Institutional logic is the internal logic of institutions, of how they behave, of their internal incentive structures, and the social effects that these internal incentives produce on the external world. Slavoj Zizek's documentary called The Perverts Guide to Ideology is an excellent critique of culture, but since he is a leftist communist, while he gets a lot of his criticism correct, all his normative implications are wrong, and there is a subtle incorrectness to everything he says.
At 11:09 minutes into the film, Zizek is talking about the institutional logic of the Catholic Church, and about the communist censorship of a part of the movie The Sound of Music. He says;
*Sniffle* "I think the censor was a very intelligent man. He knew — as probably an atheist communist where the power of attraction of Catholic religion resides. If you read intelligent Catholic propagandists, and if you really try to discern what deal [sic] are they offering you, it's not to prohibit, in this case, sexual pleasures, it's a much more cynical contract as it were, between the church as an institution, and the believer troubled with, in this case, sexual desires. It is this hidden obscene permission you get. You are covered by the divine Big Other, you can do whatever you want. Enjoy it."In other words, the church gives you permission to fuck like rabbits, but only within the boundaries of marriage, and only with the blessing of the Church through Catholic marriage. As an institution, the Catholic church wants more Catholic babies to be born. So it restricts the sexuality of its adherents in order to channel that sexual energy into family formation. This is an example of institutional logic, of how an institution needs something, (growth, more Catholics, etc.) and so propagandizes a certain logic in order to get it. Zizek's wrongness is that he thinks there is anything wrong with this compact between church and adherent. Actually, old fashioned Catholicism is a great example of a perfect alignment of incentives. The Church wants more customers and the individual wants to perpetuate his genes, form a family, have a wife or husband, get laid, etc. This is basically the opposite of communism, which aligns the goals of the state against the genetic interests of the population, dooming the society to autogenocide. The average man will have more sex and be more fulfilled within marriage; the average women will have better sex and better support for her children within marriage, so the traditional Catholicism is better for all parties, church included.
There is no escaping power since men with power won't let you escape it, and since they have the guns to enforce their will. Only literal escape — to Mars or something, to the next frontier, works, and so the communist dream of a (society without power?) or maybe just a society without inequality? Are impossible. Power is inequality; inequality is power. In the end we are forced to deal with institutions, and that means depending on how we construct institutions, the internal logic of those institutions is going to produce the external ideology that we are all subject to. The question becomes; what kind of propaganda do you want to live under? From that we get our parameter for what kind of institution we want to design.
But first something has to be pointed out, and this this; all ideologies need elite sponsorship in order to become famous, otherwise they just sit on the bookshelf and turn to dust. Every prominent ideology in existence is/was sponsored by some elite, at some point in time. Even Marx was sponsored by Engels, and one will observe that Marxism always produces corporate feudalism. Even if Marx did not realize that communism would lead to feudalism, Engels must have, for that is what it did, and Engels was an industrialist.
As Reactionary Future pointed out, Ludwig Von Mises was sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation. See Libertarianism as a foundation created entity. Also see The Cathedral enforces anarcho-capitalism. Here is me quoting Reactionary Future quoting Richard M. Ebeling;
“Many readers may be surprised to learn the extent to which the Graduate Institute and then Mises himself in the years immediately after he came to United States were kept afloat financially through generous grants from the Rockefeller Foundation. In fact, for the first years of Mises’s life in the United States, before his appointment as a visiting professor in the Graduate School of Business Administration at New York University (NYU) in 1945, he was almost totally dependent on annual research grants from the Rockefeller Foundation. Even after he finally landed the position at NYU, where he remained only a visiting professor until his retirement in 1969, his salary was paid for not by NYU, but from funds contributed by generous private supporters.”
Now some leftist may object and say that social justice or intersectionality are some sort of exception to the rule. Why would elites sponsor an ideology to divide and conquer the population on the basis of race and gender? The question answers itself.
