A NOTE TO ALL YOUNG MEN SEARCHING FOR POLITICAL ANSWERS
—(response to email request for help)—
It is in the nature of ambitious young men to rush to an hypothesis of their own construction upon their first few encounters with enlightenment – accompanied by the desperate wish to share their revelation. It is in the nature of great theorists to develop a question or hypothesis, and to survey the great thinkers of history to date, and those similar innovations in related fields, to inform, correct, or falsify that hypothesis – with extraordinary effort and thoroughness – and all but those few we remember, fail.
All of us write to learn. It is the most effective way of learning that we know of. It is easy to fool yourself in your imagination. A little less so in speech. Far harder in the written word. And very challenging in the published word – where your cherished efforts are the subject of misunderstanding, legitimate criticism and often, legitimate ridicule.
We are in a period of change. There is vast pent up demand during these periods. Ours is a more catastrophic period than most due to invasion and population collapse due to the policies of the last century. And so you, like many others, are searching for an answer that the thinkers of the last century, and the present, failed to provide.
We generate demand for types of social orders (the suite of cooperative economies), governments (means of production of commons, insurer of last resort), and rule (decision making of last resort) with the geography, capital, demographics, and military capacity to produce those we desire, and to deny alternatives – by seizing opportunistic moments in time. We do not have undiscovered countries (borderlands, continents) to settle as greenfields under the protection of distant empires. So just as we must work with the people we have, we must work with the opportunities we have, and the social orders that are possible to bring about with them.
At present western advantage in other than demographic distribution has been liquidated through redistribution to the rest of the world. Nationalism is returning – largely in reaction to islamism, the same way we reacted to communism. And as strange as it might seem at the moment, with Chinese leadership, what looks very much like national socialism with communist dress of some sort, is emerging rapidly as the principle model of the 21st century.
There is a reason that libertarian thought consists largely if not entirely of introductory books. There is a reason that geostrategy, economics, law, and war, do not. There is reason all Sovereignty (european aristocracy), Liberty (Anglo), Free City (German), Libertarian (the Pale), and Libertine (French) opportunities existed, and why they no longer do so.
What all of these systems share is Sovereignty of the Individual under our ancient european customary laws (tort), and a Demand for Reciprocity to produce that sovereignty. The result of doing so is Rule of Law. What we differ in, is the GROUP COMPETITIVE STRATEGY, and the POSSIBLE organization of rule, government, economy, and social order within it that allows that social order to survive in competition with the other social orders.
A general fights with the resources available, not the one he wishes to have. A people fight with the social, economic, political, and military order they have, not the one they wish they had. An activist fights with the available conditions by applying, like a general, the most force in the weakest places, to steer a more favorable outcome than the one at present, but not the most optimum he desires. A theorist fights with the knowledge available not the knowledge he wishes he had.
A man is sovereign because he has the power to be so, because he has sufficient insurers to guarantee so. A man has liberty by permission of the sovereign. A man has freedom because he is a more profitable asset to the sovereign than a serf or slave. A man is a serf or slave because he has no alternative. The uniqueness of western civilization is the militia. The organized application of violence, by sovereign men, producing rule of law, and as a consequence, no alternative but markets in every aspect of life. There is no theory you can construct to sell. In the market for sale of political orders, you will find liberty is the want of the few even if its proceeds are the want of the many, and freedom is a synonym for theft from some and gifts to others. There is only one means of producing sovereignty: a sufficient number of men willing to use violence to deprive everyone else of imposing any alternative.
Suggest you watch George Friedman and Peter Zeihan’s videos from this year and last. They are accessible summaries of work from around the world. This will help you understand the environment in which we are producing the upcoming social orders.
IF YOU WANT THE INSTITUTE’S HELP
Our reading list is here and there is none better to choose from: http//Propertarianism.com/reading-list/.
Most if not all of the books, plus hundreds more, are in our library and can be read for free online.
We will be offering courses in “The education you wish you had” beginning in January.
They will include:
The Uniqueness of Western Civilization: European History from the ice age forward.
The Theory and History of The Arts
The Theory and History of the Conduct of War
The Natural Law (of Sovereign Men): The history of our law, and the Strictly Constructed Natural Law of Reciprocity (which is my restatement of hoppe’s german rationalist method in anglo scientific prose)
The Means of Cooperation: Micro, Social(human Capital), and Macro Economics (they way econ should be taught)
The Perfect Government: The various possible political orders given the conditions in which one produces the private and common.
The Group Evolutionary Strategies of Competing Groups, Cultures, and Civilizations
Online Courseware. Video. Short Readings. Assignments(essay). Discussion. Feedback. More Discussion.
This is not feel good material. It is US 300-600 level material. And requires work.
So far ART and LAW look like they will start in January. WAR sometime later.
Otherwise, if you have very specific questions I’m available on FB pretty much all the time.
Cheers.
Source date (UTC): 2018-12-10 20:19:00 UTC