Factions of the Rightosphere - Paleos and the Techno-Optimists
Paleoconservatives, Paleolibertarians, and Techno-Optimists.
The previous two articles were based around a broader grouping, Postliberalism and National Conservatism respectively. However, this article is less themed. It talks about two ‘Second New Right’ movements that survive to this day: Paleoconservatism and Paleolibertarianism, and a final Third New Right tendency, Techno-Optimism. This article will complete my discussion of the more mainstream tendencies, and in the next entry we will talk about the more explicitly ‘dissident’ movements.
I make the distinction of ‘Second New Right’ because of history. These movements emerged in the 1980s and 1990s, the era of the Second New Right, and even formed a grouping together called the ‘Paleo Alliance’ to resist mainstream conservatism. There is also some distance between them and Third New Right circles, today actually being closer to the ‘Dissident Right’ in many cases, as the Overton Window has changed.
I will spend more time on each of these factions than I did on the previous ones, as I am looking at 3 instead of 4, and there is no broader group that all three fall into, though Paleoconservatism and Paleolibertarianism are connected, in history if not in ideology. The Paleoconservative section is very long in particular because the label is often misused and I feel it is important to make the unique characteristics and distinctions clear.
Let’s jump in!
Paleoconservatives
Introduction
Very simply, Paleoconservatives represent a reconstituted form of the ‘Old Right’ of William Howard Taft, his son Robert A. Taft, and Calvin Coolidge. They believe in limited government (but not laissez-fare or the absolutist ‘taxation is theft’ like Paleolibertarians), non-interventionist foreign policy, protectionist trade policy, State’s Rights, and moral traditionalism.
They have a mixture of views on economics. The majority would support various economically interventionist policies, but on a subsidiarity-basis, being strong believers in the 10th Amendment and Originalism, and the idea of the federal government only intervening in tasks the states cannot do themselves. They are very socially conservative by modern standards, making no concessions to the LGBT rights movement, something that has disgraced Conservatism Inc.
Uniqueness of Paleoconservatism
In many ways, the Paleoconservatives, an America-exclusive tendency, share many similarities with the National Conservatives of the various subgroups in the United States. They believe in maintaining American demographic integrity through sharply reducing immigration, protecting domestic industry with high tariffs, only intervening in foreign conflicts when American interests are at stake, and strengthening the role of traditional religion and the family.
So why did I not put the Paleocons in the broader NatCon article, especially since Paul Gottfried, a leading Paleocon and the only major figure in the original movement still writing, signed the NatCon Statement of Principles?
It is because of history. Authentic Paleoconservatism is not just the American version of National Conservatism; it speaks to a very specific set of historical, cultural, and regional circumstances. They have a unique conception of American national identity, the constitution, the legitimacy of Southern identity, States Rights, and US relations with Israel, all of which I will address in this article.
The American Conservative magazine is often described as Paleoconservative, sharing some of the core policy tenets, and in fact was founded by Pat Buchanan in the early 2000s to build a common conservative front against the Iraq War. However, many of the contributors of The American Conservative actually fall into a more generalised ‘Third New Right’ tendency, especially when Rod Dreher, who became a traitor to the Rightosphere with the Thomas Achord Affair, had his notable column.
Paleoconservative Origins and View of America
Paleoconservatives see the United States as an extension of Anglo-Saxon civilisation, not as a propositional nation or a ‘nation of immigrants’. In their narrative, The American Revolutionary War was fought to protect the historic rights of Englishmen under the Magna Carta, not universal human equality. They tend to be very critical of the Declaration of Independence’s ‘All Men Are Created Equal’, although Gottfried does emphasise, when critiquing the Postliberal critique of liberalism, that this wasn’t the sole narrative of America and there were other competing ones, like that of the Antebellum South; they just lost, though it took a violent civil war to defeat them.
If ‘The American Conservative’ represents a watered down, milder, more religiously conservative and therefore ‘safer’ form of Paleoconservatism, Chronicles Magazine is the original. It is more secular, but far more taboo when it comes to issues surrounding race and Southern heritage. Other publications include Intercollegiate Review, which is more academic and ‘respectable’, Taki’s Magazine, which leans more towards the White advocacy end, and The Imaginative Conservative, that is slightly more religious-traditionalist.
Russell Kirk, a major writer of National Review in its 1950s heyday, was the major inspiration for the Paleoconservative movement. Kirk revived Burkean traditionalism in America, a nation which was previously seen to be a purely liberal country due to its lack of a hereditary aristocracy.
