Godly Capitalism and The Movement to Order: Neoliberalism in its Context

“To see this Fleet upon the Ocean move / Angels drew wide the Curtains of the skies” (Dryden, Annus Mirabilis 16.1-2). 

“[T]here are no more useful Members in a Commonwealth than Merchants. They knit Mankind together in a mutual Intercourse of good Offices, distribute the Gifts of Nature, find Work for the Poor, add Wealth to the Rich, and Magnificence to the Great” (Addison, The Spectator No. 69, 1711). 

“Judeo-Western optimism differs from the  atheist optimism of the Enlightenment in the extreme degree to which it believes that the forces of chaos and nature can and will be mastered. The tyranny of Chance will give way to the providence of God. This movement from chaos to order begins in Genesis” (Thiel, First Things Magazine June 1, 2015).

Introduction:  

In his 2015 essay “Against Edenism,” American billionaire, tech mogul, and political donor Peter Thiel argues for a kind of understanding of history and society that rejects what he calls the “distrust of… utopia (that) is the hallmark of the post-Enlightenment, postmodern West” (Thiel, 2015). Instead, he calls for a return to a conservative, capitalist, Christian understanding of the world, organized around creating a religious utopia while invoking the apocalyptic language of the Book of Revelations and the Old Testament (Thiel, 2015). Initially, this appears to be part of the same ideological matrix as modern far right protestant megapastors like Jim Bakker, who preach of an oncoming Biblical apocalypse in our lifetimes (Mckinney, 2017). But Thiel defines himself as part of a broader and older political movement, aligning himself with traditionalist Catholicism and American libertarianism.

This ideological pairing initially seems like it makes for strange bedfellows. With Catholicism’s history of social outreach and worker’s rights advocacy, it should be completely at odds with the distinctly modern, viciously individualistic ideology of American libertarianism.^[1] This ideological break is evident in the current American reactions to Catholic teachings around war and social programs and Thiel’s personal hostility to traditional Catholic teachings (Lamb, 2026). Thiel’s ideological pairing of nationalist, apocalyptic Christianity and extreme distrust of government overreach actually hearkens back to a much older and more influential understanding of capitalism and its role in humanity’s political and spiritual future than modern American Evangelicalism, one that can be seen clearly in the writings of Early Modern Christian proponents of Capitalism and Liberalism. Before Adam Smith theorized on how capitalism distributes and normalizes the wealth and relationship of nations, before the East India Company began their reign of terror on the Indian subcontinent, writers like Joseph Addison and John Milton constructed a view of Capitalism that primed 18th century readers for a transcendental religious view of capitalist accumulation. This essay will use George Monbiot and Peter Hutchinson’s book Invisible Doctrine: The Secret History of Neoliberalism to outline the connections between the modern neoliberal ideology that dominates American politics and Early Modern discourses about capitalism that helped to enshrine it as not only an economic system, but a moral and spiritual tool for bringing about a utopian vision of the world. 

The Movement Towards Order: Thiel’s Utopian Libertarianism 

Thiel, when he is not running his billion dollar tech companies, has been very vocal in his support for modern right wing American ideologies,^[2] framing his beliefs in much more spiritual terms than other American libertarians that he has allied with. In his 2009 essay published on the website Cato Unbound “The Education of a Libertarian,” Thiel explains “I remain committed to the faith of my teenage years: to authentic human freedom as a precondition for the highest good. I stand against confiscatory taxes, totalitarian collectives, and the ideology of the inevitability of the death of every individual” (Thiel, 2009). Most of the points in that quote seem to be in line with typical American neoliberal ideology. In their book, Monbiot and Hutchinson state that neoliberalism is based on unfettered capital accumulation and a distrust and hostility to government, or what Thiel describes as “totalitarian collectives” (2009), as intrusions upon that system. They describe neoliberalism as based on the idea that “our well-being is best realized not through political choice, but through economic choice—specifically, buying and selling. It promises us that by buying and selling we can discover a natural, meritocratic hierarchy of winners and losers” (20). The final qualifier that Thiel uses to describe his ideology though is more unusual. Rooted in Christian thought, the rejection of “the death of every individual” (Thiel, 2009), brings to mind teachings of eternal salvation and the defeat of death by Christ. This inclusion has both a Christian dimension and an anti-collectivist one though. Whereas traditional liberalism may see government programs as promoting humanistic collectivist projects, Thiel’s ideology rejects both of these beliefs outright. To Thiel and other promoters of neoliberal — rebranded by some as ‘libertarian,’ ideology — it is this freedom to move within the uncontrolled market that will create the hierarchical structure that society needs to fulfill its potential. 

