Samuel Edward Konkin III (1947–2004) was a libertarian philosopher best known for developing agorism, a strand of left-libertarian and anarchist thought that fused radical free-market economics with a strategy of practical resistance to the state. Working within the broader tradition of individualist anarchism and Austrian economics, Konkin argued that a fully voluntary society could be achieved not through political parties, lobbying, or electoral reform, but through the steady expansion of untaxed, unregulated exchange. He gave this project a name and a theoretical apparatus, positioning it as a rival strategy to the more conventional, ballot-oriented libertarianism of his day.
Central to Konkin's thinking was the concept of counter-economics, which he defined broadly as all economic activity conducted outside state sanction—the black and gray markets. For Konkin, these informal and illicit exchanges were not merely survival tactics but the seedbed of a future free order: as more people withdrew from taxed and regulated activity into voluntary trade, the state would lose revenue and legitimacy. Agorism, in his framing, was the ethical and political goal, and counter-economics the means by which it would be reached. He was sharply critical of libertarians who sought power through government office, viewing participation in the state apparatus as a betrayal of anti-statist principles.
Konkin's ideas were most fully associated with his manifesto-style writings and with the activist and publishing networks he cultivated within the American libertarian movement. He engaged directly with other libertarian thinkers, and his positions provoked debate among anarcho-capitalists and minarchists over strategy, class analysis, and the moral status of participating in state institutions. His notion of a "libertarian class theory" drew on the idea that a political class benefits from state coercion at the expense of a productive class.
Though he remained a marginal figure relative to mainstream libertarianism during his lifetime, Konkin's influence has persisted and arguably grown, particularly among anti-political and market-anarchist currents. His emphasis on entrepreneurship, informal markets, and disengagement from electoral politics has found renewed resonance in discussions of cryptocurrency, encryption, and decentralized economic activity, where his framework is frequently invoked as an intellectual ancestor of efforts to build alternatives to state-controlled systems.