King on Transformed Nonconformist

King on Transformed Nonconformist

by Thomas Allen

In “Transformed Nonconformist,” Strength to Love (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1963, 2010), pages 11–20, Martin Luther King Jr. argues against conforming to the status quo. The following is a critical review of King’s essay.

For King, conforming was agreeing with the segregationists. Nonconforming was agreeing with him and the integrationists. Correctly, King writes, “Success, recognition, and conformity are the bywords of the modern world where everyone seems to crave the anesthetizing security of being identified with the majority.” (P. 12.) (Have we not seen this with COVID-19 and its so-called vaccine? Likewise, we have seen this with granting Blacks special privileges and elevating them as the superior race.)

Continuing, King cites Paul urging Christians not to conform to the world. (If he were writing this today and if he were consistent, he would have to condemn integration as conforming with the world and segregation as nonconformity.) Correctly, King writes that we should “be people of conviction, not conformity; of moral nobility, not social respectability.” (P. 12.)

Then, King writes, “When we would yield to the temptation of a world rife with sexual promiscuity and gone wild with a philosophy of self-expression, Jesus tells us that ‘whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.’” (P. 13.) (Regrettably, King did not practice what he preached. He was notorious for his womanizing and infidelity.)

Along with adulterous lust, King cites Jesus’s warning against seeking affluence. Again, citing Jesus, he also condemns choosing comfort over suffering for righteousness.

Next, King quotes Jesus saying that we should love our enemies. (Once more, King falls short of Jesus’s teachings. He displays little love for Southerners and none for segregationists — both of whom he considered his enemies.)

Although Jesus and Paul demanded that people not conform to the world but to live differently, most people are molded by the society in which they live.

Correctly, King writes, “Many people fear nothing more terribly than to take a position that stands out sharply and clearly from the prevailing opinion.” (P. 14.) (Most people fear thinking and having an opinion that differs from those who scream the loudest. Thus, wokeism prevails. King with his “nonviolent” movement was a forefather of today’s wokeism.)

(Although big corporations, primarily through foundations, financed King and other civil rights leaders,) King condemns big corporations and other big institutions. (However, he omits big government from his condemnations.)

Next, King condemns Southerners who oppose segregation and discrimination for not openly stating their opposition. Also, he implies his opposition to the influence of the military-industrial complex and to not allowing Communist China membership in the United Nations. (A few years after King died, Communist China replaced Taiwan in the United Nations.)

Again, King is correct when he writes, “Blind conformity makes us so suspicious of an individual who insists on saying what he really believes that we recklessly threaten his civil liberties.” (P. 15.) (Wokesters fear people who say what they believe and often react violently toward them.) He identifies a person who says what he believes as someone who carries a sign in a protest demonstration. (Some of these people are now serving long prison sentences for protesting the stolen 2020 presidential election.) Included in this group are Southerners who “dare to invite a Negro into his home and join with him in his struggle for freedom.” (P. 15.)

Ardently, King condemns the church because it is “an institution that has often served to crystallize, conserve, and even bless the patterns of majority opinion.“ (P. 15.) (The primary objective of the church before the Reformation was to crystallize, conserve, and bless the majority religious opinion.) He saw the church as the conservator and sanctioner of “slavery, racial segregation, war, and economic exploitation. . . . [T]he the church has hearkened more to the authority of the world than to the authority of God.” (P. 15.) (Since God is a segregationist and even separated the races, the segregationist clergy adheres to the Bible more than the integrationist clergy. Moreover, the Bible does not condemn slavery as a sin. Jesus, Paul, and Peter never ordered slave owners to free their slaves.) Churches should “be the moral guardian[s] of the community.” (P. 15.) (Churches that preach racial segregation were acting as the moral guardians of their communities. They were promoting a policy that preserved the races and, therefore, prevented their genocide. Moreover, churches that were at the forefront of pushing integration and other agendas of King, are now pushing wokeism, sexual perversion [homosexualism, transgenderism, miscegenation, etc.], equality [equity, i.e., equality of outcome and discrimination against Whites], social justice [special privileges and benefits for Negroes], and genocide of the White race [and by that, the genocide of the American Negro].)

Continuing, King condemns preachers who measure their success by the size of their congregation, who are showmen, and who “preach comforting sermons and avoid saying anything from [their] pulpit that might disturb the respectable views of the comfortable members of [their] congregations.” (P. 16.) (Today, such preachers preach the prosperity gospel, preach at mega television churches, or preach the agendas of wokeism and queerdom. Rare is a preacher who teaches the sin of miscegenation. Even rarer is a preacher who teaches the polygenetic origins of the races [species] of humans. Nearly all are evolutionists including those who teach that Adam and Eve are the parents of all races [species of humans]; all of them are monogenists.) 

