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Deracinated, isolated and consumed by consumables. That is the ultimate fever dream for our technocratic class. An army of individuals unaware of (or hostile to) their own history will not work to save the West or even their own neighborhoods. So far on the scorecard of life, the technocrats are winning by a wide margin. In America, individual NEETS and “incels” have formed online communities in order to commiserate about their low status and basement-level sexual market value (SMV). Even worse, middle-aged white men are dying off in droves thanks either to drugs or to attendant loneliness. The only state-sponsored form of “community-building,” it seems, is wanton violence and destruction.
Given the reality of American atomization, what then is the point of writing about anarchism? After all, anarchism seeks to destroy all systems, hierarchical or otherwise. If the meager fabric of American civilization exploded overnight, then most men and women would retreat to their rooms like the hikikomori. The criminal underclass…well…you know what they’d do during the collapse.
No, anarcho-communism, which is the ideology of Antifa and its fellow minions, is not the future. It can never be the future, as it promotes nothing but Satanism. However, some form of anarchism or anarchic thought could help to revitalize America. After all, so many of us have imbued the myth of the rugged individual without seriously understanding that individualism based only on the individual (as opposed to the family unit) never existed until the late stages of capitalism in the 20th century. This means that most white Americans are hardwired to think of themselves as individuals first and foremost. How can they not when American literature is replete with images of gun-toting lone wolves who clean-up the town via the sheer force of their character? See for instance the novels of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. Or better yet read Brian Garfield’s novel Death Wish, a 1970s potboiler about a one-time Jewish liberal named Paul Kersey who goes on a killing spree because his wife and daughter were sexually assaulted by Puerto Rican thugs. Dirty Harry, the 1971 film starring Clint Eastwood that has come to symbolize the masculine ethos of American males, is all about one hardened individual trying to turn a sour system fresh again.
While American individualism has always been more fiction than fact, there are anarchist philosophies worth studying. Three will be highlighted in this article: anarcho-monarchism, anarcho-fascism, and the anarch. Each attempt to achieve personal freedom and liberty for the individual outside of the delusion of mass democracy. Tellingly, each philosophy believes that liberty cannot coexist with libertinism or hedonism, thus shunning the clown world of left-libertarianism that is so acceptable to the Washington beltway. Each one of these philosophies is aimed at converting the solitary individual, but all three agree that something must be done in order to change the rot called liberal modernism.
Anarcho-Monarchism
Insula Qui, a writer for the paleo-libertarian website Zeroth Position, outlines the ideal of anarcho-monarchism in a 2018 essay collection of the same name. Qui’s ideology is libertarian in character and in rhetoric, which means that it often serves as a defense for capitalism and decentralized markets, governments, etc. However, Qui’s essay collection does diverge from more mainstream libertarian thought by embracing social conservatism and monarchism as the only meaningful ways to achieve a libertarian state.
Qui’s philosophy in this way deeply mirrors the thought of German-American writer Hans-Hermann Hoppe. Hoppe’s Democracy—The God That Failed is a trenchant critique of democracy from a libertarian perspective and is the origin of the meme “Physical Removal.” For Hoppe, in order to maintain a society in which private property is respected, communists, socialists, and democrats should face physical violence in order to keep their anti-property views suppressed.
They—the advocates of alternative, non-family, and kin-centered lifestyles such as, for instance, individual hedonism, parasitism, nature-environment worship, homosexuality, or communism—will have to be physically removed from society, too, if one is to maintain a libertarian order.
Qui mirrors this sentiment in writing that tradition should be the foundation for any anarcho-libertarian order, for “Tradition is the manifestation of the cultural group that created the traditions.” A society cut off from its folkways, speech patterns, etc. cannot accomplish much, let alone respect private property. Although some libertarians may revolt against tradition as a constraint on their personal liberty, Qui notes that “when a person follows tradition, he is simultaneously following the advice of all of his long-dead relatives and every person who ever lived in his society through history.” This is a logically smart way to live. Also, people who live traditional lives are happier, less prone to melancholy, and are not as big of drains on society as their more socially detached peers. A person in a traditional family is more likely to ask help from relatives or their church than from an impersonal central state.
