GIGALIBERALISM VS. METAFASCISM
by Ron Healthy, Thoughtleader Cofounder
I. The Obsolescence of Earlier Frameworks
Let's be brutally honest: the conventional left/right political spectrum is dead. Not dying, not evolving—dead. Like a taxidermied animal posed in lifelike posture, it maintains superficial resemblance to something once vital while being fundamentally inert. Those who continue organizing their political thinking around this zombie framework might as well be analyzing contemporary geopolitics through the lens of humoral theory.
What we're witnessing in 2025 is not a realignment within traditional political categories but their complete transmutation into something both familiar and alien. This transformation didn't arrive through revolution or deliberate design but through iterative adaptation—like a once-useful algorithm repeatedly modifying itself until its original purpose becomes unrecognizable.
The successive shocks of the early 2020s—California Independence Movement, economic upheaval, climate acceleration, and institutional sclerosis—functioned as selective pressures, culling ideological species unable to adapt while favoring mutations better suited to navigate our accelerating complexities. What emerged wasn't the frequently prophesied "post-ideological" era (that perennial fantasy of centrist technocrats) but rather a hyperideological landscape dominated by two primary strains: gigaliberalism and metafascism.
Both represent not rejections but evolutions of their predecessor ideologies—progressivism and conservatism—transformed through exposure to governance realities in an age of complexity cascades. Their emergence renders traditional political frameworks about as useful as medieval maps for navigating modern cities—recognizable landmarks may remain, but the underlying logic has fundamentally changed.
II. Gigaliberalism's Dual Trajectories
Gigaliberalism represents the evolution of progressive/liberal thought away from its historical emphasis on justice and equality as ends toward a more instrumentalist approach that values these concepts primarily as means to stabilize and extend existing power structures. It retains liberalism's superficial commitment to individual rights, democratic processes, and economic openness while abandoning any pretense that these values should constrain the exercise of imperial power.
I spent 8 months embedded in gigaliberal think tanks and 2 years in their policy circles researching my forthcoming book, and let me assure you: the defining characteristic of gigaliberalism—in both its left and right variants—is its candid embrace of American empire as a necessary and broadly positive structural reality. Unlike its neoliberal and neoconservative predecessors, which operated through elaborate moral justifications and appeals to universal values, gigaliberalism functions through what I term "based mendacity": an open acknowledgment of contradictions that were previously obscured through ideological camouflage.
"Of course we're an empire," a prominent left gigaliberal policy architect told me over drinks after a closed-door strategy session. "The question isn't whether power exists but how it's used." This casual admission—unthinkable in progressive circles even five years ago—perfectly encapsulates gigaliberalism's pragmatic embrace of power realities that earlier liberal traditions pretended not to see.
Left Gigaliberalism: Welfare Imperialism
Left gigaliberalism emerged from the wreckage of progressive movements following the systematic destruction of "woke leftism" between 2021-2023. What began as an attempt to build a multiracial working-class coalition degenerated into a purge of ideological elements deemed insufficiently "practical" or too focused on identity-based justice claims that complicated coalition-building.
I watched this transformation unfold in real-time during my years at Oppossum, where former progressives gradually relinquished justice-oriented frameworks in favor of power-oriented ones. The shift wasn't driven by explicit rejection of earlier values but through subtle redefinition—justice became "pragmatic harm reduction," equality became "strategic inclusion," and community became "operational coalition." The language remained superficially similar while its underlying meaning underwent complete inversion.
The Chrissie Liam movement represented the quintessential expression of left gigaliberalism before its violent suppression. Liam's platform combined aggressive domestic welfare expansion with an equally aggressive foreign policy posture—"America on steroids hopped up on justice and commerce," as she memorably phrased it during her final campaign speech. Its core proposition was that American imperial power, properly directed, could simultaneously address domestic inequality and maintain global hegemony.
Left gigaliberalism maintains progressive aesthetic signifiers and rhetorical traditions while inverting their underlying logic. It champions universal healthcare not primarily as a moral imperative but as a competitive advantage in great power competition with China. It promotes renewable energy not to prevent climate catastrophe but to weaponize energy markets against Russia and other petrostate competitors. It advocates immigration reform not to advance human rights but to maintain demographic advantages. These positions are not presented as compromises but as pragmatic syntheses of moral and strategic imperatives.
