I agree with the opening premise “that democratic systems (in the United States) are ruled not by elected officials but by an entrenched, self-serving bureaucratic elite.” But to place all the power in the executive only leads to dictatorship. Which history has proven over and over and over again doesn’t work. The beauty of are “ democracy” is that it can always change for the better once people have had enough. While the Trump regime is the indicator that it’s time to reign things in; it’s also a symptom of the bureaucratic elite attempting to “run” things that are not good for the country and not working for all sides of the political spectrum.
Our democracy has proven to be the best form of government in modern history. We have to ensure that we hold Musk, Trump and Project 2025 accountable. But, we also have to force or Congress to fundamentally change by getting the money and lobbying out and term limiting all branches, including the Supreme Court. This is the only way we get ourselves out of this mess and back on track. Scandinavia, Western Europe and much of the other First World have found out the hard way that what Yarvin and Project 2025 are trying to do DOES NOT WORK. It was only time before the United States experienced the same history. Fortunately we have had only one Civil War. We learned some things from that and the country advanced. Hopefully the “good” people from all sides, will prevail because authoritarian rule does not work. No matter how you color it. It’s like putting lipstick on a pig.
Good thoughts indeed. Thanks for sharing. I'm unsettled by this but am hopeful that the result ends up being ar re-set on democracy rather than dumping it. For sure getting the money and lobbying out, and setting term limits would be a good start.
Just think, Germany destroyed themselves and Europe twice in modern history , before they “figured” it out. That’s why they are so concerned about the AFD. We lived in Germany, working for the DOD, for 22 years. All of our friends were stunned the first time Trump was elected and now are beside themselves that he was elected again. The stunt Elon pulled with the AFD has them even more concerned. Luckily there is a strict law on how much money can be spent in an election and they limit the time you can campaign to months not years. I really think that the loss of “the greatest generation” and military members from all countries involved in WWII has left a collective hole in the memory of the incredible waste of lives and property. If you don’t have anyone around who has lived through this it’s hard to learn from experience. I believe the rise of extreme right wing ideology is in part due to this generation dying off.
Perhaps I would temper this with the following: post-WWII, Germany did what America told it to do. It was vastly dependent on the US for reconstruction, and much internal policy was guided by the US, including the response to terrorism.
The RAF ultimately failed to bring German society crashing to its knees. It didn’t really try. But it succeeded in one thing, in sparking the attention of the young of the 1970s to the authoritarian directions government was headed in under US tutelage. It was German police that snuffed out the RAF. But they also snuffed out the wide range of free thought that was nascent at the time, and substituted American “Kool-Aid” instead.
Yes, both Germany and Japan benefited from the Marshal Plan and grew their economies to be top in the world. For Germany, they moved towards a more democratic socialist government which seems to be working. There are always problems but overall it was easy to live under this system. Taxes are high but you actually see something for them. Health care is very affordable and very good. Transportation is excellent and unions work well with businesses. Our experience living in Germany was very positive. The biggest difference is that Germans expect personal responsibility and are much less selfish than Americans. They are very much community oriented. It reminds me of growing up in the 1960’s and 70’s when everyone knew their neighbors. This is missing now in much of the United States. It makes it much easier to divide people as we are experiencing now.
I would echo these sentiments - I too lived in Germany at the time of the Wende. What Germany does right is in there: a blank recognition that neither management nor union can exist without the other. That cooperation must therefore underlie all negotiation.
The "neighbourhood issue" is one I alluded to myself recently. When I was a boy, in Yorkshire, every local business was known by, and operated by, the people whose names were painted above the door. Even department stores (Brown, Muff & Co., Lewis's of Sheffield, Rennie & Macintosh, Jenners of Princes Street) all bore the names of their founders. It's another aspect of the anonymous society (we even call them sociétés anonymes in French): corporate entities that have no name, named for acronyms that belie their personality. Well, it's how we live: the folk at number 116. Their name? No idea.
In his novella "The Time Machine", H. G. Wells imagined a future, 3 million years from now, in which the world comprises an idyll in which there is no quest for knowledge, where food is plentiful and time is passed in fripperies and pleasures. Once a day, a rockface opens to the sound of a siren, and dark, sightless, hairy creatures emerge and take as hostage - as food in fact - a number of the indolent inhabitants of the surface of our Earth. The Morlocks eat and enslave the Eloi. For the rest, the Eloi's existence is without complaint, and indeed without purpose, other than to feed the Morlocks.
Is that extreme? And, moreover, is it any different in its outcome (in terms of life and death) to your present society?
To know what you mean with "extreme", I must first know what you consider to be "conventional". It is by considering that that we conclude "extreme" just means you have a personal aversion to it.
Come back to reality Boo. We're not living in the scientific world. I'd like to think we don't shun science but there again we do have extremes. More and more all the time. And then when people are bit by those extremes they come up with weird cockamanie hypothetical extreme reason or accusation.
Good question… I. agree w/ Plato that Democracy in theory cannot be achieved without it becoming something far worse …what we have now.. capitalism which breeds chaos.. corruption and the elites…
Communism different than socialism in theory seemed a better option.. but that too has failed… in my conversations with people who reside in those countries..
I’m completely open to suggestion .. there must be some sort of alternative .. Is it really black or white
Do you think ? Or am I just being pollyanish in my ill attempt to face reality ?
Thanks for adding this radical source for the coup to your Deeper Look. I trust you are following Gil Duran's long-term research on Yarvin and the Broligarchs at nerdreich.com. He's been interviewed by the New Yorker, NYT, and others.
Would you consider exploring the synergy among 1) this techbro source of Trump/Musk's destructive agenda, 2) the 40 year "influence" of Putin on Trump, and 3) Project 2025?
All share a massive attack on democratic governance, cutting taxes and regulations on big tech corporations, and denial of climate disruption and the broader polycrisis.
