Ask.Fm: How is Cameralism Relevant to Neoreaction?

Authors Note: This was an off the cuff response to an ask.fm question I wrote in a distraction free text editor. Ask.FM didn't inform me it had character limits so when I posted it originally it cut off about 4/5s of the post. Medium is just ‘long twitter’ and this is not a blog post.

Nick Land, one of the libertarians in the crowd, at one point posted the titles of a few books related to cameralism. An austrian account of economic history, a book on mercantilism, and I think Albion Smalls book on Cameralism. I am an avid reader and I use my Kindle often so it is a preoccuptaion of mine to gather ebooks based upon recommendations I get from associates in life, on twitter, and elsewhere on the interent. I proceeded to find and link said books for Xenosystems. Once I had gathered the books I began reading them and I was immediately entranced. History is a series of stories and narratives and reading about pre-modern economic thoughts highlighted many interesting things about topics I had already been discussing.

I have since then gathered many articles and books related to the history of economic thought, mercantilism, and cameralism specifically. Considering the haphazard use of the term, which isnt surprising given its wikipedia article, I figured its worth investigating further.

Now I am working on a project, really more of an academic journal entry, about this very subject which will go into detail the particulars of the history of the Cameralists. Should be out in March, time permitting, and will provide much of the reference data on this subject. Now there may be some discussion on how modern thinkers can use the data and narrative in context of the function of government and catallitics. I appreciate the question as it allows me to go into some detail on how I think neoreactionaries can use it.

In a word I can describe why cameralism is relevant to neoreactionaries: Finance

I am not an economist by trade. I am a student of Chemistry. However I do share the neoreactionary per-occupation with economics, particularly that found within the Austrian School. I enjoy Mises a great deal and I think there is quite a bit of great things to glean for the Austrian School as a whole. I may not be as well versed in economics as I would like to be but there is, in my mind, a necessity to understand how the state and finance relate to one another. If you have a group of people thinking about systems like a monarchy function it would be important for them to understand how monarchies in the past handled their finances. Given my current pre-occupation with Cameralism I think thats a good of a place to start as another if youre not looking to generate a full treatise on the subject. Speaking of the Austrians. Rothbard does mention a few thinkers of the middle era of Cameralism but beyond mentioning ‘welfare state’ supporters he does not describe what exactly it was that they did and is not much use unless youre looking for some names worth researching.

Cameralism is a field started in Germany which spans centuries. It went through a few iterations but it started with the treasury, or the Kammer. The Ur-Cameralists were mine officials. One of the major sources of the Crowns income was mining. The officials weren’t just there to direct the managers of the workers and report to the King. They were also there to develop metallurgical techniques as well as develop better administrative tools. From these origins the study of political economy was born.

Neoreaction itself has slightly different roots. The spandlerrian trillema highlights that libertarians, conservative chrisitans, and ethno-fascists we’re all interested in discussing the concept of formal elite/monarchy system as a comparative to the current liberal democratic one. I personally see little use in a neoreactionary who sticks to their side of the trilemma instead of combining the 3 as well other tangents and using these influences to come to decidedly true statements on the nature of governance. I can not say theres much I can do to change that but the comparison between Proto-Nrx and Ur-Cameralists, mine officials & anti-university rightists, is well worth noting.

Overtime the Cameralists became political scientists who are trying to provide cash for the prince not generate abstract economic theories. You cant compare what the cameralists did to what Adam Smith was doing at the time. They’re function publicly was to provide money for the Kammer while improving the lives of the German people. I’ll go over more about their private affairs in a little bit but they generally didn’t do the same things an economist would do. The function of policy on the ground was of far more interest to them.

Now there were treatises and theories being developed and applied but this theoretical approach was not as prevalent until later when such things as mining institutes and the Cameral Academy were developed. The Cameralists were far more interested in developing the industries owned by the crown than trying to sell the idea of excise taxation for instance.

Now its important to note that Taxation as we know it today is something completely different from what occurred historically. In 1913, for example, the income tax was instituted. This tax on personal income is a great source of wealth and power and few governments before could even dream of having such power. Cameralism is highly relevant to neoreaction even if it is limited to the discussion of funding your state. The discussions the cameralists were having could very well induce thoughts alone certain tangents for Nrx to consider that they would not normally have if they were considering the modern era and modern economic theory. This is not to say that nothing important or noteworthy can be gleaned from recent study. Only that its useful to have more than just modern theory when one is trying to do a brainstorm or open discussion in order to formulate foundational analytic structures.

