The end of the Soviet Union and the socialist countries of Eastern Europe was hailed as the great universal consolidation of capitalism, considered the “natural” way to organize the economy and society—the end of history. The philosophy of capitalism became the only viable way of life. Beginning in 1991, Yugoslavia was subjected to violent aggression aimed at eliminating the vestiges of socialism from Europe. The Balkans were effectively balkanized. Meanwhile, China, while remaining under the leadership of the Communist Party, gradually integrated itself into U.S.-dominated global capitalism—a process that has continued to this day, and with such success that it is now challenging American dominance. The rivalry between the U.S. and China defines, par excellence, the current state of global capitalism.

Global capitalism is segmented. On the one hand, there is the segment led by the U.S.—the capitalism of multinational corporations supported by a state at their service. On the other hand, there is the segment led by China, centered on the strategic role of the state directed by the Chinese Communist Party. At this moment, we are faced with two imminent futures that, on a global level, present themselves as capitalist futures. In different ways, both reveal that, for modern capitalism, democracy has always been secondary—disposable when it stood in the way of infinite accumulation and the expansion of profit-making. They are based on two forms of post-liberal state: the USA-State Inc. and China’s Party-State. The way each conceives the role of AI serves as a litmus test for assessing its political nature and quality.

The USA-State Inc.

The project driven by major AI companies—to privatize many functions of the state through automation, beyond the already well-known functions of warfare and surveillance—is still little known. It is being tested at the U.S. state government level through public-private partnerships. Major high-tech companies concentrate their investments in specific regions, creating hubs of technological development, establishing “big-tech” universities, semiconductor production facilities, and massive data centers. The political power that AI oligarchs wield over local governments means that, in such partnerships, private interests are transformed into public interests, and thus the taxes paid by citizens are put to work in the service of these investors’ private interests.

One recently documented case is that of Silicon Heartland in the Columbus, Ohio, metropolitan area:[1] the New Albany Company transformed into the city government of New Albany. These are the early stages of the privatization of the state—the USA- State Inc.—which are expanding both geographically and across the levels of government in which they operate.

These large corporations are the same ones that secure contracts with the federal government in the areas of defense and intelligence and come to decisively shape national security policy. In fact, in the case I am referring to, the scope of influence extends beyond the state itself and takes on an international geopolitical dimension. The example cited demonstrates how Israeli start-ups are so deeply entwined with these technological investments that U.S. security policy becomes technologically hostage to Israel’s security interests, with no possibility of opposing them.

Underlying the media prominence of figures such as Peter Thiel or Elon Musk, a political philosophy is taking shape that is consolidating beneath the surface of mainstream society, creating and uniting two seemingly distinct consensuses: the AI consensus and the far-right consensus. I have selected two components of this philosophy that seem particularly important to me: AI-centered techno-optimism and the “dark Enlightenment” or neo-reactionism.

Techno-optimism

Techno-optimism is a movement that advocates technological progress as the solution to all problems, including those that technology itself creates. Technological progress rests on two pillars: AI and the market as the primary economic, social, political, and cultural regulator. One of its leading ideologues is Marc Andreessen, author of several texts on the subject, notably “The Techno-Optimist Manifesto” (https://a16z.com/the-techno-optimist-manifesto/).

Here are some of the main ideas:

Our civilization is built on technology; techno-optimists believe that societies, like sharks, grow or die; give us a real world problem, and we can invent technology that will solve it; we believe free markets are the most effective way to organize a technological economy; we believe markets are an inherently individualistic way to achieve superior collective outcomes; we believe there is no conflict between capitalist profits and a social welfare system that protects the vulnerable; we believe markets are generative, not exploitative; positive sum, not zero sum; combine technology and markets and you get what Nick Land has termed the techno-capital machine, the engine of perpetual material creation, growth, and abundance; we believe in nature, but we also believe in overcoming nature; we are not primitives, cowering in fear of the lightning bolt, we are the apex predator, the lightning works for us; we believe Artificial Intelligence is our alchemy, our Philosopher’s Stone – we are literally making sand think; we believe Artificial Intelligence is best thought of as a universal problem solver, and we have a lot of problems to solve; our enemies are not bad people – but rather bad ideas; our present society has been subjected to a mass demoralization campaign for six decades – against technology and against life – under varying names like “existential risk”, “sustainability”, “ESG” [Environmental, Social, Governance], “Sustainable Development Goals”, “social responsibility”, “stakeholder capitalism”, “Precautionary Principle”, “trust and safety”, “tech ethics”, “risk management”, “de-growth”, “the limits of growth”.