I believe the vision of Chainsaw ideology for Earth, it's economy and human society is as fantastic as terraforming Mars.
3) Project 2025 libertarian ideology draws upon a long history beginning in the 50s with William Buckley's founding of the National Review. Buckley laid out a broad vision of a conservative, very pro-business rejection of FDR's New Deal.
An economist, James McGill Buchanan, developed a "free" market rationale for shrinking government.
In 1970 a lawyer Lewis Powell (later a Supreme Court Justice) wrote a secret memo to the President of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. This was a call to action, with a sketch of the strategy needed to dismantle the New Deal and deeply cut government's ability to control business.
Charles Koch responded by creating the intellectual infrastructure for the movement, personally organizing right-wing think tanks like the Cato Institute and funding others like the Heritage Institute and the American Legislative Exchange Council or ALEC.
Ayn Rand's fiction and advocacy has been a constant source of inspiration to the Chainsaw Ideologues.
Thank you Michael.. i really think you nailed it ..even though listening to this.. isn’t surprising but very disturbing..
Our forefathers left England to escape the brutal oppression and tyranny of King George…Now with the replication of what they left.. current technology (they will try) will become their solution for us ..
"Why" emigrants emigrate is generally a subject of speculation. However, somehow, the prospect of an entire continent "there for the taking" is elided over as a spur to emigration. You may care to have a look at this: https://endlesschain.substack.com/p/american-dreams.
Yup, I definitely should have brought him into it. He's admitted his thinking has been influenced by Yarvin, etc. Leaving that out was an oversight -- I'll fix it in the archived version.
Was it Adams senior who said that democracy ends up committing suicide? He’s wrong, of course. Democracy doesn’t get a chance to commit suicide, because it is stillborn. It is a cake with three ingredients, which you can find in the mottos of France and Haiti (they’re the same): freedom, equality and brotherhood. Now, the democracy that many people are champing after is somewhere in there, but it feels a little nebulous: "the way things used to be." Even if you ignore primitive dentistry techniques, how things used to be never was all that great. How things used to be is in fact how we ended up here. So, we can’t go back to that, unless we’re prepared for Groundhog Day.
Plato was against democracy because (and he was right) the freedom accorded to all tends to a process of governance that “carves out” exceptions for favoured parties. That creates inequalities, which only multiply, the greater the consensus becomes that they are "inevitable". We’re not talking VIP lounges and security details, but even things like the simple idea of a joint stock corporation, freeports, tax holidays, foundations, insider trading, the presumption of innocence, no tax without representation, jury trial, AML and much more, familiar concepts that we think of as part and parcel of democracy, but which actually work to disadvantage democracy. We learn to call our systems democratic because we’re told to. And the bogeyman is identified less as a system that allows manipulation and duress and more simply as being “the enemy”: communism. So indelibly attached do the words “enemy” and “communism” become that we can see no positive in communism. And, consequently, a population that blindly follows the definitions laid down by its leaders is not, excuse me, democratic.
Another naysayer of democracy was English philosopher Thomas Hobbes - in Leviathan. On the basis of the simple empirical knowledge that the least arguments over what to watch on television arise when I am the only person watching, there are two conclusions: either I lock the door, or I zip my mouth. That is essentially what democracy has become: we call it democratic and we people it with endless committees and consultancy proposals in order to give a semblance of involvement. But, time and again, pledges are given that are walked back, laws announced that never get passed and laws passed that never get enforced. And a democratic system that is ineffective is not democratic, unless the desired effect were as if it were autocratic, and autocracy is what Hobbes advocated.
Locking the door is also an option, but it comes with a temptation: “Sod them.” “L’état c’est moi.” It’s questionable whether Louis XIV of France ever said it. But it’s less uncertain whether any future demagogue might not say it or words to its effect.
It was Robespierre (in his pamphlet “On the Organisation of the National Guard”) who coined the term liberté, égalité, fraternité. Why those three words? Look at the motto of Cameroon, which is also good: work, peace, fatherland. Or Belgium: union makes strength.
The motto of France is much more than good advice, or encouragement. It is a key. We know what freedom and liberty are, but let’s revisit them: freedom is the ability to do lawfully that which does not impinge on the freedom of another. By that definition, the entire United States is founded not in liberty, but in oppression. Because the founding of America’s freedoms cost the indigenous population their homes and livelihoods. And it is not acceptable to exercise freedom without duly compensating him whose own freedom is thereby materially curtailed. Equality I have touched on. The outliers from the simply principle of equality are too numerous to list. Not even restricting it to de facto inequality - wealth - can contain the objections to your inequalities in law and practice (especially of criminal justice). They are so manifest as to confound explanation and result in a blanket assumption that your constitutional pledge to equality is paper cover for a system inherently designed to be unequal.
The reason why you are unequal, why your bid for liberty ends up constraining equality, and your bids for equality (DEI, for instance) end up constraining freedom (which is why it’s just been abolished) is the third element, which gets swept under the carpet, like some optional ashtray in a car - nice to have, but not very important. Wrong, it is not unimportant, it is the key to making the whole thing work. It is because it is seemingly imprecise in definition that people, be they in Haiti, France or the US, will not spend time trying to define it: brotherhood.
First, it’s non-U? Sorry, sisterhood was all about nuns in 1789, but brotherhood is not even about brothers. It derives from a concept that was relatively new in 1789, which had indirectly even led to the French Revolution, and which Robespierre saw the Revolution as the great vehicle for its incorporation within as a new model state, unlike any that had existed before. The problem was it was hard to convey as a motto. So he remodelled it on a more accessible word. The French word was Lumières, which means Enlightenment. But in French it also translates as “lights”, and Robespierre didn’t think that “liberty, freedom, lights” sounded very much like a political idea. But “brotherhood” has a ring to it and, in the end, means the same thing: loving your neighbour as much as you love yourself.