King argues that integrationists should be nonconformists like the early Christians. (Yet, the early Christians promoted segregation. They wanted to segregate themselves from the pagans instead of integrating with them, which would require them to conform to paganism. Further, because most early Christians never met anyone who was not White, racial issues were of little importance.)

King writes, “Nonconformity in itself, however, may not necessarily be good and may at times possess neither transforming nor redemptive power. . . . Nonconformity is creative when it is controlled and directed by a transformed life and is constructive when it embraces a new mental outlook.” (P. 17.) (Today, the new mental outlook is segregation and separation. Some Negroes and other races are developing this new mental outlook. Most Whites would rather be tortured to death than develop this new mental outlook — at least, openly.)

Next, King argues for “an inner spiritual transformation . . . [to] gain the strength to fight vigorously the evils of the world in a humble and loving spirit.” (P. 18.) (King never seemed to have acquired the inner spiritual transformation.)

Then, King writes, “I confess that I never intend to become adjusted to the evils of segregation and the crippling effects of discrimination, to the moral degeneracy of religious bigotry and the corroding effects of narrow sectarianism, to economic conditions that deprive men of work and food, and to the insanities of militarism and the self-defeating effects of physical violence.” (King’s followers adjusted well to integration, especially King-idolizing conservatives. Most have adjusted to the crippling effects of discrimination against Whites. Many of his Negro followers, such as Black Lives Matter and the Negro rioters of the last 50 years, have adjusted to militarism and physical violence. Instead of being self-defeating, their violence has been highly profitable, especially for the leaders.)

In conclusion, according to King, he and the integrationists were nonconformists. Southerners and segregationists were conformists. Now, the integrationists are the conformists, and the segregationists are the nonconformists. Therefore, since King praised nonconformity, King-idolizers should promote segregation.

Also, King taught that all good Christians are nonconformists and should not conform to the community standards of the majority on racial issues. Since integration is the community standard today, then all good Christians should be segregationists.

If King were alive today, most likely he would condemn nonconformity and urge conformity because most of what he advocated in the 1960s has been accepted and adopted by the majority. When are Whites going to become nonconformists and protest discrimination against Whites using King’s “nonviolent” tactics?

Copyright © 2024 by Thomas Coley Allen.

More social issues.

More Thoughts on Social Issues

More Thoughts on Social Issues

Thomas Allen

Discussed below are dysgenics and the welfare state, debt to society, abortion and vaccination, and how major corporations react to Black communities.

Dysgenics
From the late nineteenth century to after World War I, most Progressives were eugenists and pushed their eugenic programs through governments. With the rise of Hitler, eugenics began to fade in popularity. By World War II, most Progressives, who by now were becoming Liberal Democrats, had become dysgenicists. Now, dysgenics dominates the United States, and eugenics is vigorously condemned — from one end of the political spectrum to the other. Dysgenics is a leading cause of the deterioration of the United States, Europe, and many other parts of the world.

Since the days of President Franklin Roosevelt, Progressives have been promoting dysgenics by their promotion of the welfare state. Under dysgenics, low-quality people, nonproducers, are rewarded for breeding, and high-quality people, producers, are penalized. High-quality people are taxed, i.e., forced, to support low-quality people through various welfare programs. Thus, high-quality people must not only support their own families with what the taxman leaves them, but they must also support the families of low-quality people. The more money that low-quality people receive through various welfare programs, the less money high-quality people have. Because high-quality people must support low-quality people and their children, they have less money to support their own families. Therefore, they have fewer children. While the population of low-quality people, nonproductive people, is rising, the population of high-quality people, productive people, is declining. A larger percentage of Blacks are on welfare than any other race. Therefore, dysgenics is working for the survival of their species, while it is leading to the extinction of the White species. (The only thing that has served to check the growth of low-quality people is another progressive program — abortion.)

Debt to Society
One often hears about a criminal paying his debt to society. A criminal’s debt is to the victim of his crime, that is, to an individual or group of individuals. It is not to an amorphous abstraction called “society.” (Society is the aggregate of the people who cooperate to improve their individual and collective circumstances through production and exchange.) Society has not suffered from his crime; individuals have. Consequently, his debt is to individuals and not to society.

