STEEL-cameralism v Absolutism Round 2.

(See STEEL-cam v absoultism round 2 for the PDF of this post, WordPress has typically mucked up the post again.)

Round 1, unlike our previous demolitions and distinctions (see here and here, )has generated some counter-battery fire. 

We will return fire and then send the horses after em.

Contents

1: Introduction.

2: Some Key Assumptions of STEEL-Cam.

3: Moldbug and the Ruling Elite.

4: Guns, Gold, Genes, Glory and God: The Dignity and Destiny of America.

5: How do Corporations Work?

6: An Answer for Marcus and Marlon.

7: The Choice.

Our approach here is not to directly respond but to try to make clear how we came to formulate STEEL-cameralism and why we did so; secondly, we present some of the sources that have shaped our thinking.

To begin with, we have the following posts which appear to map out the differing positions in the NRx sphere:

1.

2.

3.

We believe that while each of the strands have merit and have influenced our thinking, none of these options are completely satisfactory for the purposes of a successful Restoration or statecraft – for USG.

Secondly, as we have demonstrated here, the Master’s Neo-cameralism is not equivalent to Master Land’s Tech-Comm. This is a confusion that, perhaps, many in the NRx sphere have fallen for (Master Future, however, has not).

Without naming names, it seems that this confusion has caused the majority of Nrxers to run away from Neo-cameralism into what can only be called Christian theocracy.

While this is unfortunate – for state-building, statecraft and Restoration strategy – there is an element of truth in the objection that a vanilla Neo-cameralism might be the apotheosis of Davos Man. 

While Neo-cameralism has potential problems with this, Tech-Comm does not view “Davos Man” as a vicious (man) but as virtuous fellow. (Again, see our demolition of Tech-Comm here).

2: Some Key Assumptions of STEEL-Cam.

The underpinning set of assumptions to STEEL-cameralism, as set against neo-cameralism, is the following three assumptions:

1: All regimes have a Ruling Elite.

2: All Ruling Elites make use of a political formula.

3: Ruling Elites fall into either one of three types:

A: Soldiers.

B: Merchants.

C: Priests.

Regimes, furthermore, are also differentiated by the ordering of the three basic types; so, a regime of priests/soldiers/merchants will be different to a regime that is priest/merchant/soldier.

Two books, that are essential reading, have formed our perspective here:

1: Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom.

2: Merchant, Solider, Sage: A New History of Power.

(While these books have influenced our thinking, we do not agree with everything in them; in particular, Priestland’s claim that the West is run by the merchant caste is fundamentally mistaken. Nevertheless, his claim about regimes having different ruling castes is correct. Plato, more or less, said all of this long ago, however.)

In short, Nrx has become dominated by “priests” who want a “priest” regime. The “priests” become entrenched into their position because they mistakenly associate Neo-cameralism with Land’s Tech-Comm and because of things like this. (Again, the first error we dispel here.)

3: Moldbug and the Ruling Elite.

One question, then, is what type of Ruling Elite does the Grand Master favour?

He is somewhat coy on that front, but if you think it is a straightforward rule by merchants, the following should give you some pause.

1.  

2.

3.

4.

From (4), here is what the Grand Master says:

In theory, it is possible for normal social existence and economic activity to continue in a basically normal way under a classical military despotism. Portugal under Salazar, Spain under Franco, Mexico in the Porfiriato are all good examples. Military rule, or militarchy, is still one of the closest governmental forms to neocameralism, and if there was such a thing as a stable militarchy it would be quite satisfactory.

However, militarchy is not stable. The problem is that the generals can only rule for as long as the soldiers are willing to follow them. And also there is the question: which generals?

The difference between militarchy and neocameralism is that militarchy is informal. The only way to know who the soldiers will follow is to have a coup and see what happens. Ambiguity of power raises its ugly, ugly head.

Neocameralism and the escalator of massarchy

STEEL-cameralism, therefore, is a natural, branching development of the ideas already contained in the Master’s work. However, there are important differences. Let’s set them out.

