In order to understand Ambiarchy, it helps to understand synarchy. In a way, Ambiarchy is the synthesis of the thesis, anarchism, and its antithesis, synarchism.
Anarchism is, of course, a philosophy that advocates the elimination of external government and the political state. Anarchists oppose political authority and institutions such as private property, preferring instead to promote mechanisms of self-government and self-management. As there is much on the internet about anarchism, and as I have covered it extensively in my work, I will leave it at that for now.
Synarchism is not as familiar as anarchism is. But it was created as an alternative to anarchism, by those who opposed anarchism but saw it as an inevitable future should it not be stopped. Synarchists believe in a technocratic government that is administered by secret societies who use as little physical force or might as is possible, substituting instead the natural influence of authority.
Because of the reluctance to use physical force, and because of the natural persuasiveness of legitimate authority, synarchists actually share a lot in common with anarchists. Like the anarchists, the synarchists are largely socialist in their outlook, though they rhetorically promote a vision beyond capitalism and socialism. Like the aristocratic revolutionary socialists of the Bavarian Order of the Illuminati, who were a part of the Order of Strict Observance, the synarchists tie their origins to the mystical Judaeo-Christianity of Martinism. Anarchism, likewise, finds its philosophical roots tied with the revolutionary socialists—many of them aristocrats and Freemasons—, such as those who would involve themselves in “the Conspiracy of Equals” and like-minded projects, people such as Babeuf, Marechal, and Buonarroti, and later Blanqui.
The anarchists believe that society can run itself, if allowed to do so. In holding to this belief, however, anarchists have denounced the importance of many of the values that have allowed society to develop and operate. In their embrace of atheism, for instance, they have largely rejected teleology in favor of purely mechanistic explanations. In so doing, they have strayed from the organicism of many of the radicals during the Scientific Revolution and the Radical Enlightenment.
The anarchist has emphasized the ability of society to govern itself by removing the hindrances to such self-governance, but they have not satisfactorily provided the mores and metaphysics to inform this sort of development. Anarchists are notoriously negligent of spiritual development, suggesting that individuals can pursue spirituality on their own course, even suggesting that teachers may be helpful. But, for whatever reason, anarchists always lack the qualities of such teachers, typically preferring to leave a vacuum where suggestion—even if just suggestion— could be. While they correctly identify the established order as an impediment to outward expression of personal development, they rarely are willing to identify what such personal development might look like. This, in my opinion, has handed power over to the synarchists.
Unlike the anarchists, the synarchists know much about personal and spiritual development. Instead of rejecting teleology, they practice “telesis,” effectively predicting inevitable futures and administering them. And while they have taken the concerns of anarchists and other radicals largely to heart, their technocracy—even while allowing for a great deal of bodily autonomy— still hampers the outward expression of spiritually-developed individuals of the working class. This is, perhaps, justified on the grounds that such individuals could, themselves, participate in Orders such as Martinism and find some degree of upward mobility in that fashion. In many resepects, mystical orders are something like a career center and university for the elites of society. And, at least at the origin of Freemasonry, one of the major intentions was to allow people from all economic and social classes to participate in the “leveling” that results from participation in orders of that sort.
But the synarchist model still has problems. While they are correct to hold to the Platonic premise that one will be governed by their peers if they do not participate in politics, they ignore or oppose the potential of unofficial or unrecognized participation in politics to deplete their influence, and of a New Enlightenment to diminish their authority.
Nonetheless, and regardless of all of the details, Nature has presented us with yet another dialectic, and it is the one between anarchism and synarchism, the freedom of the ignorant and the tyranny of the cunning. What might a synthesis look like?
I have developed Ambiarchy into something quite like a workable synthesis between these two. While there are still details to sort out, and unlike most anarchists, I do not refrain from offering positive solutions. I believe that freedom is only valuable so long as it allows one to express something that they already have of value within themselves, and that anarchy without virtue is a pointless endeavor.
An anarchist society (understood here as a free association, not a geographical population) is typically understood to be directly-democratic in some fashion. But a synarchist society is one which is run by secret societies who observe or poll the population (voting is really just a polling of the population at this point). Are these reconcilable elements, direct-democracy and secret societies?
Ultimately, they are not reconcilable in any sort of presentist sense. That is, they cannot be made to function together at the same time in any pure fashion. Democracy is inclusive, and secret societies are exclusive.
But they are reconcilable in another sense, an eternalist sense. If one understands time to stretch from the past to the future, without ever ceasing to be in any moment, one can get a grip on an evolutionary perspective which includes all political ideologies and movements, past, present, and future, and which affirms their necessity within their own contexts.