Anarcho-Monarchism, the book, is often focused on “parasitism,” or the quality of life whereby individuals suckle from the teat of the state, which in turn taxes its most productive citizens into irrelevancy. In an essay simply entitled “Producerism,” Qui details how “Production encompasses every act that increases wellness in the world as production encompasses the production of all virtue.” In an economic sense, “producerism” privileges those who produce over those who merely consume. Since Qui sees society as a “framework of interpersonal relations between individuals,” relationships based on mutual cooperation and mutual commerce are superior to other forms of interpersonal relations. Society and social prosperity are therefore easy so long as individual relationships are protected from violence or state interference.
Unlike other libertarian-minded authors, Qui suggests that monarchies are the best political systems for insuring interpersonal freedom. “The ultimate solution for the production of positive effects by moral freeman and good kings is the combination of the principles of anarchy and monarchy,” Qui writes. Rather than give kings unlimited power (i.e., the “god-head model”) Qui articulates a system whereby tyrannical kings would lose their right to rule, which in turn would give freemen of the kingdom the right to name a new ruler. In turn, freemen have a moral responsibility to support a good king, and this means that they are bound to practice good morality. Besides moral obligations, freeholders and monarchs would also be bound to one another by the law, except, unlike in our current framework, this law would be voluntary. A centralized king would rule over a decentralized kingdom, as it were.
Anarcho-Fascism
Qui’s anarcho-monarchist ideal is well aware of its own Anglo bias. Qui writes without shame that concepts such as rule of law and personal liberty originated in Northwest Europe, and she makes no bones about the fact that her ideal state would probably only appeal to Anglos of conventional morality and commonsense philosophy.
Anarcho-fascism is a different ideal entirely. Penned by Swedish author Jonas Nilsson, the slim volume Anarcho-Fascism makes use of what Carl Schmitt called “the political.” Schmitt and Nilsson both understand the basic principle that all politics is tribal warfare—a never-ending contest of “us vs. them.” As such, anarcho-fascism does not eschew violence but rather embraces it.
The conflict-filled struggle that is politics should not be perceived as a game of sports, like wrestling, but rather a martial struggle. The insight into politics rests within the frame of understanding that violence is part of the struggle, that there is an actual possibility that people will die somewhere along the line.
In order to successfully conquer democracy, which Nilsson sees as an enemy, a “masculine elite” must be established beyond the purview of the nanny state. Men seeking deeper ties of blood and soil must unite against the central state in order to fight for their beliefs. The fascism of interwar Europe saw violence and struggle as good for the body and society; Nilsson believes that as well. Nothing worth preserving came from peaceful coexistence anyway.
Anarcho-fascism goes beyond mere “helicopterist” viewpoints. In the latter ideal, scribes pontificate about how juntas or authoritarian leaders can do a better job of protecting liberty and property than mass democracies. Insula Qui recognizes in Anarcho-Monarchism that fascism and libertarianism are not mutually exclusive (especially since most fascist states respected private property rights). Nilsson says that male elites, not just single autocrats, should be disciplined, ready for war, and dedicated to protecting individual liberty at any cost. Nilsson, like Qui, supports a socially conservative, patriarchal society ruled by a single ethnic group as the only guarantor of personal liberty.
There is some influence from the anarcho-nationalist ethos of Troy Southgate in Nilsson’s work, but unlike Southgate, who embraces anti-Western ideologues, primitivism, and a pagan moralism, Nilsson is much more concerned about instilling in men serious masculinity that cannot be undercut by the femininity of any central state. Anarcho-fascism hopes to create warlord societies ruled by the progeny of Baron Roman Ungern von Sternberg.
The Anarch
Developed by Ernst Junger, the figure of the “Anarch” revolts against easy categorization. The anarch actually has nothing whatsoever to do with anarchy at all. Junger’s novel Eumeswil specifically targets the anarchist as a true believer in utopia. An anarch has no time for such pipe dreams. Rather, an anarch is a solitary individual who manages to survive history (or, if you will, “ride the tiger”) without sacrificing life’s experiences.
