Nemesis: The Jouvenelian Versus the Liberal Model of Human Orders is a book about Bertrand de Jouvenel’s model of political power and its further development by C.A. Bond. The book endeavors to show how political ideologies come (or fail to come) to the forefront, as well as explain how mainstream political science is a failure. The preface outlines what led Bond to write the book and gives broad credit to other intellectuals who inspired it, including Jouvenel, Mencius Moldbug, and Alasdair MacIntyre.

The first chapter introduces Jouvenel’s model of human orders, as explained in his 1949 work On Power: Its Nature and the History of Its Growth. Here, the reader is introduced to terminology that will be present throughout the book, such as the majuscule Power that denotes the central governing authority within a territory. The trichotomization of society into center, subsidiaries, and periphery is not unique to Jouvenel or Bond, but some of the understanding of the potential relationships between them is. Bond notes that “Defining the institutions and actors that occupy these various categories according to some set criteria is not particularly fruitful” because “Humans repeatedly invent new forms of organisation,”[1] which is important to remember so as to avoid errors of eisegesis in historical analysis. That the central Power always exists, and should be treated as a complex phenomenon, is a realization that separates Jouvenel (and libertarian reaction[2]) from mainstream libertarianism and allows for greater understanding of social order. Bond goes on to describe the dynamic known to reactionaries as “high-low versus middle” or “Mutt and Jeff,” and to radical leftists as “top down, bottom up, inside out.”

The supposed liberation of the masses as an excuse for the central Power to expand itself at the expense of subsidiaries is a dominant theme throughout the book, as it is the most common dynamic among the three elements in the modern world. In analyzing the role of the periphery, Bond is largely accurate, except in saying that the periphery is “basically irrelevant” and that without support from either the center or the subsidiaries, its actions will be “sporadic and ineffective.”[3] This is usually the case, but there are notable exceptions, such as major domestic terrorist attacks which alter government policy.[4] After describing the subsidiaries in terms of traditional aristocracy, Bond moves on to historical examples. Following Jouvenel, he notes the difference in the level of centralization in European monarchies in the 13th century versus the 18th century. It may be tempting to ascribe this development entirely to the Jouvenelian dynamic, but as Bond is careful to remind the reader, “The ability of these monarchies to centralise control ebbed and flowed with the availability of tools at the monarch’s disposal. Such tools included taxation, coinage, military reform, and law.”[5] In more recent times, electronic surveillance mechanisms must be included in this list. In analyzing the role of coinage in allowing for government centralization, Bond details the historical role of the state in implementing monetary systems, which is not sufficiently acknowledged and dealt with by most free-market economists. The mechanisms by which standing armies use the periphery to grow the central Power at the expense of the subsidiaries is discussed next, followed by the overtaking of common law by legislation. A question arises as to whether the organization of the periphery into institutions which help Power to centralize ought to be described as subsidiaries, albeit of another sort vis-à-vis the aforementioned subsidiaries. Bond concludes the chapter by noting that Jouvenel kept some liberal assumptions which are inconsistent with his own model which must be dealt with in the chapters ahead.

In Chapter 2, we see Bond expand upon Jouvenel’s work and depart from it somewhat. This is because Jouvenel also held that atomized individuals produce society through spontaneous order, and that parts of society can develop independently of Power. Bond disagrees with this, arguing that this modern model has only arisen to prominence by the means described in the Jouvenelian model. He then discusses the types of liberty described by Jouvenel: liberty from one’s own might, liberty under authority, liberty resulting from competition among powers. These are important to differentiate, and too few libertarians have done so adequately. Jouvenel’s differentiation between political and economic liberty also manifests today in the form of the Nolan chart, which is common in mainstream libertarian propaganda. Bond considers Jouvenel’s analysis of the differences between England and France in terms of expansion of aristocratic liberty versus liberty under Power, finding that Jouvenel erred in equating the individual of antiquity with the individual of modernity. In explaining this finding, Bond examines Jouvenel’s account of societal formation, which bears resemblance to the Hobbesian account, but with collective human struggle against a hostile world driving cooperation rather than mutual fear of other humans. (An account recognizing both of these threats would be more accurate, though Bond does not say this.) But by imposing modern individualism upon ancient peoples, Jouvenel commits eisegesis.