Ambiarchy orients political authority (which implies also the existence of political ignorance, as one cannot have authority if others are not ignorant) into the hands of a revolutionary vanguard of sorts. Already, this seems contrary to the aims of anarchism, but the results have not yet been explicated. The expected results of such a vanguard would differ from those of other revolutionary socialists, such as the Illuminati, Blanquists, Marxists, or etc. The reasons for the difference in expected results come from a difference of class position and material constraints, as well as the tools that are employed. Unlike the Marxist vanguard, whose sole function is to take hold of the political state, the Ambiarchist vanguard’s sole function is to expand participation in the governance of the Ambiarchist association. This is not done for altruistic reasons, and this should be clear, but because of the natural constraints of reality, which suggest that elite members of the working class cannot raise themselves up by their own bootstraps. Ambiarchists are in agreement with anarchists on this point, but merely step away from the defeatism of contemporary anarchists, who wait for someone else to take the lead. Ambiarchists are ready to admit that the ignorant, even if they are not in need of rulers, are in need of leadership. And Ambiarchists do not shy away from providing leadership to those who would accept it. But their manner of leadership should always remain open to the acceptance of others who likewise are willing to develop themselves into self-governing characters.
Essentially, Ambiarchy is the synarchy of the working class. The Ambiarchist vanguard would be composed of individuals who have a strong consensus on the need for mutualism, but who—like the illegalist anarchists—are not waiting for others to have the revolution for them. Like synarchists, Ambiarchists focus on the economics of institutions. And, like the synarchists—who are allied around banking interests— Ambiarchists see the banking system as the primary institution by which social order can be established. An Ambiarchist vanguard would administer financial and other institutions which undermine the authority of the synarchists, allowing the ignorant to—as they do under the synarchy— simply participate on a surface level in the programs it offers. Instead of, like social anarchists, expecting participants to jump right to the process of self-assembly, Ambiarchists recognize that anarchism is, itself, a technology which requires learning in order to work on its back-end (which is, essentially, spiritual or character-development). Ambiarchists understand the invitation of the ignorant to participate in popular assemblies to be the equivalent of asking an artist or a chef to build a car from scratch. But this is essentially what anarchists do when they establish assemblies in which the ignorant are invited to deliberate. The failure of anarchism to achieve its goals in this fashion is all too obvious.
The synarchists have taken up a lot of the elements of anarchism, but, instead of saying to “do it yourself,” they have come up with pre-established structures that one can voluntarily associate with, more in the fashion of voluntaryism. The sharing economy is a prime example of this, and so is the existence of prefabricated and branded methods of self-management, such as Holacracy. While anarchists have supported self-organizing collectives, in which ignorant common people are expected to design the structure from the bottom, up, the synarchists have applied their technical know-how in the manner of telesis, to predict the sorts of structures—including self-management structures!— that may be found useful by participants. They have, in effect, pre-empted the need for assemblies in the eyes of the populace. The post-capitalist economy looks a lot like a prefabricated semi-mutualism, including board-heavy cooperatives, the sharing and gig economy, and branded forms of self-management. Along with this, they have administered in a “therapeutic” fashion, using McHappiness, “Servant Leadership,” and other gaslighting attempts.
Ambiarchists admit the effectiveness of the synarchist telesis. In fact, Ambiarchists admit much that the synarchists demonstrate to be true. But the material reality and moral claim is still maintained, that one cannot effectively join the synarchists without being born into the ruling class, being educated at an Ivy League College and joining fraternities, or—at the very least—joining in the cult activities of mystical orders. For anyone whose personal mores keep them from doing such things, or who does not have the right social capital, it is impossible to be accepted among the ranks of the synarchists. The self-educated, the working poor, the morally pure are naturally disincluded. But their needs, nonetheless, exist. Many among them are what H.L. Mencken would refer to as superior individuals, whose personal achievements shine over and above any official recognition shining upon them. These individuals, lumped together with their ignorant peers among the working class, face much of the problems faced by the early practitioners of statecraft, and may even sympathize with the origins of the ruling class, which was essentially a revolution against mediocrity and rule by the lowest common denominator. Like the horticulturists who would find it necessary to establish a state in order to rise above the herd of ignorance, the Ambiarchist is held down by the mores of his or her peers, by their timidity and defeatism, and especially by their willful ignorance and self-fulfilling prophecies of failure. The synarchists recognize that a desirable future which is not embraced by the population is an opportunity cost, and that, because of the material benefits of forgoing such costs, they can establish rule by administering that future against the will of those who oppose it (though take no serious action to stop it), and thereby rise above the herd.
Ambiarchists understand such rising above the herd at the origins of statecraft to have been a historical necessity rather than a moral wrong. But they also acknowledge that such a project is already thousands of years in the making, without regard for the superior individuals of the working class who now face the problem originally solved, but now enforced, by statism. The creators of the political state rose above the herd, but they also established institutions that keep others from doing as they have done. And this is what Ambiarchists perceive to be the grave mistake of the state.