If technology is the engine of progress, AI is the fuel. In another article, titled “Why AI Will Save the World”, Marc Andreessen writes:

In our new era of AI:

Every child will have an AI tutor that is infinitely patient, infinitely compassionate, infinitely knowledgeable, infinitely helpful. The AI tutor will be by each child’s side every step of their development, helping them maximize their potential with the machine version of infinite love.

Every person will have an AI assistant/coach/mentor/trainer/advisor/therapist that is infinitely patient, infinitely compassionate, infinitely knowledgeable, and infinitely helpful. The AI assistant will be present through all of life’s opportunities and challenges, maximizing every person’s outcomes.

Every scientist will have an AI assistant/collaborator/partner that will greatly expand their scope of scientific research and achievement. Every artist, every engineer, every businessperson, every doctor, every caregiver will have the same in their worlds.

Every leader of people – CEO, government official, nonprofit president, athletic coach, teacher – will have the same. The magnification effects of better decisions by leaders across the people they lead are enormous, so this intelligence augmentation may be the most important of all.

Productivity growth throughout the economy will accelerate dramatically, driving economic growth, creation of new industries, creation of new jobs, and wage growth, and resulting in a new era of heightened material prosperity across the planet.

Scientific breakthroughs and new technologies and medicines will dramatically expand, as AI helps us further decode the laws of nature and harvest them for our benefit.

The creative arts will enter a golden age, as AI-augmented artists, musicians, writers, and filmmakers gain the ability to realize their visions far faster and at greater scale than ever before.

I even think AI is going to improve warfare, when it has to happen, by reducing wartime death rates dramatically. Every war is characterized by terrible decisions made under intense pressure and with sharply limited information by very limited human leaders. Now, military commanders and political leaders will have AI advisors that will help them make much better strategic and tactical decisions, minimizing risk, error, and unnecessary bloodshed.

In short, anything that people do with their natural intelligence today can be done much better with AI, and we will be able to take on new challenges that have been impossible to tackle without AI, from curing all diseases to achieving interstellar travel.

And this isn’t just about intelligence! Perhaps the most underestimated quality of AI is how humanizing it can be. AI art gives people who otherwise lack technical skills the freedom to create and share their artistic ideas. Talking to an empathetic AI friend really does improve their ability to handle adversity. And AI medical chatbots are already more empathetic than their human counterparts. Rather than making the world harsher and more mechanistic, infinitely patient and sympathetic AI will make the world warmer and nicer.

The stakes here are high. The opportunities are profound. AI is quite possibly the most important – and best – thing our civilization has ever created, certainly on par with electricity and microchips, and probably beyond those.

The development and proliferation of AI – far from a risk that we should fear – is a moral obligation that we have to ourselves, to our children, and to our future.

We should be living in a much better world with AI, and now we can. (https://a16z.com/ai-will-save-the-world/)

