My perspective on the ‘old order’ and natural elites

I have been thinking about what I should publish in this blog recently, and I realized that in arguments I will often make great (as in size) comments countering the arguments of the original person. I think that considering that most people don’t seek to gain much out of arguments besides the affirmation of their own worldview anyway, and that a lot of these comments give a pretty good insight into my worldview for people who aren’t very knowledgeable on it. This excerpt in particular has been heavily edited in service of refining the original argument and ensuring a pleasant reading experience.

If you desire a hierarchical society ruled by aristocrats… doesn’t that go against the basic principle of anarchism?

I feel this way too, and Hoppe, as I’ve said before, prefers to call it a ‘natural order’, ‘private law society’, or ‘private property order’, which although obscures its capitalism I’d say summarizes it quite well.

You could make an argument that anarchy exists on the baselines of such a society, or generally always from civilization as we now consider it. All governance would be mediated by voluntary contracts — if you’re not on their property, and you don’t agree to their jurisdiction, you cannot be governed by them unless you voluntarily agree to their contract.

However, if we define anarchism as ‘away from civilization’, civilization here meaning the modern nation-state kept together by uniform and sovereign laws mediated by public norms, then we already do live in anarchy, as there are many spaces in the world that already live separate from the modern state and the dictates of human civilization.

Furthermore, radical egalitarian arrangements as a norm only exist under very limited economic conditions; anthropologists call these ‘immediate-return’ societies. Because there is no surplus, all distribution is according to what they deem justice (and even here cosmological means are utilized in order to enforce ‘just’ and equitable distribution in most of these tribes). Modern attempts at levelling are dependent on some form of implicit authority to enforce the dissolution of natural hierarchies. Left-wing anarchism’s anti-statism is thus a contradiction, and so is its hatred of authority, unless it is only a voluntary arrangement, which does not square up to the history of the aims of classical and contemporary anarchism (abolish all unjust hierarchies, which is always vaguely defined to be sure).

In all civilizations (all civilizations are post-agricultural), hierarchies must form out of relations of dependence and mutual need. This is actually how we level conditions and make society more equitable; without it, a form of Social Darwinism where men are evaluated purely on projected (artificial) economic value alone, which we now inappropriately name ‘meritocracy’, arises. Such is what we see in contemporary liberal society.

But even before civilization, and in contemporary tribes, hierarchies have also been confirmed to have existed. We have found civilizations without kings, but it does not mean no authority in them existed altogether.¹The theories put forth in Filmer’s Patriarcha serve a great challenge to those who insist that evidence of early civilizations without kings necessitate that one abrogate the idea of kingship as a natural tendency of man.

Neo feudalism claims to avoid this from happening somehow. In a theoretical revolution (what?) where neofeudalism was set up, all these new noble houses[…]

…are simply already natural relations of jurisdiction generated from governance by private property relations. Artificial nobilities contradict the principle of nobility²Ed. note: The honor acquired by an individual does not die with his person. It is attached here below to his name and applies to those who will bear it after him, as part of the family property. This heritage, which all men recognize, and even on which they trust, this heritage which they no more think of stealing from children than that which is fixed to the ground, constitutes what we call a House, and what peoples consecrate under the name of nobility. Honor is the greatest capital acquired. If fortune is the sign of work and the virtues that savings contain, for its part, honor represents the social virtues of the first order, and remains the most important wealth for the family and for the State. Abolish the heredity of economic capital, the country falls into poverty: no man will force himself to collect property which will not pass to his sons. Abolish the heredity of the immaterial capital of honor, the nation falls into the final decadence: few men will pursue an honor which dies with them; and, as now, money will be the only goal. Blanc de Saint-Bonnet, Antoine. La Légitimité. Vve H. Casterman, 1873.. We trust human action over all else. For more information, also see this article.

Feudalism is a form of government and aristocrats are encouraged to create and enforce law pushing their own interests, with no one to hold them to account.