The psychological transformation required to embrace this framework is fascinating. I've conducted dozens of interviews with former progressive activists who've made this transition, and the pattern is remarkably consistent: they begin with moral outrage, gradually accept "strategic" compromises, and eventually reframe their entire worldview around effectiveness rather than principle. By the end, they sincerely believe they're pursuing the same goals they always valued—justice, equality, sustainability—while having completely inverted their understanding of how these values relate to power.
The movement's intellectual foundations draw heavily from progressive nationalism and modified versions of Modern Monetary Theory that emphasize currency hegemony as the precondition for domestic prosperity. Its theoretical framework is explicitly interventionist, rejecting both laissez-faire economics and isolationist foreign policy in favor of state-directed industrial policy and "strategic humanitarianism." The latter term perfectly encapsulates gigaliberalism's approach: humanitarian principles applied selectively according to imperial strategy.
Right Gigaliberalism: Commercial Imperialism
Right gigaliberalism represents a parallel evolution from traditional conservative and libertarian thought, retaining their emphasis on market mechanisms and individual initiative while discarding resistance to state intervention. It emerged most clearly during the Biden administration's latter half, when economic nationalism supplanted free trade orthodoxy within substantial segments of the Republican establishment.
I observed this transformation firsthand at a series of closed-door policy sessions in 2022-2023, watching lifelong free-market advocates enthusiastically embrace industrial policy and strategic trade restrictions. The intellectual contortions were fascinating—the very same people who once declared that "government cannot pick winners and losers" now confidently identified "strategic sectors" requiring state support. This wasn't simple hypocrisy but a fundamental shift in worldview: markets were no longer sacred spaces of freedom but strategic terrains requiring management.
Like its left counterpart, right gigaliberalism embraces American empire, but emphasizes its commercial rather than welfare-providing dimensions. It conceptualizes global markets not as neutral arenas for competition but as constructed spaces maintained through American power and therefore legitimately subject to American advantage. This represents a sharp break from both traditional free-market conservatism and isolationist nationalism.
Right gigaliberalism's theoretical foundation combines network theory with geopolitics, emphasizing America's central position in global financial, technological, and security networks as its primary strategic asset. This position enables selective application of rules-based governance: strict enforcement where American advantages are secured by existing rules, flexible interpretation where they are not.
The intellectual underpinnings of this approach were articulated most clearly in the influential 2022 essay "Network Sovereignty,"[2] which argued that "national borders matter less than nodal positions in critical networks" and that "American power derives not from territorial control but from standard-setting authority in emergent domains." This framework justifies aggressive interventions to maintain American centrality in technological standards, financial clearing mechanisms, and security architectures.
(The irony here should not escape us: right gigaliberalism maintains the language of freedom and competition while advocating for what amounts to a particularly sophisticated form of mercantilism. Markets remain "free" precisely to the extent that their freedom benefits American strategic interests.)
The Gigaliberal Convergence
Despite their differences in emphasis and constituency, both variants of gigaliberalism share core assumptions that distinguish them from previous iterations of American political thought:
Power Primacy: Power accumulation and maintenance are treated as primary objectives rather than means to other ends. As one gigaliberal architect told me with remarkable candor, "Power isn't corrupting—weakness is. Only the powerful can afford principles."
Imperial Realism: American global hegemony is acknowledged as both a descriptive reality and a normative good. The famous "Bishop Memo" that circulated through gigaliberal policy networks explicitly stated: "American empire is the least bad option available—our task is to make it function better, not pretend it doesn't exist."
Transparent Hypocrisy: Contradictions between stated values and power imperatives are openly acknowledged rather than concealed.[1] This represents a significant evolution from earlier liberal traditions that maintained elaborate moral justifications for power projection.
Cognitive Elitism: Decision-making authority is openly concentrated among technical experts and specialized knowledge workers. The gigaliberal defense of expertise isn't merely practical but quasi-religious—technical competence has replaced moral authority as the primary legitimating principle.