The distinctly spiritual dimension to Thiel’s brand of neoliberalism is present in more mainstream versions of the ideology, but has been largely sublimated in favour of more modern, utilitarian objectives designed to promote it to a wider secular audience. In their book, Monbiot and Hutchinson briefly describe these religious dimensions in their explication of the moral philosophy of neoliberalism regarding the creation of hierarchies: “The doctrine has religious, quasi-Calvinist qualities: in the Kingdom of the Invisible Hand, the deserving and the undeserving are revealed through the grace bestowed upon them by the god of money. Any policy or protest that seeks to disrupt the formation of a ‘natural order’ of rich and poor is an unwarranted stay upon the divine will of the market.” (175). An earlier 17th century term meaning essentially the same thing as the popular “Invisible Hand” metaphor coined by Smith in 1759 is the “dumb god,” the monetary systems that move and order the universe but, unlike the Christian God, have no voice or subjective view that would intrude upon the marketplace (West, 82). The secularization of this term through the metaphor of the “invisible hand,” is emblematic of what Thiel calls the “atheist optimism” (2015) of the Enlightenment era, characterized by a belief that human systems and technology could bring about a utopian future. Thiel rejects a humanist (or he would call atheist) vision of humanity’s potential organized around the promotion of human progress in favour of one that redirects human efforts back to a fundamentally (or fundamentalist) Christian understanding. Though Thiel’s combination of Catholic and libertarian language is somewhat unique amongst his contemporaries, his invocation of a Christian understanding of capitalism’s role in humanity’s future serves to expose the pseudo-religious reverence that neoliberalism holds for capitalism as a system. 

As previously mentioned, this Christian understanding of humanity’s political future is not one rooted in the collectivist and charitable understanding of Christianity that the Catholic church in particular (Thiel’s self identified religious domination) promotes. Rather, it emphasizes the hierarchical and culturally chauvinist dimensions of European Christianity. This ideological drive often leads to a negation of some of the most fundamental cornerstones of liberal thought, including a distrust for democracy, particularly rooted in how it has broken down and rendered certain hierarchies less clear and effective. Thiel describes in his 2009 essay how “Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron” (Thiel, 2009). Thiel’s blatant accusation that women and those in need of government assistance, two people traditionally left out of the hierarchical power structures that he advocates for the supremacy of, ruins or distorts the notion of capitalist democracy is very telling. For neoliberals like Thiel it is better to abandon democracy than capitalism, as democracy is only a political system, whereas capitalism, far from being a mere economic superstructure on society, is a religious tool for rescuing the world from disorder and chaos. Thiel describes how “The fate of our world may depend on the effort of a single person who builds or propagates the machinery of freedom that makes the world safe for capitalism…” a capitalist utopia, free “…from all government control and dilution” (Thiel, 2009). This divorce between notions of freedom and democracy also hearkens back to an older era in politics, before universal male suffrage ended voting rights based on property. Thiel regards democracy as a sometimes beneficial, but ultimately suicidal ideology that threatens to plunge western societies into the disorder of mass politics. 

What precisely is this chaos and disorder that the neoliberal oligarchs seek to rescue us from? Is it merely a reactionary fear of hierarchies breaking down and the societal chaos that may stem from it? This can explain their initial hostility, but the rhetoric Thiel and other billionaire neoliberal donors like Elon Musk use is most often focused on the future. Thiel describes in his essay how humanity’s romantic goal of return to an untouched natural world is destroyed by the fact that “the necessary precondition for the planetary civilization of 10 billion people that will be Earth in the twenty-second century is a highly advanced level of science and technology. We cannot change this reality, although we are free to pretend otherwise” (Thiel, 2015). This focus on the future and the possible frontiers that new technology will open up can seem like simply a narcissistic desire by these people to inscribe their legacy on the future and to control the way that it is mediated. This is definitely a feature of these billionaire’s brand of neoliberalism, as can be seen in Elon Musk’s eugenic drive to reproduce his own image through having children with multiple women (Bruenig, 2025), but on a broader level it emphasizes these new horizons of human innovation as what Monbiot and Hutchinson refer to as a “terra nullius,” unowned and unsettled spaces that can be freely conquered and explored (34). 

