Libertarians and Nationalists: A New Generation Arises
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| Fasces at US House of Representatives |
"In
a battle between force and an idea,
the latter always prevails." Mises, Liberalism [1]
INTRODUCTION
The Western World is in turmoil, with over a hundred
million refugees and other migrants across the world coming in our direction.
[2] Millions are crossing into the USA and the EU. Nations with centuries
of tradition are being overrun by culturally dissimilar people. The situation
is beginning to take on the appearance of one of the great historic migrations
of the peoples, such as those that overwhelmed classical Roman
civilization. Demographics are being changed as millions risk everything
to escape intolerable conditions.
Reacting, large numbers of people of European heritage,
on both sides of the Atlantic, and across the globe in places like Australia
and New Zealand, are organizing kindred and collaborative groups to defend what
they see as threats to their freedoms, their cultures and their
people.
There are several tendencies developing in this
milieu. There are Christian fundamentalists, Nordic Neo-Pagans,
libertarian techno- and crypto-nerds, rightist 'active clubs' and more edgy
fight clubs, well-organized militant nationalist groups like the Patriot Front.
There are those who position themselves as 'Fascists' without understanding the
Socialist basis of Fascist ‘economics'. Then there are those, like the Proud
Boys drinking clubs, who are 'in the middle' groups, decidedly anti-Antifa and anti-Fascist
as well.
THE POLITICAL CONSENSUS
It seems that the centuries' long political consensus in
Western countries favoring personal liberty and a market economy is at risk
from statists of the Left side as well as from some 'command economy' supporters of the nationalist, nominally Right, side.
It was about a century and a half ago that Lysander
Spooner, great 19th Century American Libertarian lawyer, pointed out that the
Old World's aristocratic tyrannies were grounded in what he called the 'four
monopolies' -- state churches, chattel slavery, the 'legal infirmities'
of women and government economic monopolies. He saw all these old
institutions collapsing.
In the intervening 20th Century, with government
monopolies like the Federal Reserve leading the way, the old 'classic liberal'
ideals of liberty and free market economic progress seem unreachable to many,
especially disempowered, mostly young white men on the extremes of the
political spectrum, many of whom might have been in military formations in
centuries past. People have been taking to the streets, no matter
which end of the spectrum, in increasing numbers.
This has become a strong trend and is exemplified by
actions such as the World-Wide Rallies and Trucker Convoys of 2021/22 which
involved millions across the globe, but mainly in Western countries. The
lockdowns and mandates have become rallying points for the Resistance [3] in
the Western world.
MANNERBUND -- MENS' GROUPS
On a more local level, young men in America and Europe
are forming serious 'fight clubs' and other active groups ('Active Clubs', the
Patriot Front and the Proud Boys again come to mind). The youth who
gravitate to these alliances have a broad spectrum of political beliefs,
encompassing every nuance from an individualist libertarian ethos through the
'hard right' of American Nationalists.
This mix can be seen in the dozen basic principles of the
Proud Boys which include several strictly libertarian propositions (maximum
freedom, minimal govt.) as well as 'hard right' positions (closed border) and
traditionalist values ('venerate the housewife') [4]
That's a wide spectrum. Can there be any
intersectional correspondence between libertarian individualists and
corporatist nationalists? Can libertarians and fascists ever cooperate on
any issue?
There is in European politics the idea that there is a
'hard line' between 'democratic' parties and fascist (and, I would say,
communist) parties; all the 'democratic' parties agree, no matter who 'forms
the government' the extreme parties will not be allowed into the halls of
power. Are libertarians obliged to honor this understanding among the statist
parties? How far should freedom advocates cooperate with nationalists who,
while expressing Western values, may be willing to, under certain circumstances,
initiate violence to effectuate change to their liking?
This is not an academic question since there are now a
number of credible crises that may play out, putting us all on the battlefield
of a third world war -- or we may be facing our own "1346 Event" (the
starting year of the Black Death pandemic that killed half of Eurasia over just
two years, mediated, this time, by global immune system collapse,
triggered by mass adverse reactions to the novel gene-altering COVID 'jabs').
Meanwhile on the battlefield in Ukraine... quite
literally thousands of nationalist and other militants from all over Europe
have gathered, forming freikorps to fight for Russia or Ukrane. 'Nazi'
regiments and 'Anarchist' cooperatives are fighting together on the Ukrainian
side.
COLLABORATION ON THE RIGHT?
The issue of alliances on the Right has remained
controversial for a hundred years and even now both sides glare at each other
across the social media, (watching each other’s edgy videos of banner drops and
protests) while at the same time each stands against the Left as personified by groups like Antifa.
