“Paleoconservatism” and “paleolibertarianism” are watchwords from the political Right. But I want to introduce a new term from the political Center, the “Far Center,” as I call it. This term is “paleoradical.”
Conservatives and radicals are often pitted against one another in the fashion of revolutionaries and reactionaries. So why might a radical—someone who typically identifies with the historical Left—want to align themselves with the “paleo” position, a position which suggests that something from the past got it right? Is this counter to the “progressive” element that is so often found within radicalism?
The “paleo” in “paleoconservative” and “paleolibertarian” typically refers to antagonism toward the elements of “progress” associated with the New Deal of Franklin D. Roosevelt and his henchmen. Paleo-conservatives and libertarians also distinguish themselves from neo-conservatives and neo-libertarians, as well as from Left-libertarians, by way of their opposition to militarism and cultural Marxism. Paleoconservatism and paleolibertarianism are considered to be elements from the Old Right.
Thinkers such as Albert Jay Nock, Frank Chodorov, and H.L. Mencken represented an Old Right that had much more to do with classical liberalism than with what is considered to be Right-wing today, such as religious absolutism, authoritarianism, or even absolutist property-rights. Such a position is consistent with paleolibertarian beliefs. Nock and Chodorov, for instance, were Georgists, who ultimately understood property-rights as being a socially-enabled trust, wherein society grants individuals exclusive rights for society’s own sake. As for Mencken, it has been argued that he was ultimately a Left-wing thinker who has been seen as Right-wing because of a shift in the country around the time of the New Deal. This shift toward the Left, it is argued, put Menken’s otherwise Left-wing position on the Right.
I, myself, am attracted to the mutualist economic philosophy, supplemented with insights across the board, from Georgism to panarchy. These philosophies are, at their heart, libertarian and social individualist. But mutualism and Georgism are often considered to be Left-wing philosophies, and those on the libertarian Left have taken favor toward panarchy. Nonetheless, I believe that a geo-mutualist panarchy, of the sort that I advocate, would be found squarely in the Far Center of today’s political paradigm. I believe geo-mutualists would find themselves in good company among Mencken, Nock, and Chodorov in this position. I see paleo-radicalism as that old middle ground that existed between the Old Right and Old Left, before their defeat by the New Left and neoliberalism.
The reason I feel this way is that, just as it shifted in the time of Mencken, the political climate has changed over time. The terms “Left” and “Right” come from the French National Assembly, wherein monarchists and aristocrats sat on the right side of the assembly, and “republicans” of the Left were seated on the left. From the beginning, “Left”-wing referred to anyone who was a “republican,” or more generally opposed monarchy and aristocratic rule. This meant that socialists and libertarians shared in this category, along with those who would today be considered “conservative” republicans. At that time— and still in places in Europe— conservatism referred to a desire to maintain the aristocratic state. But in the United States, there never really was a state of this sort. It has been a republic and, so—traditionally-speaking— “Left”-wing since the beginning. Paleoconservatives, libertarians, anarchists, socialists, and communists of the time—together—composed the Left-wing.
This is not what we are used to hearing. Today, the traditional, historical “Left” that stood in opposition to monarchy together has divided into two halves, the new “Right” and “Left.” Since the original divide, the scale has shifted in various ways and on numerous occasions, such that successive generations do not find themselves equally in these camps, despite holding similar points of view. Grandson may, like Mencken, find themselves on the Right, even while maintaining beliefs that were not unlike what Grandpa understood to be Left-wing convictions.
Also today, anyone who can be associated with the “Old Left” may be categorized as socially conservative for putting class-oriented politics and economic issues above the identarianism of the “New Left.” The New Left is largely unaware of its newness, and treats itself as the standard “Left” position.
In place of republicanism, however, the Left of today— or the newest Right, if we are to speak of Right-wing as representative of existing elites and ruling classes— does not simply wish to return to the agrarian economy of monarchical society. Instead, it (knowingly or otherwise) pushes the agenda of the Green New Deal and of the World Economic Forum, that is, the furtherance of technocracy and synarchy. Between the titles of nobility (publicly-accredited degrees), hysterias and persecutions, religiosity about scientism, and draconian systems of enforcement, the culture and economy of the existing Left looks nonetheless medieval in scope, even if it is technologically-advanced. I have to say, we must not make the mistake of giving plunderers credit for all of their advancement.
