My impression is that they're what scott calls "my dinner guests." Seriously I cannot find anything in his writing that is incompatible with those movements and beliefs. If one of them wanted to get as much "mainstream" acceptance as possible they would write carefully about exactly the things he writes about, leaving out exactly the things he leaves out. I am completely convinced this is his project.
> My impression is that they're what scott calls "my dinner guests."
Yes, he's pathologically friendly towards anyone to his right: part and parcel of not taking them that seriously.
> Seriously I cannot find anything in his writing that is incompatible with those movements and beliefs.
He's a centrist neoliberal, ala Matt Yglesias. In some ways the two groups are mirror images. Paraphrasing someone, though I don't remember who:
capitalism ostensibly has two functions:
- Concentrate power in the hands of individuals who successfully "move fast and break things"
- Efficiently allocate resources through impersonal market mechanisms.
These are not fully compatible. Neoliberals aren't exactly anti-oligarch, and neoreactionaries aren't exactly anti-market, but when the two tendencies clash they're on opposite sides.
Scott doesn't hate people like Thiel, which marks him as not-left, but he's clearly not interested in doing away with liberal democracy and making him CEO of America.
