Leo, If America Is at Peak Orange, Can Democrats Still Push for Economic Populism?

[Hardkill]

Leo, earlier you told me Democrats should not copy GOP/right-wing economics, and instead should adopt a strong economic populist agenda:

Fixing inequality, busting monopolies, ending corporate domination/lobbying, not raising taxes on the bottom 80%, etc.

That all sounds like a more humane, Green-ish direction within capitalism.

How do you reconcile that prescriptive advice with your prediction that we’ll have ‘nothing but neoliberalism for the next 100 years’?
Are you basically saying:

the meta-frame stays neoliberal, but within that, we should still push toward the most progressive/economic-populist version possible?

I’m trying to understand whether you see economic populism as a realistic near-term path within neoliberalism, or mostly as a higher-consciousness ideal that the current level of development won’t actually implement.

Edited 21 hours ago by Hardkill

[Infinity16]

A lot of the economic stuff have been popular in the US, even during the pre-orange 30s. The issue comes when economic policy hinders achievement which is what stage orange is all about. The social stuff pertaining to stuff like systemic racism and cultural appropriation can also turn off people in stage orange for being "woke". Trump did win with the median voter in the swing states and the POC vote swung towards him. Anyone who cares more about the state of our democracy than about the price of eggs either voted for Harris or left it blank because of her stance on Israel.

It's actually a bit worse than peak orange since there's a prominent stage blue minority in the US. I will be making a post in the future as to what economic policy may work best. It will attain the advantages of both capitalism and socialism so stay tuned.

[Breathe]

@Hardkill Spiral dynamics a limiting model for navigating the current landscape. The problem we are facing now is that the US is being torn down so the global elite can have full control. This is not a matter of left vs right wing politics, green vs orange, etc. The facade of left vs right wing politics is being exposed for what it is. It isn't actually there. It may seem like the right is beating the left but that's not the case. It's been the global elite running the show all along. Trump was installed to expedite the destruction of the US economy so that the global elite can own and control everything.

Where does the global elite factor into your model? This is a multi-national network of public and private interests from all over the globe.

[Hardkill]

5 hours ago, Infinity16 said:

A lot of the economic stuff have been popular in the US, even during the pre-orange 30s. The issue comes when economic policy hinders achievement which is what stage orange is all about. The social stuff pertaining to stuff like systemic racism and cultural appropriation can also turn off people in stage orange for being "woke". Trump did win with the median voter in the swing states and the POC vote swung towards him. Anyone who cares more about the state of our democracy than about the price of eggs either voted for Harris or left it blank because of her stance on Israel.

It's actually a bit worse than peak orange since there's a prominent stage blue minority in the US. I will be making a post in the future as to what economic policy may work best. It will attain the advantages of both capitalism and socialism so stay tuned.

Thanks for the response. I agree that Stage Orange can accept economic populism if it’s framed around opportunity, fairness, and stopping corruption — not moralizing or anti-achievement messaging. That’s why FDR’s New Deal worked even for early Orange: it was sold as restoring stability and giving people a fair shot.

The U.S. right now isn’t just Peak Orange — it’s Peak Orange sitting on top of a big Stage Blue base with Red elements underneath. That’s why cultural issues get weaponized so easily. Economic populism can still work, but I guess it has to be framed in a way that appeals to Orange self-interest and Blue stability, not just Green values.

7 minutes ago, Breathe said:

@Hardkill Spiral dynamics a limiting model for navigating the current landscape. The problem we are facing now is that the US is being torn down so the global elite can have full control. This is not a matter of left vs right wing politics, green vs orange, etc. The facade of left vs right wing politics is being exposed for what it is. It isn't actually there. It may seem like the right is beating the left but that's not the case. It's been the global elite running the show all along. Trump was installed to expedite the destruction of the US economy so that the global elite can own and control everything.

Where does the global elite factor into your model? This is a multi-national network of public and private interests from all over the globe.

I agree that global elites and power networks exist, but in Spiral Dynamics terms they’re not outside the model — they’re expressions of late-Stage Orange values scaled globally (finance, tech monopolies, multinational corporations, etc.). SD doesn’t deny power structures; it explains the value system that produces them.