The anarch figure of Eumeswil is Manuel, a historian, and scholar employed by a benevolent dictator known as the Condor. The setting is a post-nuclear war in Morocco. The only political systems on offer are authoritarianism (as offered by the Condor) or liberal technocracy (as offered by the Tribunes, which Manuel’s family supports). Manuel is a not-so-hidden stand-in for Junger himself—a battle-hardened World War I veteran who wrote exquisitely about the metaphysics of combat and about how pain is the only constant factor in life. In Eumeswil, Junger posits that we are all born with hyper-individualistic and anarchic tendencies. Life, society, and the state whittle away at this anarchism with obligations, schooling, and propaganda. However, the basic anarchic foundation never goes away, and like Manual, we all have the ability to justify our actions to ourselves. This means that, as far as Junger is concerned, an anarch can wear a country’s uniform and can march in lock-step with his compatriots, but can do so for his own personal reasons. Anarchs fight their own wars regardless of who pays them.
Junger uses pithy phrases to characterize the anarch in Eumeswil. The anarch, Junger writes, “can lead a lonesome existence; the anarchist is sociable and must get together with peers.” Anarchs also need authority, even despite the fact that they do not believe in it. The perfect anarch is the historian, for historians, have a wide view of time and know that everything crumbles. Anarchists, on the other hand, see progress as their end goal—a fact that always requires more oppression in order to bend human nature to anarchist principles.
Russell A. Berman, in the introduction to the 2015 version of Eumeswil, suggests that the anarch figure, who borrows liberally from St. Paul and Max Stirner, is Junger’s way of refuting his earlier adherence to conservative revolutionary thought. In books like On Pain and The Worker (both published in the early 1930s), Junger articulated a society based on mass mobilization and centered around individuals devoid of liberal weakness (i.e., a desire for security, a desire for material comfort). For Weimar age, Junger, democracy, and socialism were both antiquated concepts from the positivist 19th century. For the 20th century, collectivism without bourgeoisie morality had to be accomplished in order to make life worth living for men of true quality, whether they be frontline soldiers or monk-like industrial workers.
The harsh reality of World War II changed Junger’s outlook significantly. Eumeswil, in a roundabout way, seeks a new Christendom, albeit an internal one. Medieval monarchies worked closely with the religious authorities because both believed that peace, not war, was the natural state of a Christian society. Eumeswil says that inner peace extended from natural anarchic tendencies is the closest way to achieve Christendom’s ideal in a technological world. Through the anarch’s life, one can be at peace with a fallen world by fully living for oneself.
Conclusion
Each of these philosophies attempts to isolate those things in modern life that make us all so miserable. The rape of nature, the oppressive regime of corporate capitalism, and the idiocy of mass democracy are terrible for the aristocratic soul. To counteract these modern plagues, the anarchic thinkers briefly chronicled here suggest that individualism needs to be rescued from its current context. Freemen must be traditionalists in manners and beliefs. Freemen must also be attached to their families and communities, not their video games and online forums. For anarcho-fascists, freemen must be willing to embrace violence without first waiting for some kind of green light from the state. Anarcho-monarchists, while hesitant to support violence, even decentralized violence, believe that freemen should form their own covenants in order to protect their lives and property. An anarch is not concerned with any of this. Rather, he is free so long as the society around him is not engulfed in complete chaos. An anarch is always free so long as he knows himself and embraces a solitary life
The question that is left to us is this: which path should we choose? What is needed now is are anarchic-reactionaries. These men should be masters of themselves and their communities, and should not shy away from the battle. They should also support natural hierarchies and a true elite. But, should they support a king and a kingdom or a republic? Or, should we, as the West’s last hope, choose the quiet power of the anarch and change from within by fully embracing Christ, his church, and its teachings?
An answer is needed, and needed soon.
Benjamin Welton — Benjamin Welton is an Appalachian Catholic, Monarchist, Bonapartist (for the US), and supporter of the High Church Anglosphere. He is a freelance writer, PhD student in History, poet, and short-story writer who aspires to write detective novels. He blogs at Fear, Loathing, and Empire and Schloss Orlok. If you enjoyed this article, please buy this author a coffee or lunch here.