His work, most notably his masterpiece ‘The Conservative Mind’ (1953), de-emphasised a lot of the more propositional character of America, and focused on the continuity between the pre-independence colonies and the original constitution. Kirk was also a writer of fiction, and focused on ‘metapolitical’ concepts that many modern readers would find hard to follow or see much point of. However, this has given the Paleoconservative movement an intellectual sophistication that is matched by few other factions, with a highly rich tradition of ideas and thought.
Kirk was very critical of libertarianism. Even though he believed in the classical liberalism of the Anglo-Saxon tradition, he recognised the libertarians as ultimately incompatible with the more tradition-centric and communitarian worldview he espoused, and therefore was one of the first to denounce ‘Fusionism’. Kirk distrusted big government, but also big business, and his conservatism was rooted in localism and subsidiarity. It was on this localist basis that he defended the South, seeing Jim Crow as a ‘tradition’ which should not be violated. He also defended John C. Calhoun and John Randolph’s political theory of States Rights and Compact Theory.
Paleoconservatives on Race and Southern Identity
The Paleoconservative refusal to totally denounce the history and culture of the Old South is one of the key things that makes them only barely respectable amongst National Conservatism types. The default response of NatCons to Critical Race Theorists is to say ‘it was all the South’s fault’ and to bring up Abraham Lincoln as ‘The Great Emancipator’, with the Union victory proving that Whites are not inherently guilty of racism.
Yoram Hazony said that Jim Crow was a utter disgrace and the federal government had a moral duty to intervene. He thinks it was shameful that the federal government did not intervene earlier, and that the Civil Rights Movement was justified due to this lack of federal action. For Hazony, his focus is more on when the federal government, particularly the activist court, mandated that religion be banned from the public square, in all states, through rulings like Everson vs Board (1947) and Engels vs Vitale (1962).
Claremonters say that Title II and Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act went too far, but the vast majority of the Civil Rights Movement, when it came to African-Americans living in the Jim Crow South, was justified, and in fact was the final fulfilment of Lincoln’s ‘Emancipation Proclamation’, itself the final fulfilment of the Declaration of Independence.
Paleoconservatives don’t abide by the racism taboo, nor are willing to throw the South under the bus in defence of wider White America. They instead see a slippery slope, whereby attacks on the South end up being attacks on all of White America, something arguably proven when the BLM Rioters tore down statues of Lincoln and the Founding Fathers after toppling those of Confederate Generals.
They do not believe that Brown vs Board (1954) and Loving vs Virginia (1967) were justified, a view that would be almost universally shunned in modern America, even amongst hardline social conservatives. Even though they personally may oppose racial segregation, they believe it was not the federal government’s, let alone the court’s, responsibility to make such a decision.
A great influence on Paleoconservatism was the Southern Agrarians/Traditionalists, writing in the 1920s and 1930s, that romanticised the Antebellum South as a more virtuous time compared to the industrial-capitalist one they were writing in. The Southern Agrarians were likewise influenced by various 19th century agrarian populists like John Taylor of Caroline, John Randolph of Roanoke, and even John C. Calhoun, the infamous defender of slavery that, it must be admitted, gives a very good attack on the ‘natural rights’ and ‘all men are created equal’ discourse of the founding, echoing a critique in some ways similar to that of Patrick Deneen, but taking it further and in a more proto-Nietzschean direction.
This is not to say Paleoconservatives believe that Blacks should be legally inferior to Whites or want to bring back Jim Crow, even those that are explicitly White Nationalists like Sam Francis, but they have a principled commitment to State’s Rights and the interests of Whites, that overrides commitment to racial equality.
In both Pat Buchanan and Paul Gottfried’s discussions of the American Civil War, they believe that the North had just as much legitimate interest in winning the war as the South did. However, they take the view that the South was morally and legally in the right, as the constitution gave states the legal right to secede, whereas the North’s interests were economic and strategic.
Paleoconservatives on Israel
A major point of contention between Paleoconservatives and Neoconservatives historically is on the question of Israel. And the specific Paleocon orientation on this issue is quite distinctive compared to modern National Conservatives.
Most NatCons, even if they don’t believe in taxpayer funded support for Israel, are well disposed towards Israel itself. Auron MacIntyre also has this view.
However, most Paleoconservatives have misgivings about the ‘Jewish lobby’, and the predominantly Jewish nature of Neoconservatism and Israel support; something noted even by Jews like Paul Gottfried. Many Paleocons, particularly those of an earlier generation, do not just avoid the adamant support for Israel coming from Neocons, but in some cases actively support Palestine.
This to me is completely unnecessary and is motivated in genuine antisemitism. But the presence of some of this persuasion would be a very big divide between Paleoconservatives and mainstream National Conservatives, the movement of which was created by an Israeli.
