Counter-Currents
Tag: the marketplace
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August 3, 2023 Alain de Benoist
Against Liberalism:
Society Is Not a Market,
Chapter I, Part 3: What Is Liberalism?
The holistic society of the Middle Ages, as embodied in the “Three Orders of Mankind,” began to be broken down by the coming to prominence of the marketplace with the rise of nation-states.
The holistic society of the Middle Ages, as embodied in the “Three Orders of Mankind,” began to be broken down by the coming to prominence of the marketplace with the rise of nation-states.
4,142 words
Part 3 of 3 (Introduction Part 1 here, Chapter I Part 2 here)
Translated by F. Roger Devlin
This strictly economic representation of society has considerable consequences. Finishing off the process of secularization and “disenchantment” of the world that is characteristic of modernity, it results in the dissolution of peoples and the systematic erosion of their particularities. At the sociological level, the adoption of economic exchange leads the society to be divided into producers, owners, and sterile classes (such as the former aristocracy) at the end of an altogether revolutionary process. (more…)
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The Scottish economist Adam Smith, who understood the ways in which the market would transform human relations already at the dawn of liberalism.
The Scottish economist Adam Smith, who understood the ways in which the market would transform human relations already at the dawn of liberalism.
3,287 words
Part 1 of 3 (Introduction Part 1 here, Chapter I Part 1 here, Chapter I Part 3 here)
Translated by F. Roger Devlin
Liberalism must, however, recognize the fact of society. But instead of asking why the social realm exists, liberals are mainly preoccupied with understanding how society is able to establish itself, maintain itself, and function. Society, as we have seen, is for them nothing but the sum of its members (the whole is nothing but the sum of its parts). It is nothing but the contingent product of individual wills, a mere assemblage of individuals all seeking to defend and satisfy their particular interests. (more…)
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The early philosophers of liberalism postulated the “noble savage” as the type of man encumbered by social problems who had existed prior to the advent of civilization, and who still prevailed among the primitive peoples Europeans encountered in the rest of the world. (Detail from Benjamin West, The Death of General Wolfe, 1771.)
The early philosophers of liberalism postulated the “noble savage” as the type of man encumbered by social problems who had existed prior to the advent of civilization, and who still prevailed among the primitive peoples Europeans encountered in the rest of the world. (Detail from Benjamin West, The Death of General Wolfe, 1771.)
3,856 words
Part 1 of 3 (Introduction Part 1 here, Introduction Part 3 here, Chapter 1 Part 2 here)
Translated by F. Roger Devlin
Not being the work of a single man, liberalism has never presented itself as a unified doctrine. The authors who have laid claim to the name liberal have sometimes given divergent and even contradictory interpretations of it. Yet there must have been enough points in common between them to consider them liberal authors. It is precisely these points in common that allow us to define liberalism as a school. (more…)
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The Paris Commune of 1871, one of Europe’s first attempts to seek an alternative to liberalism.
The Paris Commune of 1871, one of Europe’s first attempts to seek an alternative to liberalism.
3,103 words
Part 3 of 3 (Introduction Part I here, Introduction Part II here, Chapter 1 Part 1 here)
Translated by F. Roger Devlin
Let us sum up. Man is a “social animal” whose existence is consubstantial with that of society. Justice in the first instance is not a matter of rights but of measure; i.e., it is only defined as a relation of equity between persons living in society, so there are no holders of rights outside social life, and within it there are only those to whom rights are attributed. (more…)
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5,704 wordsPart 2 of 3 (Introduction Part I here, Introduction Part III here)
Translated by F. Roger Devlin
Now, for liberalism, man — far from being constituted as such by his bonds with others — must be thought of as an individual unbound by any constitutive form of belonging; i.e., outside any cultural or socio-historical context. (more…)
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1,282 wordsPart 4 of 4 (Part 1 here, Part 3 here)
Translated by F. Roger Devlin
The history of modernity can be understood at least in part as a gigantic process of uniformization. Induced by philosophico-moral or political universalism and the diffusion of techniques for the modeling of behavior more effective than those of the most centralized dictatorships, it has expressed itself in the West by the gradual eradication of differentiated ways of life, (more…)
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The Varangian Guard of the Eastern Roman Empire.
The Varangian Guard of the Eastern Roman Empire.
1,783 words
Part 3 of 4 (Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 4 here)
Translated by F. Roger Devlin
Just as it would be vain to oppose to abstract equality a similarly abstract inequality, it would in my opinion be mistaken to try to oppose nationalism or ethnocentrism to the ideology of Sameness. (more…)
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Mencius Moldbug
Mencius Moldbug
2,140 words
If you’re a regular in Dissident Right circles, you’ll probably have heard of Curtis Yarvin, also known as Mencius Moldbug, and his idea of the Cathedral as the decentralized system of control which rules the West today. The basic idea is that the media, academia, Hollywood, and that part of the United States government which Moldbug calls “the Blue government” form a decentralized and leaderless network which is the source of all — or most — of our woes. You can find a good summation of the concept here. (more…)
