Counter-Currents
  • Private Events
  • T&C
  • Rss
  • DLive
  • Telegram
  • Gab
  • Entropy
  • Rss
  • DLive
  • Telegram
  • Gab
  • Entropy
  • Webzine
  • Books
  • Podcasts
  • Donate
  • Paywall
  • Crypto
  • Mailing List
  • About
  • Contact
  • RSS
    • Main feed
    • Comments feed
    • Podcast feed
  • Advertise

LEVEL2

  • Webzine
  • Books
  • Podcasts
  • Donate
  • Paywall
  • Crypto
  • Mailing List
  • About
  • Contact
  • RSS
    • Main feed
    • Comments feed
    • Podcast feed
  • Advertise
  • Private Events
  • T&C
  • Rss
  • DLive
  • Telegram
  • Gab
  • Entropy
Print June 18, 2013

Selection by Lot in Florence

Simon Lote
The Monte di Pietà, Florence, established to make small, interest-free loans to give people an alternative to usurious Jewish moneylenders.

The Monte di Pietà, Florence, established in the late 15th century by Franciscan brothers to make small, interest-free loans to give people an alternative to usurious moneylenders.

2,402 words

The other major use of sortition practiced in the Italian city-states was the “scrutiny,” which to a greater or lesser extent governed Florentine political life for 300 years. Similar schemes were practiced in Orvieto, Siena, Pistoia, Perugia, and Lucca. The scrutiny was different than the brevia. Whereas the brevia used sortition to determine the composition of an electoral college, the scrutiny was an inversion of this, using voting first to create a short-list of acceptable candidates and then applying sortition in the final stage to draw at random a candidate from this pre-vetted pool.[1]

The scrutiny was considerably less democratic than the brevia as it tended to be a secretive top-down selection process with the nominating body holding the decisive influence. Whoever managed to maneuver allies in this body was more likely to obtain representation and offices for his family and his friends. Once the candidates were selected, their names were placed in bags and at regular intervals a name would be drawn out at random for offices and positions that were rotated on a regular basis.

No man would have a way of knowing whether his name had been added in the bag until he was selected, and this secrecy tended to tie an individual’s loyalties to the regime. Had the process been open, then factional tendencies within the ruling class, which often varied in size and composition throughout the period, would threaten to destabilize the regime.[2]

The scrutiny system’s origins lie in the 13th and 14th centuries, when Florence was plagued with factional conflict amongst the aristocracy who held to a code of honor that demanded that justice should be settled privately through vendetta rather than seeking redress through a third party. As neither side would recognize the legitimacy of the other’s claim, these disputes often degenerated into open warfare within the city. The city center became dominated by imposing fortress-like towers and palaces built by the leading Florentine families to be used as bases to wage their private wars against the other leading families.[3]

The recurrent outbreaks of violence between these aristocrats, which sometimes influenced events outside Florence, was a key factor in the emergence of the popolo as a political force. The popolo, which translated into German means Volk, referred to the citizens of Florence, who were not part of the elite but shared a collective identity and loyalty to the city as Florentines.[4] In Florence, as elsewhere, the popolo were led by the major guilds, which were mass organizations with their own officers, internal laws, and militias. They could and did on several occasions take power in Florence.[5]

Leather borse (purses) containing names in a drawing for the Priorate of Florence in 1431. Below are five cedole (name slips) rolled up and tied as they would have been for a drawing.

Leather borse (purses) containing names in a drawing for the Priorate of Florence in 1431. Below are five cedole (name slips) rolled up and tied as they would have been for a drawing.

The first two popolo governments were established in wake of the destabilizing violence of the feuding aristocrats. The first popolo government, 1250-1260, was established to chart a neutral course in the wider political conflict between the Guelfs and Ghibellines, in which the aristocracy had embroiled the city, and to also take a stance against the aristocrats’ private wars by forcibly reducing the height of the aristocrats’ towers, thereby limiting their effectiveness in urban warfare.