It is by no means all Paleoconservatives who have a distinctly hostile view on Israel. For instance, Paul Gottfried distinguishes the foreign policy of Paleoconservatism as simply its ‘America First’ posture, and says many Paleoconservatives are actually well disposed towards Israel, they are just smeared by Neocons who want to prioritise American aid to Israel as antisemitic, just because they think America has no strategic interest in intervening in the Middle East.
But the ‘Paleoconservative’ label is often defined as being antisemitic because some take ‘anti-Zionism’ beyond simply an ‘America First’ policy, and see Israel as a hostile force.
Postliberal vs Paleoconservative Critiques of Liberalism
It is interesting to compare the reception of liberals to the critiques of liberalism made by the Postliberals, and those made by Paleoconservatives.
The Postliberal critiques are in a sense more reactionary, as they renounce the entire foundation of America and go back to the 17th century, wanting to replace it with, implicitly or explicitly, a Reactionary Catholicism. The critique of liberalism Patrick Deneen offers in Why Liberalism Failed (2018) is that Social Contract Theory, espoused by John Locke and the Founding Fathers, is excessively ‘individualistic’ by seeing the seeing the state as a contract between individuals instead of acknowledging the classical (and scientifically proven) notion of humans being social creatures. But crucially, as a Catholic, Deneen never criticises the liberal focus on equality, as his religion compels him to agree with the sentiment of ‘all men are created equal’.
The Paleoconservative critiques are far more taboo, because whilst they are critical of individualism, their chief critique is of the idea of ‘equality’, something far more taboo to criticise, as it is a sacred value to both leftists and liberals and has defined the post-WWII order. They also are unafraid to discuss race, and present a sympathetic account of the Confederacy, which makes them toxic to the 2020s mainstream.
History of Paleoconservatism: Paul Gottfried and Pat Buchanan
Living until 1994, in his old age Russell Kirk would go on to be a part of the movement he inspired, though he was never its leader. Even he was more universalistic than the Paleocons inspired by him, reacting against the ultra-universalism of the Neocons.
The leaders of Paleoconservatism would belong to two men, Paul Gottfried and Pat Buchanan.
Paleoconservatism arguably began in the mid 1970s with the Rockford Institute, and its publication of Chronicles Magazine, which was linked to a Southern Agrarian, semi-Neo-Confederate stance, that would grow throughout the 1980s. But the term ‘Paleoconservative’ would only be termed by Paul Gottfried at the end of the decade.
Gottfried was the key intellectual, who in the middle of the 1980s sharply broke with the Conservative mainstream due to its support for Straussian, Neoconservative ideas. The tipping point had been the Mel Bradford Affair, after which, the Intercollegiate Studies Review and Philadelphia Society became some of the only conservative institutions that did not become controlled by the NeoCons. As an ethnic Jew, he represents the secular wing of Paleoconservatism.
Pat Buchanan is a Catholic, and represents the more ‘religious right’ inclined tendency. He was also the political frontman.
Buchanan was an establishment figure, having served in the Nixon and Reagan administrations, and having his own television show ‘Crossfire’ on CNN. However, after the end of the Cold War, he became an opponent of the continuing presence of America abroad, wanting the United States to enjoy the ‘peace dividend’ instead of continuing to intervene in other countries where America had no direct interest. He also opposed the globalised free trade of mainstream conservatives, correctly predicting it would threaten the prosperity of the American worker and middle-class.
He launched his Presidential campaign in 1992 against George H. W Bush for betraying his promise of ‘no new taxes’. Though he would ultimately lose to and endorse Bush Sr, he did better than many expected in the GOP primaries. At the 1992 Republican convention, he would make his historic, Cassandra-like speech, understanding the existential stakes of the culture war before most had even heard it, indeed popularising the word ‘culture war’. In our Woke age, we can say that he was one of the most vindicated men in American history.
Pat Buchanan also continued the isolationist tradition that had been personified in people like Robert A. Taft, who opposed American entry into WW2. The Paleoconservatives, predominantly a ‘Silent Generation’ phenomenon, attack the Boomer Truth Regime at its core. They do not accept the mythologised version of WWII, which they correctly sense to be the foundation of the Woke narrative. Pat Buchanan’s ‘Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War’ (2008) was condemned by mainstream historians as violating the taboo on ‘WW2 Revisionism’ by suggesting that Britain had been wrong to continue fighting with Hitler in 1940. As the Cold War has ended, and the Boomers have taken over institutions as the Greatest and Silent Generation’s retired, there is a much greater taboo on this sort of rhetoric, and hence why the Paleoconservatives are not really accepted even within National Conservative circles.
