There seems to be confusion as to what neoreaction actually is. Most outsiders focus on monarchy and technology, most other alt-righters focus on it not being their particular brand of right-wing thought. I’ve written an introduction to neoreaction on Reaction Times, but it was a simple description made in relatable terms and doesn’t get to the core of it.

Keldory got the right idea on twitter:

To reduce violence, align actual ownership with actual control (power), and stop lying about the relationship between them. — Keldory (@Keldory20) November 2, 2015

The core of neoreaction is the two interrelated ideas of formalism and neocameralism.

Formalism is the essentialist notion that the symbolic and the real should align, particularly when it relates to power. The mythic, factual, and social truths of power should be the same. He who rules in name should rule in fact, and he who has power should hold an office and title truthfully indicating his power.

Neocameralism flows from formalism. It is the truth that the state is simply a group of people working towards a common goal, it is a corporation. The only difference between it and other corporations are sovereignty and territoriality. Sovereignty is the right to force obedience through violence, while territoriality applies this sovereignty to a particular geographic area.

Formalism and neocamericalism are neoreaction, everything else flows from these two ideas. Combined these ideas give the neoreactionary position: that the state should acknowledge that it is a corporation sovereign with ownership over its particular territory and the residents therein and that it should openly wield and delegate its power as an owner.

Notice how these ideas are rather abstract and lacking in any concrete prescriptions or goals. This is what confuses outsiders and this is why neoreaction can seem somewhat schizophrenic at times. People tend to judge ideologies on their goals and prescriptions, while neoreaction’s only real prescription is ‘make real power and theoretical power converge and wield them openly’, which is a rather vague.

Because of the abstract nature of core neoreactionary ideas, neoreactionaries can mold these ideas into very distinct ideologies. For example, Nick Land and Nick Steves both derive very different prescriptions from neoreactionary axioms.

****

Some clarifications:

One form of neocameralism which was mentioned by Moldbug, the joint-stock corporation government, has been the focus of people criticizing neocameralism. It’s probably unworkable, but the cryptographic joint-stock government is not the core of neocameralism, rather it is one possible prescription derived from it. Sometimes, due to it being included in the original patchwork posts, the two are conflated.

As well, the word corporation can confuse people. Colloquially people generally use ‘corporation’ to refer to large, for-profit organizations, and corporation automatically brings to mind McDonald’s or Monsanto. Corporation in this case is used in its more proper definition: a group of individuals recognized by law as having an independent existence apart from any particular individual. The state being a corporation does not necessitate it being for-profit, impersonal, large, etc. For example, your local church and community clubs are corporations.