During the past hundred years, as America embraced
'foreign entanglements' in World War One, the first fascist State was founded
(Mussolini's Italy in 1922). Later a number of countries became self-consciously
fascist, including Spain, Portugal, Romania, Argentina, Austria and Germany. It
is said that FDR and his first cabinet were fans of fascism.
One commentator opined,
"Roosevelt himself once called Mussolini
'admirable,' adding that he was 'deeply impressed by what he has accomplished.'
Mussolini returned the compliment with adulatory praise, writing of Roosevelt’s
many reforms, [and] ‘Reminiscent of Fascism is the principle that the state no
longer leaves the economy to its own devices … Without question, the mood
accompanying this sea change resembles that of Fascism.'” [5]
These early 20th Century machinations suggest a
'forgotten history' that may illuminate our question regarding the alliances on
the Right and Left. Remember World War II started when both Hitler and
Stalin invaded Poland, as allies, a few weeks apart.
Also consider the prior century (the 19th of the Common
Era) when the theory of the omniscient State was developed by statists and
opposed by proto-libertarians (such as Max Weber and Lysander Spooner).
THE STATE OF EXCEPTION
The theory they opposed, that the State was a special type of human organization, has very ancient roots, growing from the 'divine right of the priest kings'. This concept may be denoted as 'statism'. It was further developed in Plato's Republic, which made no significant provision for free speech and dissent.
Centuries later
Marxist writers proposed a 'dictatorship of the proletariat' to overthrow both
feudal and classic liberal societies. There has never been a statist commitment
to equal rights or free markets. But it was in the early 20th Century
that the political theory was given a name, the State of Exception.
What is a "State of Exception"? It is the
legal theory justifying tyranny asserted originally by the German Jurist (and
Nazi) Carl Schmitt [6] and strongly criticized by libertarian philosopher
Murray Rothbard. [7]
Schmitt saw the unlimited powers of the totalitarian
state as arising from a permanent state of emergency, a "State of
Exception" which allowed ruling elites to act arbitrarily, capriciously
and without adherence to the rule of law. He asserted such a state justified:
1. Special executive powers
2. Suspension of the Rule of Law
3. Derogation of legal and constitutional rights
More about the history of the State of Exception in my
blog, The State of Exception: Tyranny's Theory. [8] To summarize,
in my opinion there can be no 'emergency' exception to inalienable rights. All
theories supporting the State of Exception are anti-freedom and must be
extricated from our public life.
FASCISM AND COMMUNISM BOTH
FAIL ECONOMICALLY
Centrally planned economies fail, whether of the
"Right" or the Left. World War Two discredited fascist theory
just as the collapse of the USSR a few decades later discredited
Marxism-Leninism. However, the embers of these theories remain scattered around
and flame up every so often, in 'liberated zones' or 'no go' or 'gang' areas in
many Western cities and universities.
In this context, how did the two political movements 'on
the Right' (libertarian and nationalist) react to each other over the century
in which the theories of both movements reached their fullest development? We
seek to find the collaboration within libertarian individualism and the
individualism within nationalism.
As a subsidiary issue we look at the disconnection
between Right Nationalism as a political movement and Government Domination
(Fascism, Corporatism, Socialism or Syndicalism) as an economic theory.
Libertarians, on the other hand, have an 'unhampered market' economic theory
clearly at odds with statism's central planning and enforced collaboration
between Market and Government.
LIBERTARIAN NATIONALISM
Let's look at Ludwig von Mises, the 20th Century's great
philosopher of liberty. I note that he left his native land, Austria in 1934,
the year the Austrofascists took over. After a time in Switzerland he spent the
war and post-war years in the United States where he mentored what has become a
world-wide libertarian economic and political movement.
He pointed the way toward a libertarian nationalist
approach with his understanding of classical liberalism’s cosmopolitanism.
“nationalism does not clash
with cosmopolitanism, for the unified nation does not want discord with
neighboring peoples, but peace and friendship.” [9]
Or, as Jefferson put it, “Peace, commerce, and honest
friendship with all nations... entangling alliances with none.”
My blog on Nationalist Libertarianism explores this further
[10]
As a practical matter, urgent steps in the direction of greater individual liberty require a wholesale planetary divesting of authority from political
systems used to micro-manage Human Action.
Every regulation abolished, every tax reduced, is a victory for humanity. The direct political program therefore must be "abolish multiple old regulations for any new one proposed" -- and the same as to taxes and bureaus.
Nonetheless, Mises was accused of being 'soft' on fascism by various Marxist scholars, as he thought Italian Fascism was to be acknowledged for stopping a Communist takeover there.