Thiel outlines this ideology in his essay “Education of a Libertarian,” where he describes the various new spaces that technology would open up for humanity. He describes these as uniquely new opportunities, saying that “Because there are no truly free places left in our world, I suspect that the mode for escape must involve some sort of new and hitherto untried process that leads us to some undiscovered country;^[3] and for this reason I have focused my efforts on new technologies that may create a new space for freedom” (Thiel, 2009). This “escape” and the creation of “truly free places” that Thiel describes are predicated on moving away from the kind of social responsibilities and cultural identities that complicate the instantiation of capitalist hierarchies. This is one element that delineates neoliberals (or “libertarians”) like Thiel from the more traditional liberalism that came out of the early Enlightenment. Despite its religious and moral gloss, Thiel’s ideology rejects larger humanist narratives about human progress, the order that he describes is one purely defined by capitalism. 

“mutual intercourse of good offices:” Capitalism as a Force for Spiritual Good 

On Saturday, March 3, 1711, Joseph Addison published a prophetic vision sent to him in his dreams of a metaphysical scene taking place at the Royal London Exchange (London’s stock market at the time), where merchants and traders would gather to distribute the fruits of Britain’s burgeoning Empire. After describing an idyllic visit to the exchange and the energy that he has gained from it, Addison has a dream that he describes as a “vision or allegory” (292). In this vision, the hall of the Royal Exchange is dominated by the figure of “public credit,” characterized here as a “beautiful virgin, seated on a golden throne,” with large piles of money and bank notes piled behind her (292). This figure is mercurial, when threatened by a ghostly procession of “bad” figures (including a rendering of the Stuart pretender to the throne James III alongside a personification of royal absolutism), she pales and the piles of money dissipate. It is only when the new King George I returns with the spirit of constitutional monarchy that these piles of money reappear and harmony is restored (292-293). The order that Addison presents here is one that fears the government overreach and absolute control that the Stuart monarchy represents, ultimately placing the financial health of the nation above even the importance of the monarch. This has the effect of putting the monarch, England’s most revered and holy person, in a subservient position whose only role is to serve the public good represented by capitalist accumulation. Democracy^[4] and constitutional monarchy are, to Addison, beneficial because they allow for capitalism to proceed unmolested, benefitting the common good. This focus on economic systems as spiritual forces that supersede political systems in importance is reminiscent of Thiel’s mistrust of democracy outside of the narrow lane that he prescribes for it. In both, capitalism as a system is equated with the divine, and holds a special position as the prime mover and motivator of human actions. 

In England, radical Calvinist thought evolved into what Feisal G. Mohamed calls “Godly republicanism,” which advocated for a republic of free citizens “in the hope… that (governmental) noninterference will allow the Saints to rise to their rightful reign in God’s time” (85). This is strikingly similar to the neoliberal order that Monbiot and Hutchinson describe, where “Any policy or protest that seeks to disrupt the formation of a “natural order” of rich and poor is an unwarranted stay upon the divine will of the market” (199). This, as Thiel — characterizes it in “Against Edenism,” “movement from chaos to order,” (2015) — through trade and capitalism can be seen as far back as the poetry of noted republican John Milton, where Eve gathers together the fruits of all the differing continents and environments to feed their angelic guest, evoking the gathering of elements from far corners of the planet that colonialism facilitates (5.331-349).Importantly though, this gathering of elements in paradise is based on a recognition that these products need to come together to serve a greater purpose for humanity or the nation. Unfettered aristocratic-style consumption and extraction that harms the nation is viewed as decadent and dangerous. Rather, these various elements need to be balanced and reconciled in a system that promotes public good within the imperial core. The subservient position of the monarch and the government is extended outwards to other civilizations and peoples beyond the borders of the nation, creating the conditions for a system dominated by global capital serving only those elites within that imperial centre at the expense of the colonized. 

