We all know about outgroup homogeneity bias, right? (Well, now you do.) Here’s a familiar example: conservatives think liberals and radicals are basically identical, because they’re decadent and lack manly virtues and build up big states that subsidize the urban poor or totally useless art or whatever and are evil. Meanwhile, radicals think that liberals are basically like conservatives, because they support imperialism and oppose the dictatorship of the proletariat and/or peasantry.
I don’t want to claim that the following is in any way original, because it seems very obvious, and I know I’ve seen hints of it in Mann, Weber, Tilly, Wallerstein, Schumpeter, certain strains of neoreactionary thought (lol) and elsewhere. I’m also not sure if it, in the end, “works.” (There are, after all, ideas which are both wrong and obvious, just as there are ideas that are both original and correct and obvious-seeming in retrospect. Obviously.) But on first brush it seems to explain a lot, and I can’t recall having seen it stated explicitly, so here’s the hypothesis I’m nursing:
The left-right spectrum has its merits: a simple but hilarious google search suffices to demonstrate how Sturgeon’s Law holds for the alternatives. But for our purposes right now, it does three things: first, it locates the political distinctions in question as beginning with modernity (symbolically and etymologically, with the seating arrangements of the French National Assembly;) second, it proposes that you have a monotonic ordering conservatives-liberals-radicals, such that you make the changes that turn a conservative into a liberal and keep going, you get a radical (though perhaps the stranger consequences of this can be avoided with that old saw, the transformation of quantity into quality;) and third, if we have something like a Marxist political economy, that monotonic spectrum maps to struggles between direct producers and parasitic elites. Well, I’m a big fan of historicization, and Engel’s first law, and the good fight, but here’s an alternative take: the mainstream section of the left-right spectrum mostly corresponds to a form of intra-elite class struggle which can be found in almost all complex societies, not just modern ones.
In most historical empires, there were several different kinds of elites: to do massive violence to the specificity of history, let’s call them rentiers and apparatchiks.
Ideal-typical rentiers have inheritable and personal or familial property rights in the means of production which they use to extract rents from direct producers. Their collective interests tend towards localism, fewer big state projects, and the preservation of family power; their conditions of life nourish the traditional manly virtues and adherence to older and less text-centric religions and ideologies. Examples include almost all aristocrats not subdued into personal dependence upon a crown, and, in certain important respects, many capitalists as well.
Ideal-typical apparatchiks use cultural capital to obtain civil service positions from a state that meta-predates on rentiers. By “cultural capital” I specifically don’t mean to draw any false analogies with the specific laws of motion of economic capital, but just to use the now-standard term for prestigious cultural knowledge: this knowledge is by its nature mostly inalienable in itself (though forms of knowledge can obviously degrade or appreciate in prestige over time,) while office-holding is not held as a matter of personal rights; civil services come to use a canon store of humanistic knowledge as a way of capturing intellectual ability, reproducing their class power in their children through educational advantages, and ensuring ideological cohesion. Their collective interests tend towards centralism, urbanism (including the subsidy of the nearby urban poor), monumental state projects, and meritocracy; their conditions of life suffocate the traditional manly virtues in favor of refinement and persuasion, and nourish adherence to newer and more text-based religions and ideologies
In the spirit of Sam on Age of Empires and Matthijs on Dwarf Fortress,* consider Ned and Varys as illustrations of type. Ned has “honor,” which is the rentier knockoff brand of cultural capital; he’s a family man; his loyalties are sectional (the North) and personal (to his family, to King Bob.) He’s a proud and capable warrior in his own right, and follows the hick religion of region and ancestors. Varys is physically marked as incapable of masculine honor, and of having a family; but this is just an exaggeration of a general trend – like other official groups whose loyalties are explicitly to “the Realm” rather than to particular demesnes or liege lords, such as the Maesters and Night’s Watch, he’s cut off from family ties. Ned supported Robert’s Rebellion, while Varys is still loyal to the centralist tendencies of the Targaryen dynasty.
