{"id":3297,"date":"2021-06-27T14:09:40","date_gmt":"2021-06-27T19:09:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lfs.org\/blog\/?p=3297"},"modified":"2024-06-14T12:32:00","modified_gmt":"2024-06-14T17:32:00","slug":"prometheus-laureate-victor-koman-inaugurates-the-agorist-archives-of-samuel-edward-konkin-iii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/prometheus-laureate-victor-koman-inaugurates-the-agorist-archives-of-samuel-edward-konkin-iii\/","title":{"rendered":"Prometheus laureate Victor Koman inaugurates The Agorist Archives of Samuel Edward Konkin III"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Prometheus-winning author and scholar Victor Koman is leading a new project to digitize the papers and publications of Samuel Edward Konkin III (SEK3) for posterity.<\/p>\n

Konkin, a libertarian philosopher and activist who led the \u201cagorist\u201d wing of the libertarian movement in the 1970s and 1980s, influenced quite a few libertarians and libertarian science fiction writers, such as the Prometheus Award winners J. Neil Schulman, Brad Linaweaver and Koman himself.<\/p>\n

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Sam Konkin at a convention. Photo by Victor Koman<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Konkin named his free-market, anti-war, anti-imperialism, anti-statist and anti-political philosophy Agorism. Through his books, magazines, lectures and writings and publications, he influenced not only a generation of libertarian science-fiction authors but also a growing generation of crypto-entrepreneurs (or cryptopreneurs) and anarcho-capitalists.<\/p>\n

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Konkin (1947-2004), who was born in Canada but spent his post-graduate life in America, wrote\u00a0New Libertarian Manifesto, An Agorist Primer\u00a0<\/i>and\u00a0Counter-Economics\u00a0<\/i>and published\u00a0New Libertarian Notes\u00a0<\/i>(1971-1975), New Libertarian\u00a0<\/i>Weekly (1975-1978) and finally\u00a0New Libertarian\u00a0<\/i>magazine (1978-1990.)<\/p>\n

The last issue of the magazine was devoted to Prometheus Hall-of-Famer Robert A. Heinlein and featured a full-color cover portrait of Heinlein by D. Bruce Berry (inks) and Tom Luth (color.)<\/p>\n

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\u201cSam was a libertarian visionary who saw, back in 1978, the importance of an encrypted counter-economy,\u201d Konkin said, and thus foresaw the rise of digital currencies such as Bitcoin.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a>Perhaps the best-known sf novel reflecting Konkin\u2019s agorist vision of a better and freer future is J. Neil Schulman\u2019s\u00a0Alongside Night, <\/em>which applied an Agorist framework to a future American counter-economy fueling a libertarian rebellion. Schulman\u2019s novel was inducted in 1989 into the Prometheus Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n

Among the other Prometheus-winning novelists who were inspired or influenced by Konkin were Brad Linaweaver (who won the 1989 Prometheus Award for Best Novel for Moon of Ice)\u00a0<\/em>and Koman, the first three-time winner of the Prometheus Awards. Koman won Best Novel for The Jehovah Contract\u00a0<\/em>(in 1988), Solomon\u2019s Knife\u00a0<\/em>(in 1990) and Kings of the High Frontier\u00a0<\/em>(which in 1997 became the first novel initially published exclusively on the Internet to win a Prometheus Award.)<\/p>\n

Koman, who recently completed his Ph.D., is enlisting support to create The Agorist Archives of Samuel Edward Konkin III<\/em>\u00a0and make them available online for free access by anyone in the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cSam has been gone 17 years now,\u201d Koman wrote in a recent email that also listed the many other libertarian thinkers and writers who have passed.<\/p>\n

