I first discovered Neema Parvini about 1 year ago when he introduced me to Empire’s “denazification” of Germany.

More recently he taught me about The Octopus.

As I’ve wandered outside of Plato’s Cave, I’ve encountered new teachers and mentors who have helped me cope with the sometimes blinding light of new understanding. Parvini is certainly one of them.

I’m honoured that he agreed to an interview, and as you will see, there is so much of value here that it’s an exchange worth reading and rereading.

With thanks and gratitude to Neema Parvini.

The Forbidden Texts | Academic Agent | Substack

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1. Neema, can you please share a bit about your journey so far and what inspired you to explore the themes you discuss in your work?

I did my PhD in English Literature. My thesis was largely about how historicist and Marxist-inspired approaches to Shakespeare had helped to kill what was unique and valuable in Shakespeare studies. This was published as Shakespeare’s History Plays (2012), although people may find Shakespeare and Contemporary Theory (2012) or Shakespeare and New Historicist Theory (2017) easier to read. I later became inspired by the work of Daniel Kahneman and Jonathan Haidt and wrote books applying their insights to Shakespeare such as Shakespeare and Cognition (2015) and Shakespeare’s Moral Compass (2018). At the same time, I became interested in the work of the economist Thomas Sowell and in free-market economics more generally. I took some scholarships from various free-market institutions and wrote a ‘classical liberal’ book, from a realist perspective, called The Defenders of Liberty (2020). However, I came to understand that classical liberalism, or libertarianism, was ultimately utopian and failed to consider the fact that humans are first a political and social animal. This largely owed to my encounter with James Burnham’s The Machiavellians which I tried to incorporate into and ‘make work’ with liberalism in Defenders. In the end, I came to understand that politics always precedes economics and not vice versa. Liberalism is best understood, I think, as a desire to escape the political. The Populist Delusion (2022), which is to date my most read and best-selling book, marks this ‘break’ with liberalism. That is not to say that Ludwig von Mises and friends were wrong, I still believe that from the viewpoint of maximising material output per unit of input, the free market is generally more efficient than other methods but am no longer convinced that raw materialism is desirable or necessarily the only thing we should consider. China’s model of state-backed industrial predation also shows that, once a market is ‘discovered’, leaving it up to investors or Wall Street does not necessarily give you the best competitive edge. In some of these views I am influenced by John Gray, and, perhaps ultimately, by Friedrich List. I have said numerous times that even classical economics did not advocate for the madness of the EU’s ‘four freedoms’: David Ricardo, even in Mises’s version of him, holds capital and labour constant. The argument for free trade is thus predicated on capital and labour remaining in one’s own nation to ‘reallocate to more productive ends’, not on setting up factories in Mexico or on mass migration. This small but highly significant detail is almost never acknowledged or dealt with by free-market fundamentalists today. I am by disposition a realist and not prone to adhering to ideology, so I never made the best libertarian. My last book, The Prophets of Doom (2023), casts many doubts about the myths of ‘progress’, which is another liberal dogma.

Another significant motivation for me has always been the rigid orthodoxy I encountered in the academy, especially of the leftist stripe. I had read and been taught about all these leftist thinkers who were obsessed with power, ideology, culture – people like Louis Althusser, Raymond Williams, Michel Foucault, and so on – but I always felt their analyses remained frozen in the moment of 1968. Students were perpetually being asked to deconstruct the norms of the 1950s, and never being asked to look at the real power structures around them right now. The left, in general, have a hard time admitting they are in power, until that is, there comes a time to dismiss someone, let us say for not supporting the latest faddish nonsense such as BLM in 2020. The academy is generally full of cowards, followers, unoriginal and work-a-day scholars who have never once challenged a single underlying assumption. One reason for that is because anyone with half a braincell gets out while they can. It need not be like this, and maybe soon things will change.

2. How would you summarize the role of elite theory in understanding power dynamics, as you frequently mention in your analyses?

