Burning All Ships: Intelligent Absurdity
I’ve always been intrigued by an idea I never had the time to explore fully. Starting in the 17th century, Western capitalism was fundamentally built on a historical anomaly at its core. This idea was unintentionally summarized by Adam Smith, the well-known figure of liberalism, in his famous line from “The Wealth of Nations”: “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their interest.” While this statement makes sense in its specific context, it has expanded to encompass all of human existence for reasons that are not entirely clear. This has led to the simplified belief held by liberals that “my selfishness is good for others.” In the 19th century, this belief evolved into the idea that everyone’s selfishness leads to prosperity for societies. In the 20th century, cultural figures like Ayn Rand took this further, portraying altruism as a crime and selfishness as a superior form of morality. This tragic progression culminated in a parody with Javier Milei.
If a shaman, poet, prophet, philosopher, king, or minister had presented this idea during the fifteen thousand years of previous civilizations, they would have been considered possessed by demons, exiled in Greece, or given a role as the king’s jester in Europe or the emperor’s jester in China. This wasn’t because there were no selfish, greedy, or psychopathic individuals but because everyone knew that such traits were the characteristics of people with some intellectual deficiency.
The clash between the Anglo-Saxon world and the more advanced societies of India and China led to the development of the modern dogma of egotistical individualism. This clash involved the rejection of original Christianity in Europe in the 4th century and the 16th-century fight against it, as well as encounters with Buddhism in colonies. Original Christianity and Buddhism had opposing views on the world – the former emphasized altruism and helping others as the best way to help oneself.
Western powers arose from societies fixated on conquering, dominating, and privatizing. This emphasis on privatization, peculiar to the British Isles, led to the erosion of the ancient tradition of communal lands in England and around the globe. This oversimplified view, where property only holds value when privately owned and progress is linked to individual greed, first gained dominance through force and later through widespread advocacy.
Based on their proxy wars (Ukraine, Palestine—next stop, Taiwan?) and their Cold War-style offensives in regions like Latin America, it seems that the Northwest (the imperial West) has fully entered the Thucydides Trap, risking everything. This is not only to the disadvantage of the rising East but, most importantly, to the ordinary people living in the West, which takes pride in its historical wrongdoings.
It’s hard to imagine that people with a specific type of psychopathy, identified by a system designed for psychopaths (who believe “my greed is good for everyone else” and promote ideas like “the invisible hand of the market”), would step down from their powerful positions when faced with a major disaster, whether it’s a meteorite like the one that wiped out the dinosaurs or the current climate crisis that could end human civilization and other species.
What is the last resort for those in power? It is to abandon all ideologies and excuses that are no longer helpful in maintaining control. For example, democracy and freedom have often only served the interests of the powerful, such as slaveholders in the so-called “land of the free.” It was never indeed about the much-touted freedom of the market.
In late July 2024, candidate Donald Trump reassured his voters that the upcoming elections were crucial and that they would no longer need to vote afterward. His opponents argued that this was an attempt to establish a dictatorship, which is not far from the declared intentions of some new extremist groups.
As I proposed in some conferences and a brief book, the formula P = d.t. applies. The current system of neo-slavery no longer benefits from market freedom, democracy, or tolerance towards differences. On the contrary, diversity is no longer controllable, internal, or national, but has become a matter of economic, military, and media power. Therefore, it is being approached as a more serious issue from a power perspective. For instance, consider the narrative breakdown in the genocide of Gaza. As a result, diversity must first be prohibited by law and then by force.
The vice-presidential candidate imposed on Trump, J.D. Vance, supports these views. Vance, the author of a bestseller with simplistic ideas, draws inspiration from a blogger named Curtis Guy Yarvin, known by the pseudonym Mencius Moldbug. Together with the philosopher Nick Land, Yarvin co-founded the anti-egalitarian and anti-democratic movement known as the Dark Enlightenment or the neo-reactionary (NRx) movement, particularly in its social, rather than economic, context. According to their beliefs, American democracy is a failed experiment that a responsible monarchy should replace. They advocate for a model akin to that of corporations, which they refer to as a “techno-monarchy.” Does this align with your vision of an influential figure?
This idea was recognized by the prophet of neoliberalism and Nobel Prize-winning economist Friedrich von Hayek when he visited Pinochet’s Chile in 1981. He said, “I would prefer a liberal dictatorship to a democratic government devoid of liberalism.” Democracy does not work. Not even liberal democracy is always so closely watched by those above. They are inefficient, wasting time and money—the same thing according to the Locke-Smith dogma.
Just as it worked during the times of shackled slavery, the power of decision must be in the hands of the large property owners. Could you not say it’s hard to understand? The executive power, the president, must be free from the deliberate constraints of congresses elected by irresponsible people. Furthermore, Yarvin admires the Chinese communist leader Deng Xiaoping for his pragmatic and market-oriented authoritarianism. In other words, we return to Project 2025, but instead of communist, it is Christian nationalist.
To put it simply, if the United States is currently a political democracy and an economic dictatorship, the idea is to eliminate political democracy. This is another shift towards a neo-Ancien Régime, as I explained in Flies in the Web.
jorge Majfud