In an effort to remedy this fault, Bond resorts to what has become an unusual procedure: to start in the middle of a theory and attempt to work backwards to its first principles. It must be noted that this methodology can be dubious, in that it can produce a logically rigorous theory that does not fit with empirical observation. In other words, it may be internally consistent but externally falsified. The remainder of the chapter briefly explains the anthropological works of René Girard and Eric Gans, which offer possible alternatives to modern liberal anthropology. Bond notes that “The reader may raise issues with hypothetically entertaining such anthropological accounts,”[6] and here I must. Both Girard and Gans offer accounts which are not only highly speculative, but are subject to infinite regress, in that they do not explain how desires and actions originate; only how they propagate. Perhaps they may be provisionally accepted for superior function relative to modern individualism, but that is all. In fact, the origination of human action which is then subject to the selection mechanisms of Power and subsidiaries suggests the kind of spontaneous order that Bond rejects, at least with respect to origins.

The development of the modern concept of sovereignty is the subject of the third chapter. Here, Bond dispels the liberal consensus on political legitimacy, showing it to be nothing but a caricature. In doing so, he explains the origins of the divine right of kings as a response to centralization within the Catholic Church in the 11th century, particularly under Pope Gregory VII. This response “simply altered who the ultimate receiver of authority was,” and “this internal redirection of a tradition repeated in many different areas of political thought.”[7] Bond uses the Protestant Reformation and the modern idea of separation of church and state as other examples of this tactic. He remains properly careful to denote the context of each time period so as to avoid eisegesis. A Jouvenelian explanation for the Calvinist heresy being promoted by secular authorities as a pincer movement against the Catholic Church follows. In doing so, Bond highlights the examples of William of Ockham, Marsilius of Padua, John Wycliffe, and Martin Luther, all sponsored and protected by various secular patrons who were not on the best of terms with the Church, thus viewing these heretical theologians as enemies of their enemies. Next, he shows how social contract theory was reintroduced not for its correctness, but for its usefulness to parties in conflict. The most important takeaway on this subject is as follows:

“The confusing nature of this body of thought—one which has kept political theorists engaged in convoluted and inconclusive debate for centuries—is seen, from a structural angle, to result from it having to accomplish two divergent goals at the same time. In the first instance, this social contract theorising was required to undermine monarchical claims to divine right sovereignty. For this purpose, the claim of the people as the determinants of divine right was employed, and the king was supplanted in the hierarchy. The second use to which these social contract theories were put was in justifying a new political order of a centralised nature, and as such, we get social contract theories of sovereignty.”[8]

Neither man nor idea can serve two masters, and there is no better example on the ideological front for what incompatible ends can do to a means. The final matter treated in this chapter is sovereignty, with the rest of the chapter providing the historical context for it. It is explained that in the Middle Ages, the centralization necessary for the modern concept of sovereignty was simply nonexistent, with power being divided into many local holders. The lack of mention of the Peace of Westphalia is striking, as it is usually taken as the beginning of the modern concept of sovereignty. However, Bond does well to note “the plasticity of this concept, and the tendency of its definition to follow in the wake of whichever centre of power prevails.”[9] The final example, leading into the next chapter, is the stark contrast between the American Articles of Confederation (1781) and the Constitution (1787), the latter of which demonstrates a Jouvenelian dynamic of the people and the federal government against the state governments. Bond neglects to mention that several of the Anti-Federalist writers pointed out this strategy at the time. Brutus, in particular, showed remarkable prescience about how the republic would develop.[10]

The fourth chapter considers theories of the individual as arising from political conflicts. Bond notes that Christian anthropology and its shaping by the Roman Empire provided a basis for centralization and the breaking of societal bonds toward that purpose from that time forward. We then reach the next important insight:

“While many of the rulers and their theological allies do seem to have been devout and sincere, it strains credibility to ascribe to them an appreciation of the ramifications of their claims. The Protestant reformers were attempting to turn the Church back to a primitive state, not to provide the basis for modern empiricism or human rights.”[11]

Modern political scientists are likely to level a charge of conspiracy theorizing against the Jouvenelian model, but the model makes no allegation of formal conspiracy. Rather, Power sees the masses as a tool, and those engaged in political conflict are more concerned with winning their ideological war than with broader ramifications or with what may happen decades or centuries hence. Indeed, to expect them to have our benefit of hindsight is a particularly pernicious form of eisegesis. We then see that the modern concept of the individual was invented to serve the needs of the British Parliament in its dispute with the centralizing push by King Charles I. What Bond fails to state explicitly is the consistent lesson from examples of centralization: top-heavy systems are more brittle than decentralized systems, and tend to collapse when subjected to sufficient stress, which will eventually come. The rest of the chapter details the history of modern notions of human rights as Jouvenelian power plays rather than the principled advances in understanding that starry-eyed establishment propagandists would have us believe. This history gives deeper meaning to Carl Schmitt’s observation,