Elite theory is mainly the recognition that the organised minority rule over the disorganised mass in all times and in all places. At first, this seems such a simple observation that it appears self-evident, but probe deeper and most people, indoctrinated with myths about ‘people power’ and democracy, have a hard time believing it. Perhaps they have less of a difficult time believing it now in 2024 than they might have done in, say, 2010. Then again, in my experience, people sooner cling to comforting myths than they confront uncomfortable truths. I suspect the victory of Donald Trump in America will put millions of people back to sleep. And that’s fine, I suppose, the lumpen mass will always be happier with bread and circuses than politics.

3. The concept of “political formulas” features prominently in your writing. Could you explain how this applies to narratives about intelligence and dominance?

A political formula is simply a legitimating myth. The simplest one is something like Divine Right: the king rules because he is God’s representative. Another simple one is “the will of the people”: the government rules because the people chose them. In the cold light of day, these formulas are at worst totally false or at best unfalsifiable. Most of the time when a government claims to act ‘in the will of the people’ it is a lie. The Populist Delusion starts with a statistic that ‘public opinion has a near-zero impact on law-making in the USA across 1,779 policy issues.’ Whatever that is, it is not ‘by the people, for the people’. As regards intelligence, some people try to use IQ statistics to justify their rule or their overrepresentation in this area or that. I happen to believe those statistics are flawed, if not outright false.

4. In discussing IQ research, you highlight methodological flaws in cited studies. Why do you think these flaws persist in popular discourse?

One issue is, of course, that political correctness places a taboo on IQ research which makes new data or widescale IQ testing hard to produce. However, a second issue is that rather than simply saying ‘we do not have the data’, those researchers who have some motivated reasons to rely on the old data, instead want to defend it or double down on it. With the best will in the world, you cannot extrapolate the average IQ of 20 million people from a group of sixty 12-year-old boys from the same school who sat a test in New York in 1972. If you suggested that in other any context you’d be laughed out of the room. I am generally not very interested in the debate since the data to prove it one way or the other simply does not exist, all else is bluster or noise.

5. Your critique of Nobel Prizes challenges their perceived objectivity. How does elite theory help frame your skepticism?

Yes. It is obvious that Nobel Prizes are influenced by power, political trends, taboos, tastes and so on. This is self-evident.

6. You frequently argue that power determines ideology rather than the other way around. Could you elaborate on this perspective with examples?

Ideology without power is just words. To become an ‘ideology’ it needs something behind it: money, institutions, armies, the threat of force, and so on. There is no Italian Fascism in the abstract. Rather, Italian Fascism was ‘whatever Mussolini decided’. In the same way, it should be clear to most of your readers that there is no liberal democracy in the abstract. Rather, liberal democracy is ‘whatever the leaders of liberal democracy have decided’, even if it is neither liberal nor democratic. This is not to say that ideas have no purchase and do not matter at all, but rather not to put the cart before the horse. In this belief I am much influenced by Vilfredo Pareto and, after him, Kahneman and Haidt who I have mentioned already. Gut instincts, intuitions, ‘moral tastes’ come first, and reasoning follows as a post-hoc justification. In this way, the USA can at once back Ukraine against Russia in the name of freedom, democracy, human rights and so on, and Israel against the Palestinians, without any thought given whatsoever to making a coherent, logical narrative. Since most people in most places are followers, who receive their opinions almost as a pig might receive corn, these contradictions scarcely matter. In the end power is always decisionist, Scmittian: look to the exception, not the rule.

7. In your view, what does the term “Putting the Woke Away” signify, and why is it a critical strategy for contemporary power structures?