The second popolo in 1293 passed the Ordinances of Justice, a series of statutes subjecting a large group of the aristocracy to magnate status, which meant that they were barred from holding office. These popular governments were short-lived—the aristocracy eventually reasserting control—but they had the effect of forcing the remaining aristocrats to redefine their legitimacy and start co-operating with each other if they were to preserve elite rule.[6]

The scrutiny was developed as a solution to enable these factitious noble families and a select group of upper-class guildsman to share power. The nominating committees, under the control of the elites, would vote for noble families, and their names would be written on a ticket and entered into a bag known as a borse, which was locked into a chest. To prevent tampering, the chest was given to Franciscan friars at the church of St. Cross, and the key to it was held by Dominican friars at St. Maria Novella on the other side of the city. The restriction that no two members of the same family could serve on the same government body ensured that offices were not be dominated by one particular family or faction. Furthermore, the relatively small size of the candidate pool and the regular rotation of offices insured that each aristocratic family would not be long without office.[7] To appreciate the regular rotation of this small elite, between 1329 and 1342, 302 citizens comprising 207 families shared the top executive offices known as the priorate. Almost three-fifths of these families held office more than once: 89 twice, 75 three times, 13 four times, and 1 five times.[8]

The second two popolo governments of 1343 to 1348 and 1378 to 1382 were more radical than the previous popular governments and aimed at expanding the size of the scrutiny’s candidate pool downwards to include the popolo, who came to power following a massive sovereign debt crisis.

During the 14th century, Florence was engaged in expansionist wars to establish regional hegemony over Tuscany, and the elite ruling class, looking after their own interests, refused to implement direct taxation as to do so would impact upon their wealth. Instead military expenditures were dependent upon increasing consumption taxes and borrowing. For the popolo this meant increased prices for goods and forced loans whose low interest and intermittent repayments were little more than taxation by any other name. The aristocracy, on the other hand, enjoyed the privilege of making voluntary commercial loans at generous interest rates, which were guaranteed to be paid on time unlike the forced loans. These taxation and lending arrangements benefited the aristocracy at the expense of the popolo.[9]

In 1343 elite rule was overthrown and replaced by a third popolo government which destroyed the existing borses and instituted an expanded scrutiny to widen the candidate pool by reducing the number of votes a man needed to be selected for his name to be entered into the bag and replacing the aristocratic dominated nominating committee with one dominated by the popolo.

The result was that between 1343 and 1348 the offices were filled with the ordinary citizens of Florence, who despite their plebeian background, were competent enough to deal with the sovereign debt crisis. They did what arguably any White Nationalist government should do with the contemporary sovereign debt crisis: they defaulted on the payments, suspended further interest, and refused to repay all but a fraction of the loan principle.[10]

The aristocracy took advantage of the political chaos caused by the Black Death as it swept through Italy in 1348 to undo the changes that had been made by the third popolo government. However, this was merely an interregnum before an even more radical popolo government between 1378 and 1382, which had come to power on the suffering caused by the popolo’s debt burden, both personal and government. Eligibility for the candidate pool was extended to all corners of Florence by the creation of new guilds to give all sections of the working class representation.[11]

It was not long, however, before the radical nature of fourth popolo government gave the wealthier guildsmen cold feet, and they switched allegiance again to the aristocracy, who offered them a share in government based upon a consensus ideology, in which the elite, no longer fighting amongst themselves, legitimized their claim to rule by presenting themselves as a unifying force ruling paternally in the best interests of the republic.

The aristocracy altered the scrutiny system to ensure their dominance. From 1387 two borses were used: a large bag and a small bag, the borsellino, drawn from a smaller pool of the aristocrats who were given a quota of the available offices. Through this method, despite the apparent widening of the lottery pool, the aristocrats could secure the loyalty of the leading guildsmen by offering the prospect of office while the government remained dominated by 50 elite aristocratic families whose offices were regularly rotated.[12]

The new consensus regime went beyond the traditional role of government, which was to provide law and order and finance military expenditures. It would intervene in the social life of the Republic as well. The most pressing problem for the Florentines was that of population decline in the city as deaths began outstripping births. Beginning with the Black Death and continuing with recurrent outbreaks of plague, the city lost over half of its population. While there was little the Florentines could do about disease in the 15th century, they took measures to increase the birth rate in the city, first by providing positive incentives such as helping fathers provide dowries for their daughters through government-backed dowry accounts and by establishing a foundling hospital to care for abandoned children.[13] Less successful were initiatives to combat homosexuality, which included shaming and fining homosexuals as well as the supervision of communal brothels to tempt them back into the heterosexual fold.[14] These measures helped reverse the decline in population, and in the 16th century, the population began to increase again.[15] Also in 1495 the Consensus Regime founded the Monte di Pietà, a state bank to provide cheap credit to the poor in order to protect them from exploitation by Jewish moneylenders.[16]

