a few seasons? For one thing, they'll have to let go of the government controlled economy. For another, some of the proposed activity goes against (unconstitutional) statutes that government(s) want to (unconstitutionally) enforce. So civil disobedience may be entailed, certainly a high level of gumption will be mandatory."

So I came up with a brief mental list, then decided to sit down and write it up more formally in this column. The process of writing increased the list from half a dozen concepts—which I immediately sent to Jack in an email—to twenty-four. (!) But first...

What is the Alternative Economy?

In a word: the free market. As in, the black market in a controlled economy is the real market. Freedom of production and trade—the unfettered right of individuals to earn a living—is cemented into the United States Constitution and into virtually every state constitution. That natural right is what the American colonists were fighting for... and largely secured, even to the point that Article 1, Section 9 acknowledges:

"No capitation, or other direct, tax shall be laid, unless in proportion to the census or enumeration herein before directed to be taken." — meaning there shall be no federal tax on an individual's common-right actions to earn a living nor to his property (with an emergency exception requiring any such tax to be apportioned among the states). I.e. no 'income' tax.

But, as Thomas Jefferson states, it is natural for government to encroach on natural rights and liberty to yield over time. That is certainly what has occurred: All the actions of freemen, all the rights of production and trade, that the Constitution (and the many state constitutions) explicitly document, have been infringed by governments to the point of disappearance. That does not mean the rights no longer exist!

What I'm getting at is that all of the activities identified below you and I have the absolute right to perform by virtue of our natural rights of life, liberty, and property. It may be prudent to note that some bureaucrat person(s) may try to coerce you away from these actions, but legally and morally that's irrelevant. Indeed, that's what defines the alternative economy: it consists of the voluntary market actions of free people that defy illegal and immoral government restrictions on those rights.

So, let's get to it.

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Please understand that all of these ideas are only that: ideas. You can even accuse me in some cases of putting up pipe dreams. So no business plans down there, or means of capitalization: all I'm offering for most items is a few sentences of what came to me in a "what if" moment. Consider it the start of a brainstorming session. Some are local-business oriented, some are national-consciousness movement oriented:

Support Your Local Independent Business (LIB)
Class Action Suit vs. the Fed… or IRS, US Mint, etc.
"Give Me Back My Money": General Wealth Recovery
Defelonization Constitutional Amendment
Nongovernmental Identification System
Religionizing the SNaP
Boycotting Meats using CAFO
Fast food vegetarian outlets using hemp-based proteins
Guerilla Manufacturing of Automobiles, et al
Step Up to Lawful Taxation, Not Pay "Income" Tax
CO 2 Scavenging Using Hemp Cultivation
Guerilla Community Education
General Tax Strike
Jitneys (Unlicensed Transportation)
Alternative Health-Care Services
Alternative Money Systems
Alternative Protection Services
Alternative Government
Guerilla Flea Marketing
Guerilla Farming
Aggression-Victim Insurance
Guerilla Charity
"Local Freedom": Alternative Media
Give Up Your Crummy Government Job

Now, I will provide a few sentences of description for each item. By the way, none of these ideas is patented or copyrighted... heck, a lot of them aren't even new: If something appeals to you, just git 'n' go.

1. Support Your Local Independent Business (LIB)

When you go to a local independent business, take a moment to appreciate the effort these people have undertaken to be part of their neighborhood, to provide jobs, to keep their wealth in the community. A way of showing we want to keep them around—aside from our patronage—is to individually promote the idea of shopping locally. Taken to a moneymaking level, how about forming a LIB Federation, even international in scope, to professionally market such enterprises as a whole... and protect all such businesses against their natural enemies: central governments and their privileged, franchised global corporations.

2. Class Action Suit vs. the Fed… or IRS, US Mint, etc.

We have large movements in effect now to audit the Federal Reserve System, as well as to end the Federal Reserve. These are fabulous, and hopefully successful. But what would happen if someone(s) organized a national class-action suit by the tens of millions productive-class citizens who have standing to obtain compensation for the years of theft by the central banks through debasement of the currency?

The value of each of the "dollars" in existence today is 1/25th of its value 100 years ago. The institutions and men who stole that value via legal counterfeiting need to return that value to the families of the victims. Some estimates place that amount at $100,000+ per productive-class individual. Now that's a stimulus!