The sort of struggle that defines the daily lives of each is mostly intra-class. Every apparatchik wants to unseat his boss; every rentier wants to literally or symbolically murder his peers so he can enjoy the fruit of their peasants’ labor too. These struggles are hardly irrelevant, in that they mold each class’ life-world and its possibilities for solidarity, but who actually wins them doesn’t, in the grand scheme of things, really matter all that much. More meaningful struggle takes place between rentiers and apparatchiks as a whole (with various persons and sections finding reasons for class treason.) The rentier term for apparatchik rule is “decadence,” used most precisely in this way by Khaldoun: stagnation and effeminacy under an internally all-powerful but externally vulnerable state. (My use of terms like “manly virtues” and “effeminacy” isn’t an accident; rentier ideology seems to be conspicuously gendered.) The apparatchik term for rentier rule is “barbarism:” idiot hicks born to absolute power over petty fiefdoms, raiding each others’ cattle, producing nothing of lasting value. (Everybody’s term for apparatchiks turning themselves into rentiers is “corruption,” hence the fancy designation, “rent-seeking.” “Tyranny” is typically a designation for trying to force rentiers to act like apparatchiks. The asymmetry of language here implies an asymmetry of interests: any given member of the elite would, all else being equal, prefer to be a rentier surrounded by apparatchiks.)
If we very crudely, and with total disregard for their original meanings, use “left” to designate apparatchik rule and “right” that of rentiers, the political spectrum for most of human history runs from transhumant raiders at the far right end on to slaveholders’ republics, to feudal kingdoms, to hydraulic despotisms, and then on to palace economies at the far left. Whether or not they win, apparatchiks write the histories, so apparatchik victories over rentiers usually get remembered as reforms that strengthened the empire or the starts of cultural renaissances, while rentier victories usually get remembered as imperial collapses – also because these are typically true, though of course the arrow of causation runs both ways. Obviously exceptions to this historiographical trend exist – probably including the demonization of most dead “mad tyrants” – but my guess is that these are heavily concentrated in areas far “left” enough that their “right” wings are mostly full of slightly-more-rent-based apparatchiks, for instance China, with its Confucian portrayal of the Legalists.
Usually, however, apparatchiks and rentiers don’t fight (much.) For one, they’re mutually dependent, with apparatchiks depending on rentiers for the smooth exploitation of direct producers (especially if monitoring costs are high) and rentiers depending on apparatchiks to manage the infrastructure. For two, there’s the matter of that exploitation of direct producers, who can get ornery sometimes in a crisis and get ideas about governing themselves – though it should be said that under non-crisis conditions, when they’re not getting too uppity, the masses are at the margin allies of the royalty against the aristocracy: their direct complaints are usually against their lord, and the central state wants to secure itself against the political threat implied by too great engrossment of individual or family estates. And for three, there’s considerable overlap between the two elite classes: rent-won leisure frees you to acquire cultural capital, fat salaries and abuses of office let you acquire land or capital, intermarriage is probably an option.
We’ve engaged in a lot of conceptual violence and simplification thus far, and even more is needed to translate any of this to a modern context: the relevant structural features of “cities” may inhere in something else entirely; if you’re reading this blog I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that industry differs a great deal from agriculture, from the movability of its wealth to its relations of production; and so on and so on. But that said: doesn’t this describe the principled ideological struggles that happen in contemporary mainstream politics, such as they are, remarkably well?
This is cool!
Yes, I would fully subscribe to a system of this basis, particularly when the present left-right paradigm is 100% incorrect. More than just based off a particular time and place (Revolutionary France), its real mind-killing poison is the very concept that the left and right ARE on a continuum. (The Left for the people, and the Right for the King, in this case–and it was immediately proved it wasn’t true even in 1789) In our practice, both “Left” and “Right” are, as you say, Statists. The Left wants a powerful State to accomplish one thing (to force people to do/say/think/agree with their values) , and the Right wants a powerful state to accomplish another (to force people to hand over the loot and prevent all comers).