“Woke” was an attempt to impose an inorganic ideology on a populace that did not want it. It is, to my mind, one of the worst ruling ideologies or political formulas ever devised. Think about the political and cultural capital Western institutions had behind them in, say, the year 2004. In the space of 20 years, “woke” has popularised people, turned the public against the ruling class, against Hollywood, against the media, eroded political legitimacy for the system, severed moral unity on a horizontal and vertical level, and generally made people feel that their own governments were against them. This will not do and could never last. My claim was only that if the elites were smart, which is a big ‘if’ given the state of them, they would reverse course and ‘put the woke away’. I said there were four drivers of this: first, military recruitment, which is at record lows. Second, to solve the crisis of competency and legitimacy plaguing institutions across the West. Third, because several key power brokers had already signalled this was the right thing to do, among them Tony Blair. And fourth, because, as per the title of David Baddiel’s book, ‘Jews Don’t Count’, which is just another way of saying that some Jewish people are unhappy with the woke lens being turned on them and would rather it had stayed fixed on the white majority. Others, it seems to me, seek to ally with the white majority (since from the “woke” perspective they are “white” in any case) in the hope that they will support Israel. It is obvious that the system, if it is to survive, needs to do this: so it shall; so it is; so it has been in the process of doing so for at least two years now. Right-wing political commentators whose livelihoods in part owe to opposing “the woke” do not want to hear this. But who cares about that?

8. You mention the interplay between Zionist and techno-globalist factions in shaping political outcomes. What are the broader implications of this rivalry?

The first thing to say is that ‘Zionist’ does not mean ‘Jew’, many Zionists, for example those selected in Trump’s cabinet, are not Jewish, and, by the same token, many techno-globalists are Jewish and explicitly at odds with Zionism. The second thing to say is that ‘Zionism’ is here meant in a narrow sense and not in the broadest sense of simply believing Israel has the right to exist, on that second definition practically all but the most hardcore pro-Palestinians are ‘Zionists’. The third thing to say is that ‘Zionist’ does not mean ‘Neocon’, which is an older faction and a subset of techno-globalism. This became obvious during the election when many older neocons supported Kamala Harris. The modern Zionists are different: more right-wing, more nationalistic (for Israel), and in some cases more driven by religious doctrines. The top-line political formula for Zionists is something like ‘Israel First’, the top-line for the techno-globalists is something like ‘one world united by liberal democracy’. One of the vital features of a political formula is that it cannot brook an ‘and’. If there was a difference between the old neocons and the pure techno-globalists it would be that the neo-con formula was something like ‘one world united by liberal democracy under American power’ while the pure techno-globalist prefers trans-national institutions like the United Nations, European Union, IMF, World Bank, and so on. The contradictions between the neocons and techno-globalists are teased out by Hardt and Negri in the leftist book Empire (2000). We are past that moment now.

In terms of American politics, Zionists seek to harness the energy and enthusiasm around Trump for their own ends, namely the defence of Israel no matter what. In exchange – in theory at any rate – Trump and his supporters get what they want on the domestic front. Whether they do or not remains to be seen. It is clear a similar quid pro quo arrangement has been made for most of the populists across Europe who are very noticeably (loudly) pro-Zionist. For whatever reason, this dynamic has been less keenly felt in Britain where Zionist power has been more successfully gatekept out. My sense is that now that Robert Jenrick (Zionist) has lost the Tory leadership contest to Kemi Badenoch (techno-globalist), they will turn their time, attention and resources to boosting Nigel Farage. Starmer, of course, is a pure techno-globalist, almost like a robot.

9. How does the concept of "Human Quantitative Easing" fit into your broader analysis of modern economic and immigration policies?

I believe that "Human Quantitative Easing" accounts for the unprecedented surge in immigration we saw just after Covid under Boris Johnson here, under Biden in America, and in every other Western country. It is obvious that they printed too much money and that, in a sense, they needed bodies to “soak up” this excess cash to stave off unsustainable inflation. I also believe that this late burst of immigration has been extremely damaging and has noticeably impacted on the quality of life – not just in the big cities but out in the countryside too. This is a fatal error by the powers that be. Populism was starting to wane at the turn of the decade, now the ruling class has all but ensured it is here to stay. Immigration has become practically the only issue in Western politics. Had this late post-Covid “burst” of immigration not been quite so drastic, the debate might have died down a bit. There is zero possibility of that now.

10. Your analysis often critiques mainstream media narratives. How do you differentiate between “signal” and “noise” in news consumption?