From STEEL-cameralism V Steel Anarchism we have the following crucial passage:

9: The difference between STEEL-cameralism and other political systems and formulas – such as Fascism, Progressivism and Communism – is the formal and real rejection of demotism and the formal and real rejection of any idealistic “government as a charity” political formula.

10: If neocameralism is the state at peace – where the government is a real estate enterprise because the “state is a business which owns a country”, then STEEL-cameralism is the state at war – where the military becomes the state and the state becomes a business.

The government, meanwhile, runs the country like a hotel at home (with a weapons factory, alas) and a protection racket security service abroad.

4: Guns, Gold, Genes, Glory and God: The Dignity and Destiny of America.

Let’s expand upon our STEEL-cam assumptions.

A:

STEEL-cam specifically applies to USG and America because it could work. Russia, meanwhile, is a far better possibility for an genuine Christian theocratic, absolutist, state. For England, we advocate for the placing of ownership and control back into the hands of the Royal Family and then we would recommend that the Sovereign become a kind of “chairman of the board of directors” and the CEO a kind of Prime Minister.

B:

America, meanwhile, is different because:

B1:

It is  (formally) a republic, with no history of either monarchy (except one that is negative, and no history of absolutism, unlike Russia).

B2:

It is or was a Protestant country and Progressives are still, basically, Protestant (they are protesters). Thus, a solution will have to be found that protestants (or all kinds) find acceptable.

(The STEEL-cam motto is:

Guns, Gold, Genes, Glory and God. 

After we wrote this, we discovered this book whose aims are the opposite of ours.)

B3:

Catholics are the source of Imperium in Imperio (Church and State) and any attempt to create a Catholic absolutist state (supposing you can persuade people out of 1 and 2) will produce the cardinal political error – Imperium in Imperio.

B4:

Christianity itself, meanwhile, is the primary ideological source for leftism and the philosophical origins of  Imperium in Imperio. Christianity, fundamentally, is a feminine, egalitarian, pacifist, wealth and power despising religion. The essence of Christianity is antinomianism.  

Christianity is dualist to the core: God and Nature; Man and God; Man and Woman; Old Testament and New Testament; God and the Devil; Sinner and the Saved; Believer and the Unbeliever; Caesar and God (Church and State).

B5:

We criticise Christianity, but not Christians explicitly.  Christians, however, are in grave, existential danger.  A pincer movement of Progressives on the one hand and Muslims on the other, means that Christians (throughout the entire world) face the possibility of  genocide in the decades to come. (Christians are already, several times over, the victims of ethnic cleansing so the problem is not an idle one.)

B6:

We take seriously the threat to life and property that Christians face; however, we believe that the strategy of imposing via force and violence Christianity on everyone else is something that is doomed to failure for the same reasons that White National-Socialism is doomed to failure.

B7:

If America collapses, then it is possible that a Christian (Protestant alas) Dominionist state might emerge in some former American states.  However, this ideology has no chance to unite, or even maintain, America as a geo-political unit.

Imperial Energy is well, Imperialist and it is vital that America maintain both coasts and an interior. The STEEL-cameralist platform of political reform involving the structure, system, ethos, law, tax and the economy of the country is the best way to preserve the union.

Our theme could be:

Restoring the Dignity and Renewing the Destiny of America Again.

C:

STEEL-cameralist Ruling Elite typology is the following:

1: Soldier.

2: Merchant.

3: Priest.

In an NUSG STEEL-cam state the security forces are the majority owners, with the “merchants” making up the second biggest stakeholder group. One of the main reasons for this have been set out here.

Why We Reject Absolutism. 

Let’s now turn our attention to why we reject Absolutism.

To clarify our main objections, they are:

1: It is not persuasive enough to Americans for an American Restoration.

2: It is not likely to be a stable political system in Principle or for America in Particular.

3: It is not likely to produce Good Government, which we define in the following Principles:

A: Peace.

B: Security.

C: Law.

D: Liberty.

Instead of dealing with objections of Marcus and Marlon, let’s state the influences on our thinking, which we hope critics will profit from in the same way we did.