Moreover, the way the system has been set up, the victim helps pay for the punishment of the criminal. Taxpayers, which include victims of crime, pay for the punishment (or rehabilitation for the more progressive) via tax-supported incarceration. Punishment should focus on requiring the criminal to pay the victims of his crime with penalties. Instead, currently, the victim pays for the punishment of the criminal. Unless the court orders the criminal to pay restitution at the time of sentencing, the victim can only recover his loss through a civil suit against the criminal.  Even then, the victim ends up paying for the punishment (prison time, supervision while on parole or suspended sentence, etc.) of the criminal via taxation.

Abortion and Vaccination
Progressives and their kindred declare that the government should not tell a woman what she can do with her body. Therefore, abortion should be legal: A woman has the right to an abortion. (Pro-life adherents are not objecting to what a woman does with her body. They object to what she and the abortionist do to the body of another person: her baby.)

However, when vaccination is the issue, most of the pro-abortion people favor the government telling women what they must do with their bodies. That is, they favor forced vaccination. Thus, a woman should not have the right to control her body by refusing a vaccination. Further, denial of the right to refuse a vaccination extends to young females. Parents should not be allowed to refuse vaccinations for their daughters. Consequently, the government has the right, or even the obligation, to tell a woman what she must do with her body with respect to vaccinations.

Another argument used by the pro-abortionists in favor of abortion is that the government does not tell men what to do with their bodies. Yet, this claim is not true. The government forces males to be vaccinated to attend public schools and often even private schools. Moreover, the government forces men to be vaccinated when it forces them to war and die for the politically powerful.

A major difference exists between antivaccine people and pro-vaccine people. With rare exception, antivaccine people do not want to forcibly prevent people from being vaccinated. They want people to be informed about vaccination, its pros and cons, and to decide for themselves whether they and their children are to be vaccinated. They favor freedom of choice. On the other hand, most pro-vaccine people want to force people, especially children, to be vaccinated. Preferring coercion, they do not favor people making an informed decision. Accordingly, they oppose freedom of choice. In this respect, they are like Marxists and Puritans. Thus, antivaccine people favor freedom while pro-vaccine people oppose freedom.

Racial Actions of Major Corporations
Companies are falling all over themselves to fund radical Black racist groups in the name of fighting White racism, which is systemic, in the name of helping Black communities. If these companies really wanted to help Black communities, they would build their plants and offices in these communities and give the inhabitants of these communities priority in working in these plants and offices. Moreover, they would use the inhabitants of these communities to build the plants and offices. To show their commitment to these Black communities, they would require the managers and supervisors of the plants and offices to live in that community — and not live in a gated segment of the community.

Copyright © 2021 by Thomas Coley Allen

More social issues articles.

States’ Right and Society

States’ Right and Society

Thomas Allen

Discussed below are States’ right and society. In this article, “state” is used in two different senses. In the first two sections on States’ rights, “state” refers to a territory and its body politic. In the section on society, “state” refers to an abstract, suprapersonal entity that is above all and is in all and exercises the supreme power.

States’ Rights
States’ rights mean that each State retains all political sovereignty individually and independently of all other States. Consequently, under the United States Constitution, each State retains for itself all political powers except the few powers delegated to their agent, the general government (also called the federal government and the US government) by the Constitution and the powers that they denied themselves by the Constitution. Moreover, the Constitution is merely a compact or treaty among equal sovereigns.

In Lane County vs. Oregon, the US Supreme Court declared in 1868:

The people of each State compose a State, having its own government, and endowed with all the functions essential to separate and independent existence. The States disunited might continue to exist. Without the States in union, there could be no such political body as the United States.

Unfortunately, Lincoln and his war and the resulting fourteenth amendment destroyed the original constitution and subverted States into mere administrative provinces.

The Tenth Amendment
The tenth amendment is the States’ rights amendment. It affirms that each State and the people thereof have all sovereign powers not explicitly and particularly delegated to the US government by the Constitution or that it does not specifically deny the States. It reads:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

In “Conservatism and the South,” The Lasting South (1957, page 200), James Kilpatrick explains the tenth amendment as follows:

This amendment consists of a single sentence, only twenty-eight words long; it is in no way obscure. The powers (not rights, as in the Ninth Amendment, but powers) not delegated to the United States (the verb is delegated, not "surrendered," or "granted," or "vested in," but merely delegated) by the Constitution (not by inference, or by any notions of inherent powers, but by the Constitution alone), nor prohibited by it to the States (prohibited by the Constitution, that is, by its specific limitations, and not by mandate of any court or Congress or executive, but only by the Constitution itself), are reserved to the States respectively (not to the States jointly, but to the States individually and respectively), or to the people (because there may be some powers the people will not wish to entrust even to their States).

