There are reasons to be watchful of the relationship between the tech industry and the Right.
There are reasons to be watchful of the relationship between the tech industry and the Right.
T ech billionaires dream of reinventing our world. So it’s not surprising that they often enjoy sci-fi and fantasy. Perhaps a few of the bigshots who assembled beneath the Capitol rotunda for Donald Trump’s second inauguration found the ceremony reminiscent of the climax of one of Frank Herbert’s Dune novels: all the main characters, assembled in one ornate place to watch as power transferred from a frail leader to a god emperor.
One doesn’t need to resort to science fiction to understand the spectacle that has unfolded in the aftermath of Trump’s victory in last year’s presidential election, of course. The steady stream of well-wishers and courtiers, including some of Big Tech’s biggest names, who have decamped to Mar-a-Lago to pay homage and seek favor is quite a recognizable phenomenon in Earth’s history. It would seem to indicate a dramatic shift in sentiment from an industry that until recently had at best an uneven relationship with Trump. But these tech titans almost certainly still retain their world-bestriding aspirations and their world-redefining designs. Their sudden Trumpward turn thus warrants wariness on the part of conservatives.
Elon Musk (Tesla, Twitter/X, SpaceX), Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Mark Zuckerberg (Meta), Tim Cook (Apple), et al. are probably people you’d at least not want actively working against you. The tech sector is responsible for immense wealth creation, and for innovations that have genuinely improved material conditions. Advances in such fields as artificial intelligence will change them further still. These gains and the people responsible for them will continue to play an outsized role in American life. Which is why, as Henry Olsen writes in the latest issue of National Review, “it’s in Trump’s interest to keep all these assets on his side of the political ledger.”
But there are reasons to be watchful of the relationship between the tech industry and the Right. There is, of course, always the risk of straightforward corruption. Olsen also identifies certain of-the-moment ways that the tech world’s politics, even in seemingly more Trump-friendly varieties, run up against the priorities of Trump’s base. Immigration is a pressing example, one whose salience emerged (where else?) on X, during (when else?) Christmastime, in a fierce internecine debate over H-1B visas.
Other points of divergence present themselves. Musk has consistently sought favor with the Chinese Communist Party. PayPal and Palantir founder Peter Thiel, once a tech outlier for his right-wing views, supported referenda legalizing marijuana and gay marriage. In a speech at the 2016 Republican National Convention, he called the controversies over transgenderism a “distraction” not worth addressing. Thiel confidant Curtis Yarvin has long advocated a politics of executive-centric Caesarism, positively invoking the example of FDR and the New Deal.
There are also reasons deeper than politics to be skeptical. Some tech leaders deprioritize the physical world. Do not forget Zuckerberg’s (for now) failed experiment of the “metaverse.” He envisioned an entirely digital plane, one that seemingly we, but actually he, would curate. And recall venture capitalist Marc Andreessen’s belief that such a world could be “immeasurably richer and more fulfilling than most of the physical and social environment” in “the quote-unquote real world.”
An insidious worldview may lurk beneath some of these projects. It is one that would subject more of the world to top-down instrumentalization and manipulation. Thiel has written of the internet as a force unto itself, one he (conveniently) represents and to which we must yield. Andreessen, in his “Techno-Optimist Manifesto,” cites John Galt, the fictional Übermensch of the non-conservative Ayn Rand, as a “hero”; advocates “overcoming nature”; and describes those who do so as “conquerors.” One searches in vain for limiting principles in these visions, or for an appreciation of life unmediated by digital technology. They would seem to justify attempts to wield what C. S. Lewis called “a power exercised by some men over other men with nature as its instrument,” or to attack the nature of humanity so thoroughly as perhaps to abandon it altogether.
Fortunately, one can find guardrails against the exercise of such power elsewhere. “Conservatives must welcome dynamic innovation,” reads “A Future for the Family: A New Technology Agenda for the Right,” a new declaration on conservatism’s relationship with technology. However: “They should oppose the deployment of technologies that undermine human goods.” The statement proceeds to outline a salutary worldview and set of principles that would orient our politics toward “a technological order that provides a functional economic role for the household, protects human sexuality, rewards marriage, enriches childhood, preserves parental and communal authority, enables the practice of liberty, and ennobles our common life.”
These principles can guide conservatives at a time of much uncertainty. The tech industry’s sudden favor toward the Right might present a political temptation to sign on to, or at least not to resist, the project and worldview of some of its leading figures. Technology has its place in civilization; it is, to a considerable extent, responsible for civilization. But conservatives believe in virtues and goods that are independent of technology. Today’s tech titans can threaten these things. Conservatives should not let sudden proximity to or affinity for their wealth and power blind them to this. And the tech industry’s would-be demigods ought to be careful what dreams they try to make into reality. There’s a reason there are no computers in Dune.