With the rise of colonialism and the importance of global trade in this era also came a new understanding of Europeans’ place in the world as consumers. Joseph Addison describes the interconnectedness of the world through consumerism in an earlier article in The Spectator;  “My Friend Sir ANDREW calls the Vineyards of France our Gardens; the Spice-Islands our Hot-beds; the Persians our Silk-Weavers, and the Chinese our Potters. Nature indeed furnishes us with the bare Necessaries of Life, but Traffick gives us greater Variety of what is Useful, and at the same time supplies us with every thing that is Convenient and Ornamental” (Addison, 417-418). 

Here, other cultures again play subservient roles, a mark of the extreme cultural chauvinism and bigotry that writers from this time displayed towards other cultures and peoples. But there is still a recognition of the value and uniqueness of the items that they produce for those in the imperial centre. The world to Addison and Milton was not a terra nullius, but a world of opportunity to be gathered and exploited, one where every element is charged with moral and spiritual value. 

Conclusion: A New Eden?

In his historical work Agricolus, Roman historian Tacitus narrates a speech by a Caledonian leader that describes the effects of the Romans on his people; “on the last frontier of freedom, we have been protected by our very remoteness and obscurity… Thieves of the world, lacking lands now to devastate, they rove the sea… they misname empire… they make a desert and call it peace” (Tacitus, XXX). As Thiel acknowledges in Education of a Libertarian, the inhabited earth feels full, full of heterogeneity, of people, of cultures and of values like democracy and atheism that may sap the power of the oligarchs and intrude upon capitalist exploitation. These new frontiers of technology that Thiel describes, new lands from the ocean, the internet and outer space, are notably lacking in any of these things. For the first time he is realizing the fantasy of a terra nullius, creating arenas that he can fully inscribe his own values and subjectivities upon. 

This lack of regard that technological oligarchs have for human society is exemplified and exacerbated through their promotion of A.I. in culture and business, reflecting desire to replace human creativity and labour with artificial intelligence, removing any subjectivity or conflict in the name of efficiency. The new potential for business and efficiency that excites business leaders is the elimination of all human idiosyncrasies and differences that Addison and Milton celebrate capitalism and democracy as the enablers of. When Thiel talks in his essay about creating new horizons and new boundaries for human potential through technology, it is useful to look at the assumptions and sometimes unconscious ideological structures that these spaces will inherit, especially if they are devoid of any cultural or social apparatuses that would allow communities to form in these spaces that would oppose unfettered accumulation by oligarchs. As Monbiot and Hutchinson describe in their book, this hyper-focus on capitalist accumulation at the expense of all other goals and aspects of life creates a “spiritual void,” that people living in a neoliberal system struggle to fill (206). Spaces devoid of any human life or creativity would be the ultimate realization of this void. Without social or political protections outside of capitalism, this would finally create the “malthusian end state” (Thiel, 2015) that Thiel chillingly references throughout his 2015 essay. 

A major ideological break between Thiel and Addison that helps to define the difference between older forms of liberalism and 21st century neoliberalism is the fundamental concern and faith in things external to capitalism. Addison is concerned with art and with consumerism, through his writings on taste and social issues he creates an atmosphere where people can consume in the right way, building a certain consumerist culture within the core to properly exploit the fruits of colonial expansion. Capitalism for Addison is a tool for the creation of a godly republic, not an end in itself. Arguably Thiel, and his ilk are seeking to create a true wilderness, one that doesn’t value human culture and creativity at all.

Milton and Addison showed a chauvinistic bigotry towards other cultures and peoples (particularly those in the Americas which they regarded as particularly culturally inferior), the result of which was an intense self regard at the expense of other populations. It was these very same self-serving attitudes that led to the reduction of massive civilizations in the Americas, South Asia and Africa to wildernesses of export crop production, spaces where the will and desires of the imperial centre overrode the essential needs of those labouring at its periphery. The neoliberal ideology of Thiel and Musk (to name a few) simply takes this self regard to its fullest extent, and applies its lack of interest in human culture and value to all culture outside of their narrowly prescribed hierarchy. In “Against Edenism,” Thiel claims that his spiritual-political movement “remain(s) open to an eschatological frame in which God works through us in building the kingdom of heaven today, here on Earth—in which the kingdom of heaven is both a future reality and something partially achievable in the present” (Thiel, 2015). Thiel, though, is reticent to describe this new kingdom of God outside of an allegiance to laissez-faire capitalism and traditionalist Catholic aesthetics. Addison, Milton, and other liberals of the Early Modern period, for all their clear racism and bigotries, had a vision of what the kingdom of heaven would look like. Eden to these writers is nature, not untouched, but tended to and improved by humans. Thiel, in “Against Edenism” rejects this romantic view of the natural world and humanity’s relationship to it, saying that in the world, “There is continuity with Genesis, but to Eden there will be no returning” (Thiel, 2015). 

