New Update: I have recently decided to separate my posts in different newsletters according to the recurrent topics, this is so that readers can follow the continuity of my essays easily by sorting through different sections of this substack. This new section On Power will focus on the mechanisms of power for those who are outside of it.
I thought my previous three posts, which were supposed to be a self-contained trilogy of their own were not sufficient prescriptions by themselves for fellow dissidents. hence I’ve been reading various writers/bloggers who have much more concrete inputs to offer and seek to compile them here while also adding my own two cents if possible. this series is in no way supposed to be definitive and will be open to addition and revisions in the future.
Folk Activism and Inertia of Power
You may not be a libertarian by heritage like
Patri Friedman (grandson of polarizing economist Milton Friedman) but when it comes to political action, any faction might find this excerpt valuable:
As a libertarian, I find it easy to see the empirical evidence that incentives matter. More difficult, but very important, is to look at the vast gap between libertarian principles and the size and scope of current governments as empirical evidence that power matters too. Politicians are demonstrably, consistently, and ubiquitously expert at entrenching the power of the political class. To most libertarians, this is morally illegitimate, but morality has sadly little influence over the realities of power.
If we are ever going to move beyond philosophizing on barstools and blogs to change the power structures of the world, we must accept that power equilibria have considerable inertia. We cannot shift them with hope and outrage alone — we need carefully calculated action.
So what is it that has been stalling the libertarian movement according to Patri? its something that he calls “Folk Activism”:
In early human tribes, there were few enough people in each social structure such that anyone could change policy. If you didn’t like how the buffalo meat got divvied up, you could propose an alternative, build a coalition around it, and actually make it happen. Success required the agreement of tens of allies — yet those same instincts now drive our actions when success requires the agreement of tens of millions. When we read in the evening paper that we’re footing the bill for another bailout, we react by complaining to our friends, suggesting alternatives, and trying to build coalitions for reform. This primal behavior is as good a guide for how to effectively reform modern political systems as our instinctive taste for sugar and fat is for how to eat nutritiously.
Folk activism broadly corrupts political movements. It leads activists to do too much talking, debating, and proselytizing, and not enough real-world action. We build coalitions of voters to attempt to influence or replace tribal political and intellectual leaders rather than changing system-wide incentives.
This is not a cause for despair. Quite the opposite: it is cause for great hope. It suggests that the failure of libertarian activists to produce libertarian countries may stem more from misdirected efforts than from the impossibility of the task. Using analysis instead of instincts, perhaps we can find a better lever, fulcrum, and place to stand from which to attempt our Archimedean effort.
Two things to notice here:
As Jonathan Smucker notes: “Power tends to appear magical to those who have less of it, and mechanical to those who are accustomed to wielding it instrumentally.” And Patri is indeed using a lot of mechanical analogies such as Inertia, lever, fulcrum, etc. instead of mystifying stuff that you usually get to hear in idealist circles such as faustian, charisma, etc.
Moreover, as mechanical machines are designed to reduce human effort while getting better and better output, his use of these analogies implies that such political machinations are possibles where efficient design can lead to more effective output without increasing the magnitude of effort. which means a political organisation is not all about quantities of manpower or funding, but also how you put them to use.
However, Patri is still wrong despite being somewhat close to the truth. The irony of Patri’s stance here is that he is partaking in folk activism by advocating against it and responding to his detractors. All movements, even the successful ones had an informal start, The founders(and vested interests if any) had to come together and discuss the initiative in folk-activistic before getting into institutional mode. you need a trust-based network of people before you commit to formalizing anything. these people get together and come to a conclusion by talking and debating in the first place. As long as there is an agreement on the final outcome(a non-negotiable condition), debates need not be destructive. Ideas on how to achieve said outcome are proposed, responded to, analyzed, criticized, and improved upon. This way potential doesn't grow linearly, it gets compounded. Folk activism is not a corrupting process, it’s an unavoidable phase every movement has to start from. the important thing is to not get stuck in it. And if you are stuck in it, folk activism is not the cause but a symptom of the ailment. Folk activism can get very problematic if done loudly in public, you can catch a very wrong kind of attention and get nipped in the bud. The aim is to grow out of this vulnerable infancy and move on to the institutional/organisational activity.
Why is creating institutions important? because while we happen to talk a lot in wish-fulfillment mode, getting things done requires a change in our actions. and institutions by their very definition are social technology meant to shape and constrain individual behavior. Folk activism might give you a change in mood and opinion, but what do these changes in the abstract matter if they don’t produce changes in our habits and actions? relying on individual will alone is not viable, social change requires social reinforcement.
