From Neoliberalism to Technocapitalism

Introduction

Global capitalism is undergoing a structural transition that extends beyond business cycles, financial crises, or geopolitical rivalries. At its core lies the nature of money itself, how it is created, governed, circulated, and surveilled. In today's global landscape, shaped by rapid technological innovation, geopolitical upheavals, and recurring economic crises, the neoliberal world order is exhibiting clear signs of erosion.¹ Neoliberal financial capitalism is rooted in deregulation, privatization, free trade, and the dominance of international capital. ²  This article examines the shift from neoliberal financial capitalism to an emerging regime often termed technocapitalism. While neoliberalism was grounded in financial globalization, deregulation, and monetary power, technocapitalism is defined by monopolistic control over data, digital infrastructures, artificial intelligence leading to digital governance. ³

Drawing on political economy, elite theory, and critical theory, this article analyzes the institutional foundations of neoliberalism, the erosion of its legitimacy, and the rise of hybrid power structures where financial and technological elites converge. It concludes that technocapitalism is not a revolutionary structure but a gradual institutional transformation with profound implications for democracy, sovereignty, finance, and the societal structure itself. ⁴

The analysis focuses on the rise of digital currencies, particularly central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), as a new financial paradigm embedded in broader political, technological, and ideological shifts. Informed by key works such as Luis Suarez-Villa's concept of technocapitalism, ³ The Technological Republic by Alex Karp and Nicholas Zamiska, ⁵Kohei Saito's critiques in Capital in the Anthropocene (also published as Slow Down: The Degrowth Manifesto), ⁶ and Yanis Varoufakis's diagnosis of techno-feudal power structures in Technofeudalism, ⁷ this article explores how CBDCs may consolidate technocapitalist technocratic governance while threatening sovereignty, real value, and individual autonomy.

What is Technocapitalism?

The transition from neoliberalism and global financial capitalism to technocapitalism signifies not just a shift in dominant industries but a reconfiguration of power. ³ Neoliberalism operates through institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), and the petrodollar system. ⁸ However, the rise of a multipolar world, exemplified by the growing influence of China, India, and Russia, challenges U.S. dollar hegemony and could weaken these institutions. ⁹ Fragmented global supply chains, exacerbated by conflicts (e.g., in Ukraine or Yemen), sanctions, and protectionism, are creating space for a new economic order. ⁹

This successor system, described as "technocratic governance" by Zbigniew Brzezinski, ¹⁰ "techno-feudalism" by Yanis Varoufakis,^7 or "technocapitalism" by Luis Suarez-Villa, ³ features a deeper reach and entanglement of state and corporate power, emphasizing monopolistic control over data, AI, and surveillance systems.

Unlike financial capitalism, which depended on credit, monetary dominance, and capital flows, technocapitalism is rooted in control over data, digital infrastructure, algorithms, and programmable systems. ¹¹ Financial capitalism has struggled to maintain legitimacy without interventions like quantitative easing, zero interest rates, and emergency liquidity, blurring market-state boundaries. ⁷ technocapitalism brings forth solutions such as technological platforms supplanting financial markets as the primary coordinators of economic life, effectively  subordinating finance to technological architectures. ³

The Financial System of the Future: Central Bank Digital Currencies

Central to this shift is the digitization of currency, especially through CBDCs. These are not mere upgrades to cash but a transformation in money's ontology, from an anonymous bearer instrument to a traceable, programmable unit of account.⁹A CBDC is a digital liability of a central bank, denominated in national currency, and accessible to financial institutions (wholesale) or the public (retail). It is centralized, requires trusted intermediaries or state infrastructure, and embeds policy objectives directly into the monetary system. ⁹ Its value derives from the central bank's liability, legal tender status, credibility in maintaining price stability, macroeconomic fundamentals, and institutional frameworks, unlike cryptocurrencies, which rely on scarcity or speculation. ⁹

Fundamentally, however, a CBDC, like all forms of fiat money, possesses no intrinsic or commodity-based value. It is not based on gold like the gold standard or the global trade of oil in USD like the petrodollar. It is an immaterial monetary construct whose validity is not grounded in physical substance or inherent scarcity, but in a socially produced and institutionally enforced consensus, therefor if people refused to use a CDBC in order to opt out of the surveillance system it enables it would lose all its value. At its core a CBDCs value is sustained through legal mandate, state authority, central bank credibility, and the collective acceptance of users who recognize the currency as a legitimate medium of exchange, unit of account, and store of value.

