The Right mostly agrees on what we are against, but there is much less assertion, let alone agreement, regarding what we are for. Ubersoy’s recent manifesto, Right-Wing Progressivism, is an ambitious attempt to remedy this. Coincidentally, “right-wing progressivism” is a term that I coined independently, however my coinage is a pejorative term specifically for third positionism. Ubersoy however, has a significantly different meaning in mind, for he explicitly rejects third positionism’s authoritarianism. Rejection of authoritarianism, however, is far from necessarily libertarian, and Ubersoy’s ideology isn’t libertarian either. It does have a certain affinity with right-wing libertarianism but is also significantly different in interesting ways.
The term “progress” in a political context has been so tainted by left-wing progressivism that it is often used ironically by the Right to refer to the ravages of the former. Ubersoy’s belief in the term’s salvageability is therefore commendably bold. He begins the case for salvage by criticizing the right for being excessively nostalgic and resentful. Just because there is a great deal of subjectivity about what progress actually is does not mean that there isn’t an objective and politically practicable concept out there yet to be properly articulated. A trait that distinguishes the reactionary right from the normie right is objectivity about the effects of evolution on human psychology, so Ubersoy’s evolutionary grounding of his definition is sensible:
“Progress is the process by which an entity enhances its self-organizational structure through innovation.”
In expanding the basis of his basic definition beyond the human realm he helps make his definition objective. In applying this definition to the human realm he refines the “enhancement” term to mean increasing our control of our environment. This is effectively technology. Political engineering is a form of technology that features heavily in Ubersoy’s vision.
The problem that Ubersoy’s engineering seeks to solve is that of harmonizing what he calls the “trialectic”, which comprises the forces of Hierarchy, Freedom, and Democracy. He contrasts this with the dialectic of liberalism and leftism whose synthesis has produced the current regime. To support his concept he cites several examples where he sees parallels: The Holy Trinity – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Spandrell’s three factions of neoreaction – Ethno-Nationalists, Theonomists, and Techno-Commercialists, the slogan of the French Revolution: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, and Dugin’s three modern political doctrines: liberalism, fascism, and communism. While Ubersoy is certainly correct regarding today’s regime, his basis of support for trialectic seems forced, a numerological departure from his usual scientific rigor. The number three does appear to have a particular psychic resonance, likely because it is the number of repetitions required for most people to be able to remember a new piece of information. Ubersoy does not, however, oversimplify his examples by representing them as differing aspects of the same phenomenon. He instead views them as distinct paradigms unto themselves, paradigms that specify trialectics whose contents differ from that of other paradigms. He is not saying that the examples lend support for his particular conception of the trialectic, merely that they support the trialectic as a general concept.
Ubersoy’s proposed political system is what he terms Tektology, which he has engineered for the purpose of harmonizing the trialectic. He believes that through such harmonization, Tektology will maximally facilitate the evolution of the polity, which in turn maximizes human progress generally. A key feature of evolution is differentiation of traits, in biological evolution certain traits are selected for, resulting in a certain integration referred to as speciation. Ubersoy believes that this “integration through differentiation” is applicable to human society as well. This application is well-grounded in its familiar manifestation as division of labor – differentiated skills and interests channeled into specialization that produces a higher level of economic integration. Integration comes about because trade is necessary to realize the advantages of specialization. Not only is the level of integration higher, but also the level of complexity. Increasing complexity of the means by which an entity self-organizes is for Ubersoy another feature of progress.
No proposal for a political system would be complete without a coherent conception of power, so before presenting the specific features of his Tektological system Ubersoy presents a conception of his own. This is a place where his manifesto shines very brightly. Unlike the pretentiously lowbrow on the dissident right, Ubersoy is not uncritically deferential toward Carl Schmitt, whose particularist view of power he describes as “craftier” than most contemporary theorists’ but still decidedly incomplete. Schmitt’s view of power fails to account for instances where particularist exceptions to the general cannot be made because in such instances the general is the laws of nature. Ubersoy is also to be praised for not dismissing liberalism in its entirety out of hand. He praises John Locke as being “among the first theorists to intuitively perceive power as the capacity to instigate change.” It is unclear the basis upon which Ubersoy believes Locke deserves this distinction, however. Although his manifesto is very well-sourced overall, this claim lacks one.
