Greek economist and former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, in his 2023 book Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, argues that global capitalism has entered a new phase. He calls this technofeudalism.
From Western history, we know that capitalism emerged from the womb of feudalism by displacing it.
In this process, the bourgeois class — owners of the means of production —replaced the feudal lords in economic and political power structures.
Varoufakis illustrates how, in the era of cloud capital and digital economy, a new feudal class has emerged.
These actors dominate the digital spaces where we now live our daily lives.
Just as people in the feudal era lived on lands owned by feudal lords, today we dwell in digital spaces owned by technofeudal lords.
These lords are the tech entrepreneurs of our time: Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Marc Andreessen, Peter Thiel, Jeff Bezos, and others.
Their digital lands are platforms like X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, Amazon, and Google.
The presence of several such tech entrepreneurs during Donald Trump's rise to power, and their later influence on his administration, gives greater weight to Varoufakis' thesis.
According to Varoufakis, technofeudalism is not just a structural transformation of capitalism — it is also surrounded by an ideological core he describes as "radically right-wing."
Since its inception, capitalism has created not only new modes of production but also new ideologies to support its expansion. Concepts like modernity, democracy, human rights, freedom of expression, and free trade were propagated by capitalism because feudalism had no conditions for their emergence. These are broadly known as liberal ideals.
The rise of technofeudalism has now thrown these ideals into crisis. This has become increasingly evident in the global unrest triggered by the Trump administration.
The influence of tech entrepreneurs and their ideologies within the US political system didn't happen overnight. Behind this shift is a deliberate intellectual movement known as the Dark Enlightenment. Leading this movement is a man named Curtis Yarvin.
Yarvin, and the ideological influence he and his followers have had on America's technofeudal lords and the Trump administration indeed deserves examination.
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The Dark Enlightenment (also known as neo-reactionary or NRx) is a movement that fundamentally opposes democracy.
Curtis Yarvin, a software engineer, tech entrepreneur, and blogger, introduced the theory around 2007–08. His writings became immensely popular among segments of the far-right in the US, particularly Silicon Valley CEOs and tech enthusiasts. In the blogosphere, he wrote under the pseudonym Mencius Moldbug.
The philosophical groundwork for the Dark Enlightenment also owes much to British philosopher Nick Land, whose essay The Dark Enlightenment (later published as a book) gave the movement its name. A detailed discussion of Land's thought is beyond the scope of this article and may be addressed elsewhere.
To understand what the Dark Enlightenment is, we must recall the Enlightenment itself — the Western philosophical movement that proclaimed that reason (rationality) brought humans out of the "dark ages" into modernity. It asserted that humans could understand their existence, society, and the world through logic and reason, without needing to rely on holy books or religious authorities.
Western history, from this perspective, is seen as a continuous march toward progress — culminating in democracy, liberalism, individual freedom, and free-market capitalism.
In contrast, Nick Land and Curtis Yarvin's Dark Enlightenment rejects this historical and ideological narrative.
They challenge the liberal ideologies that the West has used to expand its political and economic influence globally over the past few centuries — ideologies that defeated rivals like communism and fascism and culminated in the post-Soviet "liberal world order," which Francis Fukuyama famously called "the end of history."
Land and Yarvin oppose this liberal world order and, identifying themselves as neo-reactionaries, advocate a new system led by global tech CEOs.
In this system, state power would not be in the hands of elected representatives but rather under the control of CEOs.
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In a 2012 online manifesto, Nick Land articulated an anti-democratic worldview. To justify his position, he cited tech entrepreneur, investor, and Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel—who has supplied technology to agencies such as the FBI, CIA, NSA, and the U.S. Air Force. Thiel is quoted as saying that democracy and freedom cannot coexist. Thiel is a central figure in the rise of American technofeudalism and a major donor to the Republican Party.
Land's manifesto even compares immigrants to zombies. He also references the writings of Mencius Moldbug (Yarvin), alongside various political theorists.
However, Yarvin's influence on key individuals within American tech circles and the Trump administration appears to be greater than Land's. One notable example is Vice President JD Vance, who has repeatedly identified himself as a follower of Yarvin. Another is Marc Andreessen, the Netscape and Mosaic entrepreneur, who has been described as one of the behind-the-scenes influencers in the Trump administration.
A Washington Post report highlighted Andreessen's significant role in Trump-era appointments. In January 2025, Curtis Yarvin was invited as a special guest to Trump's "Coronation Ball."
According to academic Jessica Klein, Yarvin has expressed open support for slavery. He has even claimed that some races are inherently superior to others. Yarvin believes feudalism is preferable to democracy.
In Yarvin's vision of digital feudalism, the state functions like a corporation, headed by a CEO with sovereign powers. This CEO would have absolute authority, much like a monarch or dictator. The similarities between this concept and Trump's decision-making style during his second term are hardly coincidental.
Trump's Truth Social post declaring himself above the law mirrors Yarvin's ideology. The Trump administration's public sector layoffs also reflect Yarvin's ideas. In one blog post, Yarvin proposed a project called RAGE—Retire All Government Employees.
Many view Trump's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) as a version of that idea. While Elon Musk has never publicly mentioned Yarvin, many of his ideas closely align with Yarvin's.
Born in 1973 to a secular, liberal family, Yarvin is the grandson of Jewish American communists. His father was a diplomat, which required Yarvin to change schools and colleges frequently. He enrolled in a PhD program at the University of California, Berkeley, but left before completing it to start a tech company — later funded by Peter Thiel. Immersed in Silicon Valley's tech culture, Yarvin eventually gained popularity as a blogger.
According to a Time magazine report, Yarvin's Dark Enlightenment identifies certain foundational institutions of the liberal world order — such as universities, charities, NGOs, and the media — as enemies to be dismantled.
Yarvin calls this establishment "The Cathedral." Since Trump's inauguration, these institutions have come under attack — just as Yarvin envisioned.
The Time report compares Yarvin to Italian fascist ideologue Filippo Tommaso Marinetti.
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