I am not going to spend time in this question to explain exactly why I think libertarianism, especially anarchistic variants, itself has troubles in context of functioning societies but I do empathize with the distrust of government officials as well as a general skepticism of their ability to do the job right. Early cameralists like Justi were often in combat with corrupt town officials in efforts to actually implement sane policies. Unfortunately at the same time Justi could be construed as a ‘bad cameralist’ and he himself probably defrauded the German Crown in his administration of certain Ironworks. The german administration, with an investigation by Councillor Jaeckel (I know right?), apparently thought so and as a result imprisoned him until his death.

Cameralism, beyond considering where the money is going to come from, should interest neoreaction because it brings up important points about the trouble with bureaucrats. They fill positions initially that seem necessary but end up being parasitic abominations that do nothing but hinder the people. Theres plenty of discussion on the nature of the university and the media but its rare to see people bringing up the 3rd leg of the demon hive: Bureaucracy.

The early cameralists spent the most amount of ink and parchment on a topic neoreaction does as well: self definition. What made a good cameralist and what made a bad one? The good cameralists are often defined as those who improved the lives of the people, who ethically filled the coffers, who helped strengthen and progress the industries, who never used their position for gain, and who were moral men . The Bad cameralists were often seen not as purely evil monsters but who were not good. Using their positions to provide money to the prince by any means necessary and who had no scruples about filling their own pockets at the detriment of the industries and communities they were involved with. Often, is the case with these things, most cameralists in practice were bad cameralists. They did inspire good cameralists but for the most part their writings on who the cameralists were more often than not PR for their own schemes.

NRx must be very rigorous about works of theory and actual praxis.

Nrx often discusses what they are without considering the trouble of is vs ought. Many of the discussions, some of which I have myself had, are framed by what we think Nrx IS. It IS a saloon for the development of intellectual frameworks. It IS the growing underground invisible college and school of thought. It IS a developed theory of government. It really ISNT any of this. Its a few guys with blogs dedicated to viewing many older theories and modern phenomena through the lens of anti-whiggery. I am not saying it should remain so or that it cannot become something else. Rather I am saying it OUGHT to become the very things it says it is.

It cannot do this without a modicum of rigor and properly framed introspection. If we are to learn anything of the story of the Cameralists its to understand how easy it is to be a Bad Neoreactionary. To fall into the trap of ideolouges and ideology. To form half narratives and propaganda to ingratiate themselves with the elite. To make a great sounding system but to use this to sell your own name in schemes. Eventually, if one were to take real power, to make policy decisions no better than those made by the current crop. Reversed Evil isnt Good by necessity, it could very well be another form of evil.

An interesting tangent to consider is that Cameralism occurred around the German Enlightenment and was part of Europes separate financial schools of thought’s reactions to the Enlightenment as a whole. I’m doing research on the German Enlightenment as well but that’s a large topic with many more relevancies to neoreaction than I can point out here.

I think something else that can be gleaned from the study of cameralism is the ironies in which neoreaction has used the term prior. Moldbug was the first to use neocameralism in the reactosphere. Speaking of old Mencius the founder of the Cameral Academy was named Friedrich Medicus and the tone of the essays he wrote on the state of industrial management at the time were: straightforward, folksy, condescending, and sometimes peevish. Strange to think of all the synchronicities this field has with neoreaction. I have never been a big fan of moldbugs style especially his rhetorical flourish. I find that its really only useful for the jewish atheist libertarian folk out there being converted away from progressive memes. That is useful in its own right but I have always found it tiresome.

Moldbug spends some time working with neocameralism here: https://unqualifiedreservations.wordpress.com/2007/12/20/neocameralism-and-the-escalator-of-massarchy/

The trouble is that he is using neocameralism as a shorthand for Joint Stock Republicanism in context of a patchwork system.

What about the Kammer?

Cameralism has everything to do with how the government gets money and how to improve industries to produce more income. Thats the source and essence cameralism. It can be argued that the general ideas around these concepts in an academic setting, as argued by keith tribe, is the real essence of cameralism but its not telling the prince to do his job and its for sure not recommending a cryptographic legal alternative to the prince. Moldbug assumes a government, at least a formalized joint stock republic, is an unglorified taxfarm which collects taxes on the basis that the government is good at limiting interpersonal violence and conflict.