To formulate a proper view of power in society, Ubersoy believes it is necessary to understand “the universal commonalities of power manifested in multiple spheres of being. There are two complementary principles that determine the constitution of universal power: 1. Force of Element/s within the Sphere. 2. Organizing Principle of the Sphere.” The “organizing principle” of a sphere is the element without which all other elements in the sphere become disorganized. The spheres include non-human nature. The law of nature that Ubersoy analogizes to power in society is that of gravitation. In doing so he expresses a view significantly more nuanced than “might makes right”. In astrophysics it is not precisely correct to say that less massive bodies orbit more massive ones; rather both bodies orbit their mutual center of gravity. Ubersoy parts ways further with third positionists in that he regards “higher” types of polities as having the organizing principle of ideology rather than an incarnate leader:
“[I]n highly advanced political orders the polity revolves around its universal principles of organization as it would revolve in programming languages and natural sciences, while primitive political orders are too disorganized to apply a universal social contract for all of its citizens”
Ubersoy also identifies a “differentiating dynamic” that describes elements subject to gravitational forces in the cosmos. This is a parallel to my own concept of “differencing” as the basis of mathematics. An infinite and perfectly undifferentiated continuum (1 aka unity) must be “differenced”, which is to say undone in some way to have operation. The operation of addition that creates the number 2 is a single differencing of 1. The version of the manifesto reviewed here is a first edition only; Ubersoy could strengthen his case by describing differentiation at the most fundamental level in future editions.
Ubersoy offers a cleverly contrarian rebuttal to both liberals and rightists who quote Voltaire’s “to understand who rules you determine who you are not allowed to criticize.”:
“Such a statement is accurate in most cases, yet fails to account for societal values and moral considerations in which certain groups, like veterans, the elderly, the disabled, abuse victims, the pregnant, and many others become morally elevated by society without actually being powerful themselves, for they do not form centers of gravity.”
This view sees a phenomenon like jewish power as complex: While jews may not be able to build centers of gravity on their own, they are adept at presenting themselves as possessed of the sacred qualities that puts groups like those Ubersoy beyond the criticism of most. In doing so they are able to attach themselves to existing centers of gravity in institutions built by other groups.
After an abstrusely theoretical discussion up until this point, Ubersoy takes an abruptly empirical turn with his discussion of institutional capture by leftists. He cites a litany of research showing left-wing dominance of the academic and managerial classes. He uses the term “nomenklatura” from his Russian background as a catch-all term for these classes, which he designates as his equivalent of Curtis Yarvin’s “Cathedral”. The statistics he cites are alarming: 89% of Ivy League graduates and 77% of the top 1% ($150,000 and a postgraduate degree) for instance, support rationing gas, meat, and electricity to fight climate change, compared to 24-25% of the general population. Our “representative democracy” is very much the opposite. This provides justification for the radical reforms to democracy Ubersoy subsequently proposes.
Unlike many others on the Dissident Right, Ubersoy believes that a form of democracy is not only salvageable, but desirable. To explain this he differentiates between qualitative and quantitative democracy. Ubersoy defines qualitative as “being of higher or lower quality”, which is somewhat confusing because this blurs the distinction between difference of degree and difference in kind. Ubersoy associates qualitative democracy with the vertical and quantitative democracy with horizontal. He criticizes the current democratic system for its overextension of the franchise, which increases its magnitude along the quantitative/horizontal dimension at the expense of the qualitative/vertical. The remedy he proposes is a points-based franchise weighted toward right-wing values: Additional votes are granted for being married, having kids, military service, etc. Additional measures he recommends are the dissolution of the nomenklatura, and replacement of the current lawmaking branches of government with what he terms a “directive” branch controlled directly by voters. He recommends a “delegative” branch to enforce the laws, which is essentially what the executive branch was originally intended to be. Ubersoy intends this system to produce “market democracy”, a polity characterized by a high degree of competition between institutions of governance. This aim is consistent with support for decentralized and competitive government that characterizes zeroth positionists. Tendency toward centralization is something that Ubersoy explicitly criticizes both the current system and third positionism for earlier in the manifesto.