Where I’m more cautious is the idea of a single coordinated plan to “destroy the U.S.” Most elite groups compete with each other, and a lot of what looks like a plan is actually emergent behavior from late-Orange incentives. So yes — elites matter, but they’re part of the SD dynamic, not separate from it.

 

[Elliott]

@Hardkill where do the poor people in third world countries fit into your "economic populism" policy. Where does Sanders, AOC, or Mamdani address them?

They don't, they're stage orange materialists. This obvious contradiction in the sale of this "socialism" is seen clear as day by conservatives.

[Daniel Balan]

Economic populism? When the USA has over 38 TRILLION in public debt? Politics is such a hard and dirty business, unfortunately all kinds of populism will fail because populism is not truthful. Populism of any kind is falsehood. Serious politics begins at the level of fiscal discipline. No more money for stupid wars like Iraq/ Afghanistan or as of the latest news with Venezuela. No more tax breaks for anyone, unfortunately if you want a healthy economy everybody must pay their taxes, the more money you have, the more you should pay. Fiscal populism will eventually lead to soothing in the wallet the very people you are trying to make life easier for. The higher the public debt or annual budget deficit, the more inflation, the more vulnerable people have to pay for basic necessities. The lower the deficit spending, the lower the inflation, the lower the prices for basic necessities. Counter-Intuitive!  

Edited 20 hours ago by Daniel Balan

[Leo Gura]

Push is the key word.

Reforms require pushing, even if you don't get what you want.

It's a tug of war.

How fast will the reforms come? I don't know. Slower than we'd like.

[Hardkill]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

Push is the key word.

Reforms require pushing, even if you don't get what you want.

It's a tug of war.

How fast will the reforms come? I don't know. Slower than we'd like.

I see. That makes sense. So, even if the broader paradigm stays neoliberal/Orange for a long time, it still makes sense for Dems/left-populists to push economic populism as far as the culture will allow, and let that tug-of-war slowly shift things over decades.

And you’re not saying we’ve hit some hard point of no return where people care so much about “individual liberty” that they’ll never want more help from government again for the next 50+ years. It’s not like the collective has consciously decided: “No, that’s it, we’re done with the government helping us, we want it totally out of our lives.” It’s more that people are confused, underdeveloped, and pulled by Orange/Blue values, so any move toward more economic populism is slow and contested, not impossible.

We of course have already seen how severe but “smaller” crises nudge change even without a full Great Depression: the 2008 financial crisis, COVID + the 2020 recession + the 2021–2023 inflation mess, mass civil unrest like the BLM riots, and lingering systemic stuff like anger over the endless Middle East wars. None of those flipped the paradigm, but they did shake confidence in the status quo and push certain reforms and shifts in public consciousness. So it feels like a long grind of incremental pushing, punctuated by crises that sometimes open temporary windows for deeper change—depending on where development is at.

For the time being, that probably means reforms will have to come more incrementally than in the New Deal or Great Society eras, unless you get some truly cataclysmic shock (another depression-level event) plus a very powerful, higher-consciousness movement and leadership ready to capitalize on that window.

And on top of that, it depends on how united the political consensus is around those liberal/progressive policies—something that has recently become much clearer to me as a crucial factor. New Deal and Great Society moments weren’t just about crisis; they were also about having enough of the country, elites included, aligned behind a reform direction. Until something like that lines up again, it’s mostly the slow tug-of-war you’re talking about rather than big, clean leaps.

Edited 19 hours ago by Hardkill

[Bjorn K Holmstrom]

The prediction of '100 years of neoliberalism' assumes a stable substrate, but I think that substrate is decaying. From a physics/complexity perspective, we’re hitting vertical cost walls that no amount of financialization can overcome: Ecological debt, demographics and complexity cost. The system will likely destabilize not because people vote against it, but because it becomes impossible to maintain.

[Hardkill]

3 minutes ago, Bjorn K Holmstrom said:

The prediction of '100 years of neoliberalism' assumes a stable substrate, but I think that substrate is decaying. From a physics/complexity perspective, we’re hitting vertical cost walls that no amount of financialization can overcome: Ecological debt, demographics and complexity cost. The system will likely destabilize not because people vote against it, but because it becomes impossible to maintain.