The Old Left was disarmed in a number of ways, but perhaps most importantly was the co-optation of mutual insurance into the form of the welfare state and shifting precedence from class to cultural politics. These matters, arising from the (post-) New Deal and Civil Rights eras, served to pre-empt the need for mutual aid by making healthcare—once provided by mutual aid societies— compulsory, and by removing the working class as the loci of revolution, putting it instead into the hands of racial, sexual, and gender self-identifying minorities. Labor organizers, now understood to be white colonists selling services already covered by the state, had a difficulty selling union membership, as insurance has long been one of the major reasons for workers to join unions. Welfare statism killed the free market provision of healthcare services by associations of this sort. And cultural Marxism convinced revolutionaries that labor organizers were a conservative force. Mutual insurance, labor unions, and cooperative production, distribution, and finance all suffered greatly from the impact of the New Deal and “Civil Rights.”
What all of this means is that we have approached a strange situation in which the traditional Left has become identified largely as Right-wing, including much of its Left-wing elements! And this opens up the opportunity for me to write about this new idea of paleoradicalism, the more-or-less neutral meeting ground of the Old Left and Old Right.
“Radicals,” in the postmodern sense, are certainly people that paleoconservatives and paleolibertarians have shied away from. But if we are to get even more “paleo,” we will find that many of the values of the paleo Right have their home in the English Civil War, among the “Levellers.” The Levellers, however, were radicals! They were not simply the moderates that partook in and spearheaded the Moderate Enlightenment, but were shaping the Radical Enlightenment, alongside English communist groups such as the Diggers, who—in the fashion of American Anti-Federalists who claimed to be the “true” federalists— fancied themselves the “True Levellers.” The Levellers and the True Levellers, or Diggers, were, together, considered to be radicals. So if we take the context of origins far enough back, we find that the concept of paleoradicalism is not a progressive concept that is promoting something entirely new, but itself has some reactionary or retrogressive elements. It makes sense for the Old Left and the Old Right to come back to their shared origins, for the sake of gaining some shared victories for freedom and equality.
Like paleoconservatives and paleolibertarians, paleoradicals would be defined largely by their opposition to the New Deal programs, including the Green New Deal being pushed in congress. Together, paleoradicals of all stripes would stand opposed to the new titles of nobility (government-accredited degrees), the religion of scientism, identarianism and cultural Marxism, sewer socialism and welfare statism, paternalistic conservatism and neoliberalism, repression of religious minority groups, restrictions on the right of assembly and freedom of speech, and so on.
This concept brings about matters of practicality that may not be so easy to implement, despite their simplicity. Afterall, while sharing roots in the historical Left, the Old Left and the contemporary Right (both Old and New) are quite at odds with one another. I believe that the greatest issue facing us in this regard is the distrust for one another that has resulted
The Right has not considered valid concerns from the Old Left regarding their right to access property. For centuries now, those we now consider to be on the Right have dismissed wholesale the concerns of working people and the impoverished. Working people have suffered from institutionalized restrictions to their access to property, and have been gaslit about it being their own fault, for so long, that they will certainly think twice about allying with the Right.
Don’t get me wrong. There are important matters that should be reflected in one’s wealth. Good values, perseverance, and positive attitudes should certainly provide those with these traits with more property. I don’t suggest otherwise. But there really are elements of our government that—like the barriers and infringements created by the New Deal and Civil Rights— limit one beyond one’s own capacity. That is, that restrict one from seeing one’s virtues (should the exist!) materialize.
The fact of the matter is this. We are in the middle of a culture war. And in war one must count one’s losses. In order for a paleoradicalism to manifest as a reality, paleoconservatives and paleolibertarians might do best to get their leadership from Old Right figures such as Chordorov and Nock, and orient their arguments for property in the wellbeing of society. And while arguments for a Single Tax on the unimproved value of land might be offputting to some, the choice for the Right-wing of America today seems to be between maintaining an absolutist position of property-rights, separated from societal wellbeing, while gradually joining the ranks of the working poor; or otherwise uniting with the poor of America to establish security of property through its alignment with social wellbeing. In other words, the Right can continue to defend property-rights that the Old Left correctly identifies with plunder, while gradually losing control of that plunder; or the Right can appeal to the Old Left in shifting their support toward property which originates in reciprocity.
If the Left and the Right could agree on the basics of where property-rights come from, the rest of the economy is a distribution and management problem, wherein many models can co-exist in the same fashion that a Catholic and a Baptist Church may co-exist in the same town. Such a situation is called “federalism” (remember, even the American Anti-Federalists, like Patrick Henry, declared themselves the “true federalists”) or “panarchy.” There will surely be butting of heads, but never to the point that dissociation is not an option. Isn’t that part of the reason we value our property anyway? Because we can always retreat to our own kingdom. The central concern of paleoradicalism should be establishing property-rights upon the foundation of reciprocity, in order to meet the valid demands of the Old Left and to conserve what is left of the right to control property in the first place.