People are now bemoaning the fact that the government doesn’t seem to care. It seems to be bending over backwards to insist that it indeed doesn’t care. At least you know where they stand. What people want is a return to an administration that enjoys a wide consensus, even from its opponents, that it is “running things properly” and, to do that, governments have always needed (owing to the conflicts identified by Plato and Hobbes) to convey the sense that they care enough to be seen to mean it, but not too much to be called communists. And how much that is, is not exactly defined, nor is it definable. Even God did not decree to Moses that “Thou shalt care”. The closest he got was the Fifth Commandment “Honour thy mother and thy father.” And honouring is different from love, to which Jesus emended it. But caring is out there, bobbing around in the Gulf of America. The gulf that divides your nation down the middle.
How do you define caring enough to make people think that things are how they used to be, whilst avoiding the accusation that you’ve become communists, and convince lobbyists that you will still cock an ear to them? Nixon said it: the president cares enough about the people to flout the law at his will, and to resign if he’s caught. That is the wafer-thin standard of caring that was, until Mr Trump, the standard of your nation. “Don’t get caught.”
But embracing caring - and that in a nation of 350 million - requires community, belonging, and consideration of everyone. Not only have you now got rid of that (plus designing your cities around cars, which does not foster community), but it is the third element that ensures freedom and equality remain where they are put. Because any decision to make an inroad on either of the first two must satisfy an honest appraisal of the measure’s effects in terms of brotherhood. In steam engine terms, brotherhood is the “governor” that stops the engine from accelerating excessively.
America has always been an exception to the rule that autocracy favours the large, constitutional monarchy favours the small. For 250 years you bucked that rule. And now you have bent to it. After signing the Constitution, Benjamin Franklin emerged from the hall and was accosted by a Philadelphia socialite who asked, as if here were a doctor birthing a child, “Well, good doctor, do we have a monarchy or a republic?” “A republic,” he replied, ruefully adding, “If you can keep it.”
You can still keep it. But not without brotherhood. Yes, I know: it smells of communism.
Good one. Thanks for taking the time to lay it out so fully. I think your central point about “brotherhood” being the overlooked but essential third leg of the democratic stool is especially resonant. We often champion liberty and equality as foundational virtues, but without some form of social cohesion—some real sense of mutual obligation—they can become centrifugal forces, pulling a society apart rather than holding it together.
Your discussion reminded me of something I encountered very vividly when I was living in Moscow during the 1980s. I had grown up, like many Americans, with the idea that "freedom" was the ultimate, unquestionable good—something to fight and die for. So I was startled to realize, while learning Russian language and culture, that svoboda—freedom—could carry connotations of chaos, danger, even neglect. “In America you can become a millionaire or die homeless on the street—that’s freedom,” one Russian told me, not as praise, but as a kind of indictment. What they prized most wasn’t freedom but bezopasnost—security, literally "without danger." It reflected a cultural memory shaped by repeated invasions, hardship, and the need to band together for survival. That stood in contrast to the American mythos of the rugged individual pushing west across a vast and insulated frontier.
That experience didn’t lead me to abandon the value of democracy, but it did complicate the picture. It made me more attuned to how democracy can sometimes appear to others not as a form of collective empowerment, but as a source of disorder or dysfunction. And perhaps, as you suggest, it's only when liberty and equality are anchored in a deeper sense of care—whether we call it brotherhood, solidarity, or civic virtue—that the democratic promise has a chance of being realized.
In any case, I’m grateful for your comment. It prompted a line of reflection I might not have otherwise followed.
I didn't know you'd had first-hand experience of a communist state. What you say about that reconfirms in my own mind that the solutions to many states' problems today - Haiti included - lie in a shift towards the ideals of communism, whereby one must guard against advocating an embrace of the political structures through which communism has been put into practice, which differ vastly in Korea, the Soviet Union, Cuba, Eastern Europe, and Sahel Africa. Because (aside perhaps from Cuba) they never managed to expunge the taint of capitalism: self-aggrandisement. But (and it's worth returning to read in its simple words the actual Manifesto written by Marx and Engels in 1848) endorsing the precepts of communism is a first step that none but the brave will make, and which the wealthy will garner the poor to oppose. For me, the important element is that you recognise its value. Thank you.
Plato was adamant: if you compromise democracy, it's not democracy. Well, water with impurities can still be drunk, and must be drunk if there is no other water. Not every "democratic" state is in a parlous state. Their checks and balances still function. There is no arbitrary exercise of judicial power. There are elections and there are good people. And there are all of these things in America right now. In a way, you are panicking that you "could" hit an iceberg. And the reason for the panic is the knowledge that there is much ice out here, and your captain doesn't know where to steer your vessel. The problem is not the iceberg, therefore; it is the size and number of the lifeboats. Ever was it thus.
I have a friend in Hamburg who hails from Schwerin and was born an East German. I asked her a few years ago whether she had any regrets about "die Wende", the fall of the Wall.
She replied that there was no question but that East Germans had yearned for "freedom", and had been given it, and had grasped and utilised it, and some had squandered it. But, she added, in the GDR, you were born into certainty, with a roof over your head, and with a school to go to and a job at the end of it. When you were old, you had a pension. The state looked after you. It was an existence without worry. The only worry was America. That is now gone. The worry is everywhere.
In another piece I wrote recently, I talked about David Bowie's concert at the Brandenburg Gate: https://endlesschain.substack.com/p/the-relevance-of-bowies-heroes-today. If we have difficulty in concretising our concept of "freedom", here is what the word meant to young East Berliners in 1986: the ability to listen to rock music. We have complicated the definition of freedom into a rules-book web of control. In 1986, the Stasi could control what people listened to. So listening to it became the definition of freedom. Honestly, I don't know where we would start to define freedom nowadays, because the controls are everywhere.