Yeah, I agree with that. The “100 years of neoliberalism” line feels more like a statement about the psychological paradigm than a literal forecast of institutional stability. From a complexity/physics angle, I agree the substrate is already fraying — ecological overshoot, demographic drag, and sheer complexity costs are all pushing the system toward some kind of structural instability that voting alone can’t resolve.

Where I’d integrate your point with the SD framing is: even if neoliberalism becomes impossible to maintain on its own terms, that doesn’t automatically mean we transition to something higher. A decaying substrate just opens a fork in the road. With our current level of development, that fork can lead to:
– more Green-ish / social-democratic / mixed-economy reforms, or
– more Red/Blue authoritarianism, ethno-nationalism, and oligarchic capture.

So I’d say: I agree the system is running into hard biophysical and complexity limits; the real question then becomes whether the consciousness is there to channel that destabilization into a wiser order, or whether it just collapses into a more brutal one. That’s where Leo’s “push” point and the whole development piece still matter, even on top of the physics.

[Bjorn K Holmstrom]

14 minutes ago, Hardkill said:

Yeah, I agree with that. The “100 years of neoliberalism” line feels more like a statement about the psychological paradigm than a literal forecast of institutional stability. From a complexity/physics angle, I agree the substrate is already fraying — ecological overshoot, demographic drag, and sheer complexity costs are all pushing the system toward some kind of structural instability that voting alone can’t resolve.

Where I’d integrate your point with the SD framing is: even if neoliberalism becomes impossible to maintain on its own terms, that doesn’t automatically mean we transition to something higher. A decaying substrate just opens a fork in the road. With our current level of development, that fork can lead to:
– more Green-ish / social-democratic / mixed-economy reforms, or
– more Red/Blue authoritarianism, ethno-nationalism, and oligarchic capture.

So I’d say: I agree the system is running into hard biophysical and complexity limits; the real question then becomes whether the consciousness is there to channel that destabilization into a wiser order, or whether it just collapses into a more brutal one. That’s where Leo’s “push” point and the whole development piece still matter, even on top of the physics.

This is something I'm worrying about, I feel we are at a great crossroads. The substrate decay guarantees the end of the current order, but it doesn't guarantee the start of a better one. Collapse might default into the lowest complexity because it is the most robust in chaos.

Now, something we could look into is the mechanism of turning that awareness into a better system.
We often talk about raising consciousness as if that alone will solve the structural gap. But you can have high consciousness people trying to run low-consciousness institutions, and the institution usually wins because its logic is baked into them. 
To avoid the most brutal outcomes, I think we need more than just the push of political will. We need the architecture of a wiser order, or systems upgrade, built and ready to go before the substrate fails.

Yellows job right now might be less about pushing the old systems and more about prototyping the new ones so there's actually a viable option available when the moment arrives.
 

[aurum]

When the time is right, higher stages of development will begin to outcompete lower stages of development.

This is how it always works.

Until then, things have to play out. So don't get ahead of yourself.

[Infinity16]

5 hours ago, Breathe said:

@Hardkill Spiral dynamics a limiting model for navigating the current landscape. The problem we are facing now is that the US is being torn down so the global elite can have full control. This is not a matter of left vs right wing politics, green vs orange, etc. The facade of left vs right wing politics is being exposed for what it is. It isn't actually there. It may seem like the right is beating the left but that's not the case. It's been the global elite running the show all along. Trump was installed to expedite the destruction of the US economy so that the global elite can own and control everything.

Where does the global elite factor into your model? This is a multi-national network of public and private interests from all over the globe.

"The elite" consist of people who gained wealth from the current economic paradigm. These are largely billionaires who gained their net worth from founding successful companies or inheriting it. They benefit from economies of scale and also lobbying for political favors which makes it more difficult for small competitors to keep up. It is largely the left that favors taxing them more.

6 hours ago, Hardkill said:

Thanks for the response. I agree that Stage Orange can accept economic populism if it’s framed around opportunity, fairness, and stopping corruption — not moralizing or anti-achievement messaging. That’s why FDR’s New Deal worked even for early Orange: it was sold as restoring stability and giving people a fair shot.