The Consensus Regime of the aristocracy ruled successfully for a long period from the 1380s to the early 1420s. However, from the 1420s onwards, Florence was involved in a series of costly wars the larger share of which were funded through deficit financing. Power began to concentrate with those with the means to provide loans to the Republic. It was around this time that the Medici family, who held a vast banking empire, began to dominate the politics of the Republic. The Medici’s wealth dwarfed that of individual aristocratic families and enabled them to establish patronage networks on a much larger scale than could any individual aristocratic family.[17]

With Medici money flowing into the Republic, both formally through loans to stabilize Florence’s fiscal crises and informally through patronage, they became the de facto rulers of Florence through the existing political institutions. Between 1434 and 1494 the Medici wielded power indirectly, not through personally holding any offices, but using their wealth to essentially buy alliances with families who did.[18] The Medici made moves, whenever the opportunity presented itself, to remove the unpredictability that sortition gave to the scrutiny through the borsellino, the small pouch previously reserved for aristocratic families to create tiny pools of handpicked men. If there were only 5 or 10 favorites in the borsellino, their names would eventually be drawn. The only thing that was unpredictable was when the individual would be drawn. This was clearly far easier to manipulate than a large pool where one could not realistically predict the outcome of the draw.[19]

The Medici government fell in 1494 due to external intervention from the French, leaving a political vacuum. Over a period of 5 years of debate and reforms, the Florentines drew up a new constitution which drew in elements of the existing scrutiny system and the brevia. Aping Venice, Florence created a consiglio in which membership was restricted to around 3,500 citizens who had an ancestor within the last 3 generations who had been selected for high office. This meant that both the aristocracy and the popolo would be represented. A nominating committee would be drawn by lot from the consiglio, with each member being allowed to nominate any individual he pleased. These nominations were then voted on by the council as a whole, and the group of candidates with the highest votes would have their names placed in the borse. In order to ensure the regular rotation of offices a lot would be held every 2 months to draw new names. This new constitution was designed to thwart any attempt by the Medicis to regain power through their allies, many of whom continued to reside in the city. The unpredictability of the nominating committee meant that it would be difficult for the Medici’s proxies to influence selections through patronage.[20]

In 1512 the Medicis returned to Florence at the head of a Spanish army organized by the pope, and they quickly dismantled the new constitution and restored the political institutions that existed before 1494 which they had manipulated so skilfully. It became increasingly clear that they were moving towards a new type of regime that would install them as hereditary rulers of the city.[21] In 1527 the Florentines rebelled against the encroaching Medici tyranny and installed the last of the Florentine Republics reinstating the popular constitution of 1494. However, this was short-lived as the Medici recaptured the city in 1530 and consolidated their power over, establishing themselves as sovereigns, a position that they would hold for the next 200 years.

Concentrations of wealth followed the concentrations of power, and while the Medicis became great patrons of the arts, the majority of the Florentines suffered from increasing poverty. The reign of Cosimo I from 1537 to 1574 is an example of Aristotle’s argument that giving power to one individual, while potentially greatly rewarding, is a great risk. Coming to power with little wealth, Cosimo I used his position to regularly divert public funds for his own personal purposes.

He transformed the Monte di Pietà, originally established to combat the exploitation of the poor by Jewish moneylenders, and used it as a vehicle of Ducal patronage. The Jews who had been ordered out Florence by the last popular Florentine government were welcomed back and given license to continue their dubious business practices without official harassment. Adding insult to injury, foreign Jews from across Europe were permitted to settle across the territories of the Florentine Republic. The resulting impoverishment of the citizens is witnessed by the records of the number of abandoned children recorded by the states foundling hospitals: following consolidation of power by the Medici in the 1530s the number of children abandoned at the doors of the foundling hospitals almost trebled.[22]

Notes

[1] Dowlen, 67-68.

[2] Dowlen, 92-95.

[3] John M. Najemy, A History of Florence, 1200-1575 (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006), 17.

[4] Alain de Benoist, The Problem of Democracy (London: Arktos Media, 2011), 44.

[5] Dowlen, 73.

[6] Najemy, 63-69.

[7] Dowlen, 87.

[8] Najemy, 131.

[9] Najemy, 119-21.

[10] Najemy, 138-45.

[11] Najemy, 165.

[12] Najemy, 183-85.

[13] Najemy, 225-39.

[14] Najemy, 244-49.

