The recent dust-up over the ‘alt right’ has provoked some soul searching among the NRx community as to what, precisely, NRx means and or how a hypothetical NRx government should operate and ascend to power.
First, the basics: we have the ‘alt right’, an umbrella term that encompasses a wide range of non-mainstream (hence the prefix ‘alt’) schools of right-wing thought and ideologies. It casts a very wide net, from skinheads on one extreme to rationalists on the other.
Or as a hierarchy:
Primary: ‘alt right’
Secondary: ‘NRx & dark enlightenment’ and others…
Tertiary (of NRx): ‘techno commercialism, neocameralist, traditionalists, rationalists, formalists, anarcho-capitalists, etc’
Among the NRx community, there is mutual agreement in rejection of democracy, egalitarianism, feminism, SJWs, and political correctness. But trying to ascribe ideological labels (conservatism, libertarianism, etc) or even combinations of labels (anarcho-capitalism, etc) to NRx has proven more daunting and discordant.
In 2010, scholar Arnold Kling described ‘neo-reaction’ as having elements of neoconservatism, and while ‘neoconservatism’ nowadays has pejorative connotations, to some degree it seems accurate.
Neoconservatives believe the state has a role in enforcing private property, as well as national defense, a judicial system, various public services, and police. Furthermore, they believe in traditional values, such as opposing the legalization of drugs and gay marriage as well as opposing the separation of ‘church and state’.
For the techno-commercialism faction, NRx could be viewed as neoconservatism meets HBD. I think the term ‘reactionary realism’ is fitting. Maybe it could be described as ‘partial libertarianism‘ or ‘minarchism‘ – mixing capitalism with some soft of state or governing body to oversee it, with an emphasis on resource optimization for ‘public goods’. Or Reactionary Modernism, a term I have thrown out a couple times here. This would be similar to the system we have today, but with many or all democratic institutions phased out. The transition would be slow enough to avoid major economic disruption, which is the approach I endorse.
Or, for the traditionalists and nationalists, NRx mirrors paleoconservatism and the Christian Right, but with more HBD and a possible monarchy. Although the monarchy concept has fallen out of favor as few seem to discuss it anymore. Paleocons, like traditionalist reactionaries, tend to oppose interventionism and globalization. This is described in more detail here.
Moldbug has mentioned several times about the US govt. or ‘state’ being analogous to a giant corporation. The next step is to ‘formalize’ it, almost contractually , especially regarding to property rights and rule of law. .Seems similar to Rothbard or Hans-Hermann Hoppe:
In Democracy Hoppe describes a fully libertarian society of “covenant communities” made up of residents who have signed an agreement defining the nature of that community. Hoppe writes “There would be little or no ‘tolerance’ and ‘openmindedness’ so dear to left-libertarians. Instead, one would be on the right path toward restoring the freedom of association and exclusion implied in the institution of private property”. Hoppe writes that towns and villages could have warning signs saying “no beggars, bums, or homeless, but also no homosexuals, drug users, Jews, Moslems, Germans, or Zulus”.[23][24]
As I discuss in NRx endgame, trying to ‘buyout’ everything doesn’t seem feasible and could have deleterious economic consequences in the unlikely event it were ever pulled off. And given how corporations and politics are already intertwined, and that private property is already enforced, maybe we’re closer to Moldbug’s vision than many realize, although with an unacceptably high amount of moral decay. The kingdom of Saudi Arabia could be considered a modern prototypical reactionary government, combining private property, the rule of law, and traditionalism.
To quote N. Land:
Fifth: although the full neocameralist approach has never been tried, its closest historical equivalents to this approach are the 18th-century tradition of enlightened absolutism as represented by Frederick the Great, and the 21st-century nondemocratic tradition as seen in lost fragments of the British Empire such as Hong Kong, Singapore and Dubai. These states appear to provide a very high quality of service to their citizens, with no meaningful democracy at all. They have minimal crime and high levels of personal and economic freedom. They tend to be quite prosperous. They are weak only in political freedom, and political freedom is unimportant by definition when government is stable and effective.
Although I’m not sure sure about the freedom part. Sharia law is pretty strict.
As may only major criticism, are paleocons who believe nationalism, border control, and religion will fix everything, and then that problems like entitlement spending, runaway healthcare costs, and crime will just ‘go away’ once those three things are implemented. However, Tthe data suggests that crime and poverty are linked to IQ, and that IQ is to large degree heritable, so therefore that lends itself to a solution that is more biological in nature, not environmental, although turning away ‘low IQ’ immigrants would be effective. Nationalism is important, but it won’t change the fact there are a lot of people – legal American citizens – who are a ‘net negative’ on the economy and societ, consuming more than they produce.