Chodorov on States’ Rights
In One Is Crowd: Reflections of an Individualist (New York: The Devin-Adair Company,  1952, page 158), Frank Chodorov gives a good description of States’ rights. About States’ rights he writes:

[States' rights] proceed from a philosophical axiom, that the individual is the only reality. He alone exists. Without him there cannot be a society, and without society there is no need of government. Society, in fact, is nothing but a convenient abstraction, a word describing an agglomeration of individuals cooperating for their mutual advantage. The character of society is but a composite of the characters of its components; it has no other. In short, society is nothing of itself.

A “society” is a convenient abstraction that describes “an aggregate of individual cooperating for their mutual advantage” (p. 158).

Society
In Rise and Fall of Society (New York: The Devin-Adair Company, 1959, page 29), Frank Chodorov gives this definition of society: “Society is a collective concept and nothing else; it is a convenience for designating a number of people. . . . Society is different from these other collective nouns [family, crowd, gang, etc.] in that it conveys the idea of a purpose or point of contact in which each individual, while retaining his identity and pursuing his private concerns, has an interest. . . . Society . . .  embraces a host of people following all sorts of vocations and avocations, pursuing a variety of goals, each in his own way, and yet held together by a purpose which is in each of them.”

Thus, individuals come together to form a society to advance their mutual interest and to further their purposes and aspirations. To protect the lives, property, and liberties of the people forming a society, the people instituted a government. Unfortunately, governments degenerate into states, which proceeds to deprive the people of their property and liberty and at times their lives. (See “The Difference Between Government and State” by Thomas Allen.)

In other words, a state cannot exist without a government. A government cannot exist without a society, and a society cannot exist without individuals. None of these abstractions — society, government, and state — have a life independent of the individuals comprising them. None are greater than the sum of its parts. They are merely metaphysical persons with no life of their own. They are not suprapersonal.

God created man, and man established societies, governments, and states. None of these institutions can exist independently of man — just as man cannot exist independently of God. Philosophers, political scientists, economists, and others who treat society, government, and state as entities that are independent of or superior to the individuals comprising them deceive themselves. Moreover, they err when they give society, government, and state characteristics of an individual. Giving them such attributes led to the horrors of Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and Mao’s China.

In closing, an additional explanation of state and society is needed. The concept of the relationship between society and state has changed over time. In times past, the state was an entity that was completely outside society and existed independent of it. People had to reckon with this entity called a state and either feared it or admired it. They saw the state as advancing their agenda or taking their property and liberty. However, they never thought of the state as an integral part of society: It was apart from and above society.

Now, people conceive the State and society such that they are indistinguishable, either conceptually or institutionally. That is, the state is society and the social order has become an appendage of the state. Thus, society, i.e., the people, is dependent on the state as represented by the government for its health, education, communications, transportation, charity, and just about everything else. The people look to the state, the government, to solve their problems; consequently, the people are no longer self-reliant and have enslaved themselves to those who control the state. As a result, the state has become the society. Additionally, since people look to the state to save and deliver them instead of God and themselves, they have made an idol out of the state — therefore, they are idolaters.

Copyright © 2020 by Thomas Coley Allen.

More political articles.

Centralism Versus Decentralism

Centralism Versus Decentralism

Thomas Allen

    Wilhelm Ropke in The Social Framework of the Free Market (1958, translated by Elizabeth Henderson, 1960) compares centralism and decentralism and describes the differences between the two. (Page numbers in parentheses are references to his book.)
    In the American political economy terminology, centralists (whom Ropke calls centrists) promote the Hamiltonian-Lincolnian political economy, which is what the United States have today, and the decentralists (whom Ropke calls decentrists) promote the Jeffersonian-Calhounian political economy. To the centralists, America is an idea, an abstraction. To the decentralists, America is a place, concrete.
    Centralism and decentralism apply to all social, political, and economic aspects of life. In general, they express a great contrast in ideals and views of society. Centralists emphasize the larger community: the state, a puissant central government, the collective, big businesses, central banks, and even the utopian world state. Decentralists emphasize the smaller community: the individual, the family, voluntary associations, small businesses, and local and State or provincial governments. Hierarchical churches like the Catholic Church where religious power is concentrated falls under centralism. Churches like the Baptists where religious power is dispersed falls under decentralism. Thus, centralists favor the consolidation and the concentration of political and economic power. Decentralists favor the dispersion and deconcentration of political and economic power.
    The following list compares centralism and decentralism:
Government
    Centralists believe, favor, and prefer:
        –    a strong central government with the globalists preferring a puissant global government.
        –    people dependent on the government; thus, welfare programs and national health care.

