To clear some things up, violence will never lead to change this isn’t the 19th century and is not what I was getting at. Many in the States won’t even get involved with groups like American Renaissance, Return to the Land, or groups like Patriot Front and Active Clubs. Many fearing arrest or worse. My comment wasn’t meant to convey a romanticized 19th century revolution or even a 20th century. I was thinking more along the lines of the long march through the institutions and forming political groups similar to the Jewish institutions, they started this a century ago or more and slowly gained power, we however do not have a century and lack the capital, but our numbers grow daily. The comment also wasn’t an attack on you personally as you are the one who got me into nationalism, it was more so the need to organize peoples free time as this is something the progressive left is very good at. If this seemed like self pity it wasn’t meant to be we in the States are just 40 years ahead of Europe in our situation. Also I’m looking forward to your new book, “Nationalism: The Politics of Identity” was great and helped form much of my ideas on democracy
Thanks. When I read "I ask you how could we expect nothing less, imprisonment and death are the price for the continuation of our people", I figured you were gesturing at that but didn't want to spell it out. I understand it wasn't an attack, I am also being a bit more polemical in response because it was a good opportunity to respond more generally to the typical "do something!" demands I read. Glad to hear I got you into nationalism. Feel free to submit any other questions.
America obviously has many differences in political systems, culture, and history compared to Ireland and Europe. What do you think will be the differences in approach and form of Nationalist politics in the United States, versus Europe?
Hi Keef, been following radical right-wing politics for several years now but have never really done any proper reading on economics. Around the world today we're seeing various right-wing / third position groups on the rise - if they should be able to form government in a major Western country, is there a suitable economic framework which can guide them on matters of fiscal and monetary policy? I don't even know who any of the relevant authors would be so I'd appreciate some recommended reading.
Obviously not Keith but I’d recommend looking into the different economies built throughout history instead of just a book. The 20th century corporatist economies that Hansson, Mussolini, and Franco built, modern examples are the Nordic model and China which both use their own corporatist approach. For more socialism style economics I’d say the USSR is as close to manifesting Karl Marx’s ideas into reality. For traditional capitalism America is probably a good example. I’d also recommend looking into why so many communist turned to fascism to list a few prominent figures Mussolini first and foremost, Oswald Mosley, Jacques Doriot especially as he was a prominent French communist in the Comintern and would later die fighting for Hitler against communism, finally Nicola Bombacci a founder of Italian communism strung up next to Mussolini. The distance between communism and fascism is a single step and men often went back and forth as both were answers to the economic crisis of the 19th and 20th century.
Is it true that Ireland's impressive HDI and other economic numbers are only as high as they are because Ireland is a "tax haven"? i see that alot, is that the case? Ireland has successful native businesses like Ryanair, Smyths, Primark etc. I believe UK has significant American investment as well that props up their economy. is the tax haven thing i see online constantly just Anglos blowing off some steam or what?
any good resources on Irish history/achievements from middle ages mainly and beyond? any time really. discovered Brehon Law, Cain Adomnain, elaborate insular art (Ardagh Hoard, Tara Brooch, Book of Kells) the latin treatises that were seen as advanced at the time (De mirabilibus sacrae scripturae, Liber de ordine creaturarum).
earliest town or nucleated settlement in Ireland or Britain, Brusselstown Ring. Seems clear Ireland was fairly sophisticated pre viking invasion. Not Irish never been to Ireland but have Irish ancestry looking to find out more thx
How would you go about creating a new left to right path or progressive to nationalism path, especially in universities?
The twentieth century is remembered as a war between two opposites, communism on the left and fascism on the right, the poles of all political possibility. That framing is the great misunderstanding of the age. The two were not opposites but rival answers to a single question, and the proof is how easily men passed from one to the other. The hinge is Georges Sorel, the French theorist of revolutionary violence, of whom Mussolini said, “What I am, I owe to Sorel.” Sorel began as a Marxist and ended as an inspiration to the nationalist right, and the Cercle Proudhon, the nationalist syndicalist project that gathered around him before the First World War, already fused the two, insisting that the revolutionary left and the nationalist right had more in common with each other than either had with the liberal center. This was 1911, years before any fascist movement existed.
