On milking the HLvM model [fluff piece]
The main idea: the Left gravitates towards a Corporatist and
then Socialist Oligarchy, as the Right does towards an Interventionist
Autocracy run by a strong man.
0. Posts on this blog are ranked in decreasing order of likeability to myself. This entry was originally posted on 25.04.2022, and the current version may have been updated several times from its original form.
0.1 I have not read De Jouvenel (they stopped asking us to attend
the office, can't fit long from unless on the way there and from) though I am aware of many “in a nutshell”
versions digested by others. Further, I have not read C.A. Bond either (unavailable,
though I remember the blog) and there go the two authorities on the HLvM model.
If below one finds any silliness that would have been easily avoided by anyone
who had read either of them, now you know how it got there.
1 The model
1.1 Moldbug famously held than left-right is not just a
simplistic model of the political spectrum across a handful of modern
societies, but is instead a common conflict running across all human societies,
going as far as to be able to confidently place this or that Roman faction into
either camp. I agree with the sentiment.
1.2 So what is Left, and what is Right? First, let me get
the obligatory hat tip to HerbR done, and lets focus on the only model in that list that I think has any predictive power: High and Low versus Middle.
1.3 Guys want power, are built for it. To get it, you need
to ally yourself with others and share the spoils (Ring of Fnargl is just as unavailable
on Amazon as Bond’s book), which only works if you leave some people out of the
alliance, otherwise who would be left to lord it over?
1.4 How broad should you alliance be? The broader it is, the
easier to rule over the remainder and the greater degree of power over them you
wield as a collective. But your actual, individual share of power gets smaller as the coalition broadens,
hence there must be some optimal coalition size where individual slices of
power are maximized.
1.5 There is no way to track such an ideal, and the boys
have to rely on the time-tested heuristic instead: be as small as possible, but
not so small that the other coalition gets you. Obviously, this leads to a
stable equilibrium of two competing coalitions.
1.6 If you rank all men in your society by ability to
exercise power, it is easy to see that the only stable coalitions are those
that pit a handful of the very highest on that ranking with a bunch of the very
lowest, against a bunch of the middle. If the upper half went out against the
lower half, it would win every time, and an enterprising group of elites (only
works if the average power of the original coalition goes down, so must be the
very top) would defect to the lower coalition (and demand exorbitant slices of
power since they bring the chance of victory) until balance is restored.
1.7 There it is, the High and Low versus Middle model:
societies of men always organize themselves in two competing coalitions built
along the same specs. Custom dictates that we call the HL part the Left, and
the M part the Right. The Left is the army of conscripts led by Achilles,
and the Right is the army of professionals led by Hector. Achilles can murder
anyone he wishes on the battlefield, but there is only one of him.
1.8 It is easiest to think of the HLvM model in terms of
electoral politics, but obviously mere headcount has nothing to do with this. The
coalitions rank people by their capacity to exercise power / violence, which is
dictated by the technology level among else. HL and M are two coalitions built such that a
military clash between the two would have even odds of coming out as victory for
either group. Tech level determines just how few are the H and how numerous are
the L. But for simplicity’s sake, think in terms of mere headcount.
1.9 There is no policy content to the Left v. Right
conflict, all policies and ideas being merely tools wielded by either camp. Who
can forget how the Left used to be all cozy with workers, only to jettison them for the Right to gain, in favor of migrants and other assorted rabble? That was new players in
society (due to mass migration) entering from the Low end, bumping the formerly Low worker to Middle, hence causing the HLvM
camps to reform.
1.10 Now, although there is no stable policy content to the
Left, who will say and go for any idea that suits their power play (same for the
Right of course), there are two predictions that the model allows me to make
with regards to the systems (economic and political) these camps will tend to
favor at all times, giving us some testable predictions from the model.
2 Governance
2.1 The Low have no ambition (or capacity) to rule, and are
in it for the gibs. The High wish to rule, as does the Middle. But there are few
Highs, and many Middles. Further, any individual High is better suited to rule
than any individual Middle.