A no doubt simplistic view, but from that list I have a hard time thinking that #7 will be likely. But while the coalescing actions we’ve been seeing may seem superficially ineffective, they reflect the willingness, finally, of people to get out and be seen, grow in number and hopefully heard. I have been reading reports that members of the House may be on the list of persuadables, it can’t happen fast enough.
JD Vance has also praised Yarvin publicly, and Thiel speaks at conferences about his ideas (and which Thiel refers to as “prophesy”)
Sachs, Roelof Botha, Theil, Musk, and the early members/founders/funders of Paypal remain privately affiliated with one another, often party together at Thiel’s residence in CA.
Their goals of essentially ending the federal government, destroying the $USD, and replacing it with a gold or non-fiat currency (read: cryptocurrency) fit hand-in-glove with the policy goals of Leonard Leo’s conservative SCOTUS majority, The Heritage Foundation, project 2025, and the rapidly anti-communist/ Anti-socialist John Birch Society that preceded them. The Washington Spectator has some insightful content on them:
…and I’d also recommend Douglas Rushkoff’s “Survival of the Richest; Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires” to get a sense for just how pervasive the Theil/Yarvin dystopian futurism actually is in the silicon valley crowd.
What we’re seeing unfold is a the far-right libertarian policy goals of the old—married to the technofeudalsim of the new. It’s real. It’s happening. It’s right now.
AKA Yarvin’s ‘Butterfly Revolution’, or the hidden agenda of the Silicon Valley’s billionaires, Dark gothic MAGA, aspirations to form a new world order ran by technocracy. There are a few videos that came out a few months ago on this. JD Vance is apparently a pupil of Thiel and the goal of the tech bros is to have Vance take the place of Trump eventually. How accurate is everything being said out there? Who knows?
"Vice President JD Vance has long been a follower of Curtis Yarvin, the San Francisco software programmer whose anti-democracy, pro-dictatorship blog posts have become sacred scripture in Silicon Valley. On Friday, Vance made it official by following Yarvin on Twitter (X)."
Thank you!!! But this has been obvious for so long...he just got a bit better "organized" this term..this time around...and as we all know it's a reflection of his facistic and greedy, attitude towards our citizens... It IS becoming a dictatorship and if he defeats our Supreme Court and Federal Courts we will have a much more difficult time returning to the democracy we've all taken for granted for over two hundred years.
Because the courts seem to move so slowly on these dire actions, I do not understand, in an emergency such as this, why we are allowing it. Yes...I realise that "half" ( really?) the nation still agrees with his destructive policies...but this is such an emergency!! It took a world war to stop Hitler, and Stalin was never really stopped..and of course so many other dictators have slowed "human" safety and progress... Stand STRONG everyone...we're not out yet!!!
Thanks for sharing this thoughtful exploration of Yarvin, Musk, and their possible impact on democracy. You've raised some very intriguing questions and clearly highlighted how Yarvin's ideas might intersect with recent developments involving Musk and Trump. Your approach of caution—stressing the importance of careful analysis rather than immediate conclusions—is commendable.
Your identification of ideological parallels, especially around the DOGE/RAGE comparison, is particularly insightful. However, as you continue to explore this topic, i have some questions for you:
1/Direct Influence vs. Ideological Similarity:
You've noted there isn't yet a direct "smoking gun" linking Yarvin and Musk, which is important transparency. Do you think indirect ideological influence can be as significant as direct mentorship, and if so, how might one empirically demonstrate such influence?
2/Historical Context and Comparison:
Yarvin’s criticisms of democracy echo historical critiques made by figures who advocated for alternative governance models. Could comparing Yarvin's proposals to historical precedents (e.g., earlier technocratic or authoritarian movements) provide further insight into how seriously these ideas should be taken?
3/Realistic Implementation and Reception:
Given the extreme nature of Yarvin’s "8 Point Plan," how feasible do you think implementation would actually be? Is it possible Musk’s actions merely superficially resemble Yarvin’s ideas without indicating a deeper alignment? What might practical barriers or societal reactions look like?
4/The Role of Public Opinion and Resistance:
Your reflection touches briefly on mobilizing public support. How might popular resistance or acceptance shape Yarvin’s theoretical scenario? Would understanding public sentiment add clarity about the realistic threats posed?
5/Role of Peter Thiel and Other Influencers:
You've mentioned Peter Thiel as a key figure linking Musk and Yarvin indirectly. Could exploring Thiel’s direct statements and actions further clarify the depth or seriousness of Yarvin’s influence on tech elites?
Your thoughtful work prompts valuable discussion, and these questions might help clarify how tangible or theoretical the risk to democracy truly is. I’d be curious to see your continued analysis as you dive deeper into these dimensions.
As always great response and research! Isn’t there a secret secret branch of intelligence penguins that can be Russian like and take out some of these dangerous dark soulless people? It’s feels like we are hemorrhaging in our country from every direction!
I agree with the opening premise “that democratic systems (in the United States) are ruled not by elected officials but by an entrenched, self-serving bureaucratic elite.” But to place all the power in the executive only leads to dictatorship. Which history has proven over and over and over again doesn’t work. The beauty of are “ democracy” is that it can always change for the better once people have had enough. While the Trump regime is the indicator that it’s time to reign things in; it’s also a symptom of the bureaucratic elite attempting to “run” things that are not good for the country and not working for all sides of the political spectrum.