Sam Francis
Another notable Paleoconservative would be the late Sam Francis (although very notably, and similar to myself, disliked the word ‘conservative’, and preferred to call himself ‘right-wing’, ‘nationalist’, or ‘America First’), who drew on James Burnham and the Italian Elite Theorists to analyse the structure of power and elites in the United States, being a crucial link to the modern Neoreactionaries. He was the first to really develop an analysis of the gatekeeping role of the conservative movement in his 1993 book ‘Beautiful Losers’, and championing the ‘Middle American Radical’, a term he coined, as the class with the potential to overthrow the managerial regime. At the end of the 1990s he was barred from ‘respectable’ circles due to his increasingly open White Advocacy, and his Wikipedia page in the first sentence refers to him as a ‘white supremacist writer’.
In his famous work published posthumously, Leviathan and It’s Enemies (2005/2016), he would term the phrase ‘Anarcho-Tyranny’ to describe the modern liberal state. Whilst his death was mostly unnoticed back in 2005, in recent years he has become something of a prophet in Dissident Right circles, and I would highly recommend checking out his work.
Auron MacIntyre
Many of Francis’ analysis is echoed by Auron MacIntyre, who I would put in the Paleoconservative camp as a chief modern representative.
MacIntyre focuses on Red States taking action against Wokeism within their states, preferring DeSantis to Trump on a personal and policy level, but emphasising that he should ‘stay in Florida’, something which has since been vindicated as his disastrous Presidential run sapped a large amount of his political capital. Ignoring federal orders as the Empire grows too large to manage its periphery, a parallel of how empires collapsed in the past, is the path MacIntyre advocates to destroy the Woke regime in the United States.
As a Southerner, MacIntyre is very well connected to the Paleoconservative tradition, though he is also a hardline Christian. Not that those are historically incompatible, but in the modern day, even ‘conservative’ Christians will look at Southern heritage with suspicion, with the 1970s Evangelical ‘Moral Majority’ Christian Right serving in many ways as a replacement for the traditional Southern identitarianism; the former Jim Crow states becoming more religious as explicit White identity was made taboo.
Auron MacInyre’s views are somewhere between Dissident Right and Third New Right, not dismissing people like DeSantis and Rufo, but still thinking that a more radical institutional change will be required, most likely a disintegration where something like the Confederacy is recreated, though not in the exact same form. I am looking forward to reading his upcoming book ‘The Total State’, which I’m sure will become part of the Third New Right canon.
Other Paleoconservatives
Other notable Paleoconservative individuals include Taki Theodoracopulos, Thomas Fleming, Clyde Wilson, Claes G. Ryn, William S. Lind and Pedro Gonzalez (Ultra-DeSimp, which hurt his reputation). Robert Bork, with his Originalism unapologetically denouncing even the Civil Rights decisions of Brown vs Board and Loving vs Virginia, in many ways personifies the Paleocon mindset even if, as a lawyer, he wasn’t formally associated with it. Chronicles gave him a highly favourable obituary.
Another example of younger Paleoconservatives would be John Doyle and American Virtue. These seem very focused on Christianity, particularly Catholicism. I don’t really understand how Catholicism can be compatible with Paleoconservatism, especially under Pope Francis, though it unquestionably has been to a great many of devout Catholic Paleocons.
American Virtue however represent some of the more ‘cringe’ and low-class parts of Paleoconservatism, taking it in a more explicitly ‘religious right’ direction and obsessing over about abstinence, purity and ‘fallen women’, a strawman version of Paleoconservatism in an article that Paul Gottfried critiques. I’d say these are Paleoconservatives but a very crass, cheap version; very far away from Chronicles.
Tucker Carlson has been described as a Paleocon and I’d say that is partially true, but he also indulges in some kookiness and conspiracism which many of the more intelligent Paleocons wouldn’t. He has also said he supports (or at least ‘accepts’) gay marriage, which would disqualify him as being a true Paleocon.
Nick Fuentes and the Groypers are also sometimes grouped as Paleocon, but I don’t think that’s correct. Fuentes is a Theocrat and a Neo-Nazi (a weird contradiction, I don’t know how one can be both a Catholic Integralist and a Nazi) who is just wearing a Paleoconservative costume.
Conclusion
The Paleoconservatives are sort of the ‘bridge’ between the Third New Right and the Dissident Right. Having been vanquished from Conservatism Inc. (a term Paul Gottfried termed), at least until Trump when it was somewhat revived, a strong pessimism is impossible to ignore in Paleoconservative writings. Magazines like Chronicles are the remnants of an earlier tradition that largely died, and is being ‘reconstructed’ by more modern movements in a ‘garbled form’.
