Reactionary Libertarianism

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Reactionary Libertarianism
Rule without govern!
Basic Information
Aliases	Anti-state Feudalism Anarcho-Feudalism Feudalist Libertarianism Van Dunism
Alignments	LibRight Culturally Right Religious Libertarians
Ideological Influences
Influenced by	Austrolibertarianism Anarcho-Capitalism Feudalism Reactionarism
Ideological Information
Foundation	Frank Van Dun
Character Information
Likes	Church, Feudalism, Private law, Medieval system
Dislikes	Monarchism, State/Government, Protestantism, Enlightenment

Reactionary Libertarianism or Reactbert, for short (Not to be confused with Reactionary Liberalism or Reactlib) is an economically far-right, Libertarian, and reactionary ideology inspired by Belgium political philosopher, Frank Van Dun, who, in the article "The 'Reactionary' Libertarianism of Frank Van dun", written by Richard Storey, is described as a "Reactionary Libertarian" and shows extracts from Frank's correspondence with him outlining the case that the Feudal system was stateless and that the Church was, in fact, and contrary to most's beliefs, the greatest limitator to the rise of states in Northern Europe.

Beliefs

It primarily believes that Christianity and the Christian church, despite many believing it to be so, didn't bring about centralized government nor Statism, but quite the opposite, it managed to be a huge hindrance to the growth of centralization for centuries.

Frank says that, rather, centralization was brought about by the English system from the Conquest onward; it was virtually impossible to achieve on the continent. However, because royal absolutism did not last as long in England as it did on the Continent, “English freedom” became the model to follow in the 18th century and onward.

It also criticizes the and its tailor-made “ideology of Enlightenment”, which (as so much of later progressive ideology) had a vital interest in obliterating everything that was associated with the stateless order of the medieval period and the role of the church in formal education in said period of time.

Among many things Frank criticizes in previously mentioned extracts, he criticized how Rothbardianism remained virtually silent on the statelessness of the medieval system, besides some very few mentions, while actively presupposing some form of (what he called) "Lutheran individualism", upon which is superimposed a structure of property and contract relations but which does not pay much, if any, to questions of responsibility and justificatory arguments.

The Origin of the State

First we need to define what a ‘state’ is. ‘State’ derives from the Latin ‘status’. In the 15th century, however, it began to be used in Italian principalities and cities to refer to their “political economy” (the realm considered as a single household). However, even today there remains an ambiguity: the state as a single economy (now usually called ‘a society’) and the state as the apparatus of rule and government within society (which puts every inhabitant of a country inside or outside the state apparatus).

Frank, though, believes that the term has been overly [mis]applied in the modern times, calling any system of rule a state, whether or not the rulers even claimed to have the right to govern anything but their household and whether or not they ruled by customary prerogative or governed by “the rights of conquest” (the former excluding, the latter including the “rights” to legislate and to tax at will).

It is also important to define Statism. Frank defines it as the idea that the ruler should have not only the power to rule (as supreme commander in times of war, as diplomat, and as judge in some but not necessarily all disputes among his subjects) but also the power to govern. A medieval king ruled his realm but did not govern anything within it except his own household. Government (as distinct from rule) was a matter of private housekeeping.

Frank Van Dun believes the state (in the west) was a gradual transition from medieval rule to the modern political government, the latter reaching its full expression from the 16th century onwards (After the disasters and wars of the 14th century and the wars of the 15th century) when some major medieval kings became monarchs and the idea that the monarch's power to govern extended as far as imperium started becoming common.

This, then, lead to the formal organization of regular departments of government and their bureaucratization, in other words, the separation of the purely administrative aspects of government from the purely political aspects. Thus the previous coceived idea that kings were first among equals with special prerogatives but no superior rights, was as good as dead.

Statelessness of the medieval system

Frank raised the case of the Medieval system as being Libertarian or, even, Anarchist, saying that it was not only anarchistic in the sense that it was situated in a stateless environment but also in the sense that it was intended to be anti-state.

In the words of Frank Van Dun, the church was not only a protector of “private law systems” but rather the great protector of them. Without the church these systems wouldn't have been able to develop. Frank says that in medieval times, free cities, universities, mercantile associations, large estates, etc... developed their own systems of “private law-keeping” or, in other words, private systems of governance. These were more or less closed (private) economies (households or associations of households).

The Church insisted on their support for natural law, which kept those “private systems” compatible with each other as to basic principles and prevented them from turning into separate collections of special-interest privileges.

To put it in simpler terms, the Church oversaw the integrity of the system without interfering in the internal ordering of individual households or associations of households, unless they threatened to take over by forcefully eliminating the independence of other households.

Not having an army of its own, the Church had to rely on the good will of others, i.e. on her moral and theological prestige and authority (her intellectual capital). In diminishing the Church’s authority and by robbing it of much wealth and income (and by implication, bargaining power), the Protestant crisis certainly undermined the major pillar of support for the medieval “private systems of governance.”

How to draw

Flag of Reactionary Libertarianism

1. Draw a ball with eyes
2. Fill it with #1A1939
3. Draw a snake with #DAD47B and write "No step" below

Optional

4. Draw a helmet with a red plume

Relationships

Friends

• Neoreactionarism - Austrian economics and reactionary social views? BASED
• Reactionary Liberalism - You are almost the same as me, only drop entirely the democracy stuff.
• National Capitalism - Literally me but statist!
• Korwinism - LITERALLY ME! but monarchist
• Confessionalism - "I was screamin' at my dad, he told me, "It ain't Christ-like"
• Conservatism - Cool but you've got to REACT!

Frenemies

WIP

Enemies

WIP

Further Information

Articles

The 'Reactionary' Libertarianism of Frank Van Dun by Richard Storey

Natural law and jurisprudence of freedom by Frank Van Dun

Websites

The Zeroth Position

Frank Van Dun's websiteTemplate:Libright Template:Libertarian