An Alternative Procedure
What if the institution we are seeking to create does not have to be activistic at all? folk or otherwise, why bother raising a voice if it is going to be ignored by people in power anyway? what if there was a better way? a silent way.
In his "Gentle Introduction…, Part 9a", Curtis Yarvin(then writing under the pen-name of Mencius Moldbug) introduces a neat little political methodology he calls "Passivism", and a Procedure to replace the current political machinery
Step One, "Become Worthy", means that you prepare yourself and organize your friends so that if some higher power, for example, an earthquake or a pandemic or any deus ex-machina that could create an economic or political crisis, dissolved the current system and put you in charge, you could pick up the pieces and govern justly and effectively. That is, becoming worthy means building contingency in case the current structure fails and you have to provide the government services on your own or to fill in the existing gaps in its service. Ideally, "worthy" means "obviously multiple times more competent than the current structure". You should probably have a solid governance plan, a well-constructed and efficient organization, high-quality people, a more trustworthy source of information, more reliable and useful community infrastructure, demonstrated success, etc.
Step Two, "Accept Power", is what happens when you are noticeably more competent than the current structure. You're not just a contingency plan anymore, but a recognizably better alternative right now, if only this rotten junk that is the existing structure would get out of the way. And when that is clear, several options will present themselves. Members of the old structure will defect to yours, the important people will want you instead of them, social reality will shift, the old system will waver and fall while you pick up the pieces, etc.
Passivism
Instead of focusing on activism, which has become popular because the powers behind the left found it a useful myth to deploy, work quietly at what you can change. You can not change the world (unless you happen to be the great man) but you can set up a support system so that when the great man appears, he has something backing him.
This is becoming worthy, this is the passivist strategy: work in the shadows to build bonds and structures. Build virtue in yourself. Build a strong family with many children and teach them your values and how to succeed. Build a religious community that holds to traditional values. Build a mannerbund of men devoted to each other and their values. Join the community, religious, or fraternal organizations, then slowly capture them. Build a functional community around you that people want to join. Build bonds of virtue, loyalty, and ideology. You will naturally accrue legitimacy, authority, and power as you build.
Passivism is not a non-violent quest to power, passivism should not be confused with gandhianism, because non-violent activism is still activism in the first place. Gandhianism makes demands to state power. Passivism makes no demand on the state at all. it does not criticize, or plead. The only time a passivist would negotiate for power is when it is offered from the other end first. To make it clear what moldbug is not saying, I’ll quote him here:
The steel rule of passivism is absolute renunciation of official power.
Passivism is not any sort of activism. Passivism is passivism. In plain English, you may not even begin to consider the rest of the Procedure until you have freed yourself entirely from the desire, built-in burden though it be of the two-legged ape, for power.
As a matter of both principle and tactics, the passivist rejects any involvement with any activity whose goal is to influence, coerce, or resist the government, either directly or indirectly.
In case this isn’t crystal-clear, the steel rule precludes, in no particular order: demonstrations, press releases, suicide bombs, lawsuits, dirty bombs, Facebook campaigns, clean bombs, mimeographed leaflets, robbing banks, interning at nonprofits, assassination, “tea parties,” journalism, bribery, grantwriting, graffiti, crypto-anarchism, balaclavas, lynching, campaign contributions, revolutionary cells, new political parties, old political parties, flash mobs, botnets, sit-ins, direct mail, monkeywrenching, and any other activist technique, violent or harmless, legal or illegal, fashionable or despicable.
Keep in mind I’m not endorsing everything that moldbug has to say, here or elsewhere. I’m just trying to show the Pros of his prescriptions (there are cons too, but I will discuss them later)
Pros of Passivism:
Passivism is consistent. Passivism in your actions sets a precedent for the rest of society to follow you when your time comes. Everyone is a Passivist in a state of rectified politics, and we can't ask other people to accept something we wouldn't accept ourselves. On the other hand, if you grab power by rabble-rousing. Expect more rabble-rousing challengers in your regime too.
Passivism is stealth and armour. The system knows how to defend against, subvert, and destroy activist challenges. Passivism flies below their radar, and when they do notice you, they have no legal or moral pretext to shut you down.
Passivism degrades gracefully to a healthy and normal human life. If we fail to take over the world or whatever, we still build useful institutions and don't blow anything up or waste the public's resources and attention.
Passivism does not feed the hysteria of the system, which thrives on the specter of radical dissident activism and imagined vast conspiracies from the opposition. We accept that their rule is what it is and don't resist; we are just planning and building for contingency. What is there to get worked up about?