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. — Thomas Jefferson

3. "Give Me Back My Money": General Wealth Recovery

In keeping with an explicit legal action to recover monies taken from the productive class through the decades by the central banks, there are a number of opportunities for reparations on more local and regional levels. For example, just off the top of my head, any individual who has been charged, prosecuted, and/or imprisoned for an unconstitutional felony is entitled to restitution for his harm. Roughly a million+ Americans a year are hit with unconstitutional felonies. We need a system to recover damages for those government atrocities... and recover them from the specific individuals and businesses in the Prosecutocracy who caused the damage.

"Ignorance of the Bill of Rights is no excuse!"

4. Defelonization Constitutional Amendment

Most of the problem in the War on Drugs (WOD)—the greatest assault on American liberty since slavery—lies in charging as a felony what is either not a crime at all or at most a public-nuisance misdemeanor. Everyone in the country who has been convicted of a nonaggressive felony (usually for drugs) must have his record expunged.

A simple amendment to the Constitution would help to a) prohibit felony crime designation for nonaggressive acts, b) expunge the records of those so convicted, and c) eliminate federal felony crimes for which no constitutional authority exists. Wording and everything else has to be worked out. Huge potential market: I don't know how many nonaggressive American felons there are—I'm one (and I guess I'm sorta proud of it)—10-20 million is my guess.

5. Nongovernmental Identification System

With all the concern about terrorism, why not simply develop a private not-for-profit company(s) that processes whatever identifying papers are appropriate—or not—then supplying a certification that the individual bearing a likeness (or fingerprint, or something else) is a nonaggressive human being in good standing.

The identification industry would be all about clarity over who is a typical nonaggressive human being... and who may have been convicted or liable to aggressive crime. Appropriate strictures can be put in place on the latter. Businesses that want assurance that a person of the world is not a threat can insist on a cost-effective free-market identification process. No more passports, no more border patrols, (no more wars?): the freedom ramifications of moving identification requirements out of governments' hands are immense.

6. Religionizing the SNaP

This would be in my own bailiwick, what I can envision most likely is a Nonaggression Institute, rather than a Nonaggression Religion. But it isn't too much of a stretch to sit down and establish a simple, secular religion that holds as its highest principle that humans do not initiate the use of force against one another.

A very important premise of such a system of belief would be that no citizen can voluntarily and in good conscience support any act of government that aggresses against its citizens... or against anyone else. So immediately one has a moral, religious foundation for defying any state coercive assessment, such as a tax. Voluntary funding is fine. Taxes qua aggression our religion does not accept. Our people cannot comply.

7. Boycotting Meats using CAFO

CAFO means concentrated animal feeding operations, which are large-scale livestock cofinement and feed facilities run by agricultural cartel corporations (e.g. Tyson, Perdue, Cargill, Smithfield, Monsanto) for producing meats for human consumption. CAFOs are mainly giant bullshit and chickenshit generators, seldom with meaningful protections for the property or people of surrounding communities.

Their damage to the local environments—not to mention the unsanitary, cruel conditions for the animals and toxic implications to the humans—are tolerated and encouraged by government officials, many of whom are in the pay of the conglomerates. Watch Food, Inc. and make your own judgments. A national boycott would serve the ends of decorporatization and decentralization of government power, returning it to real people; an ideal project for libertarian staff and leadership.

8. Fast Food Vegetarian Outlets w/ Hemp Meats

After watching the aforementioned Food, Inc. (and perhaps having received my monthly newsletter from Hemp Industries Association), I thought, you know what, "I'd like to consider the vegetarian option." I know that hemp-based proteins are equal or superior to soya counterparts. So let's make hamburgers, chicken sandwiches, even fish sandwiches out of hemp and advertise the tasty vegetarian option as a local fast-food franchise.

Sure, for the moment, legally, one would have to import the hemp protein from hemp grown in other countries, probably Canada. So what? A lot of people will beat a path to the door of tasty vegetarian fast-food meat, and the cost will come down. Success in local business will also pressure government to legalize American hemp.

9. Guerilla Manufacturing of Automobiles, et al

Cars were king in Detroit, but not anymore. Why? Well, it's pretty obvious that fat-cat corporate privilege led to a profound stupidity fueled by government meddling and sleazy labor unions. It's a complicated scenario. Watch Who Killed the Electric Car?.

Recently, I thought, why would it be difficult for a small local company to turn out simple, fuel-efficient automobiles? (More than 2400 car companies once existed in this country!) The only thing preventing local independent car manufacturing is government edict. The current way around that legally: start a unique custom-car club. My bet: you can retrofit used cars with super efficient engines in a small factory for half the price of the cheapest new shoebox from Korea.

