This connection between free trade and globalization on the one hand, and multiculturalism in America on the other is important as a theoretical starting point, for it answers questions other theories do not. For example, many theories concerning our cultural decline and the rise of this present American revolutionary regime do not address precisely why it has been led and financed by the wealthiest elite in American society. Other theories do not address the timing of the revolution. There is, for example, an obvious connection between the globalization of economics beginning (in earnest) after World War II and the existence of global economic institutions and mentalities that the specific conditions the end of that war generated. Furthermore, it might well be more than a coincidence that American culture went into steep decline beginning after World War II and its globalist legacy. One also needs a theory that explains why it happened so quickly, and with so little resistance from the affected parties. Further, one needs to ask how it occurred in a radically concerted fashion, taking in media, entertainment, major corporations, the judicial system and the state itself basically around the same time and with amazingly efficient and total effect. It seems to this author that only this theory -- that of the domestic cultural demands of global capital -- makes sense out of all of these. The negative side of this theory, that is, the diagnostics, is important.

Only rarely in the "patriotic" literature on this topic do serious theories (rather than idiosyncratic conspiracies) receive a fair hearing. Normally, American nationalist literature, unlike the Russian, takes a non-theoretical, issue-by-issue approach to the topic which generally gives rise to far more questions than it answers, and the questions it does answer it treats rather poorly, with little appreciation for the serious methodological issues this sort of thing necessarily involves. Modern nationalism's lack of professionalism is one of the reasons it remains marginalized.

On the other hand, there is the positive side of ethno-nationalist theory, the view that explains the world the counterrevolution seeks to reclaim. The reclamation cannot, however, simply take the world of the middle ages, or of the American founding, or of the 1950s, or the Kozak host, or of nineteenth century Russia, or whichever era one romanticizes and transplant it upon the ruins of global radicalism and revolutionary ideology. History may repeat itself, but the repetition is never identical in every respect to what is being repeated. History has provided western man -- and western nationalists in particular -- with a new and unprecedented set of problems that will lead the nationalist rebellion to adopt proportionally new solutions. This is far from claiming that nationalism requires some static ideology, some shortcut to understanding complex problems, but what is presently necessary is a framework that nationalists can come to share, to provide this set of social understandings, however inarticulate, with a much needed theoretical foundation. Without such a foundation, nationalism and patriotism will remain unable to articulate themselves to the broader American and European public. To an extent, this book seeks to outline a manner of thinking about the counterrevolution.

The notion of counterrevolutionary nationalism, in brief, moves from the well known Hegelian logical scheme of a) abstract unity, to b) its specific content, to c) the full unity, that is, content and unity together in one fully explicated whole, or the final synthesis. Any object can be considered as, first, a unity. A man can be considered a singular object in space that encases many functions, such as reasoning, breathing, creating, working, reproducing, etc. One thinks of any object as singular, a unity of various different things. Though this does not exhaust the idea of unity. A human can, secondly, be considered as identical to those functions and reducible to them. That is, the content of the above mentioned unity, that which the "unity" is a unity of. Once these are considered, they lead to the mind almost necessarily to the synthetic unity, the final idea of a person (or any object). A human can be considered as a full unity (a synthetic unity), both as a singular entity that is vivified by many internal functions, as a full interrelation of both form and function. In other words, there is unity, that which is unified (the content), and the fully explicated object as an synthesis of these two.

1) Counterrevolutionary nationalism begins with its abstract unity, natural law theory, or the very grounding of collective life. Without it, collective life becomes merely arbitrary, a unity of force and habit, rather than of identity and morality. This, to a great extent, represents the static element in mankind, man's "nature," something not subject to development or relatedness as such. Again, this does not exhaust man as a social creature, nor does it exhaust the notion of natural law. Man as rational and man as communal are irreducible conceptions in coming to define a human being. This is so because, to deny these ingredients to being human, one must utilize them. Thus, for one to deny that mankind is communal, one must use language, logic and a common frame of reference that all derive from a specific community, or the reality of communal living. On the other hand, to deny that man is rational, one must use rational arguments to make the point. Either way, a contradiction is reached, and thus, one might conclude with certainty that man is essentially communal and rational, and that these ideas are eternal and natural, not subject to modification at their root. The notion of man as rational and man as communal -- no doubt highly related notions -- contain substantive ethical precepts that must be followed if humanity is to be human; if humanity is to, therefore, be moral. Natural law theory shows that mankind is possessed, of his own nature, of objective ethical truths that cannot be violated without logical contradiction and, necessarily, social destruction.

