Reparations as Intraelite Competition

When you have the power to milk the cow, you milk the cow

Originally published on July 10, 2019.

We’ve been hearing a lot of talk recently about reparations, the idea that certain demographic groups in Western countries (but especially the USA) “owe” other demographic groups because of past injustices, whether real or imagined.  Typically this talk is cast in racial tones – whites owe racial minorities for oppression, despite whites taking the historically unprecedented steps of abolishing formal slavery, granting minorities “civil rights,” and allowing minorities the opportunity to participate fully in their societies – something that virtually no other group of people in history have done. There has been a low level of background noise along this line for decades in academia. However, other groups in the intersectionality alliance are also trying to get in on the action as well.  Gays demand that they be given redress for past intolerance of their perversions.  Immigrants demand that western societies atone for the past “sins” of colonisation, in many cases where this colonisation was extremely beneficial to them, and even in cases where this colonisation never actually occurred.  Pretty much everybody with a perceived axe to grind is trying to hop on board this gravy train.

Now, some internet wags might presume that decades of crime, welfare abuse, and massive amounts of immigrant labour undercutting Americans workers would be enough “reparation” to last us for centuries.  However, this argument, even if made in jest, rather misses the actual point of what reparations are really all about.  The fundamental assumption here is that reparations are about money, and that if enough money was transferred (this one last time!) from straight, white Americans to the various malcontents, then the issues would be resolved and everyone could quiet down about the whole thing.  But that’s not what is at issue at all.

Actually, reparations are about the acquisition and use of power – more specifically, power to be exercised by Blue Cathedral against Red Cathedral.  When understood in this sense reparations, far from being nonsensical, are actually quite explicable within the framework of demographic-structural theory because we can understand them as a form of intraelite competition that occurs within secular cycles as complex societies begin the downward portion of a cycle.

These secular cycles can be widely observed across many historical time periods and nations. One of the characteristic phenomena which occur during downturns within a society’s secular cycle is an increase in the relative ratio of “elites” (in this sense referring only to social standing and relative power, not necessarily to intrinsic qualities) to commoners.  In previous cycles, the increase in this ratio arose because elites were demographically able to maintain their population growth above the replacement level (both through natural growth and the expansion of elite status to upwardly mobile new members).  At the same time, due to various economic and social pressures (real wage decline, increased rents, inflation, crime, etc.) the commons fell below the replacement mark, largely meaning that they stopped having as many children and were having them later in life.  As a result, there were relatively more elites drawing on socioeconomic resources, which elites have an out-sized ability to garner for themselves.  Coupled with this is a general trend toward more extravagant spending by elites as they enjoy the resources obtained from squeezing the lower classes and compete with each other to maintain, and then improve, their own social standing.  Ultimately, what this means is that at this general point in a secular cycle, there is an increased proportion of elites who are more fiercely competing with each other for a shrinking resource pie provided by state patronage and skimming from the lower classes.

In our current western secular cycle (which seems to be fairly synchronous for both continental western Europe and the Anglosphere), we are seeing this take place at the present.  Even though the “elite” are themselves generally sub-replacement level as far as their natural demographic growth is concerned (i.e. they don’t have many kids), they have adopted a number of proxy methods for inflating the numbers which they can use to garner more economic resources and sociopolitical power for themselves.  The first of these methods is to use their political influence to increase the levels of immigration (both legal and illegal) into western countries, something which has an enhanced demographic-structural impact in that it also brings in an immigrant elite strata which become competitors for the resource pie, accelerating the rate at which elite “top-heaviness” leads to open conflict and state breakdown.  The other method, which carries with it similar problems, is to co-opt native minority groups.

Exactly what this accomplishes for the elite can be seen by looking at the examples of some of the earlier cycles for which we have good historical records.  In many of these cases, one of the extravagances which elites would “purchase” was that of retainers – armed or otherwise – who were dependent on their lord for protection, sustenance, and income.  This was an obvious feature of most feudal systems (European and otherwise), as well as a major component of late republican Roman society and politics.  These retainers would support their patron in politics and war, as well as through the day-by-day artifices of economically productive activities.  Often during late-period stages within a cycle, retainers would become involved in the increasingly fractious and vicious competition that broke out between elite members of society, especially after centralised state authority began to break down.

