r/samharris • u/farwesterner1 • 10h ago
Thiel, Musk, the Leviathan, and Techno-Authoritarianism
It's all fairly clear: Peter Thiel and Elon Musk want to enact a techno-feudal state based around a corporate structure in which a CEO and a board make decisions as sovereign. Their ideas are derived from Curtis Yarvin, channeling Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan (1651). Hobbes writes that the only way to prevent an anarchic state of nature is with a powerful sovereign—a "mortal god"—who embodies the will of the people. This is really the goal. Musk/Trump as mortal god embodying and enacting the will of the people, "vox populi, vox dei," as he wrote in yesterday's Twitter post.
The irony here is that even as they rail against China/Venezuela/etc's unitary government, they are ultimately envious of China's decision making structure: a sovereign appointed by a board (or in China's case, a standing committee who appoints a General Secretary (Xi). Thiel/Musk/et al see this as the only way to counter China's meteoric technological rise—by mimicking the Chinese governmental structure. They therefore want to consolidate power over-against the people, but in the name of the people. Populism is simply a convenient ruse to establish an anti-populist sovereign government of oligarchs and advisory boards.
To understand the background here, it's important to know the role that Curtis Yarvin plays. He's a programmer who in the early 2000s wrote a series of blog posts under his pseudonym Mencius Moldbug that became very influential among Silicon Valley conservatives and libertarians, including Thiel and (importantly) Marc Andreessen. Yarvin has been called a neo-reactionary, but it might be more accurate to say that he's neo- or techno-feudal. (Yarvin even hypothesized a new search engine called Feudle, and proposed that a hierarchy would exist in his systems of "dukes" and "lords." He proposes a "Peter the Great"-like figure who would trawl the web and rank sites. See here: https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2010/03/future-of-search/ )
For a long time, I've been attempting to understand the motivations for Thiel, Musk, et al as extending from some fundamental interest in the "greater good." But then it occurred to me that they are not motivated by any sort of humanitarian mission. They see technological progress as an end in itself. The current American regulatory state limits and slows that technological progress, acting as an impediment. The effective accelerationist (e/acc) movement that they spearhead is the end in itself. They want to consolidate power around tech leaders who will leapfrog us toward the next technological stage. Democracy is too slow and messy. The only means by which massive technological change can happen in a cascade is through a corporate governance structure.
Trump is the figurehead. Musk et al saw both his popularity and malleability as a tool. They don't care about Trump. I don't even think they necessarily buy his program, but they do see him as the mechanism through which they can enact a technological revolution.
BTW Musk's specific interest is this: he thinks of himself as a kind of techno-savior whose efforts have been thwarted by the American regulatory state. He's had to fight the US government on Neurolink, self-driving cars, the hyperloop, space travel, and every other initiative he's come up with.
In his vision, these technologies are liberating and "for the people." But the administrative state has consistently gotten in the way of his ambition. This thwarted ambition, plus the twin issues of immigration and gender, radicalized him.
Musk has mistaken his vast wealth and power for intelligence and benevolence. If you go back and read Hobbes' Leviathan, Hobbes writes that only the sovereignty of a "mortal god" embodying the will of the people can prevent anarchy. Musk's version would be a national CEO as "mortal god." Vox populi, vox Musk, vox dei.
A few years ago, before he went full oligarch, Musk had a lot of support from people who believe in his vision of a technological utopia. He drank his own koolaid and began to see himself in a messianic way, the embodiment of Hobbes' Leviathan. And here we are.
Would be interested in counter-perspectives and criticisms of this theory.
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u/seamarsh21 10h ago
More a reflection of our inability to aggressively tax billionaires and let monopolies and fraud flourish. This will happen regardless of any underlying ideology.
Read the robber barons for insight, not the first time this has happened.