“The concept of humanity is an especially useful ideological instrument of imperialist expansion, and in its ethical-humanitarian form it is a specific vehicle of economic imperialism. Here one is reminded of a somewhat modified expression of Proudhon’s: whoever invokes humanity wants to cheat. To confiscate the word humanity, to invoke and monopolize such a term probably has certain incalculable effects, such as denying the enemy the quality of being human and declaring him to be an outlaw of humanity; and a war can thereby be driven to the most extreme inhumanity.”[12]

Unlike many histories, Bond highlights the role of non-governmental organizations such as the Ford Foundation in spreading the concepts of human rights. This is important to remember when considering how the Moldbuggian Cathedral continues its agenda apace despite having an uncooperative element in the nominal position of leadership, such as Richard Nixon or Donald Trump. Near the end of the chapter, Bond muses,

“At this point, these rights, unlike the rights of the American Constitution, have no grounding in natural law, nor do they claim to be derived from God; according to the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, they just exist.”[13]

There is an important connection here that Bond does not explicitly make. Just as he noted earlier that “the Pope’s authority derives from his position as the Vicar of Christ; this renders legitimacy unidirectional, and places the origin of legitimacy outside the order in question (emphasis mine),”[14] human rights that “just exist” a priori do the same for progressive liberal interventionists.

Chapter 5 deals with the development of modern political philosophy as a post hoc justification for the liberal centralized state. Here, Bond calls upon the work of Alasdair MacIntyre and uses the Jouvenelian model to provide a method by which MacIntyre’s historical account occurs. But MacIntyre (and Bond) err in rejecting context-independent truth entirely; abstract mathematics provides many examples of such truths, and there are a priori first principles in philosophy which cannot be rejected without committing a performative contradiction. There is also the matter that one may treat as context-independent that which is common to any context that is possibly inhabitable by humans. The more accurate statement is that a particular context can render certain truths imperceptible. Though they are correct to criticize the idea of an atomized “individual shorn of context,”[15] one wonders why the resulting ethical theories of deontology and consequentialism cannot be considered in such a vacuum and then applied to the broader context within which an act is performed. In fact, it would seem intellectually dishonest not to do so. There is also the matter that there is no social order absent the individuals comprising it. Next, Bond explains the context of René Descartes, John Locke, and Francis Bacon at length, showing that they did not express awareness of their own context and its role in shaping their theories. He then correctly[16] rebukes Locke for “placing the acquisition of property prior to, and separate from, authority.”[17] Bond then returns to MacIntyre to explain the decline of ethics, beginning with a sort of functional ethics in which goodness is judged by fulfillment of proper purpose, then declining through the removal of reason and telos, leaving in its wake an ethical chaos in which morals are nothing more than opinions. After offering a Jouvenelian explanation for these changes in ethical philosophy, Bond reveals his purpose in writing the book:

“If we are to progress further than both Jouvenel and MacIntyre through a synthesis of their insights, we shall have to note that in conjunction with Jouvenel’s failure to follow the implications of his thought to theoretical completeness, MacIntyre is unable to account for the developments that he documents. …This work is, in many ways, an attempt to answer this call…”[18]

Although the details are important to provide at book length in order to show the work, Bond gives the correct conclusion immediately:

“[T]he success of a given tradition is often less due to dialectical debate, or to the collective acceptance of the superiority of a given position, than it is due to brute force and institutional prevalence, especially when the issue at hand is one immediately touching on matters of power.”[19]

One is reminded of the famous quote from Max Planck,

“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”[20]

In the last few pages of the chapter, Bond compares the artificial selection by which Power picks ideological winners and losers to the act of patronage. In truth, this is not so much a comparison as a reflexion (for any A, A=A). That those who formulate new ideas are frequently unaware of the role played by institutional patronage is important to remember, but people who suddenly lose such support tend to gain such awareness. Bond’s weakness here is in relying too much upon this selection of ideas by Power for its own purposes, as some ideas succeed simply because they are too true, popular, and/or useful to fail, regardless of what Power wants; the converse is also the case. He also finds language to be a harder limit than it is, for people tend to borrow words from other languages or invent new ones from thin air if they must express a thought and cannot do so with the linguistic tools they have. The problem comes, as Bond correctly notes regarding the word altruism, when this innovation occurs and is then regarded as a universal that was always present before finally being named. Bond then discusses Darwinian thought from a Jouvenelian perspective, which explains the decline of Darwin’s ideas about group-level selection for being incompatible with modern individualism.

