The Digital Reboot of Despotism: Neoreaction as Neo-Fascism

 

The Digital Reboot of Despotism: Neoreaction as Neo-Fascism

The Dark Enlightenment, or neoreaction (NRx), presents itself as a sophisticated, forward-looking philosophy tailored for the silicon age. By utilizing the language of software engineering—calling for "hard resets," "reboots," and "functionalist" governance—it attempts to distance itself from the blood-soaked imagery of 20th-century fascism. However, beneath this veneer of "techno-efficiency," the movement is fundamentally a modern rebranding of neo-fascism. In the real world, the NRx vision of competing "gov-corps" does not lead to a peaceful market of governance; it leads directly to the corporate-feudal dystopias envisioned by last century’s most prophetic novelists.

The Neo-Fascist Core: Rebranding Hierarchy

The most significant overlap between the Dark Enlightenment and fascism is their shared rejection of Enlightenment values: specifically democracy, equality, and the administrative state (which neoreactionaries disparage as the "Cathedral").

Classical fascism sought to dismantle democracy to achieve national rebirth through a single, organic state. Neoreaction seeks the same end but swaps the "National Myth" for "Corporate Profitability." Both ideologies rely on a strict, anti-egalitarian hierarchy. Where fascism utilized scientific racism to justify its tiers of humanity, neoreaction uses "Human Biodiversity" (HBD) to argue that social inequality is a biological fact that must be "hard-coded" into governance. By framing discrimination as "data-driven" rather than purely hateful, NRx attempts to make the core tenets of fascism palatable to a modern, technocratic elite.

The Dystopian Reality: From Citizens to Assets

If the neoreactionary vision of a "Patchwork" of corporate city-states were realized, the "ground level" experience would be indistinguishable from the works of Aldous Huxley or Philip K. Dick.

In these dystopian novels, the individual is no longer a citizen with rights, but an asset or a consumer. Neoreactionary theorists like Curtis Yarvin and Nick Land argue that the only relevant right is "Free Exit"—the ability to leave a state if its services are poor. However, in a world where every inch of territory is owned by a sovereign corporation, "exit" becomes a myth. Much like the company towns of the 19th century or the megacorporations of Neuromancer, the state would own your digital identity, your medical data, and your employment. If you are deemed "low-utility" or "unproductive," you would not simply lose a vote; you would lose your right to exist within the infrastructure of the state.  

Corporate War vs. Democratic Law

Neoreactionaries argue that corporate states would be more peaceful than democratic nations because war is "inefficient." This logic ignores the history of monopolistic capitalism.

In a world of competing "gov-corps" with no international law, the natural tendency would be toward hostile takeovers. A corporate state with superior weaponry or AI would not negotiate; it would "acquire" the assets of its neighbors through force. This creates a cycle of industrial-scale violence that mirrors the "perpetual war" of 1984, but managed by algorithms and autonomous drone swarms rather than propaganda posters.

The Natural End State: The Global Monopoly

While the "Patchwork" model promises a diversity of competing states, the inherent logic of accelerationism and pure capitalism dictates a far more singular conclusion. In any market devoid of regulatory "brakes," competition inevitably gives way to consolidation. Just as tech industries consolidate into a handful of dominant players, the most technologically advanced neoreactionary city-state would eventually achieve a "winner-take-all" victory.

The terminal point of the Dark Enlightenment is not a thousand small flowers blooming, but a single, global neo-fascist government—a monopoly of force that has absorbed all competitors. In this end state, the right to "exit" vanishes entirely because there is nowhere left to go. The world becomes a singular, planet-wide corporation where the National CEO wields total, algorithmic control over the human species. This is the ultimate realization of the neo-fascist dream: a global hierarchy that is geographically inescapable, biologically hard-coded, and technologically absolute.

Conclusion: The Illusion of Progress

The Dark Enlightenment is not a new path forward; it is a retreat into an older, darker form of social organization, updated with biometric scanning and AI-driven surveillance. It is a "tech-bro" friendly fascism that replaces the dictator’s uniform with a CEO’s suit.

By viewing society as a machine to be optimized rather than a community to be nurtured, the movement invites the very dystopias that 20th-century literature warned us about. A world where the state is a corporation is a world where the human soul is merely a line item—a reality that looks less like a "reboot" of civilization and more like the end of human agency altogether.