schmitt

Okay, so Phil is now editing the full text of the Austrians essay for Neoreaction a Basilisk, but you can read the whole thing ‘as I left it’ (so to speak) at my Patreon in return for a monthly donation of just one measly dollar, thus proving that labour isn’t the source of value. 

Meanwhile, I will continue to post sections here which were cut from the essay for length reasons.  My Patreon sponsors will get those at least a week before they’re made public.  For instance, next week’s public post will go up at my Patreon – for patrons only – later today (probably).  My patrons will also hopefully get early access to podcasts before they go up.  Daniel and I just recorded a WWA Footnote cum Shabcast (Wrong with Shabthority?) on our mutual researches into the Right.  That’ll be along soonest.  We also have three other podcasts in the works, including a WWA Footnote featuring all four of us talking about the Trumpaversary. 

By the way, I want to publicly thank those patrons of mine who stuck by me during a long period when I was finishing the Austrians piece by racing to turn huge piles of notes into (hopefully) readable prose.  During this stretch, they were basically getting fuck all for their money.  I don’t blame any of the people who jumped ship – totally fair enough – but I’m extra double fond of those who felt able to stick around.

Anyway, back to me – i.e. a nobody with a second rate degree from a third rate university – explaining why one of the foremost intellectuals of the twentieth century was shit.

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Neoliberalism is not a simple reiteration of the principles of classical liberalism – a defence of the ‘market society’. It has its origins in an authoritarian reconfiguration of liberalism, beginning in the early twentieth century, specifically designed to meet the challenge of mass democracy and the welfarist demands that came with it.  The great pioneer of this shift was Friedrich Hayek… [who] obscured his real sympathies regarding the state with talk of the ‘spontaneous order’ of the market. But it is clear that he thought a very strong state necessary for various reasons. One such was to cope with the pathologies of democracy.

…

…since neoliberals recognise that human beings are not necessarily predisposed to embrace ‘the market’, the law must not only protect the market order from popular attempts to subordinate it, but also help create neoliberal subjects. People must be compelled to embrace their ‘entrepreneurial’ selves, to treat every aspect of their lives as a self-maximising quest, and to embrace the calculus of risks and rewards in the market, including the inequalities that come with it, rather than seeking to control it. Attempts at circumventing or subverting the economic order, whether through political activism or criminality, must be harshly punished. The neoliberal state is a big, interventionist state, particularly in its penal mode.

– Richard Seymour, Against Austerity

 

All law is situational law.

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