10. Step Up to Lawful Taxation, Stop Paying "Income" Tax

So many people are not aware of the truth about federal taxation that it should be considered a crime. In fact, every high school child needs to take a class in the "income" tax, where the required text is Pete Hendrickson's Cracking the Code: The fascinating truth about taxation in America. The fact is, unless you are in a federally privileged occupation—a federal government official or you work for the federal government or for a federal corporation—you are not a "Taxpayer".

It's time for everyone to learn the truth, check out Pete's book and Pete's site, then, if you are nonprivileged, stop writing checks to the US Treasury or accepting withholding of earnings from your pay. Further, you're entitled to a refund for at least part of what you mistakenly submitted. Stop enabling federal aggression.

11. CO 2 Scavenging Using Hemp Cultivation

One of my favorite subjects, naturally, yes, naturally. Agricultural hemp is a potential planet saver, with applications in food (above), clothing, paper, building construction materials ("hempcrete" has superior properties to concrete), and so on. [Nor am I one of those who wants to soft pedal the many benefits of its sister, the cultivated strain of cannabis.] Agricultural hemp is the natural strain of cannabis with no psychoactive components.

The only reason hemp has not emerged as a trillion-dollar industry in America is because a sentence exists in the federal law banning it as a Schedule 1 Narcotic. Talk about insanity. Hemp has an incredible growth rate and scavenges immense quantities of CO 2. Simply growing massive numbers of low-grade hemp plants on fallow land substantially reduces global warming. Moneymaking idea: Start and staff a public service/advocacy organization to make hemp scavenging fields happen.

12. Guerilla Community Education

Actually, I'm not sure what I was thinking when I listed this phrase. Homeschooling is fairly well established in the country now... to the point it seriously threatens to disrupt the stunted limbic system defect (ref. previous column and diagram on the right), afflicting most humans. Children growing up to think for themselves.

In the case of community education, we're talking about adults. No doubt, sufficient intellect exists within the freedom movement, a number of individuals with experience in academic life as teachers and administrators. Just off the top of my head, the quality of English—especially written English—is abysmal. My mother, who was a teacher at St. Clair County Community College, developed a programmed-learning class in basic English for her students in Port Huron, Michigan. It won awards. It's available. There are certainly many other quality curricula items that can be included and offered by freedom teachers for prices below the state-sanctioned college outlets.

13. General Tax Strike

In my New Pilgrim Chronicles, I mention that the best way to deal with Bush and the Neocons, who completely misled us into unnecessary wars and more routine forms of human torture, was to organize a massive tax strike. I even suggested that the reason this wasn't happening was liberals don't have the cojones for that kind of grand gesture. So now what do the liberals do? Their guy got in and he betrayed all the peace people, the drug freedom people, and even the anti-torture people.

I still think the tax strike can come together for true peace and civil liberties types; plus we have the Tea Parties and the Town Halls for the true conservative masses. Combine left and right: everyone is pissed off. A tax strike for moral reasons is an idea whose time has come. We'll strike until the government leaves all us normal humans alone.

14. Jitneys (Unlicensed Transportation)

Jitneys, or colectivos as they are called in Latin America, are alternative transportation, usually private cabs that compete with the government licensed taxi companies. The price of a license for a corporation to operate cabs in New York City, in 2007, reached $600,000. More than half a million. (!!!) Wow, and I would have guessed the high side of that price would be $100,000.

Anyway, with that type of markup on getting people from point A to point B, you can bet there's a huge incentive to find cheaper ways to go. Enter private citizen with a car and a route. If you live in or near any major city and have a car or van, you have a ready source of income. Best to develop the clientele naturally, word of mouth, surreptitiously, and deal in cash. Read up on the business, form a private club if you need to.

15. Alternative Health-Care Services

With health insurance and health care costs going through the roof and Obamacare on the brink of being rammed down our throats, today is none too soon to look at alternative modes of taking care of the ol' bod. As libertarians we all know the private, community-based cooperative approach is best for everything from home schooling to getting across town to the symphony.

What could be more natural than market freedom to handle the great majority of medical treatment. Think of a system—this one won't be advertised in the New England Journal of Medicine—where for a $50 per month (on average) fee everyone is cared for for 95% of all normal procedures and cures. No Medicare, no Medicaid, no Social Security. [This alternative system will draw the line on keeping you alive if it means you will have the quality-of-life of a rutabaga. I believe these "under the counter" :) systems are out there now, ask around, it's worth it. It's what I'm going to be doing as soon as I can afford $50/mo.