No one is in favor of Freedom or Liberty, or Justice.
No one.
Therefore, the Left-Right continuum is one with Totalitarianism on one circle, and benign, functional, but totally encompassing central state on the other.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_H2DePAZe2gA/R_BpT2D1GgI/AAAAAAAABSo/45CDaTXzzTM/s1600-h/continuumsocial.PNG
And this is why I comment.
It would be badly remiss to leave a great insight into the Left-Right paradigm by commenting solely on two bad, even despicable, forms of government and implying that we must choose one of them. Instead, we should be talking about the few proven, workable forms of government that have existed, and hopefully, to emulate them.
One is tribalism. For better or worse, neither Rentiers nor Apparatchiks get the upper hand in tribalism, because they are a plurality among dozens of other co-existing human aspects: shamanism or spiritualism, female power, personal ability, family rivalries, focus on practical needs, as well as your usual laziness, greed, racism, and every other aspect of mankind. As too wide a subject, and too unlikely to be returned to, I won’t go into it. But if while this method isn’t too good, then likewise, it’s never too bad, giving its participants security, meaning, order, excitement, and all the other needs of life, while being unable to be oppressive in the way that only concentrated, centralized societies can. How would they oppress someone, as in steal their living and imprison them? They themselves would have to be the prison guard, the Pinkerton cops, the murders, which not to detract from human willingness to try, takes time, effort, stress–and danger. Flashes of this happen, especially social oppression, but if you’re 1/100th voting member of the government of 100, it’s that much harder to remain unjust and for others to maintain the effort of your misery.
The other form we might call the agrarian representationalism. Israel under Judges, perhaps, and a thousand other long-forgot cultures prospered in this window, but we know them best as Greece and Rome. “When the Sabines had advanced with a superior army to the walls [of Rome], at the earnest request of the people [Cincinnatus] left his plough and was made Dictator (a limited emergency position, not what we know by the word today). After having raised an army and defeated the enemy, in 16 days, laid down the Dictatorship he was authorized to hold for 6 months, and on the 17th day got back to the farm.”
Usual? Certainly. Yet the form of Greece, Rome, and the nations that tried to emulate them, like the young United States, with her Cincinnatus in Gen. Washington, prospered for centuries just as the originals. Much has been made of this, but the key aspects are the distribution of power and property, the principle of duty as a cost of citizenship, and the ability for voice to be heard. A voice which includes action, so customs can be changed in an orderly fashion. Social mobility might not be commonplace, but it was always possible, which is a critical safety valve against both ambitious firebrands or a despotic state, be it Rentier or Apparatchik.
On the opposite side to this distributed power, property, and decision about what society should look like, is always BOTH Rentiers and Apparatchiks, for in agreement with your theory, they both exist SOLELY by devouring the Producers. That is, the people who do any actual work, which Rentier and Apparatchiks assiduously avoid as beneath them. Work? You mean actually touch animals? Plough fields? Take risk on crops? Meddle in retail clothes, cabinetry, or iron goods? Surely you jest. Producing anything that actually sustains life is for THEM, the untouchables, the Producers.
And so it is today, even amongst the “capitalists,” who associate themselves with Producers only when convenient to pretend they have social value. In reality, modern business doesn’t run on creating anything: it’s all about insuring special favors from within our group to insure our success. I’m sure your own choice of term “Rentier” refers to this, as in “Rentier Class”. The class that owns property and charges social tolls, pays out lobbies to insure de facto monopolies, and thereby prevents as much progress–and threat to the status quo–as they can. And as your theory, they are considered the Right, or in the US, the Republicans.
