Forces related to moving leftward on this spectrum:

For:
–Actual entrepreneurial opportunity – 2
–Personal Freedom – 5
–Elimination of regulatory uncertainty – 5
–Adventure – 1
–Counter-Economic effects – 3

Against:
–Actual legal risk (to business) – 2
–Actual personal legal risk – 3
–Perception of legal risk (all) – 5
–Perception of entrepreneurial opportunity – 3
–Social Stigma/psychological barriers – 3
–Fear/uncertainty of change (aside from legal risk) – 3
–Fear of other agora/black market participants – 4

That’s 16 to 24 – against moving leftward. The actual entrepreneurial opportunity is low here because there really isn’t that much in the Agora yet (though there is more in black markets as a whole).

I’d guess the perceptual blockers are the easiest to change. The perception of opportunity actually favors moving rightward, but that is prone to reversing completely with the right propoganda and increased macro economic stresses. The social stigma/psych factor would take a lot of work, but that is the kind of thing that is prone to a complete and sudden reversal given the right conditions. Fear of change can be effectively addressed, I think, through basic education.

The actual entrepreneurial opportunity factor is a chicken-and-egg problem, as is the counter-economic effects factor.

But in the end, I think any of these can be effectively addressed. 16 to 24 is a steep climb, but since that ratio is going to vary so widely, finding and targeting those for whom it is already a closer call seems like a productive line of attack. A benefit there is that swinging them will change the evaluations for everyone else as well.

The second link I posted is better anyway. The theory isn’t so much important as the technique, which the second link describes. At the top of that page, in the header menu, there’s a link to “Decision Making” that has a large handful of other techniques of this kind, some of which come from Edward de Bono’s “Lateral Thinking”. I find the collection of them very useful.

Fascinating connection, Kyle. Unfamiliar with the theory, but the description on the wiki article seems very interesting.

But is there not another meta-level to this? Sure, reduced risk versus increased opportunity is one thing. But what seems operant here is not true risk versus true opportunity, but the actor’s perceptions of one against the other. Anarchists have to some degree done good work in illustrating the state is never as omnipotent as it would claim to be, serving to lower the perception of risk in counter-economic activity.

http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTED_06.htm

So the options are to either find ways to reduce the legal risk, or enhance the entrepreneurial opportunity, for moving leftward. A lot of activist politics focuses on the former, it is agorism that has begun to look at the latter, but perhaps not explicitly enough.