Ubersoy’s proposed reforms raise questions: If voting outcomes matter, then why is democracy preferable to a benevolent dictatorship? The standard answer is that democracy produces leadership that is more consistently benevolent. In reality of course representative democracies consistently produce predatory demogogues. Ubersoy’s system partially mitigates this in the directness of its democracy, but leadership positions within the delegative branch, which is elected by the directive one, are still unavoidable. Even the more right-wing electorate his points system would produce would still likely vote for bad policies like Social Security and Medicare if the Tea Party and much of the MAGA movement is any indication. The revised constitution Ubersoy proposes would act as a check to some degree, but the changes Ubersoy chooses (and chooses not) to make to it are downright bizarre: While recognizing that the Civil Rights regime has effectively supplanted the US Constitution, instead of abolishing the former he believes it more expedient to formally integrate it with the latter, only enforcing the Civil Rights Acts’ race-neutral language sincerely and extending protections to political orientation. The first measure is a reinforcement of white genocide’s fundamental mechanism, which is forced integration. Discrimination against white people per se is not a fundamental problem, the problem is that white people are not allowed to discriminate themselves. This is because non-whites desire access to white areas but not vice-versa. Further The second measure assumes with gross naivete that the state can be trusted to objectively adjudicate antidiscrimination with regard to political orientation of all things. Exacerbating this is that Ubersoy’s proposed franchise is still open to non-whites, and because it substantially weights fertility, this advantages non-whites who are r-selected against whites, who are relatively k-selected. Were the right ever to gain sufficient power at the national level (if ever) to restrict the franchise to the degree Ubersoy proposes, discrimination against the right would be moot at that point. His proposed constitution’s new free speech provision creates an arbitary provision that allows speech discrimination for organizations smaller than 5,000 but prohibits it for those larger. Ubersoy fails to recognize that discrimination is not only a form of speech, but the most important kind because actions speak louder than words. Ubersoy even implicitly affirms this in provision 3 of his constitution:
“The constitution must provide its citizens with rights for anonymity and remaining silent.”
For someone to own a media platform is to reserve the right to control the views expressed thereon in manner that controls perception of his own views by association. If the platform owner wishes not to have any particular view on a certain issue associated with him, he is within his rights to suppress all discussion of it on his platform. With provision 2 Ubersoy rams his own verdicts on culture war issues down the throats of the entire nation:
- “The constitution must guarantee a legal right of bodily autonomy for all adults and children (no transgender surgeries for minors, no abortion bans for adults, euthanasia becomes a guaranteed right).”
Child sex changes should not even be dignified with recognition; enforcement of existing laws against child abuse is all that is needed. The other items are issues that are so inherently subjective on a cultural level that they are perfectly suited toward being decided at the level of the states (or lower). Ubersoy cavalierly dismisses the formidable ethical tradition that respects the bodily autonomy of unborn children. The provision is also at odds with his aim of avoiding political homogenization, which is stated repeatedly through the manifesto. It is also strange that Ubersoy says nothing about vaccine mandates here.
Provision 4 could have been lifted verbatim from any left-wing progressivist party platform:
“The constitution must provide its citizens with opportunities for political and economic participation.”
Provision 7 is frightening:
“The constitution must ensure delegates are given full legal powers of intervention into public or personal spheres of citizens, institutions, and organizations for the purposes of resolving conflicts provided such is the democratic will of the polity.”
Ubersoy’s proposed constitution redeems itself however, with provision 6:
“The constitution must guarantee the right of a democratic self-organization of any kind, including the exit from the union provided this is the will of the majority of the voting population residing in the area.”
While at odds with the forced integration measures he recommends earlier, this is a crucial out. The manifesto is not so schizophrenic as this contradiction may make it seem either. The left is terrified at the thought of their interventionist and integrationist policies being turned against them, so while we right-wingers may not believe such policies optimal at all, it can help us to signal to the left that we think we do as a negotiating tactic. To become independent from the left it may be necessary to concede the right of leftist secession from us. This “push-pull” approach may also be the reason why under Ubersoy’s model the franchise remains open to non-whites and leftists – to provide them the illusion of participation that democracy is notorious for.
Ubersoy brings the manifesto toward a close by answering anticipated objections from third positionists, conservatives, and libertarians. While he is to be commended for adhering to intellectual best practice, he does not do a good job steelmanning the libertarian position. He addresses the lay version which is “smaller government is always better”, citing as a counter several instances where GDP growth correlates positively with government spending. This does not refute libertarianism at all, which is concerned not with size of government but the scope, specifically that government should have no scope in the business of racketeering at all. If people wish to voluntarily pay more for governmental services that are larger than what is currently provided, libertarians can have no objection. His treatment of libertarianism is strange because one of his earlier chapters in the manifesto borrows the title of Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s Democracy: The God that Failed, adding only a question mark at the end. He mentions Hoppe near the beginning of the manifesto as well. Hoppe is the world’s leading living libertarian thinker, and anyone who has grappled seriously with his work could never honestly define libertarianism as a layperson would. Indeed, the reactionary version of libertarianism espoused by Hoppe presents considerable problems for Ubersoy’s system. Ubersoy maintains in his manifesto that taxation is necessary, but wishes to give voters much greater choice on how the proceeds are spent. If the public cannot be trusted to voluntarily pay “enough” for governmental services, why can we be trusted to choose what we spend our money on? Ubersoy’s points-based franchise system, whose inequality of influence he is proud of, raises the question of why we can’t simply make the business of government like a corporation where influence over its long-term operations is directly proportional to ownership stake (a la defense insurance agencies or the Patchwork of Curtis Yarvin. Other businesses do not grant ownership stake to anyone, let alone the public, based on criteria such as marital status, fertility, or even, in the case of publicly-traded companies, technical knowledge of the product or operations. One of Ubersoy’s criteria is political knowledge, which suffers from the same critique one can level at the color-blind version of civic nationalism – that Soros NGOs or similar can simply coach bad actors through the test. Ubersoy would have such NGOs dissolved, but this does not address the problem of independent study, which is largely ineradicable, and any serious attempt to eradicate it would conflict with Ubersoy’s valuation of freedom of speech (something that libertarians as such do not care about and that reactionary libertarians explicitly oppose). Although in this regard Ubersoy goes too far in an effort to avoid seeming “authoritarian”, he does draw a nice distinction between authoritarianism and strong but benevolent leadership in a figure like Nayib Bukele:
“[Bukele] cannot be regarded as an authoritarian in the classical sense, for he is still operating within the broader context of an open system – he was simply given a large amount of executive authority to fulfill a certain task.”