However, the ones reconstructing it, not just watering it down, are closer to the Dissident Right than the Third New Right. Paleoconservatism has inspired both the 2010s Alt-Right (Richard Spencer was an associate of Gottfried and even wrote for The American Conservative before branching off into his own movement), and the 2020s Dissident Right, with people like Auron MacIntyre.
Paleoconservatism is an incredibly rich movement, and I have a lot of time for it at its best. It is absolutely correct to highlight the obsession with ‘natural rights’ as a key problem, as well as separating the individualistic character of the Anglo-Saxon tradition with expressive individualism, as I have discussed. I think they represent a conservatism that is rooted in reality, in an understanding of human nature, and represent far more of what right-wing politics should be with the emphasis on subsidiarity and Originalism.
I do take issues with some of the more overtly religious and antisemitic tendencies, and would likely be closer to the Claremonter position on Civil Rights, but I do think they’re on the right track. It it is an America-specific ideology, so as a Brit I wouldn’t call myself ‘Paleocon’, as such a thing over here would be taken to mean a High Toryism as opposed to a localist, middle-class populist ideology that it is in America. Like Sam Francis, I have issues with the word ‘conservative’. But for its ideological consistency and clearsighted analysis, I would say Paleoconservatism is one of the best Rightosphere factions when in its intelligent form.
Paleolibertarians
Introduction
Paleolibertarians subscribe to the Austrian School of Economics and champion laissez-fare, free banking, and sound money whilst opposing fiat currency. They have an absolutist view of property rights, seeing taxation inherently as ‘theft’ and even when they aren’t Anarcho-Capitalists, see it as, at best, a necessary evil. They place a strong emphasis on the Non-Aggression Principle (NAP) as the core means of operating society, and loathe the institution of the state, as to them it does not fulfil their absolutist view of the ‘Social Contract’.
Notable Paleolibertarians include Murray Rothbard, Lew Rockwell, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Ron Paul, Tho Bishop, Javier Milei, Catgirl Kulak/Anarchonormiecon, and Radical Liberation. Organisations espousing Paleolibertarianism include the Mises Institute and the Mises Caucus (Libertarian Party).
The Paleolibertarians hate mainstream Libertarians like the CATO Institute and Reason as much as Paleoconservatives, seeing them as agents of the regime and not true libertarians. They emphasise that libertarianism does not mean social permissiveness, indeed Hoppe, in ‘Democracy: The God That Failed’ (2001) talks about ‘Covenant Communities’ with the right to expel ‘deviants’. Paleolibertarians, even people like Ron Paul who did this before it was more accepted, very much emphasise free association and how Title II and Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act completely ended it; something that mainstream ‘socially liberal and fiscally conservative’ libertarians would be aghast by.
Paleolibertarians take a more principled anti-government stance, which would include defending the rights of white-only spaces (and black-only, interestingly Murray Rothbard had a lot of time for Malcom X, with his focus on black self-improvement as an alternative to Martin Luther King’s forced integration.)
This faction was dormant for a while, as in the late 2010s most of the ‘Third New Right’ blamed libertarians for the modern conservative movement’s sell-out on the culture war, and being inherently passive in the face of Wokeism.
However, Nayib Bukele in El-Salvador and Javier Milei in Argentina have led to something of a resurgence in the last year in the Anglosphere, and it is up in the air where this could lead.
I will explain the history of Paleolibertarianism and compare it to other factions.
History
Paleolibertarianism was first established by Anarcho-Capitalists Murray Rothhbard and Lew Rockwell, who strongly disagreed with the embrace of alternative lifestyles that was the main focus of ‘Beltway Libertarians’ (1) like the CATO Institute, and later Reason Magazine.
Despite their differences, they got behind Pat Buchanan in 1992 with the ‘Paleo Alliance’ and the ‘John Randolph Club’ (After John Randolph of Roanoke). However, they broke with Buchanan and the Paleocons on the issue of free trade and also the role of government, with the Paleolibertarians taking a more fundamentalist view of ‘taxation is theft’, whereas the Paleocons supported government intervention in certain instances.
In the 2000s the tradition developed, and it has indeed inspired Neoreactionary thinkers. Hoppe in ‘The God That Failed’ makes the case that Monarchy, aka privately owned states, are better than democracies because of a lower time preference. The book is an interesting transitional piece between Anarcho-Capitalism and Neoreactionary thought. It still has the fundamentalist view of private property rights and taxation, seeing any taxation as theft and only a necessary evil, core to Anarcho-Capitalist beliefs and absent in NRx. But it also has some proto-NRx points about how Monarchy is less bureaucratic and more ‘Formalist’ around where power actually lies.