Technological Solutionism: Complex social and political problems are reframed as technical challenges amenable to expert intervention. In the gigaliberal framework, political disagreement represents not legitimate value differences but optimization failures.
Scale Worship: Large-scale interventions are presumptively favored over incremental or localized approaches. The gigaliberal contempt for small-scale solutions borders on theological—I've literally heard the phrase "scale is moral" in policy discussions.
Most critically, both variants share a fundamental view of democracy not as an inherent good but as an instrumental value—useful insofar as it generates legitimacy and stability, but readily subordinated to technocratic management when efficiency demands it. This represents a profound shift from previous American political traditions, which at least nominally centered democratic principles as foundational rather than instrumental.
Having spent considerable time in gigaliberal policy circles, I can attest that this instrumental view of democracy isn't hidden but explicitly discussed. "Democracy is the best governance technology we've developed so far," a prominent gigaliberal theorist told me, "but like any technology, it has specific use cases where it performs optimally and others where it doesn't." The casual redefinition of democracy from moral principle to functional tool perfectly encapsulates gigaliberalism's worldview.
III. Metafascism's Dual Trajectories
While gigaliberalism represents an evolution of progressive/liberal thought, metafascism emerges from the transformation of conservative/reactionary traditions. It retains conservatism's emphasis on order, hierarchy, and cultural coherence while jettisoning its attachment to specific historical arrangements or traditional moral frameworks. Like gigaliberalism, it appears in two primary variants: romantic and scientific.
Let me address terminology directly: Yes, I'm using "metafascism" deliberately, and no, it's not merely to be provocative. The term is analytically precise. It describes political formations that acknowledge historical fascism as a reference point while claiming to transcend its limitations through theoretical refinement and adaptation to contemporary conditions—just as certain leftists acknowledge historical communism while distancing themselves from its specific manifestations. The "meta" prefix denotes both self-awareness about this historical relationship and a claim to move beyond it toward more sophisticated formulations.
I've been accused of inflammatory language for using this term, but the accusation reveals more about contemporary taboos than analytical precision. Those who recoil at "metafascism" while comfortably discussing "post-liberalism" or "neo-reaction" are exercising selective sensitivity. More importantly, metafascist intellectuals themselves frequently use this terminology in private settings, though they're strategically careful about public self-description. As one prominent scientific metafascist told me during research for my book, "The point isn't to rehabilitate fascism but to extract its viable governance insights while discarding its primitive ethnic fixations and aesthetic excesses."
Romantic Metafascism: Heroic Individualism
Romantic metafascism evolved from the aesthetic and cultural dimensions of MAGA conservatism after its political impotence was exposed during the Kushner administration. Having lost faith in electoral politics as a viable path to power, this tradition retreated into cultural production, memetic warfare, and the cultivation of heroic individual archetypes as alternatives to mass political organization.
I've spent considerable time in these communities for my research—attending their retreats, participating in their online forums, and interviewing key figures. What outsiders often miss is the genuine sense of ecstatic liberation these spaces provide for their participants. After one particularly intense weekend gathering focused on "sovereign masculinity," a participant told me: "For the first time in my life, I feel unleashed. Everything else is just playing by someone else's rules."
This sentiment is key to understanding romantic metafascism: it offers not just a political position but an identity transformation—a conversion experience promising escape from what its adherents view as the suffocating restrictions of contemporary society. Its intellectual foundations draw heavily from Nietzschean individualism, accelerationist thought, and various "post-rationalist" philosophical traditions. It emphasizes aesthetic over policy, myth over program, and character development over institutional reform.
The metafascist worldview is simultaneously apocalyptic and regenerative. It posits that existing political, economic, and social arrangements are irredeemably corrupt and headed toward inevitable collapse, while simultaneously celebrating this collapse as the necessary precondition for the emergence of new forms of human excellence. It rejects universalism in favor of radical particularism, celebrating differences between groups not as cultural variations but as essential and immutable characteristics.
Their gatherings typically feature a peculiar combination of apocalyptic dread and giddy anticipation. "Everything is going to hell," one participant told me with a broad smile, "and it's exactly what needs to happen." This dual consciousness—civilization is collapsing and that's wonderful—creates a psychological state that renders adherents simultaneously pessimistic about society yet optimistic about their personal futures.
