The Rise of The New American Commonwealth
Considerations and Structure for Large Scale Social Networks
Like many of us engaged in the rebuilding of American social fabric and the creation of parallel systems, you have realized that the large scale systems of the American government have become corrupt; disconnected from healthy incentives that would require it to serve the American people. Our broken system serves only the interests of the kleptocrats, greedy and corrupt politicians, businessmen, lobbyists, and their lackeys. They impose top down leadership, or more accurately, control through coercion and manufactured consent, and use the system to enrich themselves at the cost of the American people, our children, and our nation’s future.
It is delusional to believe that this system, this American Kleptocracy, will change of its own accord, or even through the efforts of supposedly moral actors subverting these systems from the inside, and so we must turn our attention and efforts to building new parallel systems that can compete with and ultimately replace them. While I have covered many aspects of parallel building, from fraternal networks to new pro human philosophies, one of the most important questions I have yet to address directly is what will parallel social systems look like at a larger scale and how can they be built.
As has become standard practice with my articles, the first half will focus on the foundational concepts that must be considered when deciding how this new system should be built: Leverage Natural Structures, Build for Incentives, Cultivate Emergent Leadership, Scale From The Ground Up, and Adopt Social Capital Exchange. These ideas lay the foundational understanding for the second half of the article which will describe my proposed system of The American Commonwealth, a system based on the fundamental unit of the Family, the naturally emergent structures of Fraternities, and finally Commonwealths themselves. It is my hope that by the end of this article, you understand not just what should be built but why, and that the confidence in the viability of such a system motivates you to take the action necessary to join us in building it.
Considerations
Here we will cover the foundational concepts upon which I justify my claim that the American Commonwealth is not only viable, but the most robust structure for large scale social systems. You will see that many of these ideas overlap and support each other.
Leverage Natural Structures
As I have talked about in my previous article Refuting Techno Transhumanism, natural systems and processes are always superior to their synthetic counterparts. This is because natural systems inherently consider all relevant dimensions along which they must be optimized by virtue of their evolution in the real world. Synthetic systems however, are only optimized across the dimensions actively considered by their human creators and so can easily be blind to less visible but essential dimensions.
Additionally, the viability of any system is not simply determined by limits of what technology can accomplish, but the limits and nature of the people who use them. Natural systems inherently factor in the human element, while synthetic systems are often designed by human creators who misunderstand the human element, resulting in ideas that look good on paper, but fail in practice.
For this reason, if we are to give ourselves the highest chance of success when building competing systems, the best place to start is by drawing inspiration from and even blatantly copying or integrating the structures of established natural systems. Specifically for the new American Commonwealth, I propose family should be the foundational unit upon which these larger systems are built and that the patriarch, fathers and husbands, are the natural emergent leader of these family structures.
I would go so far as to say that utilizing natural structures is not simply an effective strategy, but a necessary one, much like it is not just effective but necessary to build physical structures in alignment with the laws of physics. Ultimately, building with established natural structure guarantees a solid foundation and solves problems across dimensions we might be currently blind to, ensuring viable not just now, but into the future and at larger scale.
Build for Incentives
As I discussed in the previous article The Fall of The American Kleptocracy, systems will always produce the results that they incentivize. So while there are many elements that must be considered when designing the mechanics of our new system, arguably most essential is ensuring the incentives of the system produce the results we wish to see. Larger scale systems especially cannot depend on the integrity of individual moral actors to maintain desired results, but must ingrain incentives that will all but guarantee desirable action.
One example of how I propose this idea is applied our new Commonwealth structure is by requiring leaders to arise from and maintain a position in the groups that they represent, not just symbolically, but physically. If a man is living in the community he represents, buying food from the same stores, patronizing local businesses, having his children play with other children in the neighborhood, and drinking from the same water supply, he is inherently motivated to make sure that he advocates in the best interest of his community. He is also strongly incentivized not to betray the welfare of his community for his own gain as the community would have an extensive set of options to punish such behavior from removing his position of authority to physical violence.
To further illustrate the power of incentives, I would point out that a key reason many leaders within our current kleptocracy are able to get away with corrupt behavior is that they are completely removed from their communities. Modern leaders rarely ever live in the areas they represent and even if they do, they have almost no integration with their constituents outside of manufactured appearances. They can simply sell out the wellbeing of their community for their own personal gain and use the money to live apart and free from any repercussions of their mismanagement. Effectively, they can insulate themselves from the results of their own corruption by avoiding the incentives that would exist if they lived as an integrated member of their community.
Simply put, when building these new structures, fundamental to their success will be how effectively we can ingrain both motivating and deterring incentives into the structures themselves so we do not have to rely solely on the moral character of our leaders to ensure they act in the best interest of the people.
Cultivate Emergent Leadership
One of the most dangerous misconceptions of the parallel movement is that all we need is a man of sufficient charisma to rise to prominence and all the parallel groups, no matter how different, will fall in line under him. Anyone making this claim clearly has no experience building groups or networks of any kind. Not only is it already hard enough to get existing groups to work together, these parallel networks arose out of a desire for sovereignty and self governance and it is delusional to think they would work so hard to achieve that only to hand it over to someone else, especially someone outside their group.
