The Anti-Democratic Impulse
The Curtis Yarvin interview.
We are living in a moment wherein any number of people are questioning the efficacy of democratic governance. On the one hand, I get it. There are all kinds of problems that seem never to be solved, often in the face of clear public opinion on a given topic. It is difficult to hold politicians and political parties accountable. Indeed, the entire electoral feedback loop could be said to be broken. Some, such as myself, think that the solution to this problem in the United States is pro-democracy reforms that would improve representativeness and democratic accountability.
Others, however, think that democracy itself is the problem and instead want to take power out of the hands of voters and centralize in a more authoritarian type of governance. Some just want a temporary strongman to fix these problems (as characterized by populism) others want to go full-on dictator.
I would note that this is not a new debate. The issue of who should govern and whether power should be concentrated or not is an ancient one (I wrote about this in some detail here years ago). Of late there have been a number of folks emerging from the tech sector who are arguing for dictatorship over democracy (I cited an example here). A prominent example is Curtis Yarvin, who was interviewed by the NYT: Curtis Yarvin Says Democracy Is Done. Powerful Conservatives Are Listening.
The interview is worth attention for a couple of reasons. First, as the linked headline notes, some prominent conservatives are listening. Yarvin has been cited by J.D. Vance, for example, and he has become a darling of the reactionary right’s mediasphere.
Not surprisingly, I find Yarvin’s lessons from history and his prescriptions for the future to be lacking.
He believes that government bureaucracy should be radically gutted, and perhaps most provocative, he argues that American democracy should be replaced by what he calls a “monarchy” run by what he has called a “C.E.O.” — basically his friendlier term for a dictator.
I would note that even monarchs need bureaucrats. Also, it is just so very shocking that people such as Yarvin whose basic experience is business thinks that a modified CEO model is the way to go. And it leada to things like this:
It’s an excerpt from the diary of Harold Ickes, who is F.D.R.’s secretary of the interior, describing a cabinet meeting in 1933. What happens in this cabinet meeting is that Frances Perkins, who’s the secretary of labor, is like, Here, I have a list of the projects that we’re going to do. F.D.R. personally takes this list, looks at the projects in New York and is like, This is crap. Then at the end of the thing, everybody agrees that the bill would be fixed and then passed through Congress. This is F.D.R. acting like a C.E.O. So, was F.D.R. a dictator? I don’t know. What I know is that Americans of all stripes basically revere F.D.R., and F.D.R. ran the New Deal like a start-up.
He thinks that FDR is a good example of the kind of CEO/dictator that he wants. However, I must confess that I do not understand how a president working with his cabinet to then pass legislation through Congress is a good argument for why democracy ought to be scuttled.
Also, two other things.
- “This is F.D.R. acting like a C.E.O. So, was F.D.R. a dictator? I don’t know.” Then why in the world does he use this as an example?
- “F.D.R. ran the New Deal like a start-up.” What does this actually mean? It just sounds like a person with a limited understanding of politics and history applying his own experience. And, moreover, it is the kind of thing that certain people will think sounds edgy and cool because of the mythology that surrounds Silicon Valley start-ups (most of which fail, I would note).
I would counter, by the way, that a parliamentary system wherein a Prime Minister would have to have a majority in the legislature could function in a similar CEO way (because, and hear me out as this might blow your mind, the Prime Minister is a chief executive!) while still having to be accountable to voters. Such an arrangement allows for a coherent policy plan that requires public debate and scrutiny without all the rather obvious pitfalls of power concentrated in a dictator (or monarch, as Yarvin likes to say).
But, Yarvin does like the “start-up” analogy.
If you look at the administration of Washington, what is established looks a lot like a start-up. It looks so much like a start-up that this guy Alexander Hamilton, who was recognizably a start-up bro, is running the whole government — he is basically the Larry Page of this republic.
First, sure, the Washinton administration was a kind of start-up, but only in a general sense of the term. But the analogy to a company/firm is just wrong. Companies produce a specific product or set of products. Governments do far, far more than that. People who think that government is a relatively simple entity that can be analogized to a household or business always demonstrate to me that they shouldn’t be listened to.
Second, this sounds like a person whose understanding of the Washington administration comes from watching Hamilton.