Romantic metafascism's most distinctive feature is its cult of masculine beauty and physical excellence, reminiscent of early 20th century vitalism but updated through contemporary fitness culture, cryptocurrency-enabled economic sovereignty, and various forms of "biohacking." It treats the male body as both metaphor and material for political transformation, with physical development standing in for broader social change that seems increasingly unattainable.[3]
Scientific Metafascism: Systems Optimization
In contrast to romantic metafascism's individualist orientation, scientific metafascism emerged from technocratic and systems-oriented strains of conservative thought. It shares with Singapore-style governance a preoccupation with social order, economic dynamism, and cultural coherence, achieved through careful management of incentive structures rather than appeals to traditional authority.
Unlike their romantic counterparts, scientific metafascists are typically found in elite institutions rather than countercultural spaces. They populate prestigious policy schools, corporate boardrooms, and technical research organizations. Their public personas are often impeccably mainstream—they present as pragmatic policy analysts or innovation theorists, revealing their more radical views only in controlled settings. I've attended invitation-only seminars where seemingly conventional policy experts gradually unfold governance visions that would fundamentally restructure democratic systems toward managed hierarchies.
Scientific metafascism distinguishes itself through its analytical rather than emotional approach to governance challenges. It treats political questions as optimization problems, seeking to maximize stability, prosperity, and cultural continuity while minimizing disorder, inefficiency, and social fragmentation. Its approach is explicitly experimental, viewing different governance arrangements as testable hypotheses rather than moral imperatives.
What makes these thinkers particularly dangerous is their genuine brilliance combined with moral flexibility. They're capable of designing elegant governance solutions to complex problems, yet entirely comfortable with antidemocratic implementation mechanisms. "Democracy is a particular informational architecture," one leading scientific metafascist explained to me, "and like any architecture, it performs well for certain computational tasks and poorly for others."
This strain draws intellectual inspiration from diverse sources: governance studies of high-performing authoritarian states, evolutionary psychology's insights into human social dynamics, complexity science's understanding of emergent order, and various strands of reactionary political theory reframed in scientific language. Its analytical framework emphasizes path dependency, feedback loops, and evolutionary adaptation rather than ideological consistency or moral righteousness.
Scientific metafascism's most distinctive feature is its embrace of explicit social engineering toward predetermined ends. While it acknowledges human differences (ethnic, cultural, cognitive) as empirical realities, it seeks not to eliminate these differences but to manage them toward productive rather than destructive expressions. It views social harmony not as an organic outcome of shared values but as a designed state achieved through careful institutional architecture and incentive alignment.[4]
The Metafascist Convergence
Despite their different emphases, both variants of metafascism share fundamental assumptions that distinguish them from traditional conservative thought:
Order Primacy: Social order and stability are treated as primary values rather than means to other ends. This isn't merely about law enforcement but encompasses all forms of social cohesion and hierarchy maintenance. As one scientific metafascist bluntly told me, "A suboptimal order is preferable to the most optimistic disorder."
Hierarchical Naturalism: Human hierarchies are viewed as natural and inevitable, with the goal being their optimization rather than elimination. Both variants reject egalitarianism not just as impractical but as fundamentally unnatural and therefore harmful. "The question isn't whether hierarchies will exist," a prominent metafascist theorist explained during my research, "but whether they'll be explicit and well-designed or implicit and dysfunctional."
Cultural Essentialism: Cultural differences are treated as deep and potentially immutable rather than superficial or easily transcended. The metafascist position combines relativism (cultures operate according to their own internal logics) with essentialism (these logics reflect fundamental rather than contingent differences).
Institutional Skepticism: Traditional institutions are viewed as compromised and ineffective, requiring either abandonment or fundamental redesign. Both variants are surprisingly radical in their willingness to discard existing arrangements—even those traditionally defended by conservatives—if they fail to maintain order effectively.
Biological Realism: Human biological differences (including cognitive capacities) are acknowledged as relevant to social and political arrangements. The crude racism of historical fascism is replaced with sophisticated discussions of population genetics and psychological differentiation, yet the core assertion remains: human biodiversity necessitates differentiated governance.
