Tag: history

A Library Survey

We already know what the next book in the Castalia Library/Libraria subscription series will be, and will announce it on the first of March. We’re also working on obtaining the rights to some works we are very confident will please everyone. And we know the two volumes of A SEA OF SKULLS will be in the mix later this year after we get the regular hardcover edition out. But we’re interested in hearing from you what other books might be of interest to you this year; here are some of the books we’re considering.

We are also offering a first look at some very rare books indeed.

Also on the Library stack today is the seventh and final part of Oman’s first chapter. And while I agree with the great historian with regards to the chief lesson of history, thanks to our advantage of 95 years of hindsight, I think we can safely conclude Oman’s hopes for the “new and vigorous age” were dashed to pieces, and that the Pessimists were entirely correct about the prospects for modernity.

From the outlook of the ordinary man we are no longer at the end of a feeble and moribund Christendom, but at the start of a new and vigorous age, full of ideals, moral, cultural, philosophical, religious, and materialistic. As I said in an earlier page, it would take a whole book to discuss the question how far the Revival of Learning, the Reformation, the discovery of America and the Cape Route to the Indies, or scientific discovery which knocked the Geocentric Theory on the head, were each of them responsible for the new historical perspective of the civilized world. But the change was complete and astounding; and the foundations of the modern ways of thought had been laid, while the “Seven Ages” in their depressing series had dropped out of men’s conception of the Universe. A new visualization of the world had begun…

The Pessimist, incidentally, has enjoyed one of those periods in which he is able to snarl “I told you so” to a disconcerted world. But all down history the Pessimist has never had the last word. I prefer to range myself with the Optimists, and hope to survive long enough to see another vista of hope before my own generation has passed away.

I know not whether the change of perspective will come by means of the League of Nations, which has provoked so much enthusiasm in so many quarters, or whether it will be the result of a saner nationalism which can combine true patriotism with a proper regard for the rights of one’s neighbours. All I know is that the world-mind works by action and reaction, and that a swing of the pendulum in one direction will ultimately be followed by a swing in the other.

That to my mind is the teaching of history.

Man’s Outlook on History, Sir Charles Oman, 1929

Needless to say, the globalist neoliberal modernity that has come to be known as Clown World did not turn out to be an improvement upon Christendom, its moral, cultural, philosophical, religious, and materialistic ideals notwithstanding.

DISCUSS ON SG

Bad Choices Abound

Big Serge invokes a chess analogy to explain the very difficult choices being faced by Israel vis-a-vis the Arabs in Palestine and by the USA in the Middle East and in Ukraine.

The basic geostrategic problem facing the United States (and its ectopic paramour, Israel) is that the ability to conduct asymmetrically inexpensive countermeasures has become exhausted. The US can no longer prop up Ukraine with surplus shells and MRAPs, nor can it deter the Iranian axis with reprimands and air strikes. Israel can no longer maintain the image of its impenetrable preclusive defenses, upon which its peculiar identity depends.

That leaves the difficult choice between strategic retreat and strategic commitment. Half measures no longer suffice, but is there will for a full measure? For Israel, which has no strategic depth and a unique world-historic self conception, it was inevitable that commitment would be chosen over strategic withdrawal (which in their case is much more metaphysical than purely strategic, and amounts to the deconstruction of the Israeli self conception). Thus, the immensely violent Israeli operation in Gaza – an operation that could never have gone any other way, given the density of the population and its eschatological meaning.

America, however, has a great degree of strategic depth – the same strategic depth which allowed it to withdraw from Vietnam or Afghanistan with few meaningful ill effects on the American homeland. The possibility most certainly remains for a prosperous and secure America long after withdrawing from Syria and Ukraine. Indeed, the famously chaotic scenes of frantic evacuation from Saigon and Kabul represent remarkably clearsighted moments in American foreign policy, where realism prevailed and losing chess pieces were left to their fates. This is cynical, of course, but that is the way of the world.

This is a standard motif of world history. The most critical moments in geopolitics are generally those where a country faces the choice between strategic retreat or full commitment. In 1940, Britain faced the choice between accepting Germany hegemony on the continent or committing to a long war which would cost them their empire and lead to their final eclipse by the United States. Neither is a good choice, but they chose the latter. In 1914, Russia had to choose between abandoning its Serbian ally or fighting a war with the Germanic powers. Neither seemed good, and they chose the latter. Strategic retreat is hard, but strategic defeat is worse. Sometimes, there are no good choices.