The obvious analog for us today can be seen in the formation and use of Blue Cathedral’s intersectionality alliance of immigrants, minorities, and social deviants.  The various “victim groups” are basically acting as “retainers” for elements within Blue Cathedral, both as a system and in some cases personally for various politicians and celebrities. This has a readily apparent ramification within the “democratic” systems with which most western nations are saddled.  If we understand the mass power politics which inevitably develop within democratic systems to be a form of low-level civil war, one in which factions inevitably struggle for dominance, then we can see that this exactly what Blue Cathedral has been doing more or less successfully for years via intraelite competition.   Blue Cathedral elite provide the leadership and the various retainer groups provide the foot soldiers and the ballots.

This is why all of the pious chittering from the religious Left about “speaking for the powerless” with respect to racial minorities and “refugees” is such a red herring.  These groups obviously already have those with power “speaking for them,” since they are their retainers.   If this wasn’t the case, then we wouldn’t even be talking about reparations for blacks in America and “refugees” would already be being booted back to their countries of origin.

Of course, when you have retainers, you have to find something to provide them with loot and income so as to further secure their loyalty.  This, in turn, perpetuates the development of your own power vis-a-vis competing elites.  This is essentially the position of racial minorities and the bulk of immigrants in the West – they are retainers for Blue Cathedral, who provide them with the welfare, access to the labour market, undermine the law and order state on their behalf, etc.  Red Cathedral is not going to be able to compete with those incentives without essentially providing those same things, which is why you’re never going to see minorities voting Republican in large numbers, despite the perennial breathless pronouncements that “this election they’re gonna leave the plantation!”

That is what reparations (and yes, also welfare, visa lotteries, and so forth) are really all about – securing the loyalty of victim group retainers who can then assist Blue Cathedral in keeping and increasing its own power through the bloc voting of ever-enlarging demographic groups in our formal democratic electoral system.

But what people need to understand is that power doesn’t exist in a vacuum.  For it to be relevant, power has to be used against somebody else.  In feudal periods of low political centralisation, lords had to maintain status and power by supplanting or otherwise subjecting other peers via force.  Within the courtly politics of high centralisation states, the same thing was done through court intrigue (which also involves the use of retainers of various sorts).  Today, power groups have to outvote or otherwise politically subjugate other power groups, which is what Blue Cathedral seeks to do by undermining and demographically replacing Red Cathedral’s base power bloc of the white, working and middle class Amerikaner population.

That is what underlies everything from our current immigration policy to the incessant racial grievance mongering.  It’s about Blue elites trying (successfully, so far) to out-compete Red elites for power, patronage, and access to state resources.

It’s fallacious to think that “reasoned debate” will have any major role in allaying any of this, however.  The only argument against power is power.  Arguing about the relative monetary value of past injustices or the supposed redress of past wrongs via the “civil rights” movement are just so much Boomercon failure to come to grips with the actual reality of the matter.  It’s about power, pure and simple.

As such, if Amerikaners want to avoid being squeezed even further in Blue Cathedral’s attempt to cement its power, they’re going to have to find ways to entice Red Cathedral to exercise its power on their behalf, since (oddly enough) in intraelite competitions, you have to be an elite to compete.  Successfully doing this will be at least partly psychological in nature – instead of being fractiously proud of illusory “independence,” white Amerikaners need to recognise that they, too, are retainers, and act accordingly.  Loyalty goes both ways – when you find Red elites who are helpful for us, then be helpful to them in return.  Instead of undercutting the elites who are on our side, do your part to help build their power base.  There’s always going to be a power structure – the goal is not to escape from it (which is impossible) but to capture it.

At the same time, we need to be preparing for the very real possibility of even further increasing intraelite competition which will begin to manifest itself as open, violent conflict as state authority begins to weaken.  Much of this will involve strengthening and/or building organisations capable of providing stability and local legitimacy during times of revolution and disarray, such as churches, männerbunds, and militias.  If demographic-structure theory has anything to say, it is that cycles will run their courses and collapses will come because of macrosocial trends beyond any one person or group’s control.  Strengthening our own Red elite as well as institutions which can provide measures of local legitimacy will help our people to ride out the coming storms.