[15] Najemy, 225.

[16] Najemy, 395-96.

[17] Najemy, 190-93.

[18] Dowlen, 105-107.

[19] Najemy, 282.

[20] Dowlen, 110-15.

[21] Najemy, 425.

[22] Najemy, 477.

 

22. Ibid., 477.

 

Related

  • سكوت هوارد مجمع المتحولين جنسياً الصناعي لسكوت هوار

  • Význam starej pravice

  • What Is the Ideology of Sameness? Part 4
    The Renaissance of Identities

  • Ask A. Wyatt Nationalist
    Rigging the Election to Save Democracy

  • Remembering Carl Schmitt
    (July 11, 1888–April 7, 1985)

  • On Taking Action

  • Homoseksuaalisuus ja valkoinen nationalismi

  • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 460
    American Krogan on Repatriation, Democracy, Populism, & America’s Finest Hour

Tags

democracylotpolitical philosophySimon Lotesortitionthe Jewish questionusury

Next

» Broken Blossoms or The Yellow Man & the Girl (1919)

  • Recent posts

    • This Weekend’s Livestream
      Karl Thorburn on The Writers’ Bloc

      Greg Johnson

    • The Counter-Currents 2022 Fundraiser
      Viva la nazione! 

      Kathryn S.

      17

    • Elvis Presley, Professor Quigley, & the Africanization of Youth

      Kerry Bolton

      2

    • Flip-Flop Nationalism

      Nicholas R. Jeelvy

      5

    • Ian Smith’s Great Betrayal

      Spencer J. Quinn

      32

    • Ask Not What They’re Doing to Trump — Ask What Trump Did For You

      Jim Goad

      60

    • Stop LARPing & Start Preparing

      Aquilonius

      5

    • The German Colonial Empire:
      A Miracle of Progress

      Morris van de Camp

    • The Rise of the “Bubble People”

      Stephen Paul Foster

      9

    • Weimerican Horror Story

      Tom Zaja

      3

    • Hunter S. Thompson:
      The Father of Fake News, Part 7

      James J. O'Meara

      2

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 474
      Anthony Bavaria Brings the Best Month Ever on The Writers’ Bloc

      Counter-Currents Radio

    • Remembering Philip Larkin:
      August 9, 1922–December 2, 1985

      Greg Johnson

      8

    • The Selfie Poet

      Margot Metroland

      6

    • Philip Larkin on Jazz:
      Invigorating Disagreeableness

      Frank Allen

      8

    • Quidditch By Any Other Name

      Beau Albrecht

    • صحفي أسترالي وجحر الأرانب الفلسطينية

      Morris van de Camp

    • The Worst Week Yet:
      July 31-August 6, 2022

      Jim Goad

      29

    • Hunter S. Thompson:
      The Father of Fake News, Part 6

      James J. O'Meara

      3

    • The Journey:
      Russian Views, Part One

      Steven Clark

      4

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 473
      Ask Me Anything with Greg Johnson

      Counter-Currents Radio

    • This Weekend’s Livestreams
      Ask Me Anything on Counter-Currents Radio & Anthony Bavaria on The Writers’ Bloc

      Greg Johnson

      1

    • The Counter-Currents 2022 Fundraiser
      Raising Our Spirits

      Howe Abbott-Hiss

      6

    • Hunter S. Thompson:
      The Father of Fake News, Part 5

      James J. O'Meara

      11

    • The Freedom Convoy & Its Enemies

      Gunnar Alfredsson

      3

    • The China Question

      Nicholas R. Jeelvy

      52

    • Rozhovor s Alainom de Benoistom o kresťanstve

      Greg Johnson

    • Your Donations at Work
      New Improvements at Counter-Currents

      Greg Johnson

      13

    • Mau-Mauing the Theme-Park Mascots

      Jim Goad

      19

    • The Overload

      Mark Gullick

      13

    • Knut Hamsun’s The Women at the Pump

      Spencer J. Quinn

      3

    • Remembering Knut Hamsun
      (August 4, 1859–February 19, 1952)

      Greg Johnson

      8

    • Tito Perdue’s Cynosura

      Anthony Bavaria

    • Hunter S. Thompson:
      The Father of Fake News, Part 4

      James J. O'Meara

      4

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 472
      Hwitgeard on The Writers’ Bloc

      Counter-Currents Radio

    • Ask A. Wyatt Nationalist
      Is it Rational for Blacks to Distrust Whites?