Ironically, most of the time the “signal” comes from the mainstream media itself. There is a sense in which, if you know what to look for, the mainstream media is the most accurate source of what is going on in the world. You just need to have a keen eye for the way they encode their messages and the way they prime their audiences. In contrast, social media and the alternative media landscape is mostly all noise, ‘slop’ as I call it. Elon Musk is personally responsible for much of it. How is it possible that a media that nearly always lies also has a better hit ratio of telling the truth than something like Twitter? Well, the media also needs to work as a kind of coordinating mechanism to the entire network of Western elites, especially those who work at the business end and in finance. There needs to be a certain degree of predictability and stability. For this reason, the media often telegraphs what is going to happen (or at the very least what everyone expects to happen) long before it does. I have provided video guides on how to do this on YouTube (here and here). I would also recommend blocking Libs of TikTok or any other account that trades in outrage pornography. It’s time to put childish things away.

11. You frequently reference “containment” as a strategy used by regimes. Could you provide a contemporary example of this in action?

Containment is the way power dissipates and subverts dissident energy by giving it some sort of release valve. I strongly suspect that this is what the Trump victory ultimately represents. My favourite example is the anti-war march on London during Tony Blair’s time as Prime Minister where a million people protested the Iraq war. This was an achievement, they had felt they had got their voices heard, they had got to feel good about themselves. But, of course, the Iraq War continued, Blair was elected again, and in less than 20 years many of those same people were flying Ukraine flags. Other good examples are found in Adam Curtis’s documentary Hypernormalisation (2016), especially the sections on how Vladimir Putin has historically funded his own anti-government protests.

12. What role do you think mass immigration plays in shaping Western political and economic systems today?

As I’ve said, it immigration has become almost the only issue. The level of mass immigration we are currently experiencing is one of the most radical experiments in human history. It is a disaster for everyone concerned. “The people” writ large rightly oppose it and, frankly, I can have no respect for anyone who continues to defend it. There are no legitimate arguments for it: economic, moral, historical, psychological, social. It is only bad, only downside. But even let us pretend there are legitimate, say, economic arguments for it (note: there are not), the downsides are so overwhelming that it is akin to trying to justify knocking down the Colosseum in Rome because it is blocking the sun, and you want to get a tan. The “upside” of your tan, which might only last a few weeks in any case, is dwarfed by the monumental evil, not to mention the consequences (economic, moral, historical, psychological, social) of knocking down one of the Wonders of the World. Advocates of mass immigration should be viewed in those terms – as being beyond moral redemption.

13. You argue that progressive neoliberalism is synonymous with the managerial class. How does this framework help us understand global governance?

It may be more accurate to say that the managerial class is in power and ‘progressive neoliberalism’ is the ideology it uses to justify its actions. In other words, whatever the managerial class does is, always already, ‘progressive neoliberalism’. It is, in the end, like all political systems, utterly absolutist. It has two enduring features. The first is that it frames itself as politically neutral, ‘scientific’, when it is nakedly ideological and nearly always seeking to eliminate rival castles to its power. Thus, under the guise of ‘settled science’ around climate change it justifies trying to buy up all the farmland, or, to put it in clearer terms, liquidating the kulaks. The second is that it always talks past the sale, which is to say, at any one time about any given decision, it is already happening and has already been decided, therefore any possible debate about it is foreclosed. This is a particularly sinister feature of ‘global governance’ because it means that almost everyone, leaders, managers, CEOs, business types, finance types, compliance types, and so on, are always on autopilot, always working towards some explicitly political end without stopping and really thinking about what they are doing. This is what is, not what ought to be. However, what ought to be is, for the time being, for the fairies. I believe that ‘global governance’ is one of the most evil forces ever unleashed on humanity, a truly anti-civilisational force that seeks to reduce everything you love into a kind of inert and commodified Disneyland version of itself, but that is neither here nor there. One of the unfortunate things about this system is that it is like a Jenga tower or house of cards, it is so inter-dependent and complex now that it is difficult to change without dire consequences for everyone living under it. If things are to get better, there will need to be a period of pain. No one wants pain, thus dire consequences are put off and put off. Quite when it all comes tumbling down is anyone’s guess, and when it does, be sure, it’ll be the little people who carry the brunt of it, as always.