The Dark Enlightenment and Neoreactionism

The philosophy underlying USA-State-Inc. combines liberal extremism—freedom, individual property, free markets, including those for AI without limits—with authoritarian extremism, neoreactionism: prioritizing order and security over equality, democracy, and the state, as long as the state remains unprivatized. In the two texts I just cited, the state is mentioned only in the phrase “state of the markets.” It is no surprise that today this is one of the philosophies fueling the growth of the global far right. The most frequently cited philosopher is Nick Land, a former professor at the University of Warwick and, at that time, a proponent of anarchist accelerationism, influenced by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, and today an advocate of what he calls “Dark Illuminism”. According to him, the 18th-century Enlightenment was a fatal mistake; democracy and social progressivism have been the major factors in stagnation; and the modern state is an obsolete structure—which he calls the “Cathedral”—that will be superseded by the development of AI-based capitalism. The authoritarian political system of the future will result from the transformation of the state into a corporation—a joint-stock company—led by a CEO (dictator) who ensures the country’s profits and efficiency, and in which citizens are customers and shareholders. He calls this political model “Neocameralism.” There is no dissent; those who disagree have the option to leave and join another corporate-state. What Yanis Varoufakis defines as techno- feudalism and denounces as the post-capitalism of the present is presented here as the blueprint for a glorious future. One person’s dystopian present is another’s utopian future.

As I have argued, capitalism remains the globalized mode of production and has never been as thoroughly globalized as it is today. Authoritarianism lies at the heart of liberalism, and this authoritarianism was only concealed while the bourgeoisie fought to seize political power—which had until then been in the hands of the aristocracy and the clergy of the Ancien Régime. We are witnessing the liberal Omega, its contradictions at their peak.

China’s Party-State

There has been an interesting debate—though somewhat beside the point for my argument—regarding the nature of China’s economic regime: a communist regime? A socialist regime? A state socialist regime? A mixed capitalist-socialist regime? A state capitalist regime? I do not know the Chinese regime well enough to take a position, nor is that important for the argument I am developing here. I am interested in the profile of the segment of global capitalism led by China. In other words, in the realm of international relations, China behaves like a capitalist country in the process of expansion. Precisely because it is an expanding segment, it may exhibit certain situational characteristics of international cooperation that are not capitalist (that is, not driven by the relentless pursuit of profit); however, in terms of its central rivalry with the U.S. (the quest for spheres of influence and the struggle for access to natural resources), the overall profile is that of an expanding global capitalism.

Communist China was founded on anti-liberal principles, prioritizing equality over freedom, minimizing private property, and favoring common ownership—primarily in the form of state ownership—and, ultimately, the political system it adopted was not liberal democracy but people’s democracy.

A Comparison Outside the Box

I compare these models of the state in light of three foundational ideas of liberalism: freedom, private property, democracy.

Freedom

The comparison between the USA-State Inc. and the Chinese Party-State yields conclusions that may surprise some. With regard to the freedom-equality equation, we are faced with two seemingly opposing solutions.

The USA-State Inc. state represents the extreme dominance of the principle of freedom over the principle of equality. The most evident manifestation of this is the unprecedented concentration of wealth. But if, in liberalism, concrete freedom and equality are those that emerge from exchange relations based on private property, the rise in social inequality translates into a loss of freedom for individuals belonging to impoverished social classes. The freedom granted to them is not accompanied by the conditions that would allow them to be truly free. Under these conditions, the more autonomous they are in the abstract to make decisions and life choices, the fewer opportunities they have to effectively exercise that autonomy. When the freedom granted to the vast majority is the freedom to be miserable, we are faced with the misery of freedom.

What does it mean to be free in the abstract? When completely disconnected from equality, freedom does not lose all meaning, but it changes in quality. One is free to make trivial and, ultimately, false choices—because they are choices permitted within a menu determined by those who hold the power to prevent the selection of solutions that might challenge that power. These are, therefore, largely illusory freedoms. This type of choice is what circulates ad nauseam on today’s social media.

China’s Party-State maximizes equality at the expense of freedom. Equality is never complete. In fact, in this type of state, there has always been talk of the privileges enjoyed by the ruling bureaucracy and the party. Furthermore, the type of socioeconomic regime in place in China has evolved in a direction that increases inequality. In theory, a liberal state that, hypothetically, managed to maximize equality would maximize freedom to the same extent, since exchanges—taking place specifically between equals—would have to be mutually balanced. The fact is, however, that the Party-State is not a liberal state and is based on the idea that liberalism-capitalism would under no circumstances allow for the maximization of concrete equality. For this reason, the limitations on freedom do not stem from horizontal exchange relationships between individuals, but from vertical relationships between the state and individuals. Here, too, there are authorized freedoms and unauthorized freedoms, but the criterion is dictated by political diktat, and not as a result of the principle of freedom taking precedence over the principle of equality.