Our democracy has proven to be the best form of government in modern history. We have to ensure that we hold Musk, Trump and Project 2025 accountable. But, we also have to force or Congress to fundamentally change by getting the money and lobbying out and term limiting all branches, including the Supreme Court. This is the only way we get ourselves out of this mess and back on track. Scandinavia, Western Europe and much of the other First World have found out the hard way that what Yarvin and Project 2025 are trying to do DOES NOT WORK. It was only time before the United States experienced the same history. Fortunately we have had only one Civil War. We learned some things from that and the country advanced. Hopefully the “good” people from all sides, will prevail because authoritarian rule does not work. No matter how you color it. It’s like putting lipstick on a pig.
Good thoughts indeed. Thanks for sharing. I'm unsettled by this but am hopeful that the result ends up being ar re-set on democracy rather than dumping it. For sure getting the money and lobbying out, and setting term limits would be a good start.
Just think, Germany destroyed themselves and Europe twice in modern history , before they “figured” it out. That’s why they are so concerned about the AFD. We lived in Germany, working for the DOD, for 22 years. All of our friends were stunned the first time Trump was elected and now are beside themselves that he was elected again. The stunt Elon pulled with the AFD has them even more concerned. Luckily there is a strict law on how much money can be spent in an election and they limit the time you can campaign to months not years. I really think that the loss of “the greatest generation” and military members from all countries involved in WWII has left a collective hole in the memory of the incredible waste of lives and property. If you don’t have anyone around who has lived through this it’s hard to learn from experience. I believe the rise of extreme right wing ideology is in part due to this generation dying off.
Perhaps I would temper this with the following: post-WWII, Germany did what America told it to do. It was vastly dependent on the US for reconstruction, and much internal policy was guided by the US, including the response to terrorism.
The RAF ultimately failed to bring German society crashing to its knees. It didn’t really try. But it succeeded in one thing, in sparking the attention of the young of the 1970s to the authoritarian directions government was headed in under US tutelage. It was German police that snuffed out the RAF. But they also snuffed out the wide range of free thought that was nascent at the time, and substituted American “Kool-Aid” instead.
Yes, both Germany and Japan benefited from the Marshal Plan and grew their economies to be top in the world. For Germany, they moved towards a more democratic socialist government which seems to be working. There are always problems but overall it was easy to live under this system. Taxes are high but you actually see something for them. Health care is very affordable and very good. Transportation is excellent and unions work well with businesses. Our experience living in Germany was very positive. The biggest difference is that Germans expect personal responsibility and are much less selfish than Americans. They are very much community oriented. It reminds me of growing up in the 1960’s and 70’s when everyone knew their neighbors. This is missing now in much of the United States. It makes it much easier to divide people as we are experiencing now.
I would echo these sentiments - I too lived in Germany at the time of the Wende. What Germany does right is in there: a blank recognition that neither management nor union can exist without the other. That cooperation must therefore underlie all negotiation.
The "neighbourhood issue" is one I alluded to myself recently. When I was a boy, in Yorkshire, every local business was known by, and operated by, the people whose names were painted above the door. Even department stores (Brown, Muff & Co., Lewis's of Sheffield, Rennie & Macintosh, Jenners of Princes Street) all bore the names of their founders. It's another aspect of the anonymous society (we even call them sociétés anonymes in French): corporate entities that have no name, named for acronyms that belie their personality. Well, it's how we live: the folk at number 116. Their name? No idea.
Extremes of any kind are not a good idea.
That's well said. But what is it said about?
In his novella "The Time Machine", H. G. Wells imagined a future, 3 million years from now, in which the world comprises an idyll in which there is no quest for knowledge, where food is plentiful and time is passed in fripperies and pleasures. Once a day, a rockface opens to the sound of a siren, and dark, sightless, hairy creatures emerge and take as hostage - as food in fact - a number of the indolent inhabitants of the surface of our Earth. The Morlocks eat and enslave the Eloi. For the rest, the Eloi's existence is without complaint, and indeed without purpose, other than to feed the Morlocks.
Is that extreme? And, moreover, is it any different in its outcome (in terms of life and death) to your present society?
To know what you mean with "extreme", I must first know what you consider to be "conventional". It is by considering that that we conclude "extreme" just means you have a personal aversion to it.
Come back to reality Boo. We're not living in the scientific world. I'd like to think we don't shun science but there again we do have extremes. More and more all the time. And then when people are bit by those extremes they come up with weird cockamanie hypothetical extreme reason or accusation.
Good question… I. agree w/ Plato that Democracy in theory cannot be achieved without it becoming something far worse …what we have now.. capitalism which breeds chaos.. corruption and the elites…
Communism different than socialism in theory seemed a better option.. but that too has failed… in my conversations with people who reside in those countries..
I’m completely open to suggestion .. there must be some sort of alternative .. Is it really black or white
Do you think ? Or am I just being pollyanish in my ill attempt to face reality ?
H.G. Well’s imagined future with all it’s weirdness sounds a hell of lot better than Yarvin’s or Thiel’s constrained “dictatorship”..
Then again.. maybe they’re just not that different from one another..
TBH.. not a fan of either …
"Not a good idea", "not a fan". You're pretty negative. What are you actually in favour of?
Keep up the digging - we need you
The Guardian had an article 29 January by Becca Lewis that describes the beginnings of this ideology in Silicon Valley in the 1970’s.
Thanks for adding this radical source for the coup to your Deeper Look. I trust you are following Gil Duran's long-term research on Yarvin and the Broligarchs at nerdreich.com. He's been interviewed by the New Yorker, NYT, and others.
Would you consider exploring the synergy among 1) this techbro source of Trump/Musk's destructive agenda, 2) the 40 year "influence" of Putin on Trump, and 3) Project 2025?
All share a massive attack on democratic governance, cutting taxes and regulations on big tech corporations, and denial of climate disruption and the broader polycrisis.
I believe the vision of Chainsaw ideology for Earth, it's economy and human society is as fantastic as terraforming Mars.