As a general matter, Yarvin’s historical and philosophical understanding is not especially impressive (to put it mildly).
For example:
So when you want to say democracy is not a good system of government, just bridge that immediately to saying populism is not a good system of government, and then you’ll be like, Yes, of course, actually policy and laws should be set by wise experts and people in the courts and lawyers and professors. Then you’ll realize that what you’re actually endorsing is aristocracy rather than democracy.
No. Having a government guided by the results of elections to provide a direction and then using experts to implement policy is not “aristocracy” (which tends to mean government by a hereditary upper class, at least colloquially*).
There is also this, which is the kind of thing that authoritarians love to raise.
What I do know is that if democracy is against the common good, it’s bad, and if it’s for the common good, it’s good.
So, on the one hand, I agree that the goal is to try and work towards the common good. I will even agree that in abstract that the common good is more important than democracy, per se. I will go yet a step further and note that democratic mechanism can produce outcomes that are counter to the common good.
However, the question is not whether or not democracy is imperfect and can lead to problematic outcomes. The question is whether democracy is less prone to such outcomes than autocracies. And, additionally, which kind of governance, democratic or autocratic, has a higher chance of self-correction.
History teaches rather clearly that it is a dangerous brew when a leader with centralized power tries to provide their version of the “common good” for a mass of people.
An interesting question is this: what actual autocratic example would you prefer to live in over all the democratic systems we have seen? Beyond that, if we look at the democratic era (which really only dawns in the 20th century with the advent of true universal suffrage and mass participation, and even then at different times in different places) we see that in the aggregate, democracies outperform autocracies in terms of various metrics of the common good.
These are key questions.
I thoroughly understand the abstract notion that a wise and wonderful king is more efficient than a democracy. This idea dates back to Plato and Aristotle at a minimum. It is at the hear of Christians who long for King Jesus to reign. But finding an actual monarch who is wise and wonderful has been maddeningly hard to come by when we look at human history.
This is why democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others.
*It really means, literally, “government by the best.”
Granted US history isn’t my forte, but I’d recall the New Deal IPO if there had been one.
Yarvin’s argument is nonsense, but democracy is only a better form of government to the extent that it attracts good people to office. Democracy has had a good run. It’s currently in a phase worldwide where it is attracting self-selecting kleptomaniacs being elected by fools. This is not better, but until “we teh peepul” pull our head out of our ass, it will remain the status quo. I can’t fix this and neither can any of the rest of us.
Want better results? Start raising better people.
Too bad the interviewer didn’t ask Yarvin how he would feel about a narrowly divided nation picking a super-woke monarch.
I bet everyone who entertains this (dumb and shallow) idea is implicitly sketching in a monarch who agrees with them on everything. It’s wish-fulfillment fan fiction at best.
@,just nutha: I would argue that one of the things that democracy at least provides is a way to replace bad people with at least better ones in ways that pretty much all other forms of government of the autocratic variety tend to lack.
Indeed, while a good monarchy absolutely requires a good person to have a good outcome, democracy is not as directly predicated on having to have the best to function.
Again, there are plenty of ways for democracy to fail the good government test, so to speak. But there are more and very concerning ways that autocracy can very much go wrong.
One of the key and ancient questions about good governance is whether it is just about good people or if it is also about structures.
So my first thought was: Who the hell is Curtis Yarvin? So I googled his name. He’s got a blog. That’s it. He blogs. And I’m supposed to care – why? Because JDV cited him? He’s got a history of citing a lot of people.
It’s going to be a long four years at this rate if everyone who’s blogged something stupid gets his Warhol time allotment.
@Steven L. Taylor: I don’t disagree with any of your points and think “thou dost protest too much” for someone convinced that democracy is the best form, or at least the least worse.
Our government is at a metaphysical nadir. Changing the structures is going to require changing the people (voters). I’m not optimistic. I’m glad you are and hope you win. And by win I mean get to see the changes. I won’t live long enough to. There’s no place to go but down from where I’m standing. (And yes, I think the Democrats will win in 2026 and 28 and kick the can down the street further.)
ETA: And I don’t care for how you conflated “good” and “best” to attack my point.
