“Democracy is inherently corrupt, inefficient and prone to decay. Public opinion is shaped by the media and academia which creates an illusion of consent”  

“Countries should not be governed as states responsible to their citizens but as a private company headed by an all-powerful CEO” – Yarvin 

By Tom Arms

JD Vance is the bookie’s choice to be the next president of the United States. Tech billionaire Peter Thiel is the all-important money man behind JD Vance.

JD Vance

But just as important as the money behind the cash are ideas. Vance may be the political cart wagon. Money from Thiel and other Silicon Valley Billionaires provide the dogged mule to pull it. But the wagon needs to be filled with ideas if the journey is to have any meaning. And the fresher the better

The ideas are coming from 51-year-old American Curtis Yarvin and 63-year-old British Academic Nick Land. Their political plans are truly scary.

The two men cloak their thinking in a convoluted jargon which includes phrases such as “accelerationism,” “dark enlightenment,” and “speculative realism.”

But basically they reject the ideas of the 18th century Age of Enlightenment which are the philosophical bedrock of the US constitution and current liberal Western democracies. They are also racists, ultra-capitalists and autocrats.

They advocate using technology to “accelerate” capitalism in such a way that destabilizes existing social and political structures and creates a new strong man rule guided by a handful of technocrats. Democratic equality, in their opinion, is a parasitical brake on world order.

So far the philosophy of Land and Yarvin has been confined mainly to America, and US-based Yarvin has become the more prominent advocate of the Dark Enlightenment. Through his work as a blogger (under the pseudonym of Mencius Moldbug), he has influenced not only Thiele and Vance but is also said to be the guiding inspiration behind Michael Anton, Trump’s Director of Policy Planning.

Yarvin is particularly controversial on the subject of race. He claims that he is not a racist but insists that White people have a higher IQ than Blacks. “IQ is real,” he wrote. Race is real. Their correlation is real. Deal with it.”

Yarvin also goes out of his way to defend the slavery of America’s Ante Bellum South. “It was neither cruel nor inefficient,” he wrote. “In fact it may have worked well in its time. Certainly the slaves were treated better than industrial workers in the industrial north.”

As for the abolitionist movement, Yarvin says it was not “a moral crusade but a self-righteous liberal crusade which was less about justice and more about power and ideological control.”

Perhaps more controversial are Yarvin’s views on liberal democracy and how to deal with it. He argues that democracy is “inherently corrupt, inefficient and prone to decay. Public opinion is shaped by the media and academia (A combination which he and Land call the “Cathedral”) which creates an illusion of consent.”

Countries should not be governed as states responsible to their citizens but as a private company headed by an all-powerful CEO. “A country” writes Yarvin,” is not a family. It is a business.”

Yarvin’s CEO is not elected by the citizens. There are no elections. Instead the leader is chosen by “shareholders.” The goal of the CEO is to “maximize, order, efficiency and stability.” If he fails to do so than the shareholders—whom Yarvin expects will be tech entrepreneurs—fire him much as the shareholders in a private company would fire any Chief Executive who fails to perform.

The citizens are denied the vote. They are reduced to the role of “customers” of the state. The only right they retain is the right to leave the country, or, as Yarvin says, “The right of exit.”

The politics of Curtis Yarvin and Nick Land are scary, and many prominent US Republicans passionately oppose them. But the fact is that they are gaining traction as more people become disillusioned with the ability of the existing political establishment to solve their problems.

This failure has created a political vacuum into which the likes of Yarvin and Land have rushed. Their views are untested and likely to lead to increased instability rather than the order which they—and a large section of the voting public—crave.

But they are listened to because they at least have ideas and ideas are the basic fuel of political discussion.