From all this, we can conclude that, in terms of limitations on freedom, the differences are not as great as one might imagine—especially if we take into account the life experiences of the social classes that have suffered most from inequality (the vast majority) and whom the Party-State has lifted out of poverty. It is estimated that over the past four decades, China has lifted 800 million people above the extreme poverty line. In 2021, China officially declared that it had completely eradicated absolute poverty, fulfilling the UN’s 2030 Agenda ten years ahead of schedule. The global figures on poverty reduction are due, to a large extent, to China’s performance.

Private property

The USA-State Inc. entails the total privatization of the state and, therefore, of everything that can be considered state property or state functions.

Since its founding in 1949, China’s State-Party has evolved significantly regarding the relationship between private property and common property, particularly in the form of state-owned property. Since then, the scope of individual private property has ceased to be merely residual and is now much broader—and perhaps this is precisely one of the reasons for the rise in social inequality. However, state ownership retains absolute priority, particularly in areas considered to be of strategic value for ensuring sovereignty, national security, and the balanced distribution of assets essential to the sustainability of collective life. For example, urban land (not the buildings constructed on it), major basic industries, public banks, and natural resources are state property.

In addition to state ownership, there is collective ownership—non-state common property. While state property belongs to the entire population, collective property is jointly owned by a specific group of citizens. This is the case with rural land, which—unlike urban land—does not belong to the state but rather to local peasant collectives, as well as small-scale communal enterprises. Private property (owned by individuals or companies) includes, for example, residential buildings, automobiles, machinery, and individual investments.

The communal nature of state property is always more abstract, given the general nature of its functions “in the service of the people.” But to the extent that the state is not privatized—as is the case with USA-State, Inc.—state property can more easily serve collective interests.

Democracy

The USA-State Inc. represents the ultimate distortion of liberal democracy. To use Thomas Hobbes’s expression, the discrepancy between natural power and instrumental power is such that economic power—instead of resorting to political power to expand, as it has always done—becomes political power tout court, exercising all the functions that even liberalism’s theory of the minimal state considered to be essential functions of the state, such as national defense, public order, and taxation. The distortion of liberal democracy is evident in the way political power distances itself from citizens and their expectations of material well-being and dignified living conditions. To mask this distance and to mitigate the political cost it may entail, the state invests in symbolic policies with populist and nationalist overtones, for which it resorts to the constant invention of internal and external enemies and the proclamation of illusory victories in wars that are, in fact, lost. The moments when citizens can have a voice and make decisions (elections) allow for periods of great arbitrariness; when they do decide, the alternatives are increasingly indistinguishable, and even then, their decisions are often ignored. To gauge the growing distance between rulers and the ruled in liberal democracies, one need only ask European and American citizens what they think of the wars their governments are waging and preparing for.

For their part, scholars of Chinese politics have shown that the Chinese Communist Party maintains channels of engagement (consultation and evaluation) with the actual interests of its citizens that are more robust than those of the parties in “Western democracies.” Chinese “people’s democracy” measures its performance by how effectively it improves the material living conditions of its citizens and ensures their long-term well-being. Consultation with the rank and file is constant. For a long time, political science has distinguished between formal democracy and material democracy—between partisan competition and electoral theater, on the one hand, and concrete improvements in citizens’ well-being resulting directly from democratic participation, on the other. Without formal democracy, China appears to have found other means to listen to its citizens and ensure that their needs are met. In fact, the absence of formal democracy is not total, since the meritocratic selection of candidates by party structures is followed by a democratic election among those selected.

While in the West formal democracy takes absolute priority over material democracy—and, in fact, is increasingly distancing itself from it—in the East material democracy takes absolute priority, and mechanisms for participation and consultation ensure relative proximity between rulers and the ruled. In light of this, everything suggests that the opposition between autocracy and democracy—used to politically distinguish the two models of the state—has been losing some of its meaning.

Reflecting on the comparison

The two projects for the medium (or even short) term—the State-USA Inc. and the Chinese State-Party”—are both post-liberal.

