Book Review: Patchwork by Mencius Moldbug

Rev up those biodiesel refineries!

Hello Substack, today I finished Curtis Yarvin’s 55-page essay Patchwork: A Political System for the 21st Century. I have wanted to read this for a long time, because whispers I had heard of his planned system were titillating. Also, because I am setting up a worldbuilding project where I may use some of his ideas. All around, I would recommend the read. It is quite straightforward, and at times even made me chuckle. However, I was ultimately left disappointed by the defense of his positive vision for the future.

For those of you who are unfamiliar, the basic premise of the essay is as follows: Firstly, the critique of liberal democracy is very similar to certain things Hoppe said — not surprising, Yarvin is a Libertarian. In fact, I would argue that this book is fundamentally Anarcho-Capitalist, despite the false idea that Yarvin is or was ever a member of the “Alt-Right”. The State is always, at its core, a military force which functions as a protection racket towards the local population, and secondarily (in a rather idealistic view) is a “public charity organization” which seeks to maximize good conditions among its subjects. American Liberal democracy creates an illusion that it is not a military with a bureaucratic wing, that democratic republicanism brings power to the people, and that when it “spreads democracy” it is not simply turning foreign countries into its unequal client states. Yarvin suggests that virtually every governmental system preceding the 20th century would probably be better than what we have now, and it does tickle me pink hearing something so reactionary from someone so intelligent and educated. One of these systems is Absolute Monarchism, Yarvin’s defense of which is very Hoppean. He points out that, actually, Monarchs create a more libertarian society than republican representatives not in spite of their concentrated authority but precisely because of it. Monarchs do not have to make new bureaucracy to get around old bureaucracy. Monarchs are 100% liable for the discontent of their subjects. Monarchs get in far less destructive wars than republican regimes. Whether or not Monarchs are more or less rational than the voters is debatable, but when Monarchs are irrational there is a far more contained series of consequences. This is the exact opposite of what Kant predicted — he assumed that the rational voters would avoid the destructive wars that Europe’s absolute monarchs had allegedly caused within Kant’s lifetime. Instead, we got a century and a half of massified warfare. Democracy makes politics everyone’s problem, not just the ruling elites, while only superficially getting rid of this ruling elite and creating an illusion of choice.

Yarvin, however, is not a Monarchist. He envisions a old-new ideology which he calls Neocameralism, whereby the state is replaced with a joint-stock corporation. Instead of an aristocracy, there are the shareholders or proprietors, and instead of a king there is a chief executive or delegate. Although Yarvin takes inspiration from the Holy Roman Empire, Hanseatic League, colonial charters, and Prussia, he emphasizes that this ideology is only stable with recent, modern cryptographic technology. The sole purpose of the state, being a corporation, is its responsibility to bring profits to the shareholders. The citizens of these “patches”, who he calls residents, have no control over the political machinations but have rights assured in the contract of residency they sign with the patch. Yarvin explains that delegates, being guided by their fiduciary duty to the shareholder, will not violate these rights or turn into an eastern-bloc style prison state which won’t let people leave. Also, the way that the state makes money is off of property tax. All goods bought and sold in the patch have a tax on them, which is justified under the feudal model of “you’re doing business on *my* land”, instead of the flimsy democratic model of “I’m stealing your money for your own good. You aren’t a subject, I promise!”.

The shareholders also have encryption keys which give them access to the national military arsenal, which makes both resistance from the public and attempts by the delegate at usurping power futile. And again, shareholders are anonymous and don’t even necessarily live in the state. Yarvin is not seeking “noble leaders” because people trusting the morality of a leader is always going to be less reliable than trusting the rational moneymaking decisions of a board of trustees. And the board of trustees have an interest in people staying in their state because that’s how they make money. Yarvin emphasizes that there could be tens of thousands of these states in the United States alone, which I think must be important to make sure people’s “dollar votes” actually matter enough for grievances to be taken seriously. However, there also must be enough people for people to have other patches they can migrate to if they are no longer satisfied with their patch.

Another way the will of the state is enforced is through draconian security measures — the state will track every car, have cameras everywhere, et cetera et cetera. However, obviously it is in the best interest of the state not to reveal this information as nobody wants to move to a patch with a track record of releasing personal information. What this security measure will do, is make pretty much any sort of illegal immigration to another state impossible while retaining the ability to traverse states for job purposes and whatnot. This state also will not encourage the migration of useless eaters as the modern state does, and it criminals will be liable for deportation. The unemployed poor will be managed by charities, which the state may not fund in an act of face-saving philanthropy. Philanthropic funding of charity by the state is far more efficient than state management of charities, because it avoids layers of bureaucratic red tape. They may also be adopted by people as what he describes as “dependents” similar to children but what I took to mean “slaves”. Which, is a refreshing outlook I think. Surely, though, many patches would regulate the use of slaves and slavery can only be engaged in with the willing consent of the enslaved (who basically has two options: be a slave, or find some other patch to wallow in).