16. Alternative Money Systems

Jackpot! So has everyone been following the attempted Rape of the Liberty Dollar? No doubt. What distresses me is how silent so many of the Big Guns of the Libertarian Industry—read Ron Paulists, the Libertarian Party, some of the Free State poobahs, etc.—seem to become when the state mugs somebody who draws attention from the federales for exercising a basic natural right. Of course, there are other alternative currencies than the Liberty Dollar. Check out my own guru of "separating the state and money," Mr. Thomas Greco, world-traveling author of various books and articles on the subject.

Interestingly, all of the alternative economy ideas work much better with an alternative currency. Plus, how does the government tax payments in gold or "hours" or commodities besides Federal Reserve notes. Money freedom is the root of all freedom. Many positions are available... esp. still in the Liberty Dollar business.

17. Alternative Protection Services

Back in the day, when the libertarian anarchists were making their break from the limited governmentalists of the Ayn Rand worldview, a key concept for handling law-enforcement needs was "competing agencies of retaliatory force (CARF)"[3]. Even, or especially, in the context of our massive police state bureaucracy, alternative protection services and alternative conflict resolution services flourish.

The true alternative economy protection business distinguishes itself by not even seeking certification by the government-based corporate police function at all. Similarly, legal services, investigation services, and so on can develop off the books. New Hampshire is a perfect location to seed free market protection businesses; firearms training, too. Natural fit for many Free Staters to bring in a few ducats undoing the bad-cop monopoly.

18. Alternative Government

Thought I'd sneak this one in there under the radar. But you may be sure that if we ever come together with a true democratic alternative to corporate dominance, the authorities are going to be paying a lot of attention. Let's take a realistic possibility that the forces for 9/11 truth realize that the government will never open an official impartial crime investigation into that event. So we decide to do it ourselves.

By holding hearings and interviewing witnesses and experts, the 9/11 Citizens Committee on What the Heck Really Happened assumes the mantel of legal-popular sanction. Probably the committee will not be able to subpoena testimony—especially from government types—but public pressure will garner support for getting to the truth. Eventually these Congressional surrogates displace the corrupt and useless "whatever you want to call those Dissemblers in DC."

19. Guerilla Flea Marketing

Flea marketing is already a bit guerilla. In states with sales taxes (most of them) the gendarmes are never far away from ongoing flea markets to make sure the sellers of quilts and model trains pay their fair share to the Governor. Still it's easy enough to avoid a lot of taxation in these venues. So thinking out loud, if you have a product or a service, rather than market it through state-visible standard retailing, consider using a flea market for the purpose. If the flea market you were thinking of has gone regulated, find one or start one that doesn't do government.

An advantage of flea marketing and supporting one's local independent businesses is it will be much easier to cut out the federales. Getting back to my LIB (local independent business) promotional organization idea, we would have a process for severing the business from federal tax and other statutes... which would be one of the BIG advantages vs. corporations: no fed taxes on any employees, no labor laws, no red tape, no feds.

20. Guerilla Farming

Already mentioned in regard to hemp cultivation for CO 2 scavenging, for fast-food meats, and so on: hemp growing is the perfect guerilla activity right now for ending the federal iron hand on agriculture. Legal hemp and farmers willing to defy the unconstitutional restrictions to grow it would put a rapid end to the agricultural cartel(s). Especially for BIG CORN, i.e. the corporate welfare system for Arthur Daniels Midland, Monsanto, and the rest. Interesting book: Raising Less Corn, More Hell, by George Pyle (2005).[4]

For any crop and any livestock, lower-environmental-impact processes that are cheaper and more remunerative to human individuals are available to produce the world's food needs... from a wide distribution of independent farmers. Big Agra's days have to end. And I think the time has come to deny land-property rights for big-government-enabled corporations and banks. The geolibertarians make interesting points. Mainly: power to the people! Time for independents to reclaim their land and their rights, produce what they want, stick a bunch o' pitchforks in the corporate-state Oppressor.

21. Aggression-Victim Insurance

An idea from someone I knew back in my Libertarian Party leadership days. And the concept is ideal for people moving forward en masse into the alternative (real, free) economy. Take individuals whose activities are going to be in defiance of statutes—albeit we have noted before that no nonaggressive economic act is in defiance of our fundamental law, esp. as acknowledged in the American founding documents—and assess risk of illegal arrest, prosecution, imprisonment, other damage to these individuals by the statists.

Then as a combination charitable institution and insurance company, when the individual has become a victim of state aggression, he may receive his insurance benefit. For example, you grow weed and like to make some extra cash by selling to friends. Take out a policy with our company. The benefit kicks in at some amount for the purpose of beating back ignorant statist thugs if they should come after you. Aggression-victim insurance companies are run and staffed by freedom people.