Ambiarchists distinguish between class and prestige, both of which contribute to one’s social status. While class refers to stringent economic categories in relation to the means of production, prestige refers to the amount of esteem an individual may receive from members of their own or another class. An individual can hold more prestige than another individual in their class. Such an individual is an elite among their class. But they can also hold more prestige than others in classes higher than their own.
The Ambiarchist vanguard would not compose a class, nor would they have the material means to establish themselves as such. As the elites of the past have established the state in order to rise above the herd, the Ambiarchist must establish an association that makes the state obsolete, but which is itself—like the synarchy—established on natural authority and the provision of leadership by those who are informed. The Ambiarchist need not have any moral qualms with taking the role of leadership, in fear of being a ruler. In the case that the Ambiarchist is wrong, and the material conditions exist to establish a state, the Ambiarchist should not shy away from such a perennial project. Ambiarchists are rational egoists, not moral absolutists of a presentist nature. But the Ambiarchist is one who has maintained an anarchist critique of the state, while affirming the statist critique of anarchy. In hoping for the best, they do not stop planning for the worst, and the worst is that the perennial project of statecraft remains materially constricted in their hands. Ambiarchists, then, prioritize the reciprocity of freedom over the freedom to rule, out of philosophical necessity instead of superstitious morality.
The method of the Ambiarchist, then, must be much like that of the synarchist. The Ambiarchist must establish provisional structures of prefigurative organization and must grow those structures. Because of the Cult of Ignorance that describes our present society, Ambiarchists must administer these organization structures as leaders to everyone else. But they must also acknowledge that the truths of anarchism persist, and that the elimination of the political state or ruling class requires popular participation. So, even while operating—perhaps—in secret Ambiarchists cannot become delusional about this goal, lest it be at their own expense. While the Ambiarchist should not require the artist to become a mechanic before they start to use the car, they should nonetheless require one to learn in order to do the mechanic work. That is, the Ambiarchist can provide—like the synarchist—a prefabricated organizational structure for use by entrants, while allowing those entrants the ability to experience “upward mobility,” by engaging in Ambiarchist educational institutions, and thereby becoming empowered to participate in a more anarchic fashion.
Many anarchists will reject the sentiments I express here, and that is to be expected. Contemporary anarchists often have much in common with moral absolutists, and understand anarchism to be self-refraint from activities associated with governance. They suggest that such activities will inevitably establish a new ruling class. However, at the same time, the anarchists maintain a critique of capitalism which names its injustices as the inability of the working class to elevate its conditions. If this latter argument holds any water, and is a material reality, the attempt by Ambiarchists to establish something like a state would inevitably prove a failure, and so absolutist moral regulations are not necessary, because class mobility is restricted as a force of Nature. Instead of internalizing shame for governing—which often develops into complete passivity, because every choice a person makes will affect another— the Ambiarchist forgoes governing because of its impracticality. Ambiarchists truly believe in the anarchist class critique, and base their decisions around it as if it is a scientific reality. Nature constrains the possibilities that people have available to them, and this includes the possibility for the working class to establish a state (and no, the Marxist states do not count as working class in origin, due to their affinity with the financial class that funded their revolutions; the Ambiarchist revolution must be self-financed by the working class).
The end goal of synarchy is to re-establish the “perfect government” of Agartha or Shambala, the rule of the world by the wise, as occurred during the dawn of government in the caverns of Hyperborea, Tibet, or etc. The goal of anarchy is the elimination of external government, as is suggested to have been the natural state of man under the conditions of hunting and gathering. Ambiarchy holds that these two are not at necessary odds, if in fact the working class can become truly Enlightened. But it admits, like the synarchists, and unlike many anarchists, that leadership is a crucial step in this direction.
If there is any truth to the claims by synarchists of a primordial government that was administered from under the Earth, it is likely found in the caverns of the cults that would lead to the speciation of Homo sapiens from Homo heidelbergensis, Neanderthal, Denisova, etc. Homo sapiens is a hybrid species of these archaic humans, and speciation from these others was facilitated by way of genocidal cleansing, which was coordinated in the caves of philosophizing humans who gathered to teach one another and to unify around the symbols established in red ochre. The genocide of less intelligent members of the root species by their philosophizing kin would lead to the prevalence of Homo sapiens, a hybrid species which is ultimately identified by its thinking capacity, or sapience. The caves in which these cults met may very well speak to the Agartha, Shambala, etc. referred to by esotericists. Nonetheless, the results of these genocides that led to the orgin of our species produced a new egalitarianism, for hunter-gatherers are known to be classless and largely acephalous. In other words, Agartha may be synonymous with the de facto anarchy of hunter-gatherers. How curious, isn’t it?
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