4. Conserving the Causal Structure

The goal of Conservatism is to free the individual from coercion by inorganic groups, to protect and promote organic groups, and the gains to productivity and production that they create across both time and space.

Conservatives must offer an alternative to Marxism as a part of their very Being. One that prompts re-evaluation in even the most ardent Marxist, and which wins from them a majority of middle ground liberals. Additionally, it must be effective, that is Conservative principles must be in effect despite the great many who will remain unconvinced.

Hence, Conservatives need to distinguish between the persuasive effort and the effective effort. The first is the effort to persuade our opponents; the second involves the effort required to enact our ideals, realistic though they are. Returning to Ayn Rand once again, we must remember that it is our justified civil duty to use force upon those who initiate its use.

We shall begin examining the persuasive effort, and return later to the effective effort. Thus, let us remind ourselves of the Marxist position once more. It is the worldview whereby one part of society oppresses the other, that many of the oppressed accept this status quo due to false consciousness; that a revolutionary reconstitution of society is required, and that a disappearance of class antagonisms will follow in the forthcoming utopia.

My initial reaction is to reject these Marxist tenets outright. Perhaps, not the tenets so much as the associated vocabulary of ‘white privilege’, ‘social construction’, ‘anti-racism’ and ‘social justice’. Typical Conservative responses to such arguments invoke (in Marxists) perceptions of cold capitalism, pure individualism, and the apathy of those living in their perfected society and justice; rendering it a purely passive Conservatism.

Putting aside our initial reactions, we should express a much more proactive Conservatism. In order to achieve this, we ought to address Marxist complaints head on and with nuance, from which we can derive and exert a concise counter view.

I was a member of the short-lived Australian Conservatives party. Their primary principles included personal responsibility, free enterprise, limited government and civil society. I cannot help but see these principles as solutions to each of the Marxist tenets, themselves mere problems utterly devoid of anything near a solution.

Upon further inspection one could claim ‘limited government’ as a Conservative solution to ‘oppression’. ‘Personal responsibility’ as a solution to ‘false consciousness’; ‘free enterprise’ as allowing a constantly ‘reconstituted society’; and ‘civil society’ as a ‘utopia’ to strive toward, one free of antagonisms.

Limited government restricts oppression by proxy, leaving citizens free to build win-win networks. Personal responsibility leaves those operating under false consciousness to be wrong, allowing them the corrective experiences to change their minds. Free enterprise allows the constant and incremental reconstitution of society as inefficiencies arise. Civil society allows citizens to act together without being acted upon, negating the need for a delayed utopia.

Further, we must use a better political fulcrum. Instead of discussing politics using the outdated neocon-neoliberal divide, we ought to represent the middle class against ‘the establishment’. This approach explains the successes of Brexit and Donald Trump, and must be further refined. 

The establishment represents those satisfied with the status quo - globalist elites who are ‘too big to fail’. They are globalist in that they place international organisations (like the UN) above country, and believe ‘patriotism a mere conviction that ones country is superior for being born in it. [George Bernard Shaw]’ It is not competence that makes them elite, rather the term describes the ‘habit of equating appearances, credentials, and demeanour of not necessarily talented people as proof of excellence and deserved authority. Where you live, what school branded you, what title, past and present, you can parlay, whom you know, and whom you married somehow have ended up far more important that what you have actually done. [Victor Davis Hansen]’

The middle class ‘is not a small marginal class, but a large, multiracial, multiethnic class containing equal numbers of men and woman. [George Friedman]’ This middle class coalition must disrupt this status quo in order to ‘restart productivity growth, and rebuild an effective government and public life. [George Friedman]’ Slowbalisation has decimated industry and middle class prosperity. To add insult to injury, they are told to shut up (big tech censorship) by elites, and treated like they know nothing, are nothing and do nothing. These ‘technocrats will continue to assert that their expertise, credentials and merit make them the morally legitimate power. [George Friedman]’

It is this fulcrum that we must use to leverage public discourse into converts, who will not come from the establishment itself, but from among their army of sycophants. These Marxists and liberals regularly demand that Conservatives justify their stances. Too often we appease them and are shut down before even making a start. Instead we should start posing the questions, and see whether they can justify their obstinance. I believe that this is all we can do with any level of success on the persuasive front.

As an example, consider arguments concerning corporate welfare. Could a few questions get a Marxist to admit that instead of taxing businesses more we ought to tax citizens less? And would that allow us to concede that closing tax loopholes would be in the common good too? Perhaps, but we should not expect too much, for these are two completely seperate conceptual universes.

We shall turn now, and examine our effective efforts. An approach that the Australian Conservatives party lacked. First, we must acknowledge that the Marxist problems and their Conservative solutions, are not isolated but parts of an interdependent whole.

That is to say that there is a causal structure behind both our problems, and our solutions. That singular causes can produce a plethora of effects, and vice versa, whereby a plethora of causes produce a singular effect. These causes/effects form a causal pyramid, with the singular most cause/effect at the top, the greatest plenitude at the base, and a series of levels in-between. I know not what is at the top, nor the bottom, just that they are commonly referred to as God and quantum mechanics.

Consider the following as the levels of the pyramid, starting with the base: praxeology, axiology, epistemology, politics, economics, nature, metaphysics and ontology. We will return to these in the last chapter, but consider these definitions for now:

Praxeology — the individual’s arrangement of external objects toward his own ends.

Axiology — the individual’s arrangement of internal representations toward his own ends, i.e. values.

Epistemology — the individual’s level of overlap between the external and internal worlds, i.e. psychology.

Politics (and Economics) — the pivot between creation and destruction, between Self, Other and the Arena.