This acceptance is continuously reproduced through everyday economic practices, contractual obligations, tax payments, and settlement systems, which together naturalize the currency’s use and stabilize its circulation. In this sense, a CBDC represents a purely abstract form of money, existing only insofar as trust, compliance, and coordinated belief are maintained across the monetary system. ⁹

Yet, as Mao Zedong famously observed that political power ultimately “grows out of the barrel of a gun,” monetary power likewise rests on an underlying architecture of coercion, namely he state’s capacity to enforce laws, compel tax payments, regulate access to financial infrastructure, and sanction noncompliance.

In the digital era, this coercive foundation is increasingly mediated not only through physical force (the barrel of a gun), but through control over payment systems, accounts, identities, and programmable monetary rules, revealing that financial authority, like political authority, is inseparable from the material and institutional means of enforcement that sustain it.

Historically, money served as a neutral medium of exchange, even under state issuance. ⁴ CBDCs challenge this neutrality by enabling programmability: restricting usage to specific goods, applying differential interest rates, or enforcing automatic taxation and fines. ¹² From a policy view, this enhances efficiency; from a political economy perspective, it turns money into a governance tool. ¹² Integrated with digital identity and AI-driven credit, it could automate lending, further entrenching technocapitalist control. ¹¹

Technocapitalism integrates rather than displaces financial elites, forming hybrid structures where financial institutions, investment funds, and tech corporations intertwine through ownership, data-driven finance, and shared interests. ³ This is evident in CBDC debates, which promise programmable, traceable monetary systems. ⁹ Neoliberal governance relied on market mechanisms and debt discipline, but technocapitalism operates via algorithmic control and digital oversight. ⁷Monetary, social, and political processes become subject to technical design embedded in digital systems. ¹²

This transition aligns with Antonio Gramsci's concept of hegemony, where power is sustained through manufactured consent rather than coercion alone. ¹³ In technocapitalism, consent is mediated by technological systems and discourses of efficiency, security, innovation, and resilience, framing solutions as apolitical. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's "Empire" concept further explains this: power flows through decentralized networks, platforms, standards, protocols, and potentially AI, rather than territorial control. ¹⁴ Control becomes pervasive yet invisible, via data aggregation, algorithmic selection, and digital norms. ¹¹

Geopolitical Implications and Risks

A multipolar world accelerates technocapitalism, with competition centering on AI, semiconductors, quantum computing, and digital standards.  Competing ecosystems reinforce geopolitical blocs, embedding tech in national security. ¹⁰

China's model shows technocapitalism coexisting with state control, while Western approaches favor private platforms. ⁵China's digital yuan (e-CNY) exemplifies how CBDCs advance geopolitical aims: reducing U.S. dollar reliance, enhancing capital controls, and expanding surveillance.  

Other states may adopt CBDCs out of necessity, eroding petrodollar power and fostering alternatives to SWIFT, potentially forming competing digital currency blocs and hastening a multipolar monetary order. ⁹

Technocapitalism favors rule by expertise, depoliticizing CBDCs as technical upgrades rather than political choices.¹²This masks normative assumptions, with hegemony relying on engineered consent through narratives of inevitability. ¹³Risks include oligarchic concentration of resources in code, data, and networks, constraining democracy as algorithms shape or replace policy makers. ¹¹ Crises, financial instability, pandemics, climate change, and cyber threats all justify tighter control, with CBDCs fitting this logic.²

Critical perspectives warn that CBDCs could reinforce digital domination. Kohei Saito argues digital capitalism exacerbates ecological degradation and inequality, neutralizing the populations resistance through technological means. ⁶Varoufakis views it as techno-feudalism, where platforms extract rents via data and infrastructure, displacing profits. ⁷ CBDCs might thus serve a rent-based digital order, enhancing surveillance without addressing distributive or ecological issues. ⁶

Surveillance, behavioral governance, and opaque decisions challenge accountability, yielding decentralized yet concentrated power.¹² Data becomes a tool for prediction and control, extending surveillance capitalism to economic life.¹¹ Whether CBDCs enable democratic coordination or technocratic domination hinges on political struggles over monetary architecture.

The shift from neoliberalism to technocapitalism is a silent, institutionally mediated transformation.⁴ The central question is not just who governs, but through which technological systems power and money is organized, legitimized, and exercised. ¹² Weather Technocapitalism may yield stability or deepen dependency is an open question. What is evident is that the emerging world order's architecture is designed in data centers, algorithms, and digital infrastructures, not parliaments.

• This article is also available in German