The Age of Zugzwang, Big Serge Thought, 14 February 2024

It’s an excellent historical analysis and the whole piece merits careful reading. However, the one element that is being left out of the equation is The Empire That Never Ended. Which is to say, in modern parlance, Clown World. It’s simply not possible to analyze the decisions of the US government to employ military force in the American national interest when the individuals making those decisions clearly do not prioritize the interests of Americans or even the US citizenry.

The obvious and growing divergence between the Kiev regime and the surviving Ukrainian people being the relevant case in point here.

DISCUSS ON SG

The Thucydides Trap (Castalia Edition)

Forget great power competition. The real Thucydides Trap is the one that Castalia History has laid for unwary book collectors and armchair historians. If you’d like to see the final stamp design of the first book in the series, you can see it at Castalia Library. It’s scheduled for binding the week of March 8th and it is a behemoth of a book.

With regards to the fourth book in the History series, in the latest selection posted, Sir Charles offers profound observations about the past that reflect directly on our future. Consider how well his description of a transformed political perspective applies to the post-WWII United States and what that implies for the future of its empire.

Two centuries and a half later there was a good example of political perspective being upset for a whole nation, not by catastrophe, but by sudden expansion. I allude to the Greeks, and the result on their view of the world caused by the exploits of Alexander the Great. The Macedonian conquest of the East revolutionized the relations of the active and high-cultured little states of Greece, both with each other and with the outer world. Civic patriotism received a blow, but in return the establishment of the new Macedonian Empire offered many compensations both to the state and to the individual. If a man consented to forget that he was an Athenian or a Corinthian, and merely to remember that he was a Greek, what was more inspiring than to see that the old Hellenic genius for colonization was not extinct; to behold every land from the Aegean to the Indus covered with Greek cities as large and splendid as any that had ever existed in the old motherland…

While the empire of the Eastern world was being won by the Tigris, fights at home between small armies for a strip of plainland or a border fort seemed contemptible and absurd. For the Greeks who had thrown themselves into Alexander’s great adventure the national perspective had suddenly enlarged from a view of the Aegean to a view as far as the Oxus and the Indus. The Hellenic world had been increased twenty-fold. Why discuss constitutions any more, or indulge in petty faction-fights, when the man with a brain and a sword had the universe at his feet? The vision was illusive, and ended in a veneer of Greek civilization imposed on the East for a few centuries, at the cost of the exhaustion and debasement of the civilizer.

DISCUSS ON SG

Negativity is the Consequence of Degeneracy

The great 20th century historian, Sir Charles Oman, presciently illuminates the philosophical mediocrity and fundamental inutility of what he describes as the Pessimist, and what we would describe as a Blackpiller, a doomsayer, or an MGTOW, in today’s selection from his epic STUDIES IN NAPOLEONIC WARFARE now being serialized on the Castalia Library substack.

The conception of the history of the world as a process of consistent deterioration, from a golden age down to a catastrophe well earned by degenerate mankind, is not a very cheerful or inspiring one to guide the way of life. The most obvious deduction from it is, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die”. The average man finds within himself no power to withstand the stream of tendency in which he believes himself carried along toward an unhappy end. He does not even exclaim with Hamlet:

The World is out of joint—O cursed spite
That ever I was born to set it right.

For how few minds even conceive the idea that it is their duty to stand against the spirit of the times, hard though the task may be.

Historical Perspective: Man’s Outlook on History, Sir Charles Oman

This is precisely why I harbor neither respect nor regard for those who have nothing to offer the world except their ceaseless predictions of inevitable doom. For as Sir Charles explains, their negativity is the inevitable and inescapable consequence of their own degeneracy.

Hope is a Christian virtue. Even in a fallen world populated by mediocrities, engulfed by lies, and ruled by inverts, demons, and satanic pedophiles, we have the undying hope of the Cross. Despite our own flaws, sins, stupidities, and shortcomings, the Almighty God chose to extend His hand to us, and through His Son, offer us a way out of the material mire.

