Mike,
Some good observations in this piece, and I've liked some other stuff he's written, but I think some of Tyler Durden's rhetoric here is overly reductionist, and other things he just gets wrong, imho. Here are a few critiques of some specific remarks from his essay below...
"Authoritarianism is based on long-term planning."
Yes, we know politicians and bureaucrats are so good at this! LOL...
I do think there are some clever authoritarian types who think long term, but they don't seem to be predominant in government.
"Authoritarianism is a philosophy of collectivism."
Mostly agreed. In practice it seems to have been true so far. I can hypothetically imagine a society where those in power compelled other people to be individualists, threatening them with punishments unless they stopped conforming and following trends and did their own thing -- but it would be pretty weird, not to mention extremely difficult to make it work, because encouraging people to be individualists and make their own choices is a terrible way to control them. Might make a good plot for a science fiction story.
However, while authoritarianism mostly is a philosophy of collectivism, the reverse is not true. (I mention the reverse, because it seems like Durden is seeking to fuse the two terms together.) Collectivism (using the term in it most basic sense of doing things collectively) is only authoritarian when it is imposed via coercion. Individualism would also be authoritarian if imposed via coercion! People acting collectively on a voluntary basis is not authoritarian (although it *may* be soil in which authoritarianism can more readily take root and grow!)
Admittedly, those points are a bit obscure. More pointed criticisms further on...
Politicians regularly espouse individualism, human liberty and democracy at the same time. Impossible!
Well, yes and no. In an absolute philosophical sense, he's correct. But in a practical, real-world sense, more democracy tends to be associated with more freedom, both personal and economic. It is typically the regimes which are least democratic which tend to preside over the worst poverty and the worst oppression.
"the 'Red States' of 'flyover country' — continue to resist the globalists’ dreams of a socialist/Marxist 'utopia' and egalitarianism."
I believe it's fairly well established, for better or for worse, that the "blue" states actually receive less government money back per capita than "red" states receive back per capita. So implying that they are the ones resisting government-enforced egalitarianism seems like a half-truth at best.
"[the middle class are] more independent and more self-reliant and also demand equitable reward for their labor and product, placing them in competition for resources and goods with the global elite."
"Equitable" reward? What does that mean, in this context? What group of people tend to demand *less* than what the market (distorted as it is) offers them for their labor? If they do "demand" more above and beyond what the market offers, that would be unjust if they seek to employ State coercion in making their demands. If their demands are "placing them in competition for resources and goods with the global elite," that would imply they are seeking to somehow redistribute the pie (wealth) rather than baking more pie.
I seem to recall seeing statistics that middle class people in the U.S. enjoy larger actual subsidies on average than poor people in the U.S. (although in relative terms, the resources or income that a poor person or family receives from the State may constitute a greater percentage of their overall wealth, meaning that the poor benefit less from the State even while being more dependent on it).
As to whether the middle class are "more self-reliant", I think that very much depends what one means in asking the question. Middle class people have more resources than poor people, so they're more likely to have, for instance, the means to own and maintain a car, giving them the ability to pack up and leave town readily in the case of a natural disaster, use their savings, etc., instead of relying on government help. In this sense they are more self-reliant. But let some circumstance take away their resources with which they make their lives convenient so that they are at the economic level of the poor and middle class people may not be more self-reliant, because they may not know how to get by on fewer resources.
The purpose [of portraying people of Caucasian, rural background, especially those from the South, as backward racists] is to stir up racial animosity and manipulate the people against one another.
Okay, but then he goes on to say...
Because of perceived social, cultural, racial and psychic inferiority, minorities desire to parasite on government force and socialism to subvert those they envy and wish to imitate. (This includes all so-called minority groups, not just racial minorities.)
Whoa! Talk about stereotyping people in collectivist terms! Talk about "stir(ring) up racial animosity" and "manipulat(ing) the people against one another"! He explicitly says it is "all so-called minority groups, not just racial minorities" who "desire to parasite on government force" (sic) because they envy. But Ayn Rand famously pointed out how individualism is the philosophy most *for* minority rights, calling the individual the "smallest minority on earth".
Tyler Durden himself is part of lots of different minority groups -- we all are. For instance, he is part of the minority that wants to defend the Confederate flag. Does this mean he is also saying that this minority he's part of are envious parasites? If he doesn't *really* mean "all" minority groups, then which ones *does* he mean, and why only those?
"Last summer, there was an invasion of illegals from Central and South America..."
No, there was not. No human being is "illegal", only actions are illegal, and peaceful migration to escape poverty or oppression (usually both, in reality, as the latter causes the former!) is not an "invasion"!
Even in a monoracial and mono-ethnic world, suburbanites would zone to set limits on dense development.
Only if that world were not libertarian. In a free society there would be no zoning laws limiting development.
Love & Liberty,
((( starchild )))