The crossings that followed were not betrayals or oddities. They were the signature of the century. Mussolini edited Italy’s foremost socialist newspaper before he founded fascism, and what he changed was the answer to one question, what is the agent of revolution, exchanging Marx’s proletariat for the nation. Oswald Mosley left Labour, where he had pushed a program of public works and industrial planning, and walked into the founding of British fascism. Jacques Doriot went from leading the French Communist Party to collaboration. Nicola Bombacci, a founder of Italian communism and a friend of Gramsci, died shot beside Mussolini. The speed of these journeys reveals what political theory conceals: the gap between the revolutionary left and the revolutionary right was not a chasm but a step, because the thing on both sides of it was the same thing, and a man who already had it needed only to rename it.
The fascist states and the Soviet Union converged in their politics but diverged in their economics, and the dividing line is private property. Fascism was corporatist. It left ownership in private hands and put the state’s collar on it, directing industry, bending it to national purpose, but the capitalist kept his capital and could pass his business to his son. The Soviet Union abolished private ownership outright. There was no private business to direct because the state was the only owner, which is not corporatism, and the difference is not a technicality but the entire substance of what the Marxist revolution claimed to be. So when these regimes are grouped together it must be on the right ground. What they shared was the political architecture, the single party, the absence of any democratic brake, labor organized by the state to stop it organizing itself, rival institutions destroyed, whole peoples deported or killed. What they did not share was the economic model. On power they rhymed. On property they split at the root.
Beneath all of it, the fascist and the communist and the democratic alike, lay nationalism, because the nation is the only force large enough and real enough to move men to sacrifice and to bind a state to the people it governs. Fascism made the nation explicit and worshipped it. Communism denied the nation in theory and leaned on it in practice, which is why the Soviet Union was beneath its internationalist language a Russian imperial project, and why every communist state that endured became a national one or did not endure at all. The century kept asking the same question in every dialect, who are the people and how shall they hold their state, and nationalism was the answer underneath every rival answer, acknowledged or hidden. This is why the conversion of men from the left to the right mattered so much and happened so often. The left’s internationalism was a coat worn over a loyalty that was the nation all along, and once a man felt the body beneath the coat, the step to an open nationalism was short. The energy the left had gathered in the name of class could be turned, almost without friction, into energy in the name of nation, because the nation was what had been underneath the class loyalty the whole time.
The decisive case, and the most awkward for the modern left, is Sweden. Per Albin Hansson built the Folkhem, the People’s Home, the foundation of the Nordic model that social democrats hold up as proof that socialism works. But the Folkhem was a nationalist project to its foundations. Hansson built it on the open idea that the nation is a family and the state is the family’s home, and it worked because Swedes would fund the welfare of Swedes they would never meet, for the single reason that those others were still Swedes. The means were corporatist, structured cooperation between labor, capital, and the state, the same means at work in Mussolini’s Italy. The high trust the left admires in Sweden, the willingness to pay, the low corruption, the sense that the system is fair, did not come from redistribution. It came from a people that was one people, and redistribution worked because that cohesion was already there to carry it. The leftist who points to Sweden as his model is pointing at the most successful ethno-nationalist corporatist state in Europe and calling it the opposite of what it is, which is the century’s misunderstanding repeating itself in admiration.
China is the other example the left reaches for, and it makes the same error twice. It is called communist and it is nothing of the kind in any sense Marx would own, because China restored private property and private enterprise. A Chinese citizen can build a business and a fortune and pass them on. The party directs, disciplines, and will crush any private power that challenges it, but ownership remains private and harnessed, which is the corporatist settlement of the fascist states, not the Soviets. When the left points to China’s rise, the hundreds of millions lifted out of poverty, the speed of its building, the cohesion of its purpose, it believes it is pointing at the triumph of communism. It is pointing at a corporatist ethno-nationalist state flying a red flag, one whose strength comes from a single people pursuing its own project, using the rhetoric of communism the way the Soviets used the rhetoric of internationalism, as a cover. Both of the systems the left holds up as its proof are in truth the two most successful ethno-nationalist corporatist states of the age, and the prosperity and the trust the left admires in them are the fruit of national cohesion, not of socialism. Marx would not recognize China, Mussolini would. When the left points to an example of socialism it nearly always points to nationalism and corporatism.
Thanks for the reply Keith.
