Bernard Stiegler predicted DOGE at the end of the Obama era.
He was French philosopher and theorist of digital technology, and explored the logical conclusion of the concept of disruption. He compared tech tycoons to Barbarians who work by outpacing the law. He passed away in 2020, and didn’t live to see how prescient he was:The goal is ultimately to radicalize the conservative revolution — which was itself a radical critique of social-democratic reformism and the “Fordist-Keynesian compromise.” This occurs either by subordinating all material, formal, and final causes to the efficient cause that disruption would represent as self-sufficient; that is: without any goal beyond efficiency itself. The aim is to outpace law and its consequences through the immediacy of facts.
This dominance of fact-driven action leads to the dilution of public authority: what the Barbarians are attacking is the legitimacy of the public realm — specifically because it cannot be appropriated by private initiatives. This attack by the Barbarians represents a claim, if not for complete lawlessness, then at least for the futility of law, against which disruption enables them to “undermine France” by multiplying loopholes — and consequently, chaos. It is in this way that accomplished nihilism realizes the “new form of barbarism.”–Bernard Stiegler, “Dans la disruption” (2016)
“Without any goal beyond efficiency itself” (Elon Musk and Javier Milei, February 2025)