Having taken that Divine hand, it is now our duty to stand against the evil spirit of our times. Not our desire, our dream, or our mood of the day. Our duty, however hard it might be.

And if our inspired optimism pains our enemies, if our relentless conviction burns them, if our Christian faith enrages them, if our intolerance makes them feel bad about themselves, that is only further testimony to the fact that our perspective is essentially beautiful, good, and true.

DISCUSS ON SG

Man’s Outlook on History

Castalia Library has begun the serialization of Castalia History Book 4, STUDIES ON THE NAPOLEONIC WARS by Sir Charles Oman. It is truly an excellent work, as this excerpt should suffice to demonstrate.

The moment that man begins to think about something more than the passing trifles and troubles of his daily life, and starts, consciously or unconsciously, to make generalizations about himself and his neighbours, their ends and objects, their past and future, he has begun to look at things in perspective. And when he extends his survey so as to draw deductions from all that he knows about the past records of mankind, he is trying to look at the world in historical perspective. It may be that his survey extends over no greater space of time than a generation or two—“Tales of a Grandfather” may be the limit of his knowledge. Or, on the other hand, he may know—or may think that he knows—the whole history of mankind since the Creation—if he ties himself down to the idea of a Creation—down to the all-important present day. Such was the happy conviction of Orosius in A.D. 417, and of Mr. H. G. Wells in A.D. 1925. But whether his horizon of knowledge be long or short, whether it be a hundred years or a hundred aeons, the man who has started to generalize about his own position in universal history is constructing for himself an historical perspective.

What are the things that determine a man’s outlook on the past and the future?

It is with some difficulty that I restrain myself from essentially converting Castalia History into the Sir Charles Oman series. Although I can guarantee that there will be more Oman titles in the series. I think, at this point, that he has joined Eco, Tolkien, Aristotle, and Aquinas in my personal pantheon, surpassing Bury, Murakami, Lee, and Gibson in the second rank.

Note that the serialization begins with the Preface, and can be navigated through the NEXT and PREVIOUS buttons on the bottom of each post. And speaking of Man’s outlook on history, perhaps one might enjoy a look at the results of the test stamping for Castalia History Book 3, THE CAMBRIDGE MEDIEVAL HISTORY Volume 2: The Twelfth Century to the Renaissance, which is scheduled for binding today.

DISCUSS ON SG

Tucker-Putin Interview: Complete Transcript

This is an autotranslation of the Russian transcript provided by the Kremlin.

INTERVIEW TO TUCKER CARLSON
Vladimir Putin answered questions from Tucker Carlson – journalist, founder of the Tucker Carlson Network video platform.

TUCKER CARLSON: Mr. President, thank you very much.

On February 24th, 2022, you turned to your country and nation when the conflict in Ukraine began. You said you were acting because you came to the conclusion that with the help of NATO, the United States can start a sudden attack, attack on your country. For Americans are like paranoia. Why do you think America could deliver an unexpected blow in Russia? How did you come to this conclusion?

VLADIMIR PUTIN: It’s not that America was about to deliver an unexpected blow in Russia, I never said. Do we have talk shows or do we have a serious conversation?

TUCKER CARLSON: This is a beautiful quote. Thanks. We have a serious conversation.

VLADIMIR PUTIN: You have a historical basic education, how I understand, huh?

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes.

VLADIMIR PUTIN: Then I will let – just 30 seconds or one minute – give a little historical help. Do you mind?

TUCKER CARLSON: Please of course.

VLADIMIR PUTIN: See where our relations with Ukraine began, from where did she take it, Ukraine?

The Russian state began to gather as centralized, it is considered a year the creation of the Russian state – 862, when Novgorodians – there is such a city of Novgorod in the north-west of the country – invited Prince Rurik from Scandinavia to the prince, from the Varangians. 862 year old. In 1862 Russia celebrated its 1000th anniversary statehood, and in Novgorod there is a monument dedicated 1000th anniversary of the country.

In 882, the successor of Rurik, Prince Oleg, who performed, in fact, the functions of the regent in the young son Rurika, and Rurik died by this time, came to Kiev. He removed two brothers from power, who, apparently, were once members of the Ryurik squad, and thus Russia began to develop with two centers: in Kiev and in Novgorod.

