It Is All Economy
When spreading the good news of Brooks Adams, telling all who will hear that economic revolutions precede social revolutions, I am frequently charged with “economism”, or the belief that everything is derivative of economics. Julius Evola is the highest profile user of this word that I can find (within the dissident right canon), which leads me to believe that this ism, used like a Christian would use “Arianism”, or “Gnosticism”, can be traced back to his influence. For some reason maintaining a strong relationship between economy, and politics, whereby economic realities tend to shape political realities, opposed to what might be called a weak relationship, whereby economic realities have influence on, but no significant causal relationship to, political realities, offends many on the right. My surprise here is that many on the dissident right take James Burnham’s thesis in The Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom, to be a staple in understanding the world, and in this text Burnham argues that Dante Alighieri’s Monarchia, though written as a political application of scholastic theology, and ancient philosophy, is really a propaganda piece meant to disarm a rival faction in a familial struggle over Mediterranean territory, and that while it is permissible to do such violence to the text of a foundation thinker of the West, suggesting the importance of the economy is too far. Violating Dante is “right-wing”, “traditional”, and “reactionary”, but emphasizing the role of the economy is “economism”, and “Marxism.”
Let us, my gremlins, double down on our claim. Instead of emphasizing the role of the economy in shaping social realities, let us collapse it…everything is the economy. Taking a canon work from my circle, which shares the same parents as the dissident right, is distinct, and sees the larger dissident right sphere as a failed movement, let us sketch what we mean by “economy”,
“Between the production of automobiles and the general movement of the economy, the interdependence is rather clear, but the economy taken as a whole is usually studied as if it were a matter of an isolatable system of operation. Production and consumption are linked together, but, considered jointly, it does not seem difficult to study them as one might study an elementary operation relatively independent of that which it is not.
This method is legitimate, and science never proceeds differently. However, economic science does not give results of the same order as physics studying, first, a precise phenomenon, then all studiable phenomena as a coordinated whole. Economic phenomena are not easy to isolate, and their general coordination is not easy to establish. So it is possible to raise this question concerning them: Shouldn't productive activity as a whole be considered in terms of the modifications it receives from its surroundings or brings about in its surroundings? In other words, isn't there a need to study the system of human production and consumption within a much larger framework?
In the sciences such problems ordinarily have an academic character, but economic activity is so far-reaching that no one will be surprised if a first question is followed by other, less abstract ones: In overall industrial development, are there not social conflicts and planetary wars? In the global activity of men, in short, are there not causes and effects that will appear only provided that the general data of the economy are studied? Will we be able to make ourselves the masters of such a dangerous activity (and one that we could not abandon in any case) without having grasped its general consequences? Should we not, given the constant development of economic forces, pose the general problems that are linked to the movement of energy on the globe?
These questions allow one to glimpse both the theoretical meaning and the practical importance of the principles they introduce.
At first sight, it is easy to recognize in the economy - in the production and use of wealth - a particular aspect of terrestrial activity regarded as a cosmic phenomenon. A movement is produced on the surface of the globe that results from the circulation of energy at this point in the universe. The economic activity of men appropriates this movement, making use of the resulting possibilities for certain ends. But this movement has a pattern and laws with which, as a rule, those who use them and depend on them are unacquainted. Thus the question arises: Is the general determination of energy circulating in the biosphere altered by man's activity? Or rather, isn't the latter's intention vitiated by a determination of which it is ignorant, which it overlooks and cannot change?
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I will begin with a basic fact: The living organism, in a situation determined by the play of energy on the surface of the globe, ordinarily receives more energy than is necessary for maintaining life; the excess energy (wealth) can be used for the growth of a system (e.g., an organism); if the system can no longer grow, or if the excess cannot be completely absorbed in its growth, it must necessarily be lost without profit; it must be spent, willingly or not, gloriously or catastrophically.”1
Opposed to a particular understanding of economy, which focuses on production, monetary theory, and so on, a general understanding takes into account all human energy, and its flow. Our sun provides energy to the planet, giving life to all things. With the sun’s energy, life on earth uses part of that energy for survival, and the rest, which we call surplus, it expends on non-survival related activities. Humans, being creatures, obey the same laws as do all other living beings, in that we take energy from the sun, either directly, or indirectly (we eat plants, which are nourished by sunlight, and animals, which are nourished by plants, or animals that are themselves nourished by plants), and we are always finding ways to spend surplus energy. Sometimes surplus energy is spent disastrously, as in the case of wars, and other times it is spent gloriously, like when Saint Justinian built the Haiga Sophia, but surplus is always spent, as energy must eventually flow. Both the waging of wars, and building cathedrals, are matters of economy, since they are issues of surplus expenditure.
Many social issues that the dissident right is occupied with, that they think are independent of economics, are matters of economy. Most rightists are preoccupied with sexual issues, and a summary of the common diagnosis can be given as follows,
“Our civilization is in danger because pornography, casual affairs, long-term ‘partnerships’, and homosexuality, are quickly outpacing the form of sexuality required for civilizational health: child-rearing marriage.”
This, I am told, would remain the case even if all my economic proposals were adopted, and the solution requires a radical social-cultural transformation. Yet, trying to section human sexuality off from the economy is to deny that sexual energy is a part of the global network of energy that we call “general economy.” Humans, by being human, have a store of sexual energy. Some have more than others, and at different times in our lives we will peak, and wane. With differences in person, and age, there is this type of energy, and it must be spent. Like water in a river, energy flows according to least resistance. If there is a shift from child-rearing marriage, to alternative, and deviant, forms of sexuality, then this means that it has become easier for sexual energy to be channeled in alternative, and deviant, ways, than it is for it is to be channeled towards a child-rearing marriage. Unfordable house prices, the systematic denigration of the type of masculinity, and femininity, required for a healthy family, free access to pornography, provided at the same time as a) a decrease in testosterone in men, b) a decrease in estrogen in women, and c) an antagonism between the sexes being pushed by feminism, and pick up culture, all makes it easier to channel sexual energy any way except towards a child-rearing marriage.
If the right desires to promote child-rearing marriage, then it needs to become easier for energy to flow in that direction. Making it affordable to buy a house, socially expected for men to be masculine, and women to be feminine, for there to be a healthy relationship between the sexes where both sexes respect each other for their natural differences, and for men not to blame women for, essentially, being bad men, and for women to blame men for being bad women, would make it easier for energy to flow in the right’s preferred direction. Any “social” issue can be reduced to what surpluses are available, and how they are being directed.
Everything is economy, because all considerations of politics are considerations of how humans act, and action is applied energy. Effective politics is to engage in structural engineering, not too different than building Roman Aqueducts, and making it easier for surplus energy to be spent gloriously, not catastrophically. Trying to change a behavior, or behaviors, without changing the structural incentives that lead to that behavior(s), is to tilt at windmills.
Bataille George. The Accursed Share: An Essay on General Economy. Volume 1: Consumption. New York, New York. Zone Books, 1988. 19-20.