The far right has seen in the dana an opportunity to install their pre-packaged discourses. Anti-statist narratives that have been packaging for years waiting for the right coordinates and the major disasters that, in certain contexts, are a fruitful experimental field to put them into circulation. There are at least three contextual factors that favor this maneuver. Firstly, the right-wing has been capturing part of the social discontent and political incorrectness in the face of a too conservative and predictable progressivism. Secondly, the idea that public power (not only political) tends to betray the majorities is recurrent and resurfaces in increasingly shorter cycles. The space represented by “politicians” lacks stable credibility and many feel capable of criticizing their decisions, convinced that they have more than enough tools to do better. There is a certain exhaustion of the political and leadership is vulnerable. Thirdly, the networked politicization offered by social media has reinforced anti-statist propaganda.
However, the questioning of the State has nothing to do with citizen empowerment. Taking advantage of the circumstances in which a tragedy occurs to question the authority of the State cannot be confused with opposition to any form of authority, let alone with the promotion of community or popular self-management. Some years ago, Murray Rothbard, an economist of the Austrian school and, at the time, an inspiration for the ultra sphere, coined the term “paleolibertarianism” to make it clear that undermining the State was aimed at strengthening more “friendly” social institutions such as churches, families, and businesses. The aim was not to save the people, but to clear the way for disaster capitalism. When it is assumed that the State fails as a social support, especially when it is most needed, the goal is for it to reduce to ensuring the (natural) order provided by traditions and the market, resorting to the use of military, police, and/or judicial force. This way, the articulation between reactionary ideas and anarcho-capitalism could be as attractive and transgressive as it is convincing and timely.
It is true that the far right has managed to channel the discontent of those who consider themselves losers and the fear of those who have something to lose. But what is most interesting in their journey is not only the mobilization of those negative emotions but the full-fledged restoration of an imaginary of the common conceived outside the State, which fits perfectly into the most extreme neoliberalism. The commitment to traditional family, nativism, anti-feminism, supremacism, racial ecology (jus sanguinis vs jus soli), or the theory of the great replacement, is compatible with the defense of an uncontrolled market, privatizations, and large properties. These denialist movements would not lift a finger against speculative capital or any form of exploitation of the people. Even though the dana was a direct consequence of the environmental deterioration we have caused, it is clear that these climate deniers will not back down because their opposition to ecological commitment is mainly about the high profitability of speculative niches linked to the unrestricted control of territory, natural resources, and energy sources.
Paleolibertarianism is a psychopathy that thrives in crises and prefigures societies anchored in hate, anger, and distrust of the institutions that protect them. These societies are not freer, more empowered, or more supportive. The sordid militant epic and violent battle that the far right dreams of is only that of deeply autocratic elites. It is not the saving battle of the self-organized people but the deadly battle of their tyrants.