    Decentralists believe, favor, and prefer:
        –    federalism and local government.
        –    people not dependent on the government.

Economy
    Centralists believe, favor, and prefer:
        –    macroeconomics.
        –    large-scale industry; technical and organizational rationality.
        –    centralized planning enforced by the government.
        –    large-scale governmental intervention in the economy, collectivist economy, socialism, and monopoly.
        –    dependent wage earners; workers in a subordinated and dependent relation to centers of decision.
        –    the vertical, close, and personal relation of subordination and authority of big business and socialized industry, i.e., vertical, organizational dependence.
        –    a market that depends on the boss.
        –    people occupying positions that are above and below each other; subordination of people.
        –    trade unions, which subordinate workers to union bosses, instead of independent workers.

    Decentralists believe, favor, and prefer:
        –    microeconomics.
        –    the peasantry, crafts, middle class, and small firms.
        –    a wide distribution of private property.
        –    a free market, free enterprise economy.
        –    an economy planned by the markets, competition, and free prices.
        –    decentralization of economic decisions among millions of separate producers and consumers as the indispensable condition of freedom, justice, and well-being.
        –    independence of workers.
        –    independent market parties where the buyers and sellers are horizontal and loose if not impersonal, i.e., horizontal market dependence.
        –    dependence upon the client or the supplier through a market that is wide enough to do away with rigid personal relationships.
        –    people occupying positions side by side with each other.

Society
    Centralists believe, favor, and prefer:
        –    huge associations, giant cities, and urbanized areas.
        –    social rationalism, i.e., the individual is small and eventually dwindles to a statistical figure, a building brick, a mathematical magnitude encased in equations, something that can be "refashioned."
        –    optimism about the success of his constructions and refashioning.
        –    equality and uniformity.
        –    mobility.
        –    socialization of education.
        –    the welfare state, especially one that extends well beyond the truly needed.

    Decentralists believe, favor and prefer:
        –    the lovers of nature and of the human scale.
        –    rural areas and small towns.
        –    thinking and acting in terms of human beings and knowing and respecting history.
        –    skepticism or pessimism thus basing his arguments realistically and unsentimentally on human nature.
        –    inequality, diversity, multiformity, and social articulation.
        –    stability.
        –    stratification of society with respect for natural developments, a modicum of variety and of horizontal and vertical social articulation, family traditions, personal inclinations, and inherited wealth.
        –    men having the happy feeling of being in the place where they belong.
        –    variety and independence in every sphere, but not particularism or parochialism.
        –    personal responsibility and private charities to aid the needy.

Philosophy
    Centralists believe, favor, and prefer:
        –    doctrinaires, dogma, doctrines, and ideologies.
        –    man centered.
        –    man can perfect man.

    Decentralists believe, favor and prefer:
        –    established principles: a hierarchy of norms and values established by reason and sober reflection instead of by passions and feelings.
        –    ultimate and absolute convictions that require no proof because it is absurd not to believe in them.
        –    God centered.
        –    only God can perfect man.

    Ropke does not specifically discuss the armed forces under centralism and decentralism. Centralists favor a large standing army and a navy and air force large enough to project power regionally and, if resources allow, even globally. However, centralists prefer a disarmed citizenry (a heavily armed citizenry can thwart the centralists’ plans and their lust for power). Conversely, decentralists prefer a heavily armed citizenry and a small armed force. The armed force should be sufficient to defend the country from invasions, but not large enough for offensive wars or foreign adventures.
    Decentralism is not particularism or parochialism with “a narrow-mindedness which can’t see the forest for the trees” (p. 233). According to Ropke, a decentralist is a convinced universalist who “keep[s] his eye on a larger community which is all the more genuine for being structured and articulated” (p. 233). However, God is his center, “and this is why he refuses to accept human centers” (p. 233). The decentralists “should cultivate a universal approach to all intellectual, political, and economic matters and reject narrow views and actions and, above all, intellectual, political, and economic regionalism and nationalism; on the other hand, we should prize variety and independence at all levels and in all spheres, on the basis of the common patrimony of mankind, which is beyond all levels and spheres” (p. 234).
    The centralist is a moralist. Ropke describes the moralism of the central as follows:

[The centralist is] a moralist of the cheap rhetorical kind, who misuses big words, such as freedom, justice, rights of man, or others, to the point of empty phraseology, who poses as a paragon of virtues and stoops to use his moralism as a political weapon and to represent his more reserved adversary as morally inferior. Since, again, he looks at things from on high, well above the reality of individual people, his moralism is of an abstract, intellectual kind. It enables him to feel morally superior to others for the simple reason that he stakes his moral claims so high and makes demands on human nature without considering either the concrete conditions or the possible consequences of the fulfillment of those demands. He does not seem capable of imagining that others may not be lesser men because they make things less easy for themselves and do take account of the complications and difficulties of a practical and concrete code of ethics within which it is not unusual to will the good and work the bad. The “left” moralist all too often reaches the point where his big words of love and freedom and justice serve as a cover for the exact opposite. The moralist, with his lofty admonitions, becomes an intolerant hater and envier, the theoretical pacifist an imperialist when it comes to the practical test, and the advocate of abstract social justice an ambitious place-hunter. These moralists are a world apart from the decentrists’ attitude . . . that man does not primarily exist for the sake of human society but for his own sake, “and if each one of us exists in the best possible manner for his own sake, he does so for society as well.” . . . The centrist’s moral ideal frequently enough amounts to a desire to make the world into a place where . . . everyone is nursing his neighbor, which presupposes a centralized compulsory organization (p. 230).

(His description of the morals of the centralist is essentially the description of the morals of the Yankee and the Puritan.)
    Ropke strongly opposes the concept of equality and believes that trying to achieve it and even the chimera of “equality of opportunity” results in disaster. About trying to achieve equality of opportunity via socialization of education, he writes:

[I]f equality of opportunity is to be achieved by socializing education, envy and resentment will only be acerbated. If everybody has the same chances of advancement, those left behind will lose the face-saving and acceptable excuse of social injustice and lowly birth. The weakness of mind or character of the overwhelming majority of average or below-average people will be harshly revealed as the reason for failure, and it would be a poor observer of the human soul who thought that this revelation would not prove poisonous. No more murderous attack on the sum total of human happiness can be imagined than this kind of equality of opportunity, for, given the aristocratic distribution of the higher gifts of mind and character among a few only, such equality will benefit a small minority and make the majority all the unhappier (p. 223).

(Perhaps, this explains the problem that the country is having with Blacks, especially those involved in Black Lives Matters, Antifa, Social Justice, and other similar groups. Not only have Blacks been given “equal opportunity,” laws have been written and are enforced that give Blacks more than equal opportunity. Blacks are given a legal and social advantage over Whites. Yet they still fall behind, not because of any discrimination, but because of their innate, genetic, inabilities.)
    Unfortunately for mankind, centralization is much easier than decentralization. Moreover, expanding the powers of the government is much easier than contracting them. The centralist’s “path is bound to lead to regions where the air of freedom and humanity becomes thinner and thinner, until we end up on the icy peaks of totalitarianism, from which nations can hardly hope to escape without a fall. The trouble is that once one takes this road, it becomes increasingly difficult to turn back” (p. 234).
    A major danger of centralism is that it encounters no checks on itself. Its obsessions become uninhibited. Moreover, it comes to know no limits. Centralism leads to loss of freedom, humanity, and the health of society. (Examples are Germany under the rule of the national socialists and Russia, China, North Korea, and other countries under the rule of the communists.)
    Ropke quotes John Stuart Mill’s description of centralism:

If the roads, the railways, the banks, the insurance offices, the great joint-stock companies, the universities, and the public charities, were all of them branches of the government; if, in addition, the municipal corporations and local boards, with all that now devolves on them, became departments of the central administration; if the employes of all these different enterprises were appointed and paid by the government, and looked to the government for every rise in life; not all the freedom of the press and popular constitution of the legislature would make this or any other country free otherwise than in name. And the evil would be greater, the more efficiently and scientifically the administrative machinery was constructed (p. 235).