Natural law, as important as it is, is merely the abstract condition for speaking intelligibly about social ethics; it is an abstract unity, the frame of social life in general. Mankind is a communal animal, which by that idea's very nature, means that all mankind enjoys from society is also natural to him, to paraphrase Burke, that is: education, work, family life, government (the state), moral restraint, aesthetic and intellectual activity, personal leisure, enjoyment and friendship, (among many others) are all things inconceivable outside of human community. None of these things are possible without a common language, frame of reference or a common basic morality and implicit norms of behavior that make up a massive complex of cultural community, or the ethnos. None of these are possible without a force that protects the achievements of one's life from theft or destruction. Without community, mankind cannot exist.

2) From this understanding, one immediately is led, by the nature of the concept itself, to think about its content. Natural law is the abstract ethical unity of our human life. In other words, once one is led to begin considering the nature of our association found in the natural law, that which is mandated by the very concept of "humanity," one immediately passes over into the content of our natural unity, which is -- broadly speaking -- the nation, or alternatively, the cultural community. Specifically, it is the set of specific ethical norms of community life. Natural law is vague and functions as a foundation for moral judgment. National and communal life are not, but contain specific precepts that are, in order to be just and ethical, reducible to natural law. One begins to ask, by the very recitation of natural law ethics, of the specific precepts any community might mandate to fulfill our natural human constitution to be rational and communal. What is the nature, in other words, of our association that is so mandated by nature through the idea of a human being? This is to say that a human being, considered per se, has ethical requirements.

Natural law is merely the external unity of human association. The internal unity, that is, the content of the unity (any unity has to be a unity of something), is the cultural unity of the community. What the natural law mandates, the specific needs of human beings as human beings that are met by the formation of societies, are things that develop over time. The specific areas of social life -- government, economics, family life, etc. -- develop their own internal functioning in reference to the people and forces that created it, or, more accurately, that manifested it. In other words, though these institutions are natural to mankind (and thus refer to man's static essence), their specific form and function is a product of social development (and thus refer to man as a dynamic creature that is also definable in relation as well as in himself). This is the central notion of tradition. The means of evaluation -- whether something is done well or poorly within a society -- can only be discerned from the internal functioning of the various practices, occupations and customs that have come to develop in any specific society.

Thus, the notion of the unity of the society is broken down into its most general components. However, both are abstract. This is to say that both, in themselves, are incomplete and provide only a one-sided view of society. Natural law, on the one hand, is too general to develop any notion of determinate moral rules, though it forms the basis for evaluating rules that have developed over time. It is simply an analysis of the concept of human nature so that its objective needs are drawn out; it is strictly a foundation. On the other hand, the rule of custom and social practice, as has been demonstrated by history, without the control of objective moral criteria, can well lead to a static and habitual despotism, and human custom itself can be perverted and used for cynical ends. Custom, community and nationality become arbitrary when removed from objective moral criteria (which, of course, has a Creator outside of itself). Thus, alone, neither natural law nor communal custom are competent to fully explicate our social life, though they are both necessary to it.

3) Thus, the above two moments, natural law and the development of communal consciousness, pass over into their synthesis: internal distributive justice, or the continued interplay between natural law ethics and the development of communal organization, specifically as it affects the lives of individuals and families. Nationalists are rightly criticized by the left for ignoring the internal distribution of rewards within a national organization. Does the notion of communal solidarity suggest a more equalitarian distribution of political power and income? Is nationalism necessarily egalitarian (of sorts), given the central nationalist idea of social cohesion and solidarity? If the answer is no, then the criticism of the left has some validity, viz., that nationalism is a veil the ruling classes throw over their power; it calls itself "revolutionary," but changes nothing concerning the important issues of income and wealth distribution. It is, in short, a method for justifying, through a papering over, of arbitrary power.

It does seem a contradiction to claim the centrality and vital importance of national solidarity on the one hand while accepting radical differentiations in power and prestige, based on wealth (among other things), on the other. In other words, national (and natural) solidarity would seem to necessarily engender self-sacrifice, shared work, communal economic organization and a rejection of the capitalist ethos that rejects any notion of nationality or solidarity whatsoever. Nationalism, as a coherent and interesting theory of social organization, cannot any longer ignore the idea of internal distribution of wealth. It cannot fall into the trap of speaking of external realities, e.g. sovereignty or cultural communitarianism, while ignoring internal realities such as the distribution of income, wealth, prestige and social standing.

Thus, distributive justice is the synthesis of natural law and communal organization, and nowhere is this more relevant in a Russia where the overwhelming majority of wealth in concentrated in oligarchic hands or has fled the country altogether. On the one hand, natural law theory claims that all that individuals enjoy as part of the community -- by definition -- become natural to him. They become, in an eccentric manner of speaking, "rights." On the other hand, the communal ethos is never to merely benefit a certain class at the expense of all others. This contradicts the very notion of "communal solidarity." Therefore, the notion of distributive justice must be taken more seriously by nationalist theory, such as it is. The distinction between "leftist" ideas of income distribution and the "rightist" notion of national communal solidarity is the function of culture in the understanding of distribution. Leftists usually maintain the final decision making power of distribution of goods and services in the hand of the state (controlled by the "right" people, of course). It is a formal arrangement of abstract economics, political theory and social policy. On the other hand, nationalist theory seeks distribution of rewards that is based on the very tradition of the society in question. This is done by basing rewards on the notion of socially identifiable and useful practices, occupations, trades and professions.

