What Is Neoreaction: From Silicon Valley to Latin America

It's been twenty-five years since 2001. The Trump phenomenon, which was supposed to be a glitch in the Matrix, has now been at the center of global politics for a decade. The memes about "the end of the 20th century" are starting to lose their charm. Our present has its own distinct thickness, recognizable: its own culture, its own politics, its own zeitgeist. It also needs its own categories. No one can say that "nothing has changed": the language we used a couple of decades ago no longer works, doesn't describe, doesn't name what is happening. Peter Thiel moved in around the corner, your kids know what "anarcho-capitalism" means, and the richest man in the world is negotiating face-to-face with the President of the United States.

In this text, we aim to contribute a grain of sand to the classification of the new political concepts of our present. We will do this by attempting to map an area of contemporary thought, something that was once called the "new right" or "alt-right" and today appears under the names of "paleolibertarianism," "dark enlightenment," or "Neoreaction." In his excellent article on Curtis Yarvin, perhaps the father of this movement, Juan Ruocco questioned the latter term as being, basically, marketing jargon. It is: that's why we use it.

But what is Neoreaction? An ideology, a meme, a classical political philosophy like communism or liberalism, a political movement with institutional actors? A bit of everything. Let's take a look.

1. Genealogy

To start, it's worth going back in time. If there is a "new" reaction, it's because there is a reactionary politics that has its history. However, there don't seem to be people who identify as "reactionaries," unlike socialists, fascists, conservatives, etc. This is precisely the point: a space on the right side of the political spectrum that until now seemed to lack a proper name.

In the classic division, there are liberals and conservatives. The former will emphasize individual autonomy and the exercise of personal freedoms, which are usually associated with a retreat of the State and an amplification of market capabilities. The latter focus on a perspective centered on social order, supported by a series of traditional institutions. At first glance, it seems these traditions are fundamentally incompatible.

What is Neoreaction? An ideology, a meme, a classical political philosophy like communism or liberalism, a political movement with institutional actors? A bit of everything.

Neoreaction is the latest in a series of ideological interventions that come to deny that incompatibility, proposing that order and freedom do not oppose each other, but rather need each other mutually. And that this contradiction should not be resolved by moderating both positions to find common ground, but rather that libertarian and authoritarian tendencies can be radicalized at the same time.

Genealogically, this movement emerges as part of the libertarian thought tradition. Libertarianism has always been a heretical, peripheral, excluded thought, especially during the golden years of the Welfare State. In that context, various anti-statist sectors, like the early neoliberals, created spaces of ideological resistance in lean times. The most radical of these realms eventually coalesced into a libertarian movement, with different strands, such as anarcho-capitalists and paleolibertarians.

With the latter, things get interesting. Figures like Murray Rothbard or Hans-Hermann Hoppe began to sense, in the eighties, that it was possible to forge a radical idea of freedom that was perfectly compatible with social conservatism. The important thing was that the retreat of the State does not necessarily imply a parallel retreat of institutions like the family, which can (and tend to) uphold rigid moral patterns. At the same time, reducing the state apparatus to its military function exacerbates authoritarianism "in the end." Thus, private property, order, and tradition would be the foundations of a new political model. What is not required for this model is democracy. At least not as we imagined it.

The society envisioned by paleolibertarianism is not too different from other reactionary conceptions, including fascism. (See Alberto Toscano's book, Late Fascism, which reveals the secret connections between fascist thought and the liberal tradition). However, what distinguishes that case from others is the emphasis on the "racial" dimension, which is not present in other cases. We can say they are all specific cases of a single reactionary tradition that, today, has a new wave.

Private property, order, and tradition would be the foundations of a new political model. What is not required for this model is democracy.

Now, how does this new wave emerge? It can be helpful to divide it into two contributions: on one hand, the emergence of a thought of neoreaction under the ideological conditions of the 21st century. On the other hand, the emergence of a politics of neoreaction, with the available institutional framework in the present.

2. Acceleration

One thing that is essential to highlight about this reactionary thought is its heretical, sacrilegious character. At all times, it constitutes a forbidden periphery of official thought, and its genealogy reflects that: in some way, it is constructed with the ideological scraps that are cut from other right-wing movements. Another key component is its geographical location: we could say it is an Atlantic thought. If the new reactionary wave clearly originates in the United States, carrying the legacy of the entire Yankee philosophical tradition, it will travel to Europe to meet other conservative and sovereignist ideological formations.