      Greg Johnson

      29

    • سكوت هوارد مجمع المتحولين جنسياً الصناعي لسكوت هوار

      Kenneth Vinther

    • Europa Esoterica

      Veiko Hessler

      21

    • Hunter S. Thompson:
      The Father of Fake News, Part 3

      James J. O'Meara

      4

    • Yarvin the (((Elf)))

      Aquilonius

      12

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 471
      Ask Me Anything with Greg Johnson & Mark Collett

      Counter-Currents Radio

      1

    • The Worst Week Yet:
      July 23-30, 2022

      Jim Goad

      37

    • Hunter S. Thompson:
      The Father of Fake News, Part 2

      James J. O'Meara

      2

    • Real Team-Building

      Nicholas R. Jeelvy

      10

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 470
      Greg Johnson Interviews Bubba Kate Paris

      Counter-Currents Radio

    • This Weekend’s Livestreams
      Bubba Kate Paris followed by Mark Collett on Counter-Currents Radio & Hwitgeard on The Writers’ Bloc

      Greg Johnson

      2

    • Význam starej pravice

      Greg Johnson

    • The Counter-Currents 2022 Fundraiser
      Reasons to Give to Counter-Currents Now

      Karl Thorburn

      1

    • Hunter S. Thompson:
      The Father of Fake News, Part 1

      James J. O'Meara

      16

    • I Dream of Djinni:
      Orientalist Manias in Western Lands, Part Two

      Kathryn S.

      31

  • Classics Corner

    • Pulp Fiction

      Trevor Lynch

      46

    • Now in Audio Version
      In Defense of Prejudice

      Greg Johnson

      31

    • Blaming Your Parents

      Greg Johnson

      29

    • No Time to Die:
      Bond’s Essential Whiteness Affirmed

      Buttercup Dew

      14

    • Lawrence of Arabia

      Trevor Lynch

      16

    • Notes on Schmitt’s Crisis & Ours

      Greg Johnson

      8

    • “Death My Bride”
      David Lynch’s Lost Highway

      Trevor Lynch

      9

    • Whiteness

      Greg Johnson

      30

    • What is American Nationalism?

      Greg Johnson

      39

    • Notes on the Ethnostate

      Greg Johnson

      16

    • Heidegger & Ethnic Nationalism

      Greg Johnson

      14

    • To a Reluctant Bridegroom

      Greg Johnson

      26

    • Lessing’s Ideal Conservative Freemasonry

      Greg Johnson

      16

    • Restoring White Homelands

      Greg Johnson

      34

    • Introduction to Plato’s Republic, Parts 1 & 2

      Greg Johnson

      2

    • White Nationalist Delusions About Russia

      Émile Durand

      116

    • Batman Begins

      Trevor Lynch

    • The Dark Knight

      Trevor Lynch

    • Leo Strauss, the Conservative Revolution, & National Socialism, Part 1

      Greg Johnson

      22

    • The Dark Knight Rises

      Trevor Lynch

      22

    • Introduction to Aristotle’s Politics

      Greg Johnson

      16

    • Hegemony

      Greg Johnson

      11

    • Reflections on Carl Schmitt’s The Concept of the Political

      Greg Johnson

      14

  • Paroled from the Paywall

    • Arthur Nersesian’s The Fuck-Up

      Anthony Bavaria

      5

    • Literal Human Garbage:
      Trashiness as a Revolt Against the Modern World

      Nicholas R. Jeelvy

      7

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 463
      Riley Waggaman on Russia Since the Sanctions

      Counter-Currents Radio

    • Contemplating Suicide

      Greg Johnson

      7

    • What Is the Ideology of Sameness?
      Part 2

      Alain de Benoist

    • On the Use & Abuse of Language in Debates

      Spencer J. Quinn

      26

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 462
      The Best Month Ever on The Writers’ Bloc with Cyan Quinn

      Counter-Currents Radio

    • A White Golden Age Descending into Exotic Dystopian Consumerism

      James Dunphy

      1

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 460
      American Krogan on Repatriation, Democracy, Populism, & America’s Finest Hour

      Counter-Currents Radio

      2

    • Cryptocurrency:
      A Faustian Solution to a Faustian Problem

      Thomas Steuben

      1

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 458
      Gregory Hood & Greg Johnson on Burnham & Machiavellianism