3) Project 2025 libertarian ideology draws upon a long history beginning in the 50s with William Buckley's founding of the National Review. Buckley laid out a broad vision of a conservative, very pro-business rejection of FDR's New Deal.
An economist, James McGill Buchanan, developed a "free" market rationale for shrinking government.
In 1970 a lawyer Lewis Powell (later a Supreme Court Justice) wrote a secret memo to the President of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. This was a call to action, with a sketch of the strategy needed to dismantle the New Deal and deeply cut government's ability to control business.
Charles Koch responded by creating the intellectual infrastructure for the movement, personally organizing right-wing think tanks like the Cato Institute and funding others like the Heritage Institute and the American Legislative Exchange Council or ALEC.
Ayn Rand's fiction and advocacy has been a constant source of inspiration to the Chainsaw Ideologues.
Really appreciate all your work.
Chilling. So appreciate the objective, level-headed approach you bring to this difficult topic, Michael.
Thank you Michael.. i really think you nailed it ..even though listening to this.. isn’t surprising but very disturbing..
Our forefathers left England to escape the brutal oppression and tyranny of King George…Now with the replication of what they left.. current technology (they will try) will become their solution for us ..
Where to we go ? To preserve our FREEDOM ?
If this is the plight of the future of America..🇺🇸..I think we may be headed for a Civil War
"Why" emigrants emigrate is generally a subject of speculation. However, somehow, the prospect of an entire continent "there for the taking" is elided over as a spur to emigration. You may care to have a look at this: https://endlesschain.substack.com/p/american-dreams.
Wondering why you left JD Vance out of the equation. He is also tied very much to Yarvin and Peter Thiel.
Yup, I definitely should have brought him into it. He's admitted his thinking has been influenced by Yarvin, etc. Leaving that out was an oversight -- I'll fix it in the archived version.
Yes … Vance is very connected to both and the brains behind this administration .. much smarter than Trump…
Was it Adams senior who said that democracy ends up committing suicide? He’s wrong, of course. Democracy doesn’t get a chance to commit suicide, because it is stillborn. It is a cake with three ingredients, which you can find in the mottos of France and Haiti (they’re the same): freedom, equality and brotherhood. Now, the democracy that many people are champing after is somewhere in there, but it feels a little nebulous: "the way things used to be." Even if you ignore primitive dentistry techniques, how things used to be never was all that great. How things used to be is in fact how we ended up here. So, we can’t go back to that, unless we’re prepared for Groundhog Day.
Plato was against democracy because (and he was right) the freedom accorded to all tends to a process of governance that “carves out” exceptions for favoured parties. That creates inequalities, which only multiply, the greater the consensus becomes that they are "inevitable". We’re not talking VIP lounges and security details, but even things like the simple idea of a joint stock corporation, freeports, tax holidays, foundations, insider trading, the presumption of innocence, no tax without representation, jury trial, AML and much more, familiar concepts that we think of as part and parcel of democracy, but which actually work to disadvantage democracy. We learn to call our systems democratic because we’re told to. And the bogeyman is identified less as a system that allows manipulation and duress and more simply as being “the enemy”: communism. So indelibly attached do the words “enemy” and “communism” become that we can see no positive in communism. And, consequently, a population that blindly follows the definitions laid down by its leaders is not, excuse me, democratic.
Another naysayer of democracy was English philosopher Thomas Hobbes - in Leviathan. On the basis of the simple empirical knowledge that the least arguments over what to watch on television arise when I am the only person watching, there are two conclusions: either I lock the door, or I zip my mouth. That is essentially what democracy has become: we call it democratic and we people it with endless committees and consultancy proposals in order to give a semblance of involvement. But, time and again, pledges are given that are walked back, laws announced that never get passed and laws passed that never get enforced. And a democratic system that is ineffective is not democratic, unless the desired effect were as if it were autocratic, and autocracy is what Hobbes advocated.
Locking the door is also an option, but it comes with a temptation: “Sod them.” “L’état c’est moi.” It’s questionable whether Louis XIV of France ever said it. But it’s less uncertain whether any future demagogue might not say it or words to its effect.
It was Robespierre (in his pamphlet “On the Organisation of the National Guard”) who coined the term liberté, égalité, fraternité. Why those three words? Look at the motto of Cameroon, which is also good: work, peace, fatherland. Or Belgium: union makes strength.
The motto of France is much more than good advice, or encouragement. It is a key. We know what freedom and liberty are, but let’s revisit them: freedom is the ability to do lawfully that which does not impinge on the freedom of another. By that definition, the entire United States is founded not in liberty, but in oppression. Because the founding of America’s freedoms cost the indigenous population their homes and livelihoods. And it is not acceptable to exercise freedom without duly compensating him whose own freedom is thereby materially curtailed. Equality I have touched on. The outliers from the simply principle of equality are too numerous to list. Not even restricting it to de facto inequality - wealth - can contain the objections to your inequalities in law and practice (especially of criminal justice). They are so manifest as to confound explanation and result in a blanket assumption that your constitutional pledge to equality is paper cover for a system inherently designed to be unequal.
The reason why you are unequal, why your bid for liberty ends up constraining equality, and your bids for equality (DEI, for instance) end up constraining freedom (which is why it’s just been abolished) is the third element, which gets swept under the carpet, like some optional ashtray in a car - nice to have, but not very important. Wrong, it is not unimportant, it is the key to making the whole thing work. It is because it is seemingly imprecise in definition that people, be they in Haiti, France or the US, will not spend time trying to define it: brotherhood.