One point I appreciated on Yarvin’s part was that historically, civilizations who push above their weight in culture and innovation tend to be politically decentralized. Renaissance Europe, Ancient Greece, China during its Spring and Autumn Period, even Bronze Age Mesopotamia. One reason for why this may be, which seems to be the most endearing element of Yarvin’s created world, is that whatever belief system you have should theoretically be compatible with Neocameralism so long as there are a couple thousand people who feel the same way, and would be willing to move to your patch. Speaking of which, shareholders do not create patches. Rather, they buy shares in preexisting patches, which should theoretically dissuade wars of expansion between patches. If you are an investor, and want to invest in territory from another patch, you don’t need to convince fellow investors in Patch A to invade Patch B. You just buy in Patch B. Although, the question does arise of what happens when a patch goes broke. Who gets its remains? This could be a catalyst for war. Furthermore, corporate mergers can happen. What happens if one corporation just starts buying everyone else up? Yarvin provides a weak way around this, basically stipulating in the charter of a patch that it won’t engage in this behavior… And of course, if a patch breaks its promises then people will not want to live there! …Right?

Well, therein lies the main issue with Patchwork, in my opinion… Yarvin began writing about Patchworks in 2008. Before Obunga was even elected. Back then, the tech scene looked much brighter and more different than it does today, and especially than it would look a few years ago before the Musk ascendancy. Back in the late ‘naughties and early 2010s, tech platforms like Reddit had a strong commitment to free speech. They had loyalty to their base. Then, around 2015, things began to change. Demonetization waves were hitting on YouTube. In 2016, things got worse as the election ramped up and Social Justice became a stronger focus at tech companies, who were not only obviously being subverted internally but also externally viewed it as necessary PR. In 2017, things took a turn for the worst. After Charlottesville, big tech became completely open in its policies to ban users for disagreeable political opinions, censor political information and election campaigns they disagreed with, in the name of stopping Fascism and saving our democracy. Video Game and Movie companies took similar routes. Firstly, we saw how irrational market forces could make a company act. Secondly, we saw how irrational CEOs could act without getting shot down by the shareholders. Where were the alt-tech platforms to sweep up disgruntled users? Oh, wait. That’s not how social media works. And if any modern industry could be considered most analogous to a patchworks state, it would be social media.

Ahh, well, short intermission: I know many of you are pining for a boob break right now, and wondering where they’ve been lately! Well, my main supplier actually blocked me because I criticized him for “perpetuating yellow fever” after he posted an Asian girl (this guy has a huge right-wing following, so it wasn’t like I just said it to a random shitlib). Luckily I saved one last cuban cigar before he could get the embargo on me.

Something everyone found out the hard way, is that social media users are sticky. Even when social media companies are not. Just recently, iFunny banned massive swathes of its Old Guard, who kept the app’s heartrate above zero during the Dark Days of 2021, and seems to think that this will help it appeal to “new audiences” because it banned users who were “offensive” (a lot of the banned users didn’t even post political content). That’s just not how it works. We iFunniers in exile still wish to return to iFunny, not out of any sort of admiration for the mods but because it has become our home. And people do not join social media sites because they are well-managed, they join them because their friends are on them. This creates a sort of snowball effect which is largely unaffected by unpopular decisions the companies make, and even very well-organized companies with a small audience will face an uphill battle trying to marginally grow their viewerbase.

I suspect that real-life patchworks would operate similar to the social media market, which tends towards mismanaged decadent oligopoly. In real life, people usually don’t move because of the location. They move to be closer to family, or for a job. And usually when people don’t move, it is not out of admiration for their rulers. It is because they are close to family, because they have friends, because they feel comfortable in their home, and because their children have made friends where they live. Yarvin does point out how much shittier poor management can make a place naturally inclined to beauty, such as the Pakistani slums which used to be beautiful suburbs for the officers of the British Raj.

In this sense, the stickiness of residents will make room for plenty of decadent patches even at the top of the market, especially when you factor in natural location. Also, shareholders have a sense of frugality which does not correspond to the attitudes of patrons of the arts during the renaissance. Culture cannot be generated based on what sort of city the plebeians would like. You end up with a cleaner disneyland with less minorities. What you probably won’t end up with, is the sort of uber-expensive spectacles that you could expect from an actual monarch in the 21st century. Who even knows if the city demands of the plebs will produce anything nice? We already know how fickle of voters they are. Will they be much better as movers? They will probably guiltily stay within their patch which has just cleansed itself of leeches, yes, but will they move to it? Not sure. Clearly some major socio-cultural palingenesis would have to occur *before* the implementation of these patchworks, but luckily Yarvin does explain quite well at how a patchworks system could coexist with a non-patchworks world. Well, until a superpower starts kvetching about how these patchworks are violating code such and such of such and such international law, giving them an excuse to reinstate democracy in the Minecraft Factions. But he seems to treat becoming a resident of a patchwork like buying a cheeseburger, and not like registering for a social media site. Which, again, this was written before social media went to shit so I can’t blame him.

Oh yeah, and even if you can force people out of your patch, you can’t force people in who would make it a better place, which is half the battle. This happens in a different way with social media too. Twitter’s entire success came out of celebrities nesting there. It was just Facebook for celebrities. And I think a Libertarian understands the importance of high human capital more than most — the people you need (both as workers and as residents) if you want to build White Singapore will have better things to be doing in San Fransokyo. Which really sucks. Just think about Minecraft Factions. 9 out of 10 of them go nowhere.

Also, is there anything at all stopping patches from being dishonest to their residents? They have full observation of their residents but their residents have no idea who even rules them. Contracts don’t matter when nobody knows they’re being violated. These are many questions which I think Yarvin would have been able to react to if he had spent some more time in his essay addressing concerns about the patchwork’s ability to maintain itself. The anti-democracy sections are sort of “baby’s first redpill” which he acknowledges and although well written I could have done without.

Overall, 7/10 I will still probably use patchworks in my worldbuilding because it is fun