      Counter-Currents Radio

      3

    • Brokeback Mountain

      Beau Albrecht

      10

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 457
      Greg Johnson & Millennial Woes on Common Mistakes in English

      Counter-Currents Radio

      12

    • Deconstructing Our Own Religion to Own the Libs

      Aquilonius

      20

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 456
      A Special Juneteenth Episode of The Writers’ Bloc with Jim Goad

      Counter-Currents Radio

      2

    • “I Write About Communist Space Goths”:
      An Interview with Beau Albrecht

      Ondrej Mann

      6

    • Christianity is a Vast Reservoir of Potential White Allies

      Joshua Lawrence

      42

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 455
      The Counter-Currents 12th Birthday Celebration, Part 2

      Counter-Currents Radio

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 454
      Muhammad Aryan on The Writers’ Bloc

      Counter-Currents Radio

      8

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 453
      The Counter-Currents 12th Birthday Celebration, Part 1

      Counter-Currents Radio

      3

    • Look What You Made Me Do:
      Dead Man’s Shoes

      Mark Gullick

      4

    • Rome’s Le Ceneri di Heliodoro

      Ondrej Mann

      8

    • Anti-Semitic Zionism

      Nicholas R. Jeelvy

      11

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 452
      The Best Month Ever on The Writers’ Bloc with Stephen Paul Foster

      Counter-Currents Radio

    • No More Brother Wars?

      Veiko Hessler

    • After the Empire of Nothing

      Morris van de Camp

      2

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 451
      The Writers’ Bloc with Josh Neal on Political Ponerology

      Counter-Currents Radio

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 450
      The Latest Ask Me Anything with Greg Johnson

      Counter-Currents Radio

      3

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 449
      Greg Johnson & Gregory Hood on The Northman

      Counter-Currents Radio

      2

    • Paying for Veils:
      1979 as a Watershed for Islamic Revivalists

      Morris van de Camp

      3

  • Recent comments

    • Kathryn S The Counter-Currents 2022 Fundraiser
      Viva la nazione! 
      I can tell you're very passionate about our cause and that you have a lot of interesting things to...
    • Jim Goad Ask Not What They’re Doing to Trump — Ask What Trump Did For You “I am reading an article on another website”Democrats want to criminalize all opposition,not just...
    • Al Dante The Counter-Currents 2022 Fundraiser
      Viva la nazione! 
      Exactly! You said it better than me : )
    • Bob Roberts Ask Not What They’re Doing to Trump — Ask What Trump Did For You That report delay could very well have cost him the election too. If you look at the data in the "...
    • Alexandra O Ian Smith’s Great Betrayal As usual, this post and its many comments have provided a near-master's level seminar on this topic...
    • Alexandra O Ian Smith’s Great Betrayal And is it true that there are only between 14 million Jews, as claimed by the Orthodox; and/or only...
    • Vauquelin The Counter-Currents 2022 Fundraiser
      Viva la nazione! 
      Garibaldi was a freemason and an international darling of liberal intelligentsia, patronized by the...
    • Alexandra O Ian Smith’s Great Betrayal Jews will always control South Africa through its banks and gold-mining companies.  I haven't...
    • Trollope Ask Not What They’re Doing to Trump — Ask What Trump Did For You I don’t take Goad very seriously,when he attempts to address serious issues.He is moderately...
    • Lord Shang Flip-Flop Nationalism Ultimately, whites need to move to Red states - and then to suburbs (not all of which are so safe),...
    • Alexandra O. Flip-Flop Nationalism Thanks for a very timely post, a "Head's Up", for a lot of our young people who haven't learned '...
    • Enoch Powell Ian Smith’s Great Betrayal A small bit of digging reveals some telling tales. White people have been in southern africa and...
    • E_Perez Ian Smith’s Great Betrayal "...his exploits as a fighter pilot in the Second World War" British chauvinist Ian Smith was a...
    • Wim Kotze Ian Smith’s Great Betrayal In the early '70s, I  experienced the feigned Anglo superiority from the when we's who flocked to...
    • Kök Böri The Counter-Currents 2022 Fundraiser
      Viva la nazione! 
      The nationalism of the late 18th and early 19th centuries was not born "among the common people", it...
    • Al Dante The Counter-Currents 2022 Fundraiser
      Viva la nazione! 
      “Catholicized Maghrebian North Africans” ??This is a gross exaggeration. The North African component...
    • Kök Böri The Counter-Currents 2022 Fundraiser
      Viva la nazione! 
      Perhaps because he was a Freemason, and the Freemasonry has in the US almost the same power, as the...
    • Kök Böri The Counter-Currents 2022 Fundraiser
      Viva la nazione! 
      Perhaps because he was a Freemason, and the Freemasonry has in the SU almost the same power, as the...
    • Kök Böri The Counter-Currents 2022 Fundraiser
      Viva la nazione! 
      And here I would add, that 300 years before Lawrence of Arabia there was another British superspy in...
    • Hamburger Today The Counter-Currents 2022 Fundraiser
      Viva la nazione! 
      Why were (are) there 'Garibaldi' clubs in so many Italian neighborhoods in the US if he was such a...
  • Book Authors