Almost certainly, the leaders of the parallel movement will come from within their groups. They will arise, not simply because they are charismatic and capable, but because through their actions they have demonstrated their dedication and trustworthiness to the men around them and those men want those leaders to take positions of higher authority because they know that power will be used responsibly.
I call this phenomenon Emergent Leadership, where leaders naturally emerge from within the group where they know those they lead, have proven their reliability over time through consistent action, and share in the benefits or consequences of their actions with the others of their group. This is clearly superior to any type of imposed top down leadership which inherently lacks the familiarity, trust, and shared fate of an emergent leader. It would then follow that the Commonwealth structure would look to cultivate and utilize emergent leadership as the natural and superior choice.
Scale From The Ground Up
As I have pointed out in The Necessity of Rebuilding Social Structure, any successful attempt to rebuild social fabric and healthy systems must start small before it can be scaled up. Too often in the online discussions of what should come next do people fixate on the end goal with little consideration of how the movement necessary to accomplish such a task will be started. Just like a startup business begins with a handful of people developing a viable prototype before it scales into a successful business, our efforts to create parallel systems must start small and prove viability before it can be scaled up into a larger system.
It is not only that the larger structures themselves will require smaller structures to support them, but that it takes time to build up the smaller structure to be functional enough to support the larger system. The best example of this is how trust between members is essential for smaller groups to function but sufficient trust does not come from ideological alignment and a desire to build parallel systems alone. Trust can only be built through demonstrations of commitment through sacrifice to the group over time and that cannot be artificially rushed. These systems, at both a smaller, foundational level, and in the later large scale manifestations, must be built from the ground up over time.
This is why most of my writing has focused first on what can be done on the local level. We must start with what we can control, which is primarily ourselves and our immediate environment, and as we develop mastery through responsible action, we can expand our influence. Similarly, if we are to be successful in building the New American Commonwealth our energy must first be applied rebuilding that local social structure so that it is strong enough to support the large system of a Commonwealth. The value of defining the structure of the Commonwealth now is not to build it immediately, but inform how we build at the local level so it can be scaled up into the larger structure of a Commonwealth.
Adopt Social Capital
As I pointed out in The Fall of The American Kleptocracy, systems can run on two types of capital: social capital (favors) and economic capital (money). We almost never think about which type of capital a system runs on because our current kleptocratic system is so completely dependent on economic capital for any type of exchange, we no longer even consciously realize it, let alone consider there might be a better alternative. However, not only is there a significant difference between the two types of capital as a medium of exchange, but there is a profound difference in the systems that emerge from their respective uses.
While economic capital as a medium has its advantages for facilitating transactions between unfamiliar parties and managing abstractions of wealth, it also can be extracted from through inflation, taxation, and other forms of theft. Social capital, on the other hand, cannot be extracted from as a medium because there is no physical manifestation, and can be generated immediately through the simple act of doing a favor. Both economic and social capital also require trust in their systems, the banks or the social networks respectively.
Most importantly, different systems will naturally emerge depending on which form of capital they use and these different systems will incentivize much different behavior. Economic capital based systems incentivize transactional interactions which only require trust in the broader system and not the individuals in the system. Where social capital based systems inherently require trust in the individual members you are transacting with.
When considering the large systems we wish to build, it therefore makes sense that social capital is the superior option. Not only does the medium of social capital lend itself well to avoiding the means of extraction built into our current kleptocratic system, but the system required to transact in social capital inherently incentivizes the high trust and social cohesion we wish to cultivate.
The Structure of The New American Commonwealth
Even if I were to stop the article here, it should be fairly easy to guess at what a structure built upon these considerations would look like. For this reason, the layout of The American Commonwealth should strike you as intuitive boarding on obvious: Family as foundation, Fraternity of patriarchs as community management, and Commonwealth as the collection of fraternal network leaders. However, I believe that the best creations are indeed elegant, simple, and even seemingly obvious (in retrospect) in their design.
It is also important to note that while The Commonwealth is the large scale governing structure of this proposed system, that top layer would not function without the foundation in the Family unit and the cohesion of the community of families into Fraternal networks. Furthermore, it is not simply convenient, but fundamentally essential that these networks and their members are in close geographical proximity to establish the right incentives for people to care about the success of their groups both now and in the long term.
Starting with Family, Fraternity, then Commonwealth, this section will explore each layer of The American Commonwealth structure in more detail, highlighting the features essential to the success of the structure.
Family as The Foundation
There is no more obvious and fundamental social structure than the family, and by establishing the family as the foundational unit of The New American Commonwealth, we not only gain the inherent benefits and positive incentives of this natural structure, but facilitate a mindset that orients the members of the Commonwealth towards the most important aspect of life: family and the successful raising of children.
If we think of society as simply a collection of individuals, it is easy to get pulled into a short term, transactional, and selfish way of thinking. However, by perceiving society through the ideal lens of the family line, we inherently see beyond our own needs and understand that everything we do must be in service of the healthy, generative flourishing of the family. And there is no higher manifestation of this goal than the successful raising of one’s children to carry on the family legacy.