In the late 2000s and early 2010s, Senator Ron Paul had a large political movement around him. He was a more realist Paleolibertarian, not an Anarcho-Capitalist, but a federalist who supported States Rights and the 10th Amendment, essentially wanting the American state as it existed pre-1913. He was one of the first figures in the GOP to criticise the War on Terror and the Iraq War, a major taboo at that time, and did not indulge in the ‘lifestyle libertarianism’ that other libertarian groups did, though as Tho Bishop from the Mises Institute talks about, they were aligned for a brief moment in the early 2010s.
Since Trump, the movement was dormant, as a more protectionist and economically interventionist stance was adopted. The major sticking point between Paleoconservatives and Paleolibertarians is on the question of free trade and the role of the state, with the Postliberals that emerged out of Trumpism decidedly anti-libertarian. But Javier Milei has revived interest in these ideas from the right, seeing the failures of Peronism in Argentina in relation to the tyrannical state control over Covid lockdowns.
Differences Between Paleoconservatives and Paleolibertarians
The key differences with Paleoconservatives are economics and the role of the state.
Paleoconservatives see a role for the state as promoting the common good, even at the smallest possible level as they are distrustful of big government. They see taxes as, whilst they should be as low and as locally raised as possible, as part of civilisation, as they understand human beings have always lived in groups. To Paleocons, the state has various important functions, for instance through policing, defence, and the building of infrastructure, even if it should be minimal and the ‘common good’ involves a large amount of individual freedom. As mentioned previously, they fundamentally reject the doctrine of ‘natural rights’ that animated the Declaration of Independence and John Locke.
Paleolibertarians strongly disagree with all of this. They take the ‘natural rights’ discourse to the extreme, though in a very different way to the Claremonters, echoing Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Lysander Spooner in their belief that the ‘Social Contract’ literally means a ‘contract’ that any individual can opt-out of, and indeed see those figures as a precursor to Anarcho-Capitalism, which not all of them subscribe to but are at least adjacent to. They believe taxation to be theft, and even when it does exist, see it as a necessary evil (aka, Hans Hermann Hoppe) rather than morally neutral depending on the type, the amount, how it’s spent (Paleoconservatives).
On economics, the main sticking point is tariffs, with virtually all Paleoconservatives supporting strong tariffs and virtually all Paleolibertarians embracing free trade. Most Paleolibertarians will also reject anti-trust measures, whilst Paleoconservatives, in the tradition of figures like William Howard Taft, think that sometimes this is justified. When it comes to Lochner vs New York (1905), Paleoconservatives reject it as they put States Rights above private property rights, whereas most Paleolibertarians support it as they put private property rights above States Rights.
Whilst people like Pat Buchanan more a less wanted to recreate the economics of the 1950s New Deal era with the Bretton Woods System, or something similar to it, there are some Paleoconservatives that want to return to the Gold Standard as they are distrustful of big government and the uncontrolled spending that fiat money creates. Paleoconservatives tend to like Glass-Steagall and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, even if they oppose most of the New Deal, whilst Paleolibertarians want to abolish the Federal Reserve entirely, which some Paleoconservatives do but it’s not a major issue for them.
Difference Between Paleolibertarians and New Fusionists
New Fusionists don’t depart from the orientation of mainstream establishment conservatism, either not focusing on economics, or adopting Chicago School-adjacent ideas. There are some New Fusionists who have a more radical economic posture, but won’t see laissez-fare economics as their core issue.
In contrast, Paleolibertarians have a far more radical economic orientation, with private property rights being their core principle. They reject the mainstream neoliberal ideas of the Chicago School in favour of the Austrian School, with all Paleolibertarians wanting the Federal Reserve and fiat money abolished.
It is also inaccurate to claim that they are ‘socially conservative’ as a matter of state policy, as unlike the New Fusionists who do combine an economically neoliberal programme with state action to promote traditional values and restrict immigration, Paleolibertarians simply desire to create private communities based on traditional values and social cohesion (including racially homogenous communities), without any state interference, for instance by repealing Title II and Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
Evaluation and Conclusion
As you can probably tell, I am more inclined towards Paleoconservatism than Paleolibertarianism; but I do not discount some of the things the Paleolibertarians have to say. Radical Liberation’s podcast with Auron MacIntyre is very interesting and insightful, with RadLib explaining the historical anomaly of fiat money and how FDR issued orders to confiscate people’s gold. Radical Liberation has also done some great research on friendly societies, mutual aid, and fraternal orders, very much rejecting the ultra-individualism of a lot of libertarian thought and showing that one can support communal bonds and social solidarity without empowering a large, unaccountable state.
