Practical Patronage

Don’t Let Friends Fall Through the Cracks

The problem of helping our friends is a difficult one. As many of us find ourselves piling on commitments, it becomes difficult to help out those of us who are “marginal cases.” The weight of obligation is heavy indeed. As the old saying goes: “Heavy is the head that wears the crown.” For the more elite theory-oriented members of our audience who understand the nature of societal relations, this is not something new to discuss. Noblesse oblige? Isn’t that what you said you wanted, Anon?

But perhaps the ability to manage personally those overwhelming forces which we face is of crucial importance. Small things do tend to help a lot. But the consensus which seems to have formed among the e-Right is a series of guidelines which I want to lay out in writing. In bullet point format, these are:

1. Help only those who can be helped. (The corollary to this is to offer help only to those who truly want it.)

2. Don’t go out of your way to try to convert normies. They will come along when the time is right, and not a moment before.

3. To attract disgruntled elite patronage, be a good client.

   1. You are of no use to anyone jobless, penniless, without credentials. We aren’t the Left; we don’t get money for existing. Build yourself.

   2. This is true not just economically. Despite our autism, we must adhere to dress, personal grooming, and social etiquette. Try not to be socially embarrassing. (This is slightly vague because I’m not defining it here, but a working definition is that if you give women “the ick” in person, you’re probably too embarrassing to be seen in public.)

4. Help “marginal cases” as best you can. This is especially important.

5. Don’t simply offer charity; we are in this game to be patrons.

I want to dwell a bit on the fourth case. We are informed by Austrian economic concepts such as marginal utility and Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk’s conception of price formation. They tell us that if we want to see which way the wind is blowing, we should look to what the “man on the margin” is doing. I consider for the purpose of this article a “marginal case” to be a person who is sympathetic to the cause of our people, but for one reason or another, isn’t making it in life. The reason why he isn’t is often the structural problems that the current regime has imposed upon him. He suffers many of the same difficulties that Anons too often complain about. But with some small change, he probably could make it or, at least, improve the conditions of his life.

Elite theory informs us as well. It would be useful to a prospective aristocracy to find such “marginal cases” and cultivate loyalty among them. That such individuals are sometimes already quite sympathetic to our cause could be used for many varying purposes. A king without subjects is no king, after all. A general who has no soldiers to command is a “general” in name only. Those who focus solely on elites as the only factor are not entirely correct. Listen to the Left here. Their strategy has been effective. “Top-down, bottom-up, inside-out” has been the calling card for social change instigated by leftists for many years.

Those who think that the elite themselves are the only part of the equation which matters are so far up their own asses regarding elite theory that they make a similar mistake that Spengler makes regarding labor. In The Hour of Decision, Spengler makes a critical mistake when he asserts that the hours productively worked by white Westerners are declining in comparison to the Third World. He thinks that this is a problem because the Western industrial economy of his time will collapse due to this. But this is exactly part of the problem which we face. Anyone — not just Austrian economists — could tell you that even at the level of the basest form of entry-level job, individual laborers are not the same. Some work hard, and some are lazy. Spengler is so elitist and aristocratically minded that he basically implies that the labor caste between civilizations is interchangeable and makes no difference. IQ stats prove that this is demonstrably false, and that Spengler himself is in part guilty of some of the attitudes of the current elite.

To give an example which Spengler would be familiar with, take Friedrich the Great of Prussia. He only won the Battle of Mollwitz because his infantry did not give up despite their king quitting the field in the belief that the battle was lost. Therefore, the quality of the peasantry over whom an aristocracy rules absolutely matters. I’m not saying that there weren’t officers leading the individual regiments during that battle, but the point remains. The aristocratic conception of leadership, spiritual in tone, is that the conduct and the personality of the ruler determine everything else. In any other army, the general leaving the field usually means that that army will be defeated. War is indeed the ultimate stress test of a society’s social cohesion and trust between social classes.

Convincing this person also to “level up” is very important for this. Seemingly small improvements in someone’s life situation can make a great difference. I have personally helped a man out of the valley of suicide and binge alcoholism. Being able to offer small gestures now is what we can do. Getting people jobs, playing matchmaker, and the general formation of communities will be within our power shortly. We have essentially already formed a counter-elite. We should now be cultivating relationships with friends in low places once again. As patrons, we have a duty to our clientele.