I consider our country and its form of government to be one and the same. Would it be rude to suggest that someone who doesn’t like our form of government also doesn’t like our country? And that person should be asked to leave?
I think everyone agrees a benevolent dictator would be a good thing. But you have to take it to the next level and recognize it’s impossible. I learned long ago in my personal life there’s no such thing as our asshole. All assholes are their asshole. It inevitably becomes government of the dictator, by the dictator, and for the dictator.
He’s popular because he requires absolutely zero work to read or understand. He’s like Rupi Kaur, but with supposedly edgy politics which more or less has the same edginess as a business seminar.
Like, nobody who takes this guy seriously wants a monarchy. Want they want is a pitch an alternative story about America which places tech people in the same center as FDR. It’s the equivalent of saying computer programers/venture capitalists have a lot in common with Delta Force/Jason Bourne because they both center on dealing with extreme/uncertain environments.
It’s Mary Sue fanfic, which all of these guys shoot up every day. Easy to read, a masculinized variant on Rupi Kaur and romance novels.
@Not the IT Dept.: He’s an vapid poseur, but he is cited by a bunch of really rich people as their philosopher. So basically he provides a bunch of rich assholes intellectual cover/ justification.
My go-to joke about these buffoons:
“We need a dictator to control the rabble and make governance more efficient.”
“Sir, this is an Arby’s, and second, you need to wear a mask.”
“DAMN THIS TYRANNY!”
Seriously, I guarantee you that every single one of the people who demand a dictator has a social media feed during Covid littered with furious indignation about vaccine mandates, mask mandates, school closures, etc.
In other words, they don’t want a dictator, they want to PICK the dictator.
@Not the IT Dept.:
Wait til CatTurd2 gets a SCOTUS citation in United States V. DOGE Emperor Musk.
@,just nutha:
I would argue we need only to stop corrupting the people we have to get better results.
I think you are correct that if we are to wait until “we teh peepul” pull our head out of our ass we will wait forever. The general electorate will always be under-informed, biased, and self-interested. If the objective is to raise ALL the people above their human nature then the objective is entirely unachievable. But a project to win a reliable majority who values democracy and liberalism is eminently doable IMHO.
First, the “we” as you are applying it here is overstating the size of the problem – a slight plurality of US voters already have their heads sufficiently out of their asses to know that Trump is unfit to be POTUS. So despite our gerrymandered, weak party, anti-majority, Xitter & Fox News saturated electoral system, the needle doesn’t have to moved all that far to get the US off the edge of the cliff.
Second, resistance isn’t futile. Some well placed messaging and activism can generate more demand for electoral reform. The oligarchs can be exposed as self-serving. Journalists and pundits can put the lie to “Trump Will Fix It” as the actual lack of results of his overly simple solutions reveal themselves to people’s pocketbooks. Some people are going to learn from touching the stove that is a fascist friendly GOP. (I think you believe this as well since you expect the Dems to win in 2026 and 2028.)
Yes, we’re at a nadir, the path out is steep, and the wind is against us. But, I don’t believe US democracy has finished its run.
It’s a fact of life that any country, any system, will develop a governing elite. The best we can do is get the elite to care just a little about the general welfare. So far, democracy has been, however imperfectly, the best way to do so.
@Not the IT Dept.:
No (although that ain’t nothing, given that JDV is the VP). It was noteworthy to me because he fits into a broader movement of tech types being anti-democracy.
@Kevin: J. K. Galbraith observed long ago that shilling for the rich pays better than crusading for the truth.
Today, no less:
“But finding an actual monarch who is wise and wonderful has been maddeningly hard to come by when we look at human history.”
And even if you find one, there is always the problem of his successor. Shakespeare, who was pretty savvy about such things, ends his glorification of Henry V with this bon mot:
And of it left his son imperial lord.
Henry the Sixth, in infant bands crowned King
Of France and England, did this king succeed,
Whose state so many had the managing
That they lost France and made his England bleed,
Which oft our stage hath shown. And for their sake,
In your fair minds let this acceptance take.
I’d say Henry VI is more the rule than the exception…
I’m certain, CERTAIN, that Musk thinks Curtis Yarvin is very smart, and that’s why Yarvin is getting attention. I read a couple of his blog posts years ago and that was enough for me.