In Chapter 6, Bond explores the political thought of ancient Greece, beginning with the six forms of government that they recognized: monarchy, tyranny, aristocracy, oligarchy, polity, and democracy. The terminology differed slightly between philosophers, and Bond strangely avoids mention of Polybius and his theory of anacyclosis. However, his purpose is to show that the definition and development of democracy is the result of Jouvenelian dynamics, and he thoroughly succeeds in this. The case begins with a familiar setup: a nearly powerless king who finds allies in the periphery who have been excluded by traditional family- and clan-based societal structures gradually squeezes these subsidiaries to centralize control. Though the aristocracies across Greece stepped in to thwart such monarchs, it was only a matter of time until tyrants utilized the new structures of authority. Bond compares the reforms of Peisistratus to those of Henry II discussed in Chapter 1 to show that their purposes were identical; make the periphery dependent on Power for various “benefits” in order to strengthen their bond with Power and relatively weaken their bonds with the subsidiaries.

The more important realization is in the comparison between Peisistratus and Solon, one called a tyrant and the other called a democratic reformer. It is important to be not deceived by labels, instead relying upon actions and results. That the Jouvenelian dynamic has occurred for millennia suggests that a method for breaking it is highly elusive, if even possible. The next subject covered by Bond hints at a solution, though he never says as much and only speaks of using technology against the current system in the postface; that the methods for carrying out such Power-periphery relationships must be destroyed. One example of such a method is currency debasement. Bond explains how Solon was able to use a primitive form of it despite the lack of official coinage in Athens at the time. Governments today have a much easier time with debasement by printing paper money or typing whatever they want into digital accounts. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies offer a path toward eliminating this dark power, and other technologies may be developed to eliminate other methods of Power-periphery alliance. However, decoupling money from Power is of greatest importance in this regard, as Bond’s explanation of the role of coinage in the centralization of Athenian Power makes clear:

“By introducing its own coinage, or by fostering the use of foreign coinage introduced by others, the primary Power could now forgo traditional forms of interaction with the power structure, and could, instead, hire individuals and develop new institutions based on this new system of coinage. It could bypass those institutions and relationships that previously kept its centralisation in check… There was no longer a need to rely on relationships and obligations for military resources…

One of the results of this change in relationships is that money disguises the role of Power. Power obviously benefits greatly from money, and there is no incentive for those in power to make it clear that their expansion of a monetary economy is driven by power imperatives, but the connection is undeniable. The effects created by this new web of relations are wide-ranging, because overt, visible intervention of political authority is greatly reduced. Prices can now be widely set by markets, interactions can happen in relatively anonymous ways, and these interactions can be one-off and not dependent on continual relationships; yet, these changes are utterly dependent on centralised Power.”[21]

In other words, Power interprets checks and balances as damage and seeks to route around them, which control over money allows it to do like nothing else. (This is shown more explicitly in Chapter 8.) To complete a trifecta (and avoid cum hoc ergo propter hoc thinking), Bond demonstrates a temporal link between the development of classical Greek philosophy and the development of coinage, both of which served the needs of Power. The rest of the chapter discusses the failure of various political thinkers from ancient Greece to the present to realize how the Jouvenelian mechanism was shaping their own theories. While Bond is correct to note their failures and the inability of political categories to accurately describe reality, he leaves himself (and Jouvenel) open to the same critique that he employed against the word altruism in the previous chapter.

The role of corporations in society is treated in the seventh chapter. Bond begins by examining the history of the concept of a private economy operating outside of Power. He references the work of François Quesnay, who advocated a despotic central government in the Chinese style alongside a free market economy. Here we see a Jouvenelian play against mercantilism, clergy, and aristocrats in favor of absolute monarchy, and the capital generated by free markets brought the masses into such a plan like never before. (This would backfire mightily with the French Revolution; as before, top-heavy systems are brittle and collapse easier than decentralized systems.) Bond next discusses the political context that elevated Adam Smith’s economic thought to prominence, in which Parliament led by Robert Peel used Smith’s ideas to advance his own agenda of centralization. He writes,

“Expansive Power always promotes anarchistic appeals to the individual while it is expanding its own reach further into the order in question. The anarchistic claims are applicable to other power centres, but not to the centralising Power centre itself.”[22]

