The world is changing before our eyes, and it’s essential that we understand in which direction
Interesting stuff from Mihnea Măruță, who explains the origin of the philosophy of accelerationism, which goes back to at least the Italian futurists. They provided the underpinnings for Mussolini’s fascism, and the updated version of this idea (“neo-reactionism”) underpins what’s happening in the US at the moment.
This movement, which considers democracy to have become an obstacle to capitalism, is called the neo-reactionary movement, abbreviated NRx.
It is also referred to as the “Dark Enlightenment.” That term belongs to the English philosopher Nick Land, and it’s also the title of one of his books.
And so we reach the philosophical heart of the matter, because, in fact, the most fitting explanation for everything that astonishes us in America today is a philosophical one, from which political, economic, and social consequences follow.
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Accelerating society toward the future, at full throttle—this would be the path envisioned by the neo-reactionary movement.
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[T]he accelerationist vision is to speed things up, to unleash a hyper-capitalism, a total techno-capitalism, an anarcho-capitalism—call it what you like—a system of private governance of a monarchical type, in which the president is the general manager, the CEO of a community-company, and citizens become shareholders of that state, transformed and run according to capitalist principles of efficiency and profit.
In the accelerationist view, nation-states are obsolete and need to be replaced by a global network of city-states and autonomous territories, if possible built from scratch.
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For more details, you can look at a few existing projects: Culdesac in Arizona, Prospera in Honduras, Cabin in Texas, Neighborhood SF, NOMAD, or Praxis.
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The world is changing before our eyes, and it’s essential that we understand in which direction. We’re not just dealing with whims or improvisations.
Source: Mihnea Măruță
Image: Logan Voss