2.2 It can be deduced than that the go-to political system
of the Left will be Oligarchy, rule by a select few in an informal way, through
fashion and custom. There are few Elites, and they are well endowed with the capacity
to coordinate, hence are most at ease with such a setup.
2.3 There are many times more Middle than High, hence they find it much
harder to coordinate, and surely impossible to do so informally and automatically. Unless there is a Schelling Point, which can only be
gifted individual.
2.31 Indeed, given that those in either coalition must
expect equal chances of victory in the long run, and given the key importance
of a “great man” for the Middle, it is easy to see that, in practice, the
Middle wins when they have a great leader, and loose otherwise.
2.4 Thus, the go-to political system the Right gravitates
toward is Autocracy of any flavour.
2.5 So here’s the first prediction: the Left can only win by establishing
Oligarchy, the Right by rallying around a gifted individual. Almost like a pendulum swinging between Autocracy and Oligarchy, right? See how I got my
Aristotle, Moldbug and Jim all in the same sentence there?
3. Economics
3.1 Again, disregard the Low. They are in for the gibs, and have
little to no capacity for operating any but the simplest business. The Low know they
will either work for someone else or be on the dole so they don't care who owns what (to the consternation of old type socialists everywhere).
3.2 But who among the Middle and High shall own the, ahem,
means of production?
3.3 The High can be assumed to own and/or operate the largest, most complex businesses (remember, best at coordinating and ruling). Hence to them, whether they shall run their huge firms in the open, or run the
state that runs those huge firms is of no practical consequence, as long as the state is theirs.
3.4 But hitting the Middle is key, so they small and medium
businesses the Middle can be assumed to own must be taken from them. Hence, the Left always gravitates towards Socialism,
as the ultimate and most perfect victory over the Middle. Usually they pass through ever more aggressive forms of Corporatism on the way there (which train I wish would stop at the penultimate station, as per 4.4)
3.5 The Middle need to keep these same businesses afloat and hit
back at the High’s Big Business though. Hence, the Right’s go-to is
this system which I've seen countless examples of but has no name, where the state (their state) heavily regulates or outright owns big business (screw you Elites), but
leaves middle-sized firms alone. Interventionism? Weird, it has no name. Anyway, countless societies end up here, from turn-of-the century US, to post-war
France, to 30s Germany, to modern Japan and Singapore, and maybe modern China too.
3.6 Conspicuously absent from the above is Libertarianism, a
system where all business - big or small - is left largely alone by government. Obvious as to
why: it is no neither coalition’s interest to uphold it and so leave their foes any
economic power at all.
3.7 Now, simply as a knee-jerk reaction to the Left’s socialism,
libertarian fractions are always found among the Right. But they remain
fractions, always to be discarded in actual power in favour of hobbling or
outright nationalizing big business, lest the Left have any power to wield.
3.8 Also, due to the sheer number of businesses that are to
be left alone (remember, many Middles, few Highs), this Interventionist system may resemble libertarianism
if you squint, hence the otherwise inexplicable tendency for libertarians to be
almost always of the Right.
4 Recap
4.1 It follows from the HLvM model, that the Left gravitates
towards a Corporatist and then Socialist
Oligarchy, as the Right does towards an Interventionist Autocracy run by a strong man.
The closer either faction comes to realizing these goals, the more complete
their victory. A full and complete victory merely causes the reshuffling of the
coalitions, such as again to restore balance. May take time though, nothing automatic about any of this.
4.2 Two tests to determine if a society is or was being ruled by the Right or Left: can you identify an individual strongman? Right. Are middle-businesses being left alone? Right.
4.3 Yeah I know, Stalin. Look, I can add a few epicycles here and there and make that fit, but that's not the point. Didn’t say the model was perfect.
4.4 Now, if one could come up with a Corporatist system that was good enough, maybe the slide to Socialism could be prevented on the Left.
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