First, it’s non-U? Sorry, sisterhood was all about nuns in 1789, but brotherhood is not even about brothers. It derives from a concept that was relatively new in 1789, which had indirectly even led to the French Revolution, and which Robespierre saw the Revolution as the great vehicle for its incorporation within as a new model state, unlike any that had existed before. The problem was it was hard to convey as a motto. So he remodelled it on a more accessible word. The French word was Lumières, which means Enlightenment. But in French it also translates as “lights”, and Robespierre didn’t think that “liberty, freedom, lights” sounded very much like a political idea. But “brotherhood” has a ring to it and, in the end, means the same thing: loving your neighbour as much as you love yourself.
People are now bemoaning the fact that the government doesn’t seem to care. It seems to be bending over backwards to insist that it indeed doesn’t care. At least you know where they stand. What people want is a return to an administration that enjoys a wide consensus, even from its opponents, that it is “running things properly” and, to do that, governments have always needed (owing to the conflicts identified by Plato and Hobbes) to convey the sense that they care enough to be seen to mean it, but not too much to be called communists. And how much that is, is not exactly defined, nor is it definable. Even God did not decree to Moses that “Thou shalt care”. The closest he got was the Fifth Commandment “Honour thy mother and thy father.” And honouring is different from love, to which Jesus emended it. But caring is out there, bobbing around in the Gulf of America. The gulf that divides your nation down the middle.
How do you define caring enough to make people think that things are how they used to be, whilst avoiding the accusation that you’ve become communists, and convince lobbyists that you will still cock an ear to them? Nixon said it: the president cares enough about the people to flout the law at his will, and to resign if he’s caught. That is the wafer-thin standard of caring that was, until Mr Trump, the standard of your nation. “Don’t get caught.”
But embracing caring - and that in a nation of 350 million - requires community, belonging, and consideration of everyone. Not only have you now got rid of that (plus designing your cities around cars, which does not foster community), but it is the third element that ensures freedom and equality remain where they are put. Because any decision to make an inroad on either of the first two must satisfy an honest appraisal of the measure’s effects in terms of brotherhood. In steam engine terms, brotherhood is the “governor” that stops the engine from accelerating excessively.
America has always been an exception to the rule that autocracy favours the large, constitutional monarchy favours the small. For 250 years you bucked that rule. And now you have bent to it. After signing the Constitution, Benjamin Franklin emerged from the hall and was accosted by a Philadelphia socialite who asked, as if here were a doctor birthing a child, “Well, good doctor, do we have a monarchy or a republic?” “A republic,” he replied, ruefully adding, “If you can keep it.”
You can still keep it. But not without brotherhood. Yes, I know: it smells of communism.
Good one. Thanks for taking the time to lay it out so fully. I think your central point about “brotherhood” being the overlooked but essential third leg of the democratic stool is especially resonant. We often champion liberty and equality as foundational virtues, but without some form of social cohesion—some real sense of mutual obligation—they can become centrifugal forces, pulling a society apart rather than holding it together.
Your discussion reminded me of something I encountered very vividly when I was living in Moscow during the 1980s. I had grown up, like many Americans, with the idea that "freedom" was the ultimate, unquestionable good—something to fight and die for. So I was startled to realize, while learning Russian language and culture, that svoboda—freedom—could carry connotations of chaos, danger, even neglect. “In America you can become a millionaire or die homeless on the street—that’s freedom,” one Russian told me, not as praise, but as a kind of indictment. What they prized most wasn’t freedom but bezopasnost—security, literally "without danger." It reflected a cultural memory shaped by repeated invasions, hardship, and the need to band together for survival. That stood in contrast to the American mythos of the rugged individual pushing west across a vast and insulated frontier.
That experience didn’t lead me to abandon the value of democracy, but it did complicate the picture. It made me more attuned to how democracy can sometimes appear to others not as a form of collective empowerment, but as a source of disorder or dysfunction. And perhaps, as you suggest, it's only when liberty and equality are anchored in a deeper sense of care—whether we call it brotherhood, solidarity, or civic virtue—that the democratic promise has a chance of being realized.
In any case, I’m grateful for your comment. It prompted a line of reflection I might not have otherwise followed.
I didn't know you'd had first-hand experience of a communist state. What you say about that reconfirms in my own mind that the solutions to many states' problems today - Haiti included - lie in a shift towards the ideals of communism, whereby one must guard against advocating an embrace of the political structures through which communism has been put into practice, which differ vastly in Korea, the Soviet Union, Cuba, Eastern Europe, and Sahel Africa. Because (aside perhaps from Cuba) they never managed to expunge the taint of capitalism: self-aggrandisement. But (and it's worth returning to read in its simple words the actual Manifesto written by Marx and Engels in 1848) endorsing the precepts of communism is a first step that none but the brave will make, and which the wealthy will garner the poor to oppose. For me, the important element is that you recognise its value. Thank you.
Plato was adamant: if you compromise democracy, it's not democracy. Well, water with impurities can still be drunk, and must be drunk if there is no other water. Not every "democratic" state is in a parlous state. Their checks and balances still function. There is no arbitrary exercise of judicial power. There are elections and there are good people. And there are all of these things in America right now. In a way, you are panicking that you "could" hit an iceberg. And the reason for the panic is the knowledge that there is much ice out here, and your captain doesn't know where to steer your vessel. The problem is not the iceberg, therefore; it is the size and number of the lifeboats. Ever was it thus.
I have a friend in Hamburg who hails from Schwerin and was born an East German. I asked her a few years ago whether she had any regrets about "die Wende", the fall of the Wall.
She replied that there was no question but that East Germans had yearned for "freedom", and had been given it, and had grasped and utilised it, and some had squandered it. But, she added, in the GDR, you were born into certainty, with a roof over your head, and with a school to go to and a job at the end of it. When you were old, you had a pension. The state looked after you. It was an existence without worry. The only worry was America. That is now gone. The worry is everywhere.