However his condemnation of
fascist policies is clear:
"That its foreign policy, based as it is on the
avowed principle of force in international relations, cannot fail to give rise
to an endless series of wars that must destroy all of modern civilization
requires no further discussion. To maintain and further raise our present level
of economic development, peace among nations must be assured. But they cannot
live together in peace if the basic tenet of the ideology by which they are
governed is the belief that one's own nation can secure its place in the
community of nations by force alone." Mises, Liberalism[1]
Here Mises was applying the libertarian Non-Aggression
Principle [NAP] and condemning the pro-war policies of the tyrannies of his
time, primarily the Fascists and the Communists.
THE FUTURE OF
COLLABORATION?
Both collectivist political movements espoused the same
morality of 'might makes right' and supported central planning and government
domination over all of social life. Left or Right, statism supports
dictatorship and the anti-freedom State of Exception. They are each run by self-selecting elites that engage in vicious internal rivalries. They support central planning and economic exploitation of the
Market by the governing elites.
This is a critical point at which both Left and Right statism can fail: they do not understand market economics and the inescapable laws of the market. The economic failures of statism are lessons from which young persons can be "Red Pilled" away from statism and toward liberty. Liberty, when understood, can be profoundly redemptive.
Both tendencies on the Right (nationalism and libertarianism)
however do see cultivating manliness among the youth as a significant value, in
direct opposition to the Left's championing of Critical Race Theory's
offspring, Critical Sex Theory, with its emphasis on 'metrosexual' feminized
males and non-binary or trans persons.
Why have some of those who espouse an 'Alt Right'
[sometimes Alt Right 3.0] lifestyle of learning, martial training and activism
['Cultured Thug'] also adopted a more extreme 'fash' (Fascist) style, while
others use more 'center' nationalist symbolism? Why is fascist posturing
[giving what are considered 'Roman Salutes' and the like] so attractive to some
on the Right, while others, such as libertarian nationalist youth, remain
committed to peace, free trade and civil liberties?
Both see themselves as the 'True Right'. Both seek to
build lasting communities of like-minded, self-actuated, and politically
active, men and women who value individual effort, physical prowess, and
intellectual achievement. There are commonalities on the Right.
In this way the new Western Chauvinists stand not just
against the Left, but more importantly, stand against the globalist elite that
seeks to manipulate both Right and Left, exercising especially strong control
over popular Leftist causes such as 'climate change' and 'systemic racism'. The
Right seeks to stop Agenda 2030's planned genocide. [11]
CONCLUSION
Ultimately, it is dissatisfied individuals, engaging in
Human Action, guided by Informed Consent, who will set the underlying economic
and social conditions which will determine how Western Civilization will
develop in the coming decades and centuries.
It was Mises who defined the first principle of Human
Action (praxeology) as "Humans act purposefully". Arising from that
understanding, all Human Action is predicated on dissatisfaction.
The youth of the world are profoundly dissatisfied, none
more so than Westerners of European heritage.
Beware, as a new generation arises.
-----
Footnotes:
[1]
https://mises.org/library/liberalism-classical-tradition/html
[2] https://www.unhcr.org/refugee-statistics/
[3] https://vitaminlawyerhealthfreedom.blogspot.com/2022/11/we-are-resistance-to-great-reset.html
[4] The Tenets are:
1.
Minimal Government
2.
Maximum Freedom
3.
Pro Free Speech
4. Pro-Gun
Rights
5. Anti-Racism
6. Anti-Racial
Guilt
7. Anti-Drug
War
8. Anti-Political
Correctness
9.
Closed Borders
10.
Glorify the Entrepreneur
11.
Venerate the Housewife
12.
Reinstate a Spirit of Western Chauvinism
[5]
https://dailycaller.com/2016/12/13/fdr-praised-mussolini-and-loved-fascism/
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Schmitt
[7]
https://mises.org/library/carl-schmitt-and-murray-rothbard
[8]
https://vitaminlawyerhealthfreedom.blogspot.com/2022/04/the-state-of-exception-tyrannys-theory.html
[9] L. von Mises, Nation, State, and Economy, 1919
[10] https://vitaminlawyerhealthfreedom.blogspot.com/2020/09/nationalist-libertarianism.html
[11] https://www.PreventGenocide2030.org
--------------
References:
https://mises.org/library/liberalism-classical-tradition/html
https://mises.org/library/mises-and-fascism
https://mises.org/library/was-mises-fascist-obviously-not
https://mises.org/library/mises-his-importance-and-relevance
https://fee.org/articles/misess-lost-papers-plundered-by-the-nazis-buried-by-the-soviets-rediscovered-by-me/
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