1: You’re Going to Have a Bastard on the Throne.

The following book must be grappled with.

The reasons for bastardy (the rules for ruling) have been touched upon here.

Let’s state our deeper assumptions, however.

The project of Restoration faces the problem not only of failure, but of Hitler-failure.

The Grand Master takes pains to avoid this problem. (See here, here and here.)

The Grand Master:

When the NSDAP seized absolute power, what seized absolute power was an organization which was more or less a government in exile, whose leader was a palpable nut, and whose supporters consisted largely of the lower-middle classes – relatively ignorant and ill-informed. This was not a military coup. It was the electoral victory of a democratic political party.

Had Weimar been terminated by a military coup, perhaps under Captain Ehrhardt or the like, the order that replaced it might have been a military order – a complete renunciation of democracy, a return to the Prussian traditions of Frederick the Great. Instead, as a democratic movement, the militarism of the Nazis had a notably paramilitary quality. For instance, calling the SA the SA was rather as if Youth for Western Civilization were to name its paintball brigade the “Special Forces.” It’s definitely not the way to get the actual Special Forces on your side.

It is this difference – the line between military honor and tradition, and paramilitary brawling and thuggery – that separates men from swine, and Carlyle from fascism.

The trouble is that if you try to modify the Nazi path to power to remove the swine, it is not clear that you have a path to power. There were plenty of non-swinish German nationalists competing with the Nazis. Only the Nazis, however, could build an entire party of swine. And even in Germany, enough swine and friends of swine could be found – which is hardly surprising, when you see that the choice was not the Nazis or nothing, but the Nazis or Weimar.

So once the Nazis seize power: power is held by a party of swine. With Hitler at the top. Many have joined the Party because they want to help restore Germany; many have joined it because they want to get ahead; some have joined it because they want to get revenge on the Jews. It is this organization, nominally under Hitler’s absolute rule but in practice more dangerous to him than he is to it, that now rules Germany. And at the bottom, below the Party, is the Deutsche Volk – whose opinions are coordinated by the propaganda techniques familiar to all, and coordinated quite successfully too. This too is a relic of democracy: popular sovereignty.

This is the outline of a Mafia state. This pyramid can impose order outside itself, but internally it is not and can never be ordered. Germany is a sea of warring acronymic agencies, increasingly corrupt. The Nazi system is still often dynamic and successful because it is so new and so young. Had it lived longer, however, the structure of bureaucracy and venality would have ossified, producing a transition not unlike that between the regimes of Louis XIV and Louis XVI. Hitler was certainly no Frederick the Great, and even Frederick’s system did not fare well under his dissolute heir.

No other Nrx system has answers to these problems, but STEEL-cameralism does. Part of the solution is to structure the state like a corporation.

Notice, in passing, that the Master claims that Nazi Germany was a “Mafia state”. This is an extract from a forthcoming part of our STEEL-cameralist manifesto:

“To the STEEL-cameralist there are three types of government:

A: Government as a charity.

B: Government as a business.

C: Government as a criminal enterprise.

Virtually everyone in the world – reactionaries included – view government as a charity.

Government cannot be, necessarily, a charity, because charity is voluntary.

The provision of charity, and the use of it, is contingent; which is to say it is optional or voluntary.

Charity is the preserve of the church, and the non-profit corporation.

Government, however, is a necessity resulting from both the supply and demand sides: sovereignty is always conserved.

The attempt to run government as a charity is, therefore, already a confusion and a perversion. It is an informal phenomenon where political form and political reality do not match.

In reality, government as a charity is, in fact, always a criminal enterprise.

Government actors are gangsters, and political parties are cartels. Their bread and butter is extortion, bribery, racketeering and murder.

Charities do not demand your money, governments do.

Charities cannot conscript you into armies, governments do.

Charities do not demand that you think, value and act in a certain way, governments do.

What is the difference between a political party and a mafia?

You cannot say no to the mafia, and you cannot say no government as a charity, but you can say no to government(s) as a business – because the customer is always right.

Government as charity allows political gangsters to rob, intimidate and enrich themselves while proclaiming themselves as humble public servants.