Likewise, Kulak has rightfully criticised a lot of the puritanical tendencies on the modern Dissident Right, and it was through his book suggestions that I came to see the Confederacy in a different light, realising that they were the more realist and constitutional side, and the Abolitionists the self-righteous ancestors of Wokeism. Austrian economics is also much more relevant today given how fiat money enabled the constant extension of Covid lockdowns; indeed it may be the only thing stopping Kaczynskite prophecies coming true.
As I have mentioned, I think a Paleolibertarian approach absolutely makes sense for Argentina, and I fully support Javier Milei’s reforms in that country, though I do think every country is different and they would be less suited to the Anglosphere.
However, the fundamentalist view of natural rights and Social Contract Theory, even if the Paleolibertarians take those ideas to their best conclusions, I still think are deeply problematic. I agree with Patrick Deneen that such ideas led indirectly to Wokeism. Nevertheless, they have produced a great body of work and they absolutely deserve to be included in this analysis.
Techno-Optimists
So this faction is somewhat a construction of myself, and a grouping of various writers who I think touch upon similar themes. The person who termed the word ‘Techno-Optimist’ was Marc Andressen, who wrote the ‘Techno-Optimist Manifesto’. Other names are Techno-Commercialist, Effective Accelerationist (e/acc), Tech-Right, and even ‘Right-Wing Progressive’.
Some other people I would place in this category are Richard Hanania, Peter Thiel, Brian Chau, Robin Hanson, Ruxandra Teslo, Maxwell Tabarrok, and Elon Musk (not a political theorist but a major leader of this movement). There are many more ‘centrist’ advocates of this techno-optimist approach like Noah Smith, but I wouldn’t really include them on here as this series is focused on the ‘Rightosphere’. There are no formal ‘Techno-Optimist’ publications, aside from the individual Substacks.
These people have different views on various issues. Thiel has been an outspoken opponent of democracy and was Curtis Yarvin’s chief patron, whereas Richard Hanania likes the deceptive elitism of current liberal democracy, and Musk has claimed to support direct democracy.
What unites them all is a dislike of the left’s suspicion of innovation and technological progress, and it putting ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ above a Faustian desire for innovation and expansion. Being highly overrepresented among the tech elite, with Andressen, Thiel, and of course Musk being billionaires themselves, they seek to create a more rigorously ‘capitalist’ society, a sort of neo-Fordist economy, where tech-barons like themselves are able to shape the world in their image (which would probably be better than now), and a more completely meritocratic system with no concern for unequal group outcomes.
This faction is globalist-inclined. They desire free trade, and at least a functioning legal immigration system; not liking illegal immigration but desiring more legal immigration. They support technology like cryptocurrency and seasteading to be able to escape draconian government regulation, that they see as holding back progress. And they celebrate traditional neoliberal thinkers like Adam Smith and Friedrich Hayek, and of course Friedrich Nietzsche
They believe climate change is real and serious, but want to use Faustian means to combat it, instead of the misanthropic notions of ‘degrowth’ often coming from the left. They strongly support abortion and euthanasia, unapologetically supporting eugenics. They are also at the forefront of developing transhumanism, though are on the right-wing of that movement, being very opposed to transgenderism. For them, AI is a positive, not something to be feared.
They are ‘Vitalist’ in the sense that they are Nietzschean, and virtually all of this faction will be inspired, to a greater or lesser degree, by Nietzschean philosophy.
Peter Thiel has made some great points that we are ‘not living in the future we were promised’. Mid to late 20th century science fiction saw the early 21st century we inhabit as being one of flying cars, personalised robots, and an interplanetary civilisation, and indeed with the rate of progress in space travel in the 1960s that seemed plausible. However, the future we got was severely disappointing'; whilst intellectual power was spent developing addictive web apps, progress in other areas like aerospace and nuclear energy stagnated and in some cases even regressed (the Concorde and speed of building nuclear power plants.)
Thiel blames excessive regulation directed towards the pursuit of left-wing ends, with DEI and ‘health and safety’ weights tied to humanity’s legs, as well as a depletion of the Faustian spirit and drive for greatness that characterised earlier eras, for which he also blames the left.