The first, because, having pushed the possible realization of liberalism to its limit, it dialectically ended up falling into its opposite; the second, because, having rejected liberalism from the outset, the subsequent evolution of global capitalism caused pre-liberalism to dialectically become the equivalent of post-liberalism.

When evaluating the principles of freedom, private property, and democracy as a whole and assigning equal value to each, it seems objectively clear that the Chinese Party-State offers—or may come to offer—better living conditions for the majority of citizens than the USA-State Inc.. Indeed, the latter has an unmistakably dystopian character.

This does not mean that anyone living under either system would, given the choice, opt for the one that offers better living conditions. Subjectively, citizens of either of these state forms have been ideologically conditioned to believe that the state experience they live under is the only possible or legitimate one, no matter how much frustration it causes them. Furthermore, the body of citizens is not a collection of individuals; it is a collection of conflicting classes that assign different weights to the values of freedom, property, and democracy.

Do not think that we are living in some kind of historical stalemate. We are facing global, tense, and highly dynamic movements aimed at conquering or consolidating spheres of influence. The Chinese Party-State leads the segment of global capitalism on the rise, and unless a cataclysmic war halts it, it will advance more or less rapidly. However, in this process, both it and State-USA Inc. will evolve in unpredictable directions—as unpredictable as the shape of the multipolar world of the near future.

Without wishing to open Pandora’s box, I believe that the ecological issue and the question of AI’s role are the two decisive tests of the nature and political quality of the two opposing state regimes. For now, I will focus on AI.

AI as a litmus test

The comparison between the two near-futures’ conceptions of AI reveals the social and political orientation of each of these futures.

For USA-State Inc., AI is the ultimate enabler of private property as a social and political power. For some, such as Peter Thiel and Nick Land, a Second Advent is emerging thanks to AI. With this, a new theology is taking shape, with AI transformed into the deity that underpins a new theology of prosperity. But AI has another potential: to lead a Holy War against China and ensure the victory of Good—that is, of the USA-State Inc..

In Marc Andreessen’s text on the role of AI in saving the world, cited above, it is stated:

There is one final—and real—risk related to AI that is probably the most frightening of all:

AI is not being developed solely in the relatively free societies of the West; it is also being developed by the Communist Party of the People’s Republic of China. China has a very different vision of AI than we do—they view it as a mechanism for authoritarian control of the population, period. They aren’t even being discreet about this; they are very clear on the matter and are already carrying out their agenda. And they do not intend to limit their AI strategy to China—they intend to spread it throughout the world, everywhere they are deploying 5G networks, everywhere they are granting loans under the “Belt and Road” initiative, everywhere they are making user-friendly consumer apps available, such as TikTok [until recently], which serve as a front for their centralized command-and-control AI.

The greatest risk of AI is that China will achieve global AI dominance and we—the United States and the West—will not. I propose a simple strategy to address this—in fact, the same strategy that President Ronald Reagan used to win the first Cold War against the Soviet Union.

“We win, they lose.”

Instead of allowing unfounded panic surrounding “murderous” AI, “harmful” AI, job-destroying AI, and inequality-generating AI to put us on the defensive, we, in the United States and the West, must bet on AI with all the force we can muster. We must seek to win the race for global technological superiority in AI and ensure that China does not.

In the process, we must integrate AI into our economy and society as quickly and thoroughly as possible, in order to maximize its benefits for economic productivity and human potential. This is the best way both to offset the real risks of AI and to ensure that our way of life is not replaced by the Chinese vision, which is far bleaker.