In their ideal forms, families are structures that function internally on social capital where all the members of the family pool their resources and talents to ensure their collective success. In our modern misled society where most families view themselves as a loose affiliation of individuals and the younger generations are largely left to fend for themselves after schooling, collective cooperation in a family can be the difference between the next generation succeeding or being the final generation of the family line.
Additionally, establishing the family as the fundamental unit inside a social capital based system facilitates the use of social capital in a way that is otherwise inaccessible. While social capital is easy to generate and use, it is not as easy as economic capital to transfer between parties. However, if the social capital we generate is associated not with the person, but the family name, this allows that social capital to be passed to one’s children. Not only does this extend the life of social capital past the individual, but it also creates incentives for families to care about the good standing of their family name in the community and raise their children to uphold it.
Finally, each family should be led by a patriarch. While it is necessary for fathers and mothers to take active roles in providing for, caring for, and leading their family, it is the father who bears the ultimate responsibility to advocate for his family within the next layer of the societal structure: the Fraternal network.
Fraternal Networks
The next layer of structural organization is the fraternal network, a collection of patriarchs from the local families in a community working together to further their collective interests. Just as the family is stronger than the lone individuals who compose it, a collection of families working together is much stronger than any one family can be on their own. This creates healthy incentives for cooperative action within the network and for individual patriarchs to contribute to the greater success of the fraternal network itself.
It has also become abundantly clear in our modern society that successfully raising a family is not, nor was it ever meant to be, something one man did alone. The quality of the community, for better or worse, will have a direct and powerful impact on his family, from the relationship with his wife to the upbringing of his children. And so if a man wants his family to be part of a community that will help incentivize good action and provide healthy support, he should realize the necessity of finding and building the best community around his family he possibly can.
And while we might not think of the other families in our communities as close as our own family, it is important to realize that there is a good chance your children will marry the children of other families in your community, making you family through shared grandchildren. Effectively, your community should be viewed as an extended family as the success of your community will be a determining factor of the success of the future generations of your family.
More important than what specific shape your fraternal network takes is that it is structured in a way to leverage these inherent benefits and incentives. It matters not exactly how it is done; gather the patriarchs of local families, find opportunities to invest social capital in each other, support each other’s families, and work together towards your common interest because the success of the fraternal network will facilitate the success of each member’s family.
As for the leaderships of fraternal networks, leaders will emerge naturally based on who takes on responsibilities within the group and manages those responsibilities with a sense of stewardship and competence. This will be witnessed by the other patriarchs of the group and they will naturally want to allocate more authority to their leaders because they trust that power will be used to the benefit of the group.
Building fraternal networks is the current highest priority of the parallel movement as it is both the most immediately actionable and most fundamentally necessary step and as such, the subject I have written the most about. If you want to read more, I highly recommend On The Necessity of Rebuilding Social Structure, specifically the second half on how to begin forming your own local fraternal network.
American Commonwealths
Above the fraternal networks is the collection of fraternal network leaders formed into a Commonwealth. Much like patriarchs are incentivized to both advocate for the wellbeing of their own family and what they think is in the best interest of the fraternal network as a whole, the fraternal network leaders who make up the commonwealth are incentivized to advocate both for the best interest of their own fraternal network as well as the commonwealth itself.
The primary responsibility of the Commonwealth is not to micromanage their fraternal networks, but to be the vehicle through which fraternal networks combine their influence and obtain a greater ability to influence the larger world around them towards their own interests. For this reason, it is essential that the roots of the Commonwealth extend directly down to the fraternal networks and again to the families. This maintains the incentives for fraternal network leaders and the greater commonwealth to advocate and fight on behalf of the wellbeing of the families and fraternities they represent and not in their own individual self interest.
Again, I am providing little specific structure for what these commonwealths might look like as each group will look different depending on the networks and people who compose it. What matters is the broader structure such that these incentives stay ingrained and facilitate the desired outcomes.
Conclusion
In this article we not only defined what the general structure of The New Commonwealth will look like, but the fundamental concepts for forming any large scale governing structure and how those concepts, when implemented well, conclusively lead to the Commonwealth structure as the ideal. The goal of comprehensively laying this information out is to both equip other parallel network builders with powerful strategic tools to aid their efforts as well as establishing confidence that this is the correct philosophy for building parallel systems so they join in its construction.
As I look across the landscape of the parallel movement, I see many networks starting to form, but I believe their success will be determined by how closely they follow these ideas and structures: foundation in family, building from the ground up, leveraging natural systems, healthy incentives, social capital, local organization, and emergent leadership. I suspect that any organization that tries to implement a top down system, focuses too much on economic capital, and doesn’t promote the family and the raising of children will fail. And for those who are authentic in their desire to build successful parallel systems for the sake of their families, communities, and future generations, I would like to help them avoid any setbacks as much as possible.
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This is our time to take action and build the world we want to see for our families, communities, and future generations. I look forward to working with you towards these goals and wish you the best of success in your efforts. It was never over and we have never been more back 👾