It all centers around, “I’m the smartest person in the room, so everyone should do what I say”.
Here’s an illustration that may or may not be hypothetical.
There was a problem at a station in the Tesla line at NUMMI in Fremont. It involved a couple of different parts of the Tesla software, the updater, some other stuff. It also required some people engaged with something physical, and the fix had to shut down the line, or happen while it was shut down. With considerable trouble a date and time was set for the fix. On that day, however, Musk came to the factor to fix some other issue and of course everyone jumped and dropped what they were doing to fix what he thought was important.
This of course, set back the project I first mentioned several weeks. But Musk wanted to know why everybody couldn’t operate like that all the time.
…
I mean I personally experienced a bit of “engineering by bullying” in my time. When it came to me, I saw it was coming, prepared, and they went away. From their perspective, they went away mollified. From mine, they went away defeated.
Because at least with those guys, facts actually mattered.
@Chip Daniels: “Wait til CatTurd2 gets a SCOTUS citation in United States V. DOGE Emperor Musk.”
Wait til CatTurd2 gets a SCOTUS nomination.
@Steven L. Taylor:
I would add that one of the roles of democracy is to give elected officials incentives to serve the people that an autocratic ruler would not have, and therefore being an honorable person and good leader is not necessary to producing positive outcomes. If a president is putting policies in place in order to get reelected, the motive may be self-serving, but it’s the democratic process that is providing the president with that motive.
The problem is that there are so many ways in which those incentives are distorted so that elected officials aren’t motivated to serve the people. With gerrymandering, for instance, the democratic process is essentially reversed: the people in power choose the voters. Then there are the restrictions on voting itself, the influence of big money, and, last but not least, the waning influence of traditional media in favor of a social media infrastructure dominated by misinformation. A substantial number of voters literally don’t have the faintest idea what they’re voting for, or against.
This guy, Jordan Peterson, etc. Metrosexual Hitchens wannabes.
This kinda describes social media in general. You have a bunch of people (like Rogan) who have very little knowledge off something, but take a cursory look at the topic, then present themselves as experts.
The Dunning Kruger Effect will be the end of us.
@Rob1:
The Christian Nationalists are currently pretty much dominated and controlled by the New Apostolic Reformation/Seven Mountains folks. All of the religious right activists are very aware of the Seven Mountains.
The Atlantic did a really good piece on this recently, gift link here:
“GiftAtlantic”
You have the Broliarchs like Thiel etc. tied in to this stuff, the Catholic Integralists like Sam Alito, you have Charlie Kirk and his Turning Point USA shtick – big alliance of various factions all linked to the NAR, and all totally contemptuous of democracy.
@,just nutha:
Gott admit—I don’t understand why you say that.
FWIW, not trying to pull anything. Just trying to engage.
@Stephen Taylor
Your raise many good points of criticism, in taking on young upstart Yarvin’s fantasy. But these are all “tedious details” to be brushed aside by human brains driven in pursuit of power — and I’m talking about those who will use the Yarvins and the Bannons to rationalize their ruthless pursuit; people like Trump, or Musk, or Thiel, or even downline Miller.
There is a common thread running between people like Yarvin, Bannon, and Musk (and others), that connects through the advent of computer gaming/online culture, parlayed into tech startups, and some degree of financial success that provide a platform for their musings and fantasies.
Their views of this society are largely disconnected from how the structures and mechanisms of human community actually work at ground level, and seemingly disconnected from actual human interpersonal cohesiveness, yet they are willing to impose their constricted visions on all of us. They have the answer. We just have to be willing to live in their world.
They don’t have to provide valid justification, just some mumbo jumbo, and then Bam! bypass established convention, gaming the system to achieve some degree of absolute power. They are after all, gamers, and they have gamed our democratic system. For a person like Trump, what’s not to like? Expediency to absolute power.
I could see them managing in their quest for awhile. Hell, it appears we are about to transition into some sort of major socio-political shift. But when they do not deliver on their guarantees, as the deficiencies of their fantasies ensure, they will fail. There will be hell to pay. Their side of the political spectrum did after all, arm this nation to the teeth.
