Big Tech and the New Social Order

How Techno-Liberalism is reshaping work, power, and the institutions that govern modern life.

Part 1 of a five-part series examining the influence of Big Tech and its Techno-Liberalism ideology from philosophical, religious, and political perspectives.

Introduction

The rise of large enterprises such as Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, Cargill, China National Petroleum, Koch, Microsoft, Nvidia, Saudi Aramco, Vitol, Walmart, and more, whose annual revenue is equal to or larger than that of many countries in the world, are in a position to impose their social and economic values. Their order and manipulation of reality constitute one of the most consequential social revolutions of the last 500 years.

Many of these companies, especially the American tech-driven ones, have an ideological vision where they can solve humanity’s social, environmental, health, poverty, economic, political, and global problems through a mixture of technological advancements, science, and self-regulated capitalism. Techno-Optimism is the short term for this revolutionary thought.

For Techno-Optimism to thrive, it needs a framework that provides free markets and government deregulation. Neo-Liberalism is the name describing this ideology. The combination of both Techno-Optimism and Neo-Liberalism is Techno-Liberalism.

Even with this combination, it needs more to succeed. Techno-Liberalism desires to replace inherited moral, labour, and social frameworks to fulfil its mission. Religious orders, longstanding institutions, and traditional behaviors have to be marginalized.

Their promises, costly solutions and expertise are forcing governments and countries to outsource part or all of their health, judicial, defence, community, and industries to align with this vision.

It is bringing solutions to the human condition that border on the miraculous but it comes at a cost. Big Tech is rebranding technological solutions to mask the rise of a small class of elite people and organizations with the world as its consumers. Their new social structures bypass democratic political processes, empowered by a complicit, weak, or co-dependant government.

Not everyone uses Techno-Liberalism to describe this movement. The cultural, media, and theorist, Neil Postman, called it Technopoly, while Yuval Noah Harari, the author of the popular books Sapiens and Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, likes to call it the product of humanism. Joel Kotkin,an internationally recognized author and futurist, along with the economist and former Greek Finance Minister, Yanis Varoufakis, tend to see it as a technological resurgence of the Medieval social structure of Feudalism.¹² Their different perspectives all fit under the umbrella of Techno-Liberalism.

Techno-Liberalism is building incredible solutions for the human condition, but is also creating new problems.

The question here is not about the nature and purpose of technology; it is about the rapid expansion of new algorithms, systems, and politics run by private multinational corporations that are replacing state-sponsored regulation with little or no accountability.

Who is Behind Techno-Liberalism?

Tech leaders such as the American software engineer, venture capitalist, and founder of Netscape and Mosaic, Marc Andreesen, are evangelistic proponents of a future world founded on tech and reason, while others, such as Bill Gates, are more pragmatic and realistic.³ Marc Andressen, who wrote, The Techno-Optimist Manifesto represents the prevailing view from Silicon Valley that they are the solution for the future, not governments or other institutional entities.

Others such as Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI; Tobias Lütke, co-founder of Shopify, Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI; Jensen Huang: Founder and CEO of Nvidia; Demis Hassabis: CEO of Google DeepMind; Palmer Luckey: Founder of Anduril Industries; are general proponents of this philosophy, though not entirely in accord with the manifesto. For example, Peter Thiel: co-founder of PayPal and Palantir, mixes Christianity, capitalism, and Techno-Optimism together in a unique blend.

However, this movement is tempered by economic motivations. The commitment to techno-liberalism is fluid, as allegiances to governments, especially in health and defence sectors, or with large business entities can quickly change their values when an opportunity arises to increase market share and profits.

The Rise of Techno-Liberation

Silicon Valley, the cosmic centre of all things tech in the world, started with a bold vision to make the world a better place through the implementation of technology.

I am here to bring the good news.
We can advance to a far superior way of living, and of being.
We have the tools, the systems, the ideas.
We have the will.
It is time, once again, to raise the technology flag.
It is time to be Techno-Optimists.
— Marc Andreessen

This vision comes with a price. The implementation costs a lot of money, power, resources, and specialized labour that individuals and even many countries cannot afford. Society has to sell its private data, support the architecture by exclusively buying its products, and be willing to adapt its way of life to support these technological solutions.

Large private enterprises are in the best position with the capital and labour to provide the infrastructure.

There are detractors. Tim Berners-Lee, best known as the inventor of the World Wide Web, decries the growing centralization and monopoly of the internet realm.⁴

Alexander Karp, “an American billionaire businessman and the co-founder/CEO of data analytics firm Palantir Technologies”⁵ is a Silicon Valley leader who is critical of the direction the technology sector is heading. He believes it has lost its humanity and purpose. He hopes for a resurging strong American government with a subservient tech community. He romanticizes the same relationship between government and tech that developed the atom bomb, to maintain the US global economic and military dominance.⁶

The American President Joe Biden outlined the concern of the rise and power of the technological elite in his farewell speech:

It’s also clear that American leadership in technology is unparalleled — an unparalleled source of innovation that can transform lives. We see the same dangers of the concentration of technology, power, and wealth.

You know, his farewell address, President Eisenhower spoke of the dangers of the military-industrial complex. He warned us then about, and I quote, “the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power,” end of quote.⁷

Others, such as the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, take an opposing view, believing the influence and power of big tech is overstated.⁸ However, the evidence leads to the contrary.

