There should have been a provision for calling a convention every 20 years or so, which could pass temporary amendments (ones that would last for 20 years). The result would be a Constitution that I would like less than our current one, but a constitution that I would like more than our current one.

The other ingredient we missed out on is more linguistic, racial, and religious diversity in the states. An American that included Quebec and hispanophone areas probably would have continued to be more federalist in fact.

Don’t they say, “Extreme cases make bad case law?”

This was the best education I’ve had since I discovered Unqualified Reservations. Thanks for the time well spent.

Replace “shareholders and executives” with “party members and lucky entrepreneurs” and you have a pretty fitting description of how China operates today:

-“continue to accumulate riches and live off their dividends without any taxes to even things out long term”

Check, With their wealth off the books or in offshore accounts, combined with all the ways you can dodge taxes here…

-“Labor unions would be banned”

Check, “state-controlled unions” don’t count

-“All government make work would be abolished, throwing tens of millions into the labor pool, thus driving down wages further.”

Half a check – There’s still a lot of government make-work, but given how vast the labor pool is, it’s irrelevant (though I won’t deny that wages in China are rising).

-“Most people would work for $5 an hour at menial jobs”

Check. Given that for full-time work that comes out to about 5000 RMB a month, that’s being generous. Most new graduates in China don’t earn that much.

-“Only the top 10% highly skilled professionals such as engineers or surgeons would earn decent income.”

Check. Senior engineers, doctors, pilots, and other highly skilled professionals make the equivalent of a developed world middle-income living (car, house, vacations, school for the kids). Others (except the aforementioned overclass)… well… no.

-“Prostitution and long term purchased marriage contracts would be legal.”

Half a check. They’re not legal, but the former is ubiquitous, and the latter essentially exists in the form of er nai.

-“Most shareholders would own dozens or hundreds of wives, who would trade sexual access for financial guarantees.”

Check. Just look at the harems that many Chinese officials are keeping…

-“Most men would be sexually locked out and barely scraping by, if they even survive at all.”

Check. Every village in the Chinese interior can attest to this.

For all these reasons, I can’t get excited about the idea of a neocameralist solution- I’ve already seen it in action, and it may very well be a cure worse than the disease. Not to say that China is the worst of all possible worlds, and I quite like Shanghai, but I think that there are better alternatives.

e) http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/01/26/27-marathons/

f) In an emergency, everyone here just got with the program.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/04/19/177943713/eerie-images-from-an-empty-boston-and-cambridge

No martial law required. The request was made, and the citizenry followed accordingly. No rioting, even from proles. I listened to the Cambridge and Boston police scanners for nearly a day, and there was literally nothing happening in town except pursuit of two terrorists. Spontaneously. Even the libertarians/anarchists begrudgingly accepted the situation, while making a big scene about it on Facebook.

To be honest, what happened was so stark that my thinking on many subjects is going to need some tweaking. This was a game changer.

reaction

a) If Boston/Cambridge is the capital of the Cathedral, sooner or later power will have to gravitate there. Further, if true, then the reactionary way forward would be to join the Cathedral and subvert it from within, since the power structure is pre-existing.

b) There is a nation-like spirit in the city of Boston that helps social cohesion in times of crises. It’s not ethnic, nor is it religious. Yet it exists. Civic spirit could be a sustainable organizing principle for a modern city-state (which Boston/New England is, in a way).

c) Existential danger has a marvelous focusing effect.

d) This was truly a perfect storm of a terrorist attack. Very low actual body count, but extremely high symbolic value. One completely unsympathetic antagonist, who dies a deservedly gruesome death. His younger brother, evil but perhaps redeemable, after significant punishment and penitence. I mean, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev? Am I in Wag the Dog here?

The lines in this case were so clear, and the events happening so fast, that there was no way for progressives to spin it and thwart the police crack down.

Why would they have wanted to thwart it? They were hoping it was going to be an Aryan Christian. Although they were diappointed, I’m sure the perpetrator’s grievances will be given a most sympathetic and nuanced hearing. And <tsk> <tsk> don’t you know that violence never really solves anything? It’s a teachable moment for us all. Seems like win-win for the Cathedral.

Some possible explanations/conclusions:

a) The cathedral is not quite as suicidal and decadent as reactionaries think. Boston still maintains that agressive instinct that won it so much power in the first place.

b) Boston is a mixed city – harvard students and professors are lefty’s, but the police still have a strong reactionary, hierarchical, law and order ethic. This quasi-fascist ethic might actually have grown stronger in the last few decades as strong police unions allow police to exist outside democratic or cathedral accountability.

c) Conquest’s Law applies. Terrorists in a faraway land need to be “understood”. Terrorists that blow up kids in your town and throw grenades in your town need to be hunted down like vermin. Paramilitary swat teams in other cities are fascist. Police in your community are your neighbors that are risking your life to serve your community.

d) The lines in this case were so clear, and the events happening so fast, that there was no way for progressives to spin it and thwart the police crack down.

I think Moldbug lack’s an appreciation for how bad the neocamerlist state could be. Modern corporations are ultimately subjects to a democratic influence and rule, and thus are much more well behaved than they would be in unconstrained. Even if the first generation of neocamelist corporations operate with some sense of Noblesse Oblige, over time, the corporations that most ruthlessly pursued profits would win. In the modern world, natural capital (arable land, dammable rivers, oil, lumber, real estate near jobs, water, etc) is more scarce and essential to survival than labor power. A tiny fraction of the world’s labor force could produce almost everything needed to survive, but a large portion of the world’s natural capital must be utilized. As a result, the owners of natural capital have a large amount of bargaining power. Without all the government-make-work jobs, wealth redistribution, etc, most people’s wages would be heading south towards subsistence or below.

In a neocamerelist world, there would be an upper class of shareholders and executives, who would live in unimaginable wealth. They would continue to accumulate riches and live off their dividends without any taxes to even things out long term. Labor unions would be banned, any method of collective bargaining would be banned. All government make work would be abolished, throwing tens of millions into the labor pool, thus driving down wages further. Most people would work for $5 an hour at menial jobs. Only the top 10% highly skilled professionals such as engineers or surgeons would earn decent income. Prostitution and long term purchased marriage contracts would be legal. Most shareholders would own dozens or hundreds of wives, who would trade sexual access for financial guarantees. Most men would be sexually locked out and barely scraping by, if they even survive at all.