Neoliberal’s shift to capture the state socialism shift

A bitter taste – the kind you get when you realise you’re seeing a power grab in real time. Our #neoliberal elitist are shifting, the poster figures for market-friendly economic orthodoxy, are starting to shift their tone. There’s something new in the air – old-school #neoliberals are beginning to talk like state socialists. But please don’t be fooled that this isn’t a shift in values, it’s not, rather a repositioning of the same elitist interests to dominate the new economic order that’s growing from the rot of the old one.

The current #neoliberal pivot, from market to managed, is “our” old crew who push competition economics and consistently advocating for market-driven solutions, even when those markets were clearly broken. With this shift, we need to keep focus that their reputation was built within the framework of capitalist orthodoxy. But now, some of these people are stepping into new territory, talking about state intervention, industrial policy, and even strategic autonomy. These used to be the language of the left, of social democracy, of planned economies. So what is pushing this change?

It’s not that this cohort have discovered justice or ecological sanity, rather it’s that the ground has shifted beneath them. #Neoliberalism as a political project has lost legitimacy, the #deathcult is now exposed, and the wannabe ruling class is scrambling to reassert control over the new opening terrain, it’s a power grab.

This is agenda capture in motion, with industrial policy playing as elitist tool, Industrial policy was a dirty phrase in neoliberal circles just a few years ago – but it’s now being repurposed, not to serve the public good, but to maintain statues in a world where market mechanisms are crumbling.

Take the Biden administration’s CHIPS Act or Inflation Reduction Act. They pour billions into infrastructure and green tech, but who benefits? U.S. corporations, defence contractors, and the same fossil-capital interests that got us into this mess. In the EU, we see “strategic autonomy” used to justify subsidies and state intervention – but always within a closed circle of corporate lobbyists, elitist economists, and blind technocrats.

This is an old-failed path of state socialism without democracy. And yes, this is likely to look more like the war economy of the Soviet Union than anything rooted in the emancipatory traditions of the progressive 20th-century. I am not arguing that we don’t need this “war economy” in the era of #climatechaos, but we need to do this better, learning from the failed paths rather than simply repeating them, we need emanatory, rather a period of emergency capitalism and permanent crisis management. The climate emergency will demand massive state action, but without genuine democratic governance and accountability, this action will be captured and centralised in the normal authoritarian structures.

Think: Centralised rationing systems controlled by corporations – Surveillance-enabled “efficiency” models – Green militarisation under the guise of resilience – Digital ID and biometric control for access to services. This change won’t be call “socialism” – but functionally, it mirrors the command economies of 20th century wartime economics.

The difference is that profit remains intact. The commons are still enclosed. The decisions are still made in boardrooms and policy panels, not town halls. From think tanks to tech panels: The same faces with new masks. It’s worth looking for where this shift is happening:

Former neoliberal economists are rebranding as “climate realists” or “strategic planners.”

Think tanks like the Centre for European Reform or Bruegel now host panels on “industrial strategy” filled with the same voices that once evangelised deregulation.

Policy influencers like Larry Summers or Ursula von der Leyen are flipping scripts — talking about “resilience,” “reducing dependencies,” and “national missions.”

The same control, reframed to fit a shifting world of crisis. These people have already failed so we need to be sceptical of them being the solution in this shift, some might have changed, the majority have not.

What we actually need is to clearly step away from this mess, we need, compost, not co-option. We need to be clear-eyed and unapologetic, this elitist pivot is not a win. It is an attempt to capture of the necessary transition. It is not enough to shift the language from free markets to state planning. We need democratic control, radical transparency, and genuine ecological justice. We need the #4opens – not just as a tech principle, but as a social and economic one.

Because if we don’t fight for it, we will end up with a high-tech version of Soviet centralism run by BlackRock and Amazon, a closed system dressed in green, where the people remain voiceless, and crisis justifies every control. This is aggressively stealing the agenda. If we’re serious about real change, we have to call this out. Loudly. Early. And with enough compost under our boots to grow something better.

World of war – The global battle for industrial supremacy

The Said Business School is a temple of the #deathcult