Each society naturally develops a division of labor. Everyone cannot be a specialist in everything. Therefore, societies develop means whereby problems are solved by those who are, ideally, best qualified to solve them. Over time, specialists develop, and the concept of a "trade," "profession," "occupation," or "practice" is born. A social division of labor is formalized, and one generation teaches its specific function to the younger. Each practice, whether it be politics, philosophy, religion, plumbing, police work or government service, develops its own internal standards of right and wrong, good or bad, in reference to its own internal functioning and its role in relation to the broader society. One can only judge the merits of a football coach by the standards of the game of football, specifically the role of a coach as it has developed within the context of the game. Once can only judge the merits of a justice of the Supreme Court by the standard of the constitution, case law and the nation's political tradition. It is not possible to judge the merits of a logical argument without reference to logic. In other words, there is no such thing as an abstract judgment. All judgment takes place within a context, and that context is always within the development of the practice in question. Therefore, for any judgment of right or wrong concerning any socially meaningful action, the judgment must be made according to the relevant tradition within the limits already described.

Therefore, it would seem that a rational means of distributing rewards is internally. Simply put, this begins with the uncontroversial notion that those who succeed in teaching should be rewarded far more than an incompetent teacher. Of course, only by reference to the discipline of teaching, i.e. its developing tradition and its relationship to society at large, can a judgment be made as to whether or not a teacher is doing well. Therefore, only a teachers union, or guild, is competent to make such a decision. In this case, rewards are never distributed equally. However, inequality is justified given the objective and well known standards each specific socially relevant function sets for itself, a standard that develops as the field or occupation develops. Michael Walzer calls this "complex equality."

What is important about this notion of distributive justice is that in no way is the distribution of rewards ever separate from the developing tradition of the society. "Marketing" and "efficiency" are eliminated from the economic vocabulary as goods in themselves, as the traditional practices and guilds within a society control economic life, which, by definition, includes all people involved insofar as they are contributing to the common good. The guild system, or the rule of tradition manifest and materialized in the functioning of various practices within a society, makes the economic a matter of public concern (rather than the private property of the stockholders, advertisers, and venture capitalists) in that it functions for the common good. However, it still remains a private concern at another level, as the guilds are not a part of the state. Tradition is often found in the development of the various trades and social practices developing in the society, though no doubt there are broader national traditions as well into which the various practices in a society must conform themselves. There is no abstract notion of "justice" here, but distribution is to be dictated by the development of the practice in question and judged by the practice in question. The division of labor into craft guilds seems a necessary institutional manifestation to this arrangement. Such an idea takes the judgment about socially-useful skill away from the uninformed (the uninformed express this through the quantitative measure of "demand") and places it within the guild itself, which is insulated from the popular will (i.e. demand) in respect to its particular standards. In other words, demand (a purely quantitative and abstract measure) is replaced by excellence, by quality.

Distributive justice according to the nationalist and ethno-communitarian idea becomes the synthesis of natural law theory and communal consciousness. For the former, humanity naturally comes together to solve problems that otherwise one individual could never do alone. Therefore, the existence of socially useful crafts and trades come into existence precisely to supply what the meager resources of the individual lacks. This undeniable fact of social life explicitly challenges the myth of the Lockian "state of nature," which inexplicably provides individuals, outside of civilization, the skills to function economically (and in every other way) that derive, in reality, solely from communal cooperation. The state of nature, which is meant to antedate civilization, is impossible without it.

On the other hand, the crafts, their relations to one another, the methods of their work, their common frames of reference, and their relation to the broader society do not speak of an abstract, leftist/socialist notion of labor, but embeds labor into the stream of culture and tradition that created it, as well as being created by it. Labor is not merely a quantitative measure of efficiency, profit, distribution, productivity or some other such lifeless category (categories that both capitalism and communism -- the sister ideologies of modernity -- share), but is necessarily bound up with the functioning of the entire cultural community and are largely constituted by them. In other words, labor is made ethical, made socially real and concrete, rather than conforming to the abstract models of economists of whatever persuasion. Practices are equal insomuch as they meet the natural needs of the society, though inequality is certainly rational in light of the standards of the specific socially useful craft in question in relation to individual members.