    One of the dangers of centralism is that many centralists do not want to be centralist and many do not know that they are centralists. They are the classical liberals (as opposed to neo-liberals and progressives) or conservatives who reject federalism, the anti-collectivists who flirt with monopolies or government intervention in the economy, and humanist and others who support the economic integration of countries. (To Ropke’s list, can be added free-market economists like the Friedmanites who support centralized banking and a managed monetary system in lieu of the classical gold standard and decentralized banking. Also, classical liberals, conservatives, and libertarians who are racial nihilists can be included in the list.)
    Ropke comments on the work environment under centralization:

People used to occupy positions side by side with each other, but now they are above and below each other, and the relation is charged with the constant tension of close personal contact within a limited, fixed group. With the diminution of individual independence, this is becoming the fate of the masses, and we all know the strain it puts on human relations. Intrigues, place-hunting, informing, ill will, bootlicking, envy, jealousy, and all the other poisons of close contact spread like the plague in all large organizations and companies, as experience has shown again and again. Neurotics are in a position to make life hell for hundreds and thousands of people, and . . . there is a more than even chance that it will be precisely neurotics who get to the top and into a dominating position, because of their assertiveness and officiousness (p. 236-237).

(As power becomes more concentrated in the central government, ever more neurotics are drawn to the central government, especially in management positions.)
    About centralized planning and collectivism, Ropke writes:

[I]t is one of the most damning things to be held against collectivism in any shape or form that, with the exception only of the few who hold the power to plan and direct, it presses men inescapably into vertical and personal relations of subordination and so robs them of freedom. If the socialists, incorrigible centrists as they are, demand such an economic order in the name of freedom, they afford a most depressing proof of the aberrations of which man is capable when he is blinded by political passion (pp. 237-238).

    Ropke makes three recommendations to reverse the centralization of the economy:

First, we should do everything we can to brake or even reverse the process of dwindling independence whenever and wherever this is possible without real damage to economic rationality. Secondly, we should do everything we can to mitigate the rigidity of vertical subordination as much as the structure of productive organization and the nature of the market economy permit. Thirdly, we should do everything we can to strengthen the counterweights in fields other than labor dependence, the most important of these counterweights being private property (p. 241).

Moreover, decentralists should not look to government to enforce these recommendations. Instead, they must support “all the forces, whatever they be, which counteract concentration” (p. 241). To carry out these recommendations requires “[p]ainstaking research . . . to discover how, ultimately, the government itself, by means of its laws, its tax system, and its economic and social policies, continuously and injudiciously weights the scales in favor of industrial concentration and makes things difficult for small and medium firms and all others who aspire to independence” (p. 241).
    Although centralists preach the virtue of diversity, they are the destroyers of true diversity. They seek to reduce all to a uniform mongrelized oneness — one hybrid race, one culture, one religion, one government, one economy, etc. On the other hand, decentralists seek to preserve true diversity. They want to preserve the various races, cultures, and nations (people) and countries (territories) with many free and independent governments and economies (but not autarky or protectionism as that requires centralization), etc.
    Today centralism appears as:
    –    globalization with a one-world government (the United Nations and its various organizations) and one-world religion (ecumenism).
    –    the European Union and climate change treaties as steps toward world government.
    –    war on Confederate monuments to destroy history and diversity.
    –    homogenization of the male and female sexes into meaninglessness by promoting feminism to make women men, effemination of men to make them women, homosexuality, transgenderism, etc. to destroy the family.
    –    political correctness to destroy freedom of speech and thought.
    –    multiculturalism and multiracialism with large-scale, uncontrolled immigration into Europe, Canada, and the United States to destroy their race and culture as the White race and Western Civilization are the greatest impediments to global consolidation — hence, racial and cultural amalgamation.
    However, decentralization is beginning to return as evidenced by:
    –    secession movements, such as the breakup of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia and numerous secession movements in Europe and the United States.
    –    nullification, such as California declaring itself a sanctuary State and thus defying federal law.
    –    the collapse of imperialism, at least in its more overt form.
    –    the growing populist-nationalist movements in the Western world, that is, defensive nationalism, which seeks to preserve race, culture, nation (the people), and country (the territory), and not aggressive nationalism, which is imperialism.
    For more than 150 years the Hamiltonian-Lincolnian political economy has dominated the United States, and the U.S. government has exploded in size and has become ever more powerful. With the election of Donald Trump as President, centralists are being forced on the defense. Many supporters of Trump are decentralists of the populist-nationalist movement. Even heretofore centralists are becoming decentralists as they defy the U.S. government with nullification and join decentralists with talk of secession.

Copyright © 2017 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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A Guiding Philosophy for the South

A Guiding Philosophy for the South

Thomas Allen

    God made the physical (material) world for a special purpose. One of the objectives of man is to discover God’s purpose for him and society. God has ordained certain physical laws to guide the physical world and man’s relationship with the physical world, certain social laws to guide man in his relationship with his fellow man and in his development of society and its institutions and laws, and certain spiritual laws to guide man in his spiritual nature and in his relationship with his Creator. Man has a duty to discover and live by these natural laws ordained by God in order to harmoniously achieve man’s purpose, i.e., God’s purpose for man.