To the STEEL-Cameralist like the neo-cameralist, however, government is a business.”

The functions of the state have been outlined here.

Our Prince. (Who is a Catholic BTW.)

5: How do Corporations Work?

Now, let’s address criticism of the corporate structure which is where we received counter-fire from.

To begin with, we recommend that people become familiar with how corporations work, and especially their strengths and weaknesses.

We recommend the following reading:

1: Essentials of Corporate Governance. 

2: The Board Book: An Insider’s Guide for Directors and Trustees.

3: Deloitte’s Duties of Directors. 

4: Dilemmas of Aligning Leadership Succession,
Strategy, and Governance.

5: The Corporate Governance of Iconic Executives.

(We highly recommend that you read you read the first chapter of (1) and the short briefing paper in (4) and most especially read (5) which is essential.)

One thing we see from the above reading is that while corporate governance (and the Joint-Stock Corporation) is far from perfect, and could be STEELED in many ways, it is, however, a system that is hundreds (thousands?) of years old and has spanned the world.

Furthermore, it is not just for-profits that have this structure, but non-profits as well. Indeed, when we look across the range of organisations we see the same structure emerge again and again.

For example, consider how football (soccer) clubs are organised.   

Even schools are organised in a similar fashion. 

(STEEL-cams already have our persuasion strategy ready when it comes to persuade the proles and professional classes of why, when and how USG is to be abolished and reconstituted as NUSG:

“So when the pills wear off, what is the United States? It’s actually very simple. The United States is an organization acting as a legal person. In other words, it is a corporation.

This particular corporation happens to own most of North America. It also happens to have a very unusual management structure, about which more in a moment. But to cement its corporateness in our minds, let’s change its name and call it “Fedco.”

Fedco is basically in two businesses. One of them is real-estate and the other is security. No one else is going to secure Fedco’s continent for it, so it has to insource.”

Finally, and in an informal, ad-hoc way even the Chinese Communist Party is evolving towards a corporatist structure with the PBSC becoming a kind of board of directors.

All of this has shaped our thinking, but there is more, and it is a big one.

Absolutism failed. It was out-competed by alternatives. For sure, survival is not a marker of moral worth, but one of the principles of reaction is that reality rules.

Democracy (real democracy) never survives, as it soon becomes swallowed up by Parties and then technocrats. The basic corporate structure will, however, remain a fixed feature of human organisation for the foreseeable future.

Lastly, not even the Catholic Church is Absolutist and the Pope cannot choose his successor and as we pointed out, the Catholic Church is the longest, continuous  human organisation in history.

Absolutism then is neither rational nor natural. In terms of a rationally designed system, it fails; in terms of natural selection (did it survive?) it has also failed.

The only absolutist state that exists today is probably North Korea. The main reason why it is such a basket case of craziness is because of the structure of incentives that rulers like Kim face (which we set out here).

6: An Answer for Marcus and Marlon.

So our answer to Marcus and Marlon is to, firstly, read the material provided above. Secondly, as an exercise, once you understand all the elements in the system, place yourselves (as we have done) in the position of a CEO, a director, a shareholder and a customer and then calculate the moves to whatever end you wish (dictatorship or the CEO as a puppet of the board say). We seriously suggest you do this chess-like exercise for we have spent hours over it and each one of your objections has an answer.

7: The Choice.

If you’re American and you want a plausible political model for Restoration in America and one that can work long-term, you have only two options:

A: Neo-cameralism.

B: STEEL-cameralism.

If you want to live in a Absolutist, Christian state that is not Protestant, we sincerely suggest you try to convince Putin to formalise the relationship between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian state. Putin would love for millions of smart, hard-working, loyal, Christian ex-Americans to prop up his state; if Christians are going to be genocided in Europe and America (a plausible possibility) this century, Christians have an escape hatch in Russia. (We will have more to say about Putin and Russia later).

So what is the difference between Neo-cam and STEEL-cam? The differences should be obvious, but we will explore the differences in greater detail later in our manifesto.