Passivism encourages strategic thinking and low time preference. Raised on a diet of action movies and mythologized political history, it is every modern person's reflex to want political problems to be solved by magicking up an army and doing something with fire, but this isn't realistic or helpful. A passivist collective excludes people who can't think beyond this and reinforces the conviction of those who can.
Passivism avoids the corrupting pressures of seeking popularity, i.e. Hitler. Seeking power through popularity with a mass of people always involves dumbing things down to be more viral, more populist, and more feel-good. This is rarely aligned with what is good and strategic. The methodology that avoids the pressures of popularity can avoid their ugly failure modes.
Passivism and disengagement from culture war allow us to take defectors from all sides. Since we're not marching, we don't have to wave anyone's flag or pattern match to anyone's sworn culture enemies.
So what passivists seek to do is raise a parallel structure that provides a certain value to someone somewhere at some point where govt can’t reach it. someone needs protection but our inept govt can’t provide it? that’s a vacuum for passivists to fill. someone needs a piece of crucial information at right time but govt intelligence or mainstream media cant provide it? an opportunity for passivists. Want to learn something that mainstream academia can not or would not teach at all? an opening for your own organic pedagogy. People need money but formal banking and financing are out of their reach? being a debt-trapping loan shark can be passivist too as long as you pick only the small fishes and leave people connected to the state untouched(Remember it’s not about being non-violent, it’s about knowing your limits and not challenging the state and its extensions).
If you have heard Uncle Ben’s “With great power comes great responsibility“, passivists are trying to accrue power by taking responsibility first and hoping the power gets handed over to them by the rest of society in long run by a tacit resignation of their enemies, allowing them to step up and fill in the seat uncontested when time is right. More or less, when they say “Become worthy, Accept power” this is what I imagine them trying to be:
Jokes aside, this makes the passivist prescription sound very close to the mafia way, and we shouldn't be surprised because the employment of rogue elements by the state for its own purposes covertly or overtly has historically been a recurrent part of getting things done that state can’t do on its own. And given the number of bahubalis in Indian politics(and the rest of the third world at large), it does seem to be that way. While most commonly held theories assert that the legitimacy of the state rests upon its monopoly of violence, there are alternative theories where the legitimacy stems from constructive services the state can offer to people.
But it doesn’t have to be this way, and neither it should. You don’t have to be a mobster in order to be a passivist contestant to power, after all, who would want such a ruler to ascend? Unlike movies, these people aren’t really conservative in their ethos and never had a civilizational scale vision to my knowledge. You can be a religious order, a corporation, or some other kind of civil association instead, there are plenty of examples in history of ideologically committed(but strategically flexible) passivist organizations rising to power.
Savitri Devi’s analysis of the rise and fall of Genghis Khan’s empire in The Lightning and the Sun. Her read of the history seems to check out with the actual facts of the case, but the source is being linked here because these claims are somewhat speculative.
In her analysis, the purpose and higher meaning of his empire were simply the security and prosperity of his own family. The motivation of his followers was personal loyalty, and personal payout in loot and land, in turn for the prosperity of their own families. They had no higher ideal of a Golden Age they were destined to construct, no notion of being in service to the higher laws of the Universe, and importantly, no prime importance placed on the purity and integrity of their own customs, race, or purpose.
This lack of idealism was harmless while Ghengis Khan was alive; the war machine and empire he built was organizationally sound, far more so than anything else that existed at the time. Even after he died and was replaced, personal loyalties and organizational inertia continued to hold the Mongol empire together, and it continued to expand. But sooner or later, the entropy and culmination of slow forces crept in and changed things, and the Mongol empire began to drift apart and be assimilated into the ruling traditions of the conquered territories. Which is why their cultural footprint is much smaller than their military one. they couldn’t even sustain their own religion and fell to Buddhism.
Similar to dynastic empires organized crime world has been notorious for being based on familial kinship and ethnocentrism. Our bahubali politicians and their organizations suffer the same problem the mongols did, they lack an organization-wide vision besides pure territorial expansion. They too are overdependent on clan/caste-based loyalty like mongols. Anything else apart from that is purely transactional in their regime.
Read this study of the greek political party Golden Dawn’s appeal to youth, there is nothing about marches, protests, get-out-the-vote, etc, or any other sort of activism. Instead, what they focused on was structures. They held history courses for children, they held meetings to build bonds between young men and the party, they had camps to build young men up, they donated food to the community, etc. Sounds very similar to RSS, doesn’t it?