Selective Futurism: Technological advancement is embraced in specific domains while cultural innovations are approached with skepticism. Their relationship with technology is complicated—eagerly adopting tools that enhance control or capability while rejecting those that disrupt social order.
Most importantly, both variants share a fundamental rejection of procedural liberalism. They view rights-based frameworks and neutral procedural norms not as foundations for just societies but as luxury goods affordable only within already-functional social orders. This represents a profound break from postwar conservative traditions, which generally claimed to defend liberal procedural norms even when their policies undermined them in practice.
I'm continually struck by how casually metafascist thinkers discard procedural protections that conservatives once treated as sacred. At a private seminar I attended, a prominent metafascist legal theorist dismissed constitutional constraints as "procedural fetishism" that prevents effective governance. When I asked about traditional conservative defenses of constitutional originalism, he laughed and said, "That was just tactical—a way to constrain progressive overreach. The point was never procedure for procedure's sake."
IV. The Systemic/Antisystemic Divide
What makes the current ideological landscape particularly disorienting isn't convergence but a fundamental transformation in the nature of political opposition itself. Gigaliberalism and metafascism represent a profound prosystemic/antisystemic divide rather than mere variations on traditional left/right politics. This distinction explains both the intensity and peculiar quality of contemporary political conflict.
Gigaliberalism is fundamentally prosystemic—it sees contemporary disruption as a flowering of "the greatest garden of humanity ever," to quote Nelly Chen's infamous 2024 TankThink position paper. The gigaliberal identifies with the existing world system and seeks to perfect it through expansion, acceleration, and refinement. Its project is essentially cumulative and continuous with liberal democratic capitalism, even as it transforms that tradition through scale and intensification.
Metafascism, by contrast, is profoundly antisystemic—it identifies the current order as pathologically deficient in producing core social goods: thumotic recognition, personal meaning, community bonds, and affective ties. Whether through romantic striving or identification with an imagined community of right-wing cognitive elites, the metafascist positions themselves outside and against the existing system, which they view as fundamentally corrupt and incapable of self-correction.
This fundamental opposition explains why contemporary political conflict feels so existential yet simultaneously theatrical. The gigaliberal views the metafascist as an irrational reactionary rejecting the obvious benefits of progress; the metafascist sees the gigaliberal as a deluded optimist celebrating what amounts to civilizational suicide. Neither can fully comprehend the other's worldview because their starting assumptions about the system's value and viability are diametrically opposed.
What complicates this picture is that despite this fundamental opposition, both ideologies operate within similar domains of concern, addressing the same contemporary challenges with entirely different frameworks:
1. Attitude Toward Democracy
Gigaliberalism instrumentalizes democracy while maintaining its formal supremacy. Democracy becomes a legitimation mechanism for actions determined by expertise networks, with voters repositioned as consumers of policy rather than its authors. The democratic process is "enhanced" through technological mediation that paradoxically distances citizens from actual decision-making while increasing the appearance of participation.
Metafascism, by contrast, explicitly challenges democracy's foundational premises. Scientific metafascists propose governance systems that limit democratic input to domains where aggregated preferences actually produce optimal outcomes, while protecting other domains from majoritarian pressures. Romantic metafascists more radically reject democracy as a system that rewards mediocrity and punishes excellence, proposing various forms of aristocratic rule by the cognitively and physically superior. Where gigaliberalism seeks to preserve democratic forms while evacuating their content, metafascism seeks to transcend democracy altogether.
2. Relationship to Commerce and Markets
Gigaliberalism embraces commerce's inherent disruptive tendencies while seeking to manage their most destabilizing consequences. It views creative destruction as fundamentally positive—the necessary engine of progress—requiring only selective intervention to maintain system stability and prevent complete social fragmentation. Markets are understood as the most efficient mechanism for resource allocation and technological innovation, with their negative externalities addressed through compensatory mechanisms rather than structural reform.
(And let's be honest here—gigaliberalism's supposed management of market externalities amounts to little more than applying designer bandages to gaping wounds while assuring us the bleeding is actually beneficial. Their regulatory theater performs concern while facilitating ever more intrusive commodification of previously sacred domains. What other system proudly announces the financialization of emotional support or the securitization of rainfall patterns as "innovations"?)