For its part, the most recent articulation of the Chinese Party-State’s conception of AI was expressed by President Xi Jinping at the opening conference of the World AI Congress held in Shanghai on July 16 of this year, where 29 countries signed an agreement to establish the World AI Cooperation Organization (WAICO). In his speech, Xi Jinping emphasized that AI is a strategic technology that must be transformed into a global public good. It cannot continue to be a privilege reserved for a small number of countries and companies. He advocated for a model of global AI governance based on multilateralism, international cooperation, and shared development in order to eliminate new inequalities among countries and establish common rules on security, ethics, and the responsible use of AI. A lengthy quotation of some excerpts is warranted in this context:

Today, major changes unseen in a century are accelerating across the world. The new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation is advancing at a faster pace, and the world has entered an unprecedented period of active innovation on AI technologies. Intelligent connectivity, human-machine collaboration, cross-sector integration, joint creation and sharing, and other intelligent technologies are unleashing enormous power. All this carries within it great opportunities as well as challenges to governance. We human beings must answer the questions posed by our times: How to get along with thinking machines? How to ensure security when algorithm is part of decision making? How to tackle ethical challenges by technologies through adaptive governance? How to realize AI for all when the divide keeps widening? These questions demand serious consideration and real answers from the whole international community.

In China’s view, all countries should take a people-centered approach and develop AI for the positive and for good. We should ensure that AI is an important driver for shared prosperity and common security. We should join hands to build a just and equitable system for global AI governance. To this end, I wish to share four observations.

First, we should adhere to the principle of openness and win-win and boost innovation-driven development. As a new engine of world economic growth and an accelerator for the shift of growth drivers, AI is moving from the digital world into the physical world. We should seize this rare, historic opportunity to encourage open source, openness, collaboration and sharing. We should facilitate technological innovation, industrial development and scenario-based application of AI. We should make coordinated advances in the transformation and upgrade of traditional industries, the cultivation and growth of emerging industries and forward-looking planning for future industries, so that all sectors and businesses can benefit from AI.

Second, we should strengthen risk-awareness and ensure that AI is secure and controllable. AI should be a trusted tool for humanity. We should take seriously the various types of inherent and secondary risks that AI may trigger. We should put in place laws and regulations, technological monitoring, early warning and emergency response systems in order to strengthen the line of security, prevent abuses and malicious use, and ensure that AI is always under human control. In the meantime, we should jointly oppose overstretching the national security concept in the field of AI and placing one country’s security over that of others.

Third, we should encourage inclusiveness and promote mutual learning between civilizations. AI development and its application should not erode or undermine the diversity of world civilizations or the uniqueness of cultures of different countries. We must shape the values of AI with humanity’s common values, and make good use of AI technologies to increase understanding, tolerance, exchanges, and sharing among all civilizations. We should tend to the garden of civilizations with great care to ensure that the beauty of each civilization is appreciated and shared.

Fourth, we should advocate solidarity and improve global governance. AI is an invaluable asset that encapsulates humanity’s collective wisdom. We should practice true multilateralism and recognize the important role of the United Nations. We should enhance alignment and coordination on AI development strategies, governance rules and technical standards, so as to form a consensus-based global governance framework at an early date to make this frontier technology better benefit humanity. We must carry out extensive international cooperation and help Global South countries with capacity building to bridge the AI and digital divides, promote sustainable development, and prevent creating new historical injustice in AI.

http://english.scio.gov.cn/topnews/2026-07/18/content_118605932.html

Leo XIV and Xi Jinping

To the surprise of many, the Chinese conception of AI is much closer to the vision recently championed by Pope Leo XIV in his first major encyclical—Magnifica humanitatis—than to the vision of the AI oligarchs in the U.S. Inc. state.

(https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/encyclicals/documents/20260515-magnifica-humanitas.html).

The Chinese and American conceptions of the strategic and international role of AI could not be more contrasting. This does not mean that rhetoric matches practice or that China is not competing with the U.S. On the contrary, this competition is quite visible. But it is no less visible that China, unlike the U.S., aims to mitigate this competition through a multilateral global governance framework, in order to prevent AI from becoming a new version of the digital divide, this time even more divisive and with unpredictable consequences. These are also the concerns that Pope Leo XIV expresses in his encyclical.

Is Eastern despotism, if it ever existed, being replaced by an emerging Western despotism, against which Pope Leo XIV also fights?