14. What are the key indicators you look for when predicting political outcomes, and how do they apply across different countries?

As of a couple of days ago, I have retired from making predictions because the very fact I was making them became, in and of itself, a distortive lens. News came through only yesterday that Walmart has completely dismantled its DEI architecture. Plenty of people were tagging me, saying “you called it!”, “you’ve been vindicated!” This is not at all important. What is important is that it is happening and that it is happening is recognised. I do not want to get in the way of people recognising the truth. What is true is that X or Y is happening, whether I accurately predicted or not is basically irrelevant. I have provided some methodologies in the videos I have linked above which people are welcome to try for themselves. But the real truth is that we can never truly know what the future holds. We can make some educated guesses. We can test our various theories about how things work. My view of humanity is somewhat dim, however. Again, from Pareto, Kahneman, and Haidt: most people, even in the face of overwhelming evidence, do not adjust their assumptions, do not change their conclusions, do not ask themselves what they got wrong. Even now, for example, someone like Rory Stewart truly believes that Kamala Harris was a great candidate. This is an unfortunate aspect of human psychology that one must work overtime not to succumb to. I do my best.

It is also worth dwelling not on one’s “wins”, which is to say what you got right, but rather in what you got wrong. While I might have called almost every aspect of what went down in American politics correctly over the past year or so (which looks much more ‘obvious’ now, after the fact, than it did at the time when I made those predictions), I did not foresee Keir Starmer being quite so bad as he has been. Why has the Starmer government not been the boring and sensible ‘adults back in the room’ that we were promised? I honestly believe this is mainly down to the personality and shortcomings of Starmer himself: his communication style, his complete lack of PR skills. Tony Blair might have overseen the exact same program that the Starmer government has and, simply through superior perception management, he would not be experiencing the cratering of public support Starmer is facing now, not to mention the darkening of the public mood. In pure elite theory terms, we might simply call this a degradation of elites. The specific technical skills which the elites hold in absolute advantage over the masses, as outlined by Robert Michels – knowledge, communication methods, and political skills – are in marked decline. The decline from someone as capable as Blair to someone as incapable as Starmer is extraordinary, but this is replicated at all levels. Lord Mandelson and Alistair Campbell, for example, were immensely more capable in communicating and maintaining ‘message discipline’ than those working for Starmer. Say what one will about Gordon Brown, but he looks like an economic genius when compared to Rachel Reeves. Even Angela Rayner is a notable downgrade from the recently deceased John Prescott. This ‘degradation of elites’ is afflicting every nation in the West. Again, say what you will about Angela Merkel, but she looks like Bismarck himself when compared to Olaf Scholz.

However, the “lesson”, I suppose, is that individual personalities, real people, can have a big impact on what happens. This is perhaps why Trump is so exciting to many, because he is somewhat combustible. He might have the most pro-Zionist cabinet ever assembled and yet you still cannot count out a potential bust up with Netanyahu, who is another ‘loose cannon’ personality. Liberals do not like the notion of The Great Man in history, but once again the fates of whole nations may turn on someone’s mood. How personalities may interact and ‘combust’ is somewhat beyond the remit of what pure elite theory might predict. Indeed, perhaps because of this, at least two of the elite theorists – Pareto and Robert Michels – saw the return of the Great Man in their own era as somewhat exciting and even ‘the answer’.

15. What current projects are you focused on, and how can readers stay connected with your work and insights moving forward?

I hope to finish my next course, Foundations of Shakespeare, by the New Year. People may pick up this and my other courses at The Academic Agency. This will also be my next book, which will come out next year. I have a video out every day on my YouTube channel and, when I have something that really needs saying, I publish articles on my Substack. Don’t follow me on Twitter.

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