Metafascism views commerce through a profoundly different lens—as a necessary but dangerous force that must be subordinated to higher social purposes. Scientific metafascists seek to harness market productivity while insulating crucial social domains from commercial logic, creating what one prominent theorist calls "ordered economic dynamism." Romantic metafascists more radically reject what they term "bugman commerce" that reduces human flourishing to consumption patterns, advocating instead for economic arrangements that reward excellence and enable heroic achievement.
Their commercial theories betray a nostalgic fantasy—the imagined golden age when markets supposedly knew their place and remained properly subservient to aristocratic values. This fantasy conveniently ignores how commercial imperatives have always shaped even the most supposedly anti-commercial regimes. Their critique identifies real pathologies but proposes remedies that would likely reproduce those same pathologies under different management.
3. Approach to Difference
Gigaliberalism's approach to human difference (ethnic, cultural, cognitive) reflects its prosystemic orientation. The left variant celebrates difference as intrinsically valuable while managing its potentially disruptive expressions through bureaucratic regulation and resource allocation. The right variant instrumentalizes difference as a source of competitive advantage and innovation in global markets. Both share a fundamental assumption that human differences can be successfully integrated into a single coherent system without sacrificing that system's essential character.
This is, of course, the most transparent of gigaliberalism's many frauds. Their celebration of difference extends precisely to the point where difference might actually challenge system parameters, at which point "inclusion" transforms seamlessly into containment. The brutal suppression of the Kenwood Movement—initially celebrated as exemplifying "democratic pluralism" until it began questioning financial structures—reveals how quickly the velvet glove gives way to the iron fist when actual difference threatens to become meaningful difference.
Metafascism approaches difference as evidence of system failure rather than opportunity. Scientific metafascism acknowledges difference as an empirical reality requiring governance structures that account for rather than ignore human variation. Romantic metafascism goes further, celebrating biological and cultural differences as natural boundaries that should be respected rather than transcended through artificial unity.
Yet metafascism's own conception of difference reveals its fundamental incoherence. They simultaneously insist that differences are natural and immutable (justifying hierarchical social arrangements) while advocating intense cultivation of excellence that would transcend natural limitations. This contradiction betrays the movement's roots in wounded narcissism rather than genuine appreciation of diversity. Their supposed respect for difference actually masks a desperate desire to establish new hierarchies with themselves conveniently positioned at the apex.
4. Cognitive Elite Formation
The gigaliberal and metafascist visions of cognitive elites represent perhaps their most revealing distinction. Gigaliberalism embraces the "credentialed cosmopolitan" model: a globally integrated class of experts whose authority derives from institutional validation, professional networks, and demonstrated technical mastery within established paradigms. This elite is prosystemic precisely because the system has selected and rewarded them, creating a natural alignment between their interests and system maintenance.
I've watched this elite formation process up close at University of Chicago—brilliant minds gradually transformed into system functionaries through the subtle alchemy of professional rewards and institutional prestige. They arrive questioning everything and depart questioning nothing that might jeopardize their position in the apparatus. Their much-vaunted "critical thinking" becomes entirely instrumental, deployed against rivals within the system rather than against the system itself. The resulting cognitive elite combines technical brilliance with moral cowardice—capable of designing remarkable solutions to problems they're fundamentally incapable of naming.
Metafascism promotes a fundamentally different cognitive elite: "the vanguard of clear sight" composed of individuals whose authority derives from their willingness to recognize and speak truths that existing institutions supposedly suppress. Scientific metafascists value demonstrated competence and empirical results over credentials, while romantic metafascists elevate those displaying exceptional physical, aesthetic, or intellectual sovereignty.
Yet this supposedly independent elite suffers from its own pathologies. Having defined themselves through rejection of institutional validation, they become dependent on performative transgression to maintain identity coherence. This creates escalating radicalization dynamics where reasonable insights must be packaged with increasingly outlandish claims to maintain subcultural distinction. Their supposedly clear-eyed assessment of reality devolves into conspiratorial thinking not because they lack intelligence but because their social position requires continual discovery of hidden truths invisible to the credentialed class they despise.