Next, a very significant date in the history of Russia, – 988. This is the Baptism of Russia when Prince Vladimir, this is the great-grandson of Rurik, baptized Russia and received Orthodoxy – Eastern Christianity. Since that time the beginning the centralized Russian state is being strengthened. Why? Common territory, single economic relations, one language and after the baptism of Russia – one faith and power prince. Central Russian begins to take shape state.

But for various reasons after the introduction succession – also in ancient times, Middle Ages – Yaroslav the Wise, a little later, after he passed away, the succession was difficult, not transmitted directly from father to elder son, and from the prince who passed away, his brother, then sons on different lines. All this led to the fragmentation of Russia – of a single state, which began to take shape as one. Nothing this is not special, the same thing happened in Europe. But the fragmented Russian state has become easy prey to that the empire that Genghis Khan once created. His successors, Khan Batiy, came to Russia, plundered almost all cities ruined them. South the part where Kiev was, by the way, some other cities, they simply lost their independence, and the northern cities retained part of their sovereignty.They paid tribute to Horde, but part of sovereignty saved. And then with the center in Moscow, the beginning a single Russian state is taking shape.

South part of the Russian lands, including Kiev, began gradually reach for another « magnet » – to the center that was developing in Europe. It was the Grand Lithuanian Principality. He was even called Lithuanian-Russian, because the Russians made up significant part of this state. They spoke ancient Russian, were Orthodox. But then the union of – the union of the Great princes of the Lithuanian and Polish kingdom. After for several years another union was signed already in the spiritual realm, and part Orthodox priests obeyed power Pope. So these lands were part of the Polish-Lithuanian state.

But the Poles for decades engaged in the impoverishment of this part of the population: they introduced their language there, began to introduce the idea that these are not entirely Russian, that, since they live near the edge, they are Ukrainians. Initially, the word « Ukrainian » meant that man lives on the outskirts of the state, « near the edge », or is engaged in border service, in fact. It didn’t mean some special ethnic group.

So here the Poles polished in every possible way and in principle treated this part of the Russian lands quite harshly, if not cruelly. All this led to, that this part of the Russian lands began to fight for their rights. And they wrote letters to Warsaw, demanding compliance with their rights so that people, including Kiev, are sent here…

TUCKER CARLSON: When it was, in what years?

VLADIMIR PUTIN: It was in the 13th century. I will now say what happened next, and I will name the dates so that there was no confusion.

And in 1654, a little earlier, even – people who controlled power in this part Russian lands, appealed to Warsaw, I repeat, demanding that sent people of Russian origin and Orthodox faith. And when Warsaw is basically nothing did not answer and almost rejected these requirements, they began to turn to Moscow so that Moscow would take them to itself. You didn’t think that I came up with something, I will give you these documents…

TUCKER CARLSON: I do not think that you are making up something, no.

DISCUSS ON SG

Continue reading “Tucker-Putin Interview: Complete Transcript”

Communism > Clown World

One of the most startling realizations of the 21st century has been the inescapable conclusion that communism, despite all of its atheism, murderous tendencies, economic shortcomings, and various other evils, is still much, much better for a nation than Clown World’s neoliberalism.

A map recently published by German poll aggregator Wahlkreisprognose shows that in the former East Germany Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) has a clear lead in almost the entire former German Democratic Republic while the western part is overwhelmingly dominated by the conservative CDU and its Bavarian sister party CSU.

In other words, the country is sharply divided along what was once formerly West Germany and East Germany (GDR).

In the map, the Institute has colored Germany’s Bundestag constituencies according to party preference. The black color represents the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the blue color the Alternative for Germany (AfD), the red color the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), and the green color the Greens. The fainter the color, the smaller the lead of the party in the constituency, and the darker the color, the more dominant the party is.

The CDU dominates in western Germany outside the big cities, and the AfD in eastern Germany outside Berlin. The CDU and AfD are perfectly aligned with the former border between the former German Democratic Republic and the former West Germany.

This is not an argument for communism, but rather a condemnation of Clown World. North Korea is still Korean. China is still China. But the USA is no longer American, Great Britain is no longer British, the European nations are invaded and occupied by foreigners, and even the proud nations of Japan and South Korea are under direct assault.

Clown World delenda est.

By the way, the econoclowns lied about the “economic need for immigration” too. Immigration doesn’t help the economy at all. It is observably worse for an economy than losing a war and being nuked.