Two of its main theorists, Curtis Yarvin and Nick Land, represent both coasts: the American and the British, respectively. It's no surprise that these are the fathers of the movement: Ruocco characterizes their philosophies as one oriented towards a definition of power (Yarvin) and another concerned with the characterization of capital (Land). Ultimately, the neoreactionary proposal is to respond to the classic problems of politics, the questions of obedience, order, freedom, equality, through a model of thought that identifies power with capital.

As we mentioned earlier, there is a tension on the right between those who prefer to prioritize social order, which requires certain top-down impositions that the State traditionally exercises (through educational, health, propaganda institutions, etc.) and those who favor laissez-faire and the free circulation of goods and people through market circuits. Both agree that the priority is on private property, but for the former it is about protecting it, while for the latter it is about accumulating it.

The neoreactionary proposal is to respond to the classic problems of politics through a model of thought that identifies power with capital.

What reactionary thought suggests is that the contradiction between State and market is outdated. The State faces a crisis of its sovereignty, at least in its republican version, which is irreversible, and the market is not always the best vehicle for capitalist accumulation. Those who understood this best are the right-wing accelerationists, with Land at the forefront: the lesson they learned from the conservative revolution of the eighties is that by liberating the forces of capital from their shackles, a strong shake-up of social relations can be produced that, however, leaves property relations intact and ultimately reinforces traditional values.

Neoreaction thus arises from this last encounter between paleolibertarians and accelerationists, the two most obscurantist ideological movements of the present (not for nothing is Land's classic text called The Dark Enlightenment). What the latter contribute is a cybernetic view of technology that ultimately gives the movement its specificity of the era (forcing an identification of Nrx with the crypto world, for example). Thus, the governmentality envisioned by the new reactionaries is not state authoritarianism, but market authoritarianism: an order in which democracy must be, if not abandoned, converted into a corporate stock model; and the public sphere, eliminated and replaced by a set of private orders.

Specific models like Yarvin's "neocameralism," Thiel's startupism, or Quirk and Friedman's seasteading are of little importance. Neoreaction is everywhere, characterized by a core notion: the necessity of producing a new social order that is much more fragmented, where the only institutions that prevail are those that ensure a rigid unity of moral values and commercial exchange. Outside of that, no equality should be recognized, and no freedom should be respected except through forced imposition.

Thus, Neoreaction is born from this last encounter between paleolibertarians and accelerationists, the two most obscurantist ideological movements of the present.

But let's set aside the ideological genealogy: how is a reactionary power project constructed? By its very structure, the movement must be dual: on one hand, the business power of technocapital; on the other, the political power to confront the Cathedral.

3. Technopolitical Power

If Neoreaction is about anything, it’s about occupying different fronts of meaning in contemporary political disputes. Among those fronts, the technological and its relationship with the political is one where they construct the horizon of freedom (absolute?) for capital. The “startup” and nerd mentality of many Silicon Valley engineers condenses into model types of companies that march towards reactionary futurism. Take, for example, the model of Palantir by the aforementioned Peter Thiel.

Suddenly, we discover that the narrative of the universe of The Lord of the Rings, perhaps the most famous medieval fantasy, served as political vocabulary not only for a current called reactionary but also enjoys the sweet fruits of the rising technocratic power on a global scale. Following the same imagery, we might think that the machinery and war industry of Sauron's servers would resemble much more the aspirations of surveillance and total control of Palantir Technologies and its CEOs, rather than being the “good servants of the light” who destroy the One Ring.

Palantir Technologies emerged as a direct response to the September 11 attacks. Founded in 2003 with financial backing from In-Q-Tel, the CIA's venture capital fund, its foundational purpose was to assist the state intelligence apparatus: integrating huge volumes of scattered data to turn them into actionable information for U.S. security agencies. This company was co-founded by billionaire ideologue Peter Thiel, along with J. Habermas's disciple, Alex Karp, among other accomplices. Today, that same purpose has led this technopolitical projection to a global scale.

Palantir is integrating into the nervous systems of many states across the West: health services and social welfare systems, police forces and border agencies, armies and intelligence networks. Moreover, they are the main promoters of controlling and developing “swarms of autonomous weapons.” Under this technopolitical orientation, Palantir has transformed into a true geopolitical project: a private company endowed with expansive ambitions and the technological infrastructure necessary to execute them.