Here is Borealis Philanthropy talking about its grant program;
"Our grantees are demonstrating intersectionality in action. In this moment, we are witnessing diverse communities coming together to protect each other amidst deeply troubling policies and attacks. LGBTQ young leaders are playing an important role in this work. They are not only advancing efforts to protect communities from harm based on sexual orientation and gender identity. They are also leading efforts to demand that #Not1More deportation takes place under a broken immigration system. They are on the frontlines in places like Ferguson, proclaiming #BlackLivesMatter. They are integral to the reproductive and gender justice movements, working to ensure all people have the power to make decisions about their bodies, families, and communities.
"These LGBTQ young leaders are also bringing together movements that are traditionally viewed as isolated from each other. A recent example is the effort to expand sanctuary cities to include not only undocumented immigrants, but also Black communities and others who have been harmed by over-policing and criminalization. In short, these leaders have been challenging issue and funding silos. They are building more durable movements and they need our support. Yet, this work and approach often does not fit neatly into most funding strategies leaving a gap where resources are vital."
— Borealis Philanthropy website
At the bottom of the page it says;
Again, the point is that all prominent ideologies receive financial sponsorship. Someone is always paying for the megaphone that makes these concepts invade your space. The logic of propaganda follows the same pattern as logic the logic of escalation. I was talking about property rights and I asserted that they ultimately came from violence. I said;
The dominance of elite-sponsored ideology does not mean that a small ideology can never win, but it does mean that if you try to compete against it then you are competing against a megaphone. Just like the state can ratchet violence beyond the individual's capability, so the elite can ratchet propaganda beyond the individual's voice, and simply drown it out. Ultimately, public opinion becomes whatever the largest megaphone says it should be.
This means that the public, through their electors, must control the largest megaphone. The reactionary impulse is to do the opposite, to observe the manipulation of society by power and throw our hands up in the air and say "well fuck it, if power is always going to influence democratic systems then there might as well be monarchy." This is a fools errand because it ignores the reality that elites were struggling over ideology in monarchies as well. The Protestant Reformation, The Hundred Years' War, and all of European history is a bloodbath of elites trying to unify their power and failing spectacularly. In Asia we have the Mongols fighting each other during the Toluid Civil War, the First Chinese Civil War, The Second Chinese Civil War, and before that the Warring States Period. The history of every society all over the world is the history of elites killing people to unify their power, and failing. Unified power is a delusion.
And I keep saying, elites are all insane.
No, the solution is to go in the opposite direction. If the media is being controlled by the foundations then both the media and the foundations need to become democracies. If corporate influence is a problem then the largest corporations should be run like credit unions; by their customers with elected boards. If censorship by Facebook, Google, et al., is a problem then the tech giants need to be democratized. Since any concentration of power that is not a democracy can be used to infiltrate democracy, then all concentrations of power must be democratized. Democracy must chase power all over the face of the entire Earth until it has broken it down a subjugated it to the utter domination of the people. The true communism is the true democracy; a society where there are no concentrations of power left, where even news anchors, CEOs, university deans, university department heads, must stand for election. To prevent monetary influence from subverting democracy all campaign contributions for all offices, public and private, are taxed at a high rate of 80%. The money is then distributed in the form of campaign contribution vouchers. Of course with so many elections going on simultaneously most people will tune out and ignore them. This is fine, it means that the most dedicated people will command the most influence, as they should. No, the solution is to break power down utterly. If the elites are using immigration policy as a weapon then all immigration law must be subject to referendum, and the head of INS should be elected. The people have always been anti-immigration anyway. If the Supreme Court interferes with the will of the people then the justices should be elected; elected judges are always more conservative than appointed ones.
The solution is A LOT MORE DEMOCRACY. The proof is Switzerland, which has lots of direct democracy and some of the worlds best immigration laws. Contrast this with the favorite societies of neoreaction, Dubai, Singapore, Kong Kong, all of which have vast immigrant populations. Dubai even has a vast population of guest workers who get deported if they lose their jobs, in other words, slaves.
Both Hoppe and Moldbug blame democracy for the leftward movement of society. But Moldbug points out that the Cathedral, a non-democratic element, is what is using democracy for those ends, and Hoppe does the same. They both blame democracy for the thing corrupting it, and this might be believable if authoritarianism actually produced the results they like, but it does not.