Mass immigration may cost Germany up to €19.2 trillion, and has already cost the country €5.8 trillion, according to a top German academic on public finances, Prof. Bernd Raffelhüschen, of the University of Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg. Often referred to as the “pension pope,” Prof. Raffelhüschen’s study blows a hole in the narrative promoted by pro-migration parties and business leaders, who claim that mass immigration will save Germany’s public finances and the job market.

Several top Dutch professors recently released a study detailing how migrants have cost the Netherlands a minimum of €400 billion since 1995, and the Netherlands has accepted far fewer migrants than Germany. In Norway, researchers found that only half of migrants are employed despite the state spending €6.6 billion on workforce integration projects over the course of 10 years.

DISCUSS ON SG

NATO’s Sicilian Expedition

Russian generals and military analysts increasingly betray open disdain for the incompetence of their Western counterparts. Even the ever-wary Putin, despite his habitual caution and openness to negotiation, radiates a distinct contempt for the enemies of Russia, perhaps in part due to his anticipation of them reliably choosing suboptimal courses.

And lest one think that the Russians are simply striking poses in order to put themselves in a better negotiating position, consider the insane new British plan to do just that as reported yesterday by RIA Novosti. Autotranslated from the Russian:

MOSCOW, Feb 2 — RIA Novosti. Great Britain invited NATO allies to consider sending an alliance expeditionary force to Ukraine, an informed source told RIA Novosti.

“In connection with the unfavorable development of events for Kiev at the Ukrainian theater of operations (TVD), Britain invited NATO allies to consider sending an alliance expeditionary force to Ukraine, as well as establishing a no-fly zone over the territory controlled by the Kiev authorities and increasing the supply of weapons and equipment VSU”, — said the agency interlocutor.

Nevertheless, the British side expects that with a significant weakening of the Armed Forces and the successful advancement of the Russian army deep into the territory of the former Soviet republic, the Allies will approve the initiative, the source noted. He specified that the kingdom offers to secretly transfer to Ukraine large highly maneuverable NATO forces from the border regions of Romania and Poland for the occupation of defensive lines on the right bank of the Dnieper.

In addition, the British plan involves the deployment in Norway and Finland of a contingent of the alliance and armies of individual members of the organization to “spray” the forces and means of the Russian troops, he said. “At the same time, attacks can be made on strategic infrastructure facilities in the northern regions of Russia,” — the source emphasized.

Then, according to him, the NATO military will create a buffer zone within the occupied positions, including the border with Belarus and the territory around Kiev, and the released reserves of the Armed Forces will be sent to the special operation zone. Thus, according to London, NATO will supposedly be able to undermine Russia’s offensive capabilities and Russia will have to negotiate, he said.

Britain intends to complete the preparation of such a scenario by May of this year, the source of the agency summarized.

London proposed to send NATO expeditionary force to Ukraine, RIA NOVOSTI, 2 February 2024

The last time Britain organized an expeditionary force against Russia, it did not go well. Very few in the West now recall the North Russian Intervention, which involved 32,000 British, French, and US troops being sent to Archangel for a year-and-a-half. But the Russians assuredly have not forgotten it. From Infogalactic:

The North Russia intervention, also known as the Northern Russian expedition, the Archangel campaign, and the Murman deployment, was part of the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War after the October Revolution. The intervention brought about the involvement of foreign troops in the Russian Civil War on the side of the White movement. The movement was ultimately defeated, while the British-led Allied forces withdrew from Northern Russia after fighting a number of defensive actions against the Bolsheviks, such as the Battle of Bolshie Ozerki. The campaign lasted from March 1918, during the final months of World War I, to October 1919.

Presumably, the USA is behind this latest British brainstorm, just as it was behind the decision of the Kiev regime to fight a proxy war for NATO instead of surrendering in April 2022 at the behest of then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. But perhaps the neoclowns should focus on winning their latest war in Yemen and defeating that formidable military power before setting up to lose on yet another front in Ukraine.

Although it would be historically fitting if NATO were to end with its own Sicilian Expedition.