@,just nutha:
People often point out that the notion of a simple solution is almost always wrong, but I absolutely endorse the simple solution of people pulling their heads out of their asses. In a democracy the problem is always the people. If you have the power, you have the responsibility.
What would happen if tomorrow Trump refused to take the oath of office, perhaps offering his own version?
Because that would be the most Yarvin-Bannon thing to do.
Asking for a friend, er, enemy.
It makes sense for NYT to interview this guy. But at least two things should have happened:
-They should have insisted on only using his original nom de guerre, Mencius Moldbug. Maybe even throw in a cheap joke about being a distant cousin of Bret Stephens.
Maybe I am wrong, but using Mencius Moldbug would likely highlight this dude’s a poseur.
-They should have linked and highlighted key points from Scott Alexander’s rigorous takedown of Moldbug.
—
I’ve seen Moldbug referred to as a philosopher or political theorist. Years ago, NYT themselves referred to Ben Shapiro as “the cool kid’s philosopher”. Perhaps the paper of record should be a little more careful about elevating commentators and bloggers by calling them philosophers.
That would not be biased commentary, it would be reporting their educational and professional backgrounds.
In fact, most of their output could be dismantled in two minutes by an average first year philosophy student.
PS: Steven, maybe you should also refer to him by his former pen name. But I understand why you would hesitate to do so.
Who doesn’t want a dictator of their own choosing? Might not be your first choice, but second? Instead of Trump?
@Scott F.:
I’m not seeing this. An absolute majority chose either Trump or not Harris. A plurality chose Trump. A small plurality, granted, but a plurality all the same.
ETA: That being said, I wish you well and hope you’re young enough to live to see the top of the hole we’ve dug. At seventy-mumble, I’m pretty confident about the near future. Mortality is more likely than corrected democracy in my timeline. Good time to be old, though.
Maybe a good time to be young, though, also.
Yarvin aka “Mencius Moldbug” is a dimwit.
(First encountered him some 20 years ago, and he’s not improved with age.)
He posits monarchy as securing property.
When much historical evidence is exactly the opposite.
See Locke.
The aristocratic/mercantile Whigs were against monarchic absolutism for very good, if rather self-interested, reasons.
See also the utter vulnerability of private wealth in the monarchic systems of China, Islam, Russia etc.
The emergence of legal protection for property against the “state” in post-medieval western Europe was rather idiosyncratic and contingent. And vulnerable even there. See the fate of anyone who annoyed the Tudor monarchs in England.
The revolution of 1688 was not capricious.
@Kevin:
Commented before reading the earlier comments.
Good to see I’m not the only commenter willing to use “poseur” to describe Moldbug.
Just last night, I was just reading a couple old posts from the Daily Nous:
Reputational Cost of Public Philosophy?
Philosophy Snobbery and Communication
The former discusses the professional risk taken by an academic philosopher who writes books for a general audience. The latter cites the recognition among scientists that they needed someone scientifically literate to communicate effectively to a lay audience.
People like Shapiro and Moldbug have filled the vacuum left by philosophers who enjoy being locked away in a tower. And commentators who lack rigor have filled the more vague role of public intellectual.
On the other hand, science communication hasn’t solved everything. (No cite needed.)
@Kurtz:
Scott Alexander’s skewering of Yarvin is one for the ages.
I’m just a bit disappointed my comments on the Mencius blog have vanished into the internet limbo.
Such is weblife, lol.
@Modulo Myself:
Indeed.
It’s pseudo-political philosophy as a wish-fulfillment fantasy for tech-bros and tech-bro wannabe gamers and MAGA attempting to be “profound thinkers”.
See also the Jordan Peterson phenomenon.
It’s as tedious as young leftists who’ve just read Marx, and think they have discovered the explanation of everything.
@charontwo:
Just wait till they rule, and then the Protestant vs Catholic gloves come off.
30 Years War, happy fun times. lol.
@JohnSF:
This is where the late, much missed, @Teve would point out that if you see an engineer denying, for example, the reality of AGW, their educational background is likely computer science.
Not sure what Yarvin studied at Brown, but he was in a Berkeley grad program for . . . computer science.