To clear some things up, violence will never lead to change this isn’t the 19th century and is not what I was getting at. Many in the States won’t even get involved with groups like American Renaissance, Return to the Land, or groups like Patriot Front and Active Clubs. Many fearing arrest or worse. My comment wasn’t meant to convey a romanticized 19th century revolution or even a 20th century. I was thinking more along the lines of the long march through the institutions and forming political groups similar to the Jewish institutions, they started this a century ago or more and slowly gained power, we however do not have a century and lack the capital, but our numbers grow daily. The comment also wasn’t an attack on you personally as you are the one who got me into nationalism, it was more so the need to organize peoples free time as this is something the progressive left is very good at. If this seemed like self pity it wasn’t meant to be we in the States are just 40 years ahead of Europe in our situation. Also I’m looking forward to your new book, “Nationalism: The Politics of Identity” was great and helped form much of my ideas on democracy
Thanks. When I read "I ask you how could we expect nothing less, imprisonment and death are the price for the continuation of our people", I figured you were gesturing at that but didn't want to spell it out. I understand it wasn't an attack, I am also being a bit more polemical in response because it was a good opportunity to respond more generally to the typical "do something!" demands I read. Glad to hear I got you into nationalism. Feel free to submit any other questions.
Hello Keith. Love your content.
America obviously has many differences in political systems, culture, and history compared to Ireland and Europe. What do you think will be the differences in approach and form of Nationalist politics in the United States, versus Europe?
Hi Keef, been following radical right-wing politics for several years now but have never really done any proper reading on economics. Around the world today we're seeing various right-wing / third position groups on the rise - if they should be able to form government in a major Western country, is there a suitable economic framework which can guide them on matters of fiscal and monetary policy? I don't even know who any of the relevant authors would be so I'd appreciate some recommended reading.
Obviously not Keith but I’d recommend looking into the different economies built throughout history instead of just a book. The 20th century corporatist economies that Hansson, Mussolini, and Franco built, modern examples are the Nordic model and China which both use their own corporatist approach. For more socialism style economics I’d say the USSR is as close to manifesting Karl Marx’s ideas into reality. For traditional capitalism America is probably a good example. I’d also recommend looking into why so many communist turned to fascism to list a few prominent figures Mussolini first and foremost, Oswald Mosley, Jacques Doriot especially as he was a prominent French communist in the Comintern and would later die fighting for Hitler against communism, finally Nicola Bombacci a founder of Italian communism strung up next to Mussolini. The distance between communism and fascism is a single step and men often went back and forth as both were answers to the economic crisis of the 19th and 20th century.
Is it true that Ireland's impressive HDI and other economic numbers are only as high as they are because Ireland is a "tax haven"? i see that alot, is that the case? Ireland has successful native businesses like Ryanair, Smyths, Primark etc. I believe UK has significant American investment as well that props up their economy. is the tax haven thing i see online constantly just Anglos blowing off some steam or what?
any good resources on Irish history/achievements from middle ages mainly and beyond? any time really. discovered Brehon Law, Cain Adomnain, elaborate insular art (Ardagh Hoard, Tara Brooch, Book of Kells) the latin treatises that were seen as advanced at the time (De mirabilibus sacrae scripturae, Liber de ordine creaturarum).
earliest town or nucleated settlement in Ireland or Britain, Brusselstown Ring. Seems clear Ireland was fairly sophisticated pre viking invasion. Not Irish never been to Ireland but have Irish ancestry looking to find out more thx
How would you go about creating a new left to right path or progressive to nationalism path, especially in universities?
The twentieth century is remembered as a war between two opposites, communism on the left and fascism on the right, the poles of all political possibility. That framing is the great misunderstanding of the age. The two were not opposites but rival answers to a single question, and the proof is how easily men passed from one to the other. The hinge is Georges Sorel, the French theorist of revolutionary violence, of whom Mussolini said, “What I am, I owe to Sorel.” Sorel began as a Marxist and ended as an inspiration to the nationalist right, and the Cercle Proudhon, the nationalist syndicalist project that gathered around him before the First World War, already fused the two, insisting that the revolutionary left and the nationalist right had more in common with each other than either had with the liberal center. This was 1911, years before any fascist movement existed.