    • Anthony M. Ludovici
    • Beau Albrecht
    • Buttercup Dew
    • Christopher Pankhurst
    • Collin Cleary
    • F. Roger Devlin
    • Fenek Solère
    • Francis Parker Yockey
    • Greg Johnson
    • Gregory Hood
    • H. L. Mencken
    • Irmin Vinson
    • J. A. Nicholl
    • James J. O’Meara
    • Jef Costello
    • Jim Goad
    • Jonathan Bowden
    • Juleigh Howard-Hobson
    • Julius Evola
    • Kerry Bolton
    • Leo Yankevich
    • Michael Polignano
    • Multiple authors
    • Savitri Devi
    • Spencer J. Quinn
    • Tito Perdue
    • Trevor Lynch
  • Webzine Authors

    Contemporary authors

    • Howe Abbott-Hiss
    • Beau Albrecht
    • Aquilonius
    • Anthony Bavaria
    • Michael Bell
    • Alain de Benoist
    • Kerry Bolton
    • Jonathan Bowden
    • Buttercup Dew
    • Collin Cleary
    • Giles Corey
    • Jef Costello
    • Morris V. de Camp
    • F. Roger Devlin
    • Bain Dewitt
    • Jack Donovan
    • Ricardo Duchesne
    • Émile Durand
    • Guillaume Durocher
    • Mark Dyal
    • Guillaume Faye
    • Stephen Paul Foster
    • Fullmoon Ancestry
    • Jim Goad
    • Tom Goodrich
    • Alex Graham
    • Mark Gullick
    • Andrew Hamilton
    • Robert Hampton
    • Huntley Haverstock
    • Derek Hawthorne
    • Gregory Hood
    • Juleigh Howard-Hobson
    • Richard Houck
    • Alexander Jacob
    • Nicholas R. Jeelvy
    • Greg Johnson
    • Ruuben Kaalep
    • Tobias Langdon
    • Julian Langness
    • Travis LeBlanc
    • Patrick Le Brun
    • Trevor Lynch
    • Kevin MacDonald
    • G. A. Malvicini
    • John Michael McCloughlin
    • Margot Metroland
    • Millennial Woes
    • John Morgan
    • James J. O'Meara
    • Michael O'Meara
    • Christopher Pankhurst
    • Michael Polignano
    • J. J. Przybylski
    • Spencer J. Quinn
    • Quintilian
    • Edouard Rix
    • C. B. Robertson
    • C. F. Robinson
    • Hervé Ryssen
    • Kathryn S.
    • Alan Smithee
    • Fenek Solère
    • Ann Sterzinger
    • Thomas Steuben
    • Robert Steuckers
    • Tomislav Sunić
    • Donald Thoresen
    • Marian Van Court
    • Dominique Venner
    • Irmin Vinson
    • Michael Walker
    • Aylmer Wedgwood
    • Scott Weisswald
    • Leo Yankevich

    Classic Authors

    • Maurice Bardèche
    • Julius Evola
    • Ernst Jünger
    • D. H. Lawrence
    • Charles Lindbergh
    • Jack London
    • H. P. Lovecraft
    • Anthony M. Ludovici
    • Sir Oswald Mosley
    • National Vanguard
    • Friedrich Nietzsche
    • Revilo Oliver
    • William Pierce
    • Ezra Pound
    • Saint-Loup
    • Savitri Devi
    • Carl Schmitt
    • Miguel Serrano
    • Oswald Spengler
    • P. R. Stephensen
    • Jean Thiriart
    • John Tyndall
    • Francis Parker Yockey
  • Departments