Palantir has transformed into a true geopolitical project: a private company endowed with expansive ambitions and the technological infrastructure necessary to execute them.

But they don’t have everything figured out; in some way, something from the old 20th century still suits them, even talking in defense of democratic values (even if considered dispensable) allows them to continue feeding off state funding. In other words, they can never completely do without statehood , as their raw material is the data of the citizenry. However, the term democracy remains useful for them to speak in terms of their militarized defense, and above all, of the “free world.” And here we have a structural paradox: Thiel is among those who believe that democracy and freedom are incompatible, and in any case, Government-Technology-Capital is the fundamental alliance that will ensure the hegemony of the United States throughout the West. In plain English, Neoreaction is the ideological framework of these technofeudalist or technofascist magnates.

4. Geopolitical Power

Despite the fascination generated by the new technocratic populism of AI (as the only horizon of possibility for our future), the formulas of the old world remain implicated in the reactive project of the various dynasties of the international far-right. What is changing are the components, and the alchemy becomes experimental science.

As we have pointed out on other occasions, there was something about the Milei project that functioned both as an accelerator of ideological transformation processes and as a platform for geopolitical experimentation. There is a sort of update patch in the far-right, which is technifying in the worst possible sense: total and senseless surrender to capital. The evident success of their government lies in that.

There was something about the Milei project that functioned both as an accelerator of ideological transformation processes and as a platform for geopolitical experimentation.

Those reactionary movements that grew and institutionalized with varying degrees of success in Europe before the pandemic now seem less effective and less successful (at least for the moment) against the advance of the “dark” front of the ultraright. Orbán's long-term project in Hungary has been supplanted by a technofinancial liberal. Le Pen has been excluded from the game of democracy and yet has developed antibodies to renounce the more "posthuman" lines within the far-right. Even the “different” one in the old continent, Giorgia Meloni, shows muscle against Trump's Atlanticism and simulates ideological ambiguities to maintain the European order. The AfD in Germany still resonates with slogans reminiscent of the old ultra-Germanic national socialism, but seems barely contained by the “sanitary cordon” of European democracy. After all, this ultraright 1.0 seems to be entering an update phase, finding in Latin America a testing ground aligned with the expansionism of the contemporary fascists' technological front. It’s not that they cease to exist in Europe or that they stop succeeding; it’s just that the formula of exclusionary nationalism wouldn’t be enough to rally their own population.

"The Tiger" Espriella has arrived at electoral victory in Colombia, with rhetoric and a political agenda similar to that of "Lion" Javier Milei. Kast is establishing himself in the old laboratory of Latin American neoliberalism with the strength to cruelly confront hundreds of Latin American migrants. Not to mention Bukele in El Salvador, experimenting with a strange and novel formula of security authoritarianism. The daughter of the old dictator, Keiko Fujimori, ended up winning with a last breath in Peru.

Something smells bad in Latin America: the experiment worked and is entering the implementation phase. What was born in Europe is coming to our continent with force.

Something smells bad in Latin America: the experiment worked and is entering the implementation phase. What was born in Europe is coming to our continent with force. Let’s not play dumb about this: before fully establishing itself in our region, much of the reactionary leitmotif was being cooked up in the United States, which not only put Trump back in the presidency (again) but also continues to prove to be the worst after the British Empire. Just look at the level of mobilization of white supremacists last July 4th, just 250 years after the founding of that country with expansionist delusions.

5. A Reactionary Future

Thus, we have a possible ideological and political structure of the reactionary movement. From its origins, it appears as an internal movement within that abstract field we call “the right,” where it distinguishes itself from orthodoxy: against liberals, it offers a thought oriented towards order and rigid social cohesion; against conservatives, it is not nostalgic nor seeks to restore a lost past but to build a future.

Thus, a series of political traditions (libertarians, anarcho-capitalists, paleolibertarians, neoconservatives) are coalescing into a new movement. This movement finds a path to becoming an alternative through some prominent figures from Silicon Valley and European academic philosophy. All it needs now is an enemy: the hegemony of a progressive culture or woke ideology in the second decade of the 21st century will provide that. If the Neoreaction exists, this is it: the result of a fundamental ideological and political realignment in the 21st century, with Javier Milei as one of its undisputed leaders. What this means for Argentina and the world remains to be seen, but the game we play on home turf will have effects far beyond our borders.