That’s not how feudalism worked. Even well into centralization and after that the age of absolutism, the medieval era was a thick web of corporate privileges, social bonds, and contracts that often had to be negotiated and couldn’t just be easily expropriated like modern states too. In this case, it could be considered ‘quasi-libertarian’, as daily life was embedded in private jurisdictions. Naturally, to paraphrase one author, what is traditional reigns over what is new, when you do not have a monopolized central authority dictating what this law will look like. So private law naturally lent to governance by custom. Even state authorities in absolutism governed by what was customary and what they considered ‘right’ instead of what the sovereign dictated.

If there are privileged people in your anarchists society, they will use their privilege to ensure they stay on top, they have no incentive to stay in the ancap system. In fact, I would argue that institutions like royal houses go against the very principle of anarchism.

I consider this a good thing. After all, a private law order must rest on privilege for it to work properly. Natural inequality reigns among the civilized inhabitants of the Earth, and this in turn generates sweet peace and unity among its subjects. The inverse can only lead to chaos and disorder and ‘de-civilization’.

It is not the same as one natural law. The early Middle Ages, as I’ve already invoked, was governed under one natural law, and was still for the most part webs of privileges and jurisdictions. That’s because natural inequality is also a natural law!

From what I am hearing, is that neofeudalism is a soft relaunch of regular feudalism with modern technology.

While many people in here, as do I are, are defenders of the feudal system, it’s also natural to accept that this system had its own flaws as well. A lot of feudalism was involuntary and based on serfdom. This violates the natural principles of private property and freed markets. A individual’s natural liberty, and the natural dependencies that grow from differences in how different individuals are able to exercise this liberty, should be the organizing principle by which order grows out.

Critiques of feudalism aside, I feel like describing this as anarchism of any kind is a misnomer? You are just setting up a caste society.

The modern conception of how castes work is incredibly strange. As authors like George Dumezil demonstrated, most pre-modern civilizations, including stateless societies, had some sort of hierarchical groupings by which individuals were differentiated. Differences in privileges, as I just invoked, aren’t the same as forcing people into one neat box as ‘caste’ (I’ll use this lightly here) systems in modern states work.

‘The three estates’ did not exist, or at least was only developing, in the early to intermediate Middle Ages. It came about in the early-modern era, when society gradually was centralizing in the hands of a singular king, and it was used to preserve the organic relations of interdependence that had already existed in feudal society; furthermore, to categorize these relations so they could accurately exist within the framework of sovereign law.

But simple as, caste systems, including ‘the three estates’, are simply hierarchical differentiations and relations of interdependence among human groupings. The only difference is whether it comes out organically, as an ‘aristocracy’, or is codified at the behest of a sovereign state, which is already an attempt to preserve these organic relations anyway in most cases.

What I am sure one or another might self proclaim themselves as royalty and existing royalty will for sure establish themselves in this hypothetical system, they have no place to derive legitimacy from (?) to an extend where society would become “neo-feudal”. Calling it a pipe dream is an understatement.

Anarcho-capitalism is possible. I’m not denying that, even if I personally wish that it never establishes itself. Neo-feudalism actually just (…) has no basis in reality.

There is no hierarchies without (1) the sense of superiority in the mind of the authority and (2) a sense of reverence and love from its subordinates³Haller, Karl Ludwig von. Restauration der Staatswissenschaft oder Theorie des natürlich-geselligen Zustands, der Chimäre des künstlich-bürgerlichen entgegengesetzt. Steiner, 1816–1834.. They are conjoined together in a relation of mutual need and development by which all parties (usually) benefit.

Why is one a Catholic? Because they believe it is the Truth and path to getting into Heaven, to develop a proper relationship with God. Why is one Protestant? Because they believed it is the Truth, and that the other churches lead men into submission to false authorities along with false teachings.

Why is our society a soulless husk dominated by consumerism and (large) corporations? Because the institutions we are governed under reward this behaviour and naturally lead society to descend into it. People buy from (large) corporations because they admire their services and they are usually the only options they had. For the persistence of religion in society, see what I said above.

