A key question for libertarian activists is the extent to which the circumvention of unjust laws imposed by the state can serve as part of a political strategy. A prominent, if somewhat extreme example from recent times is Ross Ulbricht, who went as far as actually breaking a whole plethora of narcotics laws by operating the darknet (i.e. black market) site “Silk Road”. As a result, he was convicted, in February 2015, of a whole raft of offences, including conspiracy to traffic narcotics.

At the time of his conviction, Robert Wenzel offered the following, critical opinion of Ulbricht’s actions from a libertarian perspective:

The trial of Ross Ulbricht, admitted founder of Silk Road, is over. He has been convicted on all the charges brought by the government. It is a terrible tragedy.

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Ubricht faces somewhere between 20 years to a life sentence. To be sure, from a libertarian perspective, there does not appear to be much that Ulbricht is guilty of. He simply provided a market for individuals willing to exchange, certainly not a violation of the libertarian non-aggression principle.

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BUT, despite the libertarian perspective, he is going to spend a a [sic] very, very long time in prison.

This is part of the reason, [sic] I find it remarkable that some libertarians are cheering on further efforts in the murky dark internet.

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The Ross Ulbricht trial marks a turning point for the darknet. Originally created to combat a problem, DNMs [dark net markets] have now become a rallying point for the adherents of Libertarian [sic] ideology. Ulbricht himself described the Silk Road as an “economic experiment.” Many see him as a martyr and have supported him through it all, from patronizing the Silk Road via contraband purchases to donating over $339,000 via Bitcoin toward his legal defense fund. His downfall was an inspiration to push further, to continue the economic experiment, for the betterment of humanity (hopefully).

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As long as a commodity needs physical delivery, there is no protection from the government, even if it is done via the dark net – and that supposes the government isn’t watching on the dark net in the first place, before physical delivery.

There are just so many things that can go wrong operating in the dark net, with very heavy downside, it makes no sense for a libertarian, qua libertarian, to get involved, especially by running such an operation.

Just becasue [sic] libertarians are in favor of free exchange, where does it say they have to run underground markets?

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