What Bond never quite says is that Power can do this without fear because anarchists, by their very nature, are unable to develop the kind of infrastructure necessary to oppose Power on its own terms because they are ideologically opposed to the kind of organizing hierarchy that is necessary for such an effort. Of course, those who do attempt to apply such anarchistic claims to the central Power are dealt with as common criminals. The next development Bond covers is the invention of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and the idea of an economy as a measurable statistic, not because this is scientifically or logically sound, but because it served the interests of the Franklin Roosevelt administration in centralizing control. This is unfortunately given only one paragraph, despite having such far-reaching implications. The stage is thus set for Bond to deliver one of the most important parts of the book, and one which complements my own work on the subject of corporations.[23] He chastises Ronald Coase for “failing to recognise that the concept of an economy is intrinsically linked with centralising Power, and is not a brute fact from which we can reason,”[24] though a sharper critique may be to fault Coase for claiming “that in some instances organisation without the price mechanism is more cost effective,”[24] as this seems to undermine a fundamental element of laissez-faire theory. Next, he describes three theories of corporations: artificial (corporations are legal fictions created by the state), real (corporations are real, separate from the state, and formed by individuals), and aggregate/contractual (corporations are a set of contracts between individuals). Bond coalesces the latter two, then sides with the artificial theory:

“The formation of a corporation results from the granting of recognition of personhood by a legal system. This institution—a legal entity recognised by authority—is then granted certain rights which include the ability to own property, the ability to enter into contracts and transactions, the limitation of liability of the human agents of the company to any losses incurred by the company, and the ability to issue shares.”[25]

He then demonstrates this case and illuminates some errors in Milton Friedman’s thinking on corporations. However, Bond recognizes the limits of the artificial theory, noting the example of the university as a different sort of entity, albeit one also recognized (or at least tolerated) by Power. He demolishes the establishment account of the development of the University of Bologna, showing it instead to be the product of student guilds formed for protection by people who were not protected by the laws in Bologna. Only afterward was this universitas guild granted a type of corporate status. Bond writes of this development:

“This is a position which all modern theories of the corporation discount by default, and it is central to modernity that authority cannot have an impact on society beyond the legal, as governance has become synonymous with rule through law. This distinction is a prescriptive one, and not a descriptive one (emphasis mine).”[26]

Bringing this example back to the nature of more modern corporations, he continues,

“If the students had formed into an organisation that the government of Bologna opposed, then it would have resulted in action against this state of affairs—but it did not. Authority recognised the corporate nature of this organisation, and as a result, so did other members of society (emphasis mine).”[26]

To close the chapter, Bond notes that this is particularly relevant for tax-exempt foundations, as the state can use them to act in an unofficial capacity, which plays a major part in the remaining chapters.

In the eighth chapter, Bond finally addresses the subtitle of the book by comparing the Jouvenelian model to the liberal model, the latter of which is frequently called political science. His testing method is to compare their explanatory power, and also to show how the prominence of the liberal model can be explained by the Jouvenelian model. This chapter is worth reading even if one rejects Bond’s thesis, as the history of the Ford Foundation and other such quasi-private actors in shaping policy is little-known in mainstream circles, and neglecting their footprint is a serious error. (In fairness, most conservatives are reflexively hostile to George Soros, but few possess a deep understanding of why they should be.) He details a Ford hand in almost every important aspect of the postwar progressive consensus using the Foundation’s own documents written by H.R. Gaither, Jr. Bond then shows that the Ford Foundation’s view of democracy accords with that in ancient Greece discussed earlier in the sense of being a Jouvenelian power play, and quotes Gaither to devastating effect on how “private” foundations can be used to route around checks and balances on Power. Bond describes the scam thus:

“The foundation—in not even being accepted as part of governance, despite actively being involved in governance—has become an institution exceptionally well-adapted for the expansion of Power. Key to this is the foundation’s ability to present itself as a private and impartial entity…”[27]

He goes on to show that Gaither commits the same error of conflation between the individual of antiquity and the individual of modernity discussed earlier. The final part of the chapter notes the role of Ford Foundation funding in shaping modern political science in the 1950s. After reading this, one is left to wonder which other academic fields have been shaped in this manner, and the disturbing answer is almost all of them.

