Jeffrey Tucker: Of Course the Alt-Right Is Against Capitalism

Jeffrey Tucker has chimed in on the Alt-Right’s anti-capitalist turn:

“Libertarianism then became a low performer for recruitment. That’s when the shift became apparent. The new language of the alt-right is all about denouncing corporate capitalism for failing to do its bidding. They say that capitalism is too politically correct, is excluding them from social media, is declining to let them use financial tools to raise money, and is generally promoting their enemies in cooperation with the media.

The left often accuses capitalism of doing things for which it is not actually guilty, such as excluding the poor, exploiting workers, ravaging the earth, and so on. The alt-right, however, is mostly attacking capitalism for things that corporations are, in fact, doing and doing well. These people are not popular people, and their views have proven poisonous for venues like Twitter and Facebook, and are banned not for PC reasons, but simply because they reduce the value of the platforms. …

It’s also true that the market has always provided a main impetus for breaking down tribal barriers. It thinks in terms of individual rights because it is designed to appeal to individual minds. If your goal is the promotion of group solidarity and exclusion, it is not a good tool. Its watchwords are inclusion and empowerment of everyone. It was the gradual liberalization of markets and the technology and universalist values that came with it that ended slavery, promoted minority and women’s rights, and created this thing we call the middle class. …”

I’m surprised it took so long.

Anyway, I agree with much of what Jeffrey Tucker says here except for his conspiracy theory about the origins of the Alt-Right. The truth is that lots of disaffected young people were genuinely attracted to the Ron Paul presidential campaigns, libertarianism and Objectivism. After the Iraq War, they were alienated from George W. Bush and mainstream conservatism. Ron Paul’s principled antiwar stance resonated with many of them. I went through that phase myself around 2002 to 2003.

I’m still against these stupid wars.

Ultimately, I rejected libertarianism and Objectivism though because of their radical individualism, materialism and hostility to collectivism. I realized that both ideologies are incompatible not only with racial preservation, but with all traditions and forms of collective solidarity. They are also incompatible with the preservation of our culture, the nation, the family, religion, etc. The worship of corporate capitalism and the gospel of the free market is compatible, however, with Taco Bell and Wal-Mart. Jeffrey Tucker even fancies himself as a sort of apostle for the McDonald’s brand.

Have you seen the liberated individual?

Of all the things someone can devote their life to in this world, why devote yourself to the selfish pursuit of profit or the cause of cultural degeneracy? It left a bad taste in my mouth. It is a merchant’s view of the world. It didn’t resonate with me either as a lifestyle preference. I’ve also seen how corporate capitalism has shown time and again that it is compatible with the worst trends in our culture.

The West is worse off after 50 years of free market capitalism than Eastern Europe is after 50 years of communism. As terrible as communism was for Russia and Poland, the great advantage of Eastern Europe is that liberal democracy and free market capitalism has put down the shallowest roots there. Those nations value national identity and cultural cohesion much more than we do. They are instinctively opposed to letting wealthy Jews come in and dominate their culture.

Why is that? It is because the Russians and Poles have retained more of their cultural memory. They have stronger traditions which haven’t been eroded and dissolved by liberalism. In many ways, I think the end of libertarianism – the cultural dissolution, economic pain and spiritual nihilism it inevitably marches toward, which is held up by Jeffrey Tucker as a utopian ideal – is kind of our starting point.

We inhabit a space where the deracinated Western man has been atomized, alienated, exploited, beaten down, stripped of his identity and cut off from his roots. In free society, the liberated individual is no longer part of a tribe with a coherent story that gives his life purpose and meaning, but lives in thrall to corporate power and political correctness. The relations between the sexes are at all time low. Morality has been perverted into virtue signaling and no longer has any relationship to truth. The loss of all forms of homogeneity has led to polarization and conflict in society at large. The Jewish oligarchy continues to throw its weight around even as discontent rises and the liberal order loses its legitimacy.

Can we find meaning, solidarity and purpose in the McDouble? Can the march of the Golden Arches to new and exciting foreign markets lead us to a better world? Jeffrey Tucker believes it can. We believe that something more substanial has to fill the void that liberalism has opened up at the heart of our civilization or else we run the risk of becoming savages with high tech toys.