Its all fine and dandy to use a theory of cameralism, even a neo one, in context of corporations but really only if its about funding. Otherwise its merely a rhetorical flourish to get people to associate your idea with a ‘science’ of policy as the wiki describes the system. Lets see what nick land and co. have to say about meta-neo-cameralism (seriously)

http://www.xenosystems.net/meta-neocameralism/

“It’s no more than Neocameralism apprehended in its most abstract features, through the coining of a provisional and dispensable term.”

Considering that formalism does that for neo cameralism(Joint Stock Republicanism) seems that adding the meta to it doesnt do much for you.

“Because MNC is an extremely powerful piece of cognitive technology, capable of tackling problems at a number of distinct levels (in principle, an unlimited number), it is clarified through segmentation into an abstraction cascade. Descending through these levels adds concreteness, and tilts incrementally towards normative judgements (framed by the hypothetical imperative of effective government, as defined within the cascade).”

I’m going to be honest. As no actual development has been done on MNC I am getting the vibe of the Bad Cameralists off this one. A grand unifed field theory of government… and its all ours! Now it is a lengthy and surprisingly developed post by current XS standards and while I dont play the blog game I will certainly be tackling the piece on a future Hour of the Jackal.

“From the earliest, most abstract stage of this MNC outline, it has been insisted that power has to be evaluated economically, by itself, if anything like practical calculation directed towards its increase is to be possible.”

I do grant that meta-neo-cameralism does seem to be grasping more towards the economic factors related to governance and thus more related than moldbugs discussion. Not necessarily in context of the kramer or the financial industry as a whole but at least its closer. As I said its a post well worth discussing because its one of the few places an actual analytic theory has been described but it is deserving of some serious rigor to see if its worth going forward with in the future.

Speaking of going forward into the future with analytic theories I am most intrigued with the desired end of Neoreaction, ie the Invisible College, and the end stage of the early cameralists, the Cameral Academy. Students of the Cameral Academy were renowned for being useless once they left school so there's that. On the flip side they did make strides to improve the local universities through competition so its not all bad. I think that the concept of the Invisible College is a worthy goal but it needs to be centered in rigor, how people actually think and learn, generating alternatives outside of the college that can help businesses with the certification filtration problem, and resemble the Academy of Athens (as far as discussion and debate go). There are many lessons from the Cameralists in their academic pursuits well worth paying attention to by neoreactionaries… even if its what NOT to do.

How else is cameralism relevant? Well there's Open Transactions.

Neoreactionaries don't live in a world where money is literally mined from the earth. Money is generated digitally by government decree. Recently certain developments have come forth which allow for money to be generated by blockchain and hashing technologies such as by the bitcoin protocol. Further developments have allowed for entire suites of crypto-market tools to become available to those with the skill to use them. Soon that tech will be available for the technologically illiterate as well.

First off Nrx should figure out how to actually make some money from such developments. Without funding of some variety theres not many places it will be able to go. Only so much can be done on a purely volunteer basis. Second such technologies will alter the manner in which states can actually get money and maybe mass progressive state taxation wont be possible in your techno-monarchy. Given how many Nrx happen to be coders and economists it may be an actual step towards neo-cameralism. At this stage I can only list off great tangents related to cameralism and neoreaction but they’re all relevant so I’ll keep chugging on.

Regardless such work will lead to an end which isnt cameralist in nature but is represented by the work I’m doing on it: Taking Possession of the Overton Window. Neoreaction has the nasty right wing tendency of being led by the narrative of the media. They frame the whole issue when and where they want it. Theres not many benefits to playing the medias game. Instead make the news or better yet DONT. Control your own frame. Research and discuss important topics regardless of what the talking heads are discussing.

I would also not recommend taking on the name neocameralism mostly because of the abject failures of cameralism and object difficulties of ahistoricism. I would go on to say stay away from labels or central ideological fetishization is is want with neoreaction. Instead focus on fraternal organization and have communities of individuals who can develop these ideas in an organizational framework with the ability to actually test the praxis. The best lesson to learn from the cameralists is to be against utopianism. Learn from them but dont idolize them. Its highly likely cameralism as a whole was just a PR move to sell shady policies set in place by the Kammer. Do you really want Meta Neo Reaction to come about? More importantly do you want Nrx to be a con?

Thats all I got for now. I’m sure when I’m done writing the first issue of Jackal Quarterly I will do a Jackal Hour on Cameralism, Neoreaction, and MNC. Be sure to field anymore questions through ask.fm

“[Justi’s time at his first mining town] will soon show whether his science is merely theoretical, or whether it extends to praxis.”