22. Guerilla Charity

Just do it. Decide what and whom you want to help. Maybe it's the substandard living conditions of many libertarians and freedom fighters. :) If you want the maximum protection from state interference into your group, form it as a religious organization. No one is going to accuse you of compromise if you file a 501(c)(3) with the IRS (but I don't know why you would file anything with the IRS unless you are federal government official, part of a federal corporation, or enjoy some specific federal privilege).

Anyway, giving your charity a religious connection—Our Mother of the Great Pumpkin or Salvation Army of the Sacred Spaghetti Monster—may be best, because the level of respect by statists for the right of unfettered religious belief hasn't eroded quite as much as everything else. I don't mean to sound flippant. Seriously, a well-thought-out alternative-economy charitable organization can employ dozens of freedom people and help hundreds of "all kinds of people"... though a preference for helping libertarians down on their luck seems natural. Get a Website, spread the word.

23. "Local Liberty": Alternative Media

This is one of the best ideas of all—the first person who mentioned a specific alternative to me was a young man from Florida, whom I met when we worked together in Houston. He had actually developed the idea to a prototype stage, and I won't give away the name of his baby in case he's still got a glint in his eye for full implementation. Let's just call it "Freedom Here."

Inevitably any media today will have a Web component, but what distinguished my friend's alternative media was each frontline journalistic outlet ("newspaper") would distribute at the community/neighborhood level... and would be independently owned. Though worldwide, the local outlets could affiliate. Note, no centralized domination qua the corporation.

There is no question that the most serious impediment to rational humanity breaking through the Barrier Cloud lies in the ASL syndrome carriers (the Kleptocons) total control of academia and news/entertainment media outside the Internet... and the Internet is in danger, too. Local independent alternative business applied to journalism can provide an efficient salient breaking the disease of statism and eradicating it at the source.

24. Give Up Your Crummy Government Job

... and don't take another one. ... and (politely) disdain those who do. I'll never forget running into a woman on the NH Underground forum who mentioned she worked for the Department of Justice. Yup, that one. She was/is a Free State Project member, but I don't remember her name. I do remember asking, "Do you work for the division at DOJ that prosecutes crimes of the federal government?"

I'm sorry. Back in the day when the Libertarians seemed to be emerging from the better sort of Republican, almost every rally or political candidates' night or cocktail party I would run into someone who worked for the federal or state taxing agency. Either that or had some cushy government sinecure with the post office, government school board, or manicurist regulatory board. What is that?! How does one square living as a free person while being a blatant tax receiver? When the job likely would be performed in the absence of government—like teaching school or putting out fires—it's not so bad. But in general, real living liberty requires that humans eschew any compulsory system, whether from the giving or the receiving ends.

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Well, there are so many more ideas. I started with 30, but decided to pare it down. Every one of you can probably add half a dozen obvious omissions in a heartbeat. But the exciting quality, of all the above and all the ones to come, is we don't cooperate with state power. We act for our own interests, producing goods and services at our own risk. We don't need anyone's permission: that's what an alternative economy is. Thanks, FreedomGal, for being so dead-nuts-right-on.

Let's just do it! Get off our lazy verbal-libertarian asses. Do we need to convince ourselves that we're supposed to be free before we act freely?

Attitude Factor

AKA the "Courage Factor" or, better, the "Gumption Factor." Speaking with my Free State icon, Guru Dan, I'm reminded continually that each of us needs to make a decision: do we live as free persons or do we not live as free persons? It is totally our choice. He had talked with one of our representatives the other day, telling her "Whatever the legislature does does not affect whether I live free. I am free, and I will not obey laws or rules that infringe on my rights as a free man. These rights are nonnegotiable."

So regardless of what happens "out there" with the guns and badges arrayed against us, or which real-market economic alternative we like, the first step toward success for us is to establish the right 'tude inside:

"Freedom is not something we ask for, freedom is something we take."

[1] The Altexpo enterprise is on temporary hiatus. Jack and co. plan to have something put together for the Free State Project in March 2010.

[2] Jon Rappaport is the author of The Secret behind Secret Societies. He's known as an ultimate freethinker, with knowledge particularly of the forces of coercion holding humanity back and away from its destiny. He's sees a vast spiritual transformation of the species coming imminently.

[3] Ref. Society without Coercion, booklet by Jarret B. Wollstein, ca. 1970, appears to be out of print.

[4] Subtitle says it all: "Why Our Economy, Ecology and Security Demand The Preservation of the Independent Farm."

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