Attempting to discern the nature of this new technological utopia that Thiel is advocating for remains difficult because of Thiel’s aforementioned reticence at times. We may ask if the symbols that Thiel uses, from his traditionalist apocalyptic Catholicism, to his invocation of Greco-Roman philosophers (publishing an essay on a website named Cato Unbound is just one example of this), are part of a deeply held value system that he would want to project over these new horizons, or if they are merely aesthetic exercises designed to legitimate his authority within this hierarchy. Thiel and Musk’s self-professed cultural affinity for the canonical classics of Western culture seems to fly in the face of their disavowal of human creativity, but engagement or use of a symbol or cultural artifact within a neoliberal system is also reductive, serving as pathways to legitimacy and power. Living as we are at the precipice of so many new horizons, who are we allowing to pave the path through them? In conclusion, I believe that Thiel himself is aware of this tension, and I will end with a reminder from his 2015 essay that, taken out of his hyper-individualistic philosophy, serves as a prescient warning against uncritically allowing billionaires and other capitalists like him to use the chaos of capitalist exploitation to create new empires of wildernesses: 

“It does seem slightly ludicrous to forget about one’s immortal soul and instead busy oneself, as Faust does, with the pro ject of reclaiming land from the sea. But why are these options mutually exclusive? Can we not do both? We should acknowledge that there are many perils with the scientific and technological trajectory on which we find ourselves. But we should never forget that the alternatives to technological acceleration are far from ethically or politically neutral (Thiel, 2015).

Works Cited

Addison, Joseph. The Spectator. Edited by Donald F. Bond, Oxford University Press, 1965. Bruenig, Elizabeth. “The Harem of Elon Musk.” The Atlantic, 2025. 

Lamb, Christopher. “Peter Thiel’s Secret Lectures on Antichrist in Rome Spark Debate.” CNN, 2026.

McKinney, Kelsey. “The Second Coming of Televangelist Jim Bakker.” BuzzFeed News, 2017. 

Mohammed, Faisal G. “Milton, Vane, and Godly Republicanism.” Huntington Library Quarterly, vol. 76, no. 1, 2013, 83-104.

Monbiot and Hutchinson. Invisible Doctrine: The Secret History of Neoliberalism. Allen Lane Books, 2024.

Pequeño, Antonio. “JDVance and Peter Thiel: What to Know About the Relationship Between Trump’s Pick and the Billionaire.” Forbes, 2024.  

Tacitus, Cornelius Publius. “XXX,” The Life of Julius Agricola. Translated by A.F. Kline, Poetry in Translation, 2015. 

Thiel, Peter. “Against Edenism.” First Things, 2025.

Thiel, Peter. “The Education of a Libertarian.” Cato Unbound, 2009.

West, Russell. “The Dumb God: Money as an Engine for Mobility.” Spatial Representations and The Jacobean Stage,Palgrave Macmillan Limited, 2002, pp. 82–116.

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[1] Recent Papal Encyclicals such as Pope Francis’ Laudato Si in 2015 have emphasized these elements, but there is a longer history going back to at least 1891’s Rarum Novarum of Popes using their position to directly address the issue of workers rights. 

[2] One of Thiel’s notable political activities has been his continued financial support of the U.S. Vice President JD Vance’s political rise throughout the 2010s and 2020s (Pequeño, 2024). 

[3] I speculate that this is a reference either to William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, or to the fourth Star Trek film, the creators of both I suspect would have nothing but contempt for the ideology Thiel is expressing. These two references are telling though, both for their subtle invocation of two spheres that Thiel has expressed influence in dominating (the spiritual and the technological), and the superficial use of artistic references to build credibility by these oligarchs, uninterested in the role of art beyond its ability to delineate their role at the top of a hierarchy. 

[4] It is important to note that the democracy that Addison is promoting is one where voting rights are based on property, universal male suffrage would not be introduced until over a century later. 

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