The crossings that followed were not betrayals or oddities. They were the signature of the century. Mussolini edited Italy’s foremost socialist newspaper before he founded fascism, and what he changed was the answer to one question, what is the agent of revolution, exchanging Marx’s proletariat for the nation. Oswald Mosley left Labour, where he had pushed a program of public works and industrial planning, and walked into the founding of British fascism. Jacques Doriot went from leading the French Communist Party to collaboration. Nicola Bombacci, a founder of Italian communism and a friend of Gramsci, died shot beside Mussolini. The speed of these journeys reveals what political theory conceals: the gap between the revolutionary left and the revolutionary right was not a chasm but a step, because the thing on both sides of it was the same thing, and a man who already had it needed only to rename it.
The fascist states and the Soviet Union converged in their politics but diverged in their economics, and the dividing line is private property. Fascism was corporatist. It left ownership in private hands and put the state’s collar on it, directing industry, bending it to national purpose, but the capitalist kept his capital and could pass his business to his son. The Soviet Union abolished private ownership outright. There was no private business to direct because the state was the only owner, which is not corporatism, and the difference is not a technicality but the entire substance of what the Marxist revolution claimed to be. So when these regimes are grouped together it must be on the right ground. What they shared was the political architecture, the single party, the absence of any democratic brake, labor organized by the state to stop it organizing itself, rival institutions destroyed, whole peoples deported or killed. What they did not share was the economic model. On power they rhymed. On property they split at the root.
Beneath all of it, the fascist and the communist and the democratic alike, lay nationalism, because the nation is the only force large enough and real enough to move men to sacrifice and to bind a state to the people it governs. Fascism made the nation explicit and worshipped it. Communism denied the nation in theory and leaned on it in practice, which is why the Soviet Union was beneath its internationalist language a Russian imperial project, and why every communist state that endured became a national one or did not endure at all. The century kept asking the same question in every dialect, who are the people and how shall they hold their state, and nationalism was the answer underneath every rival answer, acknowledged or hidden. This is why the conversion of men from the left to the right mattered so much and happened so often. The left’s internationalism was a coat worn over a loyalty that was the nation all along, and once a man felt the body beneath the coat, the step to an open nationalism was short. The energy the left had gathered in the name of class could be turned, almost without friction, into energy in the name of nation, because the nation was what had been underneath the class loyalty the whole time.
The decisive case, and the most awkward for the modern left, is Sweden. Per Albin Hansson built the Folkhem, the People’s Home, the foundation of the Nordic model that social democrats hold up as proof that socialism works. But the Folkhem was a nationalist project to its foundations. Hansson built it on the open idea that the nation is a family and the state is the family’s home, and it worked because Swedes would fund the welfare of Swedes they would never meet, for the single reason that those others were still Swedes. The means were corporatist, structured cooperation between labor, capital, and the state, the same means at work in Mussolini’s Italy. The high trust the left admires in Sweden, the willingness to pay, the low corruption, the sense that the system is fair, did not come from redistribution. It came from a people that was one people, and redistribution worked because that cohesion was already there to carry it. The leftist who points to Sweden as his model is pointing at the most successful ethno-nationalist corporatist state in Europe and calling it the opposite of what it is, which is the century’s misunderstanding repeating itself in admiration.
China is the other example the left reaches for, and it makes the same error twice. It is called communist and it is nothing of the kind in any sense Marx would own, because China restored private property and private enterprise. A Chinese citizen can build a business and a fortune and pass them on. The party directs, disciplines, and will crush any private power that challenges it, but ownership remains private and harnessed, which is the corporatist settlement of the fascist states, not the Soviets. When the left points to China’s rise, the hundreds of millions lifted out of poverty, the speed of its building, the cohesion of its purpose, it believes it is pointing at the triumph of communism. It is pointing at a corporatist ethno-nationalist state flying a red flag, one whose strength comes from a single people pursuing its own project, using the rhetoric of communism the way the Soviets used the rhetoric of internationalism, as a cover. Both of the systems the left holds up as its proof are in truth the two most successful ethno-nationalist corporatist states of the age, and the prosperity and the trust the left admires in them are the fruit of national cohesion, not of socialism. Marx would not recognize China, Mussolini would. When the left points to an example of socialism it nearly always points to nationalism and corporatism.