Ubersoy goes on to criticize the notion of benevolent dictatorship saying:
“Theoretically, I can imagine myself being in favor of a dictatorship wherein the tyrant enforces every single one of my political preferences; but what is the actual chance this occuring? And what are the chances all of my political preferences are just, well-informed, and accurate? A perfect relationship between the people and their tyrant in matters of politics has never existed, and the most enlightened autocrat to have ever walked the Earth could never outperform a polity organized by the managerial skill of its enlightened, differentiated elements because no tyrant could ever possess the entirety of his people’s motivations and specialized knowledge. Just as the command economy cannot compete with capitalism, an autocracy cannot compete with a democracy organized in accordance with Tektological foundations.”
Ubersoy’s humility in admitting his uncertainty that all of his political preferences are just and accurate is commendable, but he errs by analogizing the economic to the political in the wrong direction. A Tektologic polity would, all else equal, be outcompeted by a reactionary libertarian dictatorship because it is the latter system, not Ubersoy’s, that fully exploits the market’s superior information signaling capabilities. The elements of taxation and a non-economically based voting franchise by themselves suffer from the economic calculation problems of socialism. A true free market in governance can still have all of his criteria incorporated into the corporate charters concerning shareholder participation. As to the matter of maintaining benevolent rule, the market has already amply demonstrated a workable mechanism of shareholders electing boards of directors who in turn oversee management. The principal-agent issues inherent to such a system are mitigated with mechanisms like stock option vesting schedules, and whatever issues persist pale in comparison to the problems of direct democracy. The long-term incentives of monarchy, especially hereditary feudal monarchy, are further mitigation of the benevolence question, which cannot ever be perfectly resolved. What matters far less than variance in the level of benevolence from ruler to ruler is the mean level of beneficence that the ruler selection system incentivizes. Ubersoy’s Tektological polity would be a substantial improvement over the current system but his electorate would likely comprise Tea Party types whose soundness of economic judgment is fitful at best: “Repeal Obamacare, but don’t you dare touch my Medicare!” Earlier in the manifesto he claims that anarcho-capitalism would be undone by the persistence of the nomenklatura. This ignores, for one thing, the substantial degree to which the nomenklatura is supported by statism. We could concede however, a scenario where they retain their current level of influence under an anarcho-capitalist dictatorship. Their, while having a significantly adverse effect on a large minority of the population vulnerable to propaganda, would pose no real threat to the polity as a whole because aspergo-capitalists would-be dictators are psychologically and politically immune to leftist propaganda. The propagandistic power of the nomenklatura may matter in a democracy, but not in a dictatorship.
Ubersoy’s Right-Wing Progressivism is a refreshing counter to resentful jeremiads against the jews on the right. The theoretical foundation of his vision is thoughtful, creative, and intricate in its architecture. Ubersoy’s balanced view of liberalism and his firm opposition to third positionist authoritarianism are laudable. The Tektological polity he proposes is a substantial improvement over the current system, and also has the advantage of broad marketability to a population whose default worldview remains liberal. Liberalism is losing its luster, however, and Ubersoy’s proposal would benefit from resolving its contradictions in certain of his proposals with his stated liberal values. It would also benefit from deeper engagement with the thought of the zeroth positionist thinkers he mentions such as Yarvin and Hoppe. He would do well to show how his proposed system, a market democracy, adds genuine value in comparison to the systems of those thinkers. In this first edition of his manifesto Ubersoy has already succeeded in establishing himself as a serious zeroth positionist thinker, however. Other zeroth positionists should eagerly await future editions where he further progresses in establishing a positive vision for us grounded in an objective concept of progress.