Audrey Kurth Cronin, “Director of the Carnegie Mellon Institute for Strategy and Technology (CMIST) and Trustees Professor of Security and Technology,” takes a middle view where she believes that Big Tech will not overtake countries, but will fundamentally reshape them.⁹

When power is concentrated in a small group in Silicon Valley, certain biases are likely to emerge. The well-known technology journalist, Dr. Meredith Broussard, has great concern about the tech leadership in Silicon Valley because they exclusively are “affluent white libertarian men of a certain age.”¹⁰

Techno-Liberalism on Classical Liberalism

The shift from government to private interests is transforming an egalitarian democratic society into one of servitude to technology, algorithms, databases, and special interest groups.The common person no longer has a prominent place.¹¹

Techno-Liberalism, and the large private corporations behind it, is pushing aside our centrist liberal democracy which was running on a classical liberal platform, which, in turn, overtook Catholic and Protestant systems.

Classical Liberalism seeks economic, social, disability, and gender equality. Added to this are support for private property and individual rights, limited government involvement, and moral values of toleration, pluralism, and autonomy.

Techno-Liberalism has successfully moved towards gender equality, disability inclusion, individual rights, and less government. However, there are major omissions from their humanist mandate. Owning private property, or even renting, is becoming too expensive for the average person; economic disparities between the rich and the rest of the population are widening and upward mobility is diminishing. They are weakening and downsizing the middle class, food costs are spiralling out of control, and the cost of daily living is expensive.

Real pluralism is disappearing, where the Jew, Christian, and Muslim have no place in the social mosaic, and their opinions or concerns are reduced to private matters of the heart¹² and not permitted for discourse or activity in the public square.

As shown throughout this four-part series and through the technology section of this blog, Techno-Liberalism is abandoning many of the ideals of Classic Liberalism and moving towards a hyper-capitalist paradigm where Silicon Valley leaders and merchants, along with other large multi-national corporations, are the new lords and the public is their servant. It is reverting to a Medieval authoritarian type system rather than aligning with Classical Liberal aspirations.

It is a threat against democracy as it is traditionally known.

I think we’ve updated things recently to partly take into account the much bigger geopolitical uncertainties we have around the world. Unfortunately, the world’s become a much more dangerous place. I think we can’t take for granted anymore democratic values are going to win out—I don’t think that’s clear at all. —Demis Hassabis, Co-Founder & CEO of Google DeepMind.¹³

In 1938, the American President, Franklin Roosevelt saw the problem of big corporations overtaking government power and authority during his time as a direct threat against democracy and sought to curb it through regulation.¹⁴ This governmental fear and a push for regulation and transparency is absent in today’s dialogue.

The trajectory is no different than the French Revolution that started with promises in 1789 of equality, a status that never really materialized and has never been achieved since then.

The Neutrality Myth

Techno-Optimists claim to maintain neutrality when it comes to politics or religion. As discussed in a previous article outside this series The Vanishing Voices in the Digital Domain, religion is not a profit-maker, and social media companies wish to steer clear of it for fear of discrimination or accusations or potential legal action. However, its Techno-Liberalism parent forces it to take positions from a humanist framework. This ideology is reflected in the choices and biases of its creators in their algorithms and databases.

In contrast to its crueler competitor ideologies, liberalism is more insidious: as an ideology, it pretends neutrality, claiming no preference and denying any intention of shaping souls under its rule. It ingratiates by invitation to the easy liberties, diversions, and attractions of freedom, pleasure, and wealth.” — Patrick J. Deneen¹⁵

Summary

This article demonstrates the rise of Techno-Liberalism and its broken commitment with Classical Liberalism. Techno-Liberalism is trying to fill the emotional, moral, and economic vacuum that Classical Liberalism leaves behind.

Classical Liberalism is not the only casualty to this powerful advance. This is part one of a five-part series that examines this movement in detail.

Next up is Part 2. The Hidden Power of Techno-Liberalism

1. Although Varoufakis likes to call it Techno Feudalism, I think his intention is closer to what he alternatively named as hyper-capitalism
2. Joel Kotkin. The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class. First American Edition. New York: Encounter Books. 2020.
3. https://futurism.com/bill-gates-power-of-technology
4. Marking the Web’s 35th Birthday: An Open Letter. March 12, 2024
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Karp
6. Alexander C. Karp and Nicholas W. Zaminska. The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West. New York: Crown Currency. 2025. Pg. xiii-xiv; See also his brief overview of the book found on X (formerly Twitter)
7. https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2025/01/15/remarks-by-president-biden-in-a-farewell-address-to-the-nation/
8. The Tech Oligarchy That Isn’t: Big Tech’s Power Is Overstated
9. ”How Private Tech Companies Are Reshaping Great Power Competition,” by Audrey Kurth Cronin as found at Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs August 2023
10. https://newhumanist.org.uk/articles/5286/computers-arent-capable-of-using-common-sense
11. The last sentence is a central theme of John Ralston Saul’s book.The Unconscious Civilization. Ontario: House of Anansi Press Limited. 1995
12. The Betrayal of Liberalism: How the Disciples of Freedom and Equality Helped Foster the Illiberal Politics of Coercion and Control. “The Bright Line: Liberalism and Religion” by Jean Bethke Elshtain. Hilton Kramer and Roger Kimball, eds. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee. 1999. Pg. 149
13. “Nobel Prize-Winner Demis Hassabis on What AGI Could Mean for Humanity” by Billy Perrigo. As found in Artificial Intelligence: The Promise and the Perils. Time Special Edition. New York: Meredith Operations Corporation. 2025. Pg. 34
14. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/message-congress-curbing-monopolies
15. Patrick J. Deneen. Why Liberalism Failed. New Haven: Yale University Press. 2018. Pg. 5