Chapter 9 examines the common notions of political left and right. Bond notes that these terms are relatively recent, referring to how members of the French National Assembly seated themselves after the Revolution. He then points to a source of confusion:

“That [the left side] were centralising has, in modernity, been completely obscured. It is this central confusion which has rendered attempts to explain phenomena so problematic, and we can see this in detail when we attend to the structures of the relative political wings.”[28]

Next, without explicitly saying so, Bond offers an interesting explanation for the intersectionality of left-wing politics that few have considered. The Jouvenelian dynamic best serves Power when it can appeal to many different peripheral elements in different situations, so it is incentivized to set up such an arrangement between such elements. Just as importantly, if a certain group refuses to play ball, it can be dealt with and others can take its place. Bond writes,

“Granted, some of these groups may direct these attacks against the centralising primary Power, but in this instance, the simple act of withdrawing support suffices to curtail these groups—political significance is a result of institutional existence, and it is the centralising Power that holds the reins of finance, organisational capability, and authority. This act of removing support is a direct demonstration of the selection effects of Power on culture.”[29]

It is not always this simple, but as before, the exceptions tend to be those who resort to terrorism and other criminal behavior, and they usually can be punished appropriately. Bond uses the American Civil Rights Era to show how this functions in practice, including the involvement of the quasi-private foundation funding discussed in the previous chapter. In that time, the United States government allied with racial minorities to expand Power at the expense of the state governments in the name of protecting civil rights. Bond focuses on the Brown v. Board of Education (1954) case in particular, as it is widely considered to be the beginning of the Civil Rights Era and has a clear mark of foundation influence in the studies cited to argue the case. The next example is the Black Lives Matter movement, for which Bond references documents that show a clear Soros involvement. He shows how the Jouvenelian struggle produces an odd misperception of reality that portrays the high as the underdog, the middle as the oppressor, and the low as the “real” middle. Bond briefly discusses a third example involving John Podesta, campaign manager for Hillary Clinton in 2016, trying to undermine the Catholic Church with quasi-private foundations created for that purpose. The next task undertaken in this chapter is to define the right and explain its ineffectiveness. Bond writes,

“The right wing is the agglomeration of actors who find themselves in that segment of the system which is impeding the centralising actions of the elite. This is the ‘reactionary’ element which is responding to the ‘progressive’ actions of the left in the act of centralisation.”[30]

But because the right fails to understand how the elites are operating, it is splintered into a marginalized faction that offers true opposition and a compromised faction which does not. Bond continues:

“Fundamentally, conservatism is an amalgamation of positions and concepts which produce dissenting opinions that are acceptable to this primary Power structure, and are, as such, of no threat. Nowhere is this better demonstrated than in the sad image of Buckleyite conservatism with its intellectual vacuity that allowed for widespread acquiescence to the prevailing power structures that developed in the wake of WWII.”[30]

One may go further and describe this type of conservatism as a rear-guard action to prevent the undoing of leftist gains, or as Michael Malice calls it, “progressivism driving the speed limit.” Finally, Bond explains why it would be an act of eisegesis to use left and right to describe political actors operating well before the modern era, instead favoring Jouvenelian terminology for any primary Power that appeals to a periphery in order to centralize and crowd out subsidiaries.

Geopolitical conflict is the subject of the tenth chapter. Here, Bond explains why the centralizing mechanism has such a unidirectionality: that war-making capability is a function of centralization, and no sovereign wishes to lose a war. He references Jouvenel in showing that several tax revolts in 17th-century Europe were linked by competition toward centralization, and uses the American Civil War as an example of how war centralizes the state. Those deeply familiar with Civil War history[31] will note that the Union won partly because it had a head start on centralization that it never lost. Bond then turns his attention to another important dynamic:

“Whilst this process of centralisation and the undermining of subsidiaries can provide resources for a Power centre, it is open to the possibility of being subverted by another centre of Power and used against the initial beneficiary.”[32]

Bond illustrates this with the example of Wahhabi Islam and its historical relationship to the House of Saud, with influence of the British Empire and, later, the United States. This alone makes the chapter worth reading, as few Westerners are aware of this history, instead viewing radical Islamic terrorism as a foreign threat for which the West is blameless.