DISCUSS ON SG

The Russian Art of War

A new book by a French colonel explains the difference between Western and Russian military thought, and how the superiority of the latter is why the former loses its wars:

Throughout the Cold War period, the Soviet Union saw itself as the spearhead of a historical struggle that would lead to a confrontation between the “capitalist” system and “progressive forces.” This perception of a permanent and inescapable war led the Soviets to study war in a quasi-scientific way, and to structure this thinking into an architecture of military thought that has no equal in the Western world.

The problem with the vast majority of our so-called military experts is their inability to understand the Russian approach to war. It is the result of an approach we have already seen in waves of terrorist attacks—the adversary is so stupidly demonized that we refrain from understanding his way of thinking. As a result, we are unable to develop strategies, articulate our forces, or even equip them for the realities of war. The corollary of this approach is that our frustrations are translated by unscrupulous media into a narrative that feeds hatred and increases our vulnerability. We are thus unable to find rational, effective solutions to the problem.

The way Russians understand conflict is holistic. In other words, they see the processes that develop and lead to the situation at any given moment. This explains why Vladimir Putin’s speeches invariably include a return to history. In the West, we tend to focus on X moment and try to see how it might evolve. We want an immediate response to the situation we see today. The idea that “from the understanding of how the crisis arose comes the way to resolve it” is totally foreign to the West. In September 2023, an English-speaking journalist even pulled out the “duck test” for me: “if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck.” In other words, all the West needs to assess a situation is an image that fits their prejudices. Reality is much more subtle than the duck model….

The reason the Russians are better than the West in Ukraine is that they see the conflict as a process; whereas we see it as a series of separate actions. The Russians see events as a film. We see them as photographs. They see the forest, while we focus on the trees. That is why we place the start of the conflict on February 24, 2022, or the start of the Palestinian conflict on October 7, 2023. We ignore the contexts that bother us and wage conflicts we do not understand. That is why we lose our wars…

In Russia, unsurprisingly, the principles of the military art of the Soviet forces inspired those currently in use:

  • readiness to carry out assigned missions;
  • concentration of efforts on solving a specific mission;
  • surprise (unconventionality) of military action vis-à-vis the enemy;
  • finality determines a set of tasks and the level of resolution of each one;
  • totality of available means determines the way to resolve the mission and achieve the objective (correlation of forces);
  • coherence of leadership (unity of command);
  • economy of forces, resources, time and space;
  • support and restoration of combat capability;
  • freedom of maneuver.
  • It should be noted that these principles apply not only to the implementation of military action as such. They are also applicable as a system of thought to other non-operational activities.

An honest analysis of the conflict in Ukraine would have identified these various principles and drawn useful conclusions for Ukraine. But none of the self-proclaimed experts on TV were intellectually able to do so.

Thus, Westerners are systematically surprised by the Russians in the fields of technology (e.g., hypersonic weapons), doctrine (e.g., operative art) and economics (e.g., resilience to sanctions). In a way, the Russians are taking advantage of our prejudices to exploit the principle of surprise. We can see this in the Ukrainian conflict, where the Western narrative led Ukraine to totally underestimate Russian capabilities, which was a major factor in its defeat. That is why Russia did not really try to counter this narrative and let it play out—the belief that we are superior makes us vulnerable….

This is very, very similar to what Martyanov describes in the current Castalia Library book, Losing Military Supremacy. Which should come as no surprise, as both men are familiar with Russian military thought and how different it is than what Victor Davis Hanson once described as the Western way of war. The short term thinking of the Western military strategists can most easily be seen in their historical obsession with “the decisive battle” and strange focus on the idea that losing a battle or two, or even denying him a sufficiently impressive victory, will somehow weaken the enemy leader and magically cause him to be replaced by a more amenable successor.

Which is why the Russians are patiently winning a brutal attrition war in Ukraine while the US bleeds itself out everywhere from Afghanistan to Yemen.

DISCUSS ON SG

Identity > Ideology

Lee Kuan Yew’s doctrine is more important than all the ideologies and isms in history combined. Because no one actually believes in any of them, they simply use them for the advancement of their races and religions. Identity is even sufficient to transform a diehard, life-long libertarian and Austrian economist into a full-blown collectivist, as evidenced by Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s criticism of Walter Block’s libertarian case for Israel:

Block et. al., in their attempt of presenting the liberal respectively libertarian case for Israel, maintain that they can justify the claim of present-day Jews to a homeland in Palestine based on their status as “heirs” of Jews having lived two millennia ago in the region then called Judea. Not surprisingly, however, except for the single and in itself highly questionable case of the Kohanim (Jews of priestly descent) and their specific connection to the Temple Mount, they do not provide a shred of evidence how in the world any one specific present-day Jew, through a time-span of more than two thousand years, can be connected to any one specific ancient Jew and be established as legitimate heir of some specific piece of property stolen or otherwise taken from him two thousand years ago.