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Prometheus-winning novelist Victor Koman (Courtesy of author)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cMurray Rothbard, Karl Hess, Robert Kephart, Tibor Machan, David Nolan, Kerry Thornley, James T. Martin, Chris Tame, Bill Patterson, John Puglsey, Ken Gregg, Andrea Millen Rich (an LFS sustaining member for many years), J. Neil Schulman, Brad Linaweaver, and \u2014 just a few months ago \u2014 Butler Shaffer and Jeff Riggenbach, as well as many others of our circle are all gone,\u201d Koman wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cTime marches on, and the legacy of SEK3 urgently needs to be preserved, digitized, and made available to a world hungry for fresh strategies and tactics for freedom,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The SEKIII archive, once established, will be of interest to libertarians, libertarian futurists, other freedom lovers and scholars because of Konkin\u2019s extensive contacts with so many thinkers, writers and novelists.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Konkin corresponded with (and often contended with) a large cross-section of libertarian thinkers and writers. Besides the aforementioned names above, Konkin interacted with Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea (whose satirical sf trilogy\u00a0Illuminatus!<\/i>\u00a0was inducted into the Prometheus Hall of Fame in 1986), and such living libertarian luminaries as Sharon Presley, Wendy McElroy, multiple-Prometheus-winning novelist L. Neil Smith, Jorge Amador, Prometheus finalist Doug Casey, seminal early LFS Director Victoria Varga and many others.<\/p>\n

In addition to digitizing back issues of New Libertarian,\u00a0<\/em>Koman is in the process of electronically archiving material from over a dozen file boxes and several filing-cabinet drawers packed with Konkin’s letters, notes, papers, datebooks, handwritten first drafts and more.<\/p>\n

Koman discussed the project, how he met Sam and the significance of SEK3\u2019s life and work recently in a speech to The Karl Hess Club in southern California. Here is a link<\/a> to that speech, which has been uploaded to YouTube.<\/p>\n

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Sam Konkin, Victor Koman and Konkin\u2019s son at Sam’s bachelor party in 1991 (Photo by J. Neil Schulman)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Koman\u2019s goal, he said, is to scan \u201cevery scrap of Konkinabilia\u201d he possesses to make it available in The Agorist Archives, as well as digitizing the video of Sam’s Agorist Institute lectures and classes. As a means to that end, Koman has created a subdomain on his KoPubCo website called archives.kopubco.com<\/a> (which already has some of the scans).<\/p>\n

For more information and in-depth tracking of the project, check out the introductory video and 17 updates in Koman’s fundraiser<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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*<\/strong> Read\u00a0\u201cThe Libertarian History of Science Fiction,\u201d<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0an essay in the June 2020 issue of the international magazine\u00a0Quillette<\/em>\u00a0that favorably highlights the Prometheus Awards, the Libertarian Futurist Society and the significant element of libertarian sf\/fantasy in the modern genre.<\/p>\n

* Join us<\/strong>! To help sustain the Prometheus Awards,\u00a0join\u00a0<\/strong><\/a>the Libertarian Futurist Society (LFS), a non-profit all-volunteer association of freedom-loving sf\/fantasy fans. Libertarian futurists believe culture is as vital as politics (and often more fulfilling, positive and productive in the longer run) in spreading positive visions of the future and achieving universal individual rights and a better world (perhaps eventually, worlds) for all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Prometheus-winning author and scholar Victor Koman is leading a new project to digitize the papers and publications of Samuel Edward Konkin III (SEK3) for posterity. Konkin, a libertarian philosopher and activist who led the \u201cagorist\u201d wing of the libertarian movement in the 1970s and 1980s, influenced quite a few libertarians and libertarian science fiction writers, … Continue reading Prometheus laureate Victor Koman inaugurates The Agorist Archives of Samuel Edward Konkin III<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[32,10,2429],"tags":[771,65,514,165,75,44,706,23,1034,1130,254,21,28,770,66,185],"class_list":["post-3297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-author-updates","category-news","category-victor-koman","tag-agorism","tag-alongside-night","tag-anarchocapitalism","tag-andrea-millen-rich","tag-brad-linaweaver","tag-doug-casey","tag-illuminatus","tag-j-neil-schulman","tag-murray-rothbard","tag-new-libertarian-magazine","tag-robert-anton-wilson","tag-robert-heinlein","tag-robert-shea","tag-sam-konkin","tag-victor-koman","tag-wendy-mcelroy"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pe8nGl-Rb","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3297"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3297\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3343,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3297\/revisions\/3343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}