They see other factions of the right, with its inherent distrust of innovation, as just as suspicious as those on the left. Hanania in particular is loudly and proudly pro-abortion, and frequently condemns the backwardness and ‘slave morality’ of the pro-life crowd. To him, it is a barrier to creating a eugenicist society. Whilst he is a very controversial figure on the right, he does make valid points about their stupidity in many areas, and is fairly enlightened in regards to his views on things like climate change, supporting cultured meat and a phase-out of industrial animal farming.
I am a great admirer of Elon Musk, of course for restoring freedom to Twitter (now ‘X’), but also just for being a great innovator in a way that is rare in our mediocre age. A modern day Thomas Edinson, Henry Ford, and Werner von Braun combined into one, his companies are at the cutting edge of electric vehicles and space exploration. He is one of the few figures of our age who will be remembered in future centuries, and very much qualifies as a ‘great man of history’.
When people like Sohrab Ahmari criticise Musk it makes me angry, as it just seems like plain ingratitude for everything Musk has done for the right, even proudly promoting the documentary ‘What is a Woman’, no doubt motivated by his own personal tragedy of having a child identifying as ‘trans’.
Around a decade ago Musk was very much a ‘smug liberal’, but his views changing for the better give hope that many other members of the billionaire class are persuadable, and them coming onto our society is not proof of co-option, but the mainstreaming of our ideas. He is a fearless fighter against Woke and has sacrificed so much in service to our cause. We owe him our support.
This group is hard to place. Hanania, who is often in the same scene as much of the Third New Right, is actually very different from them on a number of issues; for instance being very unconcerned with the issue of immigration. He is part of this sphere mainly for his very well made critiques and analysis of Wokeism, notably its origins in Civil Rights Law and feminisation of public life.
However, since Dobbs vs Jackson Woman’s Health Organisation (2022) he has become increasingly focused on being pro-abortion, and has spent most of his energy attacking the right. Whereas before he was fairly ‘based’ on issues like LGBT, even more so as he, like myself, came at it from a decidedly secular angle, he is more and more taking the dreaded Antony Karlin approach of siding with them against conservatives, and his X feed is mostly provocative clickbait of him insulting his readers.
Hanania is truly a ‘black sheep’ of the Third New Right for his secularism, being pro-choice and pro-euthanasia, his support of neoliberal economics, and his lack of concern for immigration. However, he does make very insightful and well argued points on the singular issue of Wokeness, hence why he is a part of the ‘canon’ by foundations like ‘National Conservatism’.
The others like Brian Chau, Robin Hanson, Ruxandra Teslo are quite disconnected from the right-wing, National Conservatism scene and instead part of a more tech-oriented scene, but Hanania serves as a bridge between the two worlds. It’s why this is technically included under ‘Third New Right’, but is also quite distinct from the rest of the factions, with a higher status attached to it.
This is good, as it means Rightosphere rhetoric can be translated into high-status language for Silicon Valley elites, who can then create a feedback loop. Listening to how the Civil Rights Act is responsible for Wokeness sounds very different coming from pre-dox Richard Hanania than it does Richard Spencer or Pat Buchanan.
N.S Lyons did a good analysis on what he terms ‘Right-Wing Progressivism’ to describe this faction, which I am mostly in agreement with, except I am more sympathetic to it than he is.
In conclusion, this faction is an important one as it has the era of some very powerful people. Whilst many on the right will dislike this group for not being focused on demographics enough, and indeed in their black-pilled way see the support of tech-billionaires as a betrayal or co-option of the cause, they are a powerful ally in the war against Wokeness, and have the interests of human civilisation at heart. There is nothing to ‘conserve’, as I have stated, we must build something new, our own conception of ‘progress’, and the techno-optimists very much do provide a non-Woke depiction of progress.
Conclusion
Whilst this entry was less themed than the last two, I hope you still enjoyed it. As has become a common recurrence, I would welcome any corrections from those who know these movements better than I do or who are themselves mentioned.
I will do an X poll to see which factions you want me to talk about next.
Thanks for reading, and if you enjoyed this article, please subscribe.
Bibliography
Hawley, G. (2017). Right-Wing Critics of American Conservatism. pp. 116-178. University Press of Kansas.
Hanania is a troll who will say whatever will get most clicks. Anatoly Karlin never had an original idea in his life. Started as a Bay Area rationalist, tried to do some HBD analysys, then went unhinged russian ultranationalist. I have no idea what he is doing now as I stopped paying attention to him years ago.
Libertarianism is dead because it obsessed about preserving freedom by limiting state power and defending strong property rights only for the woke cultural revolution to take over businesses and NGOs even faster then it did public institutions.
The best in the series so far! Your section dedicated to the Paleocons was a worthwhile read, and I'll be sure to read some of the books you had referenced.