"The TMF is a collaborative fund that includes the Arcus Foundation, Ford Foundation, and Anonymous Donors. For more information about the TMF and to learn more about the work of our grantees, visit the TMF page."They usually don't try to hide it. With the exception of "anonymous donors" most of these foundations are proud to put their politics right on the masthead.
Again, the point is that all prominent ideologies receive financial sponsorship. Someone is always paying for the megaphone that makes these concepts invade your space. The logic of propaganda follows the same pattern as logic the logic of escalation. I was talking about property rights and I asserted that they ultimately came from violence. I said;
"Two words: commitment limits.
"Yes, you may be able to protect your property rights. Let us assume that your property is small enough to be viewed from every point by yourself. In that case it is most likely possible that you could deter a single intruder from seizing your property. But what about twenty intruders? Or a thousand? What about an army of fifty thousand? The essential difference between the state and the individual is that the state can ratchet up its commitment to almost infinite limits relative to the paltry power of individuals. And thus, your property rights come from the state, because the state says so, and because the state can bring to bear any measure of force against you in order to overwhelm your opposition. Might makes right. The state wins. You lose. Therefore your property rights come from it."
— [THE UNTITLED MAGNUM OPUS] THE STATIST ORIGIN OF PROPERTY RIGHTS
The dominance of elite-sponsored ideology does not mean that a small ideology can never win, but it does mean that if you try to compete against it then you are competing against a megaphone. Just like the state can ratchet violence beyond the individual's capability, so the elite can ratchet propaganda beyond the individual's voice, and simply drown it out. Ultimately, public opinion becomes whatever the largest megaphone says it should be.
This means that the public, through their electors, must control the largest megaphone. The reactionary impulse is to do the opposite, to observe the manipulation of society by power and throw our hands up in the air and say "well fuck it, if power is always going to influence democratic systems then there might as well be monarchy." This is a fools errand because it ignores the reality that elites were struggling over ideology in monarchies as well. The Protestant Reformation, The Hundred Years' War, and all of European history is a bloodbath of elites trying to unify their power and failing spectacularly. In Asia we have the Mongols fighting each other during the Toluid Civil War, the First Chinese Civil War, The Second Chinese Civil War, and before that the Warring States Period. The history of every society all over the world is the history of elites killing people to unify their power, and failing. Unified power is a delusion.
And I keep saying, elites are all insane.
No, the solution is to go in the opposite direction. If the media is being controlled by the foundations then both the media and the foundations need to become democracies. If corporate influence is a problem then the largest corporations should be run like credit unions; by their customers with elected boards. If censorship by Facebook, Google, et al., is a problem then the tech giants need to be democratized. Since any concentration of power that is not a democracy can be used to infiltrate democracy, then all concentrations of power must be democratized. Democracy must chase power all over the face of the entire Earth until it has broken it down a subjugated it to the utter domination of the people. The true communism is the true democracy; a society where there are no concentrations of power left, where even news anchors, CEOs, university deans, university department heads, must stand for election. To prevent monetary influence from subverting democracy all campaign contributions for all offices, public and private, are taxed at a high rate of 80%. The money is then distributed in the form of campaign contribution vouchers. Of course with so many elections going on simultaneously most people will tune out and ignore them. This is fine, it means that the most dedicated people will command the most influence, as they should. No, the solution is to break power down utterly. If the elites are using immigration policy as a weapon then all immigration law must be subject to referendum, and the head of INS should be elected. The people have always been anti-immigration anyway. If the Supreme Court interferes with the will of the people then the justices should be elected; elected judges are always more conservative than appointed ones.
The solution is A LOT MORE DEMOCRACY. The proof is Switzerland, which has lots of direct democracy and some of the worlds best immigration laws. Contrast this with the favorite societies of neoreaction, Dubai, Singapore, Kong Kong, all of which have vast immigrant populations. Dubai even has a vast population of guest workers who get deported if they lose their jobs, in other words, slaves.
Both Hoppe and Moldbug blame democracy for the leftward movement of society. But Moldbug points out that the Cathedral, a non-democratic element, is what is using democracy for those ends, and Hoppe does the same. They both blame democracy for the thing corrupting it, and this might be believable if authoritarianism actually produced the results they like, but it does not.
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