Golden Dawn was the most successful extreme right-wing party in Europe for a time because it followed elements of a passivist strategy. They did not engage in activism, they built structures. However, they hit their peak, got too cocky, took part in what can be called folk terrorism (like this and this), and then got wiped out by the state later when they stepped out of their boundaries, and are now branded as a criminal organization by the authorities. A mix of activism and passivism can be tried RSS-BJP combo comes to mind, with RSS being passivist and BJP activist, so far so good for them but not for their loyal followers. Time will tell how it plays out for them in long run.
Which brings us to our next topic: Importance of ideology.
Ideological Inertia In Institutions
Michael Perilloux, a Thiel-influenced neoreactionary blogger posited that one of the most robust and long-lasting elements of institutional inertia, the elements that keep an institution moving in the direction the founder gave it is ideology. If an institution is built with a great ideology that is sincerely believed by its members, it will last, it will self-correct when it deviates, and it will effectively project its founder’s will into the future. On the other hand, if an institution is built with an inconsistent and inadequate ideology, it may be effective at first due to other unrelated reasons, but will decay quickly.
The potential of having people robustly ideologically motivated is that even an organizationally broken institution with a good and strongly-believed ideology can possibly expel defectors and reform itself when broken or facing changing circumstances, as most of its people are robustly motivated to do so.
but again, this is easier said than done. having an ideological backbone requires more than nominally endorsing it. You can’t get away with mere symbolic acts, sooner or later pretension and hypocrisy get noticed by sincere people. Everyone knows how much Samajwad is taken seriously within Samajwadi Party. Your actual ideology is more determined by what kind of ethos your movement actually practices than what you profess.
First, we have the factors that determine the ideology of a coalition or institution, and how it gets enforced:
Selection. The actual actions that a coalition or institution takes or doesn’t take constrains its ideology by attracting people who like those kinds of actions for whatever reason and repelling those who don’t understand them or are temperamentally incompatible.
Imitation. If the members of a coalition or institution express their ideology in visible actions, signals, sentiments, beliefs, and so on, others who join the coalition will imitate those and it will be much easier for the ideology to be passed on successfully. Note that the ideology should be well-represented by its behavioral and expressive consequences for this to work.
Training. Members of a coalition or institution can be explicitly trained in the ideology to some degree, especially if they have basic sympathy. This is another important mechanism by which an institution gets its ideology. For example, our own elites get ideologically trained in university and our governance takes on the character of that training.
Inquisition. It is almost always the case that ideological groups will root out and expel anyone who does not believe in their ideology to maintain purity. This can be institutionalized as well with some kind of formal inquisition. Either way, it also contributes to the preservation of the ideological direction of an institution.
Next, we have the factors that cause the ideology of an institution to influence its behavior even to the point of overriding its current institutional structure:
Direct Motivation. When people operate within ideologies, they take the kinds of actions that their ideology recommends even independent of their own direct short-term interests. That’s the point of an ideology. The sum of this effect in a group of people operating within an ideology will be that the actions of the group will be steered by that ideology. For example, many people in powerful places in our society are all taking little actions, like instituting progressive speech or hiring codes, to further the aims of the progressive social justice liberalism they learned in college.
Coalitions. It is not possible for individuals working alone or in single positions of power to take actions that require cooperation between many actors. Many of the most important actions of an institution or group will require these coordinated coalition-actions, and thus will require the ability to organize and motivate a coalition. Organizing a coalition is made vastly easier if that coalition is obvious and easy to justify within the local ideology. If it runs against the local ideology, it must become a conspiracy, which is much harder to organize given the secrecy required. Thus there will be a large ideological bias in what kind of coalitions can be organized within an ideological group. Thus the group will tend to take actions, even complicated and coordinated actions that substantially change its internal structure as only coalitions can, that are in accordance with its ideology, and ideology will be able to override its institutional structure when conditions are right.
This theory of ideological inertia is based on Peter Thiel’s law,” A startup messed up at its foundation cannot be fixed.” if we need an ideology to sustain our institution for the long term, then it’s the founders who have to endorse, disseminate and enforce it first. but how will they do so without practicing folk activism in the seed stage?
I had a bit more to say on this topic, but think I need to pack it up here since this post is getting too long now and won’t retain the reader’s attention any further. I’m considering sorting essays on this topic into a separate ongoing series altogether. Can’t say how many entries will be there in this series right now. Meanwhile, I also plan to start a separate series of posts on other topics that I’m interested in.
PS: I’m not endorsing the vision, ideals, or actions of Golden Dawn, RSS-BJP, Savitri Devi, Thiel, or anyone else mentioned here. This is just a detached exploration of their success, method, requirements, and limits here.
Awaiting for upcoming posts in this series. Even with your disclaimer, at this moment the posts haven't identified any flaws with RSS-BJP approach. Or how any alternative can be brought about since they are already doing the passivist approach.