The claim of present-day Jews to a homeland in Palestine, then, can only be made if you abandon the methodological individualism underlying and characteristic of all libertarian thought: the notion of individual personhood, of private property, private product and accomplishment, private crime and private guilt. Instead, you must adopt some form of collectivism that allows for such notions as group or tribal property and property rights, collective responsibility and collective guilt.

This turn from an individualistic to a collectivistic perspective is on clear display in Block’s et. al. summary conclusion (p.537):

“Rothbard supports homesteading as the legitimate means of ownership (the first homesteader gets the land, not any subsequent one)….Libertarians deduce from this fact that stolen property must be returned to its original owners, or their heirs. This is the case for reparations. Well, the Romans stole the land from the Jews around two millennia ago; the Jews never gave this land to the Arabs or anyone else. Thus according to libertarian theory it should be returned to the Jews.”

Bingo. But homesteading is done by some specific Ben or Nate, not by “the Jews,” and likewise reparations for crimes committed against Ben or Nate are owed to some specific David or Moshe as their heir, not to “the Jews,” and they concern specific pieces of property, not all of “Israel.” Unable to find any present David or Moshe that can be identified as ancient Ben’s or Nate’s heir to some specified piece of property, however, all reparation claims directed against any current owner are without any base.

Another property theory is needed to still make the case for a Jewish homeland. And Block and his coauthors offer such a theory: property rights and reparation claims can allegedly also be justified by genetic and cultural similarity… Whatever these outpourings of Block’s are, they have nothing whatsoever to do with libertarianism. In fact, to advocate the indiscriminate slaughter of innocents is the total and complete negation of libertarianism and the non-aggression principle. The Murray Rothbard I knew would have immediately called them out as unhinged, monstrous, unconscionable and sickening and publicly ridiculed, denounced, “unfriended” and excommunicated Block as a Rothbardian.

First, setting aside the burning question of what is, and what is not, Rothbardian, I always find the historic Jewish claim to the land of Israel on the basis of previous ownership to be incredibly bizarre, given that in the very document upon which they base that claim, it is established a) the Habiru stole the land from the Canaanites and b) most of it didn’t belong to them anyhow, but to one of the other tribes. How would property that Simeon stole from Joe Canaan, which was then stolen by Assyrians and later stolen by Romans, then Arabs, and finally the British, before being stolen by European Jews somehow properly belong to a genetic heir of Judah?

But that’s just an observation that is literally the exact opposite of new. What’s much more interesting here is the way that Block’s argument relying upon the transformation of the ideological core of libertarianism into a form of ethnic collectivism not only proves Lee’s doctrine of identity, but even shows how predictive that doctrine can be. For the record, I had never read anything by Block nor did I know anything about his background prior to reading Hoppe’s article today

Walter Block was born in Brooklyn, New York to Jewish parents Abraham Block, a certified public accountant, and Ruth Block, a paralegal, both of whom Block has said were liberals. He attended James Madison High School, where Bernie Sanders was on his track team. Block earned his Ph.D. degree in economics from Columbia University and wrote his dissertation on rent control in the United States under Gary Becker. Block identifies himself as a “devout atheist”.

Show me your argument and you show me your identity.

Because, as the greatest political mind of the 20th Century once wrote: “In multiracial societies, you don’t vote in accordance with your economic interests and social interests, you vote in accordance with race and religion.”

That’s why I no longer describe myself as a libertarian. Not simply because I have rejected the ideology, although I have, but because I no longer believe that most ideologists, past or present, are even remotely interested in, much less connected to, truth and objective reality. Despite its grandiose and universalist pretensions, ideology is the detailed rationalization of an identity group’s immediate interests, and it will always be subject to further modification and mutation as that group’s interests change over time.

DISCUSS ON SG