In another piece I wrote recently, I talked about David Bowie's concert at the Brandenburg Gate: https://endlesschain.substack.com/p/the-relevance-of-bowies-heroes-today. If we have difficulty in concretising our concept of "freedom", here is what the word meant to young East Berliners in 1986: the ability to listen to rock music. We have complicated the definition of freedom into a rules-book web of control. In 1986, the Stasi could control what people listened to. So listening to it became the definition of freedom. Honestly, I don't know where we would start to define freedom nowadays, because the controls are everywhere.
A no doubt simplistic view, but from that list I have a hard time thinking that #7 will be likely. But while the coalescing actions we’ve been seeing may seem superficially ineffective, they reflect the willingness, finally, of people to get out and be seen, grow in number and hopefully heard. I have been reading reports that members of the House may be on the list of persuadables, it can’t happen fast enough.
Here’s a video journalism piece that does a good rundown of the PayPal Mafia & Curtis Yarvin ideology in about 25 minutes:
https://youtu.be/5RpPTRcz1no?si=7IPI5vFkSnFHaDCD
JD Vance has also praised Yarvin publicly, and Thiel speaks at conferences about his ideas (and which Thiel refers to as “prophesy”)
Sachs, Roelof Botha, Theil, Musk, and the early members/founders/funders of Paypal remain privately affiliated with one another, often party together at Thiel’s residence in CA.
Their goals of essentially ending the federal government, destroying the $USD, and replacing it with a gold or non-fiat currency (read: cryptocurrency) fit hand-in-glove with the policy goals of Leonard Leo’s conservative SCOTUS majority, The Heritage Foundation, project 2025, and the rapidly anti-communist/ Anti-socialist John Birch Society that preceded them. The Washington Spectator has some insightful content on them:
https://washingtonspectator.org/peter-thiel-and-the-american-apocalypse/
…and I’d also recommend Douglas Rushkoff’s “Survival of the Richest; Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires” to get a sense for just how pervasive the Theil/Yarvin dystopian futurism actually is in the silicon valley crowd.
What we’re seeing unfold is a the far-right libertarian policy goals of the old—married to the technofeudalsim of the new. It’s real. It’s happening. It’s right now.
I just watched the video in its entirety..Ugh ..I have no words at the moment
AKA Yarvin’s ‘Butterfly Revolution’, or the hidden agenda of the Silicon Valley’s billionaires, Dark gothic MAGA, aspirations to form a new world order ran by technocracy. There are a few videos that came out a few months ago on this. JD Vance is apparently a pupil of Thiel and the goal of the tech bros is to have Vance take the place of Trump eventually. How accurate is everything being said out there? Who knows?
"Vice President JD Vance has long been a follower of Curtis Yarvin, the San Francisco software programmer whose anti-democracy, pro-dictatorship blog posts have become sacred scripture in Silicon Valley. On Friday, Vance made it official by following Yarvin on Twitter (X)."
https://www.thenerdreich.com/elon-musk-jd-vance-and-the-onward-march-of-tech-fascism/
Thank you!!! But this has been obvious for so long...he just got a bit better "organized" this term..this time around...and as we all know it's a reflection of his facistic and greedy, attitude towards our citizens... It IS becoming a dictatorship and if he defeats our Supreme Court and Federal Courts we will have a much more difficult time returning to the democracy we've all taken for granted for over two hundred years.
Because the courts seem to move so slowly on these dire actions, I do not understand, in an emergency such as this, why we are allowing it. Yes...I realise that "half" ( really?) the nation still agrees with his destructive policies...but this is such an emergency!! It took a world war to stop Hitler, and Stalin was never really stopped..and of course so many other dictators have slowed "human" safety and progress... Stand STRONG everyone...we're not out yet!!!
Thanks for sharing this thoughtful exploration of Yarvin, Musk, and their possible impact on democracy. You've raised some very intriguing questions and clearly highlighted how Yarvin's ideas might intersect with recent developments involving Musk and Trump. Your approach of caution—stressing the importance of careful analysis rather than immediate conclusions—is commendable.
Your identification of ideological parallels, especially around the DOGE/RAGE comparison, is particularly insightful. However, as you continue to explore this topic, i have some questions for you:
1/Direct Influence vs. Ideological Similarity:
You've noted there isn't yet a direct "smoking gun" linking Yarvin and Musk, which is important transparency. Do you think indirect ideological influence can be as significant as direct mentorship, and if so, how might one empirically demonstrate such influence?
2/Historical Context and Comparison:
Yarvin’s criticisms of democracy echo historical critiques made by figures who advocated for alternative governance models. Could comparing Yarvin's proposals to historical precedents (e.g., earlier technocratic or authoritarian movements) provide further insight into how seriously these ideas should be taken?
3/Realistic Implementation and Reception:
Given the extreme nature of Yarvin’s "8 Point Plan," how feasible do you think implementation would actually be? Is it possible Musk’s actions merely superficially resemble Yarvin’s ideas without indicating a deeper alignment? What might practical barriers or societal reactions look like?
4/The Role of Public Opinion and Resistance:
Your reflection touches briefly on mobilizing public support. How might popular resistance or acceptance shape Yarvin’s theoretical scenario? Would understanding public sentiment add clarity about the realistic threats posed?
5/Role of Peter Thiel and Other Influencers:
You've mentioned Peter Thiel as a key figure linking Musk and Yarvin indirectly. Could exploring Thiel’s direct statements and actions further clarify the depth or seriousness of Yarvin’s influence on tech elites?
Your thoughtful work prompts valuable discussion, and these questions might help clarify how tangible or theoretical the risk to democracy truly is. I’d be curious to see your continued analysis as you dive deeper into these dimensions.
As always great response and research! Isn’t there a secret secret branch of intelligence penguins that can be Russian like and take out some of these dangerous dark soulless people? It’s feels like we are hemorrhaging in our country from every direction!