The correct theory of elites is that politics should be considered inseparable from theology. Even if they aren’t rightful elites, people still form their right to govern because the people they govern also believe they have a right to govern. In antiquity, the kings were usually considered literal Gods brought about to rule the Earth (with universal jurisdiction in theory), and usually had to keep a certain balance according to the law of the religion e.g. don’t overstep the proper realms of power, or they will break the cosmic balance. We see these in pre-Abrahamic states in Europe, Asia, and Africa respectively.

In the feudal era monarchs gained their legitimacy through coronations, and legally they were considered ‘the first among equals’ who were the highest authority to be entrusted with the execution of natural (divine) law. The duty was to preserve the privileges belonging to each and keep in line with God’s order.

In the age of absolutism kings were believed to be assigned by God and operated as literal extensions of God’s will. Not only did they have need to have authority in the Church, but also naturally had authority over their subordinates in the Church. Because they were not just mere patriarchs, they naturally also possessed authority over all their subjects, and all the subjects’ rights were boundly merely to the law of the sovereign. By some act of magic, they believed they were above mere mortals. Of course this was pagan woo-woo bullshit but you get the point I am trying to make here.

In the age of liberal democracies government is now legitimated through ‘the social contract’. In exchange for public services and security, you are free to do whatever you want within the bounds of what the state lets you. The state is also legitimated through the assumption that it is the way through which individuals exercise sovereignty. Through voting, all rulers gain the ‘consent of the governed’ (in reality, only a majority) and this is how the general will is implemented. Like in absolute monarchies⁴Contrary to the old story that absolutism naturally led directly to revolutionary authoritarianism, I am now more distrustful of such a narrative, which has classical liberal origins. They are similar in theory but not quite so in practice. Absolutism was only ever in theory and not necessarily the actual state of affairs under an ‘absolute monarchy’ of the early modern era., all subjects are bound to its capacity to enforce its sovereign law; however here, government is only a temporary privilege legitimated through the operations of the republic or ‘consent of the governed’. Because all is governed and all govern, the government is naturally also a public office which has rights over all of the population. The story too is that polices work in the interests of the community they serve, state welfare helps people who would be homeless without it, and the state has to step in to the economy to regulate the ‘excesses of capitalism’, to serve the interests and safety of the people who inhabit the state, at least that’s how the story tells it.

In a private law society, and let’s focus on the West here and assumed it is mostly composed of Christian living according to their traditional ways, people will naturally gravitate to authorities they believe have actual legitimacy. Kings are not only ‘monarchs’ but ‘Christian monarchs’ and this was the case for how they were referred to in the Middle Ages too. People may gravitate to some authorities out of desperation (still a form of legitimizing) but without the coercive monopoly backing it needs to make such desperation a systematic choice for most members of society, people will naturally just enter relations which their traditions demand. In that case there would also be a return to customary law. Only those who operate under secular worldviews, which already had to utilize the apparatus of coercion and expropriation (and even violence) to come even close to the current hegemony it possesses now, would gravitate to whichever they simply prefer best. Even then, that would be considering that all atheists hate their fathers⁵The argument here is (obviously) not that atheists actually do hate their fathers, but that kings are the fathers of the nations they govern. Of course too, there are atheists governed, even willingly, by Christian fathers and vice versa for Christians governed by atheist (fathers). Kings, especially when not backed by coercive authorities in the hypothetical idea of a ‘private-law order’, should be evaluated as patriarchs of the subjects they govern, and thus their personality manifest in their capacity to govern, rather than any sort of ruler in the typical sense. Reading Patriarcha, I had even gone as far as to claim that monarchy can not be coherently claimed to be a form of government, since it is simply an extension of the divine order that comes about through natural means. It’s an extreme conclusion and how true it is can easily be put into question, but it was a necessary one in order to get into the true nature of monarchy.. Christian monarchs have a duty to God, and contra absolutism, they are not mere extensions of his will. In this case, I would suspect that even an atheist might entrust themselves to being governed by a Christian monarch, as it could be rational to calculate that from the perspective of security it is the best option. They are not going to be governed by people they know are unethical; good governance rests on ethical standards.