Nature — universally applicable, eternal laws unalterable by mankind.

Metaphysics — the existence of a reservoir of potential, and movement toward actualisation, i.e. Aristotle and Plotinus.

Ontology — the absolute unity, as a destination, and which acts through persons, giving rise to ‘Petersonian’ hierarchies. That is the realisation that the potential works in us, even as the actual works on us, i.e. Religion/Christianity.

The point in our pyramid — our causal structure — is to fell a tree with fewer blows of the axe at the right spot, rather than through thousands ofpoor blows. The point is to be effective, so we must first identify the right spots to target.

One may seek to explain a phenomenon like depression downward from a single cause (God/sin), or upward from the most abundant cause (physics/brain chemistry). Alternatively, one may understand both the upward and downward as dialogue, as interdependent and reciprocal. This provides the opportunity to provide “middle-out” explanations, for lack of a better term.

George Ellis explains that, in order “to characterise some specific causal effect as top down, we must demonstrate that a change in higher level conditions alters the sequence of processes at lower levels.” That would be to show that a different epistemology/psychology alters serotonin levels, thus reducing depression, which does not deny the efficacy of antidepressant medicines in the short term.

Middle-out must then describe different cultural (read universal) conditions as changing processes at individual levels. Different political conditions, monarchy versus popular sovereignty for example, leading to different economic conditions — feudalism versus liberal capitalism.

Let’s put some meat on these bones by considering the chart below, showing the disconnect between productivity and compensation beginning around 1971. What higher level, universal condition was altered at that time?

Many will recognise that the gold standard was ‘temporarily suspended’ in 1971. It’s abandonment ironically caused by debasement while the US abused their position of reserve currency status, and initiated by Charles de Gaulle withdrawing France’s gold. Since, middle-class economic conditions have stagnated as Keynesianism (money creation/debasement) was gradually unleashed with the added assistance of digital banking.

As we’ve entered the 2020s, we’ve seen this Keynesianism slowly morph into MMT (Modern Monetary Theory). The stock market is no longer an accumulation of wealth, so much as a mere accumulation of claims upon a much more limited wealth. The same can be said of all assets classes except that of commodities.

This altered economics exerts its own bottom-up effect on politics, as we’ve seen the Republican party split, one part attempting to represent populism/Trumpism (the red line), and the other part representing RINO/neocon/establishment types (the yellow line). The Democrat party has split along similar lines into progressive and establishment factions.

There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.
— John Maynard Keynes

How ironic that Keynes saw (and didn’t see) the evil inherent to his own system. The debasement of fiat currencies makes coercion simpler and far more extensive, than by the means of taxation. One may understand he history of Rhodesia between UDI in 1965 and Zimbabwe in 1980 as a war fought to prevent coercion by taxation. The history of Zimbabwe after 2000 is then an extension of coercion by currency debasement. It is clear that coercion acts in failed states to repeatedly diminish the total output of society, whilst coercion in successful nations acts to inhibit action and diminish gains to total output.

It is at these spots that Conservatives must strike to effectively ‘fell the tree’. Conscious efforts should be made to reduce coercion via the proxies of taxation and debasement. A simple voting franchise should be established, and lost by those who benefit from taxation without making a contribution. Laws should be passed to prevent government and central banks from debasement. All investment and savings should be a matter only of maturity transformation for the various commercial banks.

Such conscious efforts will likely fail in our zeitgeist, but ultimately the elites will be unable to accomodate the future, and this provides our opportunity. Our efforts will be preparation for the period after an unconscious ‘flick of the switch’, whereby the bottom up effects initiated in 1971 reach up to their own cause and ‘switch it off’, causing a trophic cascade. The downstream effects of such an event will be positive at all levels for many, many decades. That is to say that currency and financial collapse will return us to extended barter free of coercion. This return to sound money will be temporary if we are unprepared and cannot keep it.

The greatest part of this effective effort will be coordinated between Conservatives, who must avoid falling into purity traps. We must remember that tradition is dynamic and ‘is not the slavish imitation of the past. Tradition cannot be inherited, and can only be obtained by hard labour. [T.S. Eliot | Notes Towards the Definition of Culture]’

Our woes with social media provide an opportunity to advance Conservative cooperation. That is, instead of using social media primarily to convince opponents, we should employ such tools toward publishing for the purposes of sharing amongst ourselves what used to be called a liberal arts education, or colloquially as common sense. That is a recognition of the value of broad knowledge rather than mere accumulation in a specific field. ‘The ability to see consequences far removed from the technical issues. [George Friedman]’

The humble can see in another’s vocation, an inexhaustible richness and complexity right at hand. Hence, a willingness to learn and teach will make us far more competent than our adversaries who take out loans to attend Ivy league schools for a cattle brand. The successful establishment of such institutions should rightly lead to the granting of powers of accreditation.

Such an approach to publishing ‘would primarily train people to think in Christian categories, though it would not compel belief and would not impose the necessity for insincere profession of belief.’ This in turn would lead to ‘small and mostly self-contained groups attached to the soil and having its interests centred in a particular place’, unifying ‘the active and the contemplative life, action and speculation, politics and the arts. [T.S. Eliot]’ Our end should be a society wide reengagement with Tradition, brought about through ‘ritualised relationships and obligations to family, friends and larger groups. Human beings are bound by traditions and traditions turn into rituals. [George Friedman]’ 

The middle class should be ‘satisfied with nothing less than a Christian organisation of society, which is not the same thing as a society consisting exclusively of devout Christians. It would be a society in which the natural end of man - virtue and well-being in community - is acknowledged for all, and the supernatural end - beatitude - for those who have the eyes to see it. [T.S. Eliot]’