Conclusion or Dilemma

The comparison between the USA-State Inc. and the Chinese Party-State shows that the world today is multipolar. The USA-State Inc. and the Chinese Party-State represent two possible near-futures, each led by one of the two powers that currently dominate global capitalism. The vast majority of countries have unequal relationships with both—relationships of asymmetric reciprocity—in which national interests and geostrategic constraints are intertwined, and in which history carries more weight than one might imagine. The countries of the global North (Europe and the “Europes-out-of-place,” particularly in the Americas and Oceania, and Israel) align themselves (voluntarily or involuntarily) with the segment of global capitalism led by the U.S., while the countries of the global South (most of which were historically subject to European colonialism) have been strengthening their ties over the past thirty years with the segment of global capitalism led by China.

International relations with China have been smoother and have yielded more visible mutual benefits. In fact, this was the nature of U.S. relations with China during the first decades of China’s opening to the world market—as long as China’s expansion helped resolve the crisis of capitalist accumulation faced by multinational corporations and as long as that expansion did not become an existential rival to the U.S. Just as has happened in the past with empires in their ascendant phase, China centers its international relations on the economic sphere and does not significantly interfere with the domestic politics of countries within its sphere of influence. Exchanges are economic in nature, and investments focus on infrastructure and access to natural resources, with very little emphasis placed on security policies and military relations.

This does not mean, by any means, that countries are completely free to choose their alliances. Proof of this can be found in the regional wars that have been proliferating—from Ukraine to the Middle East, from North Africa to Sudan—or in the increasingly intense U.S. interference in countries that have traditionally been within its spheres of influence: Europe, especially after World War II, and the Americas.

One cannot predict the future, not even the near future. Two hypotheses may or may not be confirmed. The first is that the conception of AI toward which the Chinese Party-State is moving offers greater guarantees of peace and shared benefits. The second is that, although neither state model is prepared to face long-term challenges—nor is it credible that these challenges can be addressed exclusively by states, much less in isolation—the Chinese Party-State is objectively better equipped to prepare for them.

What can be stated with some certainty is that, in light of their current performance, neither model of the state nor of imperial expansion is sustainable in the long term. We are facing two rival forms of global capitalist expansion. Unlike in the past, we are not dealing with two fundamentally distinct forms of economic and political-ideological expansion. Even if we accept that, internally, the Chinese regime is socialist, on the international stage the rivalry is between two distinct forms of capitalist globalization.

We live in a world entirely different from the one the Communist Third International sought to build, at least up until the phase of Stalinization. In fact, given the greater role that private property has come to play in China and the growing erosion of liberal democracy in the U.S., it can be argued that the two systems have been converging rather than diverging. The two imperial expansions are very similar in the struggle for access to natural resources.

In light of the concept of expanded exploitation that I have been advocating, the exploitation of human beings goes hand in hand with that of nature, as has always been the case in the modern era. Nature has rights, the gross violation of which is becoming intolerable and is having clear repercussions on the lives of citizens, especially in countries that have contributed the least to the unlimited exploitation of nature or that have benefited the least from it. The metabolic rupture in the human-nature relationship (two sides of the same whole) in the modern era is reaching unprecedented levels—from wildfires to desertification, from floods to extreme weather events, from pandemics to the health consequences of high levels of pollution. As I mentioned above, the consequences of such a rupture could only be postponed if there were another habitable planet. On the other hand, contrary to what techno-optimists claim, AI consumes natural resources just as voraciously as previous technologies.

In the medium to long term, the solution must be found within a post-capitalist framework where the commons (not necessarily state-owned) takes precedence over private property, and where human beings come to realize that nature does not belong to them. Rather, they belong to nature, as parts of the same unified and diverse whole. The strange trajectories of liberalism and post-liberalism, which have brought us this far, have come to an end. From here on out, a profound liberation of the commons on this tiny blue planet is imperative. Whether this occurs before or after a war will determine the difference between a paradigmatic transition for the living and a revolutionary project for the survivors.

[1] Chris Hedges Report: Epstein & Ohio’s ‘Silicon Heartland’. Consortium News (https://consortiumnews.com/2026/08/11/chris-hedges-report-epstein-ohios-silicon-heartland/)

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