The U.S. right now isn’t just Peak Orange — it’s Peak Orange sitting on top of a big Stage Blue base with Red elements underneath. That’s why cultural issues get weaponized so easily. Economic populism can still work, but I guess it has to be framed in a way that appeals to Orange self-interest and Blue stability, not just Green values.

The main policy has to be oriented around the cost of eggs because that's what the median voter cares about (never forget that the nazis gained power during the GD). I think we're on the same page here. In terms of economic policy, framing would have to revolve around stage orange/achiever rhetoric. After all, how much can you really achieve in a monopolized economy? Most people in stage blue are evangelicals who would never vote Dem if their lives depended on it. Some are people in small town america, most of which has little economic opportunity. I'm not sure what would cause small town america to switch parties.

 

6 hours ago, Elliott said:

@Hardkill where do the poor people in third world countries fit into your "economic populism" policy. Where does Sanders, AOC, or Mamdani address them?

They don't, they're stage orange materialists. This obvious contradiction in the sale of this "socialism" is seen clear as day by conservatives.

Politics largely happens on a country-by-country basis. These countries are largely along the lower stages. Btw, people in stage green do occasionally talk about the global north and south as well as neocolonialism if you're interested in getting the leftist perspective there.

 

5 hours ago, Bjorn K Holmstrom said:

The prediction of '100 years of neoliberalism' assumes a stable substrate, but I think that substrate is decaying. From a physics/complexity perspective, we’re hitting vertical cost walls that no amount of financialization can overcome: Ecological debt, demographics and complexity cost. The system will likely destabilize not because people vote against it, but because it becomes impossible to maintain.

I do somewhat wonder if the global capitalist system will crash hard. It has dark implications for humanity's evolution up the spiral. To simplify things, it seems like we move up the spiral when times are good and are held back when times are bad. A total collapse would likely see society devolve into control by stage red warlords or stage blue authoritarianism. Capitalism would collapse but it would be replaced by something worse, not better.

 

4 hours ago, aurum said:

When the time is right, higher stages of development will begin to outcompete lower stages of development.

This is how it always works.

Until then, things have to play out. So don't get ahead of yourself.

This is what I hope happens. Right now, we are in the stage blue mode of government which is the nation-state. This emerged when enlightenment values called the stage red mode of government into question which is the empire. It is possible that a stage orange mode of government will eventually emerge. It will emerge once people start questioning the legitimacy of nationalism just as imperialism was questioned in the past.

[aurum]

1 hour ago, Infinity16 said:

Right now, we are in the stage blue mode of government which is the nation-state. This emerged when enlightenment values called the stage red mode of government into question which is the empire. It is possible that a stage orange mode of government will eventually emerge.

There is already much stage Orange in our mode of government.

It's not strictly Blue. 

[Leo Gura]

Western governments are Orange, not Blue. Blue is the Middle East.

[Hardkill]

15 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Western governments are Orange, not Blue. Blue is the Middle East.

I don't think that even the Scandinavian countries are currently solid Green or have Green as their center of gravity, right?

Edited 12 hours ago by Hardkill

[Elliott]

7 hours ago, Infinity16 said:

 

Politics largely happens on a country-by-country basis. These countries are largely along the lower stages. Btw, people in stage green do occasionally talk about the global north and south as well as neocolonialism if you're interested in getting the leftist perspective there.

Socialism is a stateless form of politics, a core tenet of socialism.

I am a leftist, just not a pseudo leftist like these socialists.

Edited 6 hours ago by Elliott

[Husseinisdoingfine]

10 hours ago, Hardkill said:

I don't think that even the Scandinavian countries are currently solid Green or have Green as their center of gravity, right?

ORANGE/green

[Elliott]

Scandinavia are some of the richest countries per capita, they live in excess while third world countries drink sewer water to make scandinavians their fjalraven earmuffs. That's not green, it's rich orange. Of course you care about public education and environment if you're rich, it's your city.

Edited 1 hour ago by Elliott

[Leo Gura]

6 minutes ago, Elliott said:

That's not green, it's rich orange

It can be Green too.

Remember that Green is built atop Orange. Green is not a rejection of Orange. A Green society will have capitalist businesses and industry.

Edited 59 minutes ago by Leo Gura