V. The Platonic Republic versus The Industrial Garden
The systemic/antisystemic divide between gigaliberalism and metafascism ultimately reflects fundamentally incompatible visions of human flourishing and social organization. Their conflict isn't merely political but ontological—they disagree about the very nature of humanity and its potential.
Gigaliberalism's implicit utopia resembles what we might call "The Industrial Garden"—a world of managed abundance where technological optimization enables maximum individual expression within system parameters. I've heard gigaliberal architects explicitly describe their vision using horticultural metaphors—society as a carefully tended garden where human potential flowers in controlled conditions. One prominent gigaliberal theorist literally described her ideal society as "a perfectly optimized hothouse where every human plant reaches its full potential through careful cultivation."
This metaphor reveals gigaliberalism's fundamental assumptions: humans as malleable organisms requiring expert cultivation, prosperity as maximum yield, and freedom as regulated growth within system parameters. Its prosystemic orientation values flow, dynamism, and continuous transformation, with stability emerging from dynamic equilibrium rather than rigid structure. Human happiness is understood primarily in terms of preference satisfaction, with an ever-expanding menu of choices as both means and end of social organization.
(The fact that actual gardens require constant intervention, artificial limitations, and the ruthless culling of undesirable elements should give us pause about this seemingly benign metaphor, but gigaliberals are rarely troubled by the darker implications of their preferred imagery.)
Metafascism's implicit utopia more closely resembles a Platonic Republic—a world of ordered excellence where proper hierarchy enables the full expression of human capabilities within their natural domains. I've spent considerable time in metafascist intellectual circles (a surreal experience I've documented elsewhere), and their vision is explicitly modeled on classical philosophical ideals rather than industrial or technological metaphors. Society is conceived not as a garden but as a body—an organic hierarchy with distinct parts fulfilling distinct functions according to their nature.
This metaphor reveals metafascism's core assumptions: humans as naturally differentiated beings with inherent capacities and limitations, prosperity as proper functioning according to type, and freedom as excellence within natural limits. Its antisystemic orientation values permanence, distinction, and transcendent meaning, with dynamism channeled toward enhancement rather than transformation of essential forms. Human happiness is understood primarily in terms of purpose fulfillment and recognition, with clearly defined social roles providing both constraint and meaning.
These visions are fundamentally irreconcilable. The gigaliberal sees the metafascist's ordered society as a static prison that would suffocate human potential; the metafascist sees the gigaliberal's industrial garden as a plastic dystopia that would degrade human dignity. Their opposition is not merely tactical but ontological—they disagree about the very nature of human flourishing and social good.
I've witnessed numerous "dialogue" attempts between these camps, and they invariably devolve into mutual incomprehension. They're not merely advocating different policies but operating from entirely different conceptions of humanity. It's like watching a debate between someone who believes humans are fundamentally collaborative and someone who believes they're fundamentally competitive—no policy agreement can bridge the underlying anthropological disagreement.
This fundamental opposition has effectively marginalized both principled progressivism and principled conservatism as politically viable positions. Progressives committed to justice rather than system optimization find themselves without institutional homes, dismissed as impractical dreamers by left gigaliberals and dangerous radicals by right gigaliberals. Conservatives committed to traditional values and limited government similarly find themselves politically homeless, ridiculed as naïve by scientific metafascists and ineffectual by romantic metafascists.
Let me speak personally here: I've watched close colleagues—brilliant, principled thinkers—gradually accept this false binary because remaining outside it means professional suicide. One former justice-oriented progressive now works at a gigaliberal think tank, where she "translates" equity concerns into system-compatible formats. "I'm doing what I can within the parameters available," she told me, her eyes avoiding mine. A conservative friend who once defended localism and tradition now writes for a metafascist publication, having convinced himself that only through their framework can anything resembling traditional society survive. Both are deeply unhappy but see no alternative. This colonization of intellectual space may be gigaliberalism and metafascism's most significant victory.