    Man lives in both a physical world and a spiritual world. He perceives the physical world primarily with his senses and the spiritual world primarily with his mind. Those ideas that are physical in nature are derived predominately as a result of matter stimulating his senses. Those ideas that are abstract in nature are derived predominately by the mind acting independently of matter. Thus, man derives knowledge through the stimulation of his senses reacting to matter and by contemplation independent of matter.

    Man is a physical being, but he is not solely, or even primarily, a creature of the material world or environment. He is, to a large degree, an independent force in nature with the capacity to adapt nature to his needs. He can and must adapt nature to his needs. However, if such adaption is contrary to the natural physical or social laws, misery results. The more closely he follows the natural physical and social laws in adapting nature to his needs the happier and more harmonious his life will be. The greater the liberty that society allows man, the better able man, acting individually and socially, will be to discover and follow these natural laws.

    Man is a social being. He functions better in a society with other men. No individual is greater than the society in which he lives. Likewise, no society is greater than the individuals comprising it. Men in forming a society do not create an independent organism. What is commonly called the social mind is nothing more than the consensus of those who wield the political power of the state. The individual mind can only be subordinated to the extent that might makes right. Man functions best when he lives in a society that is obedient to the natural social laws of God. These laws maximize the liberties of the individual while forcing him to respect (not trespass against) the rights (life, liberty, and property) of his fellow man. The more a society tries to reprove or refute these natural laws, the more misery the individuals comprising that society must endure — not only in the material aspects of life but also in the spiritual aspects.

    Man is a moral being with a duty to carry out God’s plan (the will of God). Man has a duty to render goodness unto his fellow man and to refrain from doing evil unto him although his sinful nature often makes doing the opposite more natural. In short, man has a duty to God, himself, and his fellow man to live by the Golden Rule even (especially) when acting contrary to it seems more natural. God gave man a mind with the ability to recognize the rights of others and to decide the proper course of action. The more a society enables (allows) an individual to accomplish God’s plan and to live by the Golden Rule, the more that society, i.e., the individuals comprising that society, are in obedience to God’s natural laws.

   Men differ from one another. Each individual is innately different from all other individuals. No two men are equal. They do not think the same on all matters. They do not act the same. What uniformity of thought and action man achieves is achieved through his social institutions and laws. Because of the innate differences among men, these institutions and laws should maximize the liberty of the individual while preventing him from violating the rights (trespassing against the life, liberty, and property) of others. The closer man’s institutions and laws approach this objective, the more they agree with natural social laws and the more harmonious and happier life will be. The further removed his institutions and laws are from natural social laws, the more deprivation and depravity members of society experience.

    Man is a sinful creature. He can never be perfected by his institutions or laws — even if those institutions and laws were in perfect agreement with the laws of nature, which because of sin they can never be. For a sinful creature to try to perfect himself leads to misery and despair. (If it were not for the grace of God and the work accomplished by Christ with His crucifixion and resurrection, man would be a hopeless creature condemned to eternal misery and suffering.) Because institutions and laws do not and cannot lead to the perfectibility of man, they should emphasize preventing man from doing evil. They should avoid forcing man to do good, but they should leave him free to do his own good deeds. (A deed resulting from force can never be a truly good deed no matter how good it appears because it results either from the selfishness of fear or from indifference and not from compassion, love, or duty.) A society with such institutions will be far more prosperous, happier, and spiritually healthier than one whose institutions and laws seek to perfect man and force him to do good.

    Some social institutions are necessary and highly desirable while others are detrimental to man’s welfare. Those social institutions that prevent man from trespassing against the life, liberty, and property of his fellow man while leaving him free to act as he wills, subject only to his innate, spiritual, and material limitations, in all other aspects of his life are desirable and good. Those social institutions that aid man in discovering and fulfilling the will of God are desirable and good. All other social institutions should be looked upon with suspicion, and those that retard man’s spiritual or material development should be discarded.

    When man and society are spiritually well and live in obedience to God’s spiritual, social, and physical laws, there is no conflict among the spiritual, social, and material. Man’s social institutions and laws will allow him the greatest amount of liberty while preventing him from violating the rights of his fellow man. To the extent that man deviates from these natural laws, is the extent that conflict and discord arise along with the concomitant misery that man has suffered since the Fall.


Copyright © 1989 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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