Background
Konkin was born in Saskatchewan, to Samuel Edward Konkin II and Helen. He was buried alongside his father in Edmonton, Alberta.
Konkin was born in Saskatchewan, to Samuel Edward Konkin II and Helen. He was buried alongside his father in Edmonton, Alberta.
He was an initiator of the Agorist Institute. Konkin rejected voting, believing it to be inconsistent with libertarian ethics. Since he rejected voting and other means by which people typically attempt social change, he encouraged people to withdraw their consent from the state by devoting their economic activities to black market and grey market sources, which would not be taxed or regulated.
Konkin was editor and publisher of the irregularly-produced New Libertarian Notes (1971–1975), the New Libertarian Weekly (1975–1978), and finally New Libertarian magazine (1978–1990), the last issue of which was a special science fiction tribute featuring a Robert A. Heinlein cover (issue 187, 1990).
Konkin personally rejected Holocaust denial but endorsed the Institute for Historical Review because its freedom of speech was being disputed. In 1984, Konkin wrote a positive review of revisionist historian James J. Martin"s book on Raphael Lemkin (published by the IHR) that disputes the extremity of the Holocaust.
In the review, entitled "Thrusting the Stake into Lemkin"s Bleeding Heart," Konkin makes sympathetic reference to Martin"s "proof" that a "assive Jewish exodus from Germany and Poland in 1940. few to be "exterminated"" and that the Katyn Massacre of Polish officer corps was ""probably the only genuine mass atrocity of World War Two which was accompanied by evidence."".
Konkin considered libertarianism as radical. He likewise opposed involvement with the United States Libertarian Party, which he regarded as a statist co-option of libertarianism. "Konkin called transactions on these markets, as well as other activities that bypassed the State, "counter-economics." Peaceful transactions take place in a free market, or agora: hence his term "agorism" for the society he sought to achieve." He also strongly opposed the idea of intellectual property.
Political theorist Ulrike Heider criticized Konkin in her book Anarchism: Left, Right, and Green for endorsing historical revisionism.
Konkin was also willing to allot advertisement space to the IHR in The New Libertarian, spoke at an IHR conference in 1981, and was a member of the IHR Journal for Historical Review"s Editorial Advisory Committee and a contributor to the Journal.