    • Book Reviews
    • Movie Reviews
    • TV Reviews
    • Music Reviews
    • Art Criticism
    • Graphic Novels & Comics
    • Video Game Reviews
    • Fiction
    • Poems
    • Interviews
    • Videos
    • English Translations
    • Other Languages
      • Arabic
      • Bulgarian
      • Croatian
      • Czech
      • Danish
      • Dutch
      • Estonian
      • Finnish
      • French
      • German
      • Greek
      • Hungarian
      • Italian
      • Lithuanian
      • Norwegian
      • Polish
      • Portuguese
      • Romanian
      • Russian
      • Slovak
      • Spanish
      • Swedish
      • Ukrainian
    • Commemorations
    • Why We Write
  • Archives
  • Top 100 Commenters
Sponsored Links
Alaska Chaga Antelope Hill Publishing Paul Waggener Breakey Imperium Press American Renaissance A Dissident’s Guide to Blacks and Africa The Patrick Ryan Show Jim Goad The Occidental Observer
Editor-in-Chief
Greg Johnson
Books for sale
  • Trevor Lynch’s Classics of Right-Wing Cinema
  • The Enemy of Europe
  • Imperium
  • Reactionary Modernism
  • Manifesto del Nazionalismo Bianco
  • O Manifesto Nacionalista Branco
  • Vade Mecum
  • Whiteness: The Original Sin
  • Space Vixen Trek Episode 17: Tomorrow the Stars
  • The Year America Died
  • Passing the Buck
  • Mysticism After Modernism
  • Gold in the Furnace
  • Defiance
  • Forever & Ever
  • Wagner’s Ring & the Germanic Tradition
  • Resistance
  • Materials for All Future Historians
  • Love Song of the Australopiths
  • White Identity Politics
  • Here’s the Thing
  • Trevor Lynch: Part Four of the Trilogy
  • Graduate School with Heidegger
  • It’s Okay to Be White
  • The World in Flames
  • The White Nationalist Manifesto
  • From Plato to Postmodernism
  • The Gizmo
  • Return of the Son of Trevor Lynch’s CENSORED Guide to the Movies
  • Toward a New Nationalism
  • The Smut Book
  • The Alternative Right
  • My Nationalist Pony
  • Dark Right: Batman Viewed From the Right
  • The Philatelist
  • Confessions of an Anti-Feminist
  • East and West
  • Though We Be Dead, Yet Our Day Will Come
  • White Like You
  • Numinous Machines
  • Venus and Her Thugs
  • Cynosura
  • North American New Right, vol. 2
  • You Asked For It
  • More Artists of the Right
  • Extremists: Studies in Metapolitics
  • The Homo & the Negro
  • Rising
  • The Importance of James Bond
  • In Defense of Prejudice
  • Confessions of a Reluctant Hater (2nd ed.)
  • The Hypocrisies of Heaven
  • Waking Up from the American Dream
  • Green Nazis in Space!
  • Truth, Justice, and a Nice White Country
  • Heidegger in Chicago
  • End of an Era: Mad Men & the Ordeal of Civility
  • Sexual Utopia in Power
  • What is a Rune? & Other Essays
  • Son of Trevor Lynch’s White Nationalist Guide to the Movies
  • The Lightning & the Sun
  • The Eldritch Evola
  • Western Civilization Bites Back
  • New Right vs. Old Right
  • Journey Late at Night: Poems and Translations
  • The Non-Hindu Indians & Indian Unity
  • I do not belong to the Baader-Meinhof Group
  • Pulp Fascism
  • The Lost Philosopher, Second Expanded Edition
  • Trevor Lynch’s A White Nationalist Guide to the Movies
  • And Time Rolls On
  • Artists of the Right: Resisting Decadence
  • North American New Right, Vol. 1
  • Some Thoughts on Hitler
  • Tikkun Olam and Other Poems
  • Summoning the Gods
  • Taking Our Own Side
  • Reuben
  • The Node
  • The New Austerities
  • Morning Crafts
  • The Passing of a Profit & Other Forgotten Stories
Sponsored Links
Alaska Chaga Antelope Hill Publishing Paul Waggener Breakey Imperium Press American Renaissance A Dissident’s Guide to Blacks and Africa The Patrick Ryan Show Jim Goad The Occidental Observer
  • Rss
  • DLive
  • Telegram
  • Gab
  • Entropy
Copyright © 2022 Counter-Currents Publishing, Ltd.

Paywall Access





Please enter your email address. You will receive mail with link to set new password.

Edit your comment