Furthermore, this synthesis is not merely the addition of cultural communitarianism on top of a natural law ethic. It is the full interpenetration of both, i.e. the creation of a new entity out of the ingredients of the old. It is not a radical change of character or essence, nor is it mere addition, but a new entity that keeps the characteristics of the old. This is the Aristotelian idea of justice: human activity being inherently social in itself, both in terms of assisting the function of a society in meeting the natural needs of the community and impossible to meet outside of the community, is also part of the community's life, its sense of itself, and its identity, integrating labor within the culture's continued development. The existence of individuals divided into guilds all for the common good of all combines both equality and inequality. On the one hand, the guilds are all members of the same community, sharing its life. In this case the guilds are equal; there are none that are more "prestigious" than any other, they are all vital for the functioning of any civilized society. On the other hand, natural inequality is maintained, for within each craft, rewards are distributed according to the standards that have evolved along with the craft itself, making it what it is.

The notion of the guild system is not centrally about the distribution of rewards -- though this is extremely important -- but it is about giving the economy to those that own it, the producers, the skilled labor that makes anything happen, the skilled labor that global plutocrats depend on for their fortunes, and that the armchair, suburban stock-speculator exploits for his (often fleeting) personal profit. The present system gives control over the economy to a handful of speculators, bankers, monopoly capitalists, politicians and (to a lesser extent in light of manipulative advertising) the consumers (in the form of demand). Guilds protect both the public aspect of labor (for it is inherently social) and also protect the private interests of skilled labor and the existence of private property though the ethical merits of the very sociality of the specific craft or field in question. The state, as an abstract entity, is nearly irrelevant, for it acts as an umpire only, occasionally stepping in to settle disputes between the various guilds that come to make up the public life of economic relations within any specific community in the form of compulsory arbitration or some other similar policy provision. The state is the guardian of the national interest over the specific demands of the guild system, though, ideally, the guild organization of labor should already form within an evolving stream of community tradition. It might be the case that the state represents, in some sense, a populist and national idea of a general will that maintains the public presence within the ever-present disputes among individualized enterprises.

The guild system of economic relationships, the control the guilds are to be given in a post-revolutionary society -- that is, a society stripped of its alien elements, a society that has thrown off the shackles of the revolutionary leftist/capitalist/individualist system -- to the skilled workers themselves, organized hierarchically by merit. Within the guild system, both the inherent sociality of labor as well as the ethical and customary content of any specific community is maintained fully in the membership of economic guilds and unions. The transformation of private initiative into public necessity is created by the guild, and made manifest and intelligible in the cultural milieu in which the labor is performed. All of this receives its proper moral formulation in the objective nature of the moral law, and its natural basis in the very structure of the human person, incomprehensible outside of a tradition and community so constituted.

Thus the social motion contained here is the unity of natural law ethics, that which, abstractly, deduces man's nature as both rational and communal (though rationality is never separate from our sociality, but is rather dependent upon it). This, of its very nature, passes over into the content of our social life, the specific ethical precepts, protected by custom and tradition (the only substantially true and ethical notion of consent). The synthesis of these two incomplete concepts is the idea of the union or craft guild as the translator and mediator between the skills of an individual, his own specific contribution to the general welfare and subjective abilities, and that general welfare itself, or the objective cultural community. The guild translates the initiative of skilled labor into the very data of the common good and the social progress of the nation and community. On the one hand, the guild takes the natural law seriously, and provides the skilled laborer with the things that are promised by the existence of any organize human community. These things, of course, by virtue of their naturalness, become the "right" of an individual. On the other hand, labor is never performed in a vacuum, but must be embedded within the cultural milieu of any society, manifesting its specific self-image and ethical self-understanding. Outside of this, one is left with the dead and quantitative measures of demand, profit (and thus class rule) and efficiency. Within the inculturated guild system, labor takes on its proper character (its character of relation) and provides the society with the very highest in skilled labor for its objective and natural needs as well as providing the notion of social tradition as something intimately related to human life and one's livelihood, bringing it alive, as it were, making the labor itself, in the aggregate, ethical. This is so because the idea of the common good can never be separated from the cultural and national tradition of a people (or else it would be hopelessly abstract and a dead entity to the population -- the cardinal error of the left), thus, if one is to make labor a truly ethical idea, one both individual and communal, the common good will have to be understood as well, in all of its social and cultural fullness. Only then can labor and economics in general be truly social, rather than its current state of alienation and abstraction, takes out of its social context and made purely quantitative. Marxism and capitalism err in maintaining the abstraction of labor, believing that another abstraction, either the control of labor over industry (the exoteria) or the control by state functionaries (esoteria) should replace the present abstract condition of labor which is one of subordination to the unskilled, i.e. speculation and financial power, based solely on quantitative criteria. Nationalist social theory seeks the replacement of alienated labor with the reintegration of the economy within the living tradition of national and community life within the context of natural law.