Most concerning is how this opposition manifests in crisis response. When system preservation becomes the primary value for gigaliberalism, each disruption justifies further extension and intensification of system logic into previously protected domains. Similarly, when order restoration becomes the primary value for metafascism, each crisis justifies more radical rejection of existing arrangements in favor of purportedly natural hierarchies. These reactionary dynamics create a political landscape where moderation appears as either complicity (to metafascists) or cowardice (to gigaliberals), generating what I've elsewhere termed "ratchet dynamics" in ideological evolution.[5]
VI. Toward New Possibilities
I write this analysis not to celebrate these developments but to accurately diagnose our current condition. Clear diagnosis must precede effective treatment, and mystifying our situation through outdated frameworks serves no one except those benefiting from our confusion.
Look, I'll be blunt: the prosystemic/antisystemic divide between gigaliberalism and metafascism represents not the end of history but a particular historical configuration that, like all others, contains its own contradictions and potential points of rupture. Neither framework can deliver what it promises. Gigaliberalism cannot provide unlimited growth on a finite planet nor reduce complex human needs to preference satisfaction. Metafascism cannot deliver stable hierarchies in a dynamic world nor reduce human potential to predetermined categories. Their fantasies are equally unrealizable, though their harms are very real.
What might challenge this configuration? I've spent three years researching alternatives, and while I have no definitive answers, certain possibilities emerge:
Perhaps ecological limits will render both gigaliberal expansion and metafascist order-building materially impossible. I've seen promising signs in urban homesteading movements and restoration communities that bypass both frameworks through practical necessities. Perhaps new forms of solidarity will emerge that transcend both frameworks by reconnecting system optimization to justice and hierarchical order to democratic legitimacy. The nascent "democratic competence" movement combining direct democracy with stringent accountability mechanisms represents one such possibility.
Whatever form it takes, any viable alternative must begin by recognizing that the fundamental opposition between gigaliberalism and metafascism—while real—simultaneously constricts political imagination. Both frameworks, despite their antagonism, accept certain common assumptions about human nature and social organization that might themselves be questioned. True alternatives will not emerge from splitting the difference between them but from fundamentally reframing political questions beyond the binary of system optimization versus order restoration.
This would require what I call "ontological innovation"—new ways of conceptualizing the relationship between individual and collective, stability and change, difference and unity. Such innovation cannot be engineered through existing institutional channels but emerges from lived experiments in alternative social arrangements. These experiments already exist at the margins, though they remain fragmented and precarious in the shadow of gigaliberal/metafascist conflict.
In the meantime, we find ourselves in what Chrissie Liam memorably called "the interregnum of monsters"—a world like Gramsci’s where the old has died but the new cannot be born.
Notes
[1] The term "transparent hypocrisy" derives from my 2023 paper "Beyond Bad Faith: Strategic Contradictions in Late Imperial Governance," which analyzes how openly acknowledged contradictions function differently from concealed ones in legitimation processes.
[2] The "Network Sovereignty" essay (CruzzBunch, May 2022) represents the most coherent articulation of right gigaliberalist thought, though its author has subsequently distanced himself from some of its more aggressive implications.
[3] For a comprehensive sociological analysis of romantic metafascism's emphasis on physical development, see "Sculpted Politics: The Body as Battlefield in Post-Democratic Thought" (University of Hyde Park Press, 2024).
[4] "Governance as Engineering" (MindMelt Papers, 2023) provides the most technically sophisticated defense of scientific metafascism's approach to social design, though I find its premises fundamentally flawed.
[5] The concept of "ratchet dynamics" in ideological evolution builds on my analysis of non-reversible decision pathways in complex adaptive systems, published in Oppossum (July 2023).
[*] This analysis deliberately omits discussion of resistance movements and alternative frameworks not because they don't exist, but because their formation remains nascent and fragmented at the time of writing. My forthcoming series will explore these alternatives in depth.
[*] I've documented my experiences in metafascist intellectual circles in "Notes from Underground: A Year Among the New Right" (CruzzBunch, November 2024), which some critics mistakenly interpreted as sympathetic rather than ethnographic.
Ron Healthy is the founder of Opposssum and a political scientist and researcher. His forthcoming book, “They Came out of Pods: The Gigalibs Emerge” documenting the transformation and fusion of neoliberalism, imperialism, and far left politics into the ideology of the new American century.