Next, he explores the role of Wahhabism in the formation of Pakistan and in the Soviet-Afghan War. In these cases, we again see quasi-private charities providing the funding necessary for political causes and allowing for policy agendas to be accomplished outside of official channels, aided by the lack of a concept of separation of mosque and state. The Jouvenelian blueprint in play is familiar throughout the Islamic world: a tribal society with many local powers is united under a combination of a central state with a religious radical periphery that subdues ethnic sentiments which would divide the nation. Again, Bond neglects the top-heaviness and brittleness of this arrangement, as exposed with the removal of Saddam Hussein in Iraq in 2003 and Muammar Qaddafi in Libya in 2011. In Afghanistan, Bond details just how much help the mujaheddin were getting from American, Saudi, and Pakistani sources. As discussed earlier, most participants in political conflicts are only concerned with the matter at hand, not contemplating what the geopolitical chessboard may look like later. Bond writes,

“US assistance in the process is especially egregious given the consequences of this development, as we saw with the 9/11 attacks. …It appears to have been very clear US policy to encourage the spread of Islam against Soviet governance. That these strict adherents of Islam would have trouble differentiating modern Western states from Soviet states, and would then direct their attention to America, was not deeply considered by Western analysts.”[33]

While this is understandable, in that losing a war makes future considerations irrelevant for one’s faction in the worst cases, it is not necessarily forgivable, especially when the next generation of leaders keeps supporting known enemies. Bond highlights the role of Western support for Wahhabism in the effort to oust Bashar al-Assad, noting that “the Syrian conflict mirrors the Afghan conflict to such a degree that we even see the same dynamic of multiple revenue streams operating concurrently from the Gulf States and the West.”[34] He then explains the current geopolitical arrangement with a cynicism that I can only admire:

“Islamic violence is, in actuality, a valuable resource to elements of Western liberal governments; a resource which, in response to its blowback on the Western world in the form of terrorist attacks, results in the need for management by these same elements.”[35]

In this light, when we hear foreign policy “experts” declare that the fight against Islamic extremism is a generational struggle, they have no idea how correct they are. (Or perhaps they do.) Of course, foreign policy always has domestic consequences, and Bond shows how this Jouvenelian dynamic between Western powers and radical Islam has incentivized the migrant crisis in Europe. The rest of the chapter shows just how much American involvement there was in fomenting the Arab Spring, especially in Tunisia where the protests began, by referencing diplomatic cables that were posted by WikiLeaks. Bond does an excellent job of nudging the reader toward the conclusion that there are no grassroots movements; everything is AstroTurf. Left unsaid is that a benefit of propagating liberal beliefs about bottom-up activism is that enemies who believe and use them are easily crushed, as occurred in Charlottesville in 2017.

The final chapter is about the concept of “the international community.” Bond begins with the Gladio networks formed in 1946 to function as a resistance movement if the Soviet Union should invade Western Europe. That many members of these networks were fascists or even Nazis demonstrates, if it were not crystal clear already, that state actors are amoral, willing to side with anyone if it furthers their goals. He again tests the Jouvenelian model by looking for “appeals to the periphery made through calls to equality and/or individuality as a means to undermine competing centres of power,”[36] and uses CIA records to show that this happened with great frequency. Bond focuses on feminism and anti-racism as movements backed by Power through unofficial channels, for as he correctly says, “The patron and his money are always determinative of what culture flourishes” and “without funding for study, books, finance for attending conferences, and all the other logistical requirements for cultural prominence,” those who went off the reservation “would, and did, slide into obscurity.”[37] He discusses the differences between the American and Soviet theories of feminism, finding that once again, the prevailing theory was not the correct one, but the one most useful to the most powerful actors. He then shows how the anti-racist movement in America was linked to the decolonization movement in Africa, with a Ford Foundation hand in both.

But all of this presents a problem. Bond writes,

“If, as predicted by the Jouvenelian model, this pattern of equalising culture is the result of a centralising Power, then we should be able to locate a similar centre of Power in our 20th century example. At this point, the reader may be confused since we don’t seem to have a centre that fits this mould. Where, then, is the international centralising Power in our modern order?”[38]

Those who are familiar with neoreaction will know the answer, but Bond does not quite say why it is so:

“While many of these concepts have been developed in such a way that they presuppose a centre of Power at the international level, this centre has not been formally occupied, and instead merely exists in potentiality. …Instead, it seems that a rather confused set of elites, operating across the Anglo-American world, have created this situation in a haphazard ideological way in the process of advancing their geopolitical interests.”[38]

The truth is that this center is not formally occupied because that is not in the elites’ rational self-interest. Not having a formal focal point allows them to obfuscate responsibility for their failures and deny their opponents an obvious target for attack. Though this has far-reaching consequences which are terrible for the masses[39], the elites are mostly shielded from such consequences. Most of the rest of the chapter has Bond examining in great detail how this state of affairs in which a US/UK led international community has come to dominate most of the world came to be. In conclusion, he describes the current political situation thus:

“It is not clear what institutions and patrons exist who are in a position to offer a serious alternative, and while there are numerous supposedly illiberal reactions in places such as Hungary, Israel, and now the USA with the presidency of Donald Trump, these movements are remarkably shallow from a Jouvenelian angle. These orders do not offer any major systemic alternative to liberal systems, nor is it clear that they are in a position to do so.”[40]

This is true, but the idea that a solution “must be international in scope”[40] seems misguided when one recognizes that the current order would be dramatically weakened, perhaps fatally so, if some form of upheaval removed the United States government and the private foundations existing under it from said order. This could take any number of forms, from a natural disaster to a military coup to nuclear terrorism. The ascendancy of China as a major world power may also be capable of dislodging the progressive liberal consensus in the fullness of time. That said, Bond’s recommendations for a post-liberal social order are sound:

“Such a system must at once address the issues of internal governance which grant the proponents of liberalism so much power, and must also offer a vision of a geopolitical order which mediates the relationships of the various orders that exist in such a way as to ensure that these orders encourage and foster the goals being pursued, and do not begin to reproduce the systemic basis of liberalism due to geopolitical conflict.”[41]

The final section has the unusual name Postface, and begins with Bond’s explanation for his methodology throughout the book. He then makes an educated guess at “what form an order cognisant of the Jouvenelian dynamic might take in a post-liberal world.”[42] First, he notes that under normal circumstances, the institutional incentives of the current system are designed to suppress Jouvenelian thought. Although technology opens opportunities for building something outside of the current system, it can also empower mass surveillance and censorship. A third, but less effective, option is to use the system’s own methods against it, as per Bond’s footnote at the end of Chapter 10:

“It is somewhat ironic that the election of Donald Trump was facilitated by the very same social media, and has undermined many of the same progressive sections of Power which had so eagerly utilised this means against other regions.”[43]

He goes on to criticize current anti-globalist movements for their failure to understand their place in the Jouvenelian dynamic and their errors in strategy which follow from this. In evaluating the options for bringing about political change, Bond correctly dismisses what one might call mainstream libertarian strategy, seeing it for the counterproductive waste that it has been historically against this monster. But again, he neglects the option of radical violent means of achieving decentralization[44], instead coming to a strategy that is likely to either further the problem or induce an accelerationist collapse:

“Yet, it is only by appeal to some section of this governmental system and the patrons within it that any sort of serious change can occur, and it would seem that in this situation the only hope for such change rests in supporting a hyper-centralised government capable of making wide, sweeping alterations to this order.”[45]

Though Bond correctly notes “patrons will, indeed, be needed, and that no political change can be predicated on organic revolt from the ground up,”[46] he does not mention Bitcoin anywhere in the book, and developments of this nature can allow a dissident movement to patronize itself. Had the dissident Right gotten involved near the beginning of the cryptocurrency movement, the world could be a much different place now, and advising against this may be Moldbug’s greatest blunder.[47] The final advice of the book is worth repeating: build alternative institutions. But one is left with a bold question that goes unasked: what if advances in technology provide means of breaking not just the current system, but the Jouvenelian pattern itself? As I mentioned earlier, a possible strategy that Bond does not consider is to use technology to destroy the ability of Power to make alliances with the periphery.

Overall, this book is one which could radically alter the worldview of a thinker inside the political mainstream, as the conclusion one must draw at the end is that almost nothing is as modern liberalism tells us. Moldbug wrote that “no red pill has any reason to be bitter,”[48] and Bond’s work passes this test. The denseness of the content is sufficient to keep what could have been a dry academic work from being such, and the strength of the bibliography gives good direction to those who wish to know more. The ordering of the book makes sense, in that each chapter sets up the next in some way. That said, there are a few erroneous thoughts which were detailed in the above review. There are also some other historical examples that may strengthen the case, but at the cost of lengthening what is a deliberately concise work.

In order to rate this book appropriately, I must break with my intended scale. Books are normally rated at Zeroth Position on what is effectively a 0–10 scale divided by two, but it is narrower in practice because life is too short to spend it reading a book that deserves a 1/5 or worse rating. The errors and omissions are enough to bring the rating below 5/5, but the importance of this work, the effort that Bond exerted, and the many parts that are correct and piercingly insightful are worth much more than a 4.5/5. I therefore use the novel rating: 4.9/5.

References

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