Likewise, the Apparatchiks produce nothing, but are the bureaucracy that supports the Rentier class and sometimes disputes with them, but always at the expense of actual workers, actual people, actual Producers, who they disdain as “Flyover Land”, make fun of in movies and pitying articles, and detest and distance themselves from as much as possible. Yet as much as they spill oceans of ink on the matter, where do 100% of their paychecks come from, and what are the tax, judicial, and commericial laws that they enforce with full power and discretion? All from the Producers, and to themselves. So sad the people have 25% unemployment and crippling taxes, but what can I do but insure their money and work feeds my children here in government/DC/Oligopoly, Inc, land? Well, I’ll go read another article on how the Rentier are the true cause of their despair.
Anyway, if we bring this up, shouldn’t we be certain to mention, if not focus on how if we choose either left OR right, in any time or place, we choose bad government, while good government was once our and can be our again if we name what we’re looking for and go after it?
Spread the word. There’s more than two sides to the spectrum. There are Three. And the third Estate are those who get to keep what they produce, and not have it stolen by anyone.
What if I told you
[Advice Marx]
That forms of social organization are mostly a factor of material conditions?
What if I told you
[Advice Zizek]
“My god! Pure ideology!”
Sorry, meant UN-usual about Cincinnatus.
Considering Marx is the modern definition of far left, then in the words of Inigo Montoye, “I don’t think that word mean what you think it mean.”
But everyone thinks their ideas are perfectly normal and sensible, even if they ultimately kill thousands or millions, intentionally or unintentionally.
Should I bore you with the constant, slow, meaningless deaths of millions under what we consider “normal” and “moderate” in the West today?
What is the connection between the first paragraph and the rest?
I can make some guesses, but it’s a really abrupt transition. One guess is that you have no intuition for distinguishing degrees of right-wing, especially in the past, when they are further right, so you need a theory.
I am having trouble following the logical structure. You propose an axis and apply it to various examples. It seem to me that if you want to identify it with the left-right axis, you should distinguish between examples where it agrees with intuition, examples where a contradicts intuition, and examples where it has an answer and intuition is cloudy. Is the point that it agrees on modern examples, and lets you understand ancient examples that you previously didn’t? Or, almost the opposite, does it match ancient examples and allow you distance for understanding modern examples?
In particular, is there any consensus on whether slaveholders’ republics are left or right of feudal kingdoms?
Of course, more complicated argument structures are possible. Perhaps this axis is designed to understand ancient states and only called left-right because it matches modern examples.
How about the Whigs vs the Tories? Aren’t they widely seen as left-right? I don’t think they fit your model very well.
Incidentally, I believe that you are mistaken about the etymology of “rent-seeking”; it is one proffering the bribe that seeks the rent, not the apparatchik.
In particular, is there any consensus on whether slaveholders’ republics are left or right of feudal kingdoms?
I’d cautiously venture to say that feudal kingdoms begin slightly left of slaveholders’ republics by this model, and creep further left as they become more developed and cities attain more proeminence as trade and manufacture hubs.
I agree that the when the original post reaches that conclusion by correct application of the model. But Matthias does not merely say “here’s an axis, let’s order everything on it,” but also identifies that axis with the standard left-right axis. Thus I must ask in these examples whether they are presented as evidence for that identification, because everyone already knows that slaveholder republics are to the right of feudal societies; as a surprising conclusion against the conventional wisdom; an attempt to illuminate a corner of history not addressed by this modern concept; or what?
Show me a billionaire who got “that way” without acting in significant restraint of “free trade”, i.e., without kissing some apparatchik’s ass if not outright fellation, and I’ll show you… well… a “rentier”.
Rentier:Aparatchik::Optimate:Brahmin (Moldbuggian). It’s a great addition for the modern political spectrum except for the fact that the Brahmins (Aparatchiks) won in the West well over a century ago. Optimates are very nearly extinct. “Old money”? Who the hell’s got “old money” anymore? Guess we could trying ending the Fed and see what happens. The only castes that matter anymore are Brahmins (elite gov, univ, media, corporate, and wannabes), Vaisyas (white middle class), and the Dahlits which would be irrelevant if not for the Brahmins rewarding them (and piously welcoming new ones) for giving them power.
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