Also, the ignorance of basic enlightenment philosophy (Locke) and obvious logical errors wrt history pointed out in the OP should render Moldbug irrelevant. But authoritarian fanatics (Bannon) and bad-faith shitheads (Vance) conveniently cite them.
I’ve cited this before, but The Big Myth has sections that recount how late 19th/early 20th century right wingers bawlderized Adam Smith, removing the nuance of his arguments. IIRC, also barely citing Moral Sentiments, which is actually critical to understanding Wealth of Nations.
American ‘libertarians’ do the same thing to Locke. The majority of those self-ID libertarians I’ve engaged are working class.
@Kurtz:
Misunderstanding Smith, deliberately or on purpose, has a long history.
See the “radical liberals” of 1815-50 who ended up opposing measures for workplace safety, child labour, and sanitation, on the grounds it was against the “free market”.
(The whole Spencer/Sumner line of argument, re “social evolution”.)
*sad*
And the Tories supporting such measures, and establishing “working class Conservatism”.
Coding tends, imho, to induce expectations re pre-existing rule-sets and arbitrary outcomes.
(And I say that as a person who actually likes coding for the fun of it.)
More education in human history, various sciences, or basic philosophy might counter that.
But the workings of American pedagogy are, unfortunately, not subject to my determination.
Also, I miss Teve.
@Kurtz: One of the contributions of Marx to economic understanding was his implied argument that ofttimes, the owners of capital and means of production would tell the “impartial observer” of Moral Sentiments that when they wanted his opinion, they’d tell him what it is.
ETA (re: JohnSF): The working of American pedagogy are not subject to my determinations either. And I was a teacher for 25 years.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Marx was hardly novel in the proposition that the powerful determined debate.
What he proposed, that was rather novel, was that the entire structure of capitalist society tended to produce a compliant ideology.
And that therefore only conscious repudiation of bourgeois concepts could lead to realistic thinking.
Or, alternatively: “If you don’t accept my opinion, you are simply a bourgeois minded fool.”
A pattern replicated by many others who deem themselves to be smart.
Such as Yarvin.
@Kurtz:
This is so the case. Reading Smith for the first time at 30 (in 2004) was a revelation. I was completely blown away at how coarse (essentially to the point of being wrong) the majority of interpretations of him I had been exposed to were.
There have always been guys who because they were good at what they did or were bright that they were therefore smart about everything. We have certainly see this among the tech bros but it’s also common in the finance world and other professions. So Yarvin says we would be better off with some really smart CEO running the country. What he really means is that it should be him or someone like him. (Also, some of his historical “facts” are just wrong.)
Steve
@Just nutha ignint cracker: @JohnSF:
The details are a little fuzzy; one of remember the gist correctly. I think I mentioned this here when I initially read it–I have been meaning to track down where:
In England, the political debate surrounding expanding sufferage, one of the concerns among those in favor of reform was that employers and rentiers (the latter of which, Smith, among other pre-20th century political economists, had no love for) would leverage economic their position to dictate how employees and tenants vote.
I perhaps @JohnSF can fill in gaps or correct on this.
—
For me, I have long been skeptical of the ideas of the impartial observer/invisible hand as well as state of nature analysis.
I’m making my way through Graeber and Winthrow’s The Dawn of Everything . . . But
I’m watching the Bills-Ravens game, so I will comment in the open thread tomorrow.
@Kurtz: For what it’s worth, I’ve always taken the “impartial observer” as a construct of humans possessing a robust and active conscience and sense of morality. I see that concept as unduly optimistic. In the same vein, the “invisible hand” is credited when we don’t want to see our profits as confiscatory, rapacious, or driven by greed.
@Kurtz:
That argument of coerced voting of dependents was certainly made. The Chartists included a move to a secret ballot among their demands.
It was instituted in the 1872 Ballot Act.
@Kurtz:
One of my favorite things on the internet ever was a series of blog posts by the author Steven Brust, a well-read genuine communist, reading The Wealth of Nations chapter by chapter and commenting on it. He went in expecting it to be libertarian claptrap, and was blown away by how well-reasoned and liberal it was, especially for its time — and how different from its portrayal in conservative writing. The chapter where he discovered that Smith was even more concerned about collusion by owners than he was about collusion by workers was a special moment.