The Death of the West: Act III
March 2026
Act III: The Usurpation of the State
The world is quite complicated. As much as the word “usurpation” may indicate something direct, the usurpation of the state may well have been a byproduct of the system at hand as well as a concerted effort.
Nation-states were formed over the course of millennia. One could already see the outline of modern France in Gaul. After the split of Francia, one could see the borders of modern France, Germany, and Italy already forming. The shared experience of these peoples, these nations, in these demarcated areas serves as their own reinforcement of their ethnic heritage over centuries and millennia. As the nature of the ruling classes changed with time, so too did the nations’ relationship to power. While the U.S. flaunts itself as a “nation” that is ruled supposedly “by” its people and “for” its people, the last true nation-states in the West which were truly led “by” its people and “for” its people were arguably Imperial Germany, and by a proximate extension 1930s Germany, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
At any point of history, we can see at work four classes: the priests/academics (at the forefront of thought), the warriors/aristocrats (hierarchy, “might makes right”, chivalry), the merchants/capitalists (financial interests), and the peasantry/plebeians (the masses). At any point of history, one of these classes was necessarily on top with some reliance on a secondary class’s power to maintain the status quo.
In the early medieval period, the priest and warrior classes were aligned, the Church and the monarchs/aristocrats. The priests also served as the academics of this period. The Catholic church is the creator of universities, hospitals, etc. Science, medicine, and philosophy were all conducted by this class. The Church at this time also simultaneously wielded religious and temporal power. The entirety of Western culture was based on the ideas put out by this class: Christianity. The warrior-aristocrats wielded the majority of temporal stately power, having direct power over both the merchants and peasantry. Both of these classes, the priestly and the aristocratic, served to reinforce one another.
In the late medieval period, the Church was subdued by mercantile power as Humanism and the Enlightenment grew. During this transitory period into early Capitalism, the nature of the relationship between the aristocrat and the peasantry changed. Under Feudalism, there was a reciprocal relationship between the lord and his subjects. This served as a sort of “check” on feudal power. As the aristocrats grew less reliant on the peasantry, they became the caricature we think of in modern times looking back – especially what we see into the 17th and 18th centuries, i.e.: more outwardly cold to the lower classes. However, by the nature of merchant and warrior philosophies, in a relationship where one party sees that “might makes right”, the merchant, who would rely on consultation and finances for conflict resolution, is always at the disadvantage. As Capitalism grew to maturity, the power of the warrior-aristocrat was also subdued to financial power. The transition from feudal peasant armies to professional standing armies subdued their power as well. The source of power was no longer birthright, but finance. As financial interests reigned supreme, and no need for a reciprocal relationship with the masses for military power, the natural secondary class of power is the priest-academic class, which has been the case since Capitalism’s maturity. With the waning power of religious authority and the general atheistic humanist culture, this is simply the academic class.
As highlighted by several Rightists philosophers, Frederick the Great summarizes as: “… in a state like this one that the prince conducts his affairs himself, because if he is clever he merely pursues the interest of the state, whereas a minister always follows ulterior motives that touch upon his own interests.” The king, as the country is his land, as the familial extension of the people, has a vested interest in the country and may even feel a natural affinity for his country and people in a way that a minister never will. The minister’s relationship to the king is one of subjection and reliance for protection and salary. This relationship would be the same for the minister in any other form of government and, therefore, it may even be in the minister’s interest, as a manager, to be employed in a democratic, managerial government instead.
As James Burnham writes:
“The divorce of control, or power, from ownership has been due in large part to the growth of public corporations. So long as a single person, family or comparatively small group held a substantial portion of the common shares of a corporation, the legal “owner” could control its affairs. Even if they no longer actually conducted the business, the operating managers were functioning as their accountable agents. But when the enterprise became more vast in scope and at the same time, the stock certificates became spread in small bundles among thousands of persons, the managers were gradually released from subordination to the nominal owners. De facto control passed, for the most part, to non-owning management.”
There grew with time a separation between power and ownership, which had always been intrinsically tied before. The ownership of companies has been corporatized and split infinitesimally small. The owners, the common man, are focused on returns on investment The managers, the ones with effectual power, are focused on growth and general wellbeing of the corporation. This relationship between power and ownership does align their interests to some degree. There is, however, a clear split between the peasantry and the managerial class. If the “owners” truly did not like the direction the manager took and ousted him, he would simply become manager elsewhere. He would be replaced by another of the same. Corporate and governmental interests are also massively aligned. The government has been affected in much the same way. Democratic styled governments have displaced their “ownership” infinitesimally small among the franchised, but there is always someone of the managerial class who wields power. In effect, democratic, corporate capitalist countries are oligarchies. Midwits are unable to see that all of these people come from similar places and families, which I could only expect of them granted they are only using the democratic narrative that was imposed on them to evaluate their circumstances. This transition in the nature of power is summarized in the change in political attire. Those in power have always dressed according to their power and to communicate said power to others. Formerly, leaders would dress in either regal or military attire. Now, they dress as businessmen. Of course, they are not businessmen, but it communicates the origin of power in the modern West. Just as Prime Minister Liz Truss was ousted by a coalition of international finance and the Bank of England but was later vindicated. When was the last time the British people recalled a minister? They have no power to do so, but finance does.
In capitalist democracies, it is the best actor who gets chosen. It is not the most honorable or the strongest. As beneficial as either trait would be, being honorable would imply being honest about the government’s doings and being the strongest would imply wielding effectual power, which is at odds with the capitalist class. Instead, at face value, it is whoever can tell of the biggest dreams and promises, and, as a function of the system, those who are most aligned with financial interests. As the majority of American corporations are owned by a select few holding companies, this provides massive power to few hands. Included among these owned corporations, naturally, is media. Fox News is owned by the Walt Disney Company. Yet, as ownership is dispersed, it is the shareholders who in effect own the Walt Disney Company. However, the largest shareholders in just about any corporation one could name are massive funds such as Vanguard or BlackRock. Having the favor of media by the actor-politician lends them credence among the public, meaning there is an incentive to be actively promoting financial interests. BlackRock infamously is known for having the ESG (environmental, social, and governance) agenda. Owning the majority of American corporations, this naturally is disseminated across culture. While financial interests, naturally, are aimed a profit margins, it says more that financial interests are not exclusively aimed at this and also have motives to affect culture, which, to garner favor from the public, actor-politicians must adhere to.
Money in politics is a widely accepted issue. Yet, being that power rests in money per capitalism, no one wields effectual power to correct the issue except those who are already beholden to money and not the masses. There is no incentive to correct the problem. It does not help the issue that the managerial class stretches across both governmental and corporate power, which serves monopolization. Corporations advocate for regulations to hinder new competition. Corporations also fund the politicians, who have the power to grant said regulations. Simultaneously, in the other direction, bloated governments also tend to alleviate pressure by offloading some burdens of providing for the masses by giving said burdens to corporations.
Every so often, entrepreneurs will rise to great heights, such as Walt Disney and Elon Musk. They have a particular vision which was used to grow their fame and fortune and which guides the company. When they are gone, though, the company succumbs to managerial pressures. The dispersion of ownership lets the managerial class seep in. The company joins the amorphous mass that is all owned by the same few hands which guide the country and spouts the same things as explained the Act II.
This separation of power and ownership also serves to obfuscate failures in that the finger can never be pointed at those who truly rule, but only at some vague notion of the “structure”. When politicians fail, it is the failure of “congress” or the “government”. This is a luxury afforded to people who live under more autocratic governments that they know who to point the finger at. Obama and Trump alike were supposed to be candidates of change. However, Obama bombed Americans in the Middle East and Trump barely built a wall – mostly in places that already had a wall. Kamala Harris was endorsed by the very people Democrats considered enemies and warmongers, namely the Cheney family. Let us not forget the quickly forgotten point, as Thomas Massie alluded to, that all members of congress have a designated “AIPAC person”. The distinction between political parties does not line up with financial interests. The faux-distinction is political theater, bread and circuses. If financial interests do have such a hand in all things, then why would it allow for deviation from stability?
The aligned interests of finances entices “forever wars” and immigration, both legal and illegal. Whatever can make the lines on graphs go up, be they performance measures of government or corporations, is good. In the end, if power supposedly rests on the common man, it may as well be his fault for being duped to elect someone either incompetent or a liar. It is never the fault of those who fail. Granted, what does it mean to fail? Either the actor-politicians fail to implement what was promised to the masses when campaigning, which they likely never sought as they are beholden to financial interests and not the masses for power anyway, or they fail and hurt the general wellbeing of the masses. In the case of either of these failures, the interests of the masses were likely barely considered but to placate them. There is no functional need to appeal to those who wield no effectual power but to placate.
Likewise, there is no longer a functional need to persuade opposition of the validity of ideas. A candidate merely needs to obtain a political majority, so he instead appeals to his opposition and coalesces. This coalescing implies a combination of contradictory ideas for a single platform. In this way, again, the actor-politician appears as an entertainer. This time, not to his constituents but to his opposition. All political discourse is boiled down to formality rather than genuine agonism. Agonism being the true goal of a democratic system. However, this neglects that any actor-politician’s efforts to coalesce, is not a coalescing, as he merely seeks to appeal to an opposition serving the very same financial interests that he serves. There is no agonism in a system which necessitates it.
Then there is the secondary class of power, the priestly, now simply the academic. This is the class of thinkers. Society’s own interpretations of the world are often deferred to the academic. This includes fields like the social sciences, like the aforementioned Kimberlé Crenshaw, and fields of the cold analysis by numbers. The academic class’s influence stretches cutting edge research, product research, and teaching the general public via universities. In any of these cases, the common man’s own interpretation of anything is molded accordingly on the assumption that the deferral of judgement is to others who are more intelligent.
The influence of money over scientific research is a known issue, such as when industry giants fund research skewing results in their favor. Simultaneously, there is the issue of peer review in science, which has been proven to be abused in several instances.
It should be assumed that anyone who wields some form of power would wish to use it to affect their own aims. This may be to affect culture to fit their vision of the world or to affect perception to garner more support and patrons. In either sense, even if the former is by altruism, power is used to reinforce itself. Power begets power. In the former sense, we know the likes of BlackRock and Vanguard operate. In the latter sense, we know many corporations operate. These two motives working in concert is displayed in the sudden onset of transgenderism. Regardless of the opinion if it had existed through history or not, which is not the aim here, its sudden onset should be cause for concern. The only other point in history where it saw such a rise was in the Weimar Republic, rampant with many other degeneracies and also promoted by the same sorts of people we see promoting it now – and in much the same ways. Churning out pharmaceuticals and operations to treat those who identify as transgender has become a cash cow for some. Lupron, a commonly prescribed puberty blocker, is made by Abbott Laboratories. Whereas their market for such a drug was historically to the state and others for sex offenders like rapists or pedophiles, their market is now much larger. This presents a gross incentive to sway public opinion in favor of transgenderism. Interestingly, Abbot Laboratories largest shareholder is also Vanguard, the same group which affects culture through its ownership of media and other products.
The merchants have won out. They may affect the culture to their aims, yet their aims are intrinsically against the wellbeing of the masses. The relationships between classes are no longer symbiotic, but parasitic.
The Death of the West
Many areas of the West have been subverted. The pseudo-Rightists and “conservatives” only hasten its inevitable death by unwittingly using the same philosophies their Schmittian enemies use to arrive at opposing conclusions. Their only doing, thereby, is to confusedly team up with the progressive. What more is a “conservative” than a progressive 10 years behind? They necessarily disarm themselves by only playing defense to the progressive and wielding no actionable philosophy of their own to counter.
The only ones who stand in true opposition to this death are an extreme few, true Rightists. Though, what incentive do they have to save a system so utterly opposed to their philosophies and their own people? By the powers that be having the apparatus to affect the culture, create dissent against Rightism, and flood their countries with those naturally opposed, there is not much to do but ride the tiger. Westerners of any flavor have largely bought into the general apathy, making any action on the part of the masses mostly a forgone conclusion. Granted, it is on the part of vanguardism and great men that moments of history like what is needed are done, not the masses.
The West is already dead. It is only a shadow of its former self like Byzantium in the 14th and 15th centuries. Its ability to exert power will only lessen as it is overtaken by the Chinese. Its anti-natalism will result in an inverted population pyramid. Its lack of religion provides no overarching unifying force. Its historical narrative is pitted against its founding stock and majority population. Its multiplicity of nationalities in single states also provides no hope of unification, as John Jay and Alexander Hamilton eloquently pointed out. Can the new replacement population carry on the West? Alexander Hamilton said no. It can only become what was left behind by the new population. The active dissuasion and undermining of majority populations and cultures works to counter Lee Kuan Yew’s point that the majority always overrules. It is not the majority who necessarily overrules, as this would be the case in a democratic system of authentic agonism, but the majority population within the bounds of effectual power, which is clearly not the majority population of the masses in our current declining circumstance.
Democracy is a giant race to the bottom. Agonism is its defining feature. Unification in this way is impossible. Likewise, can people who have no history of some place continue that history? The West eats itself alive. When a statue of King Alfred the Great was erected in England, Prime Minister Archibald Primrose said of him: “the ideal Englishman, the perfect Sovereign, the pioneer of England’s greatness.” Now, Alfred University says of its own namesake: “It would be foolish to choose a symbol so exclusive and effective in emphasizing the straight white male power structure of history.” Likely, the Western tradition will continue in small pockets or, at best, newfound countries after the process of